Forgot about Manhunt.
Hmm... What to read next after this Scorsese book.
Forgot about Manhunt.
Hmm... What to read next after this Scorsese book.
books read in 2008
I Am The Cheese — Robert Cormier
Uncertainty — David Lindley
The Knight — Gene Wolfe
The Wizard — Gene Wolfe
The Maimed — Hermann Ungar
Mostly Harmless — Douglas Adams (reread)
The Plot: The Secret Story Of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion — Will Eisner
Literacy With An Attitude — Patrick J. Finn
Fables: Legends In Exile — Bill Willingham
Eats, Shoots, And Leaves — Lynn Truss
Fables — Vol. 2, 3, 4
Y The Last Man — Vol. 8, 9
Fables — Vol. 5, 7 , 8
Classroom Assessment — Peter Airasian, Michael Russell
Shortcomings — Adrian Tomine
The Woman In White — Wilkie Collins
Fables — Sons of Empire
Fables — 1001 Nights of Snowfall
Powers — Vol. 1, 3-11
The Urth of the New Sun — Gene Wolfe
Making Money — Terry Pratchett
Thud! — Terry Pratchett
The Shambhala Guide To Sufism — Carl Ernst
The Mentalist's Handbook — Clint Marsh
Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe
The Doors of Perception; Heaven and Hell — Aldous Huxley
Arkham Asylum — Grant Morrison / Dave McKean
Groucho, Harpo, Chico and sometimes Zeppo — Joe Adamson
The Pixar Touch — David Price
Invisible Man — Ralph Ellison
The Neverending Story — Michael Ende
Black Hole — Charles Burns
Swam Thing, Vols. 1-3 — Alan Moore
An Evil Guest — Gene Wolfe
I'll probably have finished Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom by tomorrow. So far it's much better than An Evil Guest.
"Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
-Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
All first-time reads, quality ranked from top to bottom:
The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Inhuman Condition - Clive Barker
The Crack in Space - Phillip K. Dick
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
The Ruins - Scott Smith
Thinner - Stephen King
The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
I'm still working on Cabal and Teatro Grottesco.
I heard The Power of Myth on audio CD, and it was one of the more profound things I've "read" in my life. Campbell's simultaneous contempt of religious dogma and reverence for mythic archetypes really spoke to me.
The only one I disliked was The Catcher in the Rye. I found Holden to be insufferable.
Well, OK. But why did you dislike the book?Quoting Dead & Messed Up (view post)
Recently Viewed:
Thor: The Dark World (2013) **½
The Counselor (2013) *½
Walden (1969) ***
A Hijacking (2012) ***½
Before Midnight (2013) ***
Films By Year
I like Holden.
I didn't read as much this year. My list...
Patrick Hamilton - The Midnight Bell
Patrick Hamilton - The Siege of Pleasure
Patrick Hamilton - The Plains of Cement
Jessica Mitford - Hons and Rebels
Robertson Davies - The Lyre of Orpheus
Charlotte Bronte - Villette
Margaret Kennedy - The Constant Nymph
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities
Hawthorne - The Blithedale Romance
Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
Timothy Findley - Famous Last Words
Dickens - David Copperfield
John Updike - The Witches of Eastwick
Alice Walker - The Color Purple
Marguerite Duras - The Vice Consul
Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Robert Graves - I, Claudius
Thomas Hardy - The Mayor of Casterbridge
Tove Jansson - The Summer Book
Edith Wharton - The Custom of the Country
Ibsen - A Doll's House
Susan Glaspell - Trifles
Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion
Euripides - Medea
H.G. Wells - The Time Machine
Dambudzo Marechera - The House of Hunger
Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
Louisa May Alcott - Behind a Mask
Ellen Raskin - The Westing Game
Shakespeare - Henry V
Aphra Behn - Oroonoko
John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos
Flaubert - Salammbo
Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
R.D. Blackmore - Lorna Doone
Anais Nin - Henry and June
Aphra Behn - The Rover
Daphne du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel
Shakespeare - Othello
Turgenev - Spring Torrents
Rebecca Miller - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Shakespeare - As You Like It
Sheridan Le Fanu - In a Glass Darkly
Olaf Stapledon - Star Maker
Haruki Murakami - After Dark
Madame de Stael - Corinne
Manuel Puig - Kiss of the Spider Woman
Austen - Northanger Abbey
Pat Barker - The Ghost Road
Shakespeare - Antony and Cleopatra
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Stendhal - Scarlet and Black
Daphne du Maurier - The King's General
Mary Shelley - The Last Man
Virginia Woolf - Flush
Apuleius - The Golden Ass
Frances Burney - Cecilia
Lady Morgan - The Wild Irish Girl
Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight
Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence
Abbe Prevost - Manon Lescaut
Byron - The Corsair
Virgil - The Aeneid
Casanova - The Story of my Life
Frances Burney - Camilla
Eloise Jarvis McGraw - The Moorchild
Dumas (fils) - La Dame aux Camelias
Chekhov - The Cherry Orchard
Helen Fry - Music and Men The Loves of Harriet Cohen
Charlotte Smith - Celestina
Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmations
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre (re-read)
Katherine Mansfield - Selected Stories
Lewis Grassic Gibbon - Sunset Song
Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan
Dickens - Dombey and Son
James Thurber - The Thirteen Clocks
Angela Carter - The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
Charlotte Bronte - Shirley
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
Ursula K. Le Guin - Lavinia
Thomas Hardy - The Return of the Native
Sarah Waters - Affinity
You son of a bitch.
And you still put us all to shame...except Davis.
Awesome. Which translation of The Aeneid did you read?
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Because his insufferable presence completely dominates the book.
I will never understand this opinion. He's a young kid who's aware of his audience and is putting on airs. I find him to be one of the most fascinating, likable characters I've ever read about. He's not likable in the typical sense, but more his position is tragic and, for me at least, totally relatable. I love that book. One of my all time favorites, and one of the only books I've read multiple times.
I found it all well-drawn and precise in its craft, but I just couldn't get behind Holden. I understand that there's some tragedy, but the irritation I got from his character - mostly due to his repetitive, unthinking mind - quickly overtook whatever pity or sympathy I could muster.
Clearly, I'm in a minority, since it seems like most who read the story connect with it. It's just my honest reaction.
I enjoyed this one. It was a strange, and fairly devastating, story.
What was on his list?
This is the version I read.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aeneid-Pengu...0797611&sr=8-1
I've read a lot of fantasy book this year. I really loved the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I cannot wait for the next installment in this series. I wish Martin would hurry up and finish the damn thing. :P
Here's what I have read this year (no rankings):
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin
A Feast for Crows - George R.R. Martin
Gardens of the Moon - Steven Erikson
Deadhouse Gates - Steven Erikson
Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin - Robin Hobb
Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
JPod - Douglas Coupland
Salem's Lot - Stephen King
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Lots of horror and sci-fi books:
http://match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=...postcount=1886
Dryden's translation strikes me as being much better than any of the others; everything about it seems so propulsive and momentous. Though he probably took a lot of liberties with the original text.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Pretty good year for me. Copied and pasted from my Goodreads list:
books read in 2008
1. The World of Yesterday - Zweig, Stefan
2. Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme - Zweig, Stefan
3. La Embriaguez de La Metamorfosis - Zweig, Stefan
4. Candelabro Enterrado, El - Zweig, Stefan
5. Night - Wiesel, Elie
6. The Age of Innocence - Wharton, Edith
7. Brideshead Revisited - Waugh, Evelyn
8. El Viaje Vertical - Vila-Matas, Enrique
9. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - Twain, Mark
10. First Love - Turgenev, Ivan S.
11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Smith, Betty
12. Two Lives: A Memoir - Seth, Vikram
13. Austerlitz - Sebald, W.G.
14. Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas - Schnitzler, Arthur
15. The Human Comedy - Saroyan, William
16. The Laughing Matter - Saroyan, William
17. Bonjour Tristesse - Sagan, Françoise
18. Philosophical Essays - Russell, Bertrand
19. The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance - Roberts, Russell
20. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Rilke, Rainer Maria
21. Art: A Play - Reza, Yasmina
22. The Fountainhead - Rand, Ayn
23. Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1 - Proust, Marcel
24. Pensees - Pascal, Blaise
25. Cosmetique De L'ennemi - Nothomb, Amélie
26. Journal d'Hirondelle - Nothomb, Amélie
27. Stupeur Et Tremblements - Nothomb, Amélie
28. Le Sabotage Amoureux - Nothomb, Amélie
29. David Golder - Nemirovsky, Irene
30. Pnin - Nabokov, Vladimir
31. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Murakami, Haruki
32. El Sur y Bene - Morales, Adelaida GarcÃ*a
33. Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue - Modiano, Patrick
34. Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and A Requiem - Miller, Arthur
35. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers, Carson
36. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Márquez, Gabriel GarcÃ*a
37. So Long, See You Tomorrow - Maxwell, William
38. Tiempo De Silencio - Martin-Santos, Luis
39. The Screwtape Letters - Lewis, C.S.
40. A Grief Observed - Lewis, C.S.
41. Night Patrol and Other Stories - Kuraev, Mikhail
42. Darkness at Noon: A Novel - Koestler, Arthur
43. Fear and Trembling - Kierkegaard, Søren
44. No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories - July, Miranda
45. The Bald Soprano and Other Plays: Bald Soprano/the Lesson/Jack or the Submission/the Chairs - Ionesco, Eugène
46. Island - Huxley, Aldous
47. High Fidelity - Hornby, Nick
48. Jude the Obscure - Hardy, Thomas
49. Life and Fate - Grossman, Vasily
50. The Revolt of the Masses - Gasset, José Ortega y
51. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover) Friedman, Thomas L.
52. The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner, William
53. Middlemarch - Eliot, George
54. What Is the What - Eggers, Dave
55. Chronicles: Volume One - Dylan, Bob
56. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky, Fyodor
57. White Noise - DeLillo, Don
58. Fifth Business - Davies, Robertson
59. Heart of Darkness - Conrad, Joseph
60. Orthodoxy - Chesterton, G.K.
61. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare - Chesterton, G.K.
62. On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton - Chesterton, G.K.
63. Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox - Chesterton, G.K.
64. Saint Francis of Assisi - Chesterton, G.K.
65. The Invention of Morel - Casares, Adolfo Bioy
66. Cathedral - Carver, Raymond
67. Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose - Carver, Raymond
68. The Stranger - Camus, Albert
69. Brodie's Report - Borges, Jorge Luis
70. The Aleph and Other Stories - Borges, Jorge Luis
71. The Diary of a Country Priest: A Novel - Bernanos, Georges
72. Silk - Baricco, Alessandro
73. The New York Trilogy - Auster, Paul
74. Winesburg, Ohio - Anderson, Sherwood
Out of curiosity, how is this one?
Jesus. That's a lot of amazing books.
How are these?
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
I read The Age of Innocence last summer in New York, which I felt was appropriate. It's lush and tragic; for some reason, the ending nearly brought me to tears. I was already a fan of Waugh's work, but I hadn't read Brideshead Revisited 'til this year; it's become my favourite of his. It's not as satirical and biting as his other writings from the 20s and 30s (the ones I was accustomed to), but it is undoubtedly his most humane and profound. Very melancholy, too. First Love was good, thought a bit on the short side. I prefer Fathers and Sons.
As for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter I read it for a second time, as upon my initial reading it became an instant favourite. It's one of the best depictions of rural life in America that I know of, amongst many other things. The characters really come alive and the writing is simple and lyrical. Lots of memorable scenes.
And Jude the Obscure... it was the first book I read in 2008, so I don't remember that much, but I did like it, although I wasn't overwhelmingly impressed. I still have more Hardy to read, however.
I haven't read anything by Waugh. I should get on that. Nothing speaks to me like profundity and melancholy.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Just got an email from SpaceOddity urging me to post my list... as one of the reasons I quit posting here (and spend less time online in general) was to focus more time on reading, well, mission accomplished. Read nearly three times as many titles as last year, even without counting the abandoned books, short stories and essays not listed here.
Collections of poetry are marked with a *.
The Trojan Women - Euripides
Homosexuality and Civilization - Louis Crompton
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Blithedale Romance - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Three Sisters - Anton Chekhov
The Celluloid Closet - Vito Russo
Beowulf
Ecclesiastes
Movie Wars - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Autobiography of Red* - Anne Carson
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho* - Anne Carson
As You Like It - William Shakespeare
Moving Places: A Life at the Movies - Jonathan Rosenbaum
The Beauty of the Husband* - Anne Carson
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
Uncensored: Views and (Re)Views - Joyce Carol Oates
The Wasteland and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot
Kora and Ka (with Mira-Mare) - h.d.
Les enfants terribles - Jean Cocteau
Sexual Personae - Camille Paglia
Sex, Art and American Culture - Camille Paglia
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The White Paper - Jean Cocteau
Say Uncle: Poems* - Kay Ryan
The Bell - Iris Murdoch
Vamps and Tramps - Camille Paglia
The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973 - 1982 - Joyce Carol Oates
The Profane Art: Essays and Reviews - Joyce Carol Oates
Catcher in the Rye (re-read)- J.D. Salinger
With Love and Squalor: 14 Writers Respond to J.D. Salinger - K. Kotzen and T. Beller, eds.
Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall - Richard Barrios
Dancing Ledge - Derek Jarman
Something Bright, Then Holes* - Maggie Nelson
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Seven Notebooks: Poems* - Campbell Mcgrath
The Art of Memoir: Then, Again - Sven Birkerts
The Holy Innocents: A Romance - Gilbert Adair
Sea Change* - Jorie Graham
Stroke: Poems* - Sidney Wade
A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930 - 1960 - Jeanine Basinger
Rock Harbor* - Carl Phillips
Art and Sex in Greenwich Village: A Memoir of Gay Literary Life after Stonewall - Felice Picano
Watching the Spring Festival: Poems* - Frank Bidart
The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations with Famous Writers - Joe David Bellamy, ed.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag
Arkansas: Three Novellas - David Leavitt
The Tether* - Carl Phillips
The Witches - Roald Dahl
Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles - Katie Roiphe
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Franweiler - E.L. Konigsburg
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
An Acceptable Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
___
The books immediately ushered onto my "most-loved" list: Autobiography of Red, Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, Brideshead Revisited, Against Interpretation, Little Woman
Honorable Mentions: As You Like It, Sexual Personae, Les enfants terribles, Name of the Rose, Say Uncle: Poems
A happy new year to everyone!
-jesse
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
I've been meaning to ask you over at GR, but this will work just as well: how much of your reading is for school, and how much for pleasure? A daunting list, one way or the other!
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
Very nice!
How did you like it?
I only read for pleasure. I study Law, so all I read regarding my degree is codes and cases.
By the way, I would like to pimp three European authors that I'm sure aren't very well-known in the US: George Bernanos, Amélie Nothomb and Stefan Zweig.
In particular the last one -- he was truly one of the best writers of the 20th century. His oeuvre is also pretty big (he wrote novels, essays and biographies, like Marie Antoinette's). I don't know to what extent his books have been transtlated into English, or if they can be found with relative ease, but I feel pretty lucky since this publishing company here in Spain has translated pretty much his entire body of work into Spanish. Whenever I don't know what to read, I read whichever of his books, and I've yet to be disappointed.
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