|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 5, 2010 13:44:11 GMT
Oh good. I thought this thread was dying, now it looks like we're going places! Next round coming up!
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 5, 2010 15:22:00 GMT
Eeeeeeeeeeee ~~ look who's back!!! Yaaaay. How are you? How was your trip? What have you read?
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2010 16:48:48 GMT
Eeeeeeeeeeee ~~ look who's back!!! Yaaaay. How are you? How was your trip? What have you read? SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!....(and you were a librarian?)
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 6, 2010 7:59:01 GMT
Me? Read? Hardly. But I did get a couple books for Xmas and I started re-reading a book I found from my post-colonial African Lit course.
As for my trip, I will make a couple threads and post some pictures. That's right! I have a computer now so I can post pics.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2010 8:59:45 GMT
That is great news, EC. We had taken up a big collection to buy you a computer, but now I can send everybody's money back to them!
|
|
|
Post by lola on Jan 7, 2010 15:07:42 GMT
Good. I could use that two grand back.
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 12, 2010 8:05:56 GMT
Well I guess it's time we added to the list. So anyone who wants to add 5 additional books - this is your opportunity! Also, start thinking about the Shakespeare/Bible selections you may want to make...
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Jan 12, 2010 9:49:41 GMT
Well my list looks very different from the last one, it must be a mood thing!
1. The Cairo Trilogy (are we allowed Trilogies?) - Naguib Mahfouz 2. The Orange girl - Jostein Gaarder (I more or less had to toss a coin on which of his to include) 3. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gillman 4. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 5. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Then I thought of some more, can we do another list!
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Jan 12, 2010 10:05:02 GMT
Ok I see I bokre two rules so I deleted my second list and as trilogy is not allowed I change it to:
1. Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz 2. The Orange girl - Jostein Gaarder (I more or less had to toss a coin on which of his to include) 3. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gillman 4. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 5. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 12, 2010 10:35:05 GMT
1) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut 2) The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill 3) Green Grass, Running Water - Thomas King 4) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn 5) The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 12, 2010 10:41:23 GMT
Tilly - I just googled your selections and they all look really interesting! Gaardner is the author of Sophie's World, I just realized. Can't say I was a big fan of that book. Is The Orange Girl similar in style and themes? What do you think of Sophie's World?
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Jan 12, 2010 10:53:09 GMT
Funny - I did the same with yours and thought the same! The only one I have read is the Solzhenitsyn one.
I did enjoy Sophie's World, but I think it's one of my least favorite of his books. Like his other stories it is a pure fantasy tale, looks at the world with eyes of wonder and treats life like a great fairytale to be told! I was going to put down Vita Brevis on this list and had a hard time choosing. It is different from his other stories but I adored it. It is the fictional response of St Augustine's abandoned mistress on reading his Confessions. I choose the other one though as it's more representative of his books.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 13, 2010 2:53:59 GMT
Oh joy -- someone else has read "The Book of Negroes"! (Actually, that book was published under the title of "Someone Knows My Name" in the US.)
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 13, 2010 7:11:52 GMT
Yes, I just found that out Bixa... I'm so glad you've heard of this book! My mother read it and liked it so much she gave it to me to read and it was one of the only books that I didn't want to put down and raced right through it!
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 13, 2010 7:38:05 GMT
I was completely absorbed by it. The history in it alone would make it worth reading.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2010 11:44:51 GMT
Well,it would appear I didn't read the fine print and I listed a quartet in my first list,(they all blend into one though...)so,will come up with another one for,then, proceed with second list...Sorry.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Jan 13, 2010 13:58:17 GMT
Actually, Casimira -- your Alexandra Quartet is one of the few books on these lists that I would agree with. In fact, my copy contains all four volumes.
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Jan 13, 2010 19:12:12 GMT
Of the original list i've read at least 38....I skimmed through them quickly. Maybe more.
I can't imagine many people reading 'Germinal' but I was fascinated by it.
I don't read Narnia and Lord of the Rings stuff or Charles Dickens.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Jan 13, 2010 19:31:35 GMT
I first read the Narnia books as a child. I think they were originally intended as children's books, although they contain Christian symbols that I totally missed at the time. I only understood them on a deeper level when I read them to my own children.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Jan 14, 2010 3:03:21 GMT
I'm waiting for someone to cut and paste all the suggested books into one big list for my convenience. ;-)
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2010 3:07:04 GMT
Check with Existentia for details, but I'm pretty sure that's the ultimate purpose of this thread.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Jan 14, 2010 3:29:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 14, 2010 7:27:15 GMT
I will soon make an up to date list of what we've got so far... just waiting for a couple more people to post their second list.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Jan 14, 2010 8:54:40 GMT
Refresh my memory EX, is the second list 5 MORE titles, or a perfecting of the first list? And what is the time frame for consideration? All of literary history or our lifetimes or somewhere in between?
|
|
|
Post by existentialcrisis on Jan 14, 2010 10:18:16 GMT
You get 5 additional titles. Novels. And the time frame doesn't matter... these are just books that are important to you. Books you love and feel like others should read.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2010 10:28:22 GMT
Thanks EC,will do mine today,have been pondering.(I'm always pondering but,REALLY pondering this one).
|
|
|
Post by traveler63 on Jan 14, 2010 14:07:36 GMT
Here is my second five: 1. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje 2. The Black Dahlia James Ellroy 3. The Color Purple Alice Walker 4. The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 5. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John LeCarre
I have read 1, 2 & 4 twice.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2010 15:11:44 GMT
My second five: Thanks T63 for reminding me of the English Patient 1. The English Patient,Michael Ondaatje 2. The Sheltering Sky,Paul Bowles 3. Suite Francaise,Irene Nemirovsky 4. At Play in the Fields of the Lord,Peter Matthiessen 5. The Babel Tower,A.S.Byatt
|
|
|
Post by traveler63 on Jan 14, 2010 16:50:53 GMT
Your welcome Casimira
I have been trying to expand my reading horizons. I read most of the classics when I was younger and then I got roped into thrillers and mysteries. I find myself in a reading vacuum. I have been using the New York Times Book Review part of the Sunday paper to start to list books that sound appealing to me that are what is called Fiction. Last weeks there were about 5 that I am looking at reading. This list that we all are putting together is very helpful. Here are some that I am considering;
Angels Game Carlos Ruiz Zafron The School of Essential Ingredients - Erica Bauermeister The Pink Lady - Sally Denton
Have any of you read these?
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2010 16:57:17 GMT
Traveler63, before you went on vacation you were a regular contributor to the "What is everyone here reading" thread. I wish you'd start using it again, because I followed your suggestions several times with satisfying results. Also, there is so much variety in the recommendations there, you'll be out of your "vacuum" in no time.
|
|