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Shelbel's reading for 2008


shelbel

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I am having a very productive year so far.

 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera

Anne Enright - The Gathering

Jon Krakauer - Into the Wild

Nelson Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird

Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things

Thrity Umrigar - The Space Between Us

Ann Patchett - Bel Canto

Tracy Chevalier - Burning Bright

Phillippa Gregory - The Other boleyn Girl

H.F.M. Prescott - Mary Tudor

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

Sarah Hall - Electric Michelangelo

Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Peter Carey - His Illegal Self

Tim Winton - Breath

Ian McEwan - Atonement

Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's

J.M. Barrie - Peter Pan

Jack London - Call of the Wild

Louis de Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin

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You have read a lot. I'm impressed you can keep track! I have no idea what I read at the beginning of the year!

This is the first year in many that I've actually had the time to devote to reading for me, so I guess I've been a little manic.

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These are the books that I'm hoping to read this year:

 

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I am half way through this one.

Madame Bovary - Gustav Flauber

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak

Middlemarch - George Eliot

Alice in Wonerland - Lewis Carroll

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood

A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

A Son fo the Circus - John Irving

Another Country - James Baldwin

 

It's a bit ambitious, so I'll see how I go.

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These are the books that I'm hoping to read this year:

 

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I am half way through this one.

Madame Bovary - Gustav Flauber

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak

Middlemarch - George Eliot

Alice in Wonerland - Lewis Carroll

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood

A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

A Son fo the Circus - John Irving

Another Country - James Baldwin

 

It's a bit ambitious, so I'll see how I go.

 

Middlemarch is a great read.

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Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Alice in Wonerland - Lewis Carroll

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

 

I loved all of the above books. I found Crime and Punishment a bit of a hard slog but it was well-worth the effort in the end. Lolita is sheer brilliance.

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Middlemarch is a great read.

 

I'm ashamed to say, (particularly on this forum were the Enlish Classic's are so popular) that I've not read alot of the English Classic's. I can only recall reading Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice in high school, and Sons and Lovers at uni. So I'm really looking forward to reading Middlemarch when I get to it.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I was interested to read your review of On the Road. I've taken a break from it right now. I'm enjoying it, but I also find it to be overwhelmingly masculine in its viewpoint.

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I agree. The only other book of Kerouac's that I've read is The Town and the City and that is exactly the same ('overwhelmingly masculine'). It follows the lives of a large family, but the women are almost completely ignored and instead the story focuses on the men. In fact, I mentioned this in my review. I loved both books though, even in spite of this 'problem'. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the book when you get around to it again!

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  • 2 months later...

Recently Read

 

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Crime and Punishment - Fydor Dostovesky

On the Road - Jack Kerouac (reread)

Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood

A Son of the Circus - John Irving

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Desert Flower - Waris Dirie

The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgson Burnett

The Wizard of OZ - L.F. Baum

Lolita - Vladimer Nabokov

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

Another Country - James Baldwin

Orlando - Virginia Woolf

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

 

New Books

 

Small Island - Andrea Levy

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

Cloudstreet - Tim Winton

Going Solo - Roald Dahl

Emma - Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Orlando - Virginia Woolf

The Waves - Virginia Woolf

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

Moby - Dick - Herman Melville

Edited by shelbel
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How did you find The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas? I've been debating whether or not to get it. And I'll also be interested in your thoughts on Cloudstreet, which I've had on my TBR pile for a while now.

 

I loved Going Solo. It was such an interesting read and very entertaining. Roald Dahl certainly lived an amazing life!

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I quite enjoyed The Boy in Stripped Pajamas, it was an easy read; I think I read it in one sitting on a Sunday afternoon, a very touching, thought provoking story about the holocaust. A nice complimentry read to the Book Theif, stylistically their very different, but they both deal with a similar genre.

 

I finished Cloudstreet by Tim Winton last night, it's a wonderful book Kylie, I think you will enjoy it immensely; a real post-war Australian saga, beautifully written with an Aussie flavour to it.

 

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed Going Solo, my nine year old son picked this one out as a birthday present, he's a big fan of Roald Dahl and he thought he would introduce me to him. :welcome:

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Thanks for the reviews - I think I'll definitely have to read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. And now I'm looking forward to Cloudstreet even more!

 

Aw, that's really sweet of your son. I think he made an excellent choice! (Although you can't really go wrong with any Roald Dahl book in my opinion :welcome:)

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Moby Dick is proving to be a real challenge for me Kylie, I am enjoying the writing and it's a wonderful adventure story, but I have found myself at times incredibly bogged down in Melville's extremely detailed background information about whale anatomy and whaling.

 

I'm hoping to finish this book sometime this week, so that I can move onto something a little lighter!

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