Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion
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Which LIST book did you just finish?
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Kate
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Jan 12, 2012 01:35PM
Just finished Les liaisons dangereuses. Great characterization, excellent writing, but still my heart felt like it was dying inside for every page of it that I read for the utter lack of point of it and any characters the reader cares about!
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The Scarlet Letter -HawthorneDid not have high expectations for this (maybe due to the required reading of it in High School). I also enjoyed it immensely more than the first time. Hawthorne's prose is beautiful and obviously very symbolic. Very much looking forward to his other works on the list.
Just finished Remains of the Day. I hardly remember the details of the movie, but think I never shall forget the book. I just loved it and am thrilled there are four more Ishiguro novels to look forward to on the List.
Mother's Milk by Edward St.Aubyn.Oh, precocious kids and dysfunctional parents! Don't you just love them?
Just finished The Fall of the House of Usher, don't know why I never read it before. VERY creepy, & in classic Poe fashion, it keeps you in suspense & glued to the page!
Just finished Under the Net, it was a great read! I found it paralleling other things I've read recently or been working through in my own life. Had I read this book before now, I'm not sure I would have appreciated Iris Murdoch's writing quite as much. However, finishing her first novel was like finishing a delicious meal that I'd never before tried. Good stuff!
Finished "The Two Towers". I personally enjoyed the first book much much more. Sam and Frodo's relationship made me a little uncomfortable and I never thought I would say this, but THANK GOD for the presence of Gollum. Phew.I need a break from LOTR before I tackle "The Return of the King"
Just finished Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace. I did not love it and now to find out what happens in this crime I will have to back track to nineteen-seventy-four and read the other two!
Finished A Heart So White by Marias, a book which comes with a large hook at the beginning. Left me with a need to answer the question Why?. Interesting how Marias writes about famillies and the secrets one generation has from the next.1974, 77, etc are all quite disturbing and the whole back drop of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper helps to secure the books in the time frame.
If anyone is looking to polish off a List "book" in an hour or so, I can highly recommend The Yellow Wallpaper, which I just finished. I thought it was a ton of fun, sort of like a Poe horror story, if Poe was dripping with irony and a woman.
I have most of the Poe tales to knock off. Just finished:The Purloined Letter (list), as well as the non list Poe tales, some of which I've never even heard of:
The Oval Portrait
Hop Frog
MS Found In A Bottle
The Cask of Amontillado
The Masque of the Red Death
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Currently reading Poe tales, all off list, but some that should be in my NOT so humble opinion:
Ligeia
The Tell Tale Heart
The Gold Bug
The Black Cat
A Descent Into the Maelstrom
William Wilson
The Man That Was Used Up
and finally
Eleonora
Nicole wrote: "Finished Clarissa - all 9 volumes - earlier this week. Ugh."So you didn't like it?:) I thought the writing and story were interesting but it was way too long.
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch. She said in one of her interviews that "The aim of literature is to mystify." I think that pretty much sums this book up.
Smilla's Sense of Snow. I really wanted to like this...but it left me cold (teehee). Found it a bit tedious and unrealistic (which fiction, of course, often is - but this one seemed like it was trying to be realistic and failing).
Finihed The Guermantes way, I've got Sodom and Gomorrah on the shelf and the library have the 5/6 book of In Search of Lost Time available. Really enjoying Proust, very easy to get lost in his writing. Have a couple of books to read before S&G.Bucket how are you getting on with Proust.
It's been a while since I've updated the books I read from the list but it looks like the last book I read from it was H.G. Wells's The Time Machine
Judith wrote: "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - MurakamiWild from start to finish!"
It's really made me a Murakami fan, and I haven't even read his other books yet!
Recently finished The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy, a well-written book portraying a working-class family in Montreal in the early 40s and the hard choices they must make to keep body and soul together. While not earth-shattering, there is something about the writing that made me see poverty in a new way, made it more modern and more real, yet without showing it as completely squalid and hopeless.
Fathers and Sons, which grew on me as I turned the pages, getting better as I neared the end.my review
Hi Deanne! I'm still reading In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (I'm much slower than you!) but I'm more than halfway through.I enjoyed Swann's Way a little bit more so far. I've enjoyed the last 100ish pages of book 2 (since the narrator's trip to Balbec began) but I found the earlier 1/4 of the book a little tedious.
The Satanic Verses bySalman Rushdie. I admit a fairly high degree of confusion in trying to get through this one. Usually love Rushdie. This one might be better the second time through when all threads are already in my head and I can focus.
The Things They Carried. I'd read the first section excerpted many times and loved it but had never dug into the whole book. It was not only one of the best books from this list-which also contains my top two favorites of all time Infinite Jest and Catch-22-but it was one of the best books I've ever read. Absolutely essential reading.
Their Eyes Were Watching God - loved it! Thank goodness Hurston and this book were not left in obscurity.
The Red Room by August StrindbergAlways cynical, often funny and occasionally profound.
I really liked this "first Swedish novel".
Nicholas Nickelby -DickensOne of the longer ones. But oh so good!
Overall, much better than Oliver Twist (still really like that one--just did not seem as completely developed as Nickelby).
I just finished re-reading both the great gatsby and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Somehow I still could not care about any of the characters in gatsby. I wish I liked this one more.
Curious incident was a quick read and still charming.
The Maltese Falcon - HammettI know of three versions of this novel done in film, none of them as good as the book!
Vanessa wrote: "I just finished re-reading both the great gatsby and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Somehow I still could not care about any of the characters in gatsby. I wish I liked this o..."
I completely agree with both of those reviews :)
It's a nice snowy day out here in Rhode Island. Just read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn't love the novel but it was light enough that I didn't feel like I was suffering through it.
SPOILERS!!!! I don't know how to flag it officially or hide this. SPOILERS!!!!I finally finished Anna Karenina, thank goodness. Levin was probably my favorite character. By the end, as terrible as it seems, I was almost happy that Anna jumped under the train just so I didn't have to listen to her whining anymore.
Melissa wrote: "SPOILERS!!!! I don't know how to flag it officially or hide this. SPOILERS!!!!Start with <-spoiler> (excluding the dash) and end with -spoiler> (again excluding the dash).
Just finished Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster, an author whom I had not previously heard of. The blurb did not seem to appealing but in the end I rather enjoyed it.
Karina wrote: "It's a nice snowy day out here in Rhode Island. Just read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn't love the novel but it was light enough that I didn't feel like I was suf..."You must be from around Foster/Glocester... I never get why The Namesake is on the list when Interpreter of Maladies isn't. I liked the latter much better, and it is the one that won the Pulitzer. Still glad to have a fellow SK person on the 1001 list, even if it isn't for her best work...
I finished reading Vanity Fair over the weekend. Pretty good, filled with characters one absolutely loves to hate.
I think I forgot to say I finished The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. I wrote a review. Short version: EWWW, but still glad I read it. Just finishing up The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Just finished Cat's Eye which I found, like most of Atwood's books, to be very thought provoking. Somehow I tend to look at myself and the world around me with different eyes. Very good.
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