pontalba's 2007 books read list

[pontalba]

JANUARY 2007

 

My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faloain 4/5

Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham 4/5

The Lover by Marguerite Duras 5/5

The Great Modern Poets edited by Michael Schmidt 5/5

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 4/5

The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson Braun 2/5

 

Not going to include the started but didn't finish.....[yet].

 

FEBRUARY

 

The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen 5/5

Crucible: McCoy TOS by David R. George III 5/5

Cat Pay the Devil [Joe Grey mystery] 5/5

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett -0/5

 

MARCH

 

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 5/5

Malevil by Robert Merle 5/5

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 2.5/5

How To Cook A Tart by Nina Killham 1/5

The Sea by John Banville 10/5

 

APRIL

 

Curtain, Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie 5/5

Firmin Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage 5/5

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous 6/5

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears 4.5/5

The Woods by Harlan Coben 4.5/5

The King of Lies by John Hart 5/5

David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky 5/5

On Becoming A Novelist by John Gardner 5/5

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming 4/5

 

MAY

 

Lover of Unreason by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev 3.5/5

Watcher in the Shadows by Geoffrey Household 4.5/5

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino .01/5

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 7/5

Nabokov's Quartet by Vladimir Nabokov V/N

I am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto 2.5/5

 

JUNE

 

The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst 4/5

Rain Fall by Barry Eisler 3/5

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 5/5

 

JULY

 

Christine Falls by Benjamin Black [aka John Banville] 5/5

Escaping Reality by Geoff Nelder 3/5

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling 1/5

 

AUGUST

 

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 5/5

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 4.5/5

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson 5/5

Secret Asset by Stella Rimington 3.5/5

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner 5/5

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

 

SEPTEMBER

 

The Cleaner by Brett Battles

A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke

In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke

 

OCTOBER

 

American Islam by Paul M. Barrett 4/5

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky 4/5

Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky 5/5

Irene Nemirovsky by Jonathan Weiss 3/5

The Man Who Smiled by Henning Mankell 5/5

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi 4/5

Dead Heat by Dick Francis w. Felix Francis 5/5

The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll 4/5

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 5/5

 

NOVEMBER

 

Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte 4/5

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute 3.5/5

 

DECEMBER

 

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing 4/5

By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens 5/5

The World at Night by Alan Furst 5/5

[Kell]

The Sea by John Banville 10/5

Wow! You really enjoyed THAT one! LOL!

[pontalba]

Wow! You really enjoyed THAT one! LOL!

LOL, yes...he is/was a new author to me, and I was so pleased that he lived up to expectations!

[pontalba]

Regarding If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...I didn't care for this at all. I felt the entire time that the author was attempting to have a huge joke at the expense of the reader.

 

In fact I only read 75% of the book, I am counting it in my list because I put 150% of the time in to read it. Finally couldn't stand it.

I think Calvino is a talented writer though, and I am sure there is much merit, I am not one that appreciates it though.

[Sofia]

Regarding If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...I didn't care for this at all. I felt the entire time that the author was attempting to have a huge joke at the expense of the reader.

 

In fact I only read 75% of the book, I am counting it in my list because I put 150% of the time in to read it. Finally couldn't stand it.

I think Calvino is a talented writer though, and I am sure there is much merit, I am not one that appreciates it though.

I tried it a while back, couldn't get thru it either

[~Andrea~]

Regarding If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...I didn't care for this at all. I felt the entire time that the author was attempting to have a huge joke at the expense of the reader.

 

In fact I only read 75% of the book, I am counting it in my list because I put 150% of the time in to read it. Finally couldn't stand it.

I think Calvino is a talented writer though, and I am sure there is much merit, I am not one that appreciates it though.

 

I attempted his cosmicomics a while back and I couldn't get on with it. I think I came to the same conclusion. Talented, but that doesnt necessarily make for entertaining writing. (Almost felt he was being too clever)

[pontalba]

In a discussion on another forum, it was brought out that actually Calvino was [probably] making caricatures of popular 'story types', and that if the narrative is taken by itself, it is linear in fashion.

Which I have to say makes sense to me, although it does not make me enjoy the book any more than I did to begin with. But I was glad of that explanation.

It helped with perspective [for me].

 

It's all in stretching the little gray cells.

[pontalba]

I cannot recommend Cloud Atlas highly enough. One of the reviews on the back of the book calls the novel a "series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes"...and it is true. It is totally circular in reasoning and thought and is one of those books that need a couple of rereads to really nail all the puzzle pieces down.

I've had the book for a little over 2 years, and could kick myself for not reading it sooner!

I could have done the rereading already big time! :)B)

Oh well far better late than never.

 

Read it with pencil in hand. Marking all the way.

[Kylie]

Wow pontalba, that's some high praise! I bought Cloud Atlas last week - I better go and bump it up the reading list!

[pontalba]

Finished Nabokov's Quartet, It's four short stories of Vladimir Nabokov in a novella sort of setting. Fantastic. If you can find it, buy it.

 

The names of the four stories are:

 

An Affair of Honor

Lik

The Vane Sisters

The Visit to the Museum

 

I just checked and all four are in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.

 

The last one [The Visit to the Museum] is particularly interesting.

[pontalba]

Finished I am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto and was disappointed, it was flat and if the subject had not been from Louisiana [my home state] I probably would not have bothered to finish.

 

Virginie Gautreau was the subject of John Singer Sargent's scandalous [at the time] painting of Madame X. This is a fictional bio of Gautreau and Diliberto's first attempt at a work of fiction. Maybe she'd have been better off sticking to non-fiction.

[pontalba]

I have found another spy/mysterious author. Well in all fairness I've been collecting his books for the last couple of years, and only last week read one....Alan Furst.

I read his The Foreign Correspondent, he has the low-key style of John L

[pontalba]

All I've done this month is get side-tracked from one book after the next. At last I finished one!

Hard Rain by Barry Eisler is the first in a series [of 6 to date] tracing the professional and personal life of an assassin. The character John Rain is interesting, and I have to think will only become more so as the series progresses. As all first in a series, this consists of lots of set up, so I look forward to the rest...which my local second hand book store just assured me they have at least the next three.

[pontalba]

So happy that on another book forum The Woman in White was chosen for the book discussion, I can't wait to dissect it throughly! Written in 1860 Collins was a contemporary of Dickens and led a bit of a scandelous life himself.

This book does not disappoint one bit. Twisty and surprising to the very end.

[Kell]

So happy that on another book forum The Woman in White was chosen for the book discussion, I can't wait to dissect it throughly!

I have this on my Wish List - now I'm really looking forward to getting it!

[pontalba]

This has been another slow reading month for me, but I did read three books, and of the three, one was excellent, excellent, excellent!

Christine Falls by Benjamin Black [pen name for John Banville] is the first in a series of thoughtful mysteries by one of the better authors around today.

 

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night an although it is the only one I've read, I seriously doubt I'll read any more of them. I'm not a fan of fantasy to begin with, and I found her writing rather detached and unemotional, at least until the last 90 or 100 pages, then it improved a great deal, but was too little too late for me.

[Kell]

I think you might have felt a little differently if you'd read the earlier books too, Pontalba - it's really been an epic journey and seeing the films, although they're good, isn't quite as good as reading the books and experiencing it in all its detail. Ah well, not everyone likes everything - it's be a dull world if we all liked the same things, eh?!

[pontalba]

I see your point Kell, but otoh, reading the one satisfied my curiosity about the HP books, so I doubt I'll go any further. I'd hoped for some spark, but as you say we can't all like everything, it'd make for a pretty dull forum if we did.

[pontalba]

So far this month I've finished Gone With the Wind, a rerereread for me, but I had not read it in 20[ish] years, so looking at it with different, hopefully more mature eyes was interesting. I guess I saw more people for what they were and not what they claimed they were.

 

I just finished Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. A story of a girl's struggle with the pre-WWII "system" of raising and training geisha in Japan. It tells the story in a rather low key manner, telling but not dwelling on the seamier aspects of training, and quite honest about the ins and outs of geisha reality. It is an ultimately satisfying love story. About three-quarters of the way through I found it a bit on the tedious side, but the last 12 pages of the book more than make up for any irritation or tedium I may have temporarily felt. For me at least it was BAM!

 

I'd like to read Geisha of Gion sometime soon as the Gion district was the backdrop for Memoirs of a Geisha. It is in my stack.

[pontalba]

Just finished Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Interesting, twisty well thought out mystery that surprised me. Gibson has the reputation for futuristic science fiction, but this is not, it is present time. There is a quote I can't find right this second...something to the effect of.....

The future is here, just not everywhere yet. I liked that.

[pontalba]

Just finished Secret Asset by Stella Rimington. Interesting woman, interesting book. The only reason I only gave it a 3.5/5 rating is on account of some predictability and tipping her hand too soon as to a crucial identity.

 

Rimington was appointed Director General of MI5, the first woman to hold the post. She worked in Britian's Security Service for almost 30 years. IOW she knows her beans and writes a good story, moves it along at a fast pace.

She has written an autobiography Open Secret which is on my wish list.

[pontalba]

Just finished my first Faulkner. Absalom, Absalom!

Absolutely amazing twist back on itself structure that is beautifully done.

 

I had tried As I Lay Dying last year and couldn't get into it, I've read that A,A is one of Faulkner's most difficult, but whether it is or not, it is well worth any effort one puts into it.

[pontalba]

I've read two James Lee Burke this month and would like to continue, but they are so intense that I don't think I could. I cannot recommend this author highly enough.

I am working my way through the series about New Orleans detective Dave Robicheaux.

Heck of a complicated guy.

 

Burke's writing is lyrical, true and some of the most beautiful I have read.

[pontalba]

Finished Suite Francaise...from what is written in the appendices and the Preface to the French Edition it would have been better than the pieces we are left with. Knowing from those how she had the next parts figured in her head helps, but after all we are left with half of a book. There is no getting around that fact.

 

The letters between herself and various friends are heart breaking, but more so the letters between her husband and others after she'd been arrested. No one knew where she'd been taken, no one knew she had been killed in the camps. Then her husband was arrested as well and shared her fate. Neither knew of the others ending. Their two daughters were shunted around the country being hidden by various persons at risk of their own lives.

 

This book would not be so remarkable except for the circumstances surrounding its author. It is a well written expose of humankind under terrible stresses, the good, the bad, and the ugly so to speak, but her fate overshadows the whole thing for me. Her insight was sharp and accurate. So sharp and accurate I cannot imagine why she did not leave the country. She could have, it was possible. She consciously chose not to.

I cannot say how that upsets me.

[pontalba]

Finished Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky. I have to give this one a 5/5, the ending while expected came about in an unexpected manner very abruptly. I love it when the last line of a book makes my mouth drop open in surprise.