Update!

Blogger tells me I haven't posted here since the start of August...my bad! Back then I was hauling myself through Midnight's Children, which in the end I really enjoyed. I'm looking forward to reading more Salman Rushdie one of these days.

Between then and now I've crossed a couple of other books off my list. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields, I really enjoyed. It's the fictionalised autobiography of an ordinary Canadian woman, it's beautifully written. The Gathering, by Anne Enright I wasn't too wild about - it's the story of the ups and downs of an Irish family. I finished it feeling mildly irritated.

Then over Christmas I read Anna Karenina, which I probably would have enjoyed more if I hadn't read The Master and Margerita right before it. (Sidenote: that book is a new favourite. It's so wonderfully depraved!) Having said that though, l did like it. It's a great epic saga, and all of the characters are wonderfully flawed. Really, they all are. At one point or another I hated every single character in this book, but as collective group they're all okay :)

So that's where I'm at right now - 42 down, 58 to go! I'm thinking about possibly tackling Gone With the Wind next, although I might just resort to my tried and true method of a random number generator.

Also, I've decided to stop putting it off so I'm writing this now so you all can remind me - I'm going to read Ulysses this year EVEN IF IT KILLS ME WHICH IT PROBABLY WILL! I'm determined.

PS - I seem to be much better at updating my Goodreads account, so in case I disappear for another eight months, I might be here.

PPS - Moonrat, I just finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay...

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

So after a very long break, and an even longer amount of procrastinating, I decided to pick my next book using the scientific method of a random number generator. And the first book the computer picked was this one.

I'm enjoying it. At least I think I am. It's the most difficult book I've ever read and I'm not entirely sure why. Is it because my knowledge of India's history is negligible? Is my head just not in the right place? I haven't read any of Salman Rushdie's books until now, and I'm wondering whether I should have picked The Satanic Verses instead?

If anyone has read it I'd love to hear. I'm determined to finish it, no matter what.

I'm back!

I've put this gap-filling project on hold while I drag myself through the final stages of my degree, but as of next Friday I am all done (I HOPE), so it's time for me to get back into this!

Trouble is, I don't know where to start. My mental state is in no condition to tackle anything too difficult right now (Iliad!), so I wanted to ask you guys - what book should I read next?

Here's where I'm at right now:

1. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
2. The Iliyad - Homer
3. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
4. The Power of One - Bryce Courtney
5. Ulysses - James Joyce
6. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
7. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
8. Animal Farm - George Orwell
9. Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
10. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
11. Persuasion - Jane Austen
12. The Boat - Nam Le
13. My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
14. Carpentaria - Alexis Wright
15. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
16. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
17. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
18. 1984 - George Orwell
19. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
20. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
21. Middlemarch - George Eliot
22. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
23. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
24. The White Earth - Andrew McGhan
25. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
26. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
29. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
30. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
31. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
32. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
33. Everything I Knew - Peter Goldsworthy
34. Wanting - Richard Flannagan
35. A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
36. Schindlers Ark - Thomas Kennally
37. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
38. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
39. The Eye in the Door - Pat Barker
40. The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
41. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
42. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
43. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
44. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchel
45. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
46. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
47. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
48. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
49. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
52. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
53. 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
54. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
55. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
56. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
57. The Monkeys Mask - Dorothy Porter
58. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
59. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
60. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
61. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
62. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
63. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
64. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
65. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
66. The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
67. Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
68. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
69. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
70. The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
71. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
72. Watership Down - Richard Adams
73. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey
74. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
75. The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
76. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
77. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
78. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
79. Tbe Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
80. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
81. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
82. March - Geraldine Brooks
83. The Thornbirds - Colleen McCullough
84. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
85. Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
86. Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
87. The House of Spirits - Isabel Allende
88. Sophie’s Choice - William Styron
89. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
90. The Gathering - Anne Enright
91. Life & Times of Michael K - J M Coetzee
92. The Sea – John Banville
93. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
94. The Divine Comedy - Dante
95. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
96. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
97. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
98. The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
99. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
100. Breakfast at Tiffanys - Truman Capote

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

It feels like I've been reading it for about twenty years, but it's actually only been about three weeks. I need to debrief!

This is the first Murakami book I've read, and definitely won't be the last. But to explain why is difficult. As an experience, this book is like watching a David Lynch film - it makes perfect sense until you try and explain it to someone. It's certainly not for everyone. Plot-wise, not a lot happens (a cat goes missing and turns up again). I found it deeply unsettling to read, especially the part in Mongolia. The copy I read (Vintage) was advertising it as a pair with Alice in Wonderland, which is a fair comaparison. It's like going down the rabbit-hole, but for adults. Except in this case it's a well. And it's infinitely more terrifying.

Double Update

Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally

I never knew until now that this book was only called Schindler's List in America, but that's besides the point. It's very similar to In Cold Blood in terms of narrative non-fiction. I really enjoyed it, although at times I found it difficult keeping track of who's who. Oskar Schindler really was a morally ambiguous character, but whatever his reasons were for saving Jews were at first, by the end he really worked hard to protect them and what he achieved was pretty incredible.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

If I was writing this when I finished this book, a couple of days ago, I would have said that I didn't like it. But after a couple of days with that book stewing in the back of my mind, I appreciate it a whole lot more. There are parts of that book that are completely terrifying, and I just felt so sorry for Piggy. The only thing that bothered me was the obvious metaphors belting me over the head.

Has anyone read either of these?

PS - I've worked out my next list: my 100 favourites of all time!

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

First, a sidenote: When I was in Barcelona in 2006 I went to check out the Sagrada Familia Basilica. Fun fact: it was designed by Antony Gaudi, began construction in 1882 and has an anticipated completion date of 2026.

I only bring that up because I can kind of understand Ken Follet's obsession with cathedrals. I mean, I was at Sagrada Familia for maybe an hour five years ago and I can still remember those facts. If you haven't read the book, it's set in England in the 12th century, and is basically a story about the building of a cathedral. And lets face it, building a cathedral is no ordinary task. The book is full of detail about how to build a cathedral, should you feel the urge.

The Pillars of the Earth is an entertaining read without being amazing. I was suprised to see how divided people are about it on Goodreads. It seems to be a book you either love or hate, which makes me in the minority, because I have absolutely no strong feelings about it either way. Yes the characters were pretty generic, and I was getting a bit tired by about the 800 page mark (it's an epic tale), but I still enjoyed it.

On a completely unrelated topic, I also read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and I'm annoyed for two reasons: it turns out it wasn't on my list, AND I didn't like it at all. If you've read it can you please explain what the attraction to this story is because I just do not get it.

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

Bleak House is one of the most absorbing books I have ever read. I read this book in bed, on the train, outside the State Library waiting for a friend, outside Melbourne Central waiting for another friend, on the treadmill at the gym and in the park at the end of my street, and every time I looked up I half expected it to be foggy, and to see hansom cabs rattle past instead of protestors and trams.

Basically Bleak House is the story of a lawsuit and its effect on those who live in its periphery, but really it's a lesson in characterisation. There are 1088 pages in my copy of the book, and I swear a new character was introduced on each page. As a random selection, there's Tulkinghorn, the creepy menacing lawyer, there's the man-child Richard Skimpole who starts off as a delighful character, but whose childishness just makes him quite awful in the end and there's Richard Carstone who begins as a sunny care-free character but who pays the price for becoming with consumed with the law suit, or the 'family curse' as it's known. My favourites though are the Bagnets - Mrs Bagnet is an awesome mother-hen of a woman who bosses everyone around, and Mr Bagnet expresses his views solely through his wife -

Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Tell him my opinion of it."

"Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!"

"Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion."

But as he also says -

"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained."

I could go on about this book, but I won't. It was epic, and challenging, and hilarious, and hearbreaking and I'm glad I read it.

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

On the eve of the Second World War Charles Ryder, a man without money or powerful relations befriends Sebastian Flyte, the wealthy son of an aristocrat. Sebastian takes Charles home to visit the old family house at Brideshead and gradually, Charles is introduced to the whole family and is drawn into the complicated threads of their relationships.

Evelyn Waugh was quite disparaging of Brideshead Revisited, saying that "the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful". In a way I guess it's true. There is a clear nostalgia for the England that had been destroyed during the second world war. The aristocratic families that had for so long existed without cause for concern were selling their houses and forced to take greater notice of the world around them. There's one bit in particular where someone (Rex Mottram I think) bemoans the way that Julia's family do business. That of course all changes by the end of the book.

There's a lot to like about this book. I was fascinated by the relationship between Sebastian and Charles - well, Charles' relationship with everyone really - but Sebastian's tendency to just float along made him both endearing and irritating. To be fair the whole family were like that though - they were all lovely people, but all living in a fantasy world. My favourite character though was Anthony Blanche. He was delightful, and for a relatively minor character he steals the show a bit.

My most favourite part of all, and the reason why I recommend this book to everyone, is something Sebastian says on page 26. When I read it, I sighed.

"I should like to bury something precious in every place I've been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember."

PS - I've been putting off Bleak House for far too long. Anyone else have it on their horizon?

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

Here's a fun fact: Rebecca was used by German soldiers as a code source during the second World War. Presumeably they didn't include the first chapter as a source though, as I can't imagine German high command had the need to send passionate descriptions of trees to each other.

Rebecca was one book that I'd been meaning to read for a long time, and it didn't disappoint me - but the first chapter just seemed like a gratuitous attempt to beef up the word count (and trust me, I know all about that). It just stood out - it had no real bearing on anything that came after and really irritated me!

Despite that, I did enjoy the book. I can see parallels with Jane Eyre, although I think I prefer Jane to the unnamed narrator here. I absolutely identified with the insecurity and unease of the narrator, and the story sucked me in completely, even if at times it felt a bit melodramatic. But I still prefer Jane Eyre. She has more substance to her.

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

For some reason this book took me ages to read, but that I think was more to do with its physical size than anything else.

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this book. Some books just seem daunting and impregnable (Jonathan Franzen!), but this book was amazing. Most of the book takes place in a lifeboat in the ocean with Pi and Richard Parker, but at no point did I lose interest. It's one of those books that leaves you feeling exhausted.

My most favourite part is the last chapter, which I won't go into for anti-spoiler purposes but it left me thinking about the value of a good story. Life of Pi is definitely that.

Another book that I read that turns out not to be on my list is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. If you've got Moby Dick on your reading horizon then I would recommend reading this one as well. Despite the pages and pages of Professor Annorax naming the types of marine life he sees through the window, I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of unanswered questions at the end - why Captain Nemo throws his life away to live beneath the sea for one - but I didn't feel cheated. I thought it was pretty similar to Moby Dick but not quite so severe.

Next up is either Bleak House or Rebecca.

Er...about Ulysses...(and actual achievements)

I bought it.

I read about three pages.

Then I made this sort of squeaky yelp and hid it under my bed. MASSIVE support group is required before I attack that one!

I have crossed two others off my list though. I enjoyed Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, although for some reason at the end I was reminded of my only cinema studies subject in my undergrad when the lecturer talked about homo-eroticism and Top Gun and then we watched it and my poor 19 year old mind was blown. The ending of the book was incredible (no spoilers)

Catcher in the Rye was incredible. Now all I need to do is build a time machine, travel back to the year 2000 and let my seventeen year old self read it. Just an amazing book.

On a mission...

I've decided that because I've been pretty slack in the gap filling of late, I need to set myself a challenge.

So here it is: I'm going to try and read Ulysses by James Joyce by Bloomsday, which is the 15th of June.

I'm pretty sure that this will turn out to be impossible, as most of my ideas are, but I solemnly swear to update on the 15th of June with my progress report at least.

Anyone else feeling brave/monumentally insane?

A very delayed update

Hi gang,

It's been ages since I've posted an update in here, but sadly the world outside of my bookpile has taken over for a little while.

Here's a very quick summary:

* I enjoyed House of Spirits, but not because of the magial realism aspect. In fact, the first two thirds kind of dragged a little bit, it wasn't until the end, with the civil war that I was reallt drawn in. I liked the whole book, but not as much as I thought I would.

* One Hundred Years of Solitude was every bit as great as I thought it would be.

* You know how sometimes you read a book at exactly the right time? So it was with Farenheit 451 for me. Such an amazing book, and horrifyingly just as relevant now as it was when it was published.

Right now though I'm reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I'm so late in on this series, but I love it! Consider me completely sucked in.

I do need to get back into my list though. Is anyone up for a group read?

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

Everybody's probably familiar with this story by now? Criss-crossing America looking for the great American Dream?

I was all set to love it. It sounded exactly my cup of tea. I REALLY didn't expect to dislike it as much as I did. It was such a struggle to finish, I just got so bored with it. I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable, and all in all I'm going to consider it a victory that I finished it.

(Apologies if this is your favourite book. If it is, I'd love to hear why, because I'm missing something.)

The White Earth - Andrew McGahan

William is only eight years old when he sees the mushroom cloud of smoke on the horizon, and at first he doesn't understand what it means. Only in the rush of cars and people to his farmhouse in the Darling Downs does he realise that his father has been killed.

After the funeral, William and his unstable mother accept the charity of a great-uncle he never knew existed and go to live at Kuran House. William soon realises however, that his invitation to the station was not an act of charity: his uncle, after finally obtaining what he had worked for his whole life, needs someone to ensure that his legacy at Kuran House continues on. However, he is not going to just hand over the station to William. First he must prove himself.

The book is set against the backdrop of the Mabo ruling in 1992, when the Australian government recognised that the Aboriginal people had owned the land prior to white settlement, and still had a claim on it. William's Uncle John is a member of the Australian Independence League, essentially an organisation to protect the interests of white farmers, but in the book is taken over by white pride zealots. While William enjoys the camaraderie of the League, he soon begins to question its motives and its arguement.

I'd never heard of The White Earthuntil I started looking for books to put on my list, but I'm so glad I did. I was pretty little when the Mabo ruling was made, so it was interesting to be able to view it from this angle. There is also something very Dickensian about the story, with the hermit uncle living in a dilapidated old farmhouse and the general feel of the story.

I definitely recommend it, it's a fantastic read.

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

I've been slacking in keeping tally on here, so this is me catching up, starting with The Remains of the Day

James Stevens, the aging butler of a once grand house, has a world view confined to the realm of his profession. When the opportunity arises to take a trip across 1950s England to visit a former work colleague Stevens reflects on the nature of his job, his former employer Lord Darlington, and the woman whom he is about to visit.

This book is one of the most understated books I've ever read, and its way one of the most melancholic. The story of his devotion to the job, while his father lay dying upstairs is one good example. Steven's quiet pride in his ability to continue his job while his father lay dying upstairs was just so very sad, as was the way in which he not only defended Lord Darlington but spoke of his 'honour' at being in a position of service to great world events.

In the end Stevens realises that his quest for dignity has cost him a life of love and fulfillment, which was the saddest moment of all. But, like a true butler, he drives back to the house to face his most pressing concern - how to react when his new American boss banters with him.

I loved this book. It's so quiet and elegant, and although you probably wouldn't think it there are some truly funny moments in there. I definitely recommend it.

Update!

It's been a little while since I've been on here, so here is a brief catchup!

Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence

I don't know what I was expecting when I picked this one up. I knew about the banning and the controversy obviously, and now that I've read it I can understand why. Definitely ahead of its time. For the most part, I didn't find ANY of the characters that likeable, and parts of the story dragged a bit, but I'm glad I read it.

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote


I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH! Holly Golightly is definitely one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and Truman Capote is now one of my favourite authors.

Lolita - Vladamir Nabokov

This one was a surprise. I thought I was going to hate this book with a passion, but the more I read it the more I liked it. Everyone in the book is despicable in one way or another, and in the end I didn't see Humbert Humbert as the outrageous creep I thought I would.

A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz

Man this was heavy. It was funny, but there was a whole lot of pontificating going on, which was a bit of a struggle. I enjoyed it a lot.

Carpentaria - Alexis Wright

"One evening in the driest grasses in the world, a child who was no stranger to her people, asked if anyone could find hope. The people of parable and prophecy pondered what was hopeless and finally declared they no longer knew what hope was. The clocks, tick-a-ty tock, looked as though they might run out of time. Luckily, the ghosts in the memories of the old folk were listening, and said anyone can find hope in the stories: the big stories and the little ones in between."
--Carpentaria, p1

On the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland is the tiny town known as Desperance (despite government attempts to rename the town), a town ravaged by monsoons, cyclones and incomprehensible tidal patterns. Home to the white people of Uptown, and the warring families of the Pricklebush and the Westsiders, the town is constantly at war with itself, with each other, and with the world around it. The story mostly centres around one family, the Phantoms of the Pricklebush - Fishing king, accused murderer and master storyteller Norm Phantom, his proud and haughty ex-wife Angel Day and his children, including political activist Will Phantom, who takes matters into his own hands when the worlds biggest iron ore mine begins construction on Aboriginal land.

As Wright puts it, Carpentaria is about "the big stories, and the little ones in between." It combines the constant rumour mongering and apocryphal stories of the Uptown people with Dreamtime legends, and old ancestral tales. Stories like Elias Smith, the man who walked into town out of the sea and left just as he arrived; or Mozzie Fishman the religious zealot who leads his band of believes across the country following an ancient ancestral tradition.

More than this though, it is also about the uneasy relationship between the white and indigenous residents of Desperance, and of the country as a whole. It deals with issues like land rights and Aboriginal deaths in custody, both issues that have been debated fiercely even since the book was published in 2006.

I wish I could tell you how much I loved this book. I don't know if I'm biased, since I tend to like all things magical realism, but this book is aamzing. It's big and sprawling and epic and utterly utterly incredible. It's taken me about two months to read it (making it the longest amount of time I've ever spent on one book) - the language, grammar and style make it not an easy book to read, but it's so worth it. It's full of quirky humour, utter despair and everything in between.

Briony

I have a confession to make...

So I'm reading Carpentaria by Alexis Wright, and I have stalled.

I have stalled because it is one of the most amazing books I have ever read, and I'm only going to get to read it for the first time once! All I want to do now is run away to the Northern Territory (and I'm so jealous of my friend, who is already there). It's such a wonderful lyrical story that captures the top end perfectly. No wonder it won the Miles Franklin.

I had the same problem the first time I read To Kill A Mockingbird. I remember finishing it and wishing I could have that experience over again. Does this happen to you guys? And how do you keep going?

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

In 1959, the following article appeared in the New York Times:

Holcomb, Kan., Nov. 15 [1959] (UPI) -- A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged ... There were no signs of a struggle, and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut.

It piqued the interest of Truman Capote, who set off to Kansas to investigate the murders along with his childhood friend Harper Lee. After extensive interviews, and eight thousand pages worth of notes he wrote In Cold Blood.

Widely considered to be the first of its type, In Cold Blood looks mainly at the relationship between the two killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, but also tells of the Cutter family, and the effect that their murder had on the town of Holcomb. Capote spent six years working on the book, from before a suspect was found right through to the hanging of Smith and Hickcock.

I'd never read any of Truman Capote's work up until now, but I have read the biography Capote written by Gerald Clarke (on which the movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman is largely based), so I knew a little bit about the book. Whether it is the first 'non fiction novel' or not, it's still a pretty amazing piece of journalism - a book like Underbelly owes a pretty big debt to this book I think.

I read somewhere that some people criticised the book for humanising the killers, especially Perry Smith, to the point where people accused Capote of having an affair with Smith while he was on death row. I guess in a way its true, in that Smith seemed much more sympathetic than Hickcox, but by the end of the book I just about felt sorry for everyone. I liked the idea of Capote taking Harper Lee with him down to Holcomb to gain the trust of the locals. I can imagine how he must have gone over down at the local cafe.

Anyway, I definitely recommend In Cold Blood, especially if you have an interest in investigative journalism. Even if you don't though, it's well worth the read.