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Paul's Reading Through the Decades Challenge


Paul

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By all means keep a list! I started a couple years ago and was surprised to see how quickly the books mounted up -- about 50 a year for me, which really impressed at least me. There are others who read way more than that, but I do it also to remember what I have read. Titles and authors of all but the most exceptional books quickly fade into the background unless I write them down (and even some of those do too. :lol: )

 

Well I think I'll be getting on to more than that amount this year, we're only 16 days into the new year and I'm just starting my seventh of the year! :D

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Congratulations! Way to go! You''ll definitely need to keep a list. :lol:

 

Lol, I've got one going in the reading challenges thread. Although it's not a challenge. :D I was thinking about setting up a blog, for reviews and things on books and just to generally have a good rant. What do you think?

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Lol, I've got one going in the reading challenges thread. Although it's not a challenge. :D I was thinking about setting up a blog, for reviews and things on books and just to generally have a good rant. What do you think?

 

I think blogs are great. I keep one elsewhere and find that it is out of the mainstream of forum commentary there, and that it gives me great freedom to express myself on topics of my choosing. In addition one's posts are always there instead of sliding off the bottom of the page. It's a whole different kind of experience. By all means give it a try.

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I think blogs are great. I keep one elsewhere and find that it is out of the mainstream of forum commentary there, and that it gives me great freedom to express myself on topics of my choosing. In addition one's posts are always there instead of sliding off the bottom of the page. It's a whole different kind of experience. By all means give it a try.

 

I'll have a think then. :D

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just stopping by to add a book-of-opportunity that I have just started.

 

Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon - 1966

 

Haven't done much reading since posting the list but, after 60 pages, this one seems worthy for inclusion. :eek:

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I'll be interested in your thoughts on this, Paul. I've had it on my wish list for a little while. :eek:

 

So far, 75 pages in, I find it fascinating. As amazon tells us, it is the story of a grown man with a low IQ who has his capacity for intelligence increased through an experimental operation, and how his intellectual intelligence and his emotional intelligence subsequently grow quickly to mature levels and beyond. One can easily see the hand of the author as he quickly sets up and moves Charlie Gordon through successive growth experiences in a series of episodes, but the story flows along in an interesting manner nevertheless.

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I have just finished Flowers for Algernon and am completely taken by it. Though it begins in stilted and episodic fashion, after the climactic turning point, exactly mid-way through, the story can make its way into one's heart as empathy for Charlie Gordon grows and one cheers him on. The ending is magnificent as he engages reality completely, with full insight and understanding, and heroically confronts his tragic limitation. He is a full-fledged hero not to be forgotten. Five stars on the basis of the ending alone. And three hankies. Read it for its wonderful insights into life and human nature.

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  • 1 month later...

Just marked Samuel Beckett's How It Is as completed.

That was a challenge and a half in itself -- took three months to complete at a few pages a day, and stopped virtually all other reading. But I can't complain, because I put it on the list because it was difficult and I would finish it no other way. Now it is a milestone and it is done. Yays!

Neverthelss, it was an absorbing read, for its intricacy and highly unusual style.

 

Recommendation? Only if you like difficult and bleak, and can get along with absolutely no punctuation whatsoever.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Yays! Just notched up The Stream of Life by Clarice Lispector. Despite being just a slender 79 pages, it was still the most difficult book I have ever read. Mulling a review. :)

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  • 1 month later...

Just finished Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). That at least gets a notch into the 1950's, but no novel yet. Great story, great play, gripping reading.

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Just finished Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). That at least gets a notch into the 1950's, but no novel yet. Great story, great play, gripping reading.

 

That reminds me! I wanted to read that. I really need to write down my TBR list!

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That reminds me! I wanted to read that. I really need to write down my TBR list!

 

Hi Jewell,

I have a TBR list and it helps -- a little :lol:. But I am just now here adding yet another book that wasn't on my original Decades Challenge. But good, but good! :D

Arthur Miller's After the Fall is fascinating for being an innovative stage performance of a script written in stream-of-consciuousness style. And the setting for the play is described as mostly being in the narrator Quentin's mind. The message is obscure in parts but nevertheless abosrbing to read and try to follow unitl it all becomes clear, sort of.

Anyway, I read along, TBR or no, and enjoy myself as I go.

It sounds like you do too. Way to go! :)

Enjoy yourself!

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  • 1 month later...

Added Henry James' Turn of the Screw to the list. (1898)

 

And an empty decade at either end, waiting to be filled. :)

 

Getting heavy with Henry James, I see, but oh well.

 

AIE: Added George Eliot's Silas Marner (1861) to fill that empty decade.

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  • 1 month later...
Just read through Silas Marner in a flash! What a beautifully written story! I can't believe I have waited this long to read anything by George Eliot. :friends0:

 

I agree, a great story and well written! I read Silas Marner last year and it was my first introduction to George Eliot too. I'm certainly going to read more of her works.

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  • 1 month later...

Just came across a copy of Hesse's Magister Ludi at the library and browsed the first few pages. Now I'm hooked and, since I have been curious about the Glass Bead Game that is featured in the book (without actually being described), I have added the book into the '40s.

 

I'll look into Sweet Thursday, Sirinrob. Many thanks for the thought.

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