Which LIST book did you just start? Showing 851-900 of 6,816

[Klara]

I just started Libra, by Delillo. It's a bit slow in the beginning I think, but I'm hoping it'll pick up within the next 30pgs or so.

[Denise]

Katherine-
I read Solaris last summer. I think I only gave it 3 stars, but the images have stayed with me. The same thing happened with the Murakami book I read. They seemed to get better and better after reading them.

[Kristi]

On Chesil Beach, but it's not on the list. I'm also reading The House of Mirth.

[Christina Stind]

Just about to start 'Rebecca' by Dauphne du Maurier.

[Susan]

I just started A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which is not on the list?) and I am still trying to choose a List book from my shelf-so many to choose from!

[Elizabeth]

Just started Doctor Zhivago. It's moving along quickly. The thing that keeps hanging me up is that Pasternik tends to refer to the same character by different names. Since they're all Russian names that I am not familiar with that's proving to be the challenge so far. I think I'm going to have to make a character "cheat-sheet" to keep them all straight.

[Patricia]

I just started The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. I loved The Human Stain and thought Portnoy's Complaint was okay, so we'll see about this one.

[Emma]

Sogol wrote: "I just started (Illuminati)Dan Browns...!!
I think its much better than the Danci code!!!:D"

Sogol, did you perhaps miss that this group is based on the books listed in Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die? This list does not include Dan Brown's books. While most of us read off-list books too, we'd be much more interested to hear about what you're reading from the list.

[Sogol]

o0pss...!!!
Emma thank u...i didnt know that...!!:P

[Slayermel]

I just started "The Last Of The Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper. I'm enjoying the adventure so far even though I've been sitting on the edge of my seat a lot.

[Emma]

I've begun Castle Rackrent. I love that this list introduces me to "firsts" like this first regional novel/first historical novel. I really enjoyed The Moonstone too and it was another first, first English detective novel.

[Emma]

Sogol wrote: "o0pss...!!!
Emma thank u...i didnt know that...!!:P"

Thought so! ;)

[Deanne]

Uncle Tom's cabin.

[Kristi]

I guess I'm deviating from the list a lot lately. I just picked up Daughter of Fortune: A Novel.

[Cate]

I just started Last of the Mohicans and picked up a copy of Ivanhoe which I will probably read next.

[Luanna]

1 have started David Copperfield.

[Luanna]

I am starting david copperfield and then i finish i
will started Howard's end

[Denise]

I just started At the Mountains of Madness: And Other Tales of Terror and am looking forward to the discussion.

[Stephanie "Jedigal"]

Elizabeth, I had that same problem with Doctor Zhivago! I feel relieved not to be alone. Actually, I have never read any novels by Russian authors since then, probably partially b/c of that! Although, I was probably a little too young anyway to quite grasp some of the politics, etc. I plan to re-read someday.

[Kevin]

I just started The Sorrow Of War. I heard that it's way better than The Things They Carried, (Which I loved) so I thought I would give it a shot. So far I'm liking it a lot

[Niche]

I just started People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It's not on the list.

[Katie ATX]

I just started The Double by Jose Saramago. The punctuation is bit troublesome - no distinction between characters having conversations back and forth, but other than that i'm hoping it will be a quick and intriguing read.

[Hannah]

Just started Brideshead Revisited. I just finished Atonement and wanted something similar.

[Katherine]

I started The Razor's Edge yesterday. So far I am enjoying the style...it feels like someone having a quiet conversation with you at a party where you hardly know anyone, and he is just telling you every bit of gossip he can recall.

[Kathy-Diane]

I just started Tony Curtis's autobiography "American Prince." He's led an amazing and colorful life.

Kathy-Diane
author of "Let the Shadows Fall Behind You"
http://kathy-dianeleveille.com

[Kathryn Parmeter]

Just finished "Home" by Marilynne Robertson. Why anyone would want to know more about how Presbysterians manage their spirituality and what keeps them awake at night, is beyond me. I started it to try to understand "Gilead." Tried "Gilead" and couldn't even dent it. I have no idea how "Gilead" won the Pulitzer. It's one thing to be a quiet writer, quite another to try to make something to say out of a fat nothing.

[Kathryn Parmeter]

Currently reading the second half of Doris Lessing's autobiography. Entertaining, and as its review says, a lot looser than Lessing is normally. Kind of a romp through WWW II London and Paris. Her writing is so fine it's not important really, what the topic is--or so far...

[Kecia]

War and Peace! Via Dailylit.com! 663 installments! Woo-hoo! :)

[Denise]

Kathryn,

An english teacher friend of mine couldn't stand Gilead, either, but I loved it. I think the language is beatiful the story thoughtful. One of my bookclubs here is currently discussing it. Here's a quote somebody pulled out that I've given some thought to:

This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.

I am reminded of this precious instruction by my own great failure to live up to it recently. Calvin says somewhere that each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience. That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists of our behaviour, and the reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgemental in the ordinary sense.

On another note, glad to hear about Doris Lessing's autobiography. I've enjoyed the few things of hers I've read and I'm willing to bet she had an interesting life.

Kecia,
Congrats on War and Peace. 663 installments? Did it take 2 years, then? I might have to try that Daily Lit thing for Anna Karenina.

[Kecia]

Hi Denise,

I had to do a double-take: This is the "Which one did you just START" thread, right? lol

I don't plan on taking two years with this; most likely I'm going to read a bunch of installments at a time. I feel I can keep DailyLit books as a kind of side dish while I'm chowing down on whatever main-course, paper-based book is is front of me. War and Peace will be my only side dish for a while, though.

And I co-sign your opinion about Gilead...the language is gorgeous and although it's slow to get into, it was worth it in the end. Same for Home, which just about broke my heart.

[Kathryn Parmeter]

Denise and Kecia,

Nice to hear from you. Denise, that passage just doesn't resonate with me; other mind-bendingly beautiful soliloquys wrought by others have, so I'm not averse to hearing messages about metameaning from interior monologues in fiction...not at all. There's one in "All the Pretty Horses" that I've kept for years. Anyway, thanks for printing it out or rather, transcribing it for my benefit, that was really thoughtful and I'm glad my commentary brought a response...but I still just can't be there for either of Robinson's books. I'm not Christian, and don't hope to be saved; so that may be part of it. I do, however, believe deeply in the power of grace. "Home" never broke my heart because I never really saw the prodigal son as a fully-realized character; although it was close; and his sins, that is, of getting a woman pregnant and leaving, of serving time for something that goes unexplained, and I suppose one could add, of loving a woman of color, are just too pallid for me to find credible against the heavy shame that lay on that house in every scene. It was just too...middle-class and I don't know...overwrought is the word that comes to mind. And nothing ever happened! holy crap!

Anyway, Lessing's essays on cats, "Particularly Cats" or "On Cats" depending on the publisher, is astounding and I'm starting her canon, so I thought I'd get to know her better first by reading her memoirs.

Thanks to you both for your comments...I look forward to more.

[Denise]

I had to do a double-take: This is the "Which one did you just START" thread, right?

duh. Well let me know how the DailyLit thing works out for you AFTER you get those 663 installments.

Kathryn,

Not all books talk to people the same way, which is probably one of the fun things about discussing them. I never read Home, but Robinson's book Housekeeping: A Novel is one of my all time favorite novels.

I just started Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, which might not be a list book, but it's an interesting book so far.

[Natalia]

"I don't plan on taking two years with this; most likely I'm going to read a bunch of installments at a time. I feel I can keep DailyLit books as a kind of side dish while I'm chowing down on whatever main-course, paper-based book is is front of me. War and Peace will be my only side dish for a while, though."

I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo via DailyReader (same idea, daily installments via email) also as my "side dish" to the other paper books I've been reading in the mean time. It's not quite as long as War and Peace, but it's pretty close, and I found it an easy and pleasant way to read. I will definitely have a book-by-email going at all times from now on.

I went and looked at DailyLit, and I like it better than DailyReader, so I think I'll be switching. I think next up I'm going to tackle some of the Dickens off of the list this way. Since most of his stuff was originally serialized, maybe it will be easier to get through in a serialized format. (I have not been a Dickens fan in the past, but I'm willing to give him another try!)

[Kathryn Parmeter]

Denise,

I agree. On your recommendation I'm trying "Gilead" again. I read "Three Cups of Tea" and I gagged, especially in the second half. The story is very inspiring and the guy is just plain amazing, what he's done with his life, but the writing is sooo bad...imho.

[Denise]

Gosh, Kathryn. I don't know if I'd recommend a second read if you didn't like it the first time. I'd say pick a copy of Housekeeping off a library shelf, read a couple pages, and if you don't like that you could write off Robinson as a writer not to your taste.

I haven't had to gag in 3 Cups, yet, but I'm not quite to the 2nd half. I'd agree it's not a masterpiece showcase of writing, but I'm intrigued with the story itself.

I just picked up a copy of Anna Karenina for a book club. I confess I find the size a bit daunting. We must have read an abridged version in high school.

[Kathryn Parmeter]

I'm a moody reader, Denise; and I agree that Robinson has a quite controlled, quietly perceptive voice. She is quite skilled as a writer.

I can tell you re: a separate comment you made that the reason so many Pulitzer-prize winners have an association with Iowa is that many of them come out of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, the MFA program for creative writing. If you get in there, you're pretty much being given the nod that your writing has something extraordinary. It's the program with the highest cachet that I know about in the States.

The story in "Three Cups" is pretty astounding. I agree.

[Kara]

Don Quixote! Wish me luck everyone! I never did finish Anna Karenina. I plan to, but a friend and I are buddying up for Don Quixote. Hopefully, that will be good incentive.

[Laura]

Happy reading, Kara. Don Quixote is one of my favorite books. In spite of its silliness, it still manages to move me every time I pick it up.

[H.J.]

I just began reading Austen's Emma through dailylit.com. I just heard of this online book site recently, but it's really cool in that it sends you an email daily (or whenever you choose) to receive a small portion, chapter or whatever, of a book. The first email took me only a few minutes to read and I could take care of it as I was checking my email. During classes this spring when I feel as if I have no time to pick up a book and dedicate time to it, this will help me stay on track with my reading and not overwhelm me at the same time. It's a convenient little set up!

The dailylit.com library is still rather small, but its got Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen, Meville among others all for free. If you feel like you just won't have time this year to read War and Peace or Bleak House, this site might help you out!

[Robin]

This morning I started The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's not my usual cup of tea, but the reviews intrigued me. Will I be glad I got it? Time will tell.

[Deanne]

Haylee
Not have time to read War and Peace or Bleak House, sacriledge both huge books and both on my favourite books shelf.
Just started reading Vathek by Beckford short book only 120 pages, I'll try and stretch it out to two days.

[Christina Stind]

Started 'Alias Grace' last night. I've read it before and I remember it as being very good. It makes me kind of wonder why I didn't pick up any other Atwood afterwards - but there's a few on the list and I'm looking forward to reading those.

[Lenoir]

Schindler's List

[Deanne]

Booklover
War and Peace looks daunting but Tolstoy is a fantastic writer, I couldn't put it down and read it in three days.

[Stephanie "Jedigal"]

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

[anntok]

The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells

[Ravenskya]

Halfway through:
War and Peace
House of Seven Gables
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

All three have been entertaining, though War and Peace seems to go on forEVER

[Melissa]

HP Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness, listening to on CD, which I hate. I think it is so boring. Lots of well written detail of a boring landscape.

But this book had a strike against it before I even started it since I dislike the genre to begin with.

The other, about halfway through, Primo Levi "if not now when" is excellent and I would like to read more of this author. Of course, I pursue anything on the holocaust anyhow..

[Monica]

Started reading House of Leaves last year but got stuck between going back and forth from my dictionary to the book again. Very interesting story with one author playing an author with 3 editors? Is that right? Now I have more time and I see it on the list so I'm starting again.

[Katie ATX]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel