Paul

ROTFL. I'll let ya know.

So, we are off and running for 2014! Clang! Currently reading Washington Square and surprised by the unexpectedly sharp and cynical tone of the narrator as it begins. I always imagined James as smooth, suave and debonair.

Best of 2014 There will be a few. I'll know them when I see them: Stoner by John Williams. The Intercept by Dick Wolf. The Martian by Andy Weir. On the Beach by Nevil Shute. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Books Read 2014 Faust pt1 by Wolfgang von Goethe. Washington Square by Henry James. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Stoner by John Williams. Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett. Poison Study by Maria V.Snyder. To Kill A Mockingbird 100-page summary by Trisha Lively. The Intercept by Dick Wolf. Love and Math by Edward Frenkel. The Answer to the Riddle is Me by David Stuart MacLean. The Martian by Andy Weir If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. On the Beach by Nevil Shute. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford Regeneration by Pat Barker Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart. 100 Selected Poems by e.e. cumming 100 Best-Loved Poems ed. by Philip Smith In The Land Of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist The Mind Sifter, novella in Star Trek the New Voyages, ed b S Marshak, M Culbreath Runner by Thomas Perry. V2. Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry. V1 The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. The Map Thief by Michael Blanding. Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Counterfeit Lies by Oliver North and Bob Hamer The Selected Poems of Stephen Spender MIstress by James Patterson and Dave Ellis The Dinner by Herman Koch Summer House With Pool by Herman Koch Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell. The Company We Keep by Robert Baer and Dayna Baer. That's 35. Currently reading: Waverly by Sir Walter Scott. Then, Pillar of Iron by Taylor Caldwell. May take all of April, May, June, July and August at current rate. And also, meanwhile, A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov.

TBR 2014 I'll start with just a few. The list (and backlog) will grow. Faust pt1 - Wolfgang von Goethe. Completed. Waverly - Walter Scott. Currently reading. Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years - Wolfgang von Goethe. Started The Red and the Black - Stendahl A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail Lermontov. Started Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert. Completed. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot. Completed. Washington Square - Henry James. Completed The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson. Part way, will have to restart. Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner Completed. Stoner - John Williams. Completed. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino. Completed. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt Started That makes 5 completed from the decade list, so far.

Oy, what a topic! My speed lately is about 50 books a year, so 20 years to do 1001 is a bit of a stretch for me -- especially with my magpie way of picking up anything that grabs my eye whether or not it is on any list. So, some time ago, I did my best to shorten the list by 1. deleting any book or author I had never heard of - sacrilege I know 2. keeping only one book per author - gets rid of all those extra Dickens 3. eliminating books I'd started and put aside - gone were the Whartons, yay, and more sacrilege 4. but keeping books already read - of course! No fool am I. After doing my ruthless best, there were still survivors - almost exactly 300, which after updates are now about 350 total. How many have I read? About 135 at last count, the vast majority long before the original list was published. Now, in the ordinary course of my haphazard reading, only a few books a year are from the list, and the number I have read grows only slowly. So even 350 is still way too many, perhaps a hundred years' worth - even longer than when I started. I am swimming backwards. But, on the very positive side, it is a great list to select from, especially if one wants to add variety to one's reading - like say reading only books/authors one has never heard of before. That would be a braver person than I am, but it is a thought. Or reading every tenth book, to end up with a list of only100. Or only every 20-th, or so forth. You get the idea. My own solution to the dilemma was a decades challenge, of books I had always seen or heard about and wanted to read, but never seemed to get around to. So keep up your readings, all ye brave and lucky ones, for 2014 And reap the happiness that comes from ever-onward progress Do it your ways, and Best wishes to all Paul

Oh, Kate! That's a bunch of really great reading there! I know there are those you will enjoy. Happy reading for 2014!

Thanks Julie and Athena. Very Happy New Years to you also from both of us! And P.S. I just squeaked in Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, for a check mark in the 1940 decade. An allegorical novel based on the Stalin Purges and Show Trials. What a flabbergasting book about the depravity that characterized that regime! Now only three decades to go: 1850, 1870, 1880.

Better almost too late than never. Here are my best reads for 2013, out of 68 total. Literary Fiction New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani. The utterly lost man seeks notice. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. Forgetful math professor. Ravelstein by Saul Bellow. Rambling, interesting fictional biography. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. Allegorical novel of the horrors of Stalin's Show Trials. Short Story The Lost Decade by F. Scott Fitzgerald (short story). Excellent. Brief Loves That Live Forever by Andrei Makine. Vignettes of Soviet life, vividly done. Akhnilo (short story) from Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter. Prize-winning stories. Espionage Asset by Jonathan Orvin. Excellent espionage story. Sci-fi World War Z by Max Brooks. The World-Wide Zombie War. Fabulous! Scholarly for lay reader. The Cambridge Guide to Thomas Pynchon. Excellent. Informative. Clearly written. General Relativity from A to B by Robert Geroch. Fabulous! Just Fabulous!.

Hi all: Poppy, Julie, ChesilBeach, Pontalba, Henry James sounds like The Great White Whale! The one nobody can finish without a tussle. Well, that's why he is on my list. And yes,I've heard horrible things about his sentences, but the first few pages of Wings of the Dove aren't so bad -- long, slow and convoluted, but not absolutely totally impossible. /rolleyes/ And, truth to tell, Washington Square was recommended to me as a "starter" Henry James. So maybe I'll look at it. Now that I have finished Louis Tracy's Wings of the Morning, a thrilling romance, maybe there is time to squeeze in one more book this year. Hope you all have happy holidays and a great New Year. Paul

Glad to meet you too, Athena. And I see you have been doing your share of posting. Whoah!

Hey Julie, Just finished The End of Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher and then solved my quandary about what to read next. End of Summer was a nice romance, easy to read, with a happy ending. Coming Home will be next Started Henry James' The Wings of the Dove. Ah the wonderful sentences! My first exposure to him and I am hooked immediately -- the kind of writing I like. But, suddenly, inspiration struck and I downloaded The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy to my Kindle. Right alongside Wings of the Dove, and published only a year later in the same decade. 1900's. Wings of the Morning was the second book I ever read, many years ago, selected right off my mother's shelf. It has sentimental memories for me and I've been hoping to reread it for quite some time. And now is the time! Another very pleasant easy-to-read romance (of the which I am a pushover for ) So it sounds like a holiday season for romance.

ROTFALOL. Pynchon couldn't have put it better. Yes, indeed! I too remember it as a child, as we used to drive through on our way from Brooklyn up to the Catskills for weekends or vacations. It challenged my ability to hold my breath. Pynchon is certainly a master of his craft in capturing/evoking scenes, when he tries. He just seems so uneven to me. Someday I'll probably do Gravity's Rainbow, from among the big ones, but that is definitely "someday" for now.

Hi Athena, Glad to meet you. When we were first on here we weren't married and used different names. It helped preserve our personal privacy then. Now the names have stuck, which is why the confusion. Sorry. Glad to hear from you. Paul

Just extended the front of the list to the 1850's by adding Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) -- appropriate enough since Wikipedia and James Wood say that modern realist fiction begins with Flaubert. Now to read it!

Well Ethan, That certainly was a very comprehensive review and interesting reading. It was quite similar to The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon in many ways, in both its factual background fill-in and also its overflowing admiration for Pynchon's work. In it own way it was quite a piece of creative writing -- and I mean that with a touch of faint praise. In many ways it reminded me of reviews where I wondered whether the reviewer and I had read the same work, especially with his underlining of his own strong counter-cultural antipathies, as if Pynchon had not already covered the ground adequately (and elsewhere). It was good to read and to realize the extent of the Pynchon fanbase. Also good to hear about a new category for fiction beyond post-modern -- system fiction, if I remember that correctly. I'll be looking at some of the authors mentioned again, even if they didn't appeal on first glance. But, for the moment, I feel that I have fulfilled my self-education with respect to Pynchon. I have had a good sampling of his texture and have tasted his distinctive flavor. So, now he is shelved, with Bleeding Edge slid in to lie flat on top of all the Pynchons, both sampled and read, The upside, however, is that he is an extraordinarily imaginative writer, even if not one for me in his attitude. There are sections that are equal to the best I have read anywhere (as if I have a right to judge!). One scene that stands out vividly (in connection with the Stinger episode) is his description of looking westward across Manhattan rooftops toward the Hudson River and New Jersey. He absolutely placed me there, in position, on a rooftop, and whispered to me, in my ear, in vivid authenticity, exactly what I was looking at. Second, his description of Maxine Tarnow's first experience of wandering around in the virtual world of DeepArcher was mind-blowing for me -- the first time I have seen a convincingly real description of total immersion into a vivid alternate (sur)reality. My brain was inside her head. It is trite to say, but I was there with her and wished the experience could have lasted longer -- a Faustian moment, as I would call it. Finally there was the suspenseful speedboat race down the Hudson river to find a safe haven up against the towering landfill pile of New York City's garbage (!) at Fresh Arthur Kill in Staten Island. Not a tour many people would make! If they were the kinds of writing he chose to maintain throughout an entire book, then he would be the genius of a century (for me) and I would not have words enough of admiration for him. Unfortunately, I have not yet been converted to a fan of his and I now go back to seeking other authors for my reading enjoyment. It has, however, been a worthwhile trip so far, and a pleasure comparing notes with you. See you around, Paul

Hi Ethan, Many thanks for what sounds like a very interesting link. I haven't read it yet, but that last line you quoted is certainly food for thought. It would take more than my imagination (evidently) to write all the thoughts in the final paragraph you quote, but I guess I can think back and see the origin for the final thought in the book. It seems like an awful lot of reading to get there, though, if that was the major point. So I guess now that means I really I should read the entire review. Sounds like a good one. PS Pynchon's 9-11 was a vast disappointment. There was no human dimension to speak of (eek!), just a peg on which to hang chitter-chatter about conspiracy theories.

Charlie is fine. Not much more to add to Civil War. Currently partway through: The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine.

I omitted one thought that only came to me recently (shame on me) since being down here. The slaves were the owner's capital. They had been bought, and could be sold again, for cash. When they were freed, all the owners lost their cash investments with no way to recoup. Imagine if, up north, everyone's bank books were overnight lifted from them with their entire life savings, and the breadwinner's job gone also, so no source of income. The economic devastation on the entire country would be enormous, far beyond just the families affected. not to mention the outcry. The economy would collapse and there would be a massive depression. That is what happened down here in the course of losing the war. The war wasn't only settled on the battlefield, and the body count wasn't the only penalty. In my view it was a cataclysmic disaster for the Country, and a travesty that it couldn't be settled by negotiation and compromise within the Government. Our legislators just went crazy and went over the edge into the chasm. BTW For some lifelong reason, I'm a Charles, but call me what you will and I'll know who, except not Chuck.

Many thanks, Poppy. She's gorgeous anyway. And thanks for the welcome. It has been a long time since olden days, hasn't it? Glad to see you.

Hi Julie, Interjecting here my own answer to your question. Which is: "All of them." I've lived all of my life up North, as we northerners say, and can say that up there in the Northeast there is no sympathy whatever for the South or for the Northern War of Aggression as many down here in the South would call it. Slavery is the sole issue that is taught in the schools up there and its end is (correctly) saluted as a correct and major accomplishment. I have been down here for four years now and am seeing the reality which is and was the South. The War was a total cataclysm for the South. They were totally destroyed by the war -- the economy totally destroyed; oppressed by the Government; social structures completely demolished; and loss of political representation in Washington. The South was defeated, trashed, plundered and punished without second thought, and without a Marshall Plan to assist recovery, and that was and is still regarded as a good thing up where I come from (NYC). I don't wish to reignite the War, but some feelings down here are still strong. Justifiably IMO.

Not no worry 'bout hijackin mah thread, Julie. A thread without conversation is a pore lonesome thing indeed. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept arrived yesterday. End of Summer onto my kindle yesterday also. Now I'm set.

Oh, right! I forgot about no filing system but otherwise like a bookstore. And of books preselected that we know we would like to read. Verdict? None yet, but thinking of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, or your recent strong recommendation: The House of Sand and Fog. The former sounds lighter (love story, and NY locale I think.). And quicker to slide in for one more completion this year Your Paul Edit: Or maybe The Penultimate Truth by P K Dick that I just saw.

HI Julie, Glad to see you again. I have a long list of TBRs, and a long list of deferred . . . and also a (much shorter) list of abandoned -- there really are some that deserve it. There are always books here within reach, plus suggestions from my wife, and very recent purchases (We buy more than we can read). So all I have to do is grab any one that strikes my fancy. It's like a candy store. In many ways like a bookstore, now that I think of it. But still always the question, what to read? I would grab the Lamb if I could find it; it's on the shelves someplace. Ditto Owen Meany. Just now staring at the shelves above my desk, looking for Pilcher. Dimmy!!! I bought End of Summer last night for Kindle! So that will get started today. Mind like a sieve! Haven't had my coffee yet, so I am still sort of vague. May also pick up a tree book and continue reading a couple at a time, until one really strikes my fancy and then I'll concentrate on finishing it. It was a grind doing Bleeding Edge -- probably now my last and only Pynchon for a long long while. So, right now I'm looking for something lighter. Eeeny, meeny . . . . Have fun Paul

Julie, I hadn't expected such a harvest of good advice. Motivation is indeed what I need and you have provided it. And good ideas for rearrangement. I already like John Irving and many have shared your high regard for Owen Meany. I'll see about shifting the Rosamund Pilcher. Some others I will still have to take a deep breath before starting, even though I know they are on the general "ought to have read" list of literary books. Many many thanks for sharing. Paul