Members' Reading Lists 2009

[saliotthomas]

Thanks a million Stewart

2009

Janvier

1-Richard Yates-Revolutionary road
2-Le cleziot-Desert
3-Richard stark-The damsel
4-Honor? de Balzac-Cousine Bette ++
5-Marguerite Yourcenar-Alexis
6-Le coup de grace
7-Paul Auster-the man in the dark
8-Brian moore-Dark robe
9_Guy Gavriel Kay-Tigana
10-Nancy Mitford-The Sun King
11-Chester Himes-Real cool killer
12-Jeanette Winterson - Weight -Myth of Atlas and Heracles
13-Henry james-the siege of London

Fevrier

14 Andrei Makine-The crime of Olga Arbelina
15 Gabriel garcias Marquez-Of love and other demons
16 Knut Hamsun-In country of Tales
17 Robert van Gulik - The Phantom of the Temple
18 Steven Millhauser - Martin Dressler Tale of an American dreamer
19 Jacques spitz-the eye of purgatory
20 Mohamed Nedali-Morceaux de choix
21 Geaorge sand-the devil's pool --
22 Evelyn Waugh-Brideshead Revisited read by Jeremy Irons
23 Rainer Maria Rilke-Journal of Malte laurids Brigge (i think?)
24 Patrick Rambaud-The exile
25 Richard Stark - The Green Eagle Score
26 Honore de balzac-The country doctor
27 Yasunari Kawabata-Les servantes de l'auberge
28 Graham Green-Stambul train ++
29 Driss Craibi-The world beside
30 Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider
31 Ted Chiang - The Merchant and the Alchemists Gate

March

32 Mika Watari-Nuori Johannes
33 Edward P Jones - The Known World --
34 Jonathan Coe-Closed circle ----
35 Julien Green-le voyageur sur terre +
36 Richard Stark-the black ice score
37 Cees Nooteboom-Lost paradise
38 Penelop Fitzgerald-The Blue flower
39 Charif Majdalani-The history of the big house
40 Tim Severin-corsair +
41 Ngugi-The river Between -
42 Emile Zola-The dream
43 Arto Paasilinna-The year of the hare
44 E L Doctorow-The march
45 Andrei Makine-A temps du fleuve amour

April

46 Amin Maalouf-the century before beatrice
47 Franz Kafka-The trial
48 Le Cleziot-Ourania
49 Kevin Brockmeier - Brief History of the Dead +
50 Isaac Bashevis Singer - The Slave
51 Milan Kundera-The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Mars by Jean pierre Bibring(lecture audio)
52 Richard Stark -Slayground
53 Torgny Lindgren-The way of the snake
54 J.M. Coetzee - Life & Times of Michael K
55 Marguerite Yourcenar-Souvenirs pieux I Both biographies about
56 Sandor Marai-Les confessions d'un bourgeois
57 bernard Cornwell-Agincourt +
58 JG Ballard -The Drowned world ++
59 Colm Toibin-The master
60 Yann Martel - The Facts Behind Helsinki Roccamatios

Mai

61-Joane Didion-The year of magical thinking
62-Norman Mailer--The castel in the forest
63-Andrei makine-Confessiion of a fallen standard bearer
64-Ricahrd Stark-the sour lemon
65 Menis Koumandareas-La verrerie
66-Alberto Moravia-Two-a phallic novel
67 Eric emmanuel Schmitt-Ulysse from Bagdad
68-Nina Berberova-the accompanist +
69-Jean Echenoz-Je m'en vais(i'm gone)
70-Richard Stark-deadly edge
71-David Mitchel-Cloud atlas
72-Marguerite Yourcenar-A coin in nine hand
73-Evgueni Zamiatine-The flood

June

74-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-One day in the life of Ivan..
75-Andrei Makine-The life of an Unknown man
76-Boualem Sansal-Le village de l'Allemand
77-Conn Iggulden-Genghis
78-Frank cullotta
79-Thomas Bernhard -The Looser and
80-Barjavel-le voyageur imprudent-at rest
81-Dan Simmons-Children of the night-
82-Amin Maalouf-Samarkanf
82-Manil Suri-The death of Vishnu--
83-Thomas Pynchon-Cry of the lot 49
84-Malika Oufkir-Stolen Lives
85-Donald Westlake-Somebody owes me money
86-Miklos Banffy-They were found wanting
87-Yasmina Khadra-the sirens of Baghdad
88-Patricia Highsmith-The blunderer
89-Per Petterson-Out stealing Horses+

Jully

90-Milan Kundera-The joke
91-Richard Stark-Comeback bravo!
92-Gilbert Adair-The Act of Roger Murgatroyd ,gave up,like bloody Cluedo
93-Umberto Eco-The name of the rose
94-Seth Graham smith/jane Austen-Pride and prejudice and zombies
95-Donald E Westlake-Get real
96-Alessandro Baricco-Chateau de la col?re
97-Larry Brown-Father and son
98-Jim Crace-Being dead
99-Robert McCammon-Night boat
100-Irene Nemirovsky-David Golder
101-Simon Mawer-Gospel of Judas
102-Jean Teule-Verlaine

August

103 Knut Hamsun-Hunger
104 Driss Chraibi-Inspector Ali
105 Giorgio Bassani-Behind the door

Septembre

106 Alexandro Baricco-Novecento
107 Stendhal-The red and the black
108 Donald E Westlake-Money for nothing
109 Alan Weisman-The World Without Us
110 Joseph O'neil-Netherland
111 China Mieville-City&city
112 Will Knot - The devil flower+
113 Guy de Maupassant-Boule de suif
114 Marilynne Robinson-Home+
115 Jane Bolwes-Two serious Ladies
116 Donald Westlake-The Dame
117 lawrence Durrell-Justine
118 Antonio Tabucchi-Dream of dreams


Octobre

119 Lawrence Durrell-Balthazar
120 Alice Munro-The view from castel rock
121 Yannis Xanthoulis-A Turk in the garden-abandonned
122 Jim harrison-A good day to die
123 Per Petterson-To Siberia+
124 Turgenev-House of the gentry
125 Gerald Durrell-My familly and other animals.
126 Bruce Chatwin-In Patagonia
127 Jim Ronson-The men who stare at goat+
128 Giullermo del Toro/Chuck Hogan-The strain
129 Wole Soyinka-The interpreters. gave up
130 Sjomall/Wahloo-the man who went up in smoke

Novembre

131 Peter Cameron-Someday this pain will be useful to you
132 Paul Theroux-The Great railway Bazard
133 John Wyndham-The trouble with the Lichen
134 Donald Westlake-bank shot
135 Boris Vian -Un automne a Pekin abandonned
136 Romain Gary-La vie devant soi(Momo)
137 Yu Hua-Brothers-Adam Haberberg
139 Rowan Somerville-The end of sleep
140 Stendhal- chronique Italienne(trop de faveur tue)
141 Elmore Leonard- City primeval
142 Flann O'brien-The third policeman
143 James Frey-a million little pieces
144 Kate Grenville-The lieutenant
145 Robert graves-Goodbye to all that.


Decembre

146 Pierre Michom- The origine of the world
147 Scott Lynch-The gentlemen Bastard-Lies of Locke Lamora
148 Amin Maalouf-Identit?s Meurti?res+
149 Pierre Michon-L'empereur d'occident
150 Dino buzatti-Le desert des tartares
151 Richard Stark-FlashFire
152 Philipe Roth-Americain Pastoral
153 Simenon -The strangers in the house
154 Romain Gary-Les promesse de l'aube
155 Roberto Saviano-Gomorrah +
156 Thomas Savage- The power of the dog
157 Arto Paasilinna-La douce empoisonneuse

[Stewart]

This year has been a bit of a letdown as far as my reading is concerned, but here's what I've read:

NOVEMBER
025. (reading) The Snowball: Warren Buffett And The Business Of Life, Alice Schroeder

OCTOBER
024. Legend Of A Suicide, David Vann
023. The Man Who Fell To Earth, Walter Tevis
022. Briar Rose, Robert Coover

AUGUST - SEPTEMBER
(nothing)

JULY
021. The Art Of Sinking In Poetry, Alexander Pope
020. The Breast, Philip Roth
019. Singin I'm No A Billy He's A Tim, Des Dillon
018. By Night In Chile, Roberto Bolano

JUNE
017. What Becomes, A.L. Kennedy
016. Kneller's Happy Campers, Etgar Keret
015. Bonsai, Alejandro Zambra

MAY
014. The Flight Of Icarus, Raymond Queneau
013. Uncommon Danger, Eric Ambler
012. The Selected Works Of TS Spivet, Reif Larsen

APRIL
(nothing)

MARCH
011. No Word From Gurb, Eduardo Mendoza
010. The Blue Fox, Sjon
009. Machine, Peter Adolphsen

FEBRUARY
008. The Bird Room, Chris Killen
007. The Pets, Bragi ?laffson
006. Dangling Man, Saul Bellow

JANUARY
005. To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck
004. R.U.R., Karel Čapek
003. Carmen?s Rust, Ana Mar?a del R?o
002. Bad Vibes: Britpop And My Part In Its Downfall, Luke Haines
001. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Horace McCoy

[Jayaprakash]

I don't maintain a monthly list, but here's this year's list so far:

1. Madam Crowl's Ghost And Other Ghost Stories: J. Sheridan Le Fanu 5/5
2. The Collected Ghost Stories Of M.R. James 5/5
3. Meet Mr. Mulliner: PG Wodehouse 5/5
4. Words From The Myths: Isaac Asimov 4/5
5. Camp Concentration: Thomas M. Disch 3/5
6. The World Of Odysseus: MI Finley 5/5
7. The Virgin In The Ice: Ellis Peters 3/5
8. The Island Of The Colourblind And Cycad Island: Oliver Sacks 3/5
9. Turtle Diary: Russell Hoban 4/5
10. The Savage Detectives: Roberto Bolano 1/5
11. The Stories Of Tobias Wolff 5/5
12. Terra Amata: JMG Le Clezio 3/5
13. The Witches Of Chiswick: Robert Rankin 4/5
14. The Pledge: Friedrich Durrenmatt 5/5
15. In A Glass Darkly: J Sheridan Le Fanu 3/5
16. The Land Of The Headless: Adam Roberts 4/5
17. Plain Pleasures: Jane Bowles 5/5
18. Fata Morgana: William Kotzwinkle 4/5
19. The Sound Of The Mountain: Yasunari Kawabata 5/5
20. William The Outlaw: Richmal Crompton 3/5
21. William Does His Bit: Richmal Crompton 3/5
22. Beauty And Sadness: Yasunari Kawabata 4/5
23. Gradisil: Adam Roberts: 4/5
24. Rubicon: Steven Saylor 3/5
25. Rumpole And The Age Of Miracles: John Mortimer 3/5
26. The Medusa Frequency: Russell Hoban 2/5
27. Brief Candles: Aldous Huxley: 3/5
28. The Beast: Sharman Macdonald 3/5
29. The Thieves Of Ostia: Caroline Lawrence 3/5
30. The Dream Of Scipio: Iain Pears 3.5/5
31. The Carhullan Army: Sarah Hall 4/5
32. The Last Camel Died At Noon: Elizabeth Peters 3/5
33. The Portrait: Iain Pears: 4/5
34. The Moth Diaries: Rachel Klein 5/5
35. The Spider's Web: Joseph Roth 5/5
36. The Handmaid's Tale: Margaret Atwood 5/5
37. Rings Of Saturn: W.G. Sebald 5/5
38. The Invention Of Morel: Adolfo Bioy Casares 5/5
39. Love: Angela Carter 5/5
40. The Book Of Lost Things: John Connolly 3/5
41. The Master And Margarita: Mikhail Bulgakov 5/5
42. Requiem For A Lost Empire: Andrei Makine 5/5
43. The Affirmation: Christopher Priest 4/5
44. Cosmopolis: Don Delillo 3.5/5
45. After Nature: W.G. Sebald 5/5
46. The Time-Traveller's Wife: Audrey Niffenegger 1/5
47. The Graveyard Book: Neil Gaiman 4/5
48. The City And The City: China Mieville 4/5
49. Half Of A Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie 3/5
50. The Collector Collector: Tibor Fischer 4/5
51. 3 Days To Never: Tim Powers 4/5
52. The Tooth Fairy: Graham Joyce 5/5
53. Electric Michelangelo: Sarah Hall 4/5
54. Frankenstein Unbound: Brian Aldiss 2/5
55. The Casebook Of Victor Frankenstein: Peter Ackroyd 4/5
56. The Flanders Panel: Arturo Perez-Reverte 5/5
57. A Case Of Exploding Mangoes: Mohamed Hanif 4/5
58. A Dead Man In Deptford: Anthony Burgess 5/5
59. On The Natural History Of Destruction: WG Sebald 3/5
60. Ghosts and other friends: Malavika Kapur 3/5
61. A Drifting Life: Yoshihiro Tatsumi 5/5
62. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler: Italo Calvino 5/5
63. The Maltese Falcon: Dashiell Hammett 5/5
64. The Squares Of The City: John Brunner 4/5
65. Kissing The Beehive: Jonathan Carroll 5/5
66. Myth and Meaning: Claude Levi-Strauss 3/5
67. The Lazarus Project: Aleksandar Hemon 3/5
68. Royal Highness: Thomas Mann 3/5
69. The Stain In The Snow: Georges Simenon 5/5
70. The Si-Fan Mysteries: Sax Rohmer 3/5
71. The Transposed Heads: Thomas Mann 4/5
72. Stamboul Train: Graham Greene 3/5
73. Mulliner Nights: PG Wodehouse 5/5
74. The Raphael Affair: Iain Pears 3/5
75. The Dain Curse: Dashiell Hammett 3/5
76. Camier and Mercier: Samuel Beckett 4/5
77. Sleeping Murder: Agatha Christie 3/5
78. The Wrong Box: Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne 4/5
79. Pale Fire: Vladimir Nabokov 5/5
80. John Silence: Algernon Blackwood 5/5
81. A Tangled Skein: David Stuart Davies 2.5/5

[Jayaprakash]

I'm glad to see Stewart's rating of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH. It's an excellent novel, not just the book that Bowie film was made from. You should put together a review of it, if you haven't already.

A great, eclectic list, Saliotthomas. I didn't realise Ted Chiang had a new book out.

[Colette Jones]

December
71. The Elephant Keeper - Christopher Nicholson
72. Border Crossing - Pat Barker
73. The Girl at the Lion d'Or - Sebastian Faulks
74. Number9Dream - David Mitchell
75. The Native Commissioner - Shaun Johnson
76. Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
77. The House of the Mosque - Kader Abdolah
78. The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald

November
65. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
66. The White Castle - Orhan Pamuk
67. Carol - Patricia Highsmith
68. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
69. Justine - Alice Thompson
70. They Came Like Swallows - William Maxwell

October
60. Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
61. Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
62. Any Human Heart - William Boyd
63. The Hours - Michael Cunningham
64. Slow Man - JM Coetzee

September
53. May Contain Nuts - John O'Farrell
54. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
55. Rape: A Love Story - Joyce Carol Oates
56. Aiding and Abettig - Muriel Spark
57. The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
58. Youth - JM Coetzee
59. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

August
46. The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
47. Me Cheeta - James Lever
48. Heliopolis - James Scudamore
49. Love and Summer - William Trevor
50. Boyhood - JM Coetzee
51. Pilcrow - Adam Mars-Jones
52. Summertime - JM Coetzee

July
41. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
42. How to Paint a Dead Man - Sarah Hall
43. This is How - MJ Hyland
44. An Equal Stillness - Francesca Kay
45. Beasts - Joyce Carol Oates

June
34. The Glass Room - Simon Mawer
35. The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds
36. Brooklyn - Colm T?ib?n
37. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer
38. Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson
39. Red Dog, Red Dog - Patrick Lane
40. Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden

May
29. Molly Fox's Birthday - Dierdre Madden
30. Scottsboro - Ellen Feldman
31. The Wilderness - Samantha Harvey
32. Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie
33. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

April
24. Strangers - Anita Brookner
25. A Mercy - Toni Morrison
26. The Invention of Everything Else - Samantha Hunt
27. Netherland - Joseph O'Neill
28. Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald

March
19. Moses Ascending - Sam Selvon
20. Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
21. Nineteen Seventy Four - David Peace
22. Home - Marilynne Robinson
23. The Shawl - Cynthia Ozick

February
09. Three Day Road - Joseph Boyden
10. The Doctor's Wife - Brian Moore
11. The Lonely Londoners - Sam Selvon
12. Black Dogs - Ian McEwan
13. A Life's Music - Andre? Makine
14. The Holy City - Patrick McCabe
15. The Great Lover - Jill Dawson
16. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
17. Harriet Said - Beryl Bainbridge
18. A Good School - Richard Yates

January
01. The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
02. The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps - Michel Faber
03. The Year is '42 - Nella Bielski
04. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
05. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
06. The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
07. Land of Marvels - Barry Unsworth
08. The Book of Proper Names - Am?lie Nothomb


Abandoned:
Crossroads - Niccolo Ammaniti January, at 86 pages
Loving Sabatoge - Amelie Nothomb January, at 18 pages
The Lieutenant - Kate Grenville March, at 30 pages
The Household Guide to Dying - Debra Adelaide March, at 99 pages
Guernica - Dave Boling June, not my cup of tea, so skimming for book club
Turbulence - Giles Foden July, at 60 pages.
Not Untrue and Not Unkind - Ed O'Loughlin August, at 86 pages
The Children's Book - AS Byatt August, at 104 pages
The Two Pound Tram - William Newton October, at 58 pages
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood October, at 13 pages
Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving November, at 122 pages
American Adulterer - Jed Mercurio December, at 16 pages

[LRiley]

January:

1. Lust-Elfriede Jelinek
2.Netherland-Joseph O'Neill
3. Khirbet Khizeh-S. Yizhar
4. The Romantic dogs-Roberto Bolano
5. With the stroke of a pen-A. Louise Staman
6. Infinite Jest-David Foster Wallace
7. The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao-Junot Diaz
8. Gomorrah-Roberto Saviano
9. The unfortunates-B. S. Johnson
10. A werewolf problem in Central Russia-Victor Pelevin
11. A grain of wheat-Ngugi wa Thiong'O

February:

12. 2666-Roberto Bolano
13. Crash-J. G. Ballard
14. A leap-Anna Enquist
15. Last Rituals-Yrsa Sigurdardottir
16. The stone carvers-Jane Urquhart
17. The lavender way-Papalaz
18. The Redbreast-Jo Nesbo
19. Indignation-Philip Roth
20. Water blue eyes-Domingo Villar
21. American Rust-Philipp Meyer
22. Fireworks: Nine profane pieces-Angela Carter

March:

23. Shyness and dignity-Dag Solstad
24. Bonsai-Alejandor Zambra
25. The great weaver of Kashmir-Halldor Laxness
26. Song of Napalm (a reread)-Bruce Weigl
27. Fantasia: An Algerian cavalcade-Assia Djebar
28. Do not touch-Eric Laurrent
29. The lizard cage-Karen Connelly
30. The sea-John Banville
31. The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism-Naomi Klein
32. The scheme for full employment-Magnus Mills
33. Purple Hibiscus-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

April:

34. One step behind-Henning Mankell
35. The snail on the slope-The Strugatski brothers
36. De Niro's game-Rawi Hage
37. Voice Over-Celine Curiol
38. Nikolski-Nicolas Dickner
39. After dinner declarations-Nicanor Parra
40. Mean woman-Alicia Borinsky
41. The murder farm-Andrea Maria Schenkel
42. Sardinian brigade-Emilio Lussu
43. Little man, what now?-Hans Fallada
44. Ghosts-Cesar Aira
45. Jar City-Arnaldur Indridason

May:

46. The round and other cold hard facts (a reread)-J. M. G. Le Clezio
47. Faces and masks-Eduardo Galeano
48. An echo of heaven-Kenzaburo Oe--the first time I actually didn't like something of his.
49. The god of small things-Arundhati Roy
50. Borkmann's point-Hakan Nesser
51. The Ice Palace-Tarjei Vesaas
52. The fat man and Infinity-Antonio Lobo Antunes
53. Into the beautiful north-Luis Alberto Urrea
54. In Bruges-Martin McDonagh
55. The news from Paraguay-Lily Tuck
56. Everyman-Philip Roth

June:

57. Red April-Santiago Roncagliolo
58. The tunnel-William H. Gass
59. Kennedy's brain-Henning Mankell
60. 12:23 Paris 31st August 1997-Eoin McNamee
61. The Kite Runner-Khaled Hossein
62. The spiders of Allah-James Hider
63. The god of carnage-Yasmina Reza
64. The killing of yesterday's children-M. S. Power
65. Coronado-Dennis Lehane
66. Normance-Louis Ferdinand Celine
67. The pickup-Nadine Gordimer

July:

68. The Psalm killer-Christopher Petit
69. The outsiders-Alexander Trocchi
70. Let the great world spin-Colum McCann
71. Memory-Philippe Grimbert
72. The big sleep-Raymond Chandler
73. No Logo-Naomi Klein
74. Oblivion-David Foster Wallace
75. The journey of Little Ghandi-Elias Khoury
76. The collaborator of Bethlehem-Matt Beynon Rees
77. Sozaboy-Ken Saro-Wiwa

August:

78. Hoppla 1,2,3-Gerard Gavarry
79. Desert-J. M. G. Le Clezio
80. Havana Black-Leonardo Padura
81. Fugitive pieces-Anne Michaels
82. Foe (a reread)-J. M. Coetzee
83. A rage in Harlem-Chester Himes
84. Rebellion is the circle of a lover's hands-Martin Espada
85. The book thief-Martin Zusak
86. Rage-Sergio Bizzio
87. The vampire of Ropraz-Jacques Chessez
88. Cultural Amnesia-Clive James
89. Slumberland-Paul Beatty
90. Honeymoon suite-Richard Bean

September:

91. Blackout-Gianluca Morozzi
92. The real cool killers-Chester Himes
93. Mygale (a reread)-Thierry Jonquet
94. Europe Central-William Vollmann
95. Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter-Mario Vargas Llosa
96. Breath-Tim Winton
97. The August sleepwalker-Bei Dao
98. This side of brightness-Colum McCann
99. Report to Greco-Nikos Kazantzakis
100. Alphabet-Inger Christensen
101. True Stories-Margaret Atwood
102. I think, therefore who am I?-Peter Weissman

October:

103. The skating rink-Roberto Bolano
104. Vermeer's milkmaid-Manuel Rivas
105. Joe's word-Elizabeth Stromme

And currently working on Shimon Ballas's 'Outcast' which is going to be at least a 4 and Jaan Kross's The Czar's madman which will probably be a 4.

[Patrick_Bateman]

I'm mesmerised that a lot of you are able to document what you've read like that.

I can't be that specific


The Battle For Spain - Antony Beevor
De Profundis - Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Panzer Commander: Memoirs of Colonel Hans Von Luck
Panzer Leader - Heinz Guderian
The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, Revenge
Knights Cross: Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
If This Is a Man - Primo Levi
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemingway
For Whom The Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and The Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Che Guevara and The Cuban Revolution - Mike Gonzalez
John - Cynthia Lennon
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Brothers: The hidden history of the Kennedy years - David Talbot
Empire - Niall Ferguson
Autobiography of Martin Luther King jnr
Biography of Nelson Mandela
Profiles In Courage - John F Kennedy
Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution
The Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks


More might come to me later

[miercuri]

Yet another slow year it seems

1. Vladimir Nabokov - Pnin +
2. Vladimir Nabokov - The Eye -
3. D.H. Lawrence - Sons and Lovers +
4. Patricia Highsmith -The Talented Mr. Ripley +
5. Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit +
6. Jeanette Winterson - The Passion
7. Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
8. Bernhard Schlink - The Reader
9. Vladimit Nabokov - Pale Fire ++
10. Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
11. A.S Griboyedov - Woe from Wit
12. John Banville - The Sea +
13. Henry James - The Turn of the Screw +
14. Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
15. Anne Enright - The Gathering +
16. Charlaine Harris - Living Dead in Dallas +
17. Charlaine Harris - Club Dead +
18. Charlaine Harris - Dead to the World
19. Charlaine Harris - Dead as Doornail +
20. Charilaine Harris - Definitely Dead
21. Charlaine Harris - All Together Dead +
22. Charlaine Harris - From Dead to Worse +
23. Hjalmar Soderberg - Doctor Glas
24. Charlaine Harris - Dead and Gone*
25. Alan Moore - Watchmen
26. Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls +
27. Graham Swift - Waterland ++
28. Philippa Gregory - The Other Boleyn Girl
29. Elfriede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
30. Anne Proulx - Brokeback Mountain
31. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
32. Truman Capote - Summer Crossing +
33. J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace +
34. Colette - Cheri +
35. Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
36. Romain Gary - La Vie devant soi
37. Jean-Dominique Bauby - Le scaphandre et le papillon
38. Ben Okri - The Famished Road -
39. Amy Tan - The Kitchen God's Wife -
40. Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club +
41. Alexandr Pushkin - Eugene Onegin +
42. Frank McCourt - Angela's Ahses +
43. A.N Ostrovsky - The Storm
44. Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde +
45. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights +
46. Charles Dickens - Bleak House
47. Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov
48. Josh Kilmer-Purcell - I Am Not Myself These Days

* I read them during spring break after watching the True Blood series on HBO, which is based on these books. The show is a lot better, but I was still dying to know what was going to happen next.

edit: how do you put flags next to the names?

[Jayaprakash]

Some additions:

82. The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler 4/5
83. Mrs. Henderson and other stories: Francis Wyndham 5/5
84. Two Serious Ladies: Jane Bowles 4/5
84. The Other Garden: Francis Wyndham 5/5
85. Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age: Bohumil Hrabal 4/5
86. The Rider On The White Horse: Theodor Storm 4/5
87. A Caribbean Mystery: Agatha Christie 3/5
88. Out Of The War: Francis Wyndham 4/5
89. Dagon: Fred Chappell 4/5
90. Mr. Gaunt and other uneasy encounters: John Langan 3/5
91. The Casebook of Carnacki the ghost-finder: William Hope Hodgson 4/5
92. The Haunter in the Ring and other stories: Robert E Howard 3/5
93. The Terror Of Fu Manchu: William Patrick Maynard 4/5
94. Foxfire: Joyce Carol Oates 5/5

[Flower]

I have decided not be intimidated by the very long readinglists here, as Im a slow reader:

Preben Gr?nkj?r "C.G. Jungs analystiske psykologi"
Knud Romer "Den som blinker er bange for d?den"
Paul Auster "Man in the dark"
Per Petterson "I k?lvandet"
Lars Saabye Christensen "Den misundelige fris?r"
P.O. Enquist "Et andet liv"
Hjalmar S?derberg "Dr. Glas"
Dag Solstad "Novel 11, book 18"
Anna Grue "Det taler vi ikke om"
Bengt Ohlsson "Gregorius"
Virginia Woolf "Kew Garden"
Carson McCullers "The heart is a lonely hunter"
Per Petterson "I curse the river of time"
P.O. Enquist "Captain Nemo's library"
Monica Ali "In the kitchen"
Kim Leine "Kalak"
Hanif Kureishi "Midnight all day"
Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n "The Angels game"
Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n "The shadow of the wind"
Jeanette Winterson "Oranges are not the only fruit"


I have abandoned:
John Banville "The sea"
Italio Calvino "If on a winters night a traveller"

At the moment Im reading:
Merete Pryds Helle "Hej menneske"
Salman Rushdie "The enchantress of Florence"
Otto Gelsted "Guder og helte" (about greek mytologi)
Marie-Louise von Franz "Alchemy: An introduction to symbolism and psychology"

[obooki]

This is my final selection of books read in 2009 (everything that I rated 4 stars and above).

Tevye the Dairyman,Sholom Aleichem
The Pale of Settlement, Published: 1916, 131 pages, Short Stories, Schocken Books
Possibly the most famous production in all modern Yiddish literature. Tevye recounts the chronicle of his life (and his daughters' weddings) to the author. Humour constantly belies the heart-rending misery that lies at the heart of most of the stories.
Rating:

Bliss and Other Stories,Katherine Mansfield
New Zealand, Published: 1920, 202 pages, Short Stories, Penguin Modern Classics
Mansfield's fascinating stories of the every day, written with consummate style. The only disappointing tale I thought was the first and longest, Prelude.
Rating:

The Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence,ed. Kirsten Lodge
Russia, Published: Various, 343 pages, Short Stories, Dedalus
A brilliant collection of short stories from Russia's Silver Age, full of fin de siecle doom and decadence. Bryusov's futuristic Republic of the Southern Cross and the pitch-dark stories by Andreev particularly stand out. Also includes good stories by Fyodor Sologub and Zinaida Gippius.
Rating:

The Voice of the Moon,Ermanno Cavazzoni
Italy, Published: 1987, 319 pages, Fiction, Serpent's Tail
Cavazzoni's account of a perhaps insane vagrant's investigations into the borderlands between the worlds of appearance and reality. Endlessly inventive and fascinating.
Rating:

On the Edge of Reason,Miroslav Krleža
Croatia, Published: 1938, 182 pages, Fiction, Quartet Encounters
The traditional European novel of a man who hates his country and its entire bourgeois establishment, with a nice sideline on the possible insanity of the narrator.
Rating:

The Sebastopol Sketches,Leo Tolstoy
Russia, Published: 1856, 184 pages, Fiction, Penguin Classics
Tolstoy fictionalises his own experiences at Sebastopol, vividly recreating the siege.
Rating:

My Friends,Emmanuel Bove
France, Published: 1924, 150 pages, Fiction, Paladin
Bove's wonderful account of a lonely ex-solider's life in Paris, written as a series of affecting sketches. His "friends" are the occasional people whose lives happen to entangle with his own.
Rating:

Artemisia,Anna Banti
Italy, Published: 1953, 214 pages, Fiction, Serpent's Tail
A fictionalised account of the Renaissance painter, Artemisia Gentileschi's life, and her struggle to find herself a place in a man's world, all written with extraordinary skill.
Rating:

The KGB's Literary Archive,Vitaly Shentalinsky
Russia, Published: 1993, 285 pages, Non-Fiction, Harvill
Shentalinsky's intention (this was before the fall of the USSR) was to try to open up and search the KGB archives for lost (i.e. confiscated) manuscripts of arrested writers (for instance, Babel was known to have almost a complete novel he had been writing). Perhaps he didn't have so much success with the manuscripts, but the writers' files themselves make nonetheless compelling reading.
Rating:

The Shadow of the Sun,Ryszard Kapuscinski
Poland, Published: 1998, 325 pages, Reportage, Penguin
Marvellous selection of reportage from Kapuscinski's years in Africa, starting out in Ghanaian independence, and reaching down to today's troubled wars in the north-east. Particularly interesting on the differences between African and European ways of thinking about the world. The best work of his I've read.
Rating:

Adolphe,Benjamin Constant
France, Published: 1816, 125 pages, Fiction, Penguin Classics
Another strongly psychological novel from the early c19th. Man falls in love with woman, tires of her but finds it difficult to break off their relationship.
Rating:

The Heart of a Dog,Mikhail Bulgakov
Russia, Published: 1925, 128 pages, Fiction, Harvill
Bulgakov's mad sort of Soviet Frankenstein extravaganza, thoroughly enjoyable.
Rating:

The Novels of...,Friedrich Durrenmatt
Switzerland, Published: 1958, 413 pages, Novellas, Picador
Five of them at least - though, despite the title, apparently not all of them. My favourites were the two crazy detective stories at the beginning. I was thinking it was remarkable no-one had ever made a film of them, but then the last story, called The Pledge, of course they had.
Rating:

Twentieth-Century Chinese Stories,ed. C T Hsia
China, Published: 1921-1965, 239 pages, Short Stories, Columbia University Press
A marvellous collections of Chinese short stories. Hsia wilfully avoids the obvious names (Lu Hsun, Lao She, Mao Tun, whom, of course, we've all read). In particular I enjoyed Yu Ta-Fu (I've read quite a few of his short stories before), Shen Ts'ung Wen, and especially Eileen Chang's marvellous story of class-induced insanity, The Golden Cangue.
Rating:

Three Exemplary Novels,Miguel de Unamuno
Spain, Published: 1920, 228 pages, Novellas, Grove Press
Three tales of a somewhat romantic, gothic character. Completely mad and wonderful.
Rating:

La Madre,Grazia Deledda
Italy, Published: 1920, 224 pages, Fiction, Dedalus European Classics
Priest torn apart by love for one of his parishoners, his lack of belief in god, his mother etc. - I do have a fondness for novels about people in emotional torment.
Rating:

The Nun,Denis Diderot
France, Published: 1760, 189 pages, Fiction, Penguin Classics
Account of the life of an illegitimate child forced into a nunnery. Splendid kind of agitprop, full of religiously inspired sadism and homosexuality. Feels quite modern in its psychological realism.
Rating:

The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories,Anton Chekhov
Russia, Published: Various, 310 pages, Short Stories, Chatto & Windus
Volume 12 of his complete tales. Mostly these are told from the point of view of children or animals. A few real classics, but even lesser Chekhov is better than most.
Rating:

The Event,Juan Jos? Saer
Argentina, Published: 1988, 196 pages, Fiction, Serpent's Tail
The usual long rich sentences, this time dealing with the frustrations of a nineteenth-century psychic towards both his increasingly positivist times and the unfathomable mind of his wife.
Rating:

The Law,Roger Vailland
France, Published: 1958, 248 pages, Fiction, Jonathan Cape
Fascinating vision of a few days in the life of a small Italian coastal town, on the cusp between an archaic feudalism and a modern liberalism.
Rating:

Life's Handicap,Rudyard Kipling
England, Published: 1891, 307 pages, Short Stories, Penguin Classics
The English master of the "story-telling" short story. As with other early stories, mostly based in India. Contains Without Benefit of Clergy, one of my favourite stories of all.
Rating:

Pornografia,Witold Gombrowicz
Poland, Published: 1960, 160 pages, Fiction, Calder & Boyars
Marvellously written account of something or other occurring in Poland in 1943. The action was clear enough; but I was a bit lost on what Gombrowicz's point was exactly.
Rating:

The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Germany, Published: 1774, 249 pages, Short Stories, Signet Classic
In which Goethe makes a compelling case for suicide. Also greatly enjoyed Goethe in Sesenheim, an excerpt from Dichtung and Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), so will be tracking down more Goethe.
Rating:

Undine,Friedrich Fouqu?
Germany, Published: 1811, 203 pages, Fiction, Dedalus
Marvellous slice of German Romanticism, involving knights and water sprites.
Rating:

Garibaldi and the Thousand,G M Trevelyan
England, Published: 1909, 293 pages, Non-Fiction, Pelican
Account of Garibaldi's crazy invasion of Sicily, and what preceded.
Rating:

The New York Trilogy,Paul Auster
USA, Published: 1987, 314 pages, Fiction, Faber & Faber
One of those occasional masterpieces of metafiction.
Rating:

Jacob's Room,Virginia Woolf
England, Published: 1922, 168 pages, Fiction, Penguin Modern Classics
Woolf's first foray into stream of consciousness, traces a man's life from childhood to death of WW1. Long time since I've read any Woolf - marvellously written.
Rating:

Nikolai Negorev,Ivan Kushchevsky
Russia, Published: 1871, 368 pages, Fiction, Calder Books
Much overlooked novel of the long Russian revolutionary period. Very funny, with a strangely modern air to its Dickensianness, perhaps because of its concentration on youth without adults.
Rating:

Season of Migration to the North,Tayeb Salih
Sudan, Published: 1966, 169 pages, Fiction, Penguin Modern Classics
Marvellously readable account of a (perhaps futile and misguided) post-colonial revenge.
Rating:

Marienbad,Sholem Aleichem
The Pale of Settlement, Published: 1917, 222 pages, Fiction, G P Putnam's Sons
A novel of wealthy and largely idle Warsaw Jews, far from the shtetl world of Tevye. Told through a series of letters and written from about twenty different points of view, the plot becomes absurdly complicated until the reader is entirely bemused and uncertain what is going on or who is telling the truth.
Rating: