1001 Books to Read Before You Die + If on a winter's night a traveller

Last night I finished another 1001 book from the list, this leaves me having read 210 books from the list of what has now become over 1300 books (they update,add in and take away books every two years). Do I plan to read them all? No.
So why use the list I hear you ask. I love the list for one reason, and that is recommendations. I know there are books on there I will never pick up, like Ian Fleming's Casino Royale; books which even if I did pick up I'd never be able to complete like James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and lots of books I've started, given up and never plan to go back to. But the list acts as a reminder of all those books I've always meant to read, of those authors I've read, loved and meant to go and discover more of, and also introduces books and authors I would never have discovered before.
In the last year I've read the fantastic Movern Callar by Alan Warner, Amok by Stefan Zweig, Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry all of which I had never heard of and would probably never have came into contact with if it hadn't been for the list. And I've read books off the TBR pile which had been sat there through numerous years and house moves.
Do you use the 1001 Books to read before you die list? Why?

Last night I finished my 11th book this year from the list, If on a winter's night a traveller, I seem to be accuring strange books from the list at the moment (Movern Callar was my last and Blood and Guts in High School is coming up).
As with Movern Callar I have no real idea how to review this book, to try and make it comprehensible I'm going to do it as a question and answer review.

What is the general plot line of this book?
'The Reader' goes into a shop and buys a book called 'If on a winter's night a traveler', when he returns home he settles in to read the first and after loving the first chapter he discovers the book has been misprinted and it simply repeats the first chapter over and over.
On returning the book to the shop, he meets 'The Other Reader' who had had the same problem. They then procure numerous books and manuscripts each one promising to be a different book.
What is the style of the book?
The book is written in alernate chapters, every odd chapter is about 'The Reader' and 'The Other Reader' quest to find a complete book to settle down with. These chapter are written in second person. At the beginning this seemed to describe how I would analyse a book, relax to read etc as it should but as the story moved on 'The Reader' became a definite character.
The even chapters are all the first chapters that the Readers are given along the way, these are in different styles and genres. This part of the book is apparently the inspiration for David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
What did you like/love about the book?
The first chapter I absolutely fell in love with, writter in second person he describes the process of going to buy a book:

"In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricades of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To That Category Of Books Read Before Being Written."

and also the process of sitting down and finding a comfortable place to start a new book. I would say that every avid reader, even if they don't plan to read the whole book (and it cerainly isn't to everyone's taste) should read this first chapter.
What did you dislike/hate about the book?
I certainly didn't hate anything about the book, but I found that after a while the different openings of books started to annoy me. I wanted to discover more about The Reader and The Other Reader, rather than the beginnning of another strange story - especially the ones that I'd have liked to know what happened next!
Would you recommend this to a friend?
I can't think of many of my real life friends who would like this disjointed style, but for readers who enjoy postmodern fiction, who are happy to not follow a trail of a story, and can appreciate a book for its style this is for them.

My Thoughts: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

I'm going to start this with an apology, this post will be a shambles as I have no idea how to review this book!
Morvern Callar is a 21 year old, stuck in a dead end job, in a dead end town, with a dead boyfriend on her hands. After discovering the suicide of her boyfriend rather than reporting the incident to the police Morvern parties the nights away. Eventually hiding her boyfriends body in the attic she sneaks into his bank account using his cash for a 18-30s holiday for her and a friend and then also gets his novel published in her name.
It doesn't sound great and certainly didn't sound like my type of book but I loved it. Morvern was a strange creature, but alluring all the same. You somehow seep into her world, while wanting to be as distant from its bleakness as you possibly can be.

All I can say is read it! Thats my 10th 1001 book so far this year - probably about the only reading challenge I'm managing to keep up with!

The Sunday Salon: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I've avoided Sherlock Holmes my whole life, the books seemed like something I wouldn't enjoy. Then during my teacher training a rather boring teacher who I had to shadow (he wouldn't let me teach his classes like I was supposed to) read to the kids some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and boy did he kill them! Earlier in the year I went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie and loved it, so braved picking up one of the books.

The Hound of the Baskervilles starts with a mysterious 'death' on Dartmoor; a gorgeously barren piece of wilderness, with wild ponies, sheeps and fog that can descend and leave you lost in a matter of hours. With a heavy inheritance up for grab and a mythical hound in the families history Shelock Holmes picks up the scent of foul play and sends Watson off to investigate.

I enjoyed the story, it was an easy comfort read, and I'll be checking out some of the other novels in the near future.

My Thoughts: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

There is one thing you need to understand about this book early on, the title is a deception. Gertrude Stein used this book to write an autobioraphy of herself as seen through someone elses eye. Strange, huh?
This autobiography is principly based in France, where the American Stein spent most of her adult life. She mingles with artists, writers, poets and other people of importance and nearly every page has 3 or 4 name drops. For the most part she hangs around in Picasso's artelier where other artists visit in the evening, exchanging news, gossip and work. She also buys up a lot of art and talks about the books she has written.
I found this book a strange one to get into, it often seemed like a list of events and meetings, with very few feelings or descriptions thrown into the mix. Once we arrived at the war period in the book things had picked up and it was a it more exciting but in general I found I was indiffernt to much of what she had written.
Having wrote my dissertation on T.S Eliot's 'The Wasteland' and cubism/futurism and the way that they mirrored the collapsing society of the time (Industrialism, the death of God, Darwinism, the move away from the extended family, tinned food, the media, photography etc) I was familiar with the names of a lot of the lesser known artists and could picture some of the art that she brought or viewed. If this hadn't been the case I think I would have struggled more. I was put off her even more (I disliked her from the moment she declared that she and Picasso where two of the only geniuses/genui(sp?) of the period) when she slated T.S Eliot and the fell out with Ezra Pound, two of my favourite poets of that time.
I'm including this for the Women Unbound challenge, because although I disliked her her strength of character, her sense of equality and power as a woman in her circles makes her a feminist of her time.

My Thoughts: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I first discovered Margaret Atwood when I was 17. I had to read A Handmaid's Tale for my A Levels along with 4 other pieces of protest literature (The Colour Purple, 1984, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest), it was this course which changed my degree choice from Law (I wanted to be a Legal Secretary specialising in family law) to English Literature, I can't imagine how my like would have turned out! As soon as read The Handmaid's Tale I went out and brought a stack of Margaret Atwood books which I've gradually read over the (12 -ouch!) years, I still have The Robber Bride to go.

Alias Grace is a fictionalised novel based on a real murderess Grace Marks, she was widely famous in Canada in the early 19th century being charged with 2 counts of murder at just 16. Alias Grace is a mismatch of narratives and writing regarding this women and those she came into contact with. The main proportion of the story are Grace's story to her Doctor, Dr Jordan. Claiming to be unable to recount the murders she details her life from him, from the journey from Canada to England, the methods of bleaching clothes and the details of her acquintances downfalls - she is certainly an unreliable narrator. Being shown her wondering what to tell Dr Jordan and how to phrase her story allows us to feel, but also know, that we are in the same position as he is, we are being fed a story - which elements are true or not we shall not discover.

The novel is also interspersed with Dr Jordan's complicated life, his desires for every woman he see's, his correspondence with his pushy mother, his friends and work collegues. As well as newspaper cuttings, quotations from Grace Marks' biographer, pshycoanalysists and poets who wrote about her.

Threaded throughout the story are refernced to patchwork quilts and their various patterns, especially those ones which turned one way show one image but looked at from a different viewpoint show a whole new picture. That is what this story is like, as a reader we sometimes feel she is guilty as sin, sometimes we believe her spiritual version of the murders and at other points her coyness leads us to believe she is just an innocent caught up in a crime. Well worth a read.

1% Well Read Challenge

The 1001 list (which has very quickly broardened to the 1294 list - they add and take away books every couple of years) has been a personal challenge for the last few years. No, I don't expect to complete it. And no, I don't think every book on it is great. But its a good way to think about what I've read, what I mean to read, and to discover books and authors I have never heard of.
So far of the 1294 books, I've read 205 (15.99%), I own a further 8.35% of the books and I have 0.55% of the books coming to me soon in the form of a bookring, (I'm not normally a geek but with this list I am).
The 1% Well Read challenge requires me to have read 13 of the books of this mamouth list by this time next year - I'll probably be trying to triple that at least. So this challenge is more about reading other people's reviews to get ideas of which books to select next - from my TBR pile or the library.
Below is a potential pool, although it is widely subject to change at any moment:
Movern Callar by Alan Warner (READ)
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Alias Grace, Atwood (READ)
The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas, Stein (READ)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Calvino (READ)
The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein (Current Read)
Blonde, Oates
Small Island, Levy
Great Apes, Self
Wild Swans, Chang
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, de Bernieres
The Leopard, Lampedusa
A Town Like Alice, Shute
All Quiet on the Western Front, Marque
The Radeztky March, Roth

My Thoughts: The Swarm by Frank Schatzing

I've just finished this mamouth book, its taken all week! The Swarm is a 900 (fairly small text) sci-fi, end of the world novel - not my normal type of read.
The novel starts with a series of small boating accidents, then shoals of jellyfish invading the coast, then Whales battling ships and then the discovery of a mysterious hydrate eating worm. Taking us across the world we see the sea turn around and attack human kind, the events start of small - a few missing fishermen then esculate to tsunami's and plate shifts.
As it becomes clear that the events aren't just coincidences and that a war is taking place in the sea scientists from across the world come together to try and figure out what is happening.
I put off starting this novel for a few weeks because of its hefty size but when I got started I was pulled along by all the individual stories which start the novel running parrallel to each other. I reckon they could cut out a good 200 pages, some of the science explanations went on to long and although I understood the basic premise much of it went over my head. Also the religious element was overdone, American CIA agents the president were way too assured that God would save them as they where the better race. I'm also sure some American citizens would feel that they were criticised unfairly. The ending had a preachy feel to it and the barely disguised criticism of the Bush presidency wasn't needed - we've heard it all before. Having said all that it was a good read - although I'm not sure it deserved its position on the 1001 BTRBYD list.
Anyone else read this? What did you think?

Challenges:
999 (1001)
Lost in Translation
The Chunkster Challenge
End of the World
1001 BTBYD
1% Well Read Challenge

Exploration: Latin American Fiction Challenge Round Up

I've had a hectice week so this is later than expected (by a couple of days!)
I fiished my last couple of books for the Latin American Challenge this week. Firstly I read Love in the Time of Cholera, I brought this book about 8 or 9 years ago after I first read and loved One Hundred Years of Solitude. I then read a few pages of this, thought it wasn't might type of thing and it got relegated onto the bookshelves to gather dust.
This time I picked it up willing to give it more of a chance and loved it. The book starts with the death of two elderly men, both in perculiar circumstances. One of the men is the husband of the main character of the novel. As a young girl she sent countless love letters to a young man, whom she secretly agreed to marry. After her father found out about the proposal he banned them from seeing each other forever and see eventually married another. He on the other hand swore to marry her when her husband died. The love story and all that happens in their lives in between is mesmerising. I really must read more of Marquez.
Also used as a challenge book for:
A-Z (Title)
1%
1001 Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
999 (1001)
What's in a Name (Medical Condidtion)
Guardian 1000


Then I read The Aguero Sisters by Cristina Garcia. This book started off slowly but picked up after 70 odd pages. The novel tells the story of two sisters brought up seperately - because the elder child kept trying to kill her younger sibling, as her mother had emotionally abandoned her in favour of a new life. The sisters are brought together again during their mid-life crisis. One lives in poverty striken Cuba, in the middle of the revoluionary campaign whilst the other lives in New York. Their mothers mysterious death, followed by their father's suicide leaves them both unstable. Full of magical realism this is definately a good example of Latin American Fiction.
Also Used for these challenges:
Orbis Terrarum
999 (TBR)

I also read Bel Canto and The House of Spirits, I loved 3 of them and enjoyed the other - The Aguero Sisters.

Other Challengers Books:
Ex Libris
Malinche by Laura Esquivel Reviewed by Ex Libris
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alveraz, Reviewed by Richard
Battles in the Desert by Jose Emillio Pacheco
Amulet by Roberto Bolana
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis


Anyone else with reviews or wrap up posts please comment here and I'll add it to the page.

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Pages read total: 475
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Total reading time: approx 7 hours

This is a book that I've been meaning to read for ages as it's one of those 'must-read' classics but kept putting off because I didn't think I'd enjoy it - and boy I was wrong.
The Old Man in the Sea is about an old mans (surprise!) stuggle and determination to prove himself. Once he hooks a giant fish he battles for days to bring the fish in, he battles not only against the fish but pain, hunger and tiredness. This book really reminded me of Japanese sea stories in its style. I may have to read more Hemingway in the future.

Challenges:
1001 btrbyd
A-Z (Author)
1% well read challenge
999 (1001)
Guardian 1000 Novels

My Thoughts: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Another 1001 book ticked off the list. This tiny book, only 147 pages tells of one day in the life of a Russian prisoner. One good day in his life.
The prisoners are subjected to working outside for 11 hours a day at -11 degrees, the men have little to keep them warm and have to strive to keep every morsel of food and clothing to themselves.
The men work together like a family, constantly trying to scrape something extra for themselves at the risk of being put in confinment.
Challenges:
999 (1001)
Nobel Prize
Olympic Challenge: Russia
A-Z (Title)
1% Well Read Challenge
Orbis Terrarum
Through the Decades (1960s)
Lost in Translation
Guardian 1000 novels

My Thoughts: The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

I feel like I haven't posted a book review in ages, this book is that reason - 2 weeks it has taken me to read it, something that never happens. I like to finish books quickly because it gives me a sense of acheivement but also because I have so many other books waiting to be read, so this was a slog BUT worth it.

This is my first read for Exploration: Latin American Reading Challenge, my own reading challenge so I'm really behind! I've got till April 30th to read 3 more books.

The House of Spirits is a family saga set in an unnamed country in South America. The family is full of characters will spiritual abilities, some (apparently) gorgeous women with green hair, and many love affairs.
The novel focuses primarily on one man and his wife, daughter and granddaughter. The women are all stubbon and rebelious in their own ways, often failling to speak to their family for months on end.
As the years pass the patriach is faced with the creeping interest in socialism all around him, what starts as a whispered dream gradually comes to rule the country creating disruption and poverty for many.

I enjoyed reading about the characters and their strong love affairs that defied social expectations, in particular Alba the granddaughter out of the the women she was the strongest, her rebellion was open and for the help of those weaker people around her. Her grandmother Clara's spiritual communications also meant that we always had a hint as to what would hapen in the future.
However, I struggled with the paragraphs, my copy had tiny text and despite this a paragraph often spanned over a page. The detail was very intricate and often took a lot of concentration, I have to say that I prefered Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia.

Challenges:
Exploration: Latin America 1/4
A-Z (Author)
1% Well Read Challenge 1/10
Orbis Terraum 1/10
Decades Challenge 2/10 (1980s)
999 (Always been meaning to read)
What's in a Name (Building)

1% Well-Read Challenge

3M is hosting the 1% Well-Read challenege for another year.

The Rules (taken from her post):

The editors of the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die threw a kink into our challenge when they updated the books with new titles last year. So, I’ve got three options for you on this next challenge:

Read 10 titles from the original list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.
Read 10 titles from the new list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.
Read 13 titles from the combined list (of almost 1300 titles) from March 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. In other words, “What were they thinking dropping titles from Dostoevsky and Jane Austen?”

I was already challenging myself to read more books from this list and have managaged a few already this year so I'm going to plunge in for option 3. I'm not 100% sure what I will read but here is my pool:

1. Watchmen, Alan Moore
2. Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
3. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
4. Great Apes, Will Self
5. Jack Maggs, Peter Carey
6. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker
7. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
8. The Reader, Schlink
9. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
10.Jazz, Toni Morrison
11. Wild Swan, Chang
12. Senor Vivo and the Coco Lord,de Bernieres
13. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera
14. Arrow of God, Achebe
15. V, Pynchon
16. Out of Africa, Dinsen
17. All Quiet on the Western Front
18. The Count of Monte Cristo,Dumas
19. Animals People, Sinha (New List)
20. Small Island, Levy (New List)
21. The Reluctant Fundamentalist,Hamid (New List)
22. Suite Francaise,Nemirovsky