Okay, I'm going to run through these by section;

2000s -
1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo

I haven't read very many of these yet - I do prefer my older classics. However Never let me Go is amazing - it should never have been cut off the second edition. Everyone I know who has read this has cried - it is that beautifully and emotively written.

95. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
97. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
136. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
137. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
149. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
175. Wise Children – Angela Carter
192. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
211. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
212. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
215. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
225. Beloved – Toni Morrison
229. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
230. The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
232. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
234. Foe – J.M. Coetzee
238. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
239. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
244. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
245. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
250. Legend – David Gemmell
269. The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
276. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
303. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
322. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
369. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
381. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
392. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
401. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
411. The Magus – John Fowles
413. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
415. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
417. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
435. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
439. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
452. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
453. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
458. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
472. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
483. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
486. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
492. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
496. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
497. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
498. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
510. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
516. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
520. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
523. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
529. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
531. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
539. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
540. The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
541. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
549. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
563. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
566. Animal Farm – George Orwell
576. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
603. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
605. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
610. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
612. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
621. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
622. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
633. Burmese Days – George Orwell
651. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
652. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
658. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
664. Passing – Nella Larsen
673. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
683. Quicksand – Nella Larsen
688. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
700. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
701. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
710. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
713. Cane – Jean Toomer
724. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
729. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
745. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
749. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
756. Howards End – E.M. Forster
761. Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
763. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster

Okay - I've definitly read a few more of the 1900's!

I actually love a lot of the books on this lis t- I read the Sinclair Lewis and George Orwell novels recently and became really engrossed in them. I am also a big Fantasy/Sci Fi fan so a lot on this list appeals to me - plus my husband is a comic boko fan so he is very happy that Watchmen made it's way on to here.

Despite being giddy about the majority of these there are a few downers - Fantasy i may love, but Mervyn Peake I hated - it was very long hard struggle. On the Road I also had massive problems with - after discussion with friends we've decided that you have to read this before a certain age - I was about 24 which is too old and I therefore loathed it.

One final comment to say the The Diary of Jane Somers is an amazing read - once again it is an outrage that it got removed in the second edition. It is exquisitly written and the characters are heartbreakingly real.

And so to the 1800s...

793. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
794. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
795. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
798. Dracula – Bram Stoker
800. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
801. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
806. Born in Exile – George Gissing
807. Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
810. New Grub Street – George Gissing
812. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
824. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
829. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
835. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
844. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
850. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
852. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
857. Middlemarch – George Eliot
858. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
867. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
870. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
872. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
876. The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
880. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
884. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
891. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
895. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
902. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
904. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
906. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
908. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
909. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
910. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
912. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
917. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
922. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
930. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
935. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
936. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
937. Persuasion – Jane Austen
940. Emma – Jane Austen
941. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
942. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
943. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
944. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

Controversially I think this is my favourite century for literature. I love the gothic novels - there are a lot of the 1700 ones on my TBR list.

I read the Gissing novels recently and was pleasantly surprised - not much actually happens but they are worth a read! I also recently read The Woman in White and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner both of which are gothic and both of which are excellent. Justified sinner is a quirky blend of narratives from different view points and the evil protaganist is wonderfully, well, evil is the only word I guess!

ALso slightly controversial - I loved Dumas and despised The Water Babies.

Denne beskjeden har blitt redigert av forfatteren, apr 29, 2009, 5:51am.

1700s...

952. The Monk – M.G. Lewis
962. Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
980. Fanny Hill – John Cleland
989. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
993. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Hmmm must read more of these! The Monk is a MUST read - it is brilliant. Fanny Hill is naughty (blush) and Dangerous Liaisons is hard work once you get to the middle section.

Pre 1700 I have only read Aesop’s Fables which is very enjoyable and full of handy comments on the present day.

So that's all of them so far. Not so bad, not so good. Will keep posting - apologies if I am boring the socks of anyone (feel free to tell me to shut up).

Since when could talking about books be boring???????

Can't wait to see what you are reading next :0)

Am currently reading James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and finding it an uphill struggle. Sigh... I kinda think you need to be able to speak Latin to understand half of it!

I did start Amsterdam by Ian McEwan last night - so far so good.

BekkaJo, you're not boring at all. I've put a star against your thread. Please continue to post your candid comments about the books you have read. I like your reviews because they are short and to the point.

I hope you are still finding Amsterdam a good read. I read it last year and liked it. And btw, I have starred your thread too!

Finally! Finished the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I feel much like I did when I finished my last Pynchon - it is going to be a long long while till I read another one.

I do have to admit that I started getting into this much more towards the end. I think it takes a while to even begin to feel his style of writing. It also envolved me doing a lot of reading around the subject - Irish history not being my strongest subject! Still another one down - that's 137 now....

Pippi Longstocking! I was feeling really unwell yesterday so I decided on a nice easy read when I was in the Library! This was added to the 2008 1001 and I think actually deserves it.

It is, of course, a very quick and easy read, but it has a very heartwarming innocence to it - it just makes you smile. I'd recommend it to anyone who is feeling under the weather.

The Sorrows of Young Werther. Once again I actually really enjoyed this - most of the novel is set out as a series of letters from Werther's view point which makes it easy to read. In some ways it is very poignant, though I did farily often want to give the narrator a good slap. I will say that Werther's recitation of a portion of Ossian towards the end did leave me rather cold - it just felt unneccesarily long.

Also in a decidedly macabre way I did like the fact that Werther does not die until 12 hours after shooting himself (just giving away the ending there) since this is a fairly realistic representation of what would happen if you shot yourself with an 17th Century pistol rather than just expiring cleanly and neatly.

All in all a big thumbs up and I think I'll follow it with another Goethe.

Not Goethe... but Heart of Darkness by Conrad. Well, what can we say about it really but... huh. It's just a complete let down! The language is brilliant but the ending. Sigh. Just the biggest literary anti-climax I have come across lately.

Interesting response BekkaJo. That book was on the high school literatture syllabus here in Western Australia for years and I must have coached / tutored dozens of final year high school students through it. They universally loved it "hot book" was one of the most common responses. I think they realised that the whole 20th century was foreseen in it.

I do agree - part of me wishes I had studied it when i was at Uni - going into more detail, reading some crit, rather than just reading it. I did love the actualy writing it was just anti-climatic ending that got to me. In some ways it's the sign of a brilliant book because it stayed with me for ages. But I just felt very frustrated by it. Maybe Conrad is just not for me...

Age of Innocence. This was my first Edith Wharton and I will totally be reading more. After the first few chapters I did feel a little bored by it - but then you just end up totally enthralled and wrapped up in her world. I love her language - it has a lightness to it which made this one of the easiest reads I have had in a long time, and yet there is an overwhelming emotion to her writing which you feel all through the novel. I also loved it's representation of the society at the time - many describe the plot as the introduction of a scandalous woman into the New York society, and whilst it never actually denounces the society, reading from our time and our perspective, Archer and Ellen pretty much get all my sympathy.

Anyway, if you haven't read it - go read it!

Agnes Grey Much as I enjoyed this I think Anne is my least favourite Bronte... though I am not a great Wuthering Heights fan so maybe not! I think that this novel is more enjoable than noteworthy - and rather worrying for a mother of a young toddler since I am now terrified that my daughter should turn out like any of the children in this book.

It is a deeply personal book - and whilst Agnes is far more religious than I can bring myself to relate to, I think the progression of her character and the constant internal struggle to be practical and not just give in to day-dreams of hope that may never happen (even though they eventually do) are applicable to most of us as we grow up.

Hmmm.... what to start next...

Uncle Tom's Cabin. What can I say...towards the end I just started crying! It didn't have exactly the ending I expected - I fully expected a happy ending. I really should have realised that this would work against the whole anti-slavery motif if it had all ended in hugs and puppies. I know that over the years the stereotyping of black people within the book has been considered appaling and that it has worked against itself, however if you read it without the current days pre-conceptions and just look at what she was trying to achieve - essentially a love of all people, black white or indifferent, this novel was a means to her end. And I feel it was a poignant and heartfelt one which, to me sterotypes the whites as much as the blacks. My main issues with the novel mainly stem from reading it as an Agnostic when it is a heavilly Christian novel - and that side of it I did find heavy going.

Still, one I'd recommend.

Ethan Frome - just so so so very very depressing...

Hi Bekkabo

Iʻve been reading novels since the 1940s, and"Heart of Darkness" is one of the few that Iʻve ever read twice. Admired it more on the second reading.

I must admit I first read it (a half-century or so ago) partly through curiosity, because I had a co-worker who really hated it, and I wanted to see if it could be as bad he said. ("A complete waste of time.") It wasnʻt. But if I had gone into it as a "great classic", I would probably have been disappointed. Itʻs the kind of a book of which I would have to have a copy in hand, if I were going to tell you what is good about it. That is, the individual passages are great --sometimes just sentences or parts of sentences. Trying to say what is great about it, overall, would be hard.

I remember a highly regarded film of the 1980s, "Apocalypse Now", which is said to be based on it, so it must have impressed the screenwriter of that. (The character of Conradʻs colonialist Mr. Kurtz was updated to a semi-independent U.S. militarist of the 1970s, played by Marlon Brando.)

Due to vast amounts of time spent on the train last weekend I read the following;

Neuromancer by William Gibson
One flew over the Cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey
Lady Chatterley's Lover by Lawrence
A Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde

It was a bit of a random mixture I agree! I think I enjoyed all of them... I think my favourite was the Ken Kesey - it is just such an odd mix of the Chief's psychoses, the growing relationships of the men and so many other things.

The Wilde I'd been meaning to read for some time and I did enjoy a lot - the first half was excellent and I loved his writing, however I found the listing in the second half a little bit tedious.

Neuromancer... awesome! The root of so many things that I have read and seen that at times it felt derivative, when actually it was where they had all come from.

And Lady Chatterley's lover.... well that's quite naughty. Nuff said really. I found the first half hard work and the second half quite pleasingly naughty.

#20 I agree that I'm probably going to have to go back to this at some point... I also agree that certain phrases are excellent - it's just the overall feeling that left me cold I think. Though saying that Apocalypse Now I thought was un-brilliant as well, so maybe it's just me...

Brideshead Revisited - what can I say? Just inspiring me to go and read lots more Waugh. I really enjoyed this - I relate far more to Ryder re Catholicism (I'm sure I spelt that wrong) though his final prayer and the attached implications are to me the marring note of the novel.

Reading lots more Waugh is always a good idea. More people should do it. Including me, I think. (BR is my favorite, though)

I also loved Brideshead Revisited. The prose is magnificent....and he is very funny.

I have just moved Neuromancer up to the top of my tbr pile. It's one of those books that's been on my tbr pile for a while but other books keep grabbing my eye. I also loved Brideshead Revisted,

Yes, Waugh has become one of this year's favourites!

Silas Marner - starts out so amazingly depressing... and ends in quite a lovely place. Made me smile anyway, but then I always am a sap for a happy ending.

Summer - Edith Wharton

I so love Edith Wharton.... I am fast becoming addicted to her work. It just has that big dollop of humanity in that makes it so very appealing.

House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

Give me more, more more! Though the end of this wasn't surprising -that may have been just me, but I loved it and found it v v sad.

I decided to go for a couple of shorties:

Siddhartha - at the start of this I was really not getting it. I just thought it was going to be a dull wade through it kinda book. It's so not - I'd highly suggest it to anyone who's in a philosophical mood, or if you're feeling sad at all. The peace and beauty of the later sections is wonderful.

A Modest Proposal by Swift - bravo! It is very short - it is in fact just an essay rather than a novel. And it's great - for once I find his satire entertaining rather than .... I don't know. I've read Gullievr's Travels and just felt let down, and I keep trying Tale of a Tub to no avail. This (maybe due to its brevity) was delicious.

The Pit and the Pendulum .... Now I knew Poe was odd but still...

More shorties!

The Fall of the House of Usher - entertaining, gothic, poetic and short.

What more can you want to fill your time between reviewing securitisation transactional documentation!

Denne beskjeden har blitt redigert av forfatteren, sep 25, 2009, 10:30am.

I LOVE The Fall of the House of Usher. I wrote a paper in college about how Poe uses literary elements to psychologically manipulate readers into being creeped out. The research for that paper was super fascinating. Poe was a weirdy.

So is Summer really, really good? I've read The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, as well as some of her short stories. I've heard nothing but negative reviews of Ethan Frome, so I wasn't sure which Wharton to read next.

#34 It's not as good as The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence - which is my fave so far. I'm reading Glimpses of the Moon at the moment and that is really good so far.

Ethan Frome is well... depressing. Summer is much better but not amazing - still v human and emotional though.

Her short stories that I've read were amazing so maybe I should hunt down a collection of those.

Another shortie The Purloined Letter and yet another Edith Wharton The Glimpses of the Moon.

Loved the Edith Wharton - for once a happy ending.... kinda. I won't ruin it more! Either way it's all about marriage and I think maybe should only be read if you're in a happy marriage/relationship. Not sure it would go down well otherwise!

The Poe... it was over before I felt it had even gotten started. I had to go back over it again to try and understand why and what the whole point of it is... I think a second reading did it though! I now really want to go dig out the other ones with the detective and read those. There's something very addictive about Poe that I'm discovering at the moment.

Veronika decides to die - Paulo Coelho

The Outsider - Albert Camus

Highly recommend both of these - I've been feeling very philosophical lately and each of these has its own take on the way we think and feel about things - and indeed about how society dictates that we should think and feel about things.

Denne beskjeden har blitt redigert av forfatteren, nov 6, 2009, 2:39am.

The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne

Honestly just don't do it. All I can say is that if I wasn't so determined to give this 1001 (or 1281 or whatever it is now) a good shot I would have thrown this out the window 2 pages in. And miraculously? It doesn't get any better. No, no no, no, no!

Note on #38:

Most English language editions of Camusʻs LʻEtranger> The Outsider give the title as The Stranger.
Not sure if "The Outsider" title was trying to give a different nuance of meaning. LʻEtranger literally means the Foreigner or The Stranger, and of course the character was NOT, from the French point of view. a foreigner; perhaps an ironic title.

Or "The Outsider" may have been just a ploy to fool us into thinking there was a brand new Camus title. I notice that Touchstones knows it as a Colin Wilson rather than a Camus title.

Denne beskjeden har blitt redigert av forfatteren, nov 5, 2009, 5:44pm.

#40 Oops - Touchstone now fixed - thanks I totally didn't notice.

Re the title - I know it's a bit strange since it is less frequently titled the Outsider but apparently it is just an alternate title. I've been reading heavily from the 1001 to read before you die and it's called The Outsider in there so I didn't really think anything of it. It it interesting to think how the different title might give a different angle on the novel as a whole but I think it's just a remarkably pliant word - étranger can mean: foreign, unknown, extraneous, outsider, stranger, alien, unconnected, and irrelevant. I think you could use any of these - they all fit well with the text.

Denne beskjeden har blitt redigert av forfatteren, nov 10, 2009, 3:32am.

Amsterdam

I'm really not in love with McEwan. Sigh. It's easy reading but has more to it than usual easy reading, yet I constantly fail to be blown away by his novels.

I did like the end of this though... I won't spoil it for anyone, though it is fairly obvious where it's heading from halfway through. What exactly happens though is quite startling.