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Stravinsky posted:1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year. I made a draft of this post and came back a week later to find that you added more challenges! I better post this now while I have the chance. Here are some plans and ideas for the booklord's challenge: 1. 25: I hope to manage at least two a month. 2. I will read the Hunger Games trilogy before the last movie comes out, but there will be more female authors. (Edit: I forgot to mention I also want to see if I can understand this criticism.) 3. Plenty of opportunity for overlapping with the ladies and other categories. Possibilities include Edwidge Danticat, Mo Yan, Saiichi Maruya, Chang-rae Lee, Tété-Michel Kpomassie, James Baldwin, Cherríe L. Moraga, Catherine Lim, Laura Esquivel. 4. This is a challenge. I may need recommendations (I will look into CestMoi's). 5. Does art history count? I plan to read a number of textbooks. Maybe Early Medieval Art by Lawrence Nees, or David to Delacroix by Walter Friedlaender. I also have stuff like Paddy's Lament by Thomas Gallagher. 6. Maybe A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. 7. I hope to read Seamus Heaney or Anne Sexton sometime soon. And maybe older stuff, like the Pearl/Gawain poet. 8. The Crying of Lot 49, or If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. I have never read the authors of these books but see them mentioned around here rather a lot. 9. Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett. 10. The Blind Owl: my library catalog says this is Persian experimental fiction, with a subject heading "hallucinations and illusions," by Ṣādiq Hidāyat. I guess this is the one. The record says "compiled by" by Carol L. Sayers but doesn't identify the translator. 11. On Love by Alain de Botton. 12. Like science fiction? I may try Have Space Suit—Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, and Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanisław Lem. 13. Sounds like Blind Owl. 14. I'm open to it, but I probably won't be able to unless I own it or it's in my local library. That's why I'm compiling a Goodreads list of what's available. 15. I don't know of any upcoming publications I'm interested in, but I'm sure to come across some. 16. I really do need to go through those unread books on my shelf. To name one: Foundation, by Asimov. 17. Riders to the Sea, by J.M Synge. In the past I have read Playboy of the Western World, and recommend it. 18. John McGahern's All Will be Well is an autobiography. 19. My library has One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and I look forward to it. 20. I think Shanghai Baby was banned in China. Reviews are mixed. I'm curious. 21. Maybe The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. 22. Hawk & Fisher? I am currently reading An Irish Literature Reader: Poetry, Prose, Drama, edited by Maureen O'Rourke Murphy and James MacKillop. I want to read a bunch of Irish lit and thought this would be a good introduction. Also, Goodreads. Fedelm fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 05:53
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Been reading through the thread and I'm still not sure what is the best way to structure this kind of post. Let's see if this is readable. 1. Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow the Glen - J.M. Synge. One-act plays from, and responses to, the Irish literary revival. Riders to the Sea is about the women who lose male family members to the dangerous sea area in the West of Ireland and was a depressing read, but a great play. In the Shadow of the Glen is less tragic but has an unhappy ending, with I thought good commentary on the unfair treatment of women and a hint of the comedy that was present in Playboy of the Western World which remains my favorite Synge. I'd recommend any of these if you're looking for good drama, but the dialogue can be hard to understand for some (I needed to look up a lot of words and phrases). 2. Shipping out and The Depressed Person - David Foster Wallace. Thank you, Dallas Fort Worth thread, for links to his essays. The guy is discussed a lot in the Book Barn so this helped me understand what ya'll are talking about. I also tried to read his essay about TV but it flew over my head so hard I had to give it up and read it later. "Shipping Out" is an illuminating essay about the culture of Americans who go on cruises, but you knew that. The best part was the bit about his waiter Tibor, who hoped to make enough money to eventually go back to Budapest and open a cafe specializing in cherry soup. Is there any way I can find out if he succeeded? 3. Homo Faber - Max Frisch. I chose this simply because I randomly chose a new author nationality that I don't remember ever reading, and this guy was available in my library. Short, dense novel that looks like a simple series of events and coincidences in a few months of the life of a Swiss engineer, who uses his UNESCO job as an excuse to travel constantly and avoid forming close relationships with anyone, but he ends up meeting people who cause his past to catch up with him. I just loved the psychology, travel, art, technology, and other discussions throughout the book. There's really too much to say about it. It came just short of five stars though because of certain "ick" factors that bother me. 4. Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You - Joyce Carol Oates. Brutally honest novel about the dysfunctional lives of prep school girls. A constant theme is the suicide of one of the girls and how her friends moved on afterward, with constant memories of what their friend was like and what she would say now in response to each situation they find themselves in -- but a great deal of the story also deals with their own inner demons, especially how bad parenting leads to poor mental health in teenagers. Reviews of the book suggest that it's just melodramatic, but a lot of the behavior depicted in the book was all too recognizable for me. Longer reviews (except for "Shipping Out," for which I couldn't find an individual page) on Goodreads if you're interested for some reason. Booklord challenge: 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year: 4/25, so far counting some by the same author as one. 2. Female author: Joyce Carol Oates. 6. An essay: two by David Foster Wallace. 17. A play: two by J.M. Synge. I'm now working on An Irish Literature Reader: Poetry, Prose, Drama edited by Maureen O'Rourke Murphy to give me a good sampling of Irish lit and ideas on what authors to read next (I have read a little bit of Yeats and Joyce, for example, and find them to be pretty far above my level, so I'm looking for easier and less well-known authors).
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Feb 23, 2015 02:31
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I thought I would have a lot of downtime this year, but I was wrong. I don't think I'm going to reach my 25 books for the year, but I want to see how many challenges I can meet regardless. Currently working on some Banana Yoshimoto because her name is repeatedly mentioned in TBB. These fit into various Booklord categories so I will sort them out in the end of the year. May I also have a wildcard? Fedelm posted:
5. An Irish literature reader - edited by Maureen O'Rourke Murphy. A sampling of everything. Probably the best bit was a poem a medieval monk wrote about his beloved cat. 6. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I thought I read this before but I must have been too young or didn't know much English or something, wow did it fly over my head as a child. Now I feel like too much of a grown-up. 7. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories - Leo Tolstoy. I'm lucky this book came across my desk. Very intelligent stories about social class in nineteenth century Russia. (The other stories are The Two Old Men, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, The Forged Coupon, Master and Workman, and Alyosha Pot). I think it's the only solid 5/5 for this year so far. (Translation by Nicolas Pasternak Slater) 8. Quicksand - Nella Larsen's first novel about race, this is one about a young woman in the 1920s who had a white mother and black father and due largely to this keeps rejecting or being rejected in every community in which she tries to find a place. 9. Passing - Larsen's next, about African American women who can "pass" for white in various situations. Weirdly amusing when a woman who passes only occasionally, for example so she can get into in an upscale hotel restaurant on a hot day, is shocked when she comes across another person who passes as a way of life. These two novels help drive home the absurdity of racism but also made clear how little I know about it. 10. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - by Harlan Ellison. I read this short story because of TV tropes. Yikes! 11. The Book of Margery Kempe: I wanted to read a medieval primary source, and the story The Two Old Men by Leo Tolstoy got me interested in reading about some real-life pilgrimages. This book delivered. It was sort of fun trying to figure out if Margery was just crazy but it was more fun taking her seriously. Also, reading about a woman finding solace from dealing with persistent difficult emotions was sort of what I needed at the time. Working on a Goodreads review for this crazy book. (Translation by Anthony Bale) Fedelm fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Oct 19, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 19:04
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Fedelm posted:May I also have a wildcard? I think I'm still open to this unless I missed something? Fedelm posted:1. Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow the Glen - J.M. Synge. 12. Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto. Along with its companion short story "Moonlight Shadow," this novella was as good as promised but I didn't know they would focus so much on bereavement and loneliness. At least they ended on a  note.13. Omon Ra - Viktor Pelevin. According to another review, "The straight face that Victor Pelevin wears at the start of Omon Ra -- which begins like a coming-of-age novel about an impoverished Soviet boy who dreams, with his best friend Mitiok, of flying to the moon -- quickly breaks into a maniacal grin." I think a lot of the satire flew over my head -- I'm not too familiar with Soviet propaganda -- and I spent too much time worrying whether Omon was going to die. Great book and easily fits at least three Booklord challenges. Currently working on The Plague and All You Need is Kill. Fellwenner posted:38. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. Perfect. Just perfect. I'm going to need to read it again before reviewing. It's been decades since I read it but I remember having very mixed feelings. I think this character study of Scarlett O'Hara (and Melanie Wilkes) is pretty fair though: http://12-12-12.livejournal.com/207019.html
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Nov 7, 2015 18:20
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guppy posted:1. Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities - This book is about 165 pages. It took me about six months to read, which is sad. I really enjoyed it at first, and I like the format and the prose, but lack of a clear narrative thread meant I just put it down for weeks on end. I am a philistine. If it helps, I was very similar in 2015. Turns out sitting around recovering from surgery made reading a lot more difficult instead of less. Also, I started The Plague in the beginning of October and still slogging through ... On the bright side, this was still a great challenge. I read a few books out of my comfort zone, I have Blind Owl bookmarked and North checked out. Thanks everyone for the suggestions! 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year. 18/25 2. Read a female author. Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You / Joyce Carol Oates; Quicksand; and Passing / Nella Larsen; The Book of Margery Kempe; Kitchen / Banana Yoshimoto; Hunger Games trilogy / Suzanne Collins. 3. The non-white author. Nella Larsen; All You Need is Kill / Hiroshi Sakurazaka; Banana Yoshimoto. 4. Philosophy. Working on The Plague. 5. History. 6. An essay. The Depressed Person / David Foster Wallace. 7. A collection of poetry. Lots of them in the Irish Literature Reader. 8. Something post-modern. Omon Ra / Viktor Pelevin, surprisingly fitting more categories than I thought. 9. Something absurdist. Omon Ra, communist satire. 10. The Blind Owl. 11. Something on either hate or love. Kitchen, very much so. 12. Something dealing with space. Omon Ra, space flight. 13. Something dealing with the unreal. The Book of Margery Kempe. She had visions. Maybe. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read). Still working on North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, thanks booklord. 15. Something published this year or the past three months. 16. That one book that has been sitting on your desk waiting for a long time. Hunger Games trilogy. 17. A play. Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow of the Glen by J.M. Synge. 18. Biography. The Book of Margery Kempe is basically an autobiography. 19. The color red. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt (hey it was a good story). 20. Something banned or censored. 21. Short story. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories by Leo Tolstoy. 22. A mystery. guppy posted:Here's to reading more in 2016 than your average twelve year old.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:04
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Mr. Squishy posted:That's a short story isn't it? I've seen it repeatedly put into both categories and while reading it seemed to go back and forth really, so I could go either way. But I might also be confused because it was almost a year ago, and the only other DFW stuff I read are essays and I don't remember this one seeming too different. Your Tender is the Night review makes me want to read that again, I guess it's another one of those books that I couldn't have understood in high school.
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Jan 15, 2016 19:18
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