Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

A Gate at the Stairs. Could see why a lot of people don't like it, but still enjoyed it. A rather depressing storyline though.

Nicola wrote: "Diane wrote: "Nicola wrote: "Diane wrote: "Finished The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding. Another one of the bigger ones out of the way for me. This..."

Thanks!

Just finished Never Let Me Go and am feeling rather "meh" about it, to my surprise. My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It took me 2 weeks to read 196 pages. I will not be tackling anymore Joyce on the list for a while.

Karina wrote: "I just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It took me 2 weeks to read 196 pages. I will not be tackling anymore Joyce on the list for a while."


Nothing wrong with that, Karina. It can be annoying! Was it because the book was hard and heavy going? Or lack of time?
Some book I can read very quick but sometime, it's hard going like the one I am reading at the moment, Wild boys by William Burroughs. Not enjoying it! Then there is the really good books like George Orwell's novels , I want to take my time and savour it!

Rich wrote: "Karina wrote: "I just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It took me 2 weeks to read 196 pages. I will not be tackling anymore Joyce on the list for a while..."

The book was hard to follow and uninteresting. It had it moments, but then it would fall back to being unbearable. I had to read another book in-between to clear my head!

I just finished an old classic that I should have read in high school -- Great Expectations --the recorded audio book version was excellent.

Finished a reread of Dead Souls last night. Still one of my favourite Russian books, and one I'm sure I will go back to.

Linda wrote: "The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. A quite disturbing, unsettling read. Pushes the boundaries of what society would find normal when children are left to take care of thems..."

Amen to that!

David wrote: "Finished a reread of Dead Souls last night. Still one of my favourite Russian books, and one I'm sure I will go back to."

One of my favorites too, David!

Susan wrote: "I just finished an old classic that I should have read in high school -- Great Expectations --the recorded audio book version was excellent."

An all time fav!!!!

Aileen wrote: "Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes. Gave it 3/5 for the wonderful descriptions of 1950's London, but otherwise not keen."

Oh try to see the film version. I thought it was delightful -- different from the book, but so entertaining as a musical!

Ed wrote: "Finished Charlotte Bronte's Villette... not a fan of this work. Just too much....sometimes I wanted to shout "Just shut up...I get it already." and what's with all the passages in Fr..."

Know what you mean about this one, Ed. Still, I rather liked it...enough to finish it anyway.

Just finished "L'Abbe C" by Bataille. Didn't love it. Why are so many books on the list depressing and weird. Also read "River Between"loved it!

A Town Like Alice
Very enjoyable.

Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far.

Finished Père Goriot by Balzac this morning, my first foray into his works--and there sure are a lot of them! I enjoyed this look into Parisian society in 1819, and am looking forward to more of his work, especially the reoccurring character Vautrin!

I also recently finished Never Let Me Go. Though I liked Remains of the Day, this one left me feeling "meh". My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do :)

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0442632/

Judith wrote: "Aileen wrote: "Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes. Gave it 3/5 for the wonderful descriptions of 1950's London, but otherwise not keen."

Oh try to see the film version. I thought it was deligh..."

I will look out for the film, I hated reading Clockwork Orange but found the movie more accessible and I assumed this one would be similar.

Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do :)

http://m..."

I'll second that! I do like Dickens but I hate the way his 'heroines' are cut-and-paste paragons of beauty and virtue. And often spineless and stupid...

Good shows like the BBC's Bleak House get rid of that annoyance and make them 'real'.

Nicola wrote: "Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do..."

I've heard good things about it, but have been waiting to finish the book before I watch it.

David wrote: "Nicola wrote: "Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you haven't seen it, I highly r..."

Yeah it's wonderful! Jillian Anderson (Agent Scully from X-Files) has a lead role and does a fantastic job. So do the other actors. Really like the humble younger girl too, would like to see what other roles she's done.

Luís wrote: "I finished on September 19Th my 52nd 1001-list-book shelf.. - The Fall of The House of Usher by Poe."

Oh that's a great one! If you like Poe's short stories then you might also like Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories. Different style but eerie as well. I'm not a big fan of The Scarlet Letter, but I LOVE his short stories. If you like Poe's style, Dostoevsky is a bit similar, in how unsettling and suspenseful of a read it is. Crime and Punishment is my favorite.

Oh good! I have The Celestial Railroad and other stories, by Hawthorne, and that's a good one, but any book with his short stories is good :) Young Goodman Brown Is another.

I just finished Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

I had a hard times in parts of this novel, I am not a big fan of that narrative style so part of it I was very disinterested and had to force myself to push through it. I get that this would have been an extremely poignant and controversial political, religious and socio-economic commentary at the time but as a modern reader it was just drudgery getting through the homeland recaps he did in each chapter. I did appreciate the last chapter of about 5 pages where some statements are viable today in our war obsessed societies.

Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Nicola wrote: "Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you haven't seen ..."

She's in North and South for one (another really good BBC production)

Just wrapped up Out of Africa by Karen Blixen. I thought it was great, and although I was braced for outrageous racism and whatnot due the time and the author I was very pleasantly surprised.

As a slice of Africa from around the war as seen through a semi-outsiders eyes I can't see how it could have been much improved on.

Just finished War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. And I was even more surprised to see how well the movie that starred Tom Cruise, stayed true to the original novel (albeit, with updates but nonetheless, very close).

Anna wrote: "Really like the humble younger girl too, would like to see what other roles she's done."

Her name is Anna Maxwell Martin. As well as North and South, which Nicola mentioned, she is also in TV adaptations of The Night Watch, Poppy Shakespeare, Death Comes to Pemberley (she played Lizzie) and South Riding. She also played one of the lead roles in The Bletchley Circle.

I've never been disappointed in any of her performances.

Just finished Snow by Orhan Pamuk.
A good book. Very important topics.
But the rest I found really long-winded and dull.
I didn't really like any of the characters.

Pigletto wrote: "Anna wrote: "Really like the humble younger girl too, would like to see what other roles she's done."

Her name is Anna Maxwell Martin. As well as North and South, which Nicola mentioned, she is al..."

Wow thank you for letting me know! I really like her, and will check those out :)

Nicola wrote: "Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Nicola wrote: "Anna wrote: "David wrote: "Bleak House. My favourite Dickens out of those I've read so far."

The BBC mini-series is excellent too! If you ..."

Thank you! I liked Little Dorrit as well. Also BBC.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood-found a copy of it for $3 at a second hand bookstore & couldn't pass it up :) While I think it's passing sad that Dickens never had a chance to finish it before he died, I actually think that makes it BETTER, because everyone can pretty much write their own ending in their heads!

Read " The Ravishing of Lol Stein", difficult for me to imagine a real woman like Lol. The writing is excellent but the story drags.

fall of the house of usher. good story but I am glad I read it on kindle for the dictionary!

The Invisible Man. This was my first H.G. Wells book and I loved it. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Edward Hardwicke (the 2nd Dr Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes) and he was an excellent narrator.

Tom wrote: "fall of the house of usher. good story but I am glad I read it on kindle for the dictionary!"

I love this one!

Paradise of the Blind - I got a bit ahead of myself for my LibraryThing October group read. It's my first Vietnam novel and I was looking for parallels between this and Wild Swans; in this book at least the Vietnamese are much more admirable than the Mao communists.

It's a very short book, rather simplistic and immature in its writing, I wasn't surprised to read afterwards that the author was quite young at time of writing. But it was enjoyable and not particularly depressing or 'heavy'.

Tom wrote: "fall of the house of usher. good story but I am glad I read it on kindle for the dictionary!"

Hah, yes, I haven't thought about it like that but there are a few books where a quick reference to a dictionary without breaking the flow of the prose would be handy. The Street of Crocodiles for one!

Just finished Mrs. Dalloway...it was interesting, once I realized this was all supposed to have been set in a one day time frame. However, I don't think that the whole sideline with the guy who was in the war, went nuts & threw himself out of a window had ANYTHING to do with the real storyline. I also got the impression that the main characters were inherently unhappy with the choices they made years before that led them to where they were that day.

Lisa wrote: "Just finished Mrs. Dalloway...it was interesting, once I realized this was all supposed to have been set in a one day time frame. However, I don't think that the whole sideline with t..."

I thought it pretty much had everything to do with it. The world was unfeeling.

Lisa wrote: "Just finished Mrs. Dalloway...it was interesting, once I realized this was all supposed to have been set in a one day time frame. However, I don't think that the whole sideline with t..."

That's on my list as it's the upcoming Group Read. I'll keep your comments in mind and see if I feel the same way about Mr Window throwing man.

Ten recent reads:

Frankenstein, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Vernon God Little, Nervous Conditions, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Devil and Miss Prym, North and South, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Cranford and The Master of Ballantrae

I, Robot by Issac Asimov.

I thought it was good, nice introduction and set up for the rest of the series that I now want to read. It is kind of a prequel which is slightly confusing because the only book at the store was the one with the movie cover with Will Smith on it and i kept thinking "where's this detective?" but it all happens in the next book which I look forward to.

Thousand Cranes & Life of Pi (my first audio book). Thousand Cranes was a short little novel, full of subtext and ceremonial objects laden with deeper meanings.

Lots was said, lots more was unsaid and even more was conveyed by things which couldn't ever speak.

Life of Pi was just fabulous, best new book I've 'read' in a while. Full of humour, sadness, interesting animal anecdotes, and, if you're interested in that sort of thing, spirituality and discussions about god/s. My only gripe is that Yann Martel apparently doesn't know what 'Agnostic' means. Or if he does, he doesn't display this in this book.

Cracking read and a great ending.

Just finished Chess Story by Stefan Zweig. Very short (81 pages) and pretty gripping too, especially surprising to me since it's about...CHESS. I recently saw the film Hotel Budapest, which director Wes Anderson said he based on various writings of Stefan Zweig, so I was eager to read something by him. While this story had nothing to to with the movie, there is a certain similarity in the general ambiance of both (a weird blend of quirk, harrowing, and cute. You know what I mean.)

"The Collector" by John Fowles. He attempted quite successfully to get into the minds of both characters. There was also a great, appropriate sense of claustrophobia and foreboding. Yet I still found myself bored by this pretty short book.

Wendy wrote: "a weird blend of quirk, harrowing, and cute."

I completely understand what you mean. Chess is the only book by Zweig I've read, but it is brilliant. I really could do with checking out some more of his books. Haven't come across Hotel Budapest but may have to add to to my watch list, as it sounds like a film I would enjoy.

The Cement Garden and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

The first was on audio book and a real change from Life of Pi. It was quite short and rather disturbing.

A Short History was its antithesis A delightful little read even if some of the characters behaviour exasperated me at times.

Finally finished up The New York Trilogy. It’s been dragging around in my handbag for a while as it was a bit of a tedious read. A shame really. I loved the start and quite enjoyed the ending but the middle story, especially the 2nd story Ghosts, rather ground me down. I just got sick of it. The main theme of the book/s (City of Glass/Ghost/The Locked Room) was identity or the lack of it. People changed, merged, substituted themselves; In Ghosts they mostly didn’t have real names at all but were Mr White, Mr Black, Mr Blue, Mr Green. The idea was interesting but I’m a girl that likes a point in what I read and these stories all went nowhere. I suppose you could say the lack of point was the point but I thought it was rather like opening an intricately wrapped present, spending ages on it because whoever had wrapped it had taken so much trouble with it you don’t want to rip the paper or tear any bow, and then, once you’ve gone to all that trouble, the box turns out to be empty. And the same thing for the next two. In retrospect the names of the stories were what gave the most information, otherwise the stories themselves were rather a torturous exercise in futilely chasing your own tail.

Eventually I just stopped really caring. I wasn’t going to get what I wanted so I wasn’t going to waste emotional investment. I just read it and put it away.

Interesting enough on a certain level I suppose but not really my cup of tea.