Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels discussion
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How many of the LIST books have you read?
Bryan wrote: "Only a few for me this month:Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melvil..."
I'm so glad you enjoyed Moby Dick. It wasn't for me at all. Although it got off to a promising start and the descriptive prose was often startlingly beautiful I just don't care about whaling and whaling ships so once they got on the boat it was one giant snooze for me zzzzzzzz.
How was Chronicle in Stone?
I've slowed down now we are back at school and work is cranking up for the Christmas Season.I read:
Disgrace
Affinity
What a Carve Up!
Flowers for Algernon
The Graduate
Native Son
The Last September (it had to be done this month!)
Discworld:
Guards! Guards!
Moving Pictures
Mod
Blood Meridian McCarthy, Cormac - 3
Wise Children Carter, Angela - 3.5
Home and the World, The Tagore, Rabindranath - 4
Gorky Park Smith, Martin Cruz - 3.5
Return Of The Soldier, The West, Rebecca - 3
Sword In The Stone, The White, T. H. - 2.5
Brothers Karamazov, The Dostoevsky, Fyodor - DNF
Cryptonomicon Stephenson, Neal - 5
1984 Orwell, George - 3.5
making 276 and counting...
plus 1 re-read
Cold Comfort Farm Gibbons, Stella - 4
plus my single major candidate for Books That Ought To Be In The G1000 (might start a separate thread!):
Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy - 5, 5 and 5!
Fay wrote: "How was Chronicle in Stone? ..."I'm afraid I wanted to like it better than I did. I may have been the victim of overly high expectations. I liked it okay--gave it a 3.
I had tried reading Moby Dick years ago and had the same kind of reaction you describe. The Classics and Western Canon group read it this month and that helped me get through it--but even apart from that, I had a lot different experience with it this time. Yes, there were still a couple of spots that dragged, but overall I thought it was great.
Oh it's been a poor list month for me:The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis
Candide
Look at Me
Gilead
Great Expectations
The Maltese Falcon
And Discworld:
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Small Gods
Lords and Ladies
Which puts me at 213 :-)
Mod
Under The Volcano Lowry, Malcolm - 4.5
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy le Carré, John - 5
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Chabon, Michael - 2
Look At Me Brookner, Anita - 4
Evelina Burney, Fanny - 4
Secret History, The Tartt, Donna - 2
Tales Of The City Maupin, Armistead - 4.5
Everything Is Illuminated Foer, Jonathan Safran - 4
Grass is Singing, The Lessing, Doris - 4
Portnoy's Complaint Roth, Philip - 4
making 286 - should reach 300 before end of year!
also read another surprising omission from the G1000, namely:
Beowulf anon (Seamus Heaney translation) - 4
Just 8 this month but I'm making considerable progress on some of the bundle ones. That now puts me at 221This month I read:
Goodbye to Berlin
The Crow Road
The Left Hand of Darkness
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Old Man and the Sea
A Fairy Tale of New York
Camp Concentration
Discworld:
Soul Music
Interesting Times
Maskerade
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
A Dance to the Music of Time - First Movement
Mod
Captain Blood Sabatini, Rafael - 3.5
Candide Voltaire - 3.5
Man Who Loved Children, The Stead, Christina - 2.5
Love in a Cold Climate Mitford, Nancy - 3.5
Virginian, The: A Horseman Of The Plains Wister, Owen - 3
Great Impersonation, The Oppenheim, E. Phillips - 3.5
Famished Road, The Okri, Ben - 3.5
Prayer For Owen Meany, A Irving, John - DNF
high point of month was a re-read:
Voyage To Arcturus, A Lindsay, David - 5
Total is now 294 and have 6 or 7 more planned before end of year so should be photo-finish wrt The Big 300!
A Slow month for December as I kept getting distracted by the awful "Christmas" themed romances (and I'm only a little ashamed ;-) ) Now on 228. I am going to make an effort to crack 300 in 2019.I read:
A Lost Lady
Travels With my Aunt
The Valley of Bones
The Soldier's Art
The Military Philosophers
Microserfs
Consider Phlebas
Dance to the Music of Time - Second and Third Movements
Mod
Plus one more yesterday, making 8 more since last time
those books in full:
Microserfs Coupland, Douglas - 4.5
Travels With My Aunt Greene, Graham - 3.5
First Love Turgenev, Ivan - 3.5
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick, Philip K. - 4.5
Secret Agent, The Conrad, Joseph - 3.5
Big Nowhere, The Ellroy, James - 3.5
Zazie In The Metro Queneau, Raymond - 4
One Of Ours Cather, Willa - 3.5
making 302 total
oh, and one of the "Ones That Got Away" list which doesn't count officially, but is worth a mention cos it was amazing:
Killer Angels, The Shaara, Michael - 4.5
I have just looked at my planned reads for January, and they are almost all G1000, so should hopefully manage at least 10 more this month! :oD
I'm simply in awe of how anyone can read 10 books in one month. I'm doing well if I manage 5
A Dark- Adapted EyeA Dance to the Music of Time (that's right, all 12!!!!)
A Glastonbury Romance
A Fine Balance
A Legacy
A Long Long Way
One of Ours
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
A Month in the Country
Things Fall Apart
Discworld:
Jingo
The Last Continent
The Human Comedy:
At The Sign of The Cat and Racket
The Ball at Sceaux
Putting me at 237 little checks :-)
Is there a way to view a list of the books you checked off, on The Guardian's site? Or only if you are a subscriber, maybe?Anyway, I read 60 :
Score: 60 of 1000 (6%) Rank: #13,025 of 27,194 users (top 48%)
Another 940 to go! :p
Mod
@ MKThere is a website that has the Guardian list of books (and a ton of other lists) arranged in a format where you can check off the ones you’ve read. I’m on vacation and away from my computer—all I have is my phone, so I don’t know if I can provide a link or not. I typed in ‘list challenges’ into Safari and into google, and the site I’m talking about was the first one to pop up on both searches. When you load the site, type ‘Guardian’ into the search box and you should find the list. You have to create an account to save your lists, but I haven’t ever had any unsolicited emails from them or anything and I’ve been using it for over a year. I like that site because they have a lot of book lists you can look through, and check off what you’ve read
Thankyou, Brian :).I'll check it out when next I'm back. Can't go look right now. Appreciate it!
MK wrote: "Is there a way to view a list of the books you checked off, on The Guardian's site? Or only if you are a subscriber, maybe?Anyway, I read 60 :
Score: 60 of 1000 (6%) Rank: #13,025 of 27,194 user..."
Hey - I remeber doing the checklist the first time in August 2017 and been appalled I'd only read around 60 or 70 of The List.
Here's the link for the List Challanges interactive checklist Bryan mentions https://www.listchallenges.com/guardi...
Darren wrote: "Fay - how was A Glastonbury Romance? it's nearing the top of my pile and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not!"Hmmmmm. What to say, what to say!
Firstly that it is definitely a Masterpiece with a capital M. It's the first British novel I've read that put me so much in mind of the Great Russians. It is epic in its cast of interconnected characters and familal ties. The plotline follows the lives and loves of some of the inhabitants of Glastonbury throughout a year with an overreaching political arc about how the town is run fianancially and spiritaully/religiously.
The prose is oft times poetical in it's descriptions and there are huge portions of metaphysical and esotoric musings with emphasis on Christianity and the story of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. These philosophical musings which vary as much as the characters are what puts the book into the Sci/Fi and Fantasy genre rather than Love or State of the Nation. The only Fantasy elements of the novel are that characters are "guided by the First Cause", or "reviled by the Sun". I tend not to read about the history of a book before I start it so I spent the first 300 pages or so waiting for an epic quest for the Grail to start (I was sadly disappointed.)
There is a lot of forward thinking in terms of sexuality, even by the standards of today with polygamy, homosexuality, prostitution, extramarital offspring, and tendancies towards sexual violence all been treated in the same way. Although the poloitics, mysticism and sexuality of all the characters differ, the author very skillfully manages to never cast any judgement on any of them and skillfully manages the reader into taking the part of whichever character is in the forefront of the narrative at the time.
So it is a "Masterpiece". But was it enjoyable to read? Well in parts. I have to admit some of the sexual elements intrigued me and I was fascinated by the sociological aspects of the story but it is HUGE and sometimes 5 pages of metaphysical ramblings in dense text made my mind wander. I'm glad I read it. It will stay with me a while in a way that more "enjoyable" or "easier" to read books tend not to but it did take an awful lot of commitment to keep going with it to the end.
I wish you all the best with this endeavour whenever any of you come to read it and I can't wait to hear what other people thought.
Mod
MK - as I said back in Message#33 there are also seven separate Listopia lists for the books by category
meanwhile...
I have read 11 more since last report, namely:
To Each His Own Sciascia, Leonardo - compelling - 4
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Kesey, Ken - as per movie - 4
Lucky Jim Amis, Kingsley - hilarious - 4
Samarkand Maalouf, Amin - educational - 3.5
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, The (aka Epitaph Of A Small Winner) Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria - disappointing - 2.5
Magus, The Fowles, John - dnf
Red Badge Of Courage, The Crane, Stephen - immersive - 3.5
Postman Always Rings Twice, The Cain, James M. - overwrought - 3.5
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning Sillitoe, Alan - superb - 5
Crab With The Golden Claws, The (Tintin#09) Herge - fun - 3
Breathing Lessons Tyler, Anne - dnf
making 313 total
and another of the "Ones That Got Away" list:
Tale Of Genji, The Shikibu, Murasaki - masterpiece - 5
Fay wrote: "MK wrote: "Is there a way to view a list of the books you checked off, on The Guardian's site? Or only if you are a subscriber, maybe?Anyway, I read 60 :
Score: 60 of 1000 (6%) Rank: #13,025 of ..."
Thankyou, Fay!
And Darren :)
I haven't forgotten, Brian, I just haven't had time to return to do the list again. Hopefully tomorrow :).
I keep getting lost clicking around on Goodreads, and end up using up all my time :p
PS - Fay, I was glad to see someone else had only 2 digits (well, you don't now, but you did when you started :D ). TY !
TY everyone who helped me with list link. It ended up saving ^-^.Appreciate the help!
Short list this month, but then it is the shortest month......Vanity Fair
The Asphalt Jungle
We
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Amongst Women
Discworld:
Carpe Jugulum
The Fifth Elephant
The Truth
The Human Comedy:
Letters of Two Brides
That puts me at 242 (and now seriously lagging behind Darren).
Everything else I read this month was pure trash (in the sense that it could never be classed as literature, not that it was really really bad;-)
Mod
I have bagged only 5 more myself, namely:
Month In The Country, A Carr, J. L. - perfect mini-masterpiece - 5
Debt To Pleasure, The Lanchester, John - hilarious/unusual - 4.5
Bell Jar, The Plath, Sylvia - astounding Classic - 5
Liaisons Dangereuses, Les Choderlos de Laclos, Pierre - remarkable Classic - 4
Asphalt Jungle, The Burnett, W. R. - accomplished noir - 4.5
making total of 318
plus one more "OTGA":
White Guard, The Bulgakov, Mikhail - superb historical - 8
Darren, are you marking your "ones that got away" out of ten, rather than five, or is the Bulgakov a remarkable 8 out of 5? :D
Would it be appropriate to recommend another book, one which I haven’t seen mentioned? If so, I would like to name Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire. Has anyone else read it?
This month was a great month for "list" books. I've really enjoyed most of them rather that suffered through them ;-)I read:
American Pastoral
Vilette
Oranges are not the Only Fruit
Under the Volcano
Breakfast of Champions
Deliverance
The Tortoise and the Hare
Death in Venice
Discworld:
Thief of Time
The Last Hero
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
City Watch
The Wee Free Men
The Human Comedy:
The Purse
So I am now exactly a quarter of the way through on 250 - yay!
Mod
I also had a good month, with 10 (TEN!) more G1000 completed:
Effi Briest Fontane, Theodor - started meh/finished ok - 2.5
Count Belisarius Graves, Robert - historically enjoyable - 4
Excellent Women Pym, Barbara - excellent(!) - 4
When The Wind Blows Briggs, Raymond - funny/scary - 4
Lord Of The Rings, The Tolkein, J. R. R. - masterpiece (obvs) - 5
Death In Venice Mann, Thomas - superbly written - 4
Amongst Women McGahern, John - annoying - 3
Good Soldier, The Ford, Ford Madox - amazing style - 4
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Winterson, Jeanette - superb on many levels - 5
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There Carroll, Lewis - nonsense - 2
making a total of 328
plus 1 more "OTGA":
Wave Theory of Angels, The Macleod, Alison - unusual & intriguing - 4
The monthly "Weigh-In"!I had a decent month with 12 more off the list. They were:
Blindness
I Served the King of England
Day of the Triffids
Pale Fire
Non-Stop
Tintin in Tibet
Hyperion
My Family and Other Animals
The Idiot
The English Patient
The Castafiore Emerald
The Crab with the Golden Claws
Plus Discworld:
Monstrous Regiment
A Hat Full of Sky
Going Postal
Thud!
What did you think about I Served the King of England?
Completely ambivalent really. I liked the section about the millionaires in their camp but to be honest it was pretty much instantly forgettable. Have you read it? What did you think?
Fay wrote: "Completely ambivalent really. I liked the section about the millionaires in their camp but to be honest it was pretty much instantly forgettable. Have you read it? What did you think?"No--It's on my shelves though. I had a book of his short stories I read a few years ago, and I was pretty ambivalent about those, which didn't make me in a hurry to read the novel. If you'd said you thought it was fantastic, I might have moved it up my TBR list, but now I'll probably let it sit until it comes up on a group read someday, or by chance some other way. I'll get to it, but I'm not in a hurry--I've got tons of stuff to read yet
Definitely read other things first. Save it for a quick read when you’re in a reading slump sometime
Mod
April saw another 8 bagged from the G1000 List:
Man In The High Castle, The Dick, Philip K. - bit of a mess - 2
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale Spiegelman, Art - honest and chilling - 4
Red Dragon Harris, Thomas - influential superior best-seller - 4
Blindness Saramago, Jose - expected more - 3
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Twain, Mark - disappointing - 2
Vurt Noon, Jeff - amazing - 5
The Unfortunates Johnson, B. S. - surprisingly coherent/satisfying - 4
Guns Of Navarone, The MacLean, Alistair - best-sellery as expected 3
making a total of 336
Hey - this is an exciting check in for me because according to Goodreads I completed my first book from The List 7th June 2017.Since then my reading habits have completely changed and I am loving even the ones I hate. I reached 270 this month which considering I started at around 70 isn't too shabby for 2 years work, especially considering I only got "one point" for the whole of the Earthsea Saga, the LOTR trilogy, Dance to the Music of Time and haven't yet earned my Discworld point even though I've read 40 of them.
How is everyone else doing?
This months offerings are:
Red Harvest
A Thousand Acres
Fahrenheit 451
The Corrections
When the Wind Blows
Asterix the Gaul
Schindler's Ark
The Mill on the Foss
Discworld:
Wintersmith
Making Money
Unseen Academicals
I Shall Wear Midnight
Snuff
Raising Steam
The Human Comedy:
Modeste Mignon
I'm already impressed with your Discworld reading, but if you get all the way through Balzac's Human Comedy, I'll call you Queen of the List.I'm not very dedicated--I read a lot of different things, though probable 80-90% of my fiction reads come from one of the various lists I follow, including this one and Boxall's. So far, on the Guardian list, I'm hovering around 229, and won't get to any others till the last half of this month.
Mod
I have a more laissez faire attitude than you - I'm happy to count titles as soon as I've done one from a series, or even if I DNF!
speaking of which, I had my most DNF's in a month in May with three!
you will see them among my 8 more added:
The Buddha of Suburbia - good, but bit pointless - 3.5
And Then There Were None - classic - 4
Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) - overblown - DNF
Fatherland - flawless thriller - 5
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - good fun - 4
Infinite Jest - overblown - DNF
The Talented Mr Ripley - entertaining - 4
Pale Fire - annoying/impenetrable - DNF
making total of 344
also an "OTGA":
Phantom Lady - disappointingly "procedural" - 2.5
Bryan wrote: "I'm already impressed with your Discworld reading, but if you get all the way through Balzac's Human Comedy, I'll call you Queen of the List.I'm not very dedicated--I read a lot of different thin..."
I read other stuff too but it's mostly trash as a relief from hardcore List books.
Start planning my coronation, I am determined to finish it!!
Darren wrote: "Well Done Fay! I have a more laissez faire attitude than you - I'm happy to count titles as soon as I've done one from a series, or even if I DNF!
speaking of which, I had my most DNF's in a mon..."
I know I'm a real pedant about it. Your attitude is much healthier lol!
How bad was Infinite Jest? I am almost ready to read it. Do I need to line up a load of trash for afterwards if it's hard going?
Mod
Okay - I'm joining in this.According to the tickbox list, I've now (as of June 4) read 237 from the list (although a few of the big books were undertaken when I had a lot more time).
In May I've added:
Invisible Cities
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Solaris
Tintin in Tibet
Amongst Women
and The Talented Mr Ripley
And reread:
Under the Volcano
and Death in Venice.
Infinite Jest has some really, really effective writing in it, and some really sophomoric humor/plot lines. I enjoyed it more than not when I read it, but it seems like such a part of the time it was written that I don't know how relevant it is, even just a few decades after it was written. I agree with Darren--if it's not doing it for you in the first half, you can probably shed yourself of it without too much harm. There are two main storylines--that of the young tennis player, and the former addict Don Gately. The Don Gately sections make the book worthwhile, in my mind.
The only Guardian list book I read in May was The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, which I thought was excellent
June write up:I'm up to 244 according to the check list
Only brand new read was Giovanni's Room
Re-reads for:
At Swim Two Birds
The Wasp Factory
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Plus I added #14 and 15 to my HUman Comedy total:
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
El Verdugo.
Plus -I restarted my Shakespeare in rough writing order with Midsummer Night's Dream
My other triumph this month was adding a Human Comedy checklist to the List Challenges site
I use that list challenges site all the time. I'll have to check out you H.C. list--I think I've read 2.
Phil wrote: "June write up:I'm up to 244 according to the check list
Only brand new read was Giovanni's Room
Re-reads for:
At Swim Two Birds
The Wasp Factory
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Plus I a..."
We need the link to the HC list please :-)
Made it to 282 and finally got that Discworld check! Felt a little bereft without an ongoing series in my life though so started a trash one called The Hollows and I love it a lot more than The Human Comedy lol!Giovanni's Room
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The Discworld Series
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Zuleika Dobson
Foucault's Pendulum
Fingersmith
The Death of the Heart
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Mrs Dalloway
The Invisible Man
A Far Cry From Kensington
The Human Comedy:
A Start in Life
Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels
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Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville (finishing up the essays in the back of the Norton Critical Edition)
and
about half way through The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
I'm pretty happy to have finally got to Moby-Dick. Not only did I really enjoy it, but I have that feeling of striking off one item on my bucket list. MD is truly one of those 'read before you die' books.