My Literary Travels

I Tried!

2008-12-31T16:00:00.002+01:00

I tried! I really tried, but I didn't make it to 100 books. Sigh.... If I had read through July and August I would have easily done it and even more, but I took a break because I was so busy selling and moving and buying a new house. So instead, I almost made it. I sure was close!

In 2008 I resolved to read more books than ever before and I did accomplish that! So hurray! Last December 31st I calculated how long I might have left to live and to read and that scared me and motivated me to pick up the pace. Well I did that and I will likely keep it up for 2009, but I want to concentrate on a few other ideas as well.

This blog will continue to be used to keep my reading list, but that's about all.

It was a great year and a lot of fun!

Cheers!!

96. Trust Your Vibes

2008-12-27T22:27:00.002+01:00

By Sonia Choquette

Thanks to my sister-in-law Sandra for lending this delightful book to me on Christmas Day!

Each of the chapters deals with one of the 33 secret tools for six-sensory living, an idea I'm curious about. Lots of useful ideas and exercises for developing your 6th sense!

95. Everyday Grace

2008-12-27T02:06:00.002+01:00

By Marianne Williamson

A beautiful little book that I got at the library this week. It's all about having hope, finding forgiveness, and making miracles. I LOVE Marianne. She's truly awesome and inspiring. This is a wonderful book and I learned a lot by reading it today. It confirmed so many things that I have believed for a long time. I really love the idea of being a mystic! Yes!

"Be the love you wish to see."

94. The Vein of Gold

2008-12-26T21:27:00.000+01:00

By Julia Cameron

A wonderful follow-up to The Artist's Way. It took me a week to read through this book and on the way I started doing some of the exercises, such as MorningPages- 3 hand written pages every morning, flowing writing, non-judgemental writing. Just pure letting go. I will concentrate onm more of the exercises starting in January when I am back home.

Truly inspiring and important.

93. Four Seasons In Rome

2008-12-21T20:24:00.002+01:00

By Anthony Doerr

A year in Rome, a writing studio, and crying newborn twins.

91. Words in a French Life

2008-12-21T20:13:00.002+01:00

By Kristin Espinasse

Based on Kristin's amazing blog french-word-a-day.com, the book is a compilation of essays, each one focusing on a different French word or phrase. I enjoyed learning new words and phrases but I'm not sure my brain will really remember them when I need them!

90. The Year of Magical Thinking

2008-12-18T18:41:00.002+01:00

By Joan Didion

I bought this little book at the local library this week. Can I tell you how thrilled I was to get a library card of my own?!?! Yes! After almost 15 years of not having one because we have been living abroad, I went and got one on Tuesday!

There is a large area of books for sale and I found this one which I had often thought of reading. It's not too long but it is quite interesting. It was meaningful for me right now because of my dog being stolen two weeks ago. The grief is almost as painful as the death of a spouse. I never thought it would be but it is. Joan learned a lot in the year following her husband's death and I'm glad she took the time to write about it. It is a subject we always seem to avoid in the west, and we shouldn't.

89. Life is a Verb

2008-12-16T16:35:00.002+01:00

By Patti Digh

This is such a wonderful book! I zipped right through it in 3 days and caught myself smiling away while reading so many of the amazing stories that Patti shares. The subtitle is "37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally." Of course Im going to read through it again at a much slower pace and actually do everything Patti suggests, but for now it's started me thinking in a much more mindful way.

This is a book to give to everyone you LOVE.

88. Train to Trieste

2008-12-14T09:33:00.004+01:00

By Domnica Radulescu

What a beautifully written novel... exquisite prose, vivid description and a delicate love story all wrapped into one wonderful story. Since I lived in Romania for a long time I was captivated by the insights into life under Ceaucescu and the effects it had on the daily lives of the people.

Here's an excerpt:

"This summer I am seventeen, I am bursting into being a woman, and I don’t care about empty stores and sugar and flour rations. My blue eyes are blazing. My long limbs are taut and restless. I have wild wheat-colored hair that flies in all directions and a great hunger in my flesh. All I care about is that this man who is grieving for his dead lover turn his eyes on me, notice my sun-bleached hair, my burning face and shoulders, and play one of his melancholy guitar songs for me. For me alone. The smell of earth and death turning through his heart makes me wild with desire. I want to be there in the center of his heart where it smells like raw earth. I want him to be my first lover: bitter, raging, smelling of unfiltered Romanian cigarettes, and hurting for a dead girl. "

This is one book I'd definitely read again and I'll be telling all my friends to read it!

Plus-- I ADORE the cover!

87. The Invention of the World

2008-12-07T16:45:00.002+01:00

By Jack Hodgins

A very interesting Canadian novel from 1977! As it says on the cover- sort of a magical journey between Ireland and Vancouver ... two islands full of enchanting stories and characters. I enjoyed most of the book but admit to skimming through some parts.

86. You Can Heal Your Life

2008-12-07T16:44:00.001+01:00

By Louise Hay

A lovely, useful spiritual self help book about finding self-esteem and self-love.

85. Swing Low: A Life

2008-11-29T11:21:00.002+01:00

By Miriam Toews

A heartwrenching story based on the life of Toews father Mel.

A deeply honest memoir written from her father's point of view, sharing the pain of depression and mental illness.

I was riveted throughout the entire book, and chocked back the tears when I came to the final page.

Definitely deserving of praise.

84. this book will save your life

2008-11-28T12:20:00.000+01:00

By A.M. Homes

What a book! I really enjoyed this novel about a man so out of touch with his feelings that his life is at a virtual standstill- he never goes out, all he watches is a woman who swims outside his window every morning. He's lost touch with his family, even his son. When he befriends a simple donut shop owner his whole life changes and he begins to open up to life.

A bit of a modern fairy tale. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad. Brilliant writing style.

100+ Books for 2009

2008-11-23T20:24:00.003+01:00

I'm signing up for another challenge. It's been a long time since I joined one so I think it's a good idea. At the moment I've read 83 books this year, with a goal of 100. I just might make it, but maybe not. No matter. I don't give up that easily and if not this year-- I CAN DO IT in 2009!

Here are the rules from J Kaye's Book Blog:

The 100+ Reading Challenge will be hosted here this year. Here are the guidelines:

1) You can join anytime as long as you don’t start reading your books prior to 2009.

2) This challenge is for 2009 only. The last day to have all your books read is December 31, 2009.

3) You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.

4) If you don’t have a blog, please join our Yahoo Groups.

5) When you sign up under Mr. Linky, list the direct link to your post where your 100+ books will be listed. If you list just your blog’s URL, it will be removed.

6) All books count: children’s, YA, adults, fiction, non-fiction, how-tos, etc.

7) Feel free to post in the comment section or on Yahoo Groups your monthly progress as well as your favorite books that month.

8) If you have any questions, feel free to ask below or email me at jkayeoldner@yahoo.com. Comments usually get a quicker response.

My book list will be here starting in January 2009.

83. Girls of Riyadh

2008-11-23T16:43:00.004+01:00

By Rajaa Alsanea

Quite an interestiong little book, written in chapters which are supposed emails by a young Saudi woman. Sent out over the course of a year, they detail the lives of her 4 girlfriends as they experience broken hearts and challenging loves. I was surprised by the very modern attitude that prevailed in their lives, even while dealing with so many extreme traditions.

A good read!

82. Fingersmith

2008-11-18T20:31:00.003+01:00

By Sarah Waters

I LOVE this genre of fiction-- historical (Victorian) crime with a sexy twist!!

After recently reading Tipping the Velvet by the same author, I took this one of my ancient TBR shelf and jumped right in. I've had these two books for a few years already simply because I loved the covers, but I never took time to read them. They're a little 'hefty' at over 550 pages but I could hardly put it down! There were lots of surprises along the way, and the ending is really satisfying.

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger for Historical Crime Fiction

Now I simply must get Waters other book Affinity!

81. The Witch's Trinity

2008-11-16T20:16:00.002+01:00

By Erica Mailman

Here's a quick read about one of my favourite subjects- medieval witch trials. There's something tragically fascinating about these stories. It is truly hard to comprehend how horrific these inquisitions were and just how insinuoous the accusations were. This story takes place in one small German village in 1507, and involves one multi-generational famine struck family. Told through the voice of the tiny, old grandmother, we are given insight into the terrifying way in which the persecution invades all relationships.

2009 IMPAC Dublin Award Longlist

2008-11-16T19:40:00.003+01:00

Here's the longlist for the 2009 MPAC Dublin Award. An award I really like!

Books I've read are in bold red.
Those I own but haven't read yet are in red.

A Curious Intimacy Jessica White
A Good and Happy Child Justin Evans
A Handbook to Luck Cristina García
A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
After Dark – Translated from the original Japanese by Jay Rubin Haruki Murakami
After Tears Niq Mhlongo
Animal's People Indra Sinha
Away Amy Bloom
Be Mine Laura Kasischke
Between Each Breath Adam Thorpe
Breakfast with Buddha Roland Merullo
Burma Boy Biyi Bandele
Burning Bright Tracy Chevalier
By George Wesley Stace
Call Me By Your Name André Aciman
Castorp – Translated from the original Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones Pawel Huelle
Coal Black Horse Robert Olmstead
Consequences Penelope Lively
Custer's Brother's Horse Edwin Shrake
Dante's Ballad – Translated from the original Spanish by Susan Giersbach Rascón Eduardo González Viaña
Day A.L. Kennedy
Delirium – Translated from the original Spanish by Natasha Wimmer Laura Restrepo
Diary of a Bad Year J.M. Coetzee
Divisadero Michael Ondaatje
Doghead – Translated from the original Danish by Tiina Nunnally Morten Ramsland
Drybread Owen Marshall
Edwin + Matilda Laurence Fearnley
Effigy Alissa York
Engleby Sebastian Faulks
Escape – Translated from the original Dutch by Jantien Black Heleen Van Royen
Exit Ghost Philip Roth
Exit Music Ian Rankin
Falling Man Don De Lillo
Feelings Expiry Date – Translated from the original Bulgarian by Irina Cherkelova Yordanka Mineva
Fieldwork Mischa Berlinski
García's Heart Liam Durcan
Ghostwalk Rebecca Stott
Girl Meets Boy Ali Smith
Girls of Riyadh – Translated from the original Arabic by Rajaa Alsanea and Marilyn Booth Rajaa Alsanea
Gold Dan Rhodes
Gregorius – Translated from the original Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella Bengt Ohlsson
Harpsong Rilla Askew
Holy Hill Angelina N. Sithebe
Ishq and Mushq Priya Basil
Jamestown Matthew Sharpe
Knots Nuruddin Farah
Landscape of Farewell Alex Miller
Last Night at the Lobster Stewart O'Nan
Late Nights on Air Elizabeth Hay
Life Class Pat Barker
Lost City Radio Daniel Alarcón
Lost Paradise – Translated from the original Dutch by Susan Massotty Cees Nooteboom
Love and the Platypus Nicholas Drayson
Love Falls Esther Freud
Love Life – Translated from the original Dutch by Shaun Whiteside Ray Kluun
Lucky Bastard Peter Wells
Luncheon of the Boating Party Susan Vreeland
Man Gone Down Michael Thomas
Matters of Honor Louis Begley
Measuring Time Helon Habila
Mr. Allbones' Ferrets Fiona Farrell
Notes from an Exhibition Patrick Gale
October Richard B. Wright
Omega Minor – Translated from the original Dutch by Paul Verhaeghen Paul Verhaeghen
On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan
Other Country Stephen Scourfield
Quarter Tones Susan Mann
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey Chuck Palahniuk
Ravel – Translated from the original French by Linda Coverdale Jean Echenoz
Reading the Ceiling Dayo Forster
Redemption Falls Joseph O'Connor
Remembering the Bones Frances Itani
Rocking Horse Road Carl Nixon
Rough Justice Ralph Palmer
Run Ann Patchett
Secrets of the Sea Nicholas Shakespeare
Skylark Farm – Translated from the original Italian by Geoffrey Brock Antonia Arslan
Slam Nick Hornby
Soucouyant David Chariandy
Spanish Fly Will Ferguson
Tales from the Town of Widows & Chronicles from the Land of Men James Cañón
The Architects Are Here Michael Winter
The Archivist's Story Travis Holland
The Bad Girl – Translated from the original Spanish by Edith Grossman Mario Vargas Llosa
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Dinaw Mengestu
The Birthday Party Panos Karnezis
The Book of Negroes Lawrence Hill
The Book of Words – Translated from the original German by Susan Bernofsky Jenny Erpenbeck
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz
The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles – Translated from the original Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw Roy Jacobsen
The Butterfly Month – Translated from the original Dutch by Faith Hunter Ariëlla Kornmehl
The Camel Bookmobile Masha Hamilton
The Carhullan Army Sarah Hall
The Cleft Doris Lessing
The Devil's Footprints John Burnside
The Dinner Club – Translated from the original Dutch by Paul Vincent Saskia Noort
The Gathering Anne Enright
The Good Father Marion Husband
The Gravedigger's Daughter Joyce Carol Oates
The Gum Thief Douglas Coupland
The Hangman's Game Karen King-Aribisala
The Indian Clerk David Leavitt
The Lost Diary of Don Juan Douglas Carlton Abrams
The Lost Highway David Adams Richards
The Maytrees Annie Dillard
The Memory Room Christopher Koch
The Milk Chicken Bomb Andrew Wedderburn
The Ministry of Special Cases Nathan Englander
The Mire – Translated from the original Bulgarian by Nedyalka Chakalova Krassin Krastev
The Model – Translated from the original Norwegian by Don Bartlett Lars Saabye Christensen
The Opposite House Helen Oyeyemi
The Outlander Gil Adamson
The Painter of Battles – Translated from the original Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden Arturo Pé-rez-Reverte
The Past – Translated from the original Spanish by Nick Caistor Alan Pauls
The Past is a Foreign Country – Translated from the original Italian by Howard Curtis Gianrico Carofiglio
The Pirate's Daughter Margaret Cezair-Thompson
The President's Last Love – Translated from the original Russian by George Bird Andrey Kurkov
The Quiet Girl – Translated from the original Danish by Nadia Christensen Peter Høeg
The Rain Before It Falls Jonathan Coe
The Reluctant Fundamentalist Moshin Hamid
The Road Home Rose Tremain
The Seamstress Geraldine Wooller
The Secret of Lost Things Sheridan Hay
The Septembers of Shiraz Dalia Sofer
The Seventh Gate Richard Zimler
The Shadow Catcher Marianne Wiggins
The Stone Gods Jeanette Winterson
The Succubus - Translated from the original Slovenian by Rawley Grau and Nikolai Jeffs Vlado
The Theory of Clouds – Translated from the original French by Timothy Bent Stéphane Audeguy
The Time We Have Taken Steven Carroll
The Trout Opera Matthew Condon
The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett
The Visible World Mark Slouka
The Welsh Girl Peter Ho Davies
The Widow and her Hero Thomas Keneally
The Worst Intentions – Translated from the original Italian by Ann Goldstein Alessandro Piperno
The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon
Then We Came To The End Joshua Ferris
Tomorrow Graham Swift
Tree of Smoke Denis Johnson
Uprising Margaret Peterson Haddix
Vie Française – Translated from the original French by Linda Coverdale Jean-Paul Dubois
What Was Lost Catherine O'Flynn
Where Three Roads Meet Salley Vickers
Where White Horses Gallop Beatrice MacNeil
World Without End Ken Follett

80. The Power of Now

2008-11-11T11:20:00.002+01:00

By Eckhart Tolle

A very significant book on my personal spiritual journey. It reinforces many of the things I believe are true and important in terms of my understanding of enlightenment.

"Attention. Here and Now. Wake up."

79. The White Dawn

2008-11-07T06:24:00.001+01:00

This was a very interesting read for me. It opened my eyes to the world of the Inuit at the end of the 1800's. What a life! It's hard to imagine how difficult their lives were but through the eyes of Avinga, we hear the story of how their world was changed by the arrival of 3 strangers into their lives.

James Houston lived among the Eskimos and spent a lot of time learning to understand them. It was certainly worth it and what he shares with us through this novel is truly intriguing.

78. The Sword and the Scimitar

2008-11-03T20:31:00.003+01:00

By David Ball

While on vacation last week on the stunning island of Malta, I came across a shelf full of books written about this very historical country. Some were novels, some were histories. One in particular stood out- The Sword and the Scimitar, perhaps mostly because of its immense size- almost 800 pages!! I bought it and immediately began to lose myself in one of the best historical novels I've ever read. Maybe because I was right there where the story takes place and I could locate specific places on a map and even walk on the streets where the characters 'lived', whatever the reasons, I was completely enthralled and hardly put it down.

As in most historical fiction, this is part romance, and part epic battle recounting. I learned a LOT about the Crusades and will no doubt look for more books written about this time in history.

77. The Reluctant Fundamentalist

2008-10-31T18:16:00.001+01:00

By Mohsin Hamid

An intriguing novel that kept me wondering right until the very end. Then I went hummmmmph.

Does it really deserve all the hype it's getting???

2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist): The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2007 New York Times Notable Book of the Year: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 Arts Council England Decibel Award (shortlist): The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) (shortlist): The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 Index on Censorship T R Fyvel Award (shortlist): The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) (shortlist): The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2008 South Bank Show Annual Award for Literature: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

76. The Quickie

2008-10-30T16:06:00.002+01:00

By James Patterson

Yes... it truly is a quickie... but it is also a great deal of fun!

BTW I rarely read detective novels, but this was somehw chosen for last month's bookclub which I wasn't able to attend, so I read it a month late (on the advice of my hubby who liked it).

Fun and full of twists!

75. Age of Innocence

2008-10-28T14:26:00.003+01:00

By Edith Wharton

I read this for my book group next month and found it was one of the best reads of the year for me. I loved the characters and the plot, but most of all I loved the period and place in which it was set- New York's Golden Age (1870's). Wharton's commentary on the manners and foibles of 'society' is entertaining and seen as quite accurate.

74. Away

2008-10-28T14:17:00.003+01:00

By Amy Bloom

I read this in less than a day-- it was really un-put-down-able!!

Away is the story of Lillian Leyb who came to America alone after witnessing the tragic deaths of her parents and daughter Sophie. In New York she learns that Sophie may not be dead and so begins her difficult journey back to Siberia. There is some lovely romance along the way as well as many heartbreaking moments.

A story I won't easily forget.

73. Ishq and Mushq

2008-10-28T14:10:00.000+01:00

By Priya Basil

This was one of those impulsive buys last week while I was in Vienna. I'd never heard of this book before but I was enticed by the pretty cover and the unusual title.

"Remember, there are only two things you can't hide- ishq and mushq: love and smell."

I loved that statement! And I really loved this wonderful book which follows the lives of Sarna and Karam Singh from Uganda to England. This is a book full of intriguing issues and one that really made me stop and think about life.

Mixed in with a brilliant complex story about secrets and relationships are snippets full of the aromas and tastes of an Indian kitchen.

Highly recommended!

72. Conde Nest Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys

2008-10-28T14:05:00.001+01:00

Subtitle: Great Writers on Great Places

I enjoyed most of this book, although I have to admit that I skipped a couple of chapters which didn't catch my interest.

There are 21 chapters written by well known authors from Cond Nasts archives. As always, I loved the chapter by Jan Morris on Hawaii- one of my favourite travel writers. And the chapters featuring Italy were also great.

After each chapter there are a few fabulous travel tips and I am sure I will reference these sometime in the future!

50 BooksWorth Talking About

2008-10-18T19:05:00.000+02:00

An interesting list from the British newspaper The Telegraph of the "50 Most Worth Talking About Books".

I couldn't figure out if these were just books from 2008 or not, but I'm putting the list here so that I can refer to it when I'm in need of some new reading!

The list in full:

Imagine This by Sade Adenirai
Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet) by Nasreen Akhtar
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Joe The Only Boy in the World by Michael Blastland
Away by Amy Bloom
The Opposite of Love by Julie Bluxbaum
The Song Before It Is Sung by Justin Cartwright
Broken by Daniel Clay
Random Deaths and Custard by Catrin Dafydd
The Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar
Maynard and Jennica by Rudolph Denson
Fup by Jim Dodge
Zoology by Ben Dolnick
The Vitamin Murders by James Fergusson
The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato
Ancestor House by Aminatta Forna
Love Falls by Esther Freud
Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
Tao: On the Road and On the Run in Outlaw China by Aya Goda
Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb
Wild by Jay Griffiths
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
The Fantastic Book of Everyone's Secrets by Sophie Hannah
The Archivist's Story by Travis Holland
The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes
Blood Tender by Rachel Ingrams
When We Were Romans by Mathew Kneale
The Children of Freedom by Marc Levy
Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis
Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction by Alison MacLeod
Remedy by Anne Marsella
The Family That Couldn't Sleep by D.T. Max
The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty
Feather Man by Rhyll McMaster
Queuing for Beginners by Joe Moran
Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert
Twenty Eight: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen
Serious Things by Gregory Norminton
Chinese Whispers by Hsiao-Hung Pai
Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu
Gold by Dan Rhodes
The Good Plain Cook by Bethan Roberts
Vicky Had One Eye Open by Darryl Samaraweera
The Forger by Cioma Schönhaus
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? by Andrew Sims & Joe Smith
I Think There's Something Wrong With Me by Nigel Smith
Rainbow's End by Lauren St.John
The Abyssinian Proof by Jenny White

71. Easton

2008-10-16T07:30:00.001+02:00

By Paul Butler

From Tidespoint Boooks:

Book Description

Having just escaped the King’s justice, notorious pirate Peter Easton arrives in St. John’s harbour with ten well-armed ships. Knowing he is too powerful to be refused, Easton confidently invites the King’s loyal fishing admiral, Richard Whitbourne, and his second-in-command, Captain Dawson, aboard his flagship The Happy Adventure. Insisting Whitbourne and Dawson are guests and not prisoners, Easton takes them by surprise, pulling anchor and setting sail with half his flotilla for the Caribbean.

Easton takes place in Newfoundland, the Caribbean and England. The story reflects a time when Newfoundland was crucial to trade and power, and when there was a very thin line between loyalty and piracy—a line that could be crossed in either direction in the blink of an eye.

This was a really quick read- less than 200 pages and less than 24 hours for me, but I did enjoy it. A rollicking pirate tale related to early Canada, the story has several intriguing characters. Part romanace and part mystery, Easton kept me interested and unwilling to put the book on my nightstand. I stayed awake until 1 AM just to see what happened. I like that!

Iordered my copy from Amazon and was surprised to find that I recieved an autographed book. That was nice!

70. The Road

2008-10-14T17:42:00.003+02:00

By Cormac McCarthy

Honestly one of the best books I've read in a very long time, The Road tells the story of one man and one boy and their journey through a postapocalyptic world.

I had to stop reading several times because my heart was racing.

Powerful, important writing.

Teaser Tuesdays

2008-10-14T16:22:00.001+02:00

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!

I'm reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and it is AWESOME!

From pg 220:

We're beachcombers. he said.

What is that?

It's people who walk aong the beach looking for things of value that might have washed up.

Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlist 2008

2008-10-13T08:10:00.001+02:00

October 7, 2008 (Toronto, ON) –Today, in a morning press conference that drew over 100 media and members of the publishing industry, the Scotiabank Giller Prize announced its 2008 shortlist. The five finalists were selected by an esteemed jury panel comprised of award-winning author and previous Giller Prize winner Margaret Atwood; Liberal MP, Foreign Affairs critic and author Bob Rae, and; renowned international journalist, professor and author Colm Toibin. The shortlist was chosen from 95 books submitted for consideration by 38 publishing houses from every region of the country.

The 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalists are:

Joseph Boyden for his novel Through Black Spruce, published by Viking Canada

Anthony De Sa for his collection of short stories Barnacle Love, published by Doubleday Canada

Marina Endicott for her novel Good to A Fault, published by Freehand Books/Broadview Press

Rawi Hage for his novel Cockroach, published by House of Anansi Press

Mary Swan for her novel The Boys in the Trees, published by Henry Holt/HB Fenn

69. Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

2008-10-13T07:55:00.000+02:00

By Vincent Lam

Another hard-to-put-down book by a Canadian author! Yippee!

Lam is a doctor who is also a writer, and in this marvelous book he writes stories about being a doctor. He humanizes them, makes them honest characters with faults and foibles. One has a tendency to revenge while another sneaks a sip from a flask at regular intervals. Each chapter tells a speciifc story but all of them are connected.

Really worth the read!

68. The Master

2008-10-11T19:23:00.005+02:00

By Colm Toibin

A really beautifully written novel based on the life of Henry James. Delicate, insightful, and deep.

67. Nana

2008-10-04T10:10:00.003+02:00

By Emile Zola

I read this book in honour of Banned Books Week, and though I can understand why it was considered scandalous in it's day, reading it now in 2008 I personally just found it incredibly boring.

Couldn't wait for it to get to the point and to be finished.

66. Lullabies for Little Criminals

2008-10-03T18:04:00.002+02:00

By Heather O'Neil

What a story! Compelling and impossible to put down- this novel is one of those rare finds which stayed with me even when I had to put down the book. O'Neil tells the story of Baby, a precocious 12 yr old growing up without a mother and with a heroin addict for a father. It's hard to believe that a child could survive the horrific conditions that are part of such an unstable lifestyle, but Baby somehow does.

I'm a little bit behind everyone else who read this several years ago, but I'm so glad I bought it and had it on my reading pile.

Winner of Canada Reads 2007
Shortlisted for Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award 2007
Shortlisted for the Amazon.ca/ Books in Canada First Novel Award 2007
Shortlisted for Governor General's Award 2007 (TBA)
Winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Best Novel 2007
Shortlisted for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal 2007
Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2008 (TBA)

Banned Books Week Sept 27 to Oct 4 2008

2008-10-01T13:04:00.003+02:00

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007.

The 10 most challenged titles were:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

(Click here to see why these books were challenged.)

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2008 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 27 through October 4.

Since I already have a list of 100 most frequently banned books on my blog I'm going to read one of them this week to do my part in this event. I've chosen Nana by Emile Zola since It's been on my tbr pile for a year or so now. It's time I got around to it!!

A good resource list of frequently banned books can be found here: ABFFE.

Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist 2008

2008-10-01T12:44:00.002+02:00

The Scotiabank Giller Prize jury today announced its longlist of books in the running for this year’s prize. The jury selected 15 titles out of 95 books, submitted by 38 publishers from every region of Canada.

Award-winning author and previous Giller Prize winner Margaret Atwood; Liberal MP, Foreign Affairs critic and author Bob Rae; and renowned international journalist, professor and author Colm Toibin comprised the 2008 jury.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the prize.

From a highly competitive field, the Scotiabank Giller jury has selected the following titles for this year’s longlist:

David Adams Richards for his novel The Lost Highway, published by Doubleday Canada
David Bergen for his novel The Retreat, published by McClelland & Stewart
Joseph Boyden for his novel Through Black Spruce, published by Viking Canada
Austin Clarke for his novel More, published by Thomas Allen Publishers
Anthony De Sa for his collection of short stories Barnacle Love, published by Doubleday Canada
Emma Donoghue for her novel The Sealed Letter, published by HarperCollins Canada
Marina Endicott for her novel Good to A Fault, published by Freehand Books/Broadview Press
Steven Galloway for his novel The Cellist of Sarajevo, published by Knopf Canada
Rawi Hage for his novel Cockroach, published by House of Anansi Press
Kenneth J Harvey for his novel Blackstrap Hawco, published by Random House Canada
Patrick Lane for his novel Red Dog, Red Dog, published by McClelland & Stewart
Pasha Malla for his collection of short stories The Withdrawal Method, published by House of Anansi Press
Paul Quarrington for his novel The Ravine, published by Random House Canada
Nino Ricci for his novel The Origin of Species, published by Doubleday Canada
Mary Swan for her novel The Boys in the Trees, published by Henry Holt/HB Fenn

Of the longlist, the jury writes:

“These fifteen books vary widely in technique, in setting, and in tone — from the historical to the contemporary, from the comic to the satiric to the tragic, from the local to the international. Nothing unites them but the jury's belief in their accomplishment: each contributes something fresh, original, thoughtful, or vital to the practice of fiction.”

Looks like I have a lot of reading to do since I've read none of these books on the list!!

65. The Lesser Blessed

2008-10-01T12:02:00.004+02:00

By Richard Van Camp

This thin novel really opened my eyes on the world of Canada's First Nations youth. Often funny but startingly honest, the reader is shown brief moments in time encapsulating episodes of brutality and stark reality in the life of Larry, a young Dogrib Indian. Drugs, sex, and rock'n roll, fill his life as he struggles with growing up in this very tough enviroment.

A northern coming of age novel and one that deserves attention.

Teaser Tuesdays

2008-09-30T19:16:00.003+02:00

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

So this week I am reading Heather O'Neil's "Lullabies for Little Criminals" (A terrific read btw!).

From page 41:

"My mother and I are vegetarians." he said.
"So you don't eat hamburgers?"
"No, we eat hamburgers."
"So, how are you vegetarians?"
"We just are."

64. The Interpreter of Maladies

2008-09-29T14:49:00.003+02:00

Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer prize back in 2000 and yet I'd not heard of her work until I copied the list of all the Pulitzer winners. I'm so glad I did! This is a delightful book of short stories, each one a tiny treasure of insight into various types of relationships. It's particularly powerful when after reading a short story I find myself still not wanting to put the book down but to continue reading even with a whole new set of characters.

"This Blessed House" was particularly touching and enjoyable. Her style is simple and elegant, and her insights allow us to empathize with her characters even if we have never been in the same situations ourselves.

63. The Book of Negroes

2008-09-29T14:26:00.003+02:00

This is a hefty book even in paperback but I devoured it in a very short time, mostly on the flight from Toronto back to Albania. It was wonderful and one of the best reads of the year for me. I loved it. Lawrence Hill created an unforgettable character named Aminata Diallo, who shares with us not only the story of her own life but the journey of many Africans who were taken as slaves in the mid 1700's. A good read should always be a learning experience, and I finished this novel as a much enlightened human being. Hill won the Commonwealth Writers Best Book Prize for Canada and the Caribbean in 2008 as well as other awards and they are truly well deserved.

If you're in the US you will have to look for this book under a different title- Someone Knows My Name. Hill commented that "At first, I was irritated, but gradually I've come to make my peace with the new title, Someone Knows My Name." Apparently the word Negroes wouldn't have been acceptable at this moment in history, even though it is the title of an actual historical document.

A great and important novel!

Back to My Regularly Scheduled Program!

2008-09-29T14:21:00.002+02:00

Oh my it's been some time since I updated this blog! It's like relearning to ride a bike! I have excuses, of course I do, but let's just say I really hardly did any reading in August since I was busy selling and buying and moving house.

But I'm back now and eager to read all the piles of books that I collected over the summer. I plan to get back on track with reading lots of prize winners lots of books by Canadians, and all the books for our local boook club.

Now I'm going to spend the next couple of hours updating my lists ad my Library Thing.

Man Booker Prize Shortlist

2008-09-09T15:29:00.000+02:00

The Man Booker Prize 2008 shortlisted novels are:

Aravind Adiga- The White Tiger (Atlantic)

Sebastian Barry- The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)

Amitav Ghosh -Sea of Poppies (John Murray)

Linda Grant -The Clothes on Their Backs (Virago)

Philip Hensher- The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate)

Steve Toltz- A Fraction of the Whole (Hamish Hamilton)

Teaser Tuesday's

2008-07-30T19:07:00.004+02:00

All info below is copied and pasted from: Should Be Reading and it sounds like a fun idea to me!

Introducing the new weekly event, “TEASER TUESDAYS“!

So, here’s the idea: Every Tuesday, check out the posts here at SHOULD BE READING for the “Teaser Tuesdays” weekly event! For this event, you do the following, based off a popular meme that has been floating around the blogging / book-group circles for quite some time…

Grab your current read

Let the book fall open to a random page

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

There is only one VERY IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER:

*** Do NOT post anything that could spoil the plot of the book!!! ***
If your sentences that fall between lines 7 and 12 on the page you turn to give too much away, choose a different page, or a different spot on the page… we don’t want to ruin any surprises for anyone!

And here's my first try:

"On an old lady's balcony I saw a bird in a cage, a cat crouched beneath it on the ground,and a hungry dog looking for cadavers to sink his purebred teeth into, looking to snatch a soft arm or a tender leg. Human flesh is not forbidden to us dogs, those laws apply only to humans, the unshaven poodle said to me."

From DeNiro's Game by Rawi Hage (Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Award)

62. Random Passage

2008-07-30T04:52:00.002+02:00

Random Passage: Bernice Morgan: Books

By Bernice Morgan

This novel has been around for quite some time but I guess since I've lived abroad for almost 14 years now I'd never heard of it or the acclaimed TV mini-series. After reading the book I'd really love to watch the series. It's a story of love and survival, and what it's like to be exiles in a barren land. Set in Newfoundland in the early 1800's, Bernice Morgan brings to life a cast of characters, some lovable, some not, but all very real and hard to forget. I love when I find a book that keeps itself in my brain even when I'm not reading, and I find myself asking "I wonder what they're doing now"? I remember being a child and a story would be so real to me that I knew the story was going on even when I was away from it. As an adult those experiences are much rarer and perhaps even more magical.

Don't we all love books that have books or journals as an integral part of the story? I know I do! Random Passage is held together by paragraphs from Lavinia's journal at the beginning of each chapter. The courage of some of Canada's early settlers in the face of hardship is truly incredible. Bears, Indians, disease, and bad weather were part of their life and the reality is that they often had no tools to fight off any of the attacks.

I loved this passage from the last part of the book and reread it several times:

I cannot call what I felt happiness, it was something more brittle, like the false confidence that comes between sobriety and drunkenness when all doubt appears petty, all dreams possible.

There is a sequel to this book called Waiting for Time which was included in the mini-series, and I'll definitely look for it!

Man Booker Prize Longlist Announement

2008-07-29T17:05:00.000+02:00

The judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have announced the longlist for this year's prize.

The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen', was chosen from 112 entries; 103 were submitted for the prize and nine were called in by the judges.

The titles are:

Aravind Adiga ~ The White Tiger

Gaynor Arnold ~ Girl in a Blue Dress

Sebastian Barry ~ The Secret Scripture

John Berger ~ From A to X

Michelle de Kretser ~ The Lost Dog

Amitav Ghosh ~ Sea of Poppies

Linda Grant ~ The Clothes on Their Backs

Mohammed Hanif ~ A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Philip Hensher ~ The Northern Clemency

Joseph O'Neill ~ Netherland

Salman Rushdie ~ The Enchantress of Florence

Tom Rob Smith ~ Child 44

Steve Toltz ~ A Fraction of the Whole

Note: None of which I have read!!!! (Yet)

Some books are...

2008-07-25T23:26:00.000+02:00

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

Francis Bacon

Oh My! It's an Award!

2008-07-23T00:29:00.004+02:00

I have just been nominated by Wisteria over at A Bookworm's Dinner. Thank you so much! I'm rather excited because I've only been blogging about my reading habits for a short time and this is my first award!

Here are the guidelines given to me:

Once an award is received, the rules are as follows:

1. Put the logo on your blog.

2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3. Nominate at least seven other blogs.

4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.

5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

My nominees (In NO particular order):

1. Armenian Odar Reads I started reading Odar's blog a long, long time ago- I beieve it was even before she started blogging exclusively about her reading habits. I felt an immediate connection because we're both expats in quite unusual places and I've continued to follow her because I almost always like the books she reviews.

2. Books on the Bus This was the very first 'book' blog I found after I started my own and I've really enjoyed all Peter's choices. His was the first blog I linked to here!

3. Book Award Tragic Because I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE following all the book awards! This blog is an invaluable resource for thos of us who like to know what's in the running and what's won.

4. Books and Movies This one is new to me but I've spent some time on the site and it's loaded with great reviews and suggestions for reading!

5. My Own Little Reading Room Gautami is so inspiring!! Look at all the challenges they've completed and are in the midst of- how wonderful is that? I think it wa after reading this blog that I started joining challenges myself.

6. Naked Without Books Another expat who loves reading! I think she must be my soul sister!

7. Orpheus Sings the Guitar Electric Opheus is wildly entertaining! She gives us bits and bobs about all things lit related and I love it! She reads awesome books and keeps awesome lists!

So there we have it- my current 'Brillante" all-stars!

61. What was Lost

2008-07-22T04:30:00.001+02:00

What Was Lost: Catherine O'Flynn: Books

Winner of the 2007 Costa First Novel Award and longlisted for both the Man Booker and the Orange Broadband prizes.

At the centre of this wonderful story is a young girl named Kate, who presents herself as a private detective with a stuffed monkey as an assistant. Kate is adorable- smart, observant, and sensitive. Her closest friend is Adrian, a 22 year old who works in his fathers music shop. One day Kate disappears and the mystery begins. A large part of the book takes place in the Green Oaks Shopping Mall, and O'Flynn uses the setting to comment on the place such centres have in modern society. I particularly enjoyed the insight into shopping habits and the behaviours of various customers. There are many references to songs and recording artists throughout the novel, with everything from Glen Campbell to David Bowie playing subtle parts in the story. There's definitely a built in sound track already in case this book ever becomes a film.

I really liked this book and recommend it!

Sunday Salon

2008-07-20T23:51:00.001+02:00

Oh what a book buying week it was! (Not so much on the actual reading however!)

New books include:

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (2006 Costa Book Award Winner)

The Halifax Connection by Marie Jakober

The Outlander by Gil Adamson (Drummer General Award Winner & Globe & Mail Book of the Year)

What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn (Costa First Novel Award Winner0

The Nymph and the Lamp by Thomas Raddall

Random Passage by Bernice Morgan

A Forest for Calum by Frank Macdonald (IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee 2007)

Effigy by Alissa York (Giller Prize Finalist)

Emily of the New Moon by LM Montgomery

Kiss the Joy as it Flies by Sheree Fitch

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Winner & Commonwealth Writers' Prize Regional Winner 2008 & Longlisted for the Giller)

No I couldn't control myself! I think this is what happens when a booklover lives abroad in countries where good (and new) English books are not readily available. Sure I order from Amazon quite often but nothing beats discovering new books on bookshelves in bookstores.

I want to give a hearty cheer for the staff of the RELAY bookstore in the Halifax airport. These people REALLY read books! Oh and yes I was flattered by the offer of a job there after discussing several new books with one of the ladies. I never travel through this airport without a quick stop at RELAY. Today I dropped hubby off there and despite the torn up parking lot I still went inside to see what was new. I left with 5 new books- all by Canadians. I've taken the 2nd Canadian Reading Challenge to heart (and soul) and have this feeling that I'll read much more than the 13 books I said I would read this year.

I also like The Inside Story here in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. It has a good selection of books by Canadian authors and sometimes has author readings. For instance, I was surprised to find out that this Tuesday Sheree Fitch is going to be there at 7:30! How serendipitous for me since I just read her new book this week!

And I have one small pet peeve to vent about today- I noticed myself getting quite upset with parents in the local bookstore when I overheard several of them say "NO we are NOT buying any books". I can't remember my parents ever saying no to a book even though neither of them are readers themselves. Please parents BUY books for your kids whenever you can and instill a life long love of reading in their inquisitive minds!!! Just say "YES!"

60. kiss the joy as it flies

2008-07-20T01:02:00.000+02:00

by Sheree Fitch

Sheree Fitch is new to me- she writes books for children- and it's been a long time since I've read a book either for or to a child, but I'm glad I took the advice of the staff at the RELAY bookstore in Halifax airport last weekend and bought this new book. Sheree is a talented writer and I really loved the character of Mercy Beth Fanjoy. I'd also caught an interview with Sheree on CTV last week and she seemed like such a lovely woman, sweet and easy going (just like everyone else here in NS!)

Mercy is faced with that question that we all dread- what would you do if you thought you only had a few weeks to live? Mercy writes a list and works on checking everything off in short order, including getting a note from her mother which she thinks she's been entitled to for years. There are ups and downs along the way, but Mercy battles on in the face of fear and pain.

Sheree will be at our local bookstore this week and I hope to drop by to meet her in person!

59. Late Nights on Air

2008-07-16T21:27:00.002+02:00

Late Nights on Air: Elizabeth Hay: Books

I raced through this wonderful book, never wanting to put it down and not wanting it to end. Yes, one of those rare books that kept me interested from beginning to end. Each character pulled me in, wanting to know more and more about their life and how they ended up in Yellowknife, for honestly how does someone end up there? I suppose I have some empathy with those who 'come from away', having been in that position so many times myself.

There are no ambivalent characters- you either love them or hate them- there's no in between. I loved the historical and cultural references and will surely look up more information on Canada's north.

Elizabeth Hay has a good webpage which includes several useful reading guides.

This novel has won both the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2008 Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year.

I really loved this book and will seek out more by Elizabeth Hay.

Nobel Prize for Literature Winners 1901-2007

2008-07-13T22:35:00.001+02:00

2007 - Doris Lessing
2006 - Orhan Pamuk
2005 - Harold Pinter
2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
2003 - J. M. Coetzee
2002 - Imre Kertész
2001 - V. S. Naipaul
2000 - Gao Xingjian
1999 - Günter Grass
1998 - José Saramago
1997 - Dario Fo
1996 - Wislawa Szymborska
1995 - Seamus Heaney
1994 - Kenzaburo Oe
1993 - Toni Morrison
1992 - Derek Walcott
1991 - Nadine Gordimer
1990 - Octavio Paz
1989 - Camilo José Cela
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1986 - Wole Soyinka
1985 - Claude Simon
1984 - Jaroslav Seifert
1983 - William Golding
1982 - Gabriel García Márquez
1981 - Elias Canetti
1980 - Czeslaw Milosz
1979 - Odysseus Elytis
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977 - Vicente Aleixandre
1976 - Saul Bellow
1975 - Eugenio Montale
1974 - Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
1973 - Patrick White
1972 - Heinrich Böll
1971 - Pablo Neruda
1970 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
1969 - Samuel Beckett
1968 - Yasunari Kawabata
1967 - Miguel Angel Asturias
1966 - Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre
1963 - Giorgos Seferis
1962 - John Steinbeck
1961 - Ivo Andric
1960 - Saint-John Perse
1959 - Salvatore Quasimodo
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1957 - Albert Camus
1956 - Juan Ramón Jiménez
1955 - Halldór Laxness
1954 - Ernest Hemingway
1953 - Winston Churchill
1952 - François Mauriac
1951 - Pär Lagerkvist
1950 - Bertrand Russell
1949 - William Faulkner
1948 - T.S. Eliot
1947 - André Gide
1946 - Hermann Hesse
1945 - Gabriela Mistral
1944 - Johannes V. Jensen
1943 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1942 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1941 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1940 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1939 - Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1938 - Pearl Buck
1937 - Roger Martin du Gard
1936 - Eugene O'Neill
1935 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1934 - Luigi Pirandello
1933 - Ivan Bunin
1932 - John Galsworthy
1931 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1930 - Sinclair Lewis
1929 - Thomas Mann
1928 - Sigrid Undset
1927 - Henri Bergson
1926 - Grazia Deledda
1925 - George Bernard Shaw
1924 - Wladyslaw Reymont
1923 - William Butler Yeats
1922 - Jacinto Benavente
1921 - Anatole France
1920 - Knut Hamsun
1919 - Carl Spitteler
1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1917 - Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
1916 - Verner von Heidenstam
1915 - Romain Rolland
1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1913 - Rabindranath Tagore
1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann
1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck
1910 - Paul Heyse
1909 - Selma Lagerlöf
1908 - Rudolf Eucken
1907 - Rudyard Kipling
1906 - Giosuè Carducci
1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904 - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray
1903 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
1902 - Theodor Mommsen
1901 - Sully Prudhomme

Do Something Depraved Today!

2008-07-11T14:46:00.001+02:00

While looking at a site that sells digital books I noticed the following at the bottom of the page:

Digital Rights Information

Adobe PDF eBook

Copy: not allowed

Print: not allowed

Reading aloud: not allowed

I understand the copy not allowed and the print not allowed but the reading aloud not allowed????? How weird is that?? I recently learned that for a long, long time all books were read ALOUD. That was the normal way to read a book. Out loud- even to yourself. You would move your lips and read the words out loud, not in your head. Reading silently is a relatively recent evolutionary skill, much like using your thumbs to write text messages.When I discover a particularly beautiful passage of writing I read it aloud, and it becomes even more wonderful.

"The act of reading was therefore a shared experience or a communal event. Indeed, before the tenth century, silent reading was generally regarded as an unusual, a depraved, or even a socially-threatening activity."

From a review of Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading- Go read it- it's a great article!

Imagine that!! A socially-threatening activity!! A personal act of rebellion, perhaps even treasonous!

It irritates me to no end that I have been told that I cannot read a book out loud. Grrrrrr!

I urge all of you to take 15 minutes today (and everyday) to read something OUT LOUD. Go on- be a rebel. You know you want to!

58. The View from Castle Rock

2008-07-11T01:31:00.001+02:00

The View from Castle Rock: Alice Munro: Books

A beautiful book from Canada's best short story writer, Alice Munro. Short stories, yes, but all are connected and all are based on Alice's research into her personal family history. Being an avid genealogist myself and someone who is always thinking about writing a family history, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Authentic and always powerful, the stories force you to think about your own past and your own family. Everyone has a story, but not all stories are heard. To ask questions, to listen to the answers, and give validation to what has gone before us, is what gives our lives meaning.

Sadly, Alice Munro has said that this will be her last book.

Best of the Booker Prize Winner Announced!

2008-07-10T14:21:00.000+02:00

Salman Rushdie was today (10 July) named winner of the Best of the Booker award for Midnight's Children.
The shortlist of six books was selected by a panel of judges - the biographer, novelist and critic Victoria Glendinning (Chair), writer and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan, Professor of English at University College, London. The decision then went to a public poll. Midnight's Children won with 36% of the votes.
Victoria Glendinning commented, 'The readers have spoken - in their thousands. And we do believe that they have made the right choice.'
Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. It was then chosen as the Booker of Bookers in 1993 - the only other time a celebratory prize has been awarded.

The Sunday Salon

2008-07-06T23:53:00.003+02:00

It's been quite a busy week for me here in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. We sold our house (hurray!) but went through a few days of emotional rollercoaster rides. In the end it's all worked out and a month from now we'll be in Toronto looking for a new place for mom and dad to live in.

So... in between showings and real estate meetings, what did I read this week?

I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, and really enjoyed it. It was a little tough getting through the Spanglish but well worth the effort. It's been widely acclaimed and is certainly deserving of the accolades.

Then I read The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler. It is a small book and I thought I could breeze right through it, but the incredibly beautiful language caught me by surprise and I had to really take my time and enjoy every paragraph. This should be one of Canada's best known books, but I'm afraid it isn't. It's not an action packed thriller, nor a romance, but a very intimate look into the emotions and thoughts of a young man as he comes of age in rural Canada. It was wonderful and left me in tears.

Humm... I'm thinking back... I actually didn't buy one single book this week!! I've been thumbing through a few of the new books that I have on my desk but nothings grabbing my attention this afternoon. I started Alice Munro's The View from Castle Rock, but Hage's DeNiro's Game is also a possibility. Oh well... eenie, meenie, minie, moe!

57. The Mountain and the Valley

2008-07-06T17:36:00.002+02:00

The Mountain and the Valley (New Canadian Library): Ernest Buckler, Robert Gibbs: Books

My first book in the 2nd Canadian Book Challenge and what a book! I can't believe I've never heard of this book which appears to be standard reading in some CanLit courses. It was wonderful!

The main character is David Canaan, a young man growing up here in the Annapolis Valley in the years before WWII. He's special- sensitive, creative, and articulate. Bucklers allows us to go inside David's life and the lives of those he loves. The transition from voice to voice is beautifully done, unlike many modern books where the author switches voice from chapter to chapter with headlines announcing the change. Buckler was an incredibly talented writer and the book reads like an epic poem in parts. I loved his rambling comparisons, memories, and details and there are parts that are definitely brilliant. Descriptions of Christmas Eve, apple picking, and fishing trips twisted my heart strings with a painful pleasure.

There's a lovely 'frame' to the novel, keeping it quite tidy and tight which I found charming and very appropriate to the setting. Metaphors are plentiful but never kitschy. I often stopped and reread them because of the beautiful pictures they formed in my imagination. This would make a lovely 'art film'!

I'd definitely recommend this to other's who want to read important Canadian Literature!

2nd Canadian Reading Challenge- Begins Now!

2008-07-03T02:20:00.005+02:00

I've been waiting for several weeks to begin this challenge- it is the first one that I signed up for EVER! After that it was all downhill! Hahaaa! Just kidding but-- after taking the plunge to sign up for my first challenge I couldn't resist signing up for so many more. Now I'm on a reading roll and am having such a good time making lists and organizing myself. I'd love to read how everyone else keeps track of their challenge reading. Anyone care to share?? Do you make lists in notebooks or just on your computers?

So my first book is The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler, written in 1952. I thought this would be appropriate for my first book because I'm on vacation here in the Anapolis Valley for a few weeks and the book is about a young man coming of age here in the valley in the years before WWII. I'm hoping I'll identify some of the places and have a greater understanding of the atmosphere. I have a feeling not that much has changed in this area over the years. It's still almost completely rural and undeveloped.

Buckler died in 1984 in Bridgetown NS, only a few miles from here. I googled him and found out a bit about him.

From The Canadian Encyclopedia:

Ernest Buckler, novelist (b at Dalhousie West, NS 19 July 1908; d at Bridgetown, NS 4 Mar l984). Buckler showed a remarkable sensitivity to the landscape and human character of his native Annapolis Valley. One of his principal strengths was his lyrical and metaphorical prose style. After studying at Dalhousie and University of Toronto, Buckler worked for 5 years as an actuarial mathematician in Toronto before ill health prompted him to return to NS.
He began his writing career by contributing short stories and essays to Esquire and Saturday Night. His major achievement, however, The Mountain and the Valley (1952), is a novel about a gifted, ambitious boy who remains so deeply attached to life in rural NS that his creativity becomes stifled. The Cruelest Month (1963) explores the unhappy passions of a group of intellectuals.

Buckler returned to his youthful community life in Ox Bells and Fireflies (1968), a "fictional memoir" (Buckler's term). Nova Scotia: Window on the Sea (1973) again uses elements of fiction and lyrical description, this time to accompany Hans Weber's photographs. The Rebellion of Young David and Other Stories (1975) is a collection of 1940s and 1950s stories. Whirligig (1977), a volume of light verse and prose, won the Leacock Award for Humour (1978).
Author THOMAS E. TAUSKY

And from Wilfred Laurier University Press:
Ernest Buckler’s writing is rooted in the magic of the ordinary. He celebrates the land and its community, and sensuously recreates a paradise — almost a Garden of Eden. Buckler’s American editors were right in believing that no one evoked the lost world of North Americas agrarian past better than Ernest Buckler.

A young Ernest Buckler

For a good article about Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley go here.

My best discovery was found on The Annapolis Valley Regional Library website. In just a few days it will be Ernest's 100th birthday and there are all sorts of events being planned! A film festival! a birthday party! a dinner! and a church service! I think I might just have to change my plane ticket!! Seriously! What an opportunity! I've also discovered where his home is located and the cemetary where he is buried. I might try taking a drive and seeing these for myself- oh and I'll bring my camera!

The Friends of Ernest Buckler Society

56. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2008-07-02T23:02:00.002+02:00

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Junot Díaz: Books

Oh my... this was a captivating novel! The story of Oscar Wao, an unlikely hero who's only wish in life is to be kissed and to not die a virgin, is heart wrenchingly beautiful. I found myself cheering for Oscar as he struggles with his weight, his lack of girlfriends, his dying mother, and his growing lust. At the same time I struggled as well- with the Spanglish, although as I got further into the book the language was less of a problem.
I'd definitely recommend this one!

Updated 2008 1001 BYMRBYD

2008-06-30T15:50:00.004+02:00

New additions marked with asterix *

I'll have to go through the list later today and see how I stand now.

: Pre 1800 :
0001 : The Thousand and One Nights . Anonymous
0002 : The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter . Anonymous *
0003 : The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu *
0004 : Romance of the Three Kingdoms . Luó Guànzhong *
0005 : The Water Margin . Shi Nai'an & Luó Guànzhong *
0006 : The Golden Ass . Lucius Apuleius
0007 : Tirant lo Blanc . Joanot Martorell *
0008 : La Celestina . Fernando de Rojas *
0009 : Amadis of Gaul . Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo *
0010 : The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes . Anonymous *
0011 : Gargantua and Pantagruel . François Rabelais
0012 : The Lusiad . Luís Vaz de Camões *
0013 : Monkey: A Journey to the West . Wú Chéng'en *
0014 : Unfortunate Traveller . Thomas Nashe
0015 : Thomas of Reading . Thomas Deloney *
0016 : Don Quixote . Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
0017 : The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda . Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra *
0018 : The Conquest of New Spain . Bernal Díaz del Castillo *
0019 : The Adventurous Simplicissimus . Hans von Grimmelshausen *
0020 : The Princess of Clèves . Comtesse de La Fayette
0021 : Oroonoko . Alphra Behn
0022 : Robinson Crusoe . Daniel Defoe
0023 : Love in Excess . Eliza Haywood
0024 : Moll Flanders . Daniel Defoe
0025 : Gulliver's Travels . Jonathan Swift
0026 : A Modest Proposal . Jonathan Swift
0027 : Joseph Andrews . Henry Fielding
0028 : Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus . Arbuthnot, Gay, Parnell, Pope, Swift
0029 : Pamela . Samuel Richardson
0030 : Clarissa . Samuel Richardson
0031 : Tom Jones . Henry Fielding
0032 : Fanny Hill . John Cleland
0033 : Peregrine Pickle . Tobias George Smollett
0034 : The Female Quixote . Charlotte Lennox
0035 : Candide . Voltaire
0036 : Rasselas . Samuel Johnson
0037 : Julie; or The New Eloise . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0038 : Émile; or, On Education . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0039 : The Castle of Otranto . Horace Walpole
0040 : The Vicar of Wakefield . Oliver Goldsmith
0041 : Tristam Shandy . Laurence Sterne
0042 : A Sentimental Journey . Laurence Sterne
0043 : The Man of Feeling . Henry Mackenzie
0044 : Humphry Clinker . Tobias George Smollett
0045 : The Sorrows of Young Werther . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0046 : Evelina . Fanny Burney
0047 : Reveries of a Solitary Walker . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0048 : Dangerous Liasons . Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
0049 : Confessions . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0050 : The 120 Days of Sodom . Marquis de Sade
0051 : Anton Reiser . Karl Philipp Moritz *
0052 : Vathek . William Beckford
0053 : Justine . Marquis de Sade
0054 : A Dream of Red Mansions . Cao Xueqin *
0055 : The Adventures of Caleb Willams . William Godwin
0056 : The Interesting Narrative . Olaudah Equiano
0057 : The Mysteries of Udolpho . Ann Radcliffe
0058 : Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0059 : The Monk . M.G. Lewis
0060 : Camilla . Fanny Burney
0061 : Jacques the Fatalist . Denis Diderot *
0062 : The Nun . Denis Diderot
0063 : Hyperion . Friedrich Hölderlin

: 1800s :
0064 : Castle Rackrent . Maria Edgeworth
0065 : Henry of Ofterdingen . Novalis *
0066 : Rameau's Nephew . Denis Diderot *
0067 : Elective Affinities . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0068 : Michael Kohlhaas . Heinrich von Kleist *
0069 : Sense and Sensibility . Jane Austen
0070 : Pride and Prejudice . Jane Austen
0071 : Mansfield Park . Jane Austen
0072 : Emma . Jane Austen
0073 : Rob Roy . Sir Walter Scott
0074 : Frankenstein . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
0075 : Ivanhoe . Sir Walter Scott
0076 : Melmoth the Wanderer . Charles Robert Maturin
0077 : The Life and the Opinions of the Tombcat Murr . E.T.A. Hoffmann *
0078 : The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner . James Hogg
0079 : The Life of a Good-for-Nothing . Joseph von Eichendorff *
0080 : Last of the Mohicans . James Fenimore Cooper
0081 : The Betrothed . Alessandro Manzoni
0082 : The Red and the Black . Stendhal
0083 : The Hunchback of Notre Dame . Victor Hugo
0084 : Eugene Onegin . Alexander Pushkin *
0085 : Eugénie Grandet . Honoré de Balzac
0086 : La Père Goriot . Honoré de Balzac
0087 : The Nose . Nikolay Gogol
0088 : Oliver Twist . Charles Dickins
0089 : The Lion of Flanders . Hendrick Conscience *
0090 : The Charterhouse of Parma . Stendhal
0091 : The Fall of the House of Usher . Edgar Allan Poe
0092 : Camera Obscura . Hildebrand *
0093 : A Hero of Our Times . Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov *
0094 : Dead Souls . Nikolay Gogol
0095 : Lost Illusions . Honoré de Balzac
0096 : The Pit and the Pendulum . Edgar Allan Poe
0097 : The Three Musketeers . Alexandre Dumas
0098 : Facundo . Domingo Faustino Sarmiento *
0099 : The Devil's Pool . George Sand *
0100 : The Count of Monte Cristo . Alexandre Dumas
0101 : Jane Eyre . Charlotte Brontë
0102 : Vanity Fair . William Makepeace Thackeray
0103 : Wuthering Heights . Emily Brontë
0104 : The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . Anne Brontë
0105 : David Copperfield . Charles Dickins
0106 : The Scarlet Letter . Nathaniel Hawthorne
0107 : Moby-Dick . Herman Melville
0108 : The House of the Seven Gables . Nathaniel Hawthorne
0109 : Uncle Tom's Cabin . Harriet Beecher Stowe
0110 : Cranford . Elizabeth Gaskell
0111 : Bleak House . Charles Dickins
0112 : Walden . Henry David Thoreau
0113 : Green Henry . Gottfried Keller *
0114 : North and South . Elizabeth Gaskell
0115 : Madame Bovary . Gustave Flaubert
0116 : Indian Summer . Adalbert Stifter *
0117 : Adam Bede . George Eliot
0118 : Oblomov . Ivan Goncharov
0119 : The Woman in White . Wilkie Collins
0120 : The Mill on the Floss . George Eliot
0121 : Max Havelaar . Multatuli
0122 : Great Expectations . Charles Dickins
0123 : Silas Marner . George Eliot
0124 : Fathers and Sons . Ivan Turgenev
0125 : Les Misérables . Victor Hugo
0126 : The Water-Babies . Charles Kingsley
0127 : Notes from the Underground . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0128 : Uncle Silas . Sheridan Le Fanu
0129 : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . Lewis Carroll
0130 : Journey to the Center of the Earth . Jules Verne
0131 : Crime and Punishment . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0132 : Last Chronicle of Barset . Anthony Trollope *
0133 : Thérèse Raquin . Émile Zola
0134 : The Moonstone . Wilkie Collins
0135 : Little Women . Louisa May Alcott
0136 : The Idiot . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0137 : Maldoror . Comte de Lautréamont
0138 : Phineas Finn . Anthony Trollope
0139 : Sentimental Education . Gustave Flaubert
0140 : War and Peace . Leo Tolstoy
0141 : King Lear of the Steppes . Ivan Turgenev
0142 : Alice Through the Looking Glass . Lewis Carroll
0143 : Middlemarch . George Eliot
0144 : Spring Torrents . Ivan Turgenev
0145 : Erewhon . Samuel Butler
0146 : The Devils . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0147 : In a Glass Darkly . Sheridan Le Fanu
0148 : Around the World in Eighty Days . Jules Verne
0149 : The Enchanted Wanderer . Nicolai Leskov *
0150 : Far from the Maddening Crowd . Thomas Hardy
0151 : Pepita Jimenéz . Juan Valera *
0152 : The Crime of Father Amado . José Maria Eça de Queirós *
0153 : Drunkard . Émile Zola
0154 : Anna Karenina . Leo Tolstoy
0155 : Martín Fierro . José Hernández *
0156 : The Red Room . August Strindberg
0157 : Ben-Hur . Lew Wallace
0158 : Nana . Émile Zola
0159 : The Portrait of a Lady . Henry James
0160 : The House by the Medlar Tree . Giovanni Verga
0161 : The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas . Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
0162 : Bouvard and Pécuchet . Gustave Flaubert
0163 : Treasure Island . Robert Louis Stevenson
0164 : A Woman's Life . Guy de Maupassant
0165 : The Death of Ivan Ilyich . Leo Tolstoy
0166 : Against the Grain . Joris-Karl Huysmans
0167 : The Regent's Wife . Clarín Leopoldo Alas *
0168 : Bel-Ami . Guy de Maupassant
0169 : Marius the Epicurean . Walter Pater
0170 : The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Mark Twain
0171 : Germinal . Émile Zola
0172 : King Solomon's Mines . H. Rider Haggard
0173 : The Quest . Frederik van Eeden *
0174 : The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Robert Louis Stevenson
0175 : The Manors of Ulloa . Emilia Pardo Bazán *
0176 : The People of Hemsö . August Strindberg
0177 : Pierre and Jean . Guy de Maupassant
0178 : Under the Yoke . Ivan Vazov *
0179 : The Child of Pleasure . Gabriele D'Annunzio *
0180 : Eline Vere . Louis Couperus *
0181 : Hunger . Knut Hamsun
0182 : By the Open Sea . August Strindberg
0183 : La Bête Humaine . Émile Zola
0184 : Thaïs . Anatole France *
0185 : The Kreutzer Sonata . Leo Tolstoy
0186 : The Picture of Dorian Gray . Oscar Wilde
0187 : Down There . Joris-Karl Huysmans *
0188 : Tess of the D'Ubervilles . Thomas Hardy
0189 : Gösta Berling's Saga . Selma Lagerlöf
0190 : New Grub Street . George Gissig
0191 : News from Nowhere . William Morris
0192 : The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes . Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
0193 : The Diary of a Nobody . George & Weedon Grossmith
0194 : The Viceroys . Federico De Roberto *
0195 : Jude the Obscure . Thomas Hardy
0196 : Effi Briest . Theodor Fontane
0197 : The Time Machine . H.G. Wells
0198 : The Island of Dr. Moreau . H.G. Wells
0199 : Quo Vadis . Henryk Sienkiewicz
0200 : Dracula . Bram Stoker
0201 : What Maisie Knew . Henry James
0202 : Compassion . Benito Pérez Galdós *
0203 : Pharaoh . Boleslaw Prus *
0204 : Fruits of the Earth . André Gide
0205 : The War of the Worlds . H.G. Wells
0206 : As a Man Grows Older . Italo Svevo *
0207 : Dom Casmurro . Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis *
0208 : The Awakening . Kate Chopin
0209 : The Stechlin . Theodor Fontane
0210 : Eclipse of the Crescent Moon . Géza Gárdonyi *
0211 : Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. . Somerville and Ross

: 1900s :
0212 : Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem . Emilio Salgari *
0213 : Sister Carrie . Theodore Dreiser
0214 : None but the Brave . Arthur Schnitzler *
0215 : Kim . Rudyard Kipling
0216 : Buddenbrooks . Thomas Mann
0217 : The Hound of the Baskervilles . Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
0218 : Heart of Darkness . Joseph Conrad
0219 : The Wings of the Dove . Henry James
0220 : The Immoralist . André Gide
0221 : The Ambassadors . Henry James
0222 : The Riddle of the Sands . Erskine Childers
0223 : The Call of the Wild . Jack London *
0224 : Memoirs of my Nervous Illness . Daniel P. Schreber *
0225 : The Way of All Flesh . Samuel Butler *
0226 : Hadrian the Seventh . Frederick Rolfe
0227 : Nostromo . Joseph Conrad
0228 : The House of Mirth . Edith Wharton
0229 : Professor Unrat . Heinrich Mann
0230 : Solitude . Víctor Català *
0231 : Young Törless . Robert Musil
0232 : The Forsyte Saga . John Galsworthy
0233 : The Jungle . Upton Sinclair
0234 : The Secret Agent . Joseph Conrad
0235 : Mother . Maxim Gorky
0236 : The House on the Borderland . William Hope Hodgson
0237 : The Old Wives' Tale . Arnold Bennett
0238 : The Inferno . Henri Barbusse
0239 : A Room with a View . E.M. Forster
0240 : Strait is the Gate . André Gide
0241 : The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge . Rainer Maria Rilke *
0242 : Howards End . E.M. Forster
0243 : Impressions of Africa . Raymond Roussel
0244 : Fantômas . Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre
0245 : Ethan Frome . Edith Wharton
0246 : The Charwoman's Daughter . James Stephens
0247 : Death in Venice . Thomas Mann
0248 : Sons and Lovers . D.H. Lawrence
0249 : The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists . Robert Tressell
0250 : Platero and I . Juan Ramón Jiménez *
0251 : Tarzan of the Apes . Edgar Rice Burroughs
0252 : Locus Solas . Raymond Roussell
0253 : Kokoro . Natsume Soseki
0254 : The Thirty-Nine Steps . John Buchan
0255 : The Rainbow . D.H. Lawrence
0256 : Of Human Bondage . William Somerset Maugham
0257 : The Good Soldier . Ford Madox Ford
0258 : Rashomon . Akutagawa Ryunosuke *
0259 : Under Fire . Henri Barbusse
0260 : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . James Joyce
0261 : The Underdogs . Mariano Azuela *
0262 : Pallieter . Felix Timmermans *
0263 : Home and the World . Rabindranath Tagore *
0264 : Growth of the Soil . Knut Hamsun
0265 : The Return of the Soldier . Rebecca West
0266 : Tarr . Wyndham Lewis
0267 : The Storm of Steel . Ernst Jünger *
0268 : Women in Love . D.H. Lawrence
0269 : Main Street . Sinclair Lewis
0270 : The Age of Innocence . Edith Wharton
0271 : Chrome Yellow . Aldous Huxley
0272 : Life of Christ . Giovanni Papini *
0273 : Ulysses . James Joyce
0274 : Babbitt . Sinclair Lewis
0275 : Claudine's House . Colette *
0276 : Life and Death of Harriett Frean . May Sinclair
0277 : The Forest of the Hanged . Liviu Rebreanu *
0278 : Siddhartha . Hermann Hesse
0279 : The Enormous Room . E.E. Cummings
0280 : Kristin Lavransdatter . Sigrid Undset
0281 : Amok . Stefan Zweig
0282 : The Devil in the Flesh . Raymond Radiguet
0283 : Zeno's Conscience . Italo Svevo
0284 : A Passage to India . E.M. Forster
0285 : We . Yevgeny Zamyatin
0286 : The Magic Mountain . Thomas Mann
0287 : The Green Hat . Michael Arlen
0288 : The New World . Heruy Wäldä-Sellassé *
0289 : The Professor's House . Willa Cather
0290 : The Artamonov Business . Maxim Gorky
0291 : The Trial . Franz Kafka
0292 : The Counterfeiters . André Gide
0293 : The Great Gatsby . F. Scott Fitzgerald
0294 : Mrs. Dalloway . Virginia Woolf
0295 : Chaka the Zulu . Thomas Mofolo *
0296 : The Making of Americans . Gertrude Stein
0297 : The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . Agatha Christie
0298 : One, None and a Hundred Thousand . Luigi Pirandello
0299 : Under Satan's Sun . Geroges Bernanos *
0300 : The Good Soldier's Svejk . Jaroslav Hasek
0301 : Alberta and Jacob . Cora Sandel *
0302 : The Castle . Franz Kafka
0303 : Blindness . Henry Green
0304 : The Sun Also Rises . Ernest Hemingway
0305 : Amerika . Franz Kafka
0306 : The Case of Sergeant Grischa . Arnold Zweig *
0307 : Tarka the Otter . Henry Williamson
0308 : To the Lighthouse . Virginia Woolf
0309 : Remembrance of Things Past . Marcel Proust
0310 : Steppenwolf . Hermann Hesse
0311 : Nadja . André Breton
0312 : Quicksand . Nella Larsen
0313 : Decline and Fall . Evelyn Waugh
0314 : Some Prefer Nettles : Junichiro Tanizaki *
0315 : Parade's End . Ford Madox Ford
0316 : The Well of Loneliness . Radclyffe Hall
0317 : Lady Chatterley's Lover . D.H. Lawrence
0318 : Orlando . Virginia Woolf
0319 : Story of the Eye . Geroges Bataille
0320 : Retreat Without Song . Shahan Shahnoor
0321 : Les Enfants Terribles . Jean Cocteau
0322 : Berlin Alexanderplatz . Alfred Döblin
0323 : All Quiet on the Western Front . Erich Maria Remarque
0324 : The Time of Indifference . Alberto Moravia
0325 : Living . Henry Green
0326 : I Thought of Daisy . Edmund Wilson *
0327 : Farewell to Arms . Ernest Hemingway
0328 : Passing . Nellas Larsen
0329 : Look Homeward, Angel . Thomas Wolfe *
0330 : The Maltese Falcon . Dashiell Hammett
0331 : Her Privates We . Frederic Manning
0332 : The Apes of God . Wyndham Lewis
0333 : Monica . Saunders Lewis *
0334 : Insatiability . Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz *
0335 : The Waves . Virginia Woolf
0336 : To the North . Elizabeth Bowen
0337 : The Thin Man . Dashiell Hammett
0338 : Journey to the End of the Night . Louis-Ferdinand Céline
0339 : The Return of Philip Latinowicz . Miroslav Krleza *
0340 : The Radetzky March . Joseph Roth
0341 : The Forbidden Realm . J.J. Slauerhoff *
0342 : Cold Comfort Farm . Stella Gibbons
0343 : Brave New World . Aldous Huxley
0344 : Vipers' Tangle . François Mauriac *
0345 : The Man Without Qualities . Robert Musil
0346 : Cheese . Willem Elsschot *
0347 : Man's Fate . André Malraux *
0348 : A Day Off . Storm Jameson
0349 : Testament of Youth . Vera Brittain
0350 : The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas . Gertrude Stein
0351 : Murder Must Advertise . Dorothy L. Sayers
0352 : Miss Lonelyhearts . Nathanael West
0353 : Call It Sleep . Henry Roth
0354 : The Street of Crocodiles . Bruno Schulz
0355 : Thank You, Jeeves . P.G. Wodehouse
0356 : Tender is the Night . F. Scott Fitzgerald
0357 : Tropic of Cancer . Henry Miller
0358 : The Postman Always Rings Twice . James M. Cain
0359 : On the Heights of Despair . Emil Cioran *
0360 : The Bells of Basel . Louis Aragon *
0361 : The Nine Taylors . Dorothy L. Sayers
0362 : Auto-da-Fé . Elias Canetti
0363 : They Shoot Horses, Don't They? . Horace McCoy
0364 : The Last of Mr. Norris . Christopher Isherwood
0365 : Untouchable . Mulk Raj Anand
0366 : Independent People . Halldór Laxness
0367 : Nightwood . Djuna Barnes
0368 : At the Mountains of Madness . H.P. Lovecraft
0369 : Absalom, Absalom! . William Faulkner
0370 : War with the Newts . Karel Capek *
0371 : Keep the Aspidistra Flying . George Orwell
0372 : Gone with the Wind . Margaret Mitchell
0373 : The Thinking Reed . Rebecca West
0374 : Eyeless in Gaza . Aldous Huxley
0375 : Summer Will Show . Sylvia Townsend Warner
0376 : Rickshaw Boy . Lao She *
0377 : Out of Africa . Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
0378 : In Parenthesis . David Jones
0379 : Ferdydurke . Witold Gombrowicz *
0380 : The Blind Owl . Sadegh Hedayat *
0381 : The Hobbit . J.R.R. Tolkien
0382 : Their Eyes Were Watching God . Zora Neale Hurston
0383 : Of Mice and Men . John Steinbeck
0384 : Murphy . Samuel Beckett
0385 : U.S.A. . John Dos Passos
0386 : Brighton Rock . Graham Greene
0387 : Cause for Alarm . Eric Ambler
0388 : Alamut . Vladimir Bartol *
0389 : Rebecca . Daphne du Maurier
0390 : Nausea . Jean-Paul Sartre
0391 : Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day . Winifred Watson
0392 : On the Edge of Reason . Miroslav Krleza *
0393 : The Big Sleep . Raymond Chandler
0394 : Goodbye to Berlin . Christopher Isherwood
0395 : The Grapes of Wrath . John Steinbeck
0396 : Good Morning, Midnight . Jean Rhys
0397 : At Swim-Two-Birds . Flann O'Brien
0398 : Finnegans Wake . James Joyce
0399 : Native Son . Richard Wright
0400 : The Tarter Steppe . Dino Buzzati
0401 : The Power and the Glory . Graham Greene
0402 : For Whom the Bell Tolls . Ernest Hemingway
0403 : The Man Who Loved Children . Christina Steed *
0404 : Broad and Alien is the World . Ciro Alegría *
0405 : The Living and the Dead . Patrick White
0406 : The Harvesters . Cesare Pavese *
0407 : Conversations in Sicily . Elio Vittorini
0408 : The Outsider . Albert Camus
0409 : Embers . Sándor Márai
0410 : Chess Story . Stefan Zweig *
0411 : The Glass Bead Game . Hermann Hesse
0412 : Joseph and His Brothers . Thomas Mann *
0413 : The Little Prince . Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
0414 : Dangling Man . Saul Bellow
0415 : The Razor's Edge . William Somerset Maugham
0416 : Transit . Anna Seghers
0417 : Pippi Longstocking . Astrid Lindgren *
0418 : Loving . Henry Green
0419 : Animal Farm . George Orwell
0420 : The Bridge on the Drina . Ivo Andric
0421 : Christ Stopped at Eboli . Carlo Levi
0422 : Arcanum 17 . André Breton
0423 : Brideshead Revisited . Evelyn Waugh
0424 : Bosnian Chronicle . Ivo Andric *
0425 : The Tin Flute . Gabrielle Roy *
0426 : Andrea . Carmen Laforet *
0427 : The Death of Virgil . Hermann Broch *
0428 : Titus Groan . Mervyn Peake
0429 : Zorba the Greek . Nikos Kazantzakis *
0430 : Back . Henry Green
0431 : House in the Uplands . Erskine Caldwell *
0432 : The Path to the Nest of Spiders . Italo Calvino
0433 : Under the Volcano . Malcolm Lowry
0434 : If This Is a Man . Primo Levi
0435 : Excercises in Style . Raymond Queneau
0436 : The Plague . Albert Camus
0437 : Doctor Faustus . Thomas Mann
0438 : Midaq Alley . Naguib Mahfouz *
0439 : Froth on the Daydream . Boris Vian *
0440 : Journey to the Alcarria . Camilo José Cela *
0441 : Ashes and Diamonds . Jerzy Andrzejewski *
0442 : Disobedience . Alberto Moravia
0443 : All About H. Hatterr . G.V. Desani
0444 : Cry, the Beloved Country . Alan Paton
0445 : In the Heart of the Seas . Shmuel Yosef Agnon *
0446 : This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman . Tadeusz Borowski *
0447 : Death Sentence . Maurice Blanchot
0448 : Nineteen Eighty-Four . George Orwell
0449 : The Man with the Golden Arm . Nelson Algren
0450 : Kingdom of this World . Alejo Carpentier
0451 : The Heat of the Day . Elizabeth Bowen
0452 : Love in a Cold Climate . Nancy Mitford
0453 : The Case of Comrade Tulayev . Victor Serge
0454 : The Garden Where the Brass Band Played . Simon Vestdijk
0455 : I, Robot . Isaac Asimov
0456 : The Grass is Singing . Doris Lessing
0457 : A Town Like Alice . Nevil Shute *
0458 : The Moon and the Bonfires . Cesare Pavese
0459 : Gormenghast . Mervyn Peake
0460 : The 13 Clocks . James Thurber
0461 : The Labyrinth of Solitude . Octavio Paz
0462 : The Abbott C . Georges Bataille
0463 : The Guiltless . Hermann Broch *
0464 : Barabbas . Pär Lagerkvist *
0465 : The End of the Affair . Graham Greene
0466 : Molloy . Samuel Beckett
0467 : The Rebel . Albert Camus
0468 : The Catcher in the Rye . J.D. Salinger
0469 : The Opposing Shore . Julien Gracq
0470 : Foundation . Isaac Asimov
0471 : Malone Dies . Samuel Beckett
0472 : Day of the Triffids . John Wyndham
0473 : Memoirs of Hadrian . Marguerite Yourcenar
0474 : The Hive . Camilo José Cela *
0475 : Wise Blood . Flannery O'Connor
0476 : The Old Man and the Sea . Ernest Hemingway
0477 : Invisible Man . Ralph Ellison
0478 : The Judge and His Hangman . Friedrich Dürrenmatt
0479 : Excellent Women . Barbara Pym *
0480 : A Thousand Cranes . Yasunari Kawabata *
0481 : Go Tell It on the Mountain . James Baldwin
0482 : Casino Royale . Ian Fleming
0483 : Junkie . William Burroughs
0484 : Lucky Jim . Kingsley Amis
0485 : The Lost Steps . Alejo Carpentier *
0486 : The Hothouse . Wolfgang Koeppen *
0487 : The Long Good-Bye . Raymond Chandler
0488 : The Go-Between . L.P. Hartley
0489 : The Dark Child . Camara Laye *
0490 : A Day in Spring . Ciril Kosmac *
0491 : A Ghost at Noon . Alberto Moravia
0492 : The Story of O . Pauline Réage
0493 : Under the Net . Iris Murdoch
0494 : Lord of the Flies . William Golding
0495 : The Mandarins . Simone de Beauvoir *
0496 : Bonjour Tristesse . Françoise Sagan
0497 : Death in Rome . Wolfgang Koeppen *
0498 : The Sound of Waves . Yukio Mishima *
0499 : The Unknown Soldier . Väinö Linna *
0500 : I'm Not Stiller . Max Frisch
0501 : The Ragazzi . Pier Paolo Pasolini
0502 : The Recognitions . William Gaddis
0503 : The Burning Plain . Juan Rulfo *
0504 : The Quiet American . Graham Greene
0505 : The Trusting and the Maimed . James Plunkett
0506 : The Tree of Man . Patrick White *
0507 : The Last Temptation of Christ . Nikos Kazantzákis
0508 : The Devil to Pay in the Backlands . João Guimarães Rosa *
0509 : Lolita . Vladimir Nabokov
0510 : The Talented Mr. Ripley . Patricia Highsmith
0511 : The Lord of the Rings . J.R.R. Tolkien
0512 : The Lonely Londoners . Sam Selvon
0513 : The Roots of Heaven . Romain Gary
0514 : The Floating Opera . John Barth
0515 : Giovanni's Room . James Baldwin
0516 : Justine . Lawrence Durrell
0517 : The Glass Bees . Ernst Jünger *
0518 : Doctor Zhivago . Boris Pasternak
0519 : Pnin . Vladimir Nabokov
0520 : On the Road . Jack Kerouac
0521 : The Manila Rope . Veijo Meri *
0522 : The Deadbeats . Ward Ruyslinck *
0523 : Homo Faber . Max Frisch
0524 : Blue of Noon . Geroges Bataille
0525 : The Midwich Cuckoos . John Wyndham
0526 : Voss . Patrick White
0527 : Jealousy . Alain Robbe-Grillet
0528 : The Birds . Tarjei Vesaas *
0529 : The Once and Future King . T.H. White
0530 : The Bell . Iris Murdoch
0531 : Borstal Boy . Brendan Behan
0532 : Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon . Jorge Amado *
0533 : Saturday Night and Sunday Morning . Alan Sillitoe
0534 : Things Fall Apart . Chinua Achebe
0535 : The Bitter Glass . Eilís Dillon
0536 : The Guide . R.K. Narayan *
0537 : The Leopard . Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
0538 : Deep Rivers . José María Arguedas *
0539 : Breakfast at Tiffany's . Truman Capote
0540 : Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring . Kenzaburo Oe
0541 : Billiards at Half-Past Nine . Heinrich Böll
0542 : Down Second Avenue . Ezekiel Mphahlele *
0543 : Cider With Rosie . Laurie Lee
0544 : The Tin Drum . Günter Grass
0545 : The Naked Lunch . William Burroughs
0546 : Billy Liar . Keith Waterhouse
0547 : Absolute Beginners . Colin MacInnes
0548 : Promise at Dawn . Romain Gary
0549 : Rabbit, Run . John Updike
0550 : To Kill a Mockingbird . Harper Lee
0551 : The Magician of Lublin . Isaac Bashevis Singer *
0552 : Halftime . Martin Walser *
0553 : The Country Girls . Edna O'Brien
0554 : Bebo's Girl . Carlo Cassola *
0555 : God's Bit of Wood . Ousmane Sembène *
0556 : The Shipyard . Juan Carlos Onetti *
0557 : Catch-22 . Joseph Heller
0558 : Solaris . Stanislaw Lem
0559 : Cat and Mouse . G¨nter Grass
0560 : The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . Muriel Spark
0561 : A Severed Head . Iris Murdoch
0562 : Franny and Zooey . J.D. Salinger
0563 : No One Writes to the Colonel . Gabriel García Márquez *
0564 : Faces in the Water . Janet Frame
0565 : Memoirs of a Peasant Boy . Xosé Neira Vilas *
0566 : Stranger in a Strange Land . Robert Heinlein
0567 : Labyrinths . Jorge Luis Borges
0568 : The Golden Notebook . Doris Lessing
0569 : Time of Silence . Luis Martín-Santos *
0570 : Pale Fire . Vladimir Nabokov
0571 : A Clockwork Orange . Anthony Burgess
0572 : One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest . Ken Kesey
0573 : Girl With Green Eyes . Edna O'Brien
0574 : The Death of Artemio Cruz . Carlos Fuentes *
0575 : The Time of the Hero . Mario Vargas Llosa *
0576 : The Garden of the Finzi-Continis . Giorgio Bassani *
0577 : One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0578 : The Third Wedding . Costas Taktsis *
0579 : Dog Years . Günter Grass *
0580 : The Bell Jar . Sylvia Plath
0581 : Inside Mr. Enderby . Anthony Burgess
0582 : The Girls of Slender Means . Muriel Spark
0583 : The Spy Who Came in From the Cold . John Le Carré
0584 : Manon des Sources . Marcel Pagnol
0585 : The Graduate . Charles Webb
0586 : Cat's Cradle . Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
0587 : V. . Thomas Pynchon
0588 : Herzog . Saul Bellow
0589 : The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein . Marguerite Duras
0590 : Arrow of God . Chinua Achebe
0591 : Three Trapped Tigers . Guillermo Cabrera Infante *
0592 : Sometimes a Great Notion . Ken Kesey
0593 : The Passion According to G.H. . Clarice Lispector
0594 : Back to Oegstgeest . Jan Wolkers *
0595 : Closely Watched Trains . Bohumil Hrabal *
0596 : The River Between . Ngugi wa Thiong'o
0597 : Garden, Ashes . Danilo Kis *
0598 : Everything That Rises Must Converge . Flannery O'Connor
0599 : Things . Georges Perec
0600 : In Cold Blood . Truman Capote
0601 : Death and the Dervish . Mesa Selimovic *
0602 : Silence . Shusaku Endo *
0603 : To Each His Own . Leonardo Sciascia *
0604 : The Crying of Lot 49 . Thomas Pynchon
0605 : Giles Goat-Boy . John Barth
0606 : Marks of Identity . Juan Goytisolo *
0607 : The Vice-Consul . Marguerite Duras
0608 : The Magus . John Fowles
0609 : The Master and Margarita . Mikhail Bulgakov
0610 : Wide Sargasso Sea . Jean Rhys
0611 : The Third Policeman . Flann O'Brien
0612 : Miramar . Naguib Mahfouz *
0613 : Z . Vassilis Vassilikos *
0614 : Pilgrimage . Dorothy Richardson
0615 : The Manor . Isaac Bashevis Singer *
0616 : One Hundred Years of Solitude . Gabriel García Márquez
0617 : No Laughing Matter . Angus Wilson
0618 : Days of the Dolphin . Robert Merle *
0619 : The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . Tom Wolfe
0620 : Eva Trout . Elizabeth Bowen
0621 : The Cathedral . Oles Honchar *
0622 : A Kestral for a Knave . Barry Hines
0623 : In Watermelon Sugar . Richard Brautigan
0624 : The German Lesson . Siegfried Lenz
0625 : The Quest for Christa T. . Christa Wolf
0626 : Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? . Philip K. Dick
0627 : 2001: A Space Odyssey . Arthur C. Clarke
0628 : Belle du Seigneur . Albert Cohen
0629 : Cancer Ward . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0630 : Myra Breckinridge . Gore Vidal
0631 : The First Circle . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0632 : A Void/Avoid . Georges Perec
0633 : Them . Joyce Carol Oates
0634 : Ada . Vladimir Nabokov
0635 : The Godfather . Mario Puzo
0636 : Portnoy's Complaint . Philip Roth
0637 : Jacob the Liar . Jurek Becker *
0638 : The French Lieutenant's Woman . John Fowles
0639 : Slaughterhouse-five . Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
0640 : Blind Man With a Pistol . Chester Himes
0641 : Pricksongs and Descants . Robert Coover
0642 : Tent of Miracles . Jorge Armado
0643 : The Case Worker . György Konrád *
0644 : Moscow Stations . Venedikt Yerofeev *
0645 : Heartbreak Tango . Manuel Puig *
0646 : Seasons of Migrations to the North . Tayeb Salih *
0647 : Here's to You, Jesusa! . Elena Poniatowska *
0648 : Fifth Business . Robertson Davies *
0649 : Play It As It Lays . Joan Didion *
0650 : Jahrestage . Uwe Johnson
0651 : A World for Julius . Alfredo Bryce Echenique *
0652 : I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . Maya Angelou
0653 : The Bluest Eyes . Toni Morrison
0654 : The Sea of Fertility . Yukio Mishima
0655 : Rabbit Redux . John Updike
0656 : Cataract . Mykhaylo Osadchyl *
0657 : Group Portrait With Lady . Heinrich Böll
0658 : Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . Hunter S. Thompson
0659 : The Book of Daniel . E.L. Doctorow
0660 : Lives of Girls & Women . Alice Munro *
0661 : House Mother Normal . B.S. Johnson
0662 : In a Free State . V.S. Naipal
0663 : Surfacing . Margaret Atwood
0664 : G . John Berger
0665 : The Summer Book . Tove Jansson
0666 : The Twilight Years . Sawako Ariyoshi *
0667 : The Optimist's Daughter . Eudora Welty *
0668 : Invisible Cities . Italo Calvino
0669 : Gravity's Rainbow . Thomas Pynchon
0670 : The Honorary Consul . Graham Greene
0671 : Crash . J.G. Ballard
0672 : The Castle of Crossed Destinies . Italo Calvino
0673 : The Siege of Krishnapur . J.G. Farrell
0674 : A Question of Power . Bessie Head
0675 : Fear of Flying . Erica Jong
0676 : The Dispossessed . Ursula K. Le Guin *
0677 : The Diviners . Margaret Laurence *
0678 : The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum . Heinrich Böll
0679 : Dusklands . J.M. Coetzee
0680 : The Fan Man . William Kotzwinkle
0681 : The Port . Antun Soljan *
0682 : Ragtime . E.L. Doctorow
0683 : The Commandant . Jessica Anderson *
0684 : The Year of the Hare . Arto Paasilinna *
0685 : Humboldt's Gift . Saul Bellow
0686 : Woman at Point Zero . Nawal El Saadawi *
0687 : Willard and His Bowling Trophies . Richard Brautigan
0688 : Fateless . Imre Kertész
0689 : The Dead Father . Donald Barthelme
0690 : Correction . Thomas Bernhard
0691 : A Dance to the Music of Time . Anthony Powell
0692 : W, or the Memory of Childhood . Georges Perec
0693 : Autumn of the Patriarch . Gabriel García Márquez
0694 : Patterns of Childhood . Christa Wolf
0695 : Blaming . Elizabeth Taylor *
0696 : Cutter and Bone . Newton Thornburg
0697 : Interview With the Vampire . Anne Rice
0698 : The Left-Handed Woman . Peter Handke
0699 : Kiss of the Spider Woman . Manuel Puig *
0700 : Almost Transparent Blue . Ryu Murakami *
0701 : In the Heart of the Country . J.M. Coetzee
0702 : The Engineer of the Human Soul . Josef Skvorecky *
0703 : Quartet in Autumn . Barbara Pym *
0704 : The Hour of the Star . Clarice Lispector
0705 : Song of Solomon . Toni Morrison
0706 : The Wars . Timothy Findley *
0707 : Dispatches . Michael Herr
0708 : The Shining . Stephen King
0709 : Delta of Venus . Anaïs Nin
0710 : The Beggar Maid . Alice Munro *
0711 : Requiem for a Dream . Hubert Selby Jr. *
0712 : The Singapore Grip . J.G. Farrell
0713 : The Sea, The Sea . Iris Murdoch
0714 : Life: A User's Manual . Georges Perec
0715 : The Back Room . Carmen Martín Gaite *
0716 : The Virgin in the Garden . A.S. Byatt
0717 : The Cement Garden . Ian McEwan
0718 : Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy . Douglas Adams
0719 : If on a Winter's Night a Traveler . Italo Calvino
0720 : So Long a Letter . Mariama Bâ *
0721 : Burger's Daughter . Nadine Gordimer
0722 : A Bend in the River . V.S. Naipaul
0723 : A Dry White Season . André Brink *
0724 : The Book of Laughter and Forgetting . Milan Kundera
0725 : Fool's Gold . Maro Douka *
0726 : Smiley's People . John Le Carré
0727 : Southern Seas . Manuel Vásquez Montalbán *
0728 : The Name of the Rose . Umberto Eco
0729 : Clear Light of Day . Anita Desai *
0730 : Confederacy of Dunces . John Kennedy Toole
0731 : Rituals . Cees Nooteboom
0732 : Smell of Sadness . Alfred Kossmann *
0733 : Broken April . Ismail Kadare *
0734 : Midnight's Children . Salman Rushdie
0735 : Waiting for Barbarians . J.M. Coetzee
0736 : Summer in Baden-Baden . Leonid Tsypkin
0737 : The House with the Blind Glass Windows . Herbjørg Wassmo *
0738 : Leaden Wings . Zhang Jie *
0739 : The War at the End of the World . Mario Vargas Llosa *
0740 : Lanark: A Life in Four Books . Alasdair Gray
0741 : Rabbit is Rich . John Updike
0742 : Couples, Passerby . Botho Strauss *
0743 : July's People . Nadine Gordimer
0744 : On the Black Hill . Bruce Chatwin
0745 : The House of the Spirits . Isabel Allende
0746 : Schindler's Ark . Thomas Keneally
0747 : A Pale View of Hills . Kazuo Ishiguro
0748 : Wittgenstein's Nephew . Thomas Bernhard
0749 : The Color Purple . Alice Walker
0750 : A Boy's Own Story . Edmund White
0751 : If Not Now, When? . Primo Levi
0752 : The Book of Disquiet . Fernando Pessoa *
0753 : Baltasar and Blimunda . José Saramago *
0754 : The Sorrow of Belgium . Hugo Claus
0755 : The Piano Teacher . Elfriede Jelinek
0756 : The Life and Times of Michael K . J.M. Coetzee
0757 : Waterland . Graham Swift
0758 : LaBrava . Elmore Leonard
0759 : The Christmas Oratorio . Göran Tunström *
0760 : Fado Alexandrino . António Lobo Antunes *
0761 : The Witness . Juan José Saer *
0762 : Shame . Salman Rushdie
0763 : Money: A Suicide Note . Martin Amis
0764 : Flaubert's Parrot . Julian Barnes
0765 : Professor Martens' Departure . Jaan Kross *
0766 : Blood and Guts in High School . Kathy Acker
0767 : Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel . Julián Ríos *
0768 : Nights at the Circus . Angela Carter
0769 : Neuromancer . William Gibson
0770 : The Wasp Factory . Iain Banks
0771 : Democracy . Joan Didion *
0772 : The Lover . Marguerite Duras
0773 : The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis . José Saramago
0774 : Empire of the Sun . J.G. Ballard
0775 : The Busconductor Hines . James Kelman
0776 : Dictionary of the Khazars . Milorad Pavic
0777 : The Unbearable Lightness of Being . Milan Kundera
0778 : Legend . David Gemmell
0779 : The Young Man . Botho Strauss *
0780 : Love Medicine . Louise Erdrich *
0781 : White Noise . Don DeLillo
0782 : Half of Man is Woman . Zhang Xianliang *
0783 : Reasons to Live . Amy Hempel
0784 : The Handmaid's Tale . Margaret Atwood
0785 : Hawksmoor . Peter Ackroyd
0786 : Perfume . Patrick Süskind
0787 : Blood Meridian . Cormac McCarthy *
0788 : Contact . Carl Sagan
0789 : Simon and the Oaks . Marianne Fredriksson *
0790 : The Cider House Rules . John Irving
0791 : Annie John . Jamaica Kincaid *
0792 : The Parable of the Blind . Gert Hofmann
0793 : Love in the Time of Cholera . Gabriel García Márquez
0794 : Ancestral Voices . Etienne van Heerden *
0795 : The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman . Andrzej Szczypiorski *
0796 : The Drowned and the Saved . Primo Levi
0797 : Watchmen . Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
0798 : Extinction . Thomas Bernhard
0799 : An Artist of the Floating World . Kazuo Ishiguro
0800 : Memory of Fire . Eduardo Galeano *
0801 : The Old Devils . Kingley Amis
0802 : Matigari . Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
0803 : Anagrams . Lorrie Moore
0804 : Lost Language of Cranes . David Leavitt
0805 : The Taebak Mountains . Jo Jung-rae
0806 : Ballad for Georg Henig . Viktor Pasokov *
0807 : Enigma of Arrival . V.S. Naipaul
0808 : World's End . T. Coraghessan Boyle
0809 : The Pigeon . Patrick Süskind
0810 : Of Love and Shadows . Isabel Allende *
0811 : Beloved . Toni Morrison
0812 : All Souls . Javier Marías *
0813 : The New York Trilogy . Paul Auster
0814 : Black Box . Amos Oz *
0815 : The Bonfire of the Vanities . Tom Wolfe
0816 : The Black Dahlia . James Ellroy
0817 : The Afternoon of a Writer . Peter Handke
0818 : The Radiant Way . Margaret Drabble
0819 : Kitchen . Banana Yoshimoto *
0820 : Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency . Douglas Adams
0821 : Cigarettes . Harry Mathews
0822 : Nervous Conditions . Tsitsi Dangarembga
0823 : The First Garden . Anne Hébert *
0824 : The Last World . Christoph Ransmayr *
0825 : Oscar and Lucinda . Peter Carey
0826 : The Swimming-Pool Library . Alan Hollinghurst
0827 : The Satanic Verses . Salman Rushdie
0828 : Wittgenstein's Mistress . David Markson
0829 : Paradise of the Blind . Duong Thu Huong *
0830 : Foucault's Pendulum . Umberto Eco
0831 : Gimmick! . Joost Zwagerman *
0832 : Obabakoak . Bernardo Atzaga *
0833 : Inland . Gerald Murnane *
0834 : A Prayer for Owen Meany . John Irving
0835 : Like Water for Chocolate . Laura Esquivel
0836 : The History of the Siege of Lisbon . José Saramago
0837 : The Trick is to Keep Breathing . Janice Galloway
0838 : The Great Indian Novel . Shashi Tharoor *
0839 : The Melancholy of Resistance . László Krasznahorkai
0840 : The Remains of the Day . Kazuo Ishiguro
0841 : London Fields . Martin Amis
0842 : Moon Palace . Paul Auster
0843 : Sexing the Cherry . Jeanette Winterson
0844 : Like Life . Lorrie Moore
0845 : The Buddha of Suburbia . Hanif Kureishi
0846 : The Shadow Lines . Amitav Ghosh *
0847 : The Midnight Examiner . William Kotzwinkle
0848 : The Things They Carried . Tim O'Brien
0849 : The Music of Chance . Paul Auster
0850 : Stone Junction . Jim Dodge
0851 : Amongst Women . John McGahern
0852 : Get Shorty . Elmore Leonard
0853 : The Daughter . Pavlos Matesis *
0854 : Vertigo . W.G. Sebald
0855 : American Psycho . Bret Easton Ellis
0856 : The Laws . Connie Palman *
0857 : Faceless Killers . Henning Mankell *
0858 : Astradeni . Eugenia Fakinou *
0859 : Regeneration . Pat Barker
0860 : Typical . Padgett Powell
0861 : Mao II . Don DeLillo
0862 : Wild Swans . Jung Chang
0863 : Arcadia . Jim Crace
0864 : Hideous Kinky . Esther Freud
0865 : Memoirs of Rain . Sunetra Gupta *
0866 : Asphodel . H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
0867 : The Butcher Boy . Patrick McCabe
0868 : Smilla's Sense of Snow . Peter Høeg
0869 : The Dumas Club . Arturo Pérez-Reverte *
0870 : Written on the Body . Jeanette Winterson
0871 : The Crow Road . Iain Banks
0872 : Indigo . Marina Warner
0873 : The English Patient . Michael Ondaatje
0874 : Posessing the Secret of Joy . Alice Walker
0875 : All the Pretty Horses . Cormac McCarthy *
0876 : The Triple Mirror of the Self . Zulfikar Ghose *
0877 : Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture . Apostolos Doxiadis *
0878 : The Discovery of Heaven . Harry Mulisch
0879 : Life is a Caravanserai . Emine Sevgi Özdamar
0880 : Before Night Falls . Reinaldo Arenas *
0881 : The Secret History . Donna Tartt
0882 : The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll . Álvaro Mutis *
0883 : Remembering Babylon . David Malouf *
0884 : The Holder of the World . Bharati Mukherjee *
0885 : The Virgin Suicides . Jeffrey Eugenides
0886 : The Stone Diaries . Carol Shields
0887 : A Suitable Boy . Vikram Seth
0888 : What a Carve Up! . Jonathan Coe
0889 : On Love . Alain de Botton
0890 : The Twins . Tessa de Loo *
0891 : Looking for the Possible Dance . A.L. Kennedy
0892 : Birdsong . Sebastian Faulks
0893 : The Shipping News . Annie Proulx
0894 : Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light . Ivan Klima *
0895 : The Invention of Curried Sausage . Uwe Timm
0896 : Disappearance . David Dabydeen
0897 : Deep River . Shusaku Endo *
0898 : Felicia's Journey . William Trevor
0899 : Captain Corelli's Mandolin . Louis de Bernières
0900 : How Late It Was, How Late . James Kelman
0901 : City Sister Silver . Jáchym Topol
0902 : Pereira Declares: A Testimony . Antonio Tabucchi
0903 : The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle . Haruki Murakami
0904 : Our Lady of the Assassins . Fernando Vallejo *
0905 : Land . Park Kyong-ni
0906 : Whatever . Michel Houellebecq
0907 : Troubling Love . Elena Ferrante *
0908 : The Late-Night News . Petros Markaris *
0909 : The End of the Story . Lydia Davis
0910 : Love's Work . Gillian Rose
0911 : A Fine Balance . Rohinton Mistry
0912 : The Reader . Bernhard Schlink
0913 : Santa Evita . Tomás Martínez *
0914 : Morvern Caller . Alan Warner
0915 : The Unconsoled . Kazuo Ishiguro
0916 : Alias Grace . Margaret Atwood
0917 : The Clay Machine-Gun . Victor Pelevin
0918 : Infinite Jest . David Foster Wallace
0919 : Forever a Stranger . Hella Haasse
0920 : The Ghost Road . Pat Barker
0921 : Fugitive Pieces . Anne Michaels
0922 : Hallucinating Foucault . Patricia Duncker
0923 : A Light Comedy . Eduardo Mendoza *
0924 : Fall on Your Knees . Ann-Marie MacDonald *
0925 : Silk . Alessandro Baricco
0926 : The God of Small Things . Arundhati Roy
0927 : Margot and the Angels . Kristien Hemmerechts *
0928 : The Life of Insects . Victor Pelevin
0929 : Money to Burn . Ricardo Piglia *
0930 : Jack Maggs . Peter Carey
0931 : Underworld . Don DeLillo
0932 : Enduring Love . Ian McEwan
0933 : Crossfire . Miyabe Miyuki
0934 : The Poisonwood Bible . Barbara Kingsolver
0935 : Veronika Decides to Die . Paulo Coelho
0936 : The Hours . Michael Cunningham
0937 : All Souls Day . Cees Nooteboom
0938 : The Heretic . Miguel Deliber *
0939 : Elementary Particles . Michel Houellebecq
0940 : The Talk of the Town . Ardal O'Hanlon
0941 : Dirty Havana Trilogy . Pedro Juan Gutiérrez *
0942 : Savage Detectives . Roberto Bolaño *
0943 : Disgrace . J.M. Coetzee
0944 : As If I Am Not There . Slavenka Drakulic
0945 : Pavel's Letters . Monika Moron *
0946 : In Search of Klingsor . Jorge Volpi *
0947 : The Museum of Unconditional Surrender . Dubravka Ugresic *
0948 : Fear and Trembling . Amélie Nothomb

: 2000s :
0949 : Bartleby and Co. . Enrique Vila-Matas *
0950 : Celestial Harmonies . Péter Esterházy
0951 : Small Remedies . Shashi Deshpande
0952 : The Human Stain . Philip Roth
0953 : White Teeth . Zadie Smith
0954 : Under the Skin . Michel Faber
0955 : The Heart of Redness . Zakes Mda
0956 : Spring Flowers, Spring Frost . Ismail Kadare
0957 : The Devil and Miss Prym . Paulo Cohelo
0958 : The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . Michael Chabon *
0959 : The Feast of the Goat . Mario Vargas Llosa
0960 : I'm Not Scared . Niccolò Ammaniti *
0961 : Soldiers of Salamis . Javier Cercas *
0962 : Atonement . Ian McEwan
0963 : Austerlitz . W.G. Sebald
0964 : Life of Pi . Yann Martel
0965 : The Corrections . Jonathan Franzen
0966 : Platform . Michel Houellebecq
0967 : Snow . Orhan Pamuk *
0968 : Nowhere Man . Aleksandar Hemon
0969 : Everything is Illuminated . Jonathan Safran Foer
0970 : Kafka on the Shore . Haruki Murakami
0971 : Islands . Dan Sleigh
0972 : The Namesake . Jhumpa Lahiri *
0973 : Vernon God Little . DBC Pierre *
0974 : The Successor . Ismail Kadare *
0975 : Lady Number Thirteen . José Carlos Somoza *
0976 : What I Loved . Siri Hustvedt
0977 : The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . Mark Haddon
0978 : A Tale of Love and Darkness . Amos Oz *
0979 : Your Face Tomorrow . Javier Marías *
0980 : Cloud Atlas . David Mitchell
0981 : The Swarm . Frank Schätzing *
0982 : Suite Française . Irène Némirovsky *
0983 : The Master . Colm Tóibín
0984 : The Plot Against America . Philip Roth
0985 : The Book about Blanche and Marie . Per Olov Enquist *
0986 : Small Island . Andrea Levy *
0987 : 2666 . Roberto Bolaño *
0988 : The Line of Beauty . Alan Hollinghurst *
0989 : The Accidental . Ali Smith *
0990 : The Sea . John Banville
0991 : A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian . Marina Lewycka *
0992 : Measuring the World . Daniel Kehlmann *
0993 : Mother's Milk . Edward S. Aubyn *
0994 : Carry Me Down . M.J. Hyland *
0995 : Against the Day . Thomas Pynchon *
0996 : The Inheritance of Loss . Kiran Desai *
0997 : The Kindly Ones . Jonathan Littell *
0998 : Half of a Yellow Sun . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie *
0999 : The Reluctant Fundamentalist . Mohsin Hamid *
1000 : Falling Man . Don DeLillo *
1001 : Animal's People . Indra Sinha *

55. The Red Scarf

2008-06-29T21:13:00.001+02:00

The Red Scarf: Kate Furnivall: Books

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to read a long story, but I persevered and finished this one just now. It's long and some parts didn't keep my attention, but the story has an interesting premise. Two women are imprisoned in a Siberian work camp at the time of Stalin's rule of the USSR. One escapes and sets out on a perilous journey to find the others lover. The story goes back and forth between the work camp and the village where the escapee is befriended by a gypsy family. There are some surprising twists in the plot which kept my interest, but I would have liked a bit more romance.

The Sunday Salon

2008-06-29T12:42:00.002+02:00

Since I missed last week's Salon due to traveling, let's catch up on two weeks shall we?I read a few books: Embers by Sandor Maria, which was lovely; Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters, which was delicious; Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie, which was difficult; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolo Guo; which was incredibly sweet; and now I'm reading the Red Scarf by Kate Furnivall, which I'm half way through and not really that into. I don't know why but it's not really grabbing my attention the way I like a book to do. I noticed that it's written in the third person and that seems to make it less exciting to me. I keep imagining how different it would ound if it was told in the first person. Now that I think of it, a lot of the novels I've read recently have been first person narratives. But it is an intriguing story and I'm feeling more into it this morning.

Making these lists of books I want to read for various challenges is deadly! I feel the need to buy every one right now which mean a huge (and growing) pile of TBR books! Just before I left Albania for my vacation here in Canada I ordered a long list of books especially for the 2nd Canadian Book Challenge which starts this week. I'm planning on reading 13 books- one for each province or territory. I have most of them but still need one from Alberta, PEI, and Nunavut. I also bought a couple of Pulitzers and a few books for our neighbourhood book club at the same time.

From Amazon:

Landscape Painted with Tea by Milorad Pavic

The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Quickie by James Patterson

Runaway by Alice Munro

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M G Vassanji

Half of a Yellow Sun by C N Adihie

Lullabies for Little Criminals: A Novel by Heather O'Neil

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures: Stories by Vincent Lam

The Lesser Blessed: A Novel by Richard van Camp

White Dawn: An Eskimo Sage: An Eskimo Saga by James Houston

The Master: A Novel by Colm Toibin

Easton by Paul Butler

Intimacy: A Novel by Hanif Kureishi

Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic

The Road by Cormac MaCarthy

Embers by Sandor Marai

Then while I was waiting in the Toronto airport (they have some well stocked bookshops!), I picked up a few more:

DeNiro's Game by Rawi Hage

The Red Scarf by Kate Furnivall

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

You'd think I'd stop there wouldn't you? But no- it's an addiction and my only VICE.So a few more were added to my shelf:

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

A Memoir of Friendship by Carol Shields and Blanch Howard

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

You do have to keep in mind that we live in Albania and buying good English books is quite difficult. We have what is called an international bookshop but it is pitifully stocked with trade paperbacks and remainders. So we buy books in bulk whenever we have the chance. My luggage is a challenge to pack on the way home (good thing I brought one empty suitcase with me!).So that was my week in books. Let's go see what you've all been up to!

Man Booker Prize

2008-06-27T22:00:00.001+02:00

And since I've read quite a few of these already, why not join this lifetime challenge?

The Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year.

In 2005 the Man Booker International prize was launched which, every two years, recognises one writer for their achievement in fiction.

This year the Man Booker Prize celebrates its 40th anniversary and there will be major celebrations, as well as the announcement of The Best of The Booker.

Books I've read are in BOLD.

2007 The Gathering by Anne Enright
2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005 The Sea by John Banville
2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2003 Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
1998 Amsterdam: A Novel by Ian McEwan
1997 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
1996 Last Orders by Graham Swift
1995 The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
1994 How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1992 Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (co-winner)
1991 The Famished Road by Ben Okri
1990 Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1988 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
1987 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
1986 The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
1985 The Bone People by Keri Hulme
1984 Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
1983 Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
1982 Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
1981 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
1980 Rites of Passage by William Golding
1979 Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
1978 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
1977 Staying on by Paul Scott
1976 Saville by David Storey
1975 Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
1974 Holiday by Stanley Middleton
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell
1972 G. by John Berger
1971 In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul
1970 The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
1969 Something to Answer For by P. H. Newby

Orange Prize Winners and Short Lists - 1996 through 2008

2008-06-27T21:15:00.002+02:00

Since I love so many of the books on the Orange Prize list, I'm adding it to my lifetime challenges!

"This reading challenge is a long-term project in which the participants will read all books that have won or been short listed for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction AND the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers." From: http://orangeprizeproject.blogspot.com/2008/02/orange-prize-project.html

From The Lists.

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is awarded to women of any nationality who have written the best, eligible full-length novel in English. Eligible works must have been published for the first time in the United Kingdom between 1 April of the year before the prize is awarded and 31 March of the year in which the prize is awarded.

Translations of books originally written in other languages are not eligible for the prize.

Books I've read are in BOLD.

2008

Fault Lines, by Nancy Huston
The Outcast, by Sadie Jones
When We Were Bad, by Charlotte Mendelson
Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O'Neill
The Road Home, by Rose Tremain
Lottery, by Patricia Wood

2007

Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - WINNER
Arlington Park, by Rachel Cusk
The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, by Xiaolu Guo
The Observations, by Jane Harris
Digging to America, by Anne Tyler

2006

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith - WINNER
The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss
Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel
The Accidental, by Ali Smith
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, by Carrie Tiffany
The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters

2005

We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver - WINNER
Old Filth, by Jane Gardam
The Mammoth Cheese, by Sheri Holman
Liars and Saints, by Maile Meloy
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka

2004

Small Island, by Andrea Levy - WINNER
Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard
Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ice Road, by Gillian Slovo
The Colour, by Rose Tremain

2003

Property, by Valerie Martin - WINNER
Buddha Da, by Anne Donovan
Heligoland, by Shena Mackay
Unless, by Carol Shields
The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith
The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt

2002

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett- WINNER
No Bones, by Anna Burns
The Siege, by Helen Dunmore
The White Family, by Maggie Gee
A Child's Book of True Crime, by Chloe Hooper
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

2001

The Idea of Perfection, by Kate Grenville - WINNER
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
Fred & Edie, by Jill Dawson
Hotel World, by Ali Smith
Homestead, by Rosina Lippi
Horse Heaven, by Jane Smiley

2000

When I Lived in Modern Times, by Linda Grant - WINNER
If I Told You Once, by Judy Budnitz
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
The Dancers Dancing, by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

1999

A Crime in the Neighborhood, by Suzanne Berne - WINNER
The Short History of a Prince, by Jane Hamilton
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
Paradise, by Toni Morrison
The Leper's Companions, by Julia Blackburn
Visible Worlds, by Marilyn Bowering

1998

Larry's Party, by Carol Shield - WINNER
Lives of the Monster Dogs, by Kirsten Bakis
The Ventriloquist's Tale, by Pauline Melville
The Magician's Assistant, by Ann Patchett
Love Like Hate Adore, by Deirdre Purcell
The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve

1997

Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels - WINNER
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
One by One in the Darkness, by Deirdre Madden
Accordion Crimes, by E. Annie Proulx
Hen's Teeth, by Manda Scott
I Was Amelia Earhart, by Jane Mendelsohn

1996

A Spell of Winter, by Helen Dunmore - WINNER
The Book of Colour, by Julia Blackburn
Spinsters, by Pagan Kennedy
The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan
Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler
Eveless Eden, by Marianne Wiggins

Pulitzer Prize Winners - 1918 through 2008

2008-06-27T09:45:00.004+02:00

I've decided to take part in this awesome challange- The Pulitzer Project- the goal of which is to read ALL of the 81 Pulitzer Prize winning novels in your lifetime. Of course each year that list grows a little longer, but I've already read a few in my lifetime so I'm willing to give it a go!

The Pulitzer Prize

For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Again a list from The Lists

Books I've read are in BOLD.

2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2007 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy
2006 - March - Geraldine Brooks
2005 - Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
2004 - The Known World - Edward P. Jones
2003 - Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
2002 - Empire Falls - Richard Russo
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
2000 - Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
1999 - The Hours - Michael Cunningham
1998 - American Pastoral - Philip Roth
1997 - Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer - Millhauser
1996 - Independence Day - Richard Ford
1995 - The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
1994 - The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain - Robert Olen Butler
1992 - A Thousand Acres - Jan Smiley
1991 - Rabbit at Rest - John Updike
1990 - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos
1989 - Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
1988 - Beloved - Toni Morrison
1987 - A Summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor
1986 - Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
1985 - Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie
1984 - Ironweed - William Kennedy
1983 - The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1982 - Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
1980 - The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer
1979 - The Stories of John Cheever - John Cheever
1978 - Elbow Room - James Alan McPherson
1977 - None given
1976 - Humboldt's Gift - Saul Bellow
1975 - The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
1974 - None given
1973 - The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
1972 - Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
1971 - None given
1970 - Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
1969 - House Made of Dawn by Scott Momaday
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1967 - The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966 - Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
1965 - The Keepers Of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1964 - None given
1963 - The Reivers - William Faulkner
1962 - The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
1960 - Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1959 - The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1958 - A Death in the Family - James Agee
1957 - None
1956 - Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1955 - A Fable - William Faulkner
1954 - None
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
1952 - The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1951 - The Town by Conrad Richter
1950 - The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1949 - Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1947 - All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
1946 - None
1945 - Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1944 - Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1943 - Dragon's Teeth I by Upton Sinclair
1942 - In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1941 - None
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
1939 - The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1938 - The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1937 - Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
1936 - Honey in the Horn by Harold Lenoir Davis
1935 - Now in November by Josephine W. Johnson
1934 - Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1933 - The Store by Thomas Stribling
1932 - The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
1931 - Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1930 - Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge
1929 - Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
1927 - Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1926 - Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1925 - So Big - Edna Ferber
1924 - The Able McLauglins - Margaret Wilson
1923 - One of Ours - Willa Cather
1922 - Alice Adams - Booth Tarkington
1921 - The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
1920 - None
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
1918 - His Family -Ernest Poole

54. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

2008-06-26T23:59:00.001+02:00

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: Xiaolu Guo: Books

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

What a wonderful book! As Zhuang learns English her knowledge of love also develops and changes. Love, as she discovers doesn't mean the same in English as it does in Chinese. At times I laughed out loud, but a few pages later I held back my tears. That's what I love in a book- the ability to move me somehow- anyhow- and to make me identify with the characters. Oh and did I! Having moved several times to strange new countries where I had to struggle with the language, I understood perfectly Zhuang's difficulty in making sense of verb tenses, pronouns, and the rest of grammar.

I definitely recommend reading this lovely book!

53. Half of a Yellow Sun

2008-06-26T14:28:00.002+02:00

Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Books

A stunning, difficult and important novel. It's large and heavy, and took me several days to read it, but it's definitely one of the most memorable books I've read in quite some time. I knew almost nothing about the war in Nigeria/Biafra in the 60's- I was a little girl then of course but I do remember seeing pictures on the news of the starving children dying in Biafra. I had no idea why it was happening until reading this account of the lives of a large extended 'family'. "War is very ugly" is repeated frequently through the story and it is- horrifyingly ugly.

A powerful quote from the middle of the book:

"Olanna... sat thinking about how a single act could reverberate over time and space and leave stains that could never be washed off. She thought about how ephemeral life was, about not choosing misery."

This book has received a lot of well-deserved attention, Winning the Orange Broadband Prize, being a finalist in the NBCC Awards, a New York Times Notable Book, a People and Black Issues Book review Best book of the Year.

She has a powerful voice, full of compassion and deep insight. I'm incredibly impressed with Adichie's writing and will definitely look for Purple Hibiscus, her first novel.

52. Tipping the Velvet

2008-06-24T16:31:00.003+02:00

Tipping the Velvet: A Novel

By Sarah Waters

Interestingly, I started reading this book several years ago but just didn't get into it. This time however I found it truly fascinating and so hard to put down even for a minute. Good thing I was on holiday last week while reading it! It's hefty (over 400 pages), but so utterly enthralling. The story is about the life of Nan Astley, a young girl in England in the 1890's who falls in love with another girl, Kitty Butler. The screenwriter for the BBC production calls it "Pride and Prejudice with naughty bits", and that it is. It takes you along with Nan as she finds herself in several disturbing predicaments. The characters are beautifully developed and wonderfully ripe.

A great read and worth the time!

51. Embers by Sandor Marai

2008-06-21T16:50:00.003+02:00

Embers

By Sandor Marai

This short novel really complemented Intimacy, which I read earlier this week. While one was about the question of Intimacy, this one was about passion and the place it has in relationships. Written more than half a century ago, the novel still has the power to move the reader. Other themes include friendship, betrayal, and revenge. It's tightly written and centred around a very specific event which has long term consequences.

I really enjoyed this book and wanted to read it as fast as I could.

50. After the Quake

2008-06-19T15:11:00.003+02:00

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

A quick but interesting book of short stories centered around the 1995 earthquake which struck Kobe Japan. Well written with carefully chosen words, the characters are intriguing in an existential sort of way. My favourite story had a giant frog as a main character! Is there an existential magical realism category in the library? This is where After the Quake would belong!

49. Intimacy

2008-06-19T14:59:00.003+02:00

Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi

A short but powerful novel in which the story is told in the first person by a man who is just about to leave his wife and two young boys. Sad and honest, Kureishi takes us through the thought process necessary to make such a life changing decision. What is intimacy? Can it be part of a long term marriage or is it something only to be found in romances?

A hard to forget novel.

48. The Religion

2008-06-19T14:52:00.004+02:00

The Religion by Tim Willocks

A fabulous historical novel! Wars, violence, religion, romance, and intrigues- what more could you ask for in a great summer read? It's a hefty book, but I rarely put it down this week. Mr. Willocks did a huge amount of research for this novel dealing with Malta and the Hospitalers and the war against the Ottomans. The characters are well developed and interesting. Reading this book was like reading used to be as a child- I wanted to know what the characters were up to when I had to put the book down!

Heartily recommended!

The Sunday Salon - My First Post!

2008-06-15T14:51:00.005+02:00

This is my very first Sunday Salon post!

"What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. "

So... let's see... right now I'm reading The Religion by Tim Willocks and it's one of those hard to put down books! Yippee! Why read any other kind? Life is too short isn't it? It's the first thing I grab when I open my eyes in the morning (even before coffee), then I read it in my bath, and on the terrace, then again at bed. The Religion is a well researched, rollicking read. I'm enjoying it immensely!

I'm also rubbing my hands together as I wait for a huge box of books to arrive from Amazon tomorrow. I'm expecting 18 new novels- woo hooo! All of them will go towards the various challenges I've signed up for. But in the meantime I've signed up for a few more challenges which means I have to buy more books. Good thing I'm going to Canada next Sunday :)

Now I'm off to read a few Sunday Salon blogs and see what you've been up to!

Summer Reading Challenge

2008-06-15T14:39:00.010+02:00

"I'll briefly post the reasoning and "rules" behind the challenge. The purpose is to encourage "intentional" reading--that is, to have a plan and stick to it, more or less (admittedly, my effort is usually in the less category, by which I mean the sticking-to, not the amount of reading). I have found since I began doing these seasonal challenges that I read a lot more than I used to, which is good, because I have a lot of catching up to do. The rules, such as they are, are simple: Copy the picture above, find some books you want to read over the next three months, post the picture and the list at your blog, and link to this post so others can join the fun. Then, read away! Oh, and post a link to your own entry in the comments section of this post. That way I can compile a list of participants. Last time we had 21 or 22 people, with only one guy (my son), but I think we might actually have two individuals of the male persuasion this time around (at least).You don't have to do this, but it's always nice to see an update around the middle of the challenge, and then a recap at the end."The books I will read are listed below and in BOLD when I've read them.1. The Religion by Tim Willocks2. Embers by Sandor Marai3. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters4. Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi5. Half of a Yellow Sun by C.N. Adichie6. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz8. The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler9. The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

A Well-Rounded Challenge

2008-06-15T14:36:00.007+02:00

A Well-Rounded Challenge

Beginning July 1, 2008, join me in this eclectic reading game. Read a minimum of 6 (six) books. Read 1 book from 6 different challenges that you've signed up for. The challenges you choose must run during the 6 month period of this challenge (7/1/08 - 12/31/08).

*Any combination of challenges works.
*You must be signed up with the other challenges.
*You may listen to eAudio, cassette tapes or compact discs.
*You may read all six books from the same challenge.
*To be well-rounded however means stretching yourself to include as many challenges (and books) as you can fit into this six month time frame.
*You don't have to blog or write a review (but you can if you want to).
*Even if a challenge begins after July you may use it for this challenge.
*Even if a challenge ends after 12/31/08 you may use it for this challenge.
*Sign-ups begin 6/1/08 and run through 7/15/08.
*This challenge will run through 12/31/08.

Books I will read for this challenge: (TBD = To Be Decided)
(in BOLD are the finished books)

6 Challenges

1. Book Awards Challenge ¬ The Master by Colm Toibin (IMPAC 2007)
2. In Their Shoes Challenge ¬ Escape- Christine Jessop
3. 2nd Canadian Book Challenge ¬ Ernest Buckler- The Mountain and the Valley
4. Summer Reading Challenge ¬ The Religion by Tim Willocks
5. 10 out of 100 out of 1001 Challenge ¬ Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
6. Book Around the World Challenge ¬ Half of a Yellow Sun by C.N. Adichie

Canada Reads

2008-06-14T20:52:00.005+02:00

Canada Reads is a week-long radio show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. In this annual literary bun-fight, five celebrity panelists are asked to defend their favourite Canadian works of fiction. Day by day, books are voted off the list, until one panelist triumphs with the book for Canada to read this year.

Books I've read are in BOLD.

Canada Reads 2008:

King Leary by Paul Quarrington ~ WINNER
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
From the Fifteenth District by Mavis Gallant
Icefields by Thomas Wharton
Not Wanted on the Journey by Timothy Findley

Canada Reads 2007:

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill ~ WINNER
Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis
Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor
Song of Kahunsha by Anosh Irani
Children of My Heart by Gabrielle Roy

Canada Reads 2006:

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews ~ WINNER
Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets: Selected Poems 1962-1996 by Al Purdy
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Deafening by Frances Itani
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler

Canada Reads 2005:

Rockbound by Frank Parker Day ~ Winner
Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
No Crystal Stair by Mairuth Sarsfield
Volkswagen Blues by Jacques Poulin
Oryx and Crate by Margaret Atwood

Canada Reads 2004:

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe ~ Winner
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
The Heart Is an Involuntary Muscle by Monique Proulx
Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler

Canada Reads 2003:

Next Episode by Hubert Aquin ~ WINNER
Sarah Binks by Paul Hiebert
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

Canada Reads 2002:

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje ~ WINNER
The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke

Banned Books List

2008-06-13T23:34:00.005+02:00

A list I found on Tripping Toward Lucidity of the most frequently banned books. Why are banned books always in English? Hmmmmm... Anyhow, reading books that someone else says I shouldn't has always been a hobby of mine :)

The ones I've read are in Bold.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Winner of 2008 IMPAC Announced!

2008-06-13T15:39:00.002+02:00

Lebanese author Rawi Hage, writing in his third language, wins the €100,000 Impac Dublin literary award for his novel De Niro's Game. I still haven't read any of this year's shortlist, but I'll be sure to look it up when I'm in Canada this summer.

For more info click on the headline link.

47. Loving Frank

2008-06-12T13:41:00.003+02:00

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

The first novel of a really great writer, Loving Frank is a novel based on historical facts about the romance between Frank Lloyd Write and Mamah Borthwith Cheney in the early 1900's. Frank and Mamah were both married when they fell in love and the novel deals with their struggle to be together in an age when divorce was seen as an unforgiveable act.

A good historical novel always inspires me to want to learn more about the characters and their lives and Loving Frank doesn't disappoint. Sometime in the future I'm definitely going to read the bio of Frank Lloyd Write.

Good story, good editing, and extraordinary characters make this a wonderful read!

What is Steven Harper Reading?

2008-06-10T18:12:00.002+02:00

Now here is an awesome website and project!!

Yann Martel (who is a brilliant writer!) made a vow to send a book every two weeks to Steven Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada. On the site he posts the book, the letter he sent with it, and the response he received from the PM. He sent the first book over a year ago and has received one response so far. I find that really sad. Of course a PM is a very busy person, but to all but ignore the efforts of one of Canada's finest writers is inexcusable!

Martel's choices of books is well-thought and well-explained. The list makes a great resource for readers of good books.

Commonwealth Writers' Prize Regional Winners

2008-06-10T09:48:00.003+02:00

Regional Winners for 2008

Africa

Best Book: Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria) The Hangman's Game Peepal Tree Press

Best First Book: Sade Adeniran (Nigeria) Imagine This SW Books

Canada and Caribbean

Best Book: Lawrence Hill (Canada)Someone Knows My Name: A Novel (Book of Negroes in Canada) Harper Collins Publishers -Winner Best Book 2008!

Best First Book: The End of the Alphabet CS Richardson (Canada) Doubleday Canada

Europe and South Asia

Best Book: Indra Sinha (India) Animal's People Simon and Schuster

Best First Book: Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh) A Golden Age John Murray -Winner Best First Book 2008!

South East Asia and South Pacific

Best Book: Steven Carroll (Australia) The Time We Have Taken Harper Collins

Best First Book: Karen Foxlee (Australia) The Anatomy of Wings University of Queensland Press

46. Travels with Herodotus

2008-06-09T16:43:00.002+02:00

Travels with Herodotus: Ryszard Kapuscinski: Books

An interesting read with some really lovely parts.
Kapuzcinski was a wonderful traveler-reporter specializing in Africa, and on most of his travels he took along his well-loved copy of Herodotus. I learned a lot about the Persian-Greco wars and the history and culture of both civilizations.

A ~ Z Reading Challenge

2008-06-09T14:59:00.009+02:00

Requirements:

~ align the author's last name or the title of a book (excluding "the", "a", etc.) with its corresponding letter in the alphabet

~ enter a different book for each author and title (total of 52 books)

~ complete the alphabet lists anyway that suits your fancy
(i.e.: complete each list separately in alphabetical order, read both "A" entries, then "B" entries, fit whatever you're reading into either list, etc.)

~ complete the challenge in the year 2008

~ enjoy the experience!

A ~Author ~Alsanea, Rajaa ~ Girls of Riyadh
~Book ~ After the Quake ~ Haruki Murakami
B ~Author ~Boyle, TC ~Drop City
~Book ~(The) Bastard of Istanbul ~Elif Shafak
C ~Author ~Chevalier, Tracy ~Burning Bright
~Book ~(The) Complete Conversations with God ~Neale D. Walsch
D ~Author ~Dyer, Wayne ~Being In Balance
~Book ~Delizia ~John Dickie
E ~Author ~Essex, Karen ~Leonardo's Swans
~Book ~(The) Echo Maker ~Richard Powers
F ~Author ~Fonseca, Isabel ~Bury Me Standing
~Book
G ~Author ~Gardner, Laurien ~Plain Jane
~Book ~(The) Geography of Bliss ~Eric Weiner
H ~Author ~Hawes, Annie ~Journey to the South
~Book ~Here Is Where We Meet ~John Berger
I ~Author ~Ishiguro, Kazuo ~Never Let Me Go
~Book ~Innocent Traitor ~Alison Weir
J ~Author ~Jessop, Carolyn ~ Escape
~Book
K ~Author ~Kaplan, Robert ~Mediterranean Winter
~Book ~Kafka on the Shore ~Haruki Murakami
L ~Author ~ Lahiri, Juhmpa ~ Interpreter of Maladies
~Book ~Labyrinth ~ Kate Mosse
M ~Author ~Maxwell, Robin ~Mademoiselle Boleyn
~Book ~My Family and Other Animals ~Gerald Durrell
N ~Author
~Book ~ Nana ~ Zola, Emile
O ~Author ~Ozick, Cynthia ~Heir to the Glimmering World
~Book
P ~Author ~Powers, Richard ~The Time of Our SInging
~Book ~(The) Punishment of Virtue ~Sarah Chayes
Q ~Author
~Book ~ Quickie, The ~ James Patterson
R ~Author ~Reichl, Ruth ~Garlic and Sapphires
~Book ~ Random Passage ~ Bernice Morgan
S ~Author ~Sunee, Kim ~Trail of Crumbs
~Book ~Sold: A Story of Modern Day Slavery ~Zana Muhsen
T ~Author ~Tolle, Eckhart ~A New Earth
~Book ~Tales From Firozsha Baag ~Rohinton Mistry
U ~Author
~Book ~(An) Unchaste Life ~Anne Cato
V ~Author ~Van Camp, Richard ~ The Lesser Blessed
~Book
W ~Author ~West, Rebecca ~Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
~Book ~Writings on an Ethical Life ~Pete Singer
X ~Author
~Book
Y ~Author
~Book ~(A)Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks ~Rory Spears
Z ~Author ~Zukav, Gary ~Soul to Soul
~Book ~ Zoli ~ McCann, Colum

Books Within Books

2008-06-09T13:31:00.002+02:00

"Within every great book there are several others."
~ Ryszard Kapuscinski (Travels with Herodotus)

Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction

2008-06-09T13:10:00.004+02:00

Rose Tremain The Road Home- Winner
Nancy Huston- Fault Lines
Sadie Jones The- Outcast
Charlotte Mendelson- When We Were Bad
Heather O’Neill- Lullabies for Little Criminals
Patricia Wood- Lottery

46. A Reading Diary

2008-06-08T18:13:00.003+02:00

by Alberto Manguel

I enjoyed this book a lot! I've always loved reading diaries, memoirs, and biographies, so to find one that is specifically about one person's year of reading and how it relates to their life is quite a lovely surprise. Alberto reads and loves so many of the Canadian authors that I also enjoy that they feel like old friends to me. None of the books he read in the span of the year were ones that I have read nor would they likely be on one of my TBR lists. However I still appreciated his comments and the quotations he picked from his readings.

45. Kafka on the Shore

2008-06-08T10:18:00.001+02:00

Unknown: .: Books

By Haruki Murakami

One of the unusual books I've read in a long time!

A fairy tale, a psychological study, a large part magical realism, and an overview of various literary terms.

You have to leave your preconceived notions of the world at the door when you read this book.

Neighbourhood Book Club Reads

2008-06-07T09:00:00.004+02:00

My neighbourhood book club has just decided on the next group of books that we'll start reading in September.

Here's the list:

Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic
Milorad Pavic: Landscape Painted with Tea
Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (Read)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Read)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Read)
The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

44. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2008-06-06T09:00:00.002+02:00

Never Let Me Go (Vintage International): Kazuo Ishiguro: Books

On the front cover is a blurb from Time magazine claiming this book is a "page-turner ". I really didn't feel this way at all! It was an interesting read, but I found myself turning the pages more to find out what the point was rather than because I was enthralled with the plot. Since I knew nothing about the book when I started reading it, it took me quite some time to work out that it is about clones. That in itself is a great subject and I suppose that Ishiguro did a good job at exploring some of the psychological issues that might arise in a clone. In the end it left me feeling sad.

"In Their Shoes" Reading Challenge

2008-06-04T10:31:00.005+02:00

From: In Their Shoes
The rules are simple:

1. You pick the number of books that you want to read.
2. You also pick the books you read. They just have to be either a memoir, autobiography, or biography.
3. You can cross challenge books from other challenges with this one.
4. You can also re-read books.
5. You can post your reviews on the group blog or your own.

Books I've read are in BOLD. (I'm working on the list.)

1. Escape by Christine Jessop
2. Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski
3. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
4. A Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel
5. The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (Will re-read)

Giller Prize

2008-06-03T22:05:00.002+02:00

The Giller Prize

Jack Rabinovitch founded The Giller Prize in 1994 to honour the memory of his late wife Doris Giller, an outstanding literary journalist who died of cancer in April 1993. He was assisted by several friends - most notably the late Mordecai Richler, author Alice Munro, and academician David Staines - in building the Prize's creative template.

In 2005, The Giller Prize teamed up with Scotiabank to create The Scotiabank Giller Prize. It is the first ever co-sponsorship for Canada’s richest literary award for fiction. Under the new agreement, the purse doubled growing to Cdn. $50,000 with $40,000 going to the winner, and $2,500 being given to each of the four finalists. The Scotiabank Giller Prize is dedicated to celebrating the best in Canadian fiction each year, and to enhancing marketing efforts in bringing these books to the attention of all Canadians. The award recognizes excellence in Canadian fiction – long format or short stories.

Books I've read are in BOLD.

2007 Elizabeth Hay — Late Nights on Air
2006 Vincent Lam — Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
2005 David Bergen — The Time in Between
2004 Alice Munro — Runaway
2003 M.G. Vassanji — The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
2002 Austin Clarke — The Polished Hoe
2001 Richard B. Wright — Clara Callan
2000 Michael Ondaatje — Anil's Ghost
David Adams Richards — Mercy Among the Children
1999 Bonnie Burnard — A Good House
1998 Alice Munro — The Love of a Good Woman
1997 Mordecai Richler — Barney's Version
1996 Margaret Atwood — Alias Grace
1995 Rohinton Mistry — A Fine Balance
1994 M.G. Vassanji — The Book of Secrets

Book Awards Reading Challenge

2008-06-03T17:36:00.003+02:00

From: Book Awards Reading Challenge

Rules:
Read 10 award winners from August 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009.
You must have at least FIVE different awards in your ten titles.
Overlaps with other challenges are permitted.
You don't have to post your choices right away, and your list can change at any time.
'Award winners' is loosely defined; make the challenge fit your needs, keeping in mind Rule #2.

Here's my proposed list (subject to change of course).
Books I've read are in BOLD.

1. The Master by Colm Toibin (IMPAC 2007)
2. My Name is Red by Orham Pamuk (IMPAC 2003)
3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (NBCC 2007)
4. The March by Geraldine Brooks (NBCC 2005)
5. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Adichie (Orange Prize 2007)
6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer 2007)
7. Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer 2002)
8. Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay (Giller 2007)
9. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Commonwealth Writers 2005)
10. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer 2000)

43. Escape

2008-06-03T09:04:00.003+02:00

Escape: Carolyn Jessop: Books

I devoured this in a day! Books about cults and ex-cult members have always fascinated me and this was really one of the best I've read. I came away with a sense of the huge courage Carolyn Jessop has inside her. What made all the difference to her life was education. By the end of the book I was holding back my tears both of sadness and of joy. I wish I could be with her and give her a hug and some support. What a truly horrid life she was forced to endure.

Definitely recommended!

42. The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann

2008-05-31T20:59:00.001+02:00

The White Masai: My Exotic Tale of Love and Adventure

What an interesting book! I really enjoyed (whipped right through) this true story about a Swiss woman who experienced love at first sight while on vacation in Kenya and then overcame so many obstacles in order to stay in Kenya and marry her Masai lover.

A worthwhile, easy read.

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Winners and Short Lists: 1996 - 2008

2008-05-31T20:51:00.003+02:00

From The Lists

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is awarded annually. Nominations are made by libraries in capital and major cities throughout the world. Participating libraries can nominate up to three novels each year for the Award. Titles are nominated on the basis of 'high literary merit' as determined by the nominating library.

Books I've read are in BOLD.

2008

De Niro's Game, by Rawi Hage - WINNER
The Speed of Light, by Javier Cercas
The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne
Dreams of Speaking, by Gail Jones
Let It Be Morning,, by Sayed Kashua
The Attack, by Yasmina Khadra
Winterwood, by Patrick McCabe
The Woman Who Waited, by Andrei Makine

2007

Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson - WINNER
Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie
Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes
A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry
Slow Man, by J.M. Coetzee
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Short Day Dying, by Peter Hobbs
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy

2006

The Master, by Colm Toibin - WINNER
Graceland, by Chris Abani
Maps for Lost Lovers, by Nadeem Aslam
Havoc In Its Third Year, by Ronan Bennett
The Closed Circle, by Jonathan Coe
An Altered Light, by Jens Christian Grondahl
The Swallows of Kabal, by Yasmina Khadra
Breaking the Tongue, by Vyvyane Loh
Don't Move, by Margaret Mazzantini
The Logogryph, by Thomas Wharton

2005

The Known World, by Edward P. Jones - WINNER
Gardening at Night, by Diane Awerbuck
The Half Brother, by Lars Saabye Christensen
The Good Doctor, by Damon Galgut
Elle, by Douglas Glover
Phantom Pain, by Arnon Grunberg
The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard
Willenbrock, by Christoph Hein
Deafening, by Frances Hani
The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem

2004

This Blinding Absence of Light, by Tahar ben Jelloun - WINNER
The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster
Any Human Heart, by William Boyd
Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
The White Family, by Maggie Gee
Balthasar's Odyssey, by Amin Maalouf
Family Matters, by Rohinton Mistry
Earth and Ashes, by Atiq Rahimi
House of Day, House of Night, by Olga Tokarczuk

2003

My Name is Red, by Orphan Pamuk - WINNER
The Ash Garden, by Dennis Bock
Bitter Fruit, by Achmat Dangor
The Royal Physician's Visit, by Per Olov Enquist
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
The Painter of Birds, by Lidia Jorge
That They may Face The Rising Sun, by John McGahern
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

2002

Atomised, by Michel Houellebecq - WINNER
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey
The Keepers of Truth, by Michael Collins
The Last Samurai, by Helen Dewitt
The Years with Laura Diaz, by Carlos Fuentes
Madame, by Antoni Libera

2001

No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod - WINNER
The True History of Paradise, by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
The Love You Promised Me, by Silvia Molina
Our Fathers, by Andrew O'Hagan
The Clay Machine Gun, by Victor Pelevin
The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Toibin

2000

Wide Open, by Nicola Barker - WINNER
The Hours, by Michael Cunningham
Trumpet, by Jackie Kay
This Side of Brightness, by Colum McCann
Charming Billy, by Alice McDermott
Paradise, by Toni Morrison
I Married a Communist, by Philip Roth

1999

Ingenious Pain, by Andrew Miller - WINNER
Quarantine, by Jim Crace
Underworld, by Don DeLillo
The Ordinary Seaman, by Francisco Goldman
Enduring Love, by Ian McEwan
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Marakumi
The Puttermesser Papers, by Cynthia Ozick
The Reader, by Bernard Schlink

1998

The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Muller - WINNER
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
Imaginings of Sand, by Andre Brink
The Counting House, by David Dabydeen
The Glade within the Grove, by David Foster
Autobiography of my Mother, by Jamaica Kindcaid
Salt, by Earl Lovelace
The Pope's Rhinoceros, by Lawrence Norfolk
Last Orders, by Graham Swift
The Englishman's Boy, by Guy Vanderhaeghe

1997

A Heart So White, by Javier Marias - WINNER
Reservation Blues, by Sherman Alexie
A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
Novel Without a Name, by Duong Thu Huong
Declares Pereira, by Antonio Tabucchi
A Tiler's Afternoon, by Lars Gustaffson
The Good Negress (also published as This Rain Coming), by A.J. Verdelle
Morvern Callar, by Alan Warner

1996

Remembering Babylon, by David Malouf - WINNER
Ghosts, by John Banville
A Way In The World, by V.S. Naipaul
The Following Story, by Cees Noteboom
The Laws, by Connie Paimen
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, by Jose Saramago
Away, by Jane Urquhart

My 2nd Canadian Book Challenge List

2008-05-30T13:05:00.007+02:00

Starting July 1st 2008 until July 1st 2009 I am going to read one book by an author from each of the Canadian Provinces/Territories.

Books in BOLD have been read.

Here's my preliminary list:

Newfoundland & Labrador
Bernice Morgan- Random Passage
Paul Butler- Easton

Nova Scotia
Ernest Buckler- The Mountain and the Valley
Sheree Fitch- kiss the joy as it flies

New Brunswick
David Adams Richards- Mercy Among The Children

PEI

Quebec
Heather O’Neill- Lullabies For Little Criminals

Ontario
Lawrence Hill- The Book of Negroes
Vincent Lam- Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

Manitoba
Miriam Toews- Swing Low; A Life

Saskatchewan
Guy Vanderhaeghe- The Last Crossing

Alberta

British Columbia
Jack Hodgins- The Invention of the World

Yukon
Richard Van Camp- Lesser Blessed

NWT
Late Nights on Air- Elizabeth Hay

Nunavut
James Houston- The White Dawn

10 out 100 out of 1001 Books YMRBYD Challenge

2008-05-29T14:31:00.004+02:00

From Books of Mee.

I have an idea of how to sweep through the books in the list reasonably. Most of us wouldn’t be able to read all 1001 books in our lifetime, especially with all the new books coming out every year. So let’s not even try :). What I want to attempt is to read 100 books out of this list, which is distributed as evenly as possible. But chances are, if you haven’t read many books in the list, you’re probably a slow reader like I am, so even 100 books is far too many. So to start, let’s just have 10, one for each month. I will start from book #1 to 100.

The rule is, pick one book for every group of 10 books. So pick one book from book #1-10, then another one from book #11-20, and so on. If you have read one book from the group in the past, you can skip that group, or you can pick another book that you haven’t read in that group.

My List:
[01-10] #1 Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
[11-20] #15 Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
[21-30] #28 Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
[31-40] #33 Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
[41-50] #49 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
[51-60] #52 The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
[61-70] #64 After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
[71-80] #80 Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
[81-90] #85 Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
[91-100] #92 The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

1% Well-Read Challenge

2008-05-28T16:41:00.009+02:00

RULES from One More Chapter:

The goal of this challenge is to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. For you non-math people, 10 out of 1001 is approximately 1%, hence the title. The challenge will run from May 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009.

You may change your list at any time and cross-posting to other challenges is permitted. The only requirement is that your ten book choices must be on the ‘1001 List‘.

Here's the list.

The books I've already read (as of June 1 2008) are in BOLD.
For the challenge I plan to read 10 more. Those will be in RED.
After I've completed them they'll be in BOLD and in RED.

1 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
2 Saturday Ian McEwan
3 On Beauty Zadie Smith
4 Slow Man J.M. Coetzee
5 Adjunct: An Undigest Peter Manson
6 The Sea John Banville
7 The Red Queen Margaret Drabble
8 The Plot Against America Philip Roth
9 The Master Colm Tóibín
10 Vanishing Point David Markson
11 The Lambs of London Peter Ackroyd
12 Dining on Stones Iain Sinclair
13 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
14 Drop City T. Coraghessan Boyle
15 The Colour Rose Tremain
16 Thursbitch Alan Garner
17 The Light of Day Graham Swift
18 What I Loved Siri Hustvedt
19 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon
20 Islands Dan Sleigh
21 Elizabeth Costello J.M. Coetzee
22 London Orbital Iain Sinclair
23 Family Matters Rohinton Mistry
24 Fingersmith Sarah Waters
25 The Double José Saramago
26 Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
27 Unless Carol Shields
28 Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami
29 The Story of Lucy Gault William Trevor
30 That They May Face the Rising Sun John McGahern
31 In the Forest Edna O’Brien
32 Shroud John Banville
33 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides
34 Youth J.M. Coetzee
35 Dead Air Iain Banks
36 Nowhere Man Aleksandar Hemon
37 The Book of Illusions Paul Auster
38 Gabriel’s Gift Hanif Kureishi
39 Austerlitz W.G. Sebald
40 Platform Michael Houellebecq
41 Schooling Heather McGowan
42 Atonement Ian McEwan
43 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
44 Don’t Move Margaret Mazzantini
45 The Body Artist Don DeLillo
46 Fury Salman Rushdie
47 At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill
48 Choke Chuck Palahniuk
49 Life of Pi Yann Martel
50 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa
51 An Obedient Father Akhil Sharma
52 The Devil and Miss Prym Paulo Coelho
53 Spring Flowers, Spring Frost Ismail Kadare
54 White Teeth Zadie Smith
55 The Heart of Redness Zakes Mda
56 Under the Skin Michel Faber
57 Ignorance Milan Kundera
58 Nineteen Seventy Seven David Peace
59 Celestial Harmonies Péter Esterházy
60 City of God E.L. Doctorow
61 How the Dead Live Will Self
62 The Human Stain Philip Roth
63 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
64 After the Quake Haruki Murakami
65 Small Remedies Shashi Deshpande
66 Super-Cannes J.G. Ballard
67 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski
68 Blonde Joyce Carol Oates
69 Pastoralia George Saunders

1900s
70 Timbuktu Paul Auster
71 The Romantics Pankaj Mishra
72 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson
73 As If I Am Not There Slavenka Drakulic
74 Everything You Need A.L. Kennedy
75 Fear and Trembling Amélie Nothomb
76 The Ground Beneath Her Feet Salman Rushdie
77 Disgrace J.M. Coetzee
78 Sputnik Sweetheart Haruki Murakami
79 Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq
80 Intimacy Hanif Kureishi
81 Amsterdam Ian McEwan
82 Cloudsplitter Russell Banks
83 All Souls Day Cees Nooteboom
84 The Talk of the Town Ardal O’Hanlon
85 Tipping the Velvet Sarah Waters
86 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
87 Glamorama Bret Easton Ellis
88 Another World Pat Barker
89 The Hours Michael Cunningham
90 Veronika Decides to Die Paulo Coelho
91 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon
92 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
93 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
94 Great Apes Will Self
95 Enduring Love Ian McEwan
96 Underworld Don DeLillo
97 Jack Maggs Peter Carey
98 The Life of Insects Victor Pelevin
99 American Pastoral Philip Roth
100 The Untouchable John Banville
101 Silk Alessandro Baricco
102 Cocaine Nights J.G. Ballard
103 Hallucinating Foucault Patricia Duncker
104 Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels
105 The Ghost Road Pat Barker
106 Forever a Stranger Hella Haasse
107 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
108 The Clay Machine-Gun Victor Pelevin
109 Alias Grace Margaret Atwood
110 The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro
111 Morvern Callar Alan Warner
112 The Information Martin Amis
113 The Moor’s Last Sigh Salman Rushdie
114 Sabbath’s Theater Philip Roth
115 The Rings of Saturn W.G. Sebald
116 The Reader Bernhard Schlink
117 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
118 Love’s Work Gillian Rose
119 The End of the Story Lydia Davis
120 Mr. Vertigo Paul Auster
121 The Folding Star Alan Hollinghurst
122 Whatever Michel Houellebecq
123 Land Park Kyong-ni
124 The Master of Petersburg J.M. Coetzee
125 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
126 Pereira Declares: A Testimony Antonio Tabucchi
127 City Sister Silver Jàchym Topol
128 How Late It Was, How Late James Kelman
129 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis de Bernieres
130 Felicia’s Journey William Trevor
131 Disappearance David Dabydeen
132 The Invention of Curried Sausage Uwe Timm
133 The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx
134 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
135 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
136 Looking for the Possible Dance A.L. Kennedy
137 Operation Shylock Philip Roth
138 Complicity Iain Banks
139 On Love Alain de Botton
140 What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe
141 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
142 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields
143 The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides
144 The House of Doctor Dee Peter Ackroyd
145 The Robber Bride Margaret Atwood
146 The Emigrants W.G. Sebald
147 The Secret History Donna Tartt
148 Life is a Caravanserai Emine Özdamar
149 The Discovery of Heaven Harry Mulisch
150 A Heart So White Javier Marias
151 Possessing the Secret of Joy Alice Walker
152 Indigo Marina Warner
153 The Crow Road Iain Banks
154 Written on the Body Jeanette Winterson
155 Jazz Toni Morrison
156 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
157 Smilla’s Sense of Snow Peter Høeg
158 The Butcher Boy Patrick McCabe
159 Black Water Joyce Carol Oates
160 The Heather Blazing Colm Tóibín
161 Asphodel Hilda Doolittle
162 Black Dogs Ian McEwan
163 Hideous Kinky Esther Freud
164 Arcadia Jim Crace
165 Wild Swans Jung Chang
166 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis
167 Time’s Arrow Martin Amis
168 Mao II Don DeLillo
169 Typical Padgett Powell
170 Regeneration Pat Barker
171 Downriver Iain Sinclair
172 Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord Louis de Bernieres
173 Wise Children Angela Carter
174 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard
175 Amongst Women John McGahern
176 Vineland Thomas Pynchon
177 Vertigo W.G. Sebald
178 Stone Junction Jim Dodge
179 The Music of Chance Paul Auster
180 The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien
181 A Home at the End of the World Michael Cunningham
182 Like Life Lorrie Moore
183 Possession A.S. Byatt
184 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi
185 The Midnight Examiner William Kotzwinkle
186 A Disaffection James Kelman
187 Sexing the Cherry Jeanette Winterson
188 Moon Palace Paul Auster
189 Billy Bathgate E.L. Doctorow
190 Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
191 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai
192 The Temple of My Familiar Alice Walker
193 The Trick is to Keep Breathing Janice Galloway
194 The History of the Siege of Lisbon José Saramago
195 Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel
196 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
197 London Fields Martin Amis
198 The Book of Evidence John Banville
199 Cat’s Eye Margaret Atwood
200 Foucault’s Pendulum Umberto Eco
201 The Beautiful Room is Empty Edmund White
202 Wittgenstein’s Mistress David Markson
203 The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie
204 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst
205 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey
206 Libra Don DeLillo
207 The Player of Games Iain M. Banks
208 Nervous Conditions Tsitsi Dangarembga
209 The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul Douglas Adams
210 Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams
211 The Radiant Way Margaret Drabble
212 The Afternoon of a Writer Peter Handke
213 The Black Dahlia James Ellroy
214 The Passion Jeanette Winterson
215 The Pigeon Patrick Süskind
216 The Child in Time Ian McEwan
217 Cigarettes Harry Mathews
218 The Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe
219 The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
220 World’s End T. Coraghessan Boyle
221 Enigma of Arrival V.S. Naipaul
222 The Taebek Mountains Jo Jung-rae
223 Beloved Toni Morrison
224 Anagrams Lorrie Moore
225 Matigari Ngugi wa Thiong'o
226 Marya Joyce Carol Oates
227 Watchmen Alan/David Moore/Gibbons
228 The Old Devils Kingsley Amis
229 Lost Language of Cranes David Leavitt
230 An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
231 Extinction Thomas Bernhard
232 Foe J.M. Coetzee
233 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi
234 Reasons to Live Amy Hempel
235 The Parable of the Blind Gert Hofmann
236 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez
237 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson
238 The Cider House Rules John Irving
239 A Maggot John Fowles
240 Less Than Zero Bret Easton Ellis
241 Contact Carl Sagan
242 The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
243 Perfume Patrick Süskind
244 Old Masters Thomas Bernhard
245 White Noise Don DeLillo
246 Queer William Burroughs
247 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd
248 Legend David Gemmell
249 Dictionary of the Khazars Milorad Pavic
250 The Bus Conductor Hines James Kelman
251 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago
252 The Lover Marguerite Duras
253 Empire of the Sun J.G. Ballard
254 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
255 Nights at the Circus Angela Carter
256 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera
257 Blood and Guts in High School Kathy Acker
258 Neuromancer William Gibson
259 Flaubert’s Parrot Julian Barnes
260 Money: A Suicide Note Martin Amis
261 Shame Salman Rushdie
262 Worstward Ho Samuel Beckett
263 Fools of Fortune William Trevor
264 La Brava Elmore Leonard
265 Waterland Graham Swift
266 The Life and Times of Michael K J.M. Coetzee
267 The Diary of Jane Somers Doris Lessing
268 The Piano Teacher Elfriede Jelinek
269 The Sorrow of Belgium Hugo Claus
270 If Not Now, When? Primo Levi
271 A Boy’s Own Story Edmund White
272 The Color Purple Alice Walker
273 Wittgenstein’s Nephew Thomas Bernhard
274 A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ishiguro
275 Schindler’s Ark Thomas Keneally
276 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
277 The Newton Letter John Banville
278 On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin
279 Concrete Thomas Bernhard
280 The Names Don DeLillo
281 Rabbit is Rich John Updike
282 Lanark: A Life in Four Books Alasdair Gray
283 The Comfort of Strangers Ian McEwan
284 July’s People Nadine Gordimer
285 Summer in Baden-Baden Leonid Tsypkin
286 Broken April Ismail Kadare
287 Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
288 Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie
289 Rites of Passage William Golding
290 Rituals Cees Nooteboom
291 Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
292 City Primeval Elmore Leonard
293 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
294 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera
295 Smiley’s People John Le Carré
296 Shikasta Doris Lessing
297 A Bend in the River V.S. Naipaul
298 Burger’s Daughter Nadine Gordimer
299 The Safety Net Heinrich Böll
300 If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler Italo Calvino
301 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
302 The Cement Garden Ian McEwan
303 The World According to Garp John Irving
304 Life: A User’s Manual Georges Perec
305 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch
306 The Singapore Grip J.G. Farrell
307 Yes Thomas Bernhard
308 The Virgin in the Garden A.S. Byatt
309 In the Heart of the Country J.M. Coetzee
310 The Passion of New Eve Angela Carter
311 Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin
312 The Shining Stephen King
313 Dispatches Michael Herr
314 Petals of Blood Ngugi wa Thiong'o
315 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
316 The Hour of the Star Clarice Lispector
317 The Left-Handed Woman Peter Handke
318 Ratner’s Star Don DeLillo
319 The Public Burning Robert Coover
320 Interview With the Vampire Anne Rice
321 Cutter and Bone Newton Thornburg
322 Amateurs Donald Barthelme
323 Patterns of Childhood Christa Wolf
324 Autumn of the Patriarch Gabriel García Márquez
325 W, or the Memory of childhood Georges Perec
326 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell
327 Grimus Salman Rushdie
328 The Dead Father Donald Barthelme
329 Fateless Imre Kertész
330 Willard and His Bowling Trophies Richard Brautigan
331 High Rise J.G. Ballard
332 Humboldt’s Gift Saul Bellow
333 Dead Babies Martin Amis
334 Correction Thomas Bernhard
335 Ragtime E.L. Doctorow
336 The Fan Man William Kotzwinkle
337 Dusklands J.M. Coetzee
338 The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum Heinrich Böll
339 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carré
340 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut
341 Fear of Flying Erica Jong
342 A Question of Power Bessie Head
343 The Siege of Krishnapur J.G. Farrell
344 The Castle of Crossed Destinies Italo Calvino
345 Crash J.G. Ballard
346 The Honorary Consul Graham Greene
347 Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon
348 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch
349 Sula Toni Morrison
350 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino
351 The Breast Philip Roth
352 The Summer Book Tove Jansson
353 G John Berger
354 Surfacing Margaret Atwood
355 House Mother Normal B.S. Johnson
356 In A Free State V.S. Naipaul
357 The Book of Daniel E.L. Doctorow
358 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
359 Group Portrait With Lady Heinrich Böll
360 The Wild Boys William Burroughs
361 Rabbit Redux John Updike
362 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima
363 The Driver’s Seat Muriel Spark
364 The Ogre Michael Tournier
365 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison
366 Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick Peter Handke
367 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou
368 Mercier et Camier Samuel Beckett
369 Troubles J.G. Farrell
370 Jahrestage Uwe Johnson
371 The Atrocity Exhibition J.G. Ballard
372 Tent of Miracles Jorge Amado
373 Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover
374 Blind Man With a Pistol Chester Hines
375 Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut
376 The French Lieutenant’s Woman John Fowles
377 The Green Man Kingsley Amis
378 Portnoy’s Complaint Philip Roth
379 The Godfather Mario Puzo
380 Ada Vladimir Nabokov
381 Them Joyce Carol Oates
382 A Void/Avoid Georges Perec
383 Eva Trout Elizabeth Bowen
384 Myra Breckinridge Gore Vidal
385 The Nice and the Good Iris Murdoch
386 Belle du Seigneur Albert Cohen
387 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
388 The First Circle Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
389 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke
390 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
391 Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid Malcolm Lowry
392 The German Lesson Siegfried Lenz
393 In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan
394 A Kestrel for a Knave Barry Hines
395 The Quest for Christa T. Christa Wolf
396 Chocky John Wyndham397 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe
398 The Cubs and Other Stories Mario Vargas Llosa
399 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez
400 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
401 Pilgrimage Dorothy Richardson
402 The Joke Milan Kundera
403 No Laughing Matter Angus Wilson
404 The Third Policeman Flann O’Brien
405 A Man Asleep Georges Perec
406 The Birds Fall Down Rebecca West
407 Trawl B.S. Johnson
408 In Cold Blood Truman Capote
409 The Magus John Fowles
410 The Vice-Consul Marguerite Duras
411 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
412 Giles Goat-Boy John Barth
413 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon
414 Things Georges Perec
415 The River Between Ngugi wa Thiong’o
416 August is a Wicked Month Edna O’Brien
417 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater Kurt Vonnegut
418 Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O’Connor
419 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector
420 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey
421 Come Back, Dr. Caligari Donald Bartholme
422 Albert Angelo B.S. Johnson
423 Arrow of God Chinua Achebe
424 The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein Marguerite Duras
425 Herzog Saul Bellow
426 V. Thomas Pynchon
427 Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut
428 The Graduate Charles Webb
429 Manon des Sources Marcel Pagnol
430 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold John Le Carré
431 The Girls of Slender Means Muriel Spark
432 Inside Mr. Enderby Anthony Burgess
433 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
434 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
435 The Collector John Fowles
436 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey
437 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
438 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov
439 The Drowned World J.G. Ballard
440 The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
441 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges
442 Girl With Green Eyes Edna O’Brien
443 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani
444 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert Heinlein
445 Franny and Zooey J.D. Salinger
446 A Severed Head Iris Murdoch
447 Faces in the Water Janet Frame
448 Solaris Stanislaw Lem
449 Cat and Mouse Günter Grass
450 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
451 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
452 The Violent Bear it Away Flannery O’Connor
453 How It Is Samuel Beckett
454 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino
455 The Country Girls Edna O’Brien
456 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
457 Rabbit, Run John Updike
458 Promise at Dawn Romain Gary
459 Cider With Rosie Laurie Lee
460 Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse
461 Naked Lunch William Burroughs
462 The Tin Drum Günter Grass
463 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes
464 Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow
465 Memento Mori Muriel Spark
466 Billiards at Half-Past Nine Heinrich Böll
467 Breakfast at Tiffany’s Truman Capote
468 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
469 Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring Kenzaburo Oe
470 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
471 The Bitter Glass Eilís Dillon
472 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
473 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe
474 Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris Paul Gallico
475 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan
476 The End of the Road John Barth
477 The Once and Future King T.H. White
478 The Bell Iris Murdoch
479 Jealousy Alain Robbe-Grillet
480 Voss Patrick White
481 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham
482 Blue Noon Georges Bataille
483 Homo Faber Max Frisch
484 On the Road Jack Kerouac
485 Pnin Vladimir Nabokov
486 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak
487 The Wonderful “O” James Thurber
488 Justine Lawrence Durrell
489 Giovanni’s Room James Baldwin
490 The Lonely Londoners Sam Selvon
491 The Roots of Heaven Romain Gary
492 Seize the Day Saul Bellow
493 The Floating Opera John Barth
494 The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
495 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith
496 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov497 A World of Love Elizabeth Bowen
498 The Trusting and the Maimed James Plunkett
499 The Quiet American Graham Greene
500 The Last Temptation of Christ Nikos Kazantzákis
501 The Recognitions William Gaddis
502 The Ragazzi Pier Paulo Pasolini
503 Bonjour Tristesse Françoise Sagan
504 I’m Not Stiller Max Frisch
505 Self Condemned Wyndham Lewis
506 The Story of O Pauline Réage
507 A Ghost at Noon Alberto Moravia
508 Lord of the Flies William Golding
509 Under the Net Iris Murdoch
510 The Go-Between L.P. Hartley
511 The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler
512 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett
513 Watt Samuel Beckett
514 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
515 Junkie William Burroughs
516 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow
517 Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
518 Casino Royale Ian Fleming
519 The Judge and His Hangman Friedrich Dürrenmatt
520 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
521 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
522 Wise Blood Flannery O’Connor
523 The Killer Inside Me Jim Thompson
524 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar
525 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
526 Day of the Triffids John Wyndham
527 Foundation Isaac Asimov
528 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq
529 The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
530 The Rebel Albert Camus
531 Molloy Samuel Beckett
532 The End of the Affair Graham Greene
533 The Abbot C Georges Bataille
534 The Labyrinth of Solitude Octavio Paz
535 The Third Man Graham Greene
536 The 13 Clocks James Thurber
537 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake
538 The Grass is Singing Doris Lessing
539 I, Robot Isaac Asimov
540 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese
541 The Garden Where the Brass Band Played Simon Vestdijk
542 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford
543 The Case of Comrade Tulayev Victor Serge
544 The Heat of the Day Elizabeth Bowen
545 Kingdom of This World Alejo Carpentier
546 The Man With the Golden Arm Nelson Algren
547 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
548 All About H. Hatterr G.V. Desani
549 Disobedience Alberto Moravia
550 Death Sentence Maurice Blanchot
551 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
552 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton
553 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann
554 The Victim Saul Bellow
555 Exercises in Style Raymond Queneau
556 If This Is a Man Primo Levi
557 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry
558 The Path to the Nest of Spiders Italo Calvino
559 The Plague Albert Camus560 Back Henry Green
561 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake
562 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić
563 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
564 Animal Farm George Orwell
565 Cannery Row John Steinbeck
566 The Pursuit of Love Nancy Mitford
567 Loving Henry Green
568 Arcanum 17 André Breton
569 Christ Stopped at Eboli Carlo Levi
570 The Razor’s Edge W. Somerset Maugham
571 Transit Anna Seghers
572 Ficciones Jorge Luis Borges
573 Dangling Man Saul Bellow
574 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
575 Caught Henry Green
576 The Glass Bead Game Herman Hesse
577 Embers Sandor Marai
578 Go Down, Moses William Faulkner
579 The Outsider Albert Camus
580 In Sicily Elio Vittorini
581 The Poor Mouth Flann O’Brien
582 The Living and the Dead Patrick White
583 Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton
584 Between the Acts Virginia Woolf
585 The Hamlet William Faulkner
586 Farewell My Lovely Raymond Chandler
587 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
588 Native Son Richard Wright
589 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene
590 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati
591 Party Going Henry Green
592 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
593 Finnegans Wake James Joyce
594 At Swim-Two-Birds Flann O’Brien
595 Coming Up for Air George Orwell
596 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood
597 Tropic of Capricorn Henry Miller
598 Good Morning, Midnight Jean Rhys
599 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
600 After the Death of Don Juan Sylvie Townsend Warner
601 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Winifred Watson
602 Nausea Jean-Paul Sartre
603 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
604 Cause for Alarm Eric Ambler
605 Brighton Rock Graham Greene
606 U.S.A. John Dos Passos
607 Murphy Samuel Beckett
608 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
609 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
610 The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien
611 The Years Virginia Woolf
612 In Parenthesis David Jones
613 The Revenge for Love Wyndham Lewis
614 Out of Africa Isak Dineson
615 To Have and Have Not Ernest Hemingway
616 Summer Will Show Sylvia Townsend Warner
617 Eyeless in Gaza Aldous Huxley
618 The Thinking Reed Rebecca West
619 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell
620 Keep the Aspidistra Flying George Orwell
621 Wild Harbour Ian MacPherson
622 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner
623 At the Mountains of Madness H.P. Lovecraft
624 Nightwood Djuna Barnes
625 Independent People Halldór Laxness
626 Auto-da-Fé Elias Canetti
627 The Last of Mr. Norris Christopher Isherwood
628 They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Horace McCoy
629 The House in Paris Elizabeth Bowen
630 England Made Me Graham Greene
631 Burmese Days George Orwell
632 The Nine Tailors Dorothy L. Sayers
633 Threepenny Novel Bertolt Brecht
634 Novel With Cocaine M. Ageyev
635 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain
636 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller
637 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
638 Tender is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
639 Thank You, Jeeves P.G. Wodehouse
640 Call it Sleep Henry Roth
641 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West
642 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers
643 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein
644 Testament of Youth Vera Brittain
645 A Day Off Storm Jameson
646 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil
647 A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) Lewis Grassic Gibbon
648 Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline
649 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
650 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
651 To the North Elizabeth Bowen
652 The Thin Man Dashiell Hammett
653 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth
654 The Waves Virginia Woolf
655 The Glass Key Dashiell Hammett
656 Cakes and Ale W. Somerset Maugham
657 The Apes of God Wyndham Lewis
658 Her Privates We Frederic Manning
659 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh
660 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
661 Hebdomeros Giorgio de Chirico
662 Passing Nella Larsen
663 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
664 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett
665 Living Henry Green
666 The Time of Indifference Alberto Moravia
667 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque
668 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin
669 The Last September Elizabeth Bowen
670 Harriet Hume Rebecca West
671 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
672 Les Enfants Terribles Jean Cocteau
673 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
674 Story of the Eye Georges Bataille
675 Orlando Virginia Woolf
676 Lady Chatterley’s Lover D.H. Lawrence
677 The Well of Loneliness Radclyffe Hall
678 The Childermass Wyndham Lewis
679 Quartet Jean Rhys
680 Decline and Fall Evelyn Waugh
681 Quicksand Nella Larsen
682 Parade’s End Ford Madox Ford
683 Nadja André Breton
684 Steppenwolf Herman Hesse
685 Remembrance of Things Past Marcel Proust
686 To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
687 Tarka the Otter Henry Williamson
688 Amerika Franz Kafka
689 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
690 Blindness Henry Green
691 The Castle Franz Kafka
692 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek
693 The Plumed Serpent D.H. Lawrence
694 One, None and a Hundred Thousand Luigi Pirandello
695 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie
696 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein
697 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos
698 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf
699 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
700 The Counterfeiters André Gide
701 The Trial Franz Kafka
702 The Artamonov Business Maxim Gorky
703 The Professor’s House Willa Cather
704 Billy Budd, Foretopman Herman Melville
705 The Green Hat Michael Arlen
706 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann
707 We Yevgeny Zamyatin
708 A Passage to India E.M. Forster
709 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet
710 Zeno’s Conscience Italo Svevo
711 Cane Jean Toomer
712 Antic Hay Aldous Huxley
713 Amok Stefan Zweig
714 The Garden Party Katherine Mansfield
715 The Enormous Room E.E. Cummings
716 Jacob’s Room Virginia Woolf
717 Siddhartha Herman Hesse
718 The Glimpses of the Moon Edith Wharton
719 Life and Death of Harriett Frean May Sinclair
720 The Last Days of Humanity Karl Kraus
721 Aaron’s Rod D.H. Lawrence
722 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis
723 Ulysses James Joyce
724 The Fox D.H. Lawrence
725 Crome Yellow Aldous Huxley
726 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
727 Main Street Sinclair Lewis
728 Women in Love D.H. Lawrence
729 Night and Day Virginia Woolf
730 Tarr Wyndham Lewis
731 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West
732 The Shadow Line Joseph Conrad
733 Summer Edith Wharton
734 Growth of the Soil Knut Hamsen
735 Bunner Sisters Edith Wharton
736 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
737 Under Fire Henri Barbusse
738 Rashomon Akutagawa Ryunosuke
739 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
740 The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf
741 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham
742 The Rainbow D.H. Lawrence
743 The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
744 Kokoro Natsume Soseki
745 Locus Solus Raymond Roussel
746 Rosshalde Herman Hesse
747 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs
748 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell
749 Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
750 Death in Venice Thomas Mann
751 The Charwoman’s Daughter James Stephens
752 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
753 Fantômas Marcel/Pierre Allain/Souvestre
754 Howards End E.M. Forster
755 Impressions of Africa Raymond Roussel
756 Three Lives Gertrude Stein
757 Martin Eden Jack London
758 Strait is the Gate André Gide
759 Tono-Bungay H.G. Wells
760 The Inferno Henri Barbusse
761 A Room With a View E.M. Forster
762 The Iron Heel Jack London
763 The Old Wives’ Tale Arnold Bennett
764 The House on the Borderland Arnold Bennett
765 Mother Maxim Gorky
766 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad
767 The Jungle Upton Sinclair
768 Young Törless Robert Musil
769 The Forsyte Sage John Galsworthy
770 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
771 Professor Unrat Heinrich Mann
772 Where Angels Fear to Tread E.M. Forster
773 Nostromo Joseph Conrad
774 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe
775 The Golden Bowl Henry James
776 The Ambassadors Henry James
777 The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers
778 The Immoralist André Gide
779 The Wings of the Dove Henry James
780 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
781 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle
782 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann
783 Kim Rudyard Kipling
784 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
785 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad

1800s
786 Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. Somerville/Ross
787 The Stechlin Theodore Fontane
788 The Awakening Kate Chopin
789 The Turn of the Screw Henry James
790 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells
791 The Invisible Man H.G. Wells
792 What Maisie Knew Henry James
793 Fruits of the Earth André Gide
794 Dracula Bram Stoker
795 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz
796 The Island of Dr. Moreau H.G. Wells
797 The Time Machine H.G. Wells
798 Effi Briest Theodore Fontane
799 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
800 The Real Charlotte Somerville/Ross
801 The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman
802 Born in Exile George Gissing
803 Diary of a Nobody George & Weedon Goldsmith
804 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle
805 News from Nowhere William Morris
806 New Grub Street George Gissing
807 Gösta Berling’s Saga Selma Lagerlöf
808 Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
809 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
810 The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy
811 La Bête Humaine Émile Zola
812 By the Open Sea August Strindberg
813 Hunger Knut Hamsun
814 The Master of Ballantrae Robert Louis Stevenson
815 Pierre and Jean Guy de Maupassant
816 Fortunata and Jacinta Benito Pérez Galdés
817 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg
818 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy
819 She H. Rider Haggard
820 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
821 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
822 Kidnapped Robert Louis Stevenson
823 King Solomon’s Mines H. Rider Haggard
824 Germinal Émile Zola
825 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
826 Bel-Ami Guy de Maupassant
827 Marius the Epicurean Walter Pater
828 Against the Grain Joris-Karl Huysmans
829 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy
830 A Woman’s Life Guy de Maupassant
831 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson
832 The House by the Medlar Tree Giovanni Verga
833 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
834 Bouvard and Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert
835 Ben-Hur Lew Wallace
836 Nana Émile Zola
837 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
838 The Red Room August Strindberg
839 Return of the Native Thomas Hardy
840 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
841 Drunkard Émile Zola
842 Virgin Soil Ivan Turgenev
843 Daniel Deronda George Eliot
844 The Hand of Ethelberta Thomas Hardy
845 The Temptation of Saint Anthony Gustave Flaubert
846 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
847 The Enchanted Wanderer Nicolai Leskov
848 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
849 In a Glass Darkly Sheridan Le Fanu
850 The Devils Fyodor Dostoevsky
851 Erewhon Samuel Butler
852 Spring Torrents Ivan Turgenev
853 Middlemarch George Eliot
854 Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll
855 King Lear of the Steppes Ivan Turgenev
856 He Knew He Was Right Anthony Trollope
857 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
858 Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert
859 Phineas Finn Anthony Trollope
860 Maldoror Comte de Lautréaumont
861 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky
862 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins
863 Little Women Louisa May Alcott
864 Thérèse Raquin Émile Zola
865 The Last Chronicle of Barset Anthony Trollope
866 Journey to the Centre of the Earth Jules Verne
867 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
868 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
869 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens
870 Uncle Silas Sheridan Le Fanu
871 Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky
872 The Water-Babies Charles Kingsley
873 Les Misérables Victor Hugo
874 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev
875 Silas Marner George Eliot
876 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
877 On the Eve Ivan Turgenev
878 Castle Richmond Anthony Trollope
879 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
880 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
881 The Marble Faun Nathaniel Hawthorne
882 Max Havelaar Multatuli
883 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
884 Oblomovka Ivan Goncharov
885 Adam Bede George Eliot
886 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
887 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell
888 Hard Times Charles Dickens
889 Walden Henry David Thoreau
890 Bleak House Charles Dickens
891 Villette Charlotte Brontë
892 Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell
893 Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely Harriet Beecher Stowe
894 The Blithedale Romance Nathaniel Hawthorne
895 The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne
896 Moby-Dick Herman Melville
897 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
898 David Copperfield Charles Dickens
899 Shirley Charlotte Brontë
900 Mary Barton Elizabeth Gaskell
901 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë
902 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
903 Agnes Grey Anne Brontë
904 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
905 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
906 The Count of Monte-Cristo Alexandre Dumas
907 La Reine Margot Alexandre Dumas
908 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
909 The Purloined Letter Edgar Allan Poe
910 Martin Chuzzlewit Charles Dickens
911 The Pit and the Pendulum Edgar Allan Poe
912 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac
913 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
914 Dead Souls Nikolay Gogol
915 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
916 The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe
917 The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens
918 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
919 The Nose Nikolay Gogol
920 Le Père Goriot Honoré de Balzac
921 Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
922 The Hunchback of Notre Dame Victor Hugo
923 The Red and the Black Stendhal
924 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni
925 Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper
926 The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg
927 The Albigenses Charles Robert Maturin
928 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin
929 The Monastery Sir Walter Scott
930 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott
931 Frankenstein Mary Shelley
932 Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
933 Persuasion Jane Austen
934 Ormond Maria Edgeworth
935 Rob Roy Sir Walter Scott
936 Emma Jane Austen
937 Mansfield Park Jane Austen
938 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
939 The Absentee Maria Edgeworth
940 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
941 Elective Affinities Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
942 Castle Rackrent Maria Edgeworth

1700s
943 Hyperion Friedrich Hölderlin
944 The Nun Denis Diderot
945 Camilla Fanny Burney
946 The Monk M.G. Lewis
947 Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
948 The Mysteries of Udolpho Ann Radcliffe
949 The Interesting Narrative Olaudah Equiano
950 The Adventures of Caleb Williams William Godwin
951 Justine Marquis de Sade
952 Vathek William Beckford
953 The 120 Days of Sodom Marquis de Sade
954 Cecilia Fanny Burney
955 Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau
956 Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
957 Reveries of a Solitary Walker Jean-Jacques Rousseau
958 Evelina Fanny Burney
959 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
960 Humphrey Clinker Tobias George Smollett
961 The Man of Feeling Henry Mackenzie
962 A Sentimental Journey Laurence Sterne
963 Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
964 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith
965 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole
966 Émile; or, On Education Jean-Jacques Rousseau
967 Rameau’s Nephew Denis Diderot
968 Julie; or, the New Eloise Jean-Jacques Rousseau
969 Rasselas Samuel Johnson
970 Candide Voltaire
971 The Female Quixote Charlotte Lennox
972 Amelia Henry Fielding
973 Peregrine Pickle Tobias George Smollett
974 Fanny Hill John Cleland
975 Tom Jones Henry Fielding
976 Roderick Random Tobias George Smollett
977 Clarissa Samuel Richardson
978 Pamela Samuel Richardson
979 Jacques the Fatalist Denis Diderot
980 Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus J. Arbuthnot et al.
981 Joseph Andrews Henry Fielding
982 A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift
983 Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
984 Roxana Daniel Defoe
985 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe
986 Love in Excess Eliza Haywood
987 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
988 A Tale of a Tub Jonathan Swift

Pre-1700
989 Oroonoko Aphra Behn
990 The Princess of Clèves Marie-Madelaine de Lafayatte
991 The Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
992 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
993 The Unfortunate Traveller Thomas Nashe
994 Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit John Lyly
995 Gargantua and Pantagruel Françoise Rabelais
996 The Thousand and One Nights Anonymous
997 The Golden Ass Lucius Apuleius
998 Aithiopika Heliodorus
999 Chaireas and Kallirhoe Chariton
1000 Metamorphoses Ovid
1001 Aesop’s Fables Aesopus