Favorites/Least Favorites Read From the List in 2009

[Judith]

Some of you have made your comments on this topic under this thread for your 2008 reads from the list(s), but this one is just for your selections read in 2009!

I'll start with my lists:

Read: 50 from the combined lists (goal was 53)

Favorites - very memorable!(in no particular order):
"The Good Soldier"
"Native Son"
"The Things They Carried"
"If On a Winter's Night a Traveler"
"Things Fall Apart"
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey"
"Lolita"
"Cranford"
"War and Peace"

Honorable Mention (enjoyed very much)
"Felicia's Journey"
"The Stone Dairies"
"The Feast of the Goat"
"The Blind Assassin"
"Farewell My Lovely"
"Crime and Punishment"
"Daisy Miller"
"Alias Grace"
"The Story of Lucy Gault"
"Flaubert's Parrot"
"The Secret History"
"them"
"North and South"
"Henderson the Rain King"
"The Awakening"
"The Red and the Black"
"The Heart of the Matter"
"The Razor's Edge"
"Love Medicine"
"Naked Lunch"
"Mary Barton"
"The Glass Key"
"Jack Maggs"


Least Favorites (still enjoyed and worth reading!)
"A Handful of Dust"
"Hawksmoor"
"On Beauty"
"The Man With the Golden Arm"
"Summer"
"Alice Adams"
"Clarissa" (first and last vols. only)
"The Pursuit of Love"
"Love in a Cold Climate"
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
"The Jungle"
"Fathers and Sons"
"A Modest Proposal"
"The Secret History"
"The Day of the Locust"
"The Comfort of Strangers"
"The Fox"

[Eliza]

favorites:
"The Reader"
"Catch 22"
"To The Lighthouse"
"Middlemarch"

Least favorites
"The House in Paris"
"The Poisonwood Bible"

[Krenzel]

Wow - I didn't read nearly that many total books this year. I only read seven from the list this past year (I mostly read non-fiction).

My favorite was definitely A Fine Balance -- a really great book. The characters were all so well-developed I actually missed them after I finished reading the book. I also liked the message that wealth doesn't matter as much as having true friends and companionship.

There were none I really hated like last year (Disgrace - ick), but I guess my least favorite was probably The Poisonwood Bible. I found it to be very long and the characters (in my opinion) were really undeveloped so I didn't even care when one of them died. I read this book following Disgrace, so I kind of gave up the list for a few months after those two (but got back on track after Memoirs of a Geisha).

[Laura]

Of the 1001 list books I read this year, my favorite was A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I have now read two books by Irving and will definitely keep reading more of his!

I enjoyed all of the list books I read this year but the ones that were just okay included:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Reader by Sylvia Plath

Was only able to squeeze 6 list books in this year. Am hoping I can get a few more in next year.

[David]

Just getting into this discussion list and it has inspired me to track all the 1001 that I have read/will read going forward. It was great to find a complete list of all the books (in reverse order, from most recent to oldest) that I could copy into Excel. It's here:

http://www.listology.com/list/1001-bo...

(I haven't checked to see if this is completely accurate, so YMMV).

[David]

Krenzel wrote: "Wow - I didn't read nearly that many total books this year. I only read seven from the list this past year (I mostly read non-fiction).

My favorite was definitely A Fine Balance -- a really g..."

Craig, is that you? Wow, a celebrity football player in our midst!

Have to say we really have different tastes in literature (I loved Poisonwood Bible and enjoyed Disgrace.) Maybe it's because I'm a Pac-10 guy (Stanford :-)

[Lyn (Readinghearts)]

I am just getting started on this, and didn't read that many from the list. Of the ones that I did read, I think my favorites were Breakfast at Tiffany's and To the Lighthouse. My least favorite was Choke, which a lot of people really liked, but I couldn't stomach.

[Carol]

David, like you I am just starting. Thanks for the link to the name of the books.

[Carol]

I have read, twice, THE SECRET HISTORY and loved it. The writing and the story were totally fantastic.

[Liz M]

On Love A Novel by Alain de Botton I would describe as novelized essays which trace the stages of a relationship. It has so many perfectly worded observations that after reading the first few pages of a heavily underlined library copy, I searched for & bought my own copy so I could go through it and underline heavily.


Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet is written in purely descriptive terms, it's as if the novel is the stage directions for a movie -- all the movements & actions of the characters are described, as is the setting, and from this the reader is able to discern the plot. I usually skip over the descriptive portions of most novels and should have disliked this entire book, but I found it beautiful.


The only book I disliked was Dusklands by J.M. Coetzee

[Katherine]

Well I kept awful record of the books I read this year, but some certainly stood out.

Favorites:
Invisible Man
The Razor's Edge
The Things They Carried

Least Favorites:
Crash A Novel
Blood and Guts in High School A Novel

Others I enjoyed but they do not really resonate afterward for me: On the Road, Solaris, The Graduate. I am excited to make 2010 a more efficient reading year!

[Cindy]

My favorites I read this year from The List:
Rebecca
Poisonwood Bible
Lucky Jim
Handmaid's Tale

My least favorite was Where Angels Fear to Tread - just didn't get into the story at all.

[Krenzel]

David - LOL - actually the first internet group I joined was an Ohio State football board and the username has stuck :) I think the real Craig is probably too busy selling used cars around Columbus for much reading.

Sorry about Stanford - but I am definitely hoping the Pac 10 meets the same fate tomorrow . . .

I thought Disgrace was really well-written but a little too bleak for my taste (and, to me anyway, borderline racist).

[Dawn]

I read 45 off the list this year. My goal was 50 so I was close.

Top 10
The World According to Garp
Schindler's List
To Kill A Mockingbird
1984
Howards End
Catch 22
The Reader
The Blind Assassin
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Never Let Me Go

Bottom 10
Smilla's Sense of Snow
Casino Royale
Timbuktu
Foucault's Pendulum
Choke
The Untouchable
Heart of Darkness
Seize the Day
On the Road
White Noise

[Carol]

Favs I've read this year 2009:
The Grass is Singing
The Golden Notebook

[Carol]

OOps to continue
Catch 22
Walden
The Mayer of Casterbridge
Silas Marner
Middlemarch
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Overcoat
The Poisenwood Bible
The Bluest Eye

Also books I read and enjoyed (not on the list)

Devil in a blue Dress
Twilight Series
Robert Campbell's Jimmy Flannery Books
The Earthsea Trilogy
The Giver
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Gathering Storm (Robert Jorden)
Rumpole of the Bailey

Didn't care for Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

[Kristi]

I read 36 from the list this year.

Favorites:
A Room With a View
Jane Eyre
The Reader
The Age of Innocence

Others I liked:
The Awakening
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Middlemarch
North and South
Cannery Row
The Return of the Soldier

Least Favorites:
City of God
Cancer Ward
Tropic of Cancer
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Yellow Wall-Paper
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Wide Sargasso Sea
The Mandarins

[Julie]

I read 75 from both lists in 2009, but I've still only at 14%.

Favorites:
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Remains of the Day
The Blind Assassin
Midnight's Children
The Hobbit
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Never Let Me Go
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Atonement

Others I liked:
Saturday
The Good Soldier
Time's Arrow
Tipping the Velvet
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Catch-22
The Hours
North and South
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Fall on Your Knees
Northanger Abbey
Anna Karenina
Nicholas Nickleby

And books I didn't care for:
Vathek
At the Mountains of Madness
A Confederacy of Dunces (even though so many people love this one!)
Kidnapped
White Noise
Women in Love
2666

[Anthony]

I just discovered the list around Thanksgiving, so I only read 5 books from the list in '09, and didn't really read a bad book. Having said that my favorite was:

Lolita (by a long shot)

my least favorite was:

Franny and Zooey - (it had it's moments, and I like the conclusion, but it was the weakest of the lot.)

Tony

[Kristi]

I guess I should have included in my previous post that I didn't even finish:

Catch-22
The Poisonwood Bible
The Birds Fall Down

[Charity]

MY BEST/WORST of 2009
(alphabetical by author)

BEST
Emma - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen
The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Club Dumas - Arturo Pérez-Reverte
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham

* If I had to pick absolute favorites for the year, it would be the ones in bold.

** I also reread To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens...both remain excellent, in my opinion.


SO-SO
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Dead Babies - Martin Amis
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut


WORST
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis

Couldn't Finish
2666 - Roberto Bolaño

[Slinkyboy]

Best and worst from the list in 2009

Top Five
The Black Dahlia
Never Let Me Go
Dracula
Cry, the Beloved Country
The Shipping News A Novel

Rock Bottom
Billy Budd, Sailor


Although, the Rock Bottom slot could arguably go to Walden, or Life in the Woods since I only managed about five chapters before deciding I would rather die than finish it.

[Gerald]

Charity wrote: "MY BEST/WORST of 2009
(alphabetical by author)

BEST
Emma - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen
The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain
A Chris ..." i>

The only way I finished 2666 was to skim/skip the part about the murders. The other parts I found okay but somewhat disjointed. I absolutely hated his Savage Detectives. I cannot understand his huge international reputation.
Gerry

[Charity]

The only way I finished 2666 was to skim/skip the part about the murders. The other parts I found okay but somewhat disjointed. I absolutely hated his Savage Detectives. I cannot understand his huge international reputation.
Gerry

LOL! See, I didn't even make it to the murders. I kept forcing myself to pick up the book each day and would find my mind starting to wander about halfway down the page. I would actually turn pages without even remembering anything that I'd read, so I'd have to keep starting over again. I decided that it just wasn't for me (at least, not right now) and moved on. :-)

[Connie]

Gerald wrote: "Charity wrote: "MY BEST/WORST of 2009
(alphabetical by author)

BEST
Emma - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen
The Postman Always Rings Twice - James..."

Gerry, I had to skim the last 200 pages or so of the book as well. Although I heard that Roberto Bolano had wanted this book to actually be released as 5 separate books, which I think would have been better. By the time I got to page 750 or so I couldn't wait to finish it and just ended up skimming that last part. I think it would have been better to have released as 5 separate books.

[Julie]

Connie wrote: Gerry, I had to skim the last 200 pages or so of the book as well. Although I heard that Roberto Bolano had wanted this book to actually be released as 5 separate books, which I think would have been better. By the time I got to page 750 or so I couldn't wait to finish it and just ended up skimming that last part. I think it would have been better to have released as 5 separate books. "

Splitting 2666 into 5 separate books would have made them shorter, but I can't imagine anyone liking that 4th book. It was filled with countless descriptions of all those murders. What was the purpose of describing so many victims? I kept on waiting for something to tie it all together or at least to feel that there was some reason for all those deaths but there didn't seem to be any solid conclusion. I would love to hear from someone who liked the book. What was the theme and what makes this book so highly acclaimed and 'list worthy'?

[Lauli]

Slinkyboy wrote: "Best and worst from the list in 2009

Top Five
The Black Dahlia
Never Let Me Go
Dracula
Cry, the Beloved Country
[book:The Shipping News A..."

So agree with you about Billy Budd! Bartleby should have made it to the list instead.

[Anthony]

Slinkyboy wrote: "Best and worst from the list in 2009

Top Five
The Black Dahlia


If you liked Dahlia, Slinky, try The Big Nowhere (Ellroy's next book). I think it's Ellroy's best novel.

Tony

[Susan]

Best in 2009:

The Blind Assassin
Choke
The Reader
The Black Dahlia
Animal Farm
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Worst:

Catch 22 (still reading it)
The Breast
The Cement Garden
Franny and Zooey
City of God

[Nicole]

My loved books from the list this year were:

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
The Plague - Albert Camus
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Everything That Rises Must Converge - Flannery O'Connor
The End of the Story - Lydia Davis
Don Quixote - Miguel Saavedra De Cervantes

My disliked/hated books:

Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Rebel - Albert Camus
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Slow Man - J.M. Coetzee
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

And may as well add the ones in between:

Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Watchmen - Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
Fear & Trembling - Amelie Nothomb

I'm excited to see what this year will bring!

[Chel]

My favorites read in 2009 include: The Reader, The English Patient, Time's Arrow, Pippi Longstocking, The Watchmen, Veronika Decides to Die, Silas Marner, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Things They Carried, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Schindler's List, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Aesop's Fables, The Handmaid's Tale, The Sound of Waves, A Clockwork Orange, The Enormous Room, The Invention of Curried Sausage, All the Pretty Horses, The Summer Book, Animal's People, and Dracula.

Other books definitely worth reading but not my favorites were: The Breakfast of Champions, King Solomon's Mines, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, The Call of the Wild, Around the World in 80 Days, Kitchen, A Modest Proposal, The Maltese Falcon, A Room With a View, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Pnin, Lolita, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Pricksongs and Descants, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

Books read in 2009 not worth reading were: Sabbath's Theater, The Dictionary of the Khazars, and Nightwood.