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Kylie's Literary Adventures in 2011


Kylie

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TBR Pile C-D

 

Trudi Canavan: The Magician's Guild

Trudi Canavan: The Novice

Trudi Canavan: The High Lord

Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game

Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote

Agatha Christie: The Secret Adversary

Agatha Christie: Taken in at the Flood

Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl #1: Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl #2: The Arctic Incident

Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl #3: The Eternity Code

Gyorgy Dalos: 1985

Antoine De Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince

Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Charles Dickens: Bleak House

Charles Dickens: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist

Alexandre Dumas: The Last Cavalier

Pretty interesting books there!

 

Looking forward to what you feel about Trudi Canavan! I've gotten only mixed reviews about her books.

Taken at the Flood is a personal favourite as well as one of my earliest Dame Christie books. Hope you enjoy it.

 

I really enjoyed The Little Prince. It's an awesome book with deeply rooted meaning that I am sure you will love as well.

 

Good luck with the rest! I'm going to tackle Don Quixote and the Dickens's books myself this year.

 

I haven't heard of The Last Cavalier! Sigh another Dumas book that I will not find in print in India! I'll have to get the Gutenburg texts printed!

 

And 1985?! Wow I loved 1984 so if this person's sequel lives up to anything that's close to 1984.. I want to see it!

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Thanks for your comments Willoyd.

 

Yes, I've seen mixed comments on The Magician's Guild, too, but it seems most people enjoy them (with the exception of Raven!), so I'm hoping I will too.

 

I haven't read any Agatha Christie before and these were just randomly picked up so I'm glad you particularly enjoyed Taken at the Flood (thanks for correcting the typo). I'll have to bump Christie up my TBR pile because it's really quite unacceptable that I haven't read anything by her yet. blush.gif

 

1985 is indeed a sequel, and I also have another 1985 by Anthony Burgess which is part sequel and part collection of essays and interviews relating to 1984. Both should be quite interesting to read and compare to the original 1984.

 

The Last Cavalier was published in 2005. It was an unfinished novel but the last two chapters were completed by someone else. A bit more info can be found at wikipedia. I'd like to read The Three Musketeers first though.

 

I'm also hoping to get to Don Quixote and at least one Dickens this year. I haven't decided which one though. Either Bleak House or The Old Curiosity Shop.

 

I've been a little wary of The Little Prince but it seems that most people really enjoy it, so hopefully I will too.

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I've been a little wary of The Little Prince but it seems that most people really enjoy it, so hopefully I will too.

Just out of interest, why are you wary of it? :) I have it on my 'to read' pile but I've no idea when I'll get round to it! :giggle:

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I'm also hoping to get to Don Quixote and at least one Dickens this year. I haven't decided which one though. Either Bleak House or The Old Curiosity Shop.

FWIW Dickens is one of my half dozen favourite authors, and Bleak House is one of my half dozen greatest books. OCS is good too, but BH is simply superb. That opening chapter has to be one of the all time great scene setters. Mind you, Dickens doesn't use one word when five (or more!) will do quite happily, so you have to be comfortable with his tendency to verbosity.

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Ah, if you haven't read anything by Agatha Christie then those aren't the books I'd recommend. You should try The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or The Mysterious Affair At Styles. Roger Ackroyd is mind-blowing. There's also Five Little Pigs which I enjoyed.

 

One of my friends hated Trudi Canavan, another loved her, so I haven't given her books a go. I have to admit, her books became available at the wrong time in my case. I had just declared that I quit reading Fantasy.

 

The Little Prince is... different. I've laughed at many points in the book, mainly because how much I needed to read something like that. I was in a bad state when my friend recommended it to me and it livened up my mood.

 

 

I've been unable to digest Dickens's writing. I hope to read at least one of his books. Maybe Bleak House!

Edited by vinay87
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Just out of interest, why are you wary of it? :) I have it on my 'to read' pile but I've no idea when I'll get round to it! :giggle:

 

 

I guess I'm just worried that it will disappoint me the same way that The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho did. The only way to find out though is to read it, and as it's pretty short maybe I should read it sooner rather than later.

 

FWIW Dickens is one of my half dozen favourite authors, and Bleak House is one of my half dozen greatest books. OCS is good too, but BH is simply superb. That opening chapter has to be one of the all time great scene setters. Mind you, Dickens doesn't use one word when five (or more!) will do quite happily, so you have to be comfortable with his tendency to verbosity.

 

 

I love Dickens' verbosity, so that won't be a problem. :)

 

Ah, if you haven't read anything by Agatha Christie then those aren't the books I'd recommend. You should try The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or The Mysterious Affair At Styles. Roger Ackroyd is mind-blowing. There's also Five Little Pigs which I enjoyed.

 

OK, thanks for the info. Is there an order I should read them in? If I read the books I currently have, will I be able to follow things, or will I be missing some back story?

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Not really. As you can expect, some of her recurring detectives do talk about their previous cases but never give anything away as such.

 

Her most famous detective is Hercule Poirot who debuts in A Mysterious Affair at Styles, along with his "sidekick" Captain Arthur Hastings.

 

Seeing as you have a lot of unread books already, I guess you should start with Taken at the Flood.

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Yes, Le Grand Meaulnes was reviewed on the First Tuesday Book Club ages ago. I remember it sounded intriguing.

 

Is that why you got the book or because of other reasons as well?

 

Marieke has talked about Martin Amis a lot because she loves him, and The Rachel Papers was reviewed on the FTBC. I hope I enjoy Martin's works more than I enjoyed his son Kingsley's!.

 

Wow, she seems to be loving all kinds of men :giggle2: Hopefully it will be good.

 

Ooh, I remember Richard Brautigan's name coming up on the forum once. I think maybe by Freewheeling Andy, but I'm not sure. I remember that his books sounded really interesting but I couldn't find any in print or something. I'll have to add him to my wish list again, thanks!

 

If you're interested in Richard Brautigan and want to cross off a book from the 1001 list, you could read In Watermelon Sugar or Willard and His Bowling Trophies. I've read In Watermelon Sugar and I liked it fine but it was a bit eccentric to say the least. I think I should re-read it, I would probably like it more on a second read now that I know Brautigan is not the most ordinary writer. All his books seem quite short so you could easily read any of his books if length is an issue. I remember Nicola from the forum is totally into him so she's a good source for info if you have any further questions :)

 

Thank you! Did you also notice that I posted some stuff from my 501 Must-Reads book? I found a good list here. The book is split into the categories shown in the blog. I have to rearrange my reading posts so move the 501 books to be under the 1001 children's.

 

I did notice the 501 Must-Reads list but I was a bit too scared to have a proper look, because I'm afraid I'll want to start that challenge too :blush: :blush: If I knew that I'd already read at least 100 titles from the list I wouldn't be too scared but suppose I look the list up, haven't read anything but get hooked?

 

 

Just out of interest, why are you wary of it? :) I have it on my 'to read' pile but I've no idea when I'll get round to it! :giggle:

 

My advise is, go for it. It's a quick short read and at least to me it offered some food for thought at the time and I really enjoyed it.

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Is that why you got the book or because of other reasons as well?

 

I got it because of the FTBC. I hadn't even heard of it before then. :)

 

If you're interested in Richard Brautigan and want to cross off a book from the 1001 list, you could read In Watermelon Sugar or Willard and His Bowling Trophies. I've read In Watermelon Sugar and I liked it fine but it was a bit eccentric to say the least. I think I should re-read it, I would probably like it more on a second read now that I know Brautigan is not the most ordinary writer. All his books seem quite short so you could easily read any of his books if length is an issue. I remember Nicola from the forum is totally into him so she's a good source for info if you have any further questions :)

 

 

Thanks for the info!

 

I did notice the 501 Must-Reads list but I was a bit too scared to have a proper look, because I'm afraid I'll want to start that challenge too :blush: :blush: If I knew that I'd already read at least 100 titles from the list I wouldn't be too scared but suppose I look the list up, haven't read anything but get hooked?

 

Look it up! Look it up! LOOK IT UP! I don't know if you have read 100 of them, but I'm sure you've read quite a few. There's also a wider variety of books on this list; it includes some non-fiction as well.

 

Will do on The Little Prince. :)

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Thank you! Did you also notice that I posted some stuff from my 501 Must-Reads book? I found a good list here. The book is split into the categories shown in the blog. I have to rearrange my reading posts so move the 501 books to be under the 1001 children's.

 

 

Think I might have to ban myself from your thread :giggle2: have just had a look at the 501 Must Read Books and I'm going to do this challenge too :D I'm only 4 days into the new year and I have already signed up to do two more reading challenges oops!

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I've just added a few updated photos of my library to the main part of my reading blog here.

 

I want to see how my bookshelves change over the course of the year. ;) When I was uploading these photos I found some that I'd taken about 6 months ago and it was a little scary to note that in 6 months I bought enough books to fill an entire large bookcase.

 

Frankie and I put together the bookcase on the right in the third photo. :) I have a few more bookshelves downstairs, probably enough to fill half of a large bookcase.

Edited by Kylie
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I was trying to read in my library last night but was somewhat distracted by all my books. I ended up going through all my books and choosing 22 that I think I'll get rid of, and another 15 that I've read but can also get rid of.

 

The 22 unread books are all books that I'd still like to read, but I know that realistically they're at the bottom of the pile and therefore won't be read for a good number of years. So I figure why keep them there when they're only making me feel guilty for not reading them?

 

The 15 books that I have read include a few that I have bought nicer editions of, a few that I want to buy nicer editions of, and some that I can't see myself reading again.

 

This was all done in the early hours of this morning, so I wonder if my resolve will still hold now that I've had a good sleep! ;)

 

Unread books I'm getting rid of:

 

Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying (sorry Frankie)

Ray Bradbury: The Golden Apples of the Sun

Ray Bradbury: The Silver Locusts

John Brunner: Traveller in Black

Colette: The Claudine Novels (x3)

Daphne du Maurier: Julius

Daphne du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel

Elizabeth Gaskell: Wives and Daughters (sorry Frankie)

Aldous Huxley: After Many a Summer

Aldous Huxley: Grey Eminence

Aldous Huxley: Point Counter Point

James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Sue Monk Kidd: The Mermaid Chair

John Le Carre: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

David Mitchell: Black Swan Green

Maggie O'Farrell: After You'd Gone

Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell: The Lost Barkscrolls

William Makepeace Thackeray: Barry Lyndon

John Wyndham: The Kraken Wakes

John Wyndham: The Seeds of Time

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I was going to explain about a couple of books on the list but figured I had prattled on long enough.

 

The Kraken Wakes and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold are both still high on my wish list, but the editions I have are frankly awful and I would prefer to acquire nicer editions before I read them. So don't worry, I'm sure it won't be too long before they're back on my TBR pile. :) In the meantime, I have several other Wyndham novels to read.

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Frankie and I put together the bookcase on the right in the third photo. :) I have a few more bookshelves downstairs, probably enough to fill half of a large bookcase.

 

I remember putting up that bookcase with Kylie, seeing it all empty, and look at it now :D There are loads of books on it now! I'm mighty proud :friends3:

 

 

Unread books I'm getting rid of:

Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying (sorry Frankie)

Elizabeth Gaskell: Wives and Daughters (sorry Frankie)

David Mitchell: Black Swan Green

 

Don't worry about The Household Guide of Dying, I think I got it on the 3rd day at the book fair, when we knew everything we would buy would only cost $15. So it was only to make the most with the money. I'm a bit sorry for Gaskell but I'm sure the book will find a new home when you take it to a bookshop/book fair/charityshop. No worries :empathy:

 

But why, oh why are you giving up Black Swan Green? Isn't it supposed to be good? And it's by Mitchell, whose Cloud Atlas you liked okay?

Edited by frankie
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But why, oh why are you giving up Black Swan Green? Isn't it supposed to be good? And it's by Mitchell, whose Cloud Atlas you liked okay?

 

 

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be good or not, but I still have another David Mitchell on my TBR pile and besides, this copy of Black Swan Green is rather large and causes me problems with shelving. smile2.gif

 

And 'okay' is the key word in my thoughts about Cloud Atlas. ;)

 

Hi Kylie 3.gif I am looking forward to reading your thoughts on the Haruki Murakami books :) Happy reading for the year :)

 

Thanks Paula! Do you have any suggestions for which one I should read first? I'm kind of leaning towards The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore. Or Norwegian Wood.

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I'm not sure if it's supposed to be good or not, but I still have another David Mitchell on my TBR pile and besides, this copy of Black Swan Green is rather large and causes me problems with shelving. :smile2:

 

And 'okay' is the key word in my thoughts about Cloud Atlas. ;)

 

Alright. Not that you would need my permission, but I have now reviewed your reasoning and I'm okay :):giggle: I hope you get good credit for the books and find some jewels! BTW, have you been going to the new secondhand bookshop I found? And what about the Salvation Army one? I really liked the staff in the secondhand bookshop at the E arcade, I want to goooo! I hope they're still there when I come back :smile2:

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Thanks Paula! Do you have any suggestions for which one I should read first? I'm kind of leaning towards The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore. Or Norwegian Wood.

I would go with Kafka on the Shore. It's the first I read by Murakami, and I loved it.

 

Let's see what Weave thinks. :)

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Thanks Paula! Do you have any suggestions for which one I should read first? I'm kind of leaning towards The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore. Or Norwegian Wood.

 

I started with After Dark, and found it to be a good introduction, but If you've not read any Murakami before I can recommend After the Quake, a collection of six short stories, as a good introduction to his writing style and range

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I hope you get good credit for the books and find some jewels! BTW, have you been going to the new secondhand bookshop I found? And what about the Salvation Army one? I really liked the staff in the secondhand bookshop at the E arcade, I want to goooo! I hope they're still there when I come back :smile2:

 

 

I'd love to go back to the Salvos and have a proper look through their books, and I'd also love to go to the arcade shop, but I'm trying really hard to be good at the moment! angel_not.gif

 

I would go with Kafka on the Shore. It's the first I read by Murakami, and I loved it.

 

Thanks for the tip Pixie!

 

My reading is going unbearably slowly at the moment. I haven't been in much of a reading mood for the last couple of days. I started reading Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia to give myself a bit of a kick, but I've only read a couple of pages.

 

I only seem to start reading really late at night when I should be sleeping. rolleyes.gif

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