2025 Reading Challenge discussion
ARCHIVE 2016
>
Stephanie (R.A.)- Attempting the Unlikely
I am considering stealing a combination of a few people's formats for the books as they read them (both for here and my personal challenge page):Book Title by Author
# of Pages, Star Rating
Review:
Genre:
Applicable Challenges:
I also plan on posting book links underneath my Challenge lists as I finish them, as well as a strike line and date finished by the book. Ten days til the new year, people! I am stoked.
Symbols from NBRCSome people like to use checkmarks instead of striking out text when they have finished reading a book. Here are a couple: ✔ ✓
Just put your cursor/mouse up to the left (or right) of the symbol posted to copy it. Click the left mouse key and hold down while moving the mouse until the star is highlighted. Then right mouse click to copy.
Or, if you type (most) everything in WinWord first (before posting to GoodReads) like I do, you can use the MS Gothic or Malgun Gothic fonts. To see what is available, use the "insert symbol" command. If you don't have it, here are some the more popular for you to copy.
Some more symbols for copying.
★ ☀ ☂ ☆ ☹ ☺ ♥ ♡ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ✔ ✓ ♔ ♕ ♖ ♗ ♘ ♙ ♚ ♠ ♪ ♬ ♩ ◈ ☎ ☆ ♀ ♂ ☆ ☜ ☝ ☞ ☟ ☠ ☮ ☯ ☻ ☃ ☁ ✿ ❀ ❂ ❄ ¿ ✗ ✘ ✤ ✣ ✡ ✞ ✌ ➜ ʘ ※ ⁑ ∞ ≠ + ÷ ® © º ☤ ✆
How to enter some of the symbols with the alt key combo.
Be sure to use your numeric pad (as the numbers on the top row of your keyboard won’t work) and turn your num lock on and your caps lock off!
Notice, the symbol won't appear until after your release the alt key, as the number sequence can get into the thousands.
★ solid star = Alt + 9733
✩ star outline = Alt + 9734
html codes (remove asterisks in the second position)
&*#9733; = ★
&*#9734; = ☆
Without the spaces :
& # 10047 = ✿
& # 10048 = ❀
& # 10049 = ❁
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Book You Must Read Before You DieLord help me! I have found what appears to be the ultimate reading list. I will probably have to copy and paste it in sections, but it looks like it will probably be worth my time.
2000s
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan - 2016
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders
1900s
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver - 2016
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Underworld – Don DeLillo
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-Ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
London Fields – Martin Amis
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Dies1900's Continued
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Crash – J.G. Ballard
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
The Breast – Philip Roth
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch - 2016
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Bell – Iris Murdoch
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen - 2016
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die1900's Continued
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Opp
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf - 2016
Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Amerika – Franz Kafka
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before Your Die1800's
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
Germinal – Émile Zola
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
1700's
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700's
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus
2008 Updates
Pre 1800's
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter – Anonymous
The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Luo Guanzhong
The Water Margin – Shi Nai’an Luo Guanzhong
Tirant Lo Blanc – Joanot Martorell
La Celestina – Fernando de Rojas
Amadis of Gaul – Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo
The Life of Larzirillo de Tormes – Anonymous
The Lusiad – Luis Vaz de Camoes
Monkey: A Journey to the West – Wu Cheng’en
Thomas of Reading – Thomas Deloney
The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Conquest of New Spain – Bernal Diaz Del Castillo
The Adventurous Simplicissimus – Hans Von Grimmelshausen
The Princess of Cleves –Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
Anton Reiser – Karl Philipp Moritz
A Dream of Red Mansions – Cao Xueqin
1800's
Henry of Ofterdingen – Novalis
Michael Kohlhaas – Heinrich Von Kliest
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr – E.T.A. Hoffmann
The Life of a Good-For-Nothing – Joseph Von Eichendorff
Eugene Onegin – Alexander Pushkin
The Lion of Flanders – Hendrik Conscience
Camera Obscura – Hildebrand
A Hero of Our Times – Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov
Facundo – Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
The Devil’s Pool – George Sand
Green Henry – Gottfried keller
Indian Summer – Adalbert Strifer
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
Pepita Jimenez – Juan Valera
The Crime of Father Amado – Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Martin Fierro – Jose Hernandez
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas – Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
The Regent’s Wife – Clarin Leopoldo Alas
The Quest – Frederik Van Eden
The Manors of Ulloa – Emilia Pardo Bazan
Under The Yolk – Ivan Vazov
The Child of Pleasure – Gabriele D’Annunzio
Eline Vere – Louis Couperus
Thais – Anatole France
Down There – Joris – Karl Huysmans
The Viceroys – Federico De Roberto
Compassion – Benito Perez Galdos
Pharaoh – Boleslaw prus
As a Man Grows Older – Italo Svevo
Dom Casmurro – Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Eclipse of the Crescent Moon – Geza Gardonyi
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die2008 Updates
1900's
Sansokan: The Tigers of Mompracem – Emilio Salgari
None but The Brave – Arthur Schnitzler
The Call of The Wild – Jack London
Memoirs of my Nervous Illness – Daniel P. Schreber
The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Solitude – Victor Catala
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge – Rainer Maria Rilke
Platero and I – juan Ramon Jimenez
The Underdogs – Mariano azuela
Pallieter – Felix Timmermans
Home and the World – Rabindra Nath Tagore
Growth of the Soul – Knut Hamsu
The Storm of Steel – Ernst Junger
Life of Christ – Giovanni Papini
Claudine’s House – Colette
The Forest of the Hanged – Liviu Rebreanu
Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset
The New World – Heruy Walda-Sellasse
Chaka the Zulu – Thomas Mofolo
Under Satan’s Sun – Georges Bernanos
Alberta and Jacob – Cora Sandel
The Case of Sergeant Grischa – Arnold Zweig
Some Prefer Nettles – Junichiro Tanizaki
Retreat Without Song – Shahan Shahnoor
I Thought of Daisy – Edmund Wilson
Monica - Saunders Lewis
Insatiability – Stanislaw lgnacy Witkiewicz
The Return of Philip Latinowicz – Miroslav Krleza
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Forbidden Realm – J. J. Slauerhoff
Viper’s Tangle – Francois Mauriac
Cheese – Willem Elsschot
Man’s Fate – Andre Malraux
The Street of Crocodiles – Bruno Schulz
The Bells of Basel – Louis Aragon
Untouchable - Muik Raj Anand
War With the Newts – Karel Capek
Rickshaw Boy – Lao She
Ferdydurke – Witold Gombrowicz
The Blind Owl – Sadegh Hedayat
Alamut – Vladimar Bartol
On the Edge of Reason – Miroslav Krleza
The Man who Loved Children – Christina Stead
Broad and Alien is the World – Ciro Alegria
Chess Story – Stefan Zweig
Joseph and His Brothers – Thomas Mann
Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren
Bosnian Chronicle – Ivo Andric
The Tin Flute – Gabrielle Roy
Andrea – Carmen Laforet
The Death of Virgil – Hermann Broch
Zorba The Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis
House in the Uplands – Erskine Caldwell
Froth on the Daydream – Boris Vian
Journey to the Alcarria – Camilo Jose Cela
Ashes and Diamonds – Jerzy Andrzejewski
In the Heart of the Seas – Shmuel Yosef Agnon
The Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen – Tadeusz Borowski
The Guiltless – Hermann Broch
Barabbas – Par Lagerkvist
The Hive – Camilo Jose Cela
Excellent Women – Barbara Pym
A Thousand Cranes – Yasunari Kawabata
The Lost Steps – Alejo Carpentier
The Hothouse – Wolfgang Koeppen
The Dark Child – Camara Laye
A Day in Spring – Ciril Kosmac
The Mandarins – Simone de Beauvoir
Death in Rome – Wolfgang Koeppen
The Sound of Waves – Yukio Mishima
The unknown Soldier – Vaino Linna
The Burning Plain – Juan Rulfo
The Tree of Man – Patrick White
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands – Joao Guimaraes Rosa
The Glass Bees – Ernst Junger
The Manila Rope – Veijo Meri
The Deadbeats – Ward Ruyslinck
The Birds – Tarjei Vesaas
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon – Jorge Amado
The Guide – R. K. Narayan
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Deep Rivers – Jose Maria Arguedas
Down Second Avenue – Ezekiel Mphahlele
The Magician of Lublin – Isaac Bashevis Singer
Halftime – Martin Walser
Bebo’s girl – Carlo Cassola
God’s Bits of Wood – Ousmane Sembene
The Shipyard – Juan Carlos Onetti
No One Writes to the Colonel – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Peasant Boy – Xose Neira Vilas
Time of Silence – Luis Martin-Santos
The Death of Artemio Cruz – Carlos Fuentes
The Time of the Hero – Mario Vargas Llosa
The Third Wedding – Costas Taktsis
Three Trapped Tigers – Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Back to Oegstgeest – Jan Wolkers
Closely Watched Trains – Bohumil Hrabel
Garden Ashes – Danilo Kis
Death and the Dervish – Mesa Selimovic
Silence – Shusaku Endo
To Each His Own – Leonardo Sciascia
Marks of Identity – Juan Goytisolo
Miramar – Naguib Mahfouz
Z – Vassilis Vassilikos
The Manor – Isaac Bashevis Singer
Day of the Dolphin – Robert merle
The Cathedral – Oles Honchar
Jacob the Liar – Jurek Becker
The Case Worker – Gyorgy Konrad
Moscow Stations – Venedikt Yerofeev
Heartbreak Tango – Manuel Puig
Seasons of Migrations to the North – Tayeb Salih
Here’s to You Jesusa! – Elena Poniatowska
Fifth Business – Robertson Davies
Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion
A World For Julius – Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Cataract – Mykhaylo Osadchyi
Lives of Girls & Women – Alice Munro
The Twilight Years – Sawako Ariyoshi
The Optimist’s Daughter – Eudora Welty
The Dispossessed – Ursela K. Le Guin
The Diviners – Margaret Laurence
The Port – Antun Soljan
The Commandant – Jessica Anderson
The Year of the Hare – Arto Paasilinna
Women at Point Zero – Nawal El Saadawi
Blaming – Elizabeth Taylor
Kiss of the Spider Woman – Manuel Puig
Almost Transparent Blue – Ryu Murakami
The Engineer of Human Souls – Josef Skvorecky
Quartet in Autumn – Barbara Pym
The Wars – Timothy Findley
The Beggar Maid – Alice Munro
Requiem for a Dream – Hubert Selby Jr
The Back Room – Carmen Martin Gaite
So Long a Letter – Mariama Ba
A Dry White season – Andre Brink
The Book of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa
Baltasar and Blimunda – Jose Saramago
The Christmas Oratorio – Goran Tunstrom
Fado Alexandrino – Antonio Lobo Antunes
The Witness – Juan Jose Saer
Professor Martens’ departure – Jean Kross
Larva: Midsummer Night’s Babel – Julian Rios
Fool’s Gold – Maro Douka
Southern Seas – Manuel Vasquez Montalban
Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai
The House with the Blind Glass Windows – Herbjorg Wassmo
Leaden Wings – Zhang Jie
The War at the End of the World – Mario Vargas Llosa
Couples, Passerby – Botho Strauss
Democracy – Joan Didion
The Young Man – Botho Strauss
Love machine – Louise Erdrich
Half of Man is Woman – Zhang Xianliang
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Simon and the Oaks – Marianne Fredriksson
Annie John – Jamaica Kincaid
Ancestral Voices – Etienne Van Heerden
The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman- Andrzej Szczypiorski
Memory of Fire – Eduardo Galeano
Ballad for Georg Henig – Viktor Paskov
Of Love and Shadows – Isabel Allende
All Souls – Javier Marias
Black Box – Amos Oz
Kitchen – Banana Yoshimoto
The First Garden – Anne Herbert
The Last World – Christoph Ransmayr
Paradise of the Blind – Duong Thu Huong
Gimmick! – Joost Zwagerman
Obabakoak – Bernado Atxaga
Inland – Gerald Murnane
The Great Indian Novel – Shashi Tharoor
The Shadow Lines – Amitav Ghosh
The Daughter – Pavlos Matesis
The Laws – Connie Palmen
Faceless Killers – Henning Mankell
Astradeni – Eugenia Fakinou
Memoirs of rain – Sunetra Gupta
All The Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
The Triple Mirror of the Self – Zulfikar Ghose
Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture – Aposolos Doxiadis
Before Night Falls – Reinaldo Arenas
The Adventures and misadventures of Maqroll – Alvaro Mutis
Remembering Babylon – David Malouf
The Holder of the World – Bharati Mukherjee
The Twins – Tessa de Loo
Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light – Ivan Klima
Deep River – Shusaku Endo
Our Lady Of Assassins – Fernando Vallejo
Troubling Love – Elena Ferrante
The Late-Night News – Petros Markaris
Santa Evita – Tomas Eloy Matinez
A Light Comedy – Eduardo Mendoza
Fall on Your Knees – Ann-Marie Macdonald
Margot and the Angels – Kristien Hemmerechts
Crossfire – Miyabe Miyuki
The Heretic – Miguel Deliber
Dirty Havana Trilogy – Pedro Juan Gutierrez
Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolano
Pavel’s Letters – Monika Maron
In Search of Klingsor – Jorge Volpi
The Musuem of Unconditional Surrender – DubravKa Ugresic
Lifetime Challenge: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die2008 Updates
2000's
Bartleby and Co – Enrique Vila-Matas
Celestial Harmonies – Peter Esterhazy
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
I’m Not Scared – Niccolo Ammaniti
Soldiers of Salamis – Javier Cercas
Snow – Orhan Pamuk
The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
Vernon God Little DBC Pierre
The Successor – Ismail Kadare
Lady Number Thirteen – Jose Carlos Somoza
Your Face Tomorrow – Javier Marias
The Swarm – Frank Schatzing
Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky
The Book about Blanche and Marie – Per Olov Enquist
Small Island – Andrea Levy
2666 – Roberto Bolano
The Line of Beauty – Alan Hollinghurst
The Accidental – Ali Smith
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka
Measuring the World – Daniel Kehlmann
Mother’s Milk Edward St. Aubyn
Carry Me Down – M.J. Hyland
Against the Day – Thomas Pynchon
The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
The Kindly Ones – Jonathan Littell
Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
Falling Man – Don Delillo
Animal’s People – Indra Sinha
2010 Updates
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
The Gathering - Anne Enright
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz
The Blind Side of the Heart - Julia Franck
Kieron Smith, Boy - James Kelman
Home - Marilynne Robinson
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Cost - Roxana Robinson
Invisible - Paul Auster
The Children’s Book - A. S. Byatt
American Rust - Philipp Meyer
2012 Updates
The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Cain - José Saramago
A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen
Nemesis - Philip Roth
The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
There but for the - Ali Smith
The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Quarterly Challenge: Group ReadsDuration: January 1 - March 31, 2016 (Completed!)
For this challenge, we're going to read old group reads! This challenge was brought back at the suggestion of several members of the group.
1. Check out the list of all past group reads
2. Decide how many you'd like to read this quarter
3. Read!
4. Tell us what you thought of them in this thread.
I said I would read five:
Total Finished: 5/5
(Challenge Message 5)
Hi! I had a question for you on the Boxalls books. I'm doing it too and I was wondering how you found just the updates for those specific years. Did you just compare them?
Alison wrote: "Hi! I had a question for you on the Boxalls books. I'm doing it too and I was wondering how you found just the updates for those specific years. Did you just compare them?"On the Boxall's Group in Goodreads, the moderator there posted them. As she found updates, she posted those. Mostly, I am too lazy to look myself, so I am believing her. It's a pretty cool group. You should check it out.
Quarterly Challenge: Build Your Own Boxed SetDuration: January 1- March 31st- Completed!
Many of us already own some famous series box sets like the Harry Potter Series and The Lord of the Rings set, and then there are the classic box sets from authors like Jane Austen and Jules Verne. Book stores often offer sets revolving around a genre like romance or mysteries, but how would you make your box set? You can do set up your box set with any theme you like, such as "Colors of the Rainbow," "Women of the 19th Century," or even, "Books I'm Reading because I Should Have Read Them in High School." It really is up to whatever you desire as long as you have 3 or more books in it!
For this challenge, chose the number of books you would like to read, and how many box sets you would like to make. You must name each box set, and each set should have a theme, but you are not limited to what you see suggested.
Please be creative!
Space Case
I Put A Spell On You
Treat Her Like A Lady
Total Books Read: 15/15
(Challenge Message #11)
1. Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale by Lynda Rutledge307 pages, ★★★☆☆
Alzheimer's is not something that is easily talked about, let alone written about. "Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale" beautifully talks about the disease and how it impacts the lives of those who are affected and those who are impacted by those individuals who begin to lose their memories.
Faith Bass Darling lived a charmed life until it all fell apart. Now, towards the end of her life her memories are fading, but in the process she rediscovers her belief in God and in family. I was never brought to tears through her journey, but I was moved by her inner struggles and the inner struggles of those around her. Perhaps more moving, were the awkward interactions between Faith and those around her as they struggled to say good-bye to the woman they knew and remembered to the woman before them in the present day.
There are religious undertones in this book, and sometimes that bothers me, but not here. Thematically, I really feel like Faith's attempt to find God again really works given the story. In the end, this story is lovely and sweet, despite it's emotional baggage. It's a story about life going on, despite the bad things...and sometimes maybe because of them.
Genre: Fiction
Applicable Challenges: USA Road Trip (Texas), A-Z Titles (F), A-Z Characters (F), A-Z Authors (R), January RESOLUTION, January EXTREMES, Tea Time, Marathon, Let's Turn Pages
2. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab398 pages, ★★★★☆
Kell has one crystal blue eye and one black eye. This is because Kell is not an ordinary human. He can perform blood magic and travel between the four worlds. Lila Bard has searched all her life to be something more. The day she picks Kell's pocket, she finds it.
This story was wonderfully told. I really enjoyed the idea that London exists in every world and is therefore a portal to them if you know how to access them. It was really interesting how magic and humanity balanced each other. Every world seemed to exist of a spectrum of the push and pull between the two.
I enjoyed the main characters very much. Kell is likeable despite his tendency to do things he shouldn't. Lila is a character that I enjoyed reading about, but I do not think I would be able to friends with should she exist in real life. Although, she does grow and by the end is much better for it, but in the beginning I had a hard time sympathizing with her, probably because she seemed to not sympathize with anyone else.
I did not think the royal family was fleshed out enough to make me sympathize with Kell's dilemma at the end. Oddly enough, when Lila experiences her loss, I felt that much more acutely, and more words had been devoted to describing the royal family.
Overall, this was a good book. I look forward to reading the next one. (Hopefully there is a next one?)
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, Marathon, A-Z Titles (D) , A-Z Authors (S), A-Z Characters (K)
3. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov215 pages, ★★★★☆
If you think this book is going to be anything like the movie, you are sadly mistaken. That does not stop it from being an enjoyable piece of science-fiction to read. I had no idea what to expect when I began "I, Robot" and I was surprised at quickly I moved through it.
I expected to be encumbered with science I didn't understand and there was very little of that. In fact, in many of these stories, the robots come across as more human than the human characters do. That, perhaps, was the point.
The first story is by far the highlight of the book for me. I couldn't not like Robbie and I would be surprised if many people I know could dislike him either. My second favorite was the robot that acquired religion, in his own robot way. It was completely fascinating to me.
The stories, in general, move from the idea of a robot as a pet or babysitter all the way to being our overlords and explore every possibility in between. The spectrum is very complete, even if not all of it seems plausible for me.
All of it except for the robot overlord bit was enjoyable to read. Perhaps I didn't enjoy it because the idea of robots dictating what we should do as the human race naturally repels me. Or maybe it was the overwhelming amount of information concerning a political landscape I did not care to read. Either way, the last story was the worst in my opinion.
If you like science fiction, you should definitely give this one a read, but you might want to read it if you enjoy philosophical debates as well- there was tons of that. Overall, pretty good stuff.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, A-Z Titles (I), A-Z Authors (A), A-Z Characters (C), Let's Turn Pages, Marathon and Tea Time
4. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley174 pages, ★★☆☆☆
I am not sure how to feel about "Crome Yellow" on the whole. There were parts that were absolutely fascinating. If there had been more in it about the history of the residents- particularly Hercules and his adventures as the first master of the estate.
Unfortunately, that story is told as an anecdote in a book seemingly made purely of anecdotes to describe one philosophy or another. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there seems to be no resolution to the main problem presented in the story: Denis's affections for Anne.
She isn't really interested in Gombauld, so I don't understand why Huxley left it off there. At least there should be some conversation or something. Therefore, it seemed less of an ending and more of Denis running away, which isn't a solution at all. Perhaps that was the point- there are no beginnings or endings, just when you start and stop talking, right? However, it is wholly unsatisfying, and I really did want to see Denis happy in the end.
In that sense, the book was very effective. I found myself caring about every character except Mr. Scrogan, which surprised me given how long ago the book was written. Still, the way it ended...I just can't get past it. In order to have three stars there has to be at least an ending, and here there really was none. At the very least, no resolution, and if that's the case, then why present the problem to begin with. You see? It is a circular argument.
I would say, this one is definitely worth reading for the different philosophies enumerated within (if you like that kind of thing) but be prepared to be let down in the end.
Genre: Classics
Applicable Challenges: Boxall's 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, A-Z Titles (Y), A-Z Authors (X), A-Z Characters (D), Let's Turn Pages, Traveling Through Books (England), Marathon, and EXTREME
5. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah440 pages, ★★★★★
Sometimes you read a book that makes your heart sing and ache at the same time. "The Nightingale" is one of those books.
The story of Vianne and Isabelle, sisters thrust into impossible situations during World War II, is utterly captivating. Their childhood experiences helped to tear them apart, while their experiences in the war help to bind them together again. It is a lovely story that will leave you breathless by the end.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about this book is how much it makes you think, as the reader, how drastically World War II shaped so many lives, many not for the better. Children became adults too soon as they witnessed the physical and emotional devastation around them. Wives saw their husbands come home changed, or not at all. Husbands came home to see that their wives fought their own personal battles as the Nazis occupied their homes, and then were overlooked because they did not carry a weapon into battle.
It is all terribly devastating, but incredibly beautiful...because despite those horrors and the atrocities committed, life went on. These people learned to love and enjoy life again. Overwhelmingly that is the message that I got at the end of this book. Life can be wonderful and it can be terrible, but at the end of the day, the terrible things don't outweigh the good and you can learn to live again.
I highly recommend this book to everyone.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Applicable Challenges: The Pop Sugar Challenge, A-Z Titles (N), A-Z Authors (H), A-Z Characters (V), The Sorting Hat, Let's Turn Pages, Traveling Through Books (France), USA Road Trip (Oregon), Marathon, RESOLUTION
6. The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge414 pages, ★★★☆☆
"The Lie Tree" started really slowly. Faith Sunderly, the main character is interesting enough to allow the reader to get past that slow start. When things start happening, suddenly it becomes impossible to put down. It is slightly predictable in its twist, but that can be forgiven. As far as mysteries go, it isn't the best that I have read, but it is far and away from the worst. Overall, this was a solid book and an entertaining read.
Genre: Mystery
Applicable Challenges: I-Spy Book Titles, A-Z Titles (L), A-Z Characters (S), Let's Turn Pages, Traveling Through Books (Vane, England), RESOLUTION, Marathon, Tea Time
David Bowie's Top 100 Book ListThis isn't a challenge persay, but I will feel cooler for having read at least some of the same book's David Bowie read. I will probably start compiling some lists of various celebrities I admire and their top book lists, because I am nerdy like that.
1. Interviews with Francis Bacon
2. Billy Liar
3. Room at the Top
4.On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious
5. Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir
6.
7. City of Night
8. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
9. Madame Bovary
10.
11. As I Lay Dying
12. The Complete Tadanori Yokoo
13. Berlin Alexanderplatz
14. Inside the Whale and Other Essays
15. Mr Norris Changes Trains
16. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art
17. David Bomberg
18. Blast #1
19. Passing
20. Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective
21. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
22. In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture
23. Hawksmoor
24. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness
25. The Stranger
26. Infants of the Spring
27. The Quest for Christa T.
28. The Songlines
29. Nights at the Circus
30. The Master and Margarita
31. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
32. Lolita
33. Herzog
34. Puckoon
35. Black Boy
36.
37. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
38. Darkness at Noon
39. The Waste Land
40. McTeague
41. Money
42. The Outsider
43. Strange People
44. English Journey
45. A Confederacy of Dunces
46. The Day of the Locust
47. 1984
48. The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography
49. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock
50. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll
51. The Beano Book 1985
52. Raw Comic, 80's
53. White Noise
54. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom
55. Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition
56. Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series
57. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll
58. Octobriana and the Russian Underground
59. The Street
60. Wonder Boys
61. Last Exit to Brooklyn
62. A People's History of the United States
63. The Age of American Unreason
64. Metropolitan Life
65. The Coast of Utopia
66. The Bridge
67. All The Emperor's Horses
68. Fingersmith
69. Earthly Powers
70. The 42nd Parallel
71. Tales of Beatnik Glory
72. The Bird Artist
73. Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music
74. Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s
75. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
76. The American Way of Death Revisited
77. In Cold Blood
78. Lady Chatterley's Lover
79. Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture
80. Vile Bodies
81. The Hidden Persuaders
82.The Fire Next Time
83. Viz (comic, early ’80s)
84. Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)
85. Selected Poems
86. The Trial of Henry Kissinger
87. Flaubert's Parrot
88. Maldoror and the Complete Works
89. On the Road
90. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology
91. Zanoni: A Rosicrucian Tale
92. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual
93. The Gnostic Gospels
94. The Leopard
95. Inferno
96. A Grave for a Dolphin
97.The Insult
98. In Between the Sheets
99. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924
100. Journey into the Whirlwind
Total Read: 3/100
Also, NBRC is doing this challenge:
Remembering David Bowie
DURATION
You set the pace
HOW TO
1. Pick a level and then read from the list of Bowie's 100 favourite books
OR
2. Pick your favourite Bowie songs, albums, movies or Bowie's favourite book names and "spell-it-out".
Spell-it-Out Rules
Using the first letter in the book’s title, the first letter in the series name, the first letter in the author’s first or last name, or the first letter of a character’s first, last, or nick-name, or the first letter in the audiobook narrators first or last name. As always, if the first letter of a title starts with ‘A’, ‘An’, ‘The’, etc., you may use the first letter of the second word in the title to spell out your chosen word.
LEVELS
Golden: 1-5 books
Fame: 6-15 books
Young Americans: 16-25 books
1984: 26-35 books
China Girl: 36-45 books
Life on Mars: 46-55 books
Starman: 56 - 65 books
Rebel Rebel: 66-75 books
Let's Dance: 76-85 books
Lazarus: 86-100 books
Michael Jackson's Neverland Valley Ranch LibraryI have been a Michael Jackson fan all of my life. It didn't feel right to include David and not Michael.
1. Peter Pan
2. Jonathan Livingston Seagull
3.
4. The Old Man and the Sea
5. Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories
6. Verger
7. The Complete Works of O. Henry
8. The Reluctant Dragon
9. The Red Balloon
10. They Cage the Animals at Night
11.
12. The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
13.
14. The 48 Laws of Power
15. The Power of Positive Thinking
16. The Gift Of Acabar
17. Leaders of men, or, Types and principles of success, as illustrated in the lives and careers of famous Americans of the present day
18. The Greatest Salesman in the World
19. Your Creative Power
20. Reach Out For New Life
21. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
21. 365 Exercises for the Mind
23. Love and Death
24. The Son Of Ponni: Volume 1 - New Floods
25. The Cyclone
26. The First Floods
27. Aid to Bible Understanding
28. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
29. The Negro Caravan
30. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
31. Black in America
32. King: A Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
33. In Praise of Black Women, Volume 1: Ancient African Queens
34. The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present
35. Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America's Black Female Superstars
36. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America
37. How to Eat to Live
38. White Problem in America
39. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present
40. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality
41. Black Dance in America: A History Through Its People
42. The Hotel Book: Great Escapes Africa
43. The Prophet
44. ROBERT BURNS Selected Poems
45. Selected Poems
46. Sufi Poems: A Mediaeval Anthology
47. Thoughts of Love: A Blue Mountain Arts Collection
48. The Children's Hour
49. The Tyger
50. The Bridge of Sighs
51. Abraham Lincoln
52. Lincoln's Devotional
53. James Dean. American Icon
54. My Life In Pictures
55. Lennon in America: 1971-1980, Based in Part on the Lost Lennon Diaries
56. The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
57. Glass Onion: The Beatles in Their Own Words-Exclusive Interviews With John, Paul, George, Ringo and Their Inner Circle
58. The Lost Lennon Interviews
59. Things We Said Today: Conversations with the Beatles
60. Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music
61. The Rolling Stones: A Life on the Road
62. Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon
63. Elia Kazan: A Life
64. Songs My Mother Taught Me
65. Steps in Time
66. My Autobiography
67. Goldwyn
68. Kindly Leave the Stage
69. Duse: A Biography
70. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences
71. The Soulful Divas: Personal Portraits of Over a Dozen Divine Divas, from Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin & Diana Ross to Patti Labelle, Whitney Houston & Janet Jackson
72. White Nights: The Story of a Prisoner in Russia
73. "The Rest of Us": The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
74, Blues Who's Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers
75. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock
76. Stravinsky in the Theatre
77. Recording Studio Design
78. The Art of Walt Disney: From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms
79. Walt Disney's Treasury of Children's Classics
80. Mickey Mouse
81. The Quotable Walt Disney
82. Discovering Walt: The Magical Life of Walt Disney
83. Disney's World: A Biography
84. Walt Disney: An American Original
85. Walt Disney: Famous Quotes
86. Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons; Revised and Updated
87. Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia
88. Complete Films of Cecil B. DeMille
89. A Pictorial History of Horror Movies
90. Acting Class: Take a Seat
91. M-G-M's Greatest Musicals
92. Costumes By Karinska
93. Love of a Glove: The Romance, Legends and Fashion History of Gloves and How They are Made
94. Stage Costume Advice
95. Scenic Design
96. Costume Cavalcade: 689 Examples Of Historic Costume In Colour
97. A History of Costume
98. Animal Language
99. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor
100. Lewis W. Hine: The Empire State Building
101. Planet Vegas : A Portrait of Las Vegas by 20 of the World's Leading Photographers
102. Hurrell Hollywood: Photographs, 1928-1990
103. The Art Book
104. Going East
105. Skinhead
106. The Art of WALL-E by Tim Hauser
Total Read: 3/106
7. A World Away by Stewart O'Nan352 pages, ★★☆☆☆
I was hoping for a lot more out of this book. I understand what the author was going for, I think, but it was such a depressing book. Nobody is happy at all throughout the whole entire book, even at the end. I don't know if I can say much more than that. It's okay, but I like a little more happiness in my books and this just wasn't it.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Applicable Challenges: I-Spy Book Challenge, The Every Year Book Challenge, A-Z Titles (W), A-Z Author (O), A-Z Characters (J), Let's Turn Pages, USA Roadtrip (NY) RESOLUTION, Tea Time, Marathon
8. Winter by Marissa Meyer824 pages, ★★★★★
As far as young adult books go, I don't know if there are any better than the books in the Lunar Chronicles. This latest book, "Winter," did not disappoint.
This book essentially brings us to the end of Linh-Cinder's journey from lonely cyborg to (view spoiler). It introduces her royal ally and friend, Winter- the lovable, yet slightly insane stepdaughter of Queen Levana. It's a fascinating take on Snow White that I really enjoyed. (Winter's best friend, Jacin, plays the part of the Huntsman).
The character development of Captain Thorne is fantastic in this book. He was kind of a jerk in the last book, but that changes realistically in this book. Cress's character really shines in this one too. The only character that doesn't really change at all is Kai, but I don't know if that really bothers me as he was pretty complex to begin with.
Without giving spoilers, there is tons of space adventure that had me on the edge of my seat in this story. Every character seemed to be in very real danger to me at some point in the story, and as I wasn't sure if this was Grimm's Fairy Tales or Disney Fairy Tales I was very much afraid for them...and super relieved when it turned out to be Disney Fairy Tales.
Readers of this series will know that if you don't like the romance, you probably shouldn't read this book. It's pretty convenient in that way- everyone gets a significant other. That doesn't bother me because it adds to the "happily ever after" the Disney Fairy Tales give us. Since these characters are based on fairy tale characters, it makes perfect sense.
There is only thing that is even slightly lacking in this book and that is the ending. The way the war between Levana and Cinder plays out is awesome. The aftermath of that war felt a little rushed to me. I feel like Meyer could devote an entire book to that, but after 824 pages who can blame her for stopping where she did? Not me. So this book is solidly in the 5 star category.
At the end of the day, I have one thing to say about this book and this series in general: go read it.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: The Every Year Book Challenge, Pop Sugar Challenge, Read Women, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Authors (M), A-Z Characters (L), Build Your Own Boxed Set (Space Case), Marathon and Tea Time
9. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson247 pages, ★★★☆☆
"Gilead" is an extremely engrossing book. It depicts the inner spiritual struggles of decent people everywhere beautifully. The fears of John Ames as he approaches the end of his life are completely ordinary and incredibly moving.
The parts that I found the most interesting were where he questioned his own spiritual judgement despite being a reverend descended from two reverends previously. The history of the town through his grandfather and father were also fascinating to read. Perhaps the most surprising and impressive was the sprinkling of race issues in the town without overtly speaking of them.
When his father was alive and Reverend Ames was a child the black church was burned down. The community came together to support the church but not enough to convince the church to stay. Jack Boughton's inner dilemma of the black woman he married and his child and how to stay a family with them proves that even in 1947 those attitudes haven't really changed even if they don't exist on the surface.
I really recommend that people read this book at least once. It leaves you with some great questions about how you should relate to people and look past their surface. For me, it made me consider writing something similar for my kids- my thoughts as I watch them grow up, the family stories I know and lessons I hope they learn through their life. In the end, that's what this book was for John Ames- a huge letter to his son- and well worth reading.
Genre: Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Random Books Challenge, Let's Turn Pages, USA Road Trip (Iowa), Read Women, A-Z Titles (G), A-Z Characters (A), RESOLUTION, Marathon and Tea Time
10. The Martian by Andy Weir435 pages, ★★★★☆
This book had me on the edge of my seat for essentially the entire thing. I never got emotional at the end, but I was REALLY worried for Mark Watney for the entire book. I had dreams about being stuck on Mars at night, that's how invested I was.
There was a lot of science jargon in this book, so if you don't like that you probably don't want to read it. And I am not an astrophysicist so I cannot speak to the realism of the book, but as a reader it FELT real. Crazy, but it seemed like the kinds of things a desperate astronaut stuck on Mars would try to survive.
The sense of humor Mark Watney has is amazing. He would be in the middle of doing the craziest things and then would say something that made me stop reading I was laughing so hard. So many jokes, which was really nice, because a lot of this book is super tense. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or space.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Titles (M), A-Z Authors (W), A-Z Characters (W), Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, Build Your Own Boxed Set (Space Case), EXTREMES, Marathon
11. Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin154 pages, ★★★☆☆
I am not sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but it certainly wasn't what I read. That said, I was completely engrossed the entire time, but the ending was ridiculously confusing to me.
Just a stab in the dark, but I feel the overall impression this book was trying to impart to the reader is: "the U.S.S.R. is a dick." More or less, to put it bluntly, that is certainly my overall impression.
Omon, the main character, just really experiences horrible things throughout his entire life. Then he is recruited for the U.S.S.R.'s space program and things seem to get even worse. They drug him on a regular basis and then at the end (view spoiler)
I did enjoy the philosophy espoused throughout. Different characters promoted different ways of thinking that were really interesting, but in the end this one gets three stars because it perplexed me. I completely didn't see the last chapter coming at all. It is worth reading at least once, for sure.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: The Every Year Challenge, Random Books Challenge, The Pop Sugar Challenge, From Fiction to Reality Challenge, Let's Turn Pages Challenge, A-Z Titles (O), A-Z Authors (P), A-Z Characters (O), Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, Build Your Own Boxed Set (Space Case), Marathon, Tea Time, RESOLUTION and EXTREME
12. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs186 pages, ★★★☆☆
I can understand why this story has withstood the test of time. I immediately liked John Carter (I watched the movie years ago and never realized it was based off of a book until just now). I LOVE Sola and Tars Tarkas as characters. They might be my favorites.
I do have some issues- particularly in regards to John Carter's affection for Dejah Thoris. I do like the fact that he never tries to push her into a relationship, I suppose I find her irritation that he didn't to be more annoying. Furthermore, the fact that he is willing to murder an entire people just so he can marry her is extremely selfish. So, while I enjoy aspects of their relationship, I just can't fully endorse it.
I also wasn't expecting the level of violence in the books. Not Game of Thrones violence but the Green Martians and Red Martians were super violent towards each other, even if (view spoiler) Overall, it was an enjoyable story and I will probably finish out the series.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: I Spy Book Challenge, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Titles (P), A-Z Authors (B), A-Z Characters (T), Build Your Own Boxed Set (Space Case) and EXTREMES
13. The Barsoom Chronicles #2: Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs212 pages, ★★★☆☆
This book has me so conflicted! There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and some more that I just couldn't stomach.
There is a level of racism in this book that is hard for me to get over. John Carter's opinion of the Black Men of Mars before he ever meets them, and even after he has befriended one, leaves me speechless. He never rectifies the initial assessment of them in my opinion, and I just can't see myself recommending this book.
However, the criticism of religion in this book is fascinating to me. It kept me interested until the action picked up even through my above criticisms. I cannot deny that this book is entertaining through everything.
It is extremely exciting to watch John Carter escape the various temples. Then, at the end, it leaves you with the most horrific cliffhanger. I now almost feel like I will have to read the rest of the series (or at least #3) in order to figure out what happens to (view spoiler).
Some elements in the story (view spoiler) were fairly predictable, but it never took away from my enjoyment of those elements. So, I have a moral dilemma. I cannot recommend a book that is so obviously racist on so many levels, yet I find myself wanting to read the next one just to figure out what happens. So, I give it three stars simply because my interest is clearly still there despite the thing that usually makes me put the book down.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Random Books, Let's Turn Pages, Build Your Own Boxed Set and GROUNDHOG
14. The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison414 pages, ★★★★☆
I have enjoyed the Hollow Series for years now and this book was no disappointment. Things that have been laid out for years finally culminate in an extremely satisfactory way. I particularly enjoyed the insight into Al and the demon side of things.
So, as opposed to a recommendation for this particularly book, I must recommend the entire series. If you enjoy vampires, werewolves, elves, demons and every other mythical creature you can imagine, you will probably enjoy it. If you like crime dramas, you will probably enjoy it too. I know I do.
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Titles (U), A-Z Characters (R), USA Roadtrip (Ohio) and GROUNDHOG
15. The Witch With No Name by Kim Harrison441 pages, ★★★★☆
As far as endings go, this one was very satisfying. I've been waiting a long time to read this book and it did not disappoint. As usual, there were a lot of ups and downs before the happy ending, but all of the issues I held in the back of my mind from the entire series were resolved. It was great. I especially enjoyed the flash forward at the very end when Ray was getting married. Good stuff.
Again, as far as recommending this book- if you want to read it, start with #1 and work your way up. They are fun reads with a fair amount of sex, romance, friendship and danger thrown in them. I imagine given enough time I will probably re-read the series and if you haven't read it once, what are you waiting for?
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: The Every Year Challenge, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Characters (I), Build Your Own Boxed Set (I Put A Spell on You) and GROUNDHOG
Tom Hiddleston's Favorite BooksSo, apparently Tom Hiddleston is 35 today. Happy Birthday, Loki! Anyway, I thought this was an awesome opportunity for me to collect a list of some of his favorite books...mostly because I am curious and his birthday seems the perfect excuse. This is by no means a comprehensive list (or even, dare I say it, all that accurate, because you know...the internet). Also, this is not a challenge, really, just of interest to me. This is what I have found:
1. Victoria Cross Heroes
2. Never Mind
3. Bad News
4.Some Hope
5. Mother's Milk
6. At Last by Edward St Aubyn
7. Jane Austen's Letters
8. Life's That Way: A Memoir
9. High-Rise
10. Concrete Island
11. Cocaine Nights
12. Rushing to Paradise
13. The Atrocity Exhibition
14. The Drowned World
15. The Crystal World
16. Millennium People
17. Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography
18. Empire of the Sun
19. Crash
20. The Drought
21. Armadillo
22. Any Human Heart
23. The Second World War
24. Twenty-One Years by Randolph S. Churchill
25. His Father's Son: The Life of Randolph Churchill
26. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby
27. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
28. Cranford
29. Mr. Harrison's Confessions
30. My Lady Ludlow
31. The Moorland Cottage
32. Life of Pi
33. Galápagos: The Islands That Changed the World
34.
35. The Prose Edda
36. The Poetic Edda: The Heroic Poems
37. Anna Karenina
38. Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions
Books I Have Read: 1/38
Celebrating Deadpool's Awesomeness
I saw Deadpool this weekend, guys, and it is AMAZING! I wrote about it on my challenge page, but I wanted something a little more bookish for my Corner. So, I am trying to find the favorite books of actors/actresses in the movie. This what I have found:
Ryan Reynolds-
A Confederacy of Dunces
Morena Baccarin-
TJ Miller-
Fragments of a Journal
Philosophic Classics, #4
The Act of Creation
The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny
The Far Side Gallery- all Far Side in general
R. Crumb's America- R Crumb stuff in general
Deadpool Books
(This is in no way a complete list, but they seem to be highly recommended according to the internet)
Deadpool: Wade Wilson's War
Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe
Deadpool Kills Deadpool
Deadpool Killustrated
Night of the Living Deadpool
Hawkeye vs. Deadpool
Deadpool: Secret Invasion
Deadpool: Evil Deadpool
Deadpool: Dark Reign
Deadpool: Monkey Business
Deadpool: Dead
Deadpool: Institutionalized
Deadpool: X Marks the Spot
Deadpool: Operation Annihilation
Deadpool, Vol. 5: Wedding of Deadpool
With the internet as my only form of research for the actors' favorite books, this is all I could find, but should I stumble across more in the future, I will definitely update it. Happy Deadpool everybody!
Books I Have Read: 1/24
16. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy358 pages, ★★★★☆
This book is a fascinating read. It is one of the best crime dramas I have had the pleasure to encounter.
Right away, you are drawn into Bleichner's story- a has been boxer looking to further his career in the police force after WWII. After a promotional boxing match with another boxer in the police force, Blanchard, the two become fast friends and partners. Then they encounter the Dahlia, a woman who was murdered brutally, sending L.A. into a frenzy.
What happens then seems to happen lightning fast, and nothing is at it seems. Some of it is very predictable, and some of it completely unexpected which makes everything all the more real as you read it.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a good mystery.
Genre: Mystery
Applicable Challenges: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, USA Roadtrip, A-Z Titles (B), A-Z Authors (E), A-Z Charcters (B), Let's Turn Pages, GROUNDHOG and Times Gone By
17. The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff417 pages, ★★★☆☆
I really wanted to love this book. I love this period of time in American history. I've heard great things about Stacy Schiff as an author. Unfortunately, I am extremely tepid concerning "The Witches: Salem, 1692."
It wasn't the worst book I've ever read, even if the first five chapters made my eyes glaze over. There were entire chapters that were completely engrossing but they were few and far between. In the end, I don't feel like any new conclusions were arrived at (and there were many conclusions). It was a rehashing of everything I've ever read before on the subject, and in that sense a disappointment.
It does give a nice over-arching view of the events and characters that took place. In the end, this would probably be a good book to read if you've never read anything about the Salem Witch Trials, but not if you've looked at the subject before.
Genre: Nonfiction
Applicable Challenges: Read Women, USA Roadtrip (Massachusetts), Let's Turn Pages, HISTORY and Times Gone By
18. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness579 pages, ★★★★☆
Do you like Romeo and Juliet? Do you enjoy vampires, witches and other creatures? Then this just might be the book for you.
Diana and Matthew's romance is sweet (if at times unrealistic), even if they are a witch and vampire that shouldn't be together. Both of them rail against tradition and it seems that the whole entire world is out to get them as a result. I enjoyed how their relationship progressed, but I wish it had taken longer than three weeks for them to fall in love...like I said, Romeo and Juliet.
There are all kinds of interesting hook-ins to real history in this book that make it worth reading just to see how it is done. Diana's study of alchemy is fascinating on its own, without her own complicated witch backstory (that goes back to Bridget Bishop, one of the "witches" executed in the Salem Witch Trials). Matthew's experiences throughout history (including the Crusades) are equally fascinating.
Essentially, if you like dark fantasy, romance and a little adventure, "A Discovery of Witches" should definitely be on your list "to-read." I know, I am putting the sequels on mine.
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: The Every Year Book Challenge (2011), Read Women, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Characters (M), Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, Group Reads, Build Your Own Boxed Set (I Put A Spell on You), GROUNDHOG and HISTORY
19. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Kenneally429 pages, ★★★★★
If ever there was a book written that simultaneously destroyed your faith in humanity and then renewed it, it is "Schindler's Ark." I've watched quite a few documentaries on the Holocaust and have read more than my share of books. Throughout those encounters, the name Oskar Schindler has arisen time and time again.
I knew that this man was a hero during Hitler's attempted purge of the entire Jewish race, but until I finished this book, I didn't understand how completely unlikely and amazing his journey was during World War II. I am astounded by what he accomplished, somehow managing to save some 1,400 people's lives- amongst them men, women, children and the elderly. The likelihood of that range of people surviving and the lengths that he went to in order to do so are breath-taking.
I am equally taken aback by how extremely flawed the man himself was. For seven or eight years during the war he was a hero, yes. However, the book makes it clear that he was also a drunk and a womanizer (although not physically abusive). In fact, the only reason he was able to help the Jewish people as well as he did was because of his connections to the black market.
The difference between the two impressions of the man is surprising. It feels like if one thing was different- if Schindler hadn't seen some of the things he saw first hand, for example- that we might not have gotten this hero at all. Which makes it all the more amazing that we did.
The story-teller in me enjoys that he is not a traditional "good-guy." He is the Nazi version of Han Solo instead, happy to go back to doing things society might not approve of, as long as his own moral compass is satisfied.
It is difficult to process even just the small slice of life concerning the Holocaust presented in this book. The depiction of normal everyday life in camps that were not run by Schindler, although not gratuitous in their description, nonetheless numb your mind a little. I would imagine that in order to understand the material better, I will need to process these things and then return again so that I can understand the nuances better and therefore the real risk that Schindler was taking...because as risky as I thought it was before, I understand that it was still more dangerous. I have a feeling that impression will grow on a second reading.
So, yes, read this book. Make sure the next generations read this book...and then read it again.
Genre: Non-Fiction
Applicable Challenges: The Pop Sugar Challenge, Home School, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Titles (S), A-Z Authors (K), A-Z Characters (E), HISTORY and Times Gone By
I read this book (the name adopted the movie's name: Schindler's List) at the end of last year, and I was equally touched. A tough read but an important one. Great review Stephanie
Kiwi wrote: "I read this book (the name adopted the movie's name: Schindler's List) at the end of last year, and I was equally touched. A tough read but an important one. Great review Stephanie"I was really surprised I hadn't been told to read it in school when I was done. I feel like this book, Night by Elie Wiesel, The Diary of Anne Frank should go together because they are more or less two sides of the victims in the whole thing- the people who were being persecuted (The Diary of Anne Frank and Night) and the people who were forced to partake in a barbaric system no matter how their own morals despised it (Schindler's Ark/List). Regardless, it is an insanely moving book.
I agree Stephanie, while I liked The Diary of Anne Frank, I preferred Night. Have you read If This Is a Man? it's my favourite about the holocaust and survival in camps.
Kiwi wrote: "I agree Stephanie, while I liked The Diary of Anne Frank, I preferred Night. Have you read If This Is a Man? it's my favourite about the holocaust and survival in camps."I haven't! It's so hard for me to find new resources on the Holocaust. Thank you for pointing it out to me, Kiwi! Do you know about any books that talk about the Japanese side of things that are particularly good? I always feel like I ignore that side of the conflict, but I know some of those battles were awful with how dug in the Japanese were on their islands. Also, anything regarding the impact of the atomic weapons on Japan would be appreciated.
I completely respect and admire how well-read you are. I peek into your pages occasionally and am continually amazed at the pace you are able to read. Good times. Does that make me creepy? I rarely ever comment. I'm still getting used to the internet etiquette, I guess. I have discovered lots of future reading for myself off of your page, though. Thought I would let you know. :)
Stephanie, you're too kind and you're not creepy at all, I like to follow other people on GR; they are my main source for reading inspiration.It's great to see what people read and exchange points of view, feel free to visit and leave comments on my personal thread, I like when people share their thoughts. I've sent you a friend request, it makes it easier to keep in touch ;-)
Sadly I haven't read a lot about the pacific conflict in WWII, I read and liked Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, it's a children/YA book, other popular books are Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and A Town Like Alice but I haven't read them myself.
20. The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick259 pages, ★★★★☆
If I have read any book that screams, "1960's!" to me, it is "The Man in the High Castle." The entire time I read it I was fascinated by its proposed alternate history and the philosophy it seemed to promote. However, it feels a little drug-induced in that it is both dream-like and rambling in some parts. So, where to start?
The book describes a possible outcome of WWII if the Nazis and Japan had won the war. Now, I realize that this is not my alternate history, but I find it extremely unlikely that the Germans would have taken over the United States, everything from the Rocky Mountains eastward. I doubly doubt that a human oven would be built in New York. Japan gets everything west of the Rocky Mountains, by the way, (equally unlikely, if more bearable) and the Rockies themselves are more of a neutral zone. It appears that what remains of the government has been concentrated in Omaha, Nebraska of all places. Also, African slavery re-emerges after the Nazis drain the Mediterranean Sea (what?!) and then turn their Holocaust onto the Africans (a more reasonable guess, although horrifying). I don't feel like any of this is spoilers, it more sets the scene for my overall feelings of the book. This is just the setting, and it amazes me.
That said, this unlikely, mind-boggling scenario is absolutely fascinating. The whites that live on the West Coast both seem to worship the Japanese in a sense while at the same time wondering why they are not the superior race (a little Nazi-ism rubbing off on the world population). Jews still exist, but are in definite hiding (gee, I wonder why). The Germans were the ones to build up industry in the United States and the Depression was a prolonged affair because of it. However, this is not the weirdest part of the book.
Hawthorne Abendsen has published a book that is taking this imagined world by storm, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy." In that book, Abendsen proposes what he believes would have happened had the Nazis and Japanese lost WWII. In a mind-bending twist, it is not at all what actually happened. FDR only serves two terms. A man named Rexford Tugwell (perhaps one of the greatest names I've ever read on the page) succeeds him and removes the Pacific Fleet from Pearl Harbor thus avoiding it completely. Winston Churchill stays on as Prime Minister until he is 90 and essentially Britain's own version of a dictator. It's really incredible stuff. It predicts a war between the U.S. and Britain- this is a book within a book. In essence, two alternate realities presented in the same book and I almost had my bran explode on me. (That's not what happened! What? No!- actual quotes of what was going on in my head as I read it).
As all of this is revealed to you the book seems to ask questions about what truth is. It's pretty fascinating stuff. I know the points about relics with "historicity" hit home for me. Are antiques really worth something, or is it our perceived perception of their worth that creates their value? That is Robert Childan's primary question in the book. He also has similar questions of his valuation of Japanese society as his conquerors. What makes them so incredible that he feels compelled to try to impress and be like them? It's really interesting fodder for a philosophical mind.
There is more philosophy scattered throughout, and it all seems to hinge on questions of truth and fact. Frank Frink has let the Nazi message against Jews get into his head and therefore believes he is incapable of doing anything well or even right. However, by the end he has discovered that he has some self-worth (I won't reveal how, because spoilers, but gosh darn it is hard not to talk about it). There are characters within the Nazi population that question the truth. To go over all of it would take too much time and your eyes would roll into the back of your head. Mine nearly did when I finished the book itself.
So, beware that impact. However, despite it's craziness, I HIGHLY recommend you read this book. If only so you too can have the dreams I had last night. Sometimes you need to invite a little madness into your life, if only because it reveals some very interesting truths.
Genre: Science Fiction
Applicable Challenges: The Pop-Sugar Challenge, A-Z Title (C), A-Z Author (D), Let's Turn Pages and Times Gone By
Oscar Party ExcitementSo, the Oscars were last night, everyone! Every year, my husband and I go to one of his coworker's parties. They make nominee inspired drinks, have more food than you could possibly eat available and we all sit around and play Oscar Bingo and try to guess who is going to win each category (I got 10, this year- the winner got 17). The winner gets a bottle of Marilyn Monroe wine. During commercials, we all get asked movie trivia questions or asked to identify the quote (who said it, movie, etc). It is good times- probably the most fun grown up party I go to in my little corner of rural Washington State.
However, it always gets me thinking- I haven't read any of the books these movies are based off of. So, I thought I would gather a list and see if I can't read some of them. Next time nominees are released, I will compile a list then, and try to read them BEFORE the Oscars. Seems like the smart thing to do. Here it goes:
1.
2. The Price of Salt
3. Brooklyn
4. The Danish Girl
5. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
6.
7. Where the Gods Reign: Plants and Peoples of the Colombian Amazon
8. Steve Jobs
9. The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge
I am a little sad, because Room has been on my TBR list for a while now. I had no idea that the movie was based off of that book. I definitely would have read it in January. Oh well, you can't win them all.
21. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck357 pages, ★★★☆☆
I had a really hard time reading this book. The story was interesting enough, but I found the anti-woman views a little hard to take, as a woman myself.
The gist of the story is that Wang Lung was raised a farmer and becomes wealthy through making smart financial choices and through the looting of a lord's house. He finds his actual wife ugly so he goes out to seek a concubine. Later, even the concubine isn't enough for him and he gets another one, who he creates more of a bond with.
He has kids, they grow up have kids. It's really a story about life and change. His children have no interest in the land that he feels is so vital and they will sell it when he dies. So, it is kind of a life goes on, regardless story.
For intellectual purposes, someone might be interested in this book. However, overall, I wouldn't recommend it whole-heartedly. Still, it is well-written and parts of it are enjoyable. I'm just apathetic about it in general.
Genre: Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Title (E), GROUNDHOG and Times Gone By
So, I just got an e-mail saying that I have been chosen as a finalist (top 5%) in a writing competition where I have submitted a short story. I would really appreciate any positive thoughts you guys are willing to send my way. If I win, I get published and there is a cash prize depending on where I fall in the winners. Mostly, I just want the exposure. Being published would be amazing! Thanks so much!
Kiwi wrote: "Good luck Stephanie :)"Thanks!
22. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan514 pages, ★★★★☆
It has been a LONG time since I have read a middle-grade novel that entertained me as much as "The Red Pyramid." The main characters, Carter and Sadie, have good sibling interactions and I really enjoyed the references and twists on Egyptian mythology. This is fantasy, so I didn't expect 100% accuracy, but if that is your thing, you probably wouldn't enjoy it as much.
Of course, there were moments when it was a little overly mushy or super awkward, but overall the story kept me engaged. Really, what is a middle-grade novel supposed to be if a little mushy and awkward at times, anyway? However, sometimes those moments felt a little overdone. I also didn't quite understand the reason for it to be written as a transcription of a recording. In some senses it could have been better done if it was written as a memoir or journal or something that was found (are you really going to admit you think that guy/girl is hot to your brother/sister if you are 12/16? No.)
If I was honest, this probably falls a little short of four stars, but they won't let me give 3.5/3.75, so 4 it is. Overall, it is a book worth reading if you want something fun that you don't need to take too seriously. Good times.
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: I-Spy Book Challenge, Official Yearly Challenge (2010), USA Road Trip (Arizona), Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Titles (R), The Sorting Hat, LEPRECHAUN, COURAGE and Read for Courage
23. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt771 pages,★★★★☆
"Life- whatever else it is- is short...fate is cruel but maybe not random...nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it..." Thus concludes a fascinating book, one I will have to think about for a long time. The paragraph goes on, but I feel like that this is the important lesson the book has to offer.
Although, I feel like the last ten pages or so muddle this message. Theo Decker seems to feel like he is drawn to things he shouldn't and will seek them out to his and others' detriment. Perhaps he shouldn't be drawn to the drugs, but it doesn't hurt anyone but himself. As to hurting other, I would argue that he explicitly abhors anything that harms anyone except himself and those who he feels have irreparably harmed him, and even then it is more through verbal venom than anything else. He does live in a gray area, but that is neither good nor bad and when push comes to shove, he wants to help people- even if he tries to find the easy way.
This book is wonderfully written. At times, the descriptions are a little overdone, but the story makes all kinds of sense. Everything that happens feels preordained, and given the conclusion of the book I would say that is rightly intentional.
That said, there were moments when I absolutely could not stand Theo Decker. Not because he made a bad choice (and there was lots of drugs and alcohol to drown out and numb the pain he dealt with- the mother in me shudders to think of people choosing to do this instead of finding a healthier way to express it) or even many, we all do that. That is what it is to be human. No, I think what bothers me about Theo Decker is how incredibly hypocritical he is (again, completely human but extremely annoying). He hates his father for being an alcoholic and abandoning him and his mother, but then becomes (view spoiler). You can't have it both ways, in my mind, at least not without realizing you were wrong. However, the conclusion of the book makes me think that he doesn't think that any of it matters.
In the end, Theo Decker is an extremely negative character. He wants to see the people he cares about happy, but doesn't feel that this is possible. I find that an incredibly depressing way of thinking. That he soldiers on doesn't feel inevitable and that he would feel that everything happens for a reason doesn't make as much sense as it would for someone who was more positive. The conclusion essentially states that we should hang on with the hope that we can be impacted or create something that will last beyond us, yet he seems to discredit family- perhaps the ultimate way of doing so.
Perhaps the ultimate message, much like "The Man in the High Castle" is that the truth is your perception and not reality? But then why would anything live on to be immortal? These are the questions that this book leaves you with- interesting stuff if you don't need to sleep that night. So, definitely read it at least once. I will probably read it again in another twenty or thirty years to see if I understand more of it myself.
So, the ending made very little sense to me and was very back and forth, but the story is very beautiful in itself, even if Theo's ruminations at the end make very little sense for who I understand him to be. Overall, this book is probably not quite 4 stars for me, more 3.75, but I am bumping it up because it is above 3.5. Maybe in thirty years when life has worn me down more I will understand the last bit of it better. It is definitely worth reading though, just make sure you have the time to devote to internal philosophical debates when you are done.
Genre: Fiction
Applicable Challenges: Read Women, USA Road Trip (Nevada), Home School (Language), Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Authors (T) and Marvelous March
24. Ella Enchanted by Gail Levine Carson232 pages, ★★★★☆
This book is so adorable! I wasn't sure if it would follow the movie or not, and I was pleased to see that it didn't as I didn't want to know exactly what happened.
Ella's voice in this book is so wonderful. From the very first page you understand exactly who she is and what she wants in life, even if she hasn't stated it explicitly. I love her relationship with Char. I also enjoyed the fact that her father was absent and not dead (Cinderella twist!). I really liked that her father avoided marrying Dame Olga until he absolutely had to. Just everything about this is pretty perfect.
If you have kids, you should have them read this book. If you don't have kids, you might enjoy reading it regardless. I know I did.
Genre: Fantasy
Applicable Challenges: The Every Year Book Challenge (1997), The Pop Sugar Challenge, Read Women, Let's Turn Pages, A-Z Authors (C), The Sorting Hat, Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, Build Your Own Box Set (I Put A Spell On You), LEPRECHAUN, COURAGE, Read for Courage and Marvelous March
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Atonement (other topics)Atonement (other topics)
The Joy Luck Club (other topics)
The Joy Luck Club (other topics)
The Joy Luck Club (other topics)
More...
(From NBRC)
What would happen if you put on the sorting hat?
The Sorting Process...
1. Pick you favorite house and its rival ..."
I found it on the NBRC page under their Reading Challenges section, which just seem to go on all the time. Some genius individual thought it up in 2011 or something. I just stole it from them. :) Glad you liked it, though. Who doesn't need a Harry Potter inspired challenge in their life? :)