The Road - McCarthy

And another 1001 book tackled! I also read this for the Dystopia Challenge so two hits in one :) I've been meaning to read The Road since all of the hype years ago but somehow I failed to get around to it, but I'm glad I kept it so long.
The Road is a post-apocalyptic novel, set in a grey, cold and very bleak America which fitted perfectly with the weather over the few days I was reading, which was wet and windy. The majority of the novel was read when I was woken by a huge storm at 4 in the morning, so I was curled up on the sofa with a book watching the mad dog walkers battling against winds and rains to ensure their pets had been taken out!
I would guess that the majority of books I read have a female protagonist and the view of family life and relationships is from a female perspective so it was interesting to read about a father-son relationship. The two nameless characters rely on each other for everything, they battle the world and their fears together. Other people present figures of danger, with some very grim scenes occurring when the father and son encounter gangs travelling on the road.
This book is bleak, but the relationship between the two characters brings a light to the whole book, regardless of the situation love still shines through. The novel is written in short fragments so is quick to read and highly recommended.

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Alice Munro was an author I had heard of but knew nothing about - other than she was Canadian - until last week when she won the Nobel. Despite knowing nothing about her last year I had grabbed one of her books in the local second hand bookshop because I knew she was on the 1001 BTRBYD list, a list I'm gradually working my way through. The book sat on the highest shelf unread until I saw all over twitter her win. Now I'm really glad that I made that random purchase and that I've started on Munro's backlist.

Lives of Girls and Women was first published in 1971, and whilst the setting has aged the concerns of the central character have not. We start the book with Del as a young girl living on a rural farm with little to do other than hang out with her brother and read sensational stories in a neighbour's newspaper. Each chapter in the novel focuses on a different point in Del's life, the arrival of a new women from out of town who refuses to fit the constrains of a wife and mother, her mother's life as an Encyclopoedia saleswoman, dating, friendship issues and changes in her body etc. Whilst it is the story of a fairly average childhood and maturity towards womanhood Munro's style and narrative lifted the character and setting right off of the page.

There is one more Munro on the 1001 list that I'll be searching out, but I will definitely keep an eye out for more of her books in the future.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

This book is another one, like A Tree Grows in Broklyn, which I always wanted to read because of its name, and like A Tree Grows in Broklyn I had an old copy with an ugly cover, but I loved them both!

A Town Like Alice tells the tale of Jean, a young girl who grew up being able to speak Malayan as her father had worked there. Before the war starts she wanted an adventure so went to work as a typist in Malay. But the war changed everything. When the British families in the area were gathered up to be put into prisoner of war camps by the Japanese the men where separated from the women and led of to Singapore. The group of women and children were left behind in search of a camp to put them in. As no one wanted them they were led walking from place-to-place with just a few Japanese guards to protect them. Jean becomes a central figure in the group as she is able to communicate with the local people, and even translate for their Japanese guards. During this journey she learns to live in a different way, has to accept deaths and illness and find ways to keep the rest of this group alive. The group meet an Australian who helps them for just a few days with food and medicine.
When she returns to England after the war she simply wants to put the past behind her, yet when she comes into an inheritance life has a few drastic changes in store.

When I first started reading this book I thought of abandoning it as the opening pages were really slow, but then when Jean's story abouy Malay started I was hooked. The details, her fight for survival and the way that the women were treated are described in a cool distanced way as the tale is being retold by someone who has listened to the tale. When the love story kicks in and her trip to Australia the tale certainly has the feel of a romance novel, but one with class and more to it that soppiness. The setting of Malay and the Australian outback are created before your eyes and I had a lovely picture of each in my head as I was reading this.
Certainly a book which I would recommend others to read.

Mini Reviews

Last week my computer wasn't working, so surprise-surprise I got tons read! It's shocking how much of a time-suck the Internet is. I'm just posting mini-reviews about these books otherwise I'll never get around to them, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure how I could write full length posts about some of them *War and Peace*.

Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago read for my around the world journey (the countries have to touch and I aim if possible to read at least 2 books from each country).
This book has a Gabriel Garcia Marquez feel to it, which was great for me as I love him. In the foreground of the story was the love between Baltasar and the seer Blimunda - she has the ability to see 'inside' people if she hasn't eaten in the morning. Their love exists through the Inquisition and the creation of a flying bird capable of transporting humans.
No matter what happens it is their love for each other which wins over the whole story, and it isn't a mushy type of love, although one which is all consuming.
I loved this and would happily recommend it to other readers of magical realism.




War and Peace by Tolstoy I've been reading this as part of a read-a-long on goodreads since new years day, and although I got lost in the middle when I went on holiday I finally managed to catch up and get it finished.
I was shocked at how much the 'Peace' sections read like a soap opera. I was expecting a huge cast of characters but these sections focused primarily on three families and their interwoven love lives, tangles and disputes. You saw families grow, change and develop with the war creeping up in the background.
The 'War' sections I found a little harder at the start, as their seemed to be tons of characters in these bits and I couldn't figure out who was who. These sections became more manageable and enjoyable as I got to know characters and as the war seemed to be more localised so I had a firmer idea of how things were progressing. The pace also picked up.
I gave this read 4 stars as I really enjoyed it, but thought that Tolstoy should lecture and make less direct social comments, and I was disappointed in the second epilogue. We read the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation which I really liked, I had started with a different translation before and gave up after 5 pages! Next up for the group read-a-long is Les Mis, which I started yesterday.




Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Oe this book was sent to me as part of my reading through the 1001 list/s (in fact all 4 of these reads were 1001 list books) and I'm sad to say I really didn't enjoy it.
A group of delinquent children are evacuated out to Japanese villages to escape the impeding war. Once their rumour of a plague spreads and the villagers abandon them so they are left to fend for themselves - similar to Lord of the Flies.
This book got great reviews from other people but for me it didn't hold together, it seemed that the author tried to hard to write as a teenage boy - they were obsessed with genitalia, which I know teenage boys are, I teach enough of them, but not to this extent. And some of the language just seemed to modern and the pace plodding.



Last but by no means least The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid my favourite read of the week. Most people have already read and raved about it so a very quick summary: the book is spoken as if it is part of a conversation, but you only hear from one speaker. He tells is from Pakistan but tells of his time in America and all that it offered to him. And all that changed after 9/11.
His voice and syntax perfectly create the voice in your head; his relationships, successes and views create him as a 3 dimensional character in a way that I haven't read in ages. And your uncertainity about a few areas of the text and style create a book you'll be thinking about long after.
This is one of those books I'll probably end up recommending to everyone and buying people as gifts.

Two Quick Reviews

After my reading drought I seem to be suddenly racing through books, having finished two since Sunday evening - and its not even the holidays!

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun is a book which has sat on the tbr pile for a good year and a half, I was sent it from a Korean bookcrosser along with Korean sweets and socks back at christmas 2009.
The novel is based on the life of a young Korean street girl who has abandoned her abusive father and destructive mother for a life of uncertainty, poverty and danger on the streets of New York.
With a fast paced style, a young voice and a cast of teenage street kids this reads like a YA novel. The friendships with Knowledge, a non-using drus dealer, Benny; the boyfriend who takes everything he can get and Tati the dramatic friend we meet a whole host of characters showing the various ways an abusive/unloved childhood can shape a persons view. A novel I'd recommend to those who like the YA style and are looking for a break from vampires for a while.


Pereira Maintains by Javier Cercas was another quick read but completely different to the one above. Set in 1930's Portugal, Pereira has escaped from political reporting to the cultural page of a small less read newspaper. Despite being a journalist we quickly see that his head is buried in the sand, and the political disruption and upset of Portugal passes him by, whilst his head is stuck in books and art.
Despite his attempts to keep out of the way of the censors, corrupt police and political underground he manages to step on peoples toes through his choice of literature, his friendship with a young radical journalist and his meetings with frinds.
This book was a really easy read which I enjoyed, however I think it would have had much more impact had I known any thing about Portugese history. It was nice to read a 1001 book which I enjoyed after my recent run of poor choices.

The Sunday Salon: Reading is beating me

Very quickly, today is the last day to enter my draw for a copy of The Blind Assassin over here.

I'm really struggling with my reading at the moment, I'm either in a grump so just not enjoying great books, its either that or I'm not picking great books off my tbr pile.
I started mid week reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was hoping that I'd enjoy this as everyone raves about him (although I didn't really enjoy The Great Gatsby which everyone else seems to love).
The book is meant to be partly autobiographical and charts his relationship with his wife - which bizarrely started off with her having a breakdown and he was a pyschologist used to flirt with her through letters to bring her out of herself. He moves on to detail the affair he had and his struggle with this affair.
I didn't get on with the narration of this book, or his clear lack of love for the women he had an affair with. The whole thing felt like he was trying to explain his behaviour.


After this I moved onto Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas, another 1001 read which has been on the TBR pile for many years. The 4 star rating on amazon, the synopsis and the gorgeous cover all had my hopes up high. But this was another book which floundered for me - it was a 'true tale' which the author spent a large percentage of the book describing how he discovered the story and the events after publishing this story.

Both these books I believed would be novels and both turned out to be based on true stories and had fairly dry narration. I've read a few pages of my next read, thankfully it looks like a real novel this time.

This afternoon I'm off to Colchester, one of the oldest towns in England. I'm taking my camera to get a few snaps of the cobbled streets and then meeting some local bookcrossers to chat and swap books. The pub we are meeting in is an OBCZ (official bookcrossing zone), so hopefully will have a set of shelves with free books that I can browse and leave some of my own books on.

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G Wells

This month I'm trying to focus all my reading time on 1001 books in the attempt to reach my target of 40 for the year. I started with The Island of Dr. Moreau as it is a bookring which I need to get moving to the next reader.

THE STORY:
Prendick accounts his time on an island of nightmares. He finds himself turfed out of the boat he is travelling after the captain is scared off by the other passengers on board. These passengers help Moreau to an island which they inhabit.
Trying to be secretive about the happenings on the island they attempt to keep the truth from Prendick, but he begins to notice small anomalies, like the hairy pointed ears of one of the servants and the howling of animals.
Exploring, Prendick discovers animals who can talk, walk like men and obey the orders of the man who brought him to there.

MY THOUGHTS:
I'm not a sci-fi fan, but having read and enjoyed Wells at university I was expecting to enjoy this - and in places I did. However there were many times when I was tempted to give up, if it had been a longer book I doubt I would have read to the end. I was often confused as to what was happening, and didn't really get along with the dry narrative voice of the tale, which never managed to strike in me the horror of these animals.

1001 BTRBYD Month

I'm back from my holiday and now really in need of tackling all the little challenges that I set myself. I'm going to be restarting the TBR Dare - I had a target of reading 25 books to read before I could read anything which was on my shelf before 01.01.11 (with the exception of bookrings and preview copies), things went wrong when I took all kinds of books on holiday with me. I do really want to make a substantial dent in this mound of books so I'm going to get myself back on track.

One of the targets which I set myself was to read 40 books from the 1001 btrbyd list, so far I've only read 3. I'm only reading books from that list from the 26th Feb - March 26th and aiming to knock off another 7 (minimum from that list). This is a personal challenge to try and keep me on track.

I'll be back with reviews of the books I read on holiday and some of the sites I saw once the jet lag has gone.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet

My first non tbr read of the year, this one was allowed as it was a bookgroup read however I fear that my journey to and from New York is going to be my downfall as I've been sent and given books that look like ideal plane ride books.

The Maltese Falcon is a detective novel from 1929. The book follows Sam Spade, who starts an investigation to discover a missing sister, which soon involves the death of his partner, him being stitched up for murder and the search for the Maltese Falcon, a prized ornament.
Spade is a typical detenctive, women falling for him all over the place and a criminal himself with many dodgy police helping his cause. I can't tell you anymore of the story without giving away too much.

I raced through the first 100 pages, the style was easy to read and there was plenty happening, then I really slowed down and stretched the next 100 pages over 4 nights. I lost interest as more and more people became involved, and there was so many people double crossing one another. Also, I disliked the way the women fawned over Spade; he was clearly sleeping with his secutary even though she knew he was also with many other women, yet she bowed to his every request. I suppose it's a product of its time yet it still bothered me.

TSS: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

It looks like I'm getting good at read-a-longs, another one finished :D
I started reading Bleak House back in November, we read a section each Sunday following the sections that Dickens had them published originally in the perodicals.

A quick summary: Bleak House focuses on the main heroine Esther, she starts her life as a orphan, with a childhood of misery. When her aunt dies she finds that she is taken by a new guardian along with two other teenagers to live in Bleak House. The three all share a link in a long legal debate over a will, which has been being debated longer than the three have lived.
Esther's a kind hearted a generous central character, formaing relationships with many along the way, from orphaned children to the aristocracy. The novel explores the power of greed, the unravelling of secrets and friendships.

Dickens is one of those authors who I'm never 100% sure of, I have loved some of his works (Great Expectations in particular) and really disliked others (Nicholas Nickelby). This novel held me unsure of my feelings for it over a number of months. Split into two narratives, Esther's and a unknown narrators, we view all manner of peoples lives, many who are only barely linked to Esther's story. And while I loved her narrative, which focused on just the few people she met, I dislike the other narrative which introduced too many characters and was hard to follow.
I think that as a read-a-long we should have read more each week, the sections were about 30 pages in length and varied in enjoyment. Sometimes you finished a Sunday reading glad to have spent 30minutes with Esther and other weeks the reading left me bored and wondering what was happening to Esther.
The BBC adaptation of this is supposed to be brilliant, I'm hoping to hire this and watch it in the coming weeks.

Youth by J.M Coetzee

Only my second 1001 book of the year (with an aim of 40 I should be aiming for one every second or third read not leaving 5 books in between).
Coetzee is one of those authors I have a mixed relationship with, I hated Disgrace and disliked Amsterdamn but then really enjoyed Waiting for the Barbarians, and Elizabeth Costello I think I've read but I'm not 100% sure, so I went into Youth with some trepidation.
Youth is actually the second in a semi-autobiographical trilogy, but I didn't know that till I was half way through. However, I didn't feel like I was missing out too much as a rough sketch of his childhood was provided as I read through.

Youth follows John, a mathmatics student with more interest in poetry and saving up enough money to escape South Africa. When he finally escapes to England life is not what he imagines, the long hours, cold people and cold weather lead him to a life of seclusion. As well as his life in England and his love of poetry, we learn much about his desire for a woman. He seems to pick up along the way a number of unsuitable women (who all drop their pants immediately), he barely gets them back to his room before he and they have decided that it's all a bad idea, but it continues.

The novel had a really mellow feel to it, despite dramas, upsets and loneliness he accepts the world and the tension never builds. And, this creates a nice easy read, but one that is likely to leave me not remembering much, if any of the novel in a months time.

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

First up Happy New Year, hopefully this one will bring love, happiness and laughter for everyone. Having gone to bed at 10.30 last night (damn cough was just too annoying!) I had a clear head and plenty of time to read today.

Surfacing kicks off my attempt to tackle more of the 1001 list this year. Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' is one of two books that sent me to university to study literature, I've since then read and loved about 6 of her books. This one I've been avoiding as I'd heard it had bad reviews, but it was sent to me so I thought I should really give it ago.

The main character (who I think remains nameless - I sure can't remember her name and have scanned and can't find it), travels with her new boyfriend and two new friends back to northern Quebec, in search of her missing father. She grew up on a tiny island inhabited by just her family, now on the island she must search for clues of her father.
The novel sounds like it'll be full of clues and answers but in reality the trip home is for her a way to find herself. Her friends are shallow and the boyfriend quiet, all they add to the trip is a mode of transport and people to be amused.

For me I never felt like I could connect to any of the characters, the main character is pretty emotionless through most of the novel, she never seems interested in finding her father, and the novel is more of a description of the things they do to fill the day. Then all of a sudden there is this bizarre ending, which just left me wondering what was going on.

July's People by Nadine Gordimer

My last 1001 book for the year! I was aiming for 30 this year and I just managed it.

July's People is set in South Africa at the time of the black uprising, white families houses were being destroyed, parts of the cities were bombed and many were killed. This novel tells the tale of the servant July's plight to save the white family he has worked for. He transports them to his home village were they take up residence in one of the mud huts. The focus of the story is on how this family, both parents and young children cope living in a traditional village, living without the conveiniences of a fridge, television and society life.

I enjoyed looking at this glimpse of a white family in a different setting - often novels focus on the servants reaction to the big city. However, I would have prefered to see more of the African's ways of life, they form a background rather than a character, even July of the title only comes and goes. My biggest gripe, and something many books annoy me with, is the writing of the children. Their speach and actions were way too old for the ages they were meant to be. A baby asking eloquently whether he can go to the ciniema, a three year old who communicates in full sentences and can be suspected of having stolen a car!

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

Years ago I read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and loved it and did something that I used to do which was go by a selection of books by that author. I think I brought four books I now on the third - its no wonder mount tbr is so big!

Sexing the Cherry is a fantastical novel. It starts with the discovery of a child, Jordan, abandoned in the Thames in the 17th century, he is discovered by and brought up by a giant of a woman. Early in his life he sees the first banana brought to the shores of Britain, from then on he journeys the real world and the unreal worlds of him mind.

This novel is a complete work of fantasy, times and worlds change, weightless dancing girls, worlds which don't understand gravity and meetings with the king. I loved it this time around but when I attempted to read it a few years back I quickly gave up, certainly the type of book you have to be in the right frame of mind for.

The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

8 years ago I was meant to do a university module on post-colonial literature focusing on immigration/emigration, this was on the reading list, I got put in a post-colonial literature class but not the one I'd applies for. This book has stayed on my mental tbr list for all that time and today I finally got to it.

The Lonely Londoners focuses on a group of immigrants from Trinidad, who arrive in dank foggy London just after the war (why is London always foggy in books? I've been there loads of times and never recall it being foggy). Mainly young men, this novel looks at the lives that they create for themselves, in a country that once wanted them but quickly turned its back on them.

The writing is vernacular, which I know some people struggle with, but I quickly found a nice voice in my head so it didn't hinder the speed I read in. Focusing on a small group of men the story focused a lot on their white girlfriends and the way that the men all swindle each other and others around them for money. The strangest part featured a 4 page, no punctuation account of these black men being paid to sleep with white prostitues so white men could watch - this seemed very out of place in style, and I just wanted them to get angry, rather than see it as a free 'treat'.
The style of the novel shows a way of life, but never goes beneath the surface and really shows you how the characters felt about their treatment. Having said that I enjoyed it, but thought that 120 odd pages was enough - no story, character stood out to keep the novel moving for much longer.

The 1001 Books to Read Before You Die Challenge

Now, although this is a new challenge and I'm signing up I'm not counting it in my alloted challenges because each year I try to read 30 books of the 1001 list, and participate with a group of readers over at bookcrossing who do something similar (in fact some of them aim for 50 or 100 books from the list a year!) But I saw that the 1001 challenge was being hosted at Pub Writes and signed up as I'm hoping other readers reviews will push me towards some of the books on the list I'm not aware of.
The challenge over on this blog is to have read between 5-16 books, I'm aiming for 40 as that is a doable amount, and making it harder I'm trying to spread my reading across the centuries. Here is a list I'd like to work through, those in bold I own.
21st century
1. The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
2. Youth, J.M Coetzee
3. Adjunct: An Undigest, Peter Manson
4. Soldiers of Salamis, Javier Cercas
5. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
20th Century
6. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
7. Great Apes, Will Self
8. Cocaine Nights, JG Ballard
9. Written on the Body, Jenette Winterson
10. Jazz, Toni Morrison
11. Wild Swans, Jung Chang
12. Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernieres
13. A Disaffection, James Kelman
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
15. The Swimming Pool Diary, Alan Hollinghurst
16. Nervous Conditions, Tsisti Dangarmbga
17. Shindlers Ark, Thomas Keanally
18. The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
19. Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
20. Do Androids Dream of Sheep, Phillip K. Dick
21. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
22. Arrow of God, Chinua Achebe
23. The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa
24. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
25. A Kingdom of this World, Alejo Carpentier
26. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
27. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
28. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
29. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
30. Amerika, Franz Kafka
31. The Forsythe Saga, John Galsworthy
32. Gabriella, Clove, Cinnamon, Jorge Amado
19th Century
33. Hunger, Knat Hamsum
34. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
35. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
35. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
36. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
18th Century +
37. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
38. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
39. Don Quixote, Migel da Cervantes Saavedra
40. Metamorphoses, Ovid
41, Aesop's Fables, Aesopus
42. The Tale of Genjii, Mueraski Shikibu
43. The Thousand and One Nights
44. Ooronoko, Aphra Behn

As you can see it is an ambiyios list but if managed I would lighten up a good few book shelves, as most of these books would be sent out through book crossing to find other readers.

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.