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Post by tillystar on Feb 5, 2010 15:06:15 GMT
I know what you mean Bixa, I spent ages dithering about which books to put down and in the end I gave up caring and thought, its just a list, its not heart surgery no one is going to die because of my bad choices. Feeling a weight lifted, I just put down 5 books that occurred to me that moment. The second list, I did the same and that is why they are quite different – just different moods and remembering different books at that time. Uuum, I hope I don’t get beheaded for being too careless with my choices now…
Saying all that, I am struggling with my third list. But that’s probably because I read mainly fiction so less choice.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Feb 5, 2010 15:13:30 GMT
That's a good point, lola and tilly... I guess there are so many books that I think one ought to read, but not necessarily because they are enjoyable. With this list, I would like to stick to things other people may enjoy reading. That's why I didn't put Heidegger on the list... reading him is such a chore (though I have been completely enraptured while reading him) and he is such a controversial figure. As for Sartre, I love his philosophical work but perhaps not so much his literary work... but then, I don't enjoy a lot of literary work so I don't know where my taste lies.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2010 18:37:13 GMT
How many books have been mentioned more than once? I saw that one of the books I listed had already been mentioned.
It would be interesting to keep making lists until we get at least 5 books that are on the list of more than one person.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Feb 11, 2010 14:09:26 GMT
Maybe it would be interesting... but too much work for me, K2! Here is my revised list: 1) Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice 2) John Keats - odes and sonnets 3) Henry David Thoreau - Walden 4) Plato - Apology of Socrates 5) Rene Descartes - Meditations
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2010 16:47:04 GMT
Thanks, Tilly. I also bogged myself down by thinking of all the books I loved, so was metaphorically avalanched without being able to pick out individual books. Using your excellent method, here is my second list: Enemy Women .......... Paulette Jiles The Family Arsenal .......... Paul Theroux The Hummingbird’s Daughter ........ Luis Alberto Urrea The Cellist of Sarajevo* .......... Steven Galloway A Sudden Country (Reply #72) ......... Karen Fisher * commented on here, #175 and here, #184)
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Post by lola on Feb 12, 2010 16:48:57 GMT
Enemy Women is set in my stomping grounds. Will check out Cellist next.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2010 16:51:57 GMT
Lola, you will love Enemy Women -- so much more than just plot, she gets you to that fantasy state between sleeping and waking at times, but done so naturally and fittingly. The history is excellent as well. Thanks for accepting my recommendation of The Cellist. I think it's a book with universal appeal.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2010 17:14:47 GMT
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Post by BigIain on Feb 12, 2010 21:08:59 GMT
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Didnt like , stopped early 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Yes 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee yes 6 The Bible Oh so very yes, many times 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 1984 - George Orwell yes 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien yes 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger yes as child and adult 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell Yes 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding Yes 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel Yes and it was shit 52 Dune - Frank Herbert Yes 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Yes 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon Yes, shit and nothing like realistic 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville Yes 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Yes 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Inferno - Dante 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackerays 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle some 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute Yes 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Yes 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Yes 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
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Post by BigIain on Feb 12, 2010 21:14:23 GMT
The original is more like a "Top 100" than a guage of anything
Not included..... The Brothers Karamazov, One Day in the life of Ivan Denosovich and A Long Walk to Freedom. These three are a good judge of personal reading tastes rather than some of the cliche books on there such as recent major award winners Life of Pi and The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night. The latter two are so awful in my opinion that the judges who awarded it with praise should be forced to read it once a month or else be cast adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger!!!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2010 6:02:45 GMT
I agree the "The Curious Case" just rings wrong. It's the kind of book that seemed interesting while I was reading it and felt like it was a total waste of time the moment I finished it.
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Post by lola on Feb 13, 2010 15:19:43 GMT
One of our better book club discussions was about Life of Pi, but mostly tangential to the book and dependent upon who showed up in a talky mood. Books like Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings, great to read, don't make for a good discussion. If at least one of the men likes the selection, we have a chance. Usually I find the women's suggestions too preachy or Improving.
Since most of our book club has older teenage children, maybe we should reread Catcher in the Rye. I hardly ever suggest books. Partly because I feel bad if everyone hates it. Last time I threw one in it was AsI Lay Dying, which I love but no one else found the comedy in.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2010 17:55:12 GMT
Started to put As I Lay Dying on my list yesterday. Maybe Existentia will let us go into more rounds.
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Post by lola on Feb 13, 2010 19:14:35 GMT
Yay!
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Post by spindrift on Feb 13, 2010 20:35:09 GMT
Wouldn't it be interesting and amusing if we formed a reading club , someone proposed a book and we all read it and commented on it? What do you all think?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2010 1:27:04 GMT
That's a great idea, spindrift, we should do it.
Now let me see how many on Bixa's list I have read:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ...... yes, I found it a bit slow though. 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien .... yes! A great book. 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte...no 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling.... yes, most of them, because I've read them to my kids. 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee .... yes, way back in high school 6 The Bible .....um...yes. 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte .....Yes, I enjoyed this book 8 1984 - George Orwell ...no, or maybe a bit of it at one time. 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ....no 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ....yes, I love Charles Dickens. 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ...Yes, but didn't finish it. 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ...no. 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ...no 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ...yes, Studied Shakespeare for English Lit at school, and went to see many of his plays at the theatre. Really enjoy his works. 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier....no 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ...yes 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk....no 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger....no 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger....no, but would like to read this one. 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot....no 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell...yes! Loved it. 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald...no 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens...I'm not sure. I've read many Charles Dickens books, can't remember., perhaps. 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy...I actually started reading this one once, but gave up on it. 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams...no. 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh...no 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky....yes. 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck....no 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll....yes 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame....yes 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy...no 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens....yes 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis....yes 34 Emma - Jane Austen....no 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen...statted it, but got bored after a while. 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis....yes 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein....no 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres...no 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden....no (the movie was good though) 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne....yes! 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell...no, don't think so... 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown....yes. 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez....no 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving....no 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins....no 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery....yes (I would though wouldn't I?) 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy...yes, loved it, studied it at school. 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood...no 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding....Yes, a great book. 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan....no 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel....no 52 Dune - Frank Herbert....no....yes, I stole the Dune books off my boys!....no 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons....no 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen...yes, too slow for me though, gave up on it before the end. 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth...no 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon....no 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens...yes 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley....no 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon....no 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez...no 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck....yes 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov....no 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt....no 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold...no, but it's next on my list. 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas....yes 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac....no 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy....no 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding....no 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie....no 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville....yes 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens....yes 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker....yes 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett....yes 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson....no 75 Ulysses - James Joyce...no 76 The Inferno - Dante....no 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome...no 78 Germinal - Emile Zola...no 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackerays...no 80 Possession - AS Byatt....no 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens....yes 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell....no 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker....yes 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro....no 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert...no 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry....no 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White....yes 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom...no 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...yes 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton....no 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad...no 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery...yes, I started it, but found it a bit boring 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks....no 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams....yes 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole....no 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute...yes, studied it at school. 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas....yes 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare....yes 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory....yes 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo...no (but would like to)
I think that's 39
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Post by Jazz on Feb 14, 2010 23:12:27 GMT
OK. I have tried (and failed) to C&P the original list with my comments. I have read 78/100 of the books of the original list but I fail to see the relationship between this list and being 'well read'. ummm ....The Da vinci code? Also, it is very much an Anglo list. I did enjoy many of these books, but what about the literature of the rest of the world? (much is available in english translation).
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 14, 2010 23:25:15 GMT
Hey Jazz ~~ actually, the original list was addressed & dismissed much earlier, which is why we are now particpating in the making of a fantasy library. Give me a minute, & I'll recap what went on here. I don't know how the original list got dragged forward again. Lemme go find the posts explaining what's going on now, please.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 14, 2010 23:59:13 GMT
Okay ~~ history of the "well read" thread, starting with a possible explanation for the rather odd original list, and moving to the present purpose and status of this thread:... I poked around a bit and found this interesting post that attempts to explain the connection to the BBC - more accurately, to a list the BBC put together called The Big Read - where they asked their readers to vote on their favorites. ... I think it would be interesting to see a must-read list of philosophical works, and for AnyPort to make our own list of must-read books.... I think 5 would be a good initial number for a first round. .... Also, to avoid being pretentious, perhaps we should stress that our choices should be books that we really enjoyed reading, or books that really touched us or changed our lives, rather than books that one ought to read merely to be "well read". AnyPort Reading List
This is to be a list of our all-time favorites, books that we read again and again, books that we would love for others to discover, books that have changed our lives, and books that we will proudly compile into our figurative AnyPort library.
For simplicity's sake, I think we should do this in stages. In the first stage, everyone will submit 5 choices. Following stages will include 5 more choices, and selections from the Bible/Shakespeare. So to introduce stage 1:
Rules: 1) Submit ONLY 5 choices (I know this is difficult, so think hard. If you forget something, save it for the next round, as opposed to "cheating"). 2) Each selection will be a book with author. No collections of books under one author. 3) No Shakespeare, Bible, or children's books, for now.
Ready, Set, Go! At this point, you may want to go to page two of the thread and skim down starting with Reply #34 to see some of the individual lists and some of the questions concerning list making.
Round two of the five-book fiction lists starts on page three at #66. Reply #99, January 28:Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. I think it's about time for a third round. I'm thinking, maybe another list of 5. This time including works other than novels, including plays, Bible, philosophy texts, non-fiction, short stories, poetry collections, and children's books. Please specify which category your selection falls into, for those of us who are unfamiliar. If there is enough demand, there will probably be more opportunity to add to this list. So, as it stands right now, people are still submitting their third lists. However, Existentia gave permission to a tardy person ( ) to submit her first two lists late in order to go on to the third list.
Hope that helps!
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Post by Jazz on Feb 15, 2010 0:06:17 GMT
No problem, I've been reading the thread from the beginning. My reply was only to the 'well read (?) list'.
Lists of 5 favorite books are difficult and intensely personal. They depend on many factors and my '5 favorites' could go on forever...food? design? architecture? environment? art? philosophical? english fiction? non-english fiction? history? biography? travel? travel biography? feminist? humour? etc. etc.
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Post by BigIain on Feb 15, 2010 17:16:21 GMT
Hi Bixa... as to #137...the original list got dragged up again by me cos I thought I would respond to the OP. I was interested in my tally from the 100 list. I mistakenly thought that other people might have been too. THEN I read the thread and realised that it had changed tack over the next 5 pages!!! I assumed that the thread wouldnt have radically changed several times.
Not sure if I should appologise or not but I shall try to be more careful. I'll check the Pet Peeve thread again before posting.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 15, 2010 19:11:11 GMT
I think you should apologize. No, better yet, I think you should grovel. Or, considering it again, I think you should rend your clothing and cry out in a loud voice. Hmmm. As long as you're crying out in a loud voice, perhaps you should read aloud to us. That would be after you've rent your garments in a fetchingly provocative manner, of course.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 15, 2010 21:53:04 GMT
I don't think Iain owes anyone an apology, but maybe bixa did for coming down on him. Until she totally redeemed herself by recapping the whole 5-page evershifting thread and distilling it into a nutshell at #138.
Now what I'd like her to do is comb through all the posts and harvest the names of ALL the books that have been nominated so far, and put it all in one post...so we can print it out and go out and find the ones we haven't yet read and read them...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2010 1:53:01 GMT
I agree, Kimby. Iain has no need to apologize, nor does anyone else. I enjoyed reading his list and that's why I did my own. It's hard to keep up with all the rules sometimes. At times we are not supposed to veer off topic at all in any way and at other times we have to
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2010 4:27:10 GMT
One of our better book club discussions was about Life of Pi, but mostly tangential to the book and dependent upon who showed up in a talky mood. Books like Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings, great to read, don't make for a good discussion. If at least one of the men likes the selection, we have a chance. Usually I find the women's suggestions too preachy or Improving. Since most of our book club has older teenage children, maybe we should reread Catcher in the Rye. I hardly ever suggest books. Partly because I feel bad if everyone hates it. Last time I threw one in it was AsI Lay Dying, which I love but no one else found the comedy in. Leave it to you Lola to suggest something like As I Lay Dying!!! ;D As far as suggestions for the 'youngins',why not try Salinger's short story collection first before leaping into Catcher in the Rye? I will have my next list ready tomorrow EC,well,maybe Wednesday...(tomorrow is Mardi Gras). And thanks for all your hard work too EC.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Feb 16, 2010 8:40:07 GMT
lol ... oh dear... I have been away from the computer for too long.
I think Bixa was joking to Iain! No worries! And thank you so much Bixa for recapping the thread in my absence!
Iain, I hated Pride and Prejudice until the last leg of the book! Then I was strangely possessed by it!
k2, I agree completely with what you said about "The Curious Case".
kimby - I am the one responsible for compiling this list... and I will make a final list of all the suggestions, which has been stated:
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Post by existentialcrisis on Feb 16, 2010 8:46:35 GMT
Hmmm... maybe that wasn't too clear. I went back through the thread and saw this progression: I'm waiting for someone to cut and paste all the suggested books into one big list for my convenience. ;-) Check with Existentia for details, but I'm pretty sure that's the ultimate purpose of this thread. 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. Broken promises!! Oh my! I am very sorry for forgetting I wrote this... I will get on it!
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Post by BigIain on Feb 16, 2010 10:56:17 GMT
This has put me right off reading!!! Books are such a massive cause of tension on the world!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2010 11:18:35 GMT
Thanks EC! I think most of the regular readers on here are in no major hurry,actually,we have been kind of dragging ass so to speak to do our part ....so,not to stress please. I am enjoying and have been inspired by so many new titles and recommendations. Although,I don't know if I'll be launching onto any of the philosophy tomes any time soon. (Did my "time" in undergraduate school).
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Post by tillystar on Feb 17, 2010 9:06:28 GMT
The problem with addin to the list what occurs in that moment is that important ones get missed. I remebered Anita Diamont's The Red Tent at the weekend and have been wailing and gnashing my teeth ever since that it isn't on my list. Can I swap it for something. I Love thi book, even if it was remembered in a conversation with my friend who declared it biblical porn STILL struggling with getting past No. 3 on my non-fiction list.
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