The wrap up...

Two more down...

Fall into Reading ended December 20. I didn't finish quite as much as I planned (13 out of 15 books), but not too bad. Those last two will hopefully be read by either the end of the year or VERY early next year. That's the plan anyway. I read a pretty wide variety of books, trying to fit in all the books from my various challenges. My books were...

1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott 5/5

2. The Pilgrim of Hate - Ellis Peters 4/5

3. Daisy Miller - Henry James 2/5

4. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 2/5

5. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 5/5

6. The Alienist - Caleb Carr

7. The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury 3/5

8. Adolphe - Benjamin Constant 2/5

9. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde 3/5

10. Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas - Louise Rennison

11. American Gods - Neil Gaiman 3/5

12. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 5/5

13. The Third Chimpanzee - Jared Diamond

Like I said, a pretty wide variety. A couple rereads...some I loved, some I didn't like much at all...a good mix. Also completed...

The goal was to read 8 books from consecutive decades in '08. I tried to be ambitious and read 12 books (one for each month) in consecutive decades in '08. I only managed to get through 10, and know I won't be getting to the last two any time soon. So. I fulfilled the requirements, but fell short of my own goal. Not too bad. My books were...

1. Persuasion - Jane Austen 3/5

2. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving 4/5

3. The Red and the Black - Stendhal 4/5

4. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 4/5

5. Madame Bovary - Gustav Flaubert 3/5

6. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott 5/5

7. Daisy Miller - Henry James 2/5

8. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 2/5

9. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde 3/5

10. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 5/5

It's funny...I'm looking back at some of the books I read early in the year and I think my ratings are a little high for the impression the books left on me...like The Red and the Black and Wuthering Heights. I was sure I had rated those 3/5. Interesting. An interesting challenge and I am looking forward to participating this coming year.

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Shell Cottage, Tinworth Cornwall, England

The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

the scarlet pimpernel

baroness emmuska orczy
c. 1905
250ish pages
completed 12/20/2008

read for: decades challenge

*may contain spoilers*

I'll start off by saying I had already seen the mini-series so I already knew who the Pimpernel was so that surprise was not exactly a surprise...

I think it's worthy of noting how the main idea of this book, the main point of the Pimpernel himself, is the opposite of almost all other heroes like this. Zorro, Robin Hood, the Scarecrow...they were all against the rich and for the poor. The rich, the aristocracy, were all evil oppressors who lived in luxury on the shoulders of the poor. The Scarlet Pimpernel, on the other hand, is the opposite. He rescues the aristocratic French from the masses. The people are CRAZY in their blood lust. Normally, you're totally on the side of the peasants, they're the good people. And because of that...I'm not totally sure if I'm supposed to be 100% for the French aristocrats. I mean, yes, the French masses are kind of out of control with their Reign of Terror, but...they were being oppressed. Right? That being said...

I really enjoyed that this was not a normal adventure story. It wasn't told from the perspective of the adventurer, it was told through the eyes of his wife. You weren't privy to the emotions and motives of the Pimpernel, instead you saw his wife dealing with her emotions of love for her husband despite his apparent lack of affection for her, her trying to win back her husband's love, and her struggle between saving her husband and betraying her brother. It was a very entertaining and different setup.

I also have to say, I love Sir Percy. LOVE him. Yes, he's proud and unrelenting in his coldness toward Margeurite, but that small scene right after she told him about the trouble Armand was in, after she'd left him on the terrace, secured my everlasting love. The ice around his heart melted for a moment, and he fell to his knees, kissing the place she had just stood. How sad.

5/5

Control yourself...

My TBR list is rapidly getting more and more out of control. So naturally I would join this next challenge...The 2009 TBR Challenge! During 2009 read 12 books, one for each month, off your personal TBR list. Choose your 12 before January 1, 2009 and once they're set THEY'RE SET! My books will be...

1. The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salmon Rushdie
3. God's Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips
4. The Year of Living Biblically - AJ Jacobs
5. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
6. The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde
7. The Virgin of Small Plains - Nancy Pickard
8. The Crusade - Michael Alexander Eisner
9. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
10. The Adventure of David Simple - Sarah Fielding
11. Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir
12. The Romanov Bride - Robert Alexander

I keep thinking I should tone down the challenges for next year...

The wrap up...

Go me, I have just finished The Classics Challenge! I read five classics and the one that someone else believes should be considered a "new classic." I really enjoyed this challenge. I am always trying to get myself to read more classics, and it was interesting to see what someone else feels should be a classic. My books were...

1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott 5/5
2. Daisy Miller - Henry James 2/5
3. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 2/5
4. Adolphe - Benjamin Constant 2/5
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde 3/5
6. American Gods - Neil Gaiman - 3/5

I wasn't wild about all my books but I'm glad to have read them.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

american gods
neil gaiman
c. 2001
480 pages
completed 12/13/2008

read for: classics challenge

*may contain spoilers*

This was read for part of the classics challenge (see sidebar) as a newer book that should one day be considered a classic. I have to say, I disagree. This was an interesting read (for the most part), but not a classic. In my opinion.

In the beginning, I thought the premise was very intriguing, a war between the old gods (Odin, Anansi, etc) and the new gods (media, technology, etc). I really wanted to see how that went down. And it was cool seeing Gaiman's interpretations of the gods living today, lots of different gods that are not necessarily too commonly known to the average American anymore, as well as American legends like Johnny Appleseed. But in the end when you found out "just kidding we're not having a war!" I was kind of disappointed.

Also I thought the subplot about the missing Lakeside children was weird and out of place. And the little stories about the random gods being brought to America and then forgotten kind of detracted from the story. I understand the point of them, and how they were connected to the main story, but...

3/5

That which we call a rose...

Another new challenge for 2009! I thought about participating in this challenge last year, but I didn't get around to it. This year I will. The What's In a Name Challenge...

Read six books in 2009, each title featuring one of the following categories:

1. profession

2. time of day
3. relative
4. body part
5. building
6. medical condition

For most of the challenges this year, I am really trying make them fit my out of control TBR pile, as opposed to searching for random books to fit the challenges. So some of my titles (those for profession, body part, and medical condition) may be considered a bit of a stretch.

My list will be...

1. The Tsarina's Daughter - Carolly Erikson (profession)
2. The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox (time of day)
3. American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld (relative)
4. The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter (body part)

5. The Teahouse on Mulberry Street - Sharon Owens (building)
6. Miscarriage of Justice - Kip Gayden (medical condition)

Like I said, maybe a bit of a stretch. But maybe that's the point...

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Minnesota, USA

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

the picture of dorian gray
oscar wilde
c. 1891
187 pages
completed 12/1/2008

read for: decades challenge, classics challenge, 1% challenge, 100 greatest novels, 1001 books, penguin classics

*may contain spoilers*

This was an interesting book. As far as the story goes, I enjoyed it. There were some chapters that just expanded on the philosophies of Lord Henry that were hard for me to read and enjoy. I believe there was one whole chapter of that nature that I skipped. His philosophies were somewhat interesting at the beginning, but I got bored having to keep hearing about them. The idea of 'good' was beauty, youth, art, and pleasure. The idea of 'evil' was crime, vulgarity, and (worst of all) ennui. If that was all I got out of his philosophies, that was good enough for me to understand the point of the book.

Dorian and Lord Henry's relationship was very puzzling to me. Lord Henry was the one who influenced Dorian with his philosophies and books. Lord Henry was, in my opinion, the one (outside of Dorian) most responsible for the corruption of Dorian's soul; he was the serpent to Dorian's Eve, and yet it was Basil, who did nothing more than idolize Dorian and paint his portrait, who Dorian blamed.

What I found most interesting, and also most aggravating, about this books was some of the...missing information. For example, the old woman at the opium den. Who was she? How did she meet Dorian? How did she know to call him Prince Charming? Probably the most prominent of these bits of missing information was the character of Alan Campbell. What came between him and Dorian? What sin did he commit that Dorian was able to blackmail him for? We never find out.

All in all, an enjoyable story, though not always the most enjoyable read.

3/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Los Angeles, California, USA

To be read...

New TBR books for the month of November...

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
Off the Menu - Christine Son
Mermaids in the Basement - Michael Lee West
The Greatest Knight - Elizabeth Chadwick
Barnacle Love - Anthony de Sa
The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
The Sixteen Pleasures - Roberta Hellenga
Conceit - Mary Novik
The Minutes of the Lazarus Club - Tony Pollard
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
The Witch's Trinity - Erika Mailman
Faro's Daughter - Georgette Heyer

Only 13 this month...

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Once again, totally stolen from 1morechapter...

London, England

There are so many colors in the rainbow...

Another new challenge: the 2009 Themed Reading Challenge...

There are a few different versions of this challenge, and I have chosen the first version. Between February 1 and July 31, read four books off my TBR pile that are connected through a common theme. My theme? Colors in the title...not too original, but I've got lots to choose from. My books will be...

1. The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber

2. Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

3. The Woman in Black - Susan Hill

4. Girl in a Blue Dress - Gaijnor Arnold

It's good to be trimming down my out of control TBR pile...

Read it yourself...

A new challenge: the Read Your Own Books Challenge...

From January 1 through December 31, challenge yourself to read your own books, however many you want. I currently own six books that I haven't read yet. So I'm just challenging myself to read those six. My books will be...
1. Possession - AS Bryatt
2. The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy
3. The Good German - Joseph Kanon
4. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman
5. Royal Escape - Georgette Heyer
6. The Shape of Mercy - Susan Meissner

Four I have had for a long time, but two I received in book giveaways this past year. Looks good.

Adolph - Benjamin Constant

adolphe
benjamin constant
c. 1816
123 pages completed 11/11/2008

*may contain spoilers*

I don't think I enjoyed this book. I was irritated the whole time. Irritated by both Adolphe and Ellenore. Both of them were ridiculous and I found pretty much nothing redeemable about either of them. No matter what they told themselves, neither of them were in love. Adolphe was bored and then weak. Ellenore was just clinging to someone who treated her with something more than grudging respect.

It seems to be a common theme with French writers from around this time that men did not fall in love before they began these affairs. Instead, they're bored and decide to embark on a contest with themselves. The affair has nothing to do with love, it's a challenge to see if they can get a woman to fall in love with them. And I can find nothing at all interesting about this kind of affair.

2/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

This is absolutely, one hundred percent stolen off of 3M's blog, 1morechapter. And while, yes, I feel a little bad about stealing, I just think this is the coolest thing! And so I want to do it, too. So. I'm stealing. Hope that's okay with everyone...

Poland

Daisy Miller - Henry James

daisy miller
henry james
c. 1878
98 pages
completed 11/6/2008

*may contain spoilers*

This was much shorter and different than I expected. I don't know if the author meant it to be so, but to me it just seemed like a cautionary tale for young girls. Don't flirt, don't act improper, don't hang out with foreign men who are beneath your status, otherwise you will die of malaria. Or whatever Roman Fever is supposed to be.

I wasn't too impressed. It was not very engaging, and none of the characters were sympathetic, especially Daisy. No one was in any way likable. Though I did find it interesting that while Winterbourne grew increasingly more appalled by Daisy's behavior, so much so that he stopped seeing her altogether, I got the impression that had HE been the one that Daisy was spending so much time with he would not have disapproved of her behavior quite so much. Very hypocritical.

2/5

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

the woman in white
wilkie collins
c. 1859
643 pages
completed 11/6/2008

*may contain spoilers*

I'm pretty sure this is my new favorite book. Even though my sister, the librarian, told me it was super boring. I'm not really sure how she thought it was boring. This was the first great suspense novel, and was written in a very interesting style. Instead of one narrator who knows the whole story telling it to the readers, it is written by many narrators in order to always have a first person account of the action.

There were a few things that I found very interesting about this book, things that really dated it. For one thing, I found the descriptions of Laura and Marian's physical features as a reflection of their characters. Laura was sweet and submissive and therefore she was beautiful. Marian, on the other hand, was strong and independent and therefore she was ugly. Not an ugly personality, in fact she was incredibly gracious and intelligent and loving, but she was physically ugly. It might not have been the author's intent for the physical descriptions to reflect their character, but that's what I took away from them.

What I felt really dated this novel was the Secret. Obviously, this was written in the 1800's and naturally it describes life at that time that is very different from life now, but in order to keep this secret Sir Percival was willing to completely destroy the lives of two different women, to shut them away in Asylums. This secret is kept hidden from the reader for so long and built up so much that when it was finally revealed I was kind of let down. And I was shocked when I learned that this "crime" was considered a hanging case when it was committed. It's interesting to know I'm not the only one who felt this secret did not match the build up it received. I looked into the musical adaptation of The Woman in White, and there the secret has been changed, probably in order to make it more sensational (albeit, A LOT of the story has been changed in the musical). In the musical, the secret involved rape and murder, whereas in the original novel the secret is nothing more than a forgery.

I am very interested in looking into more by Wilkie Collins. I'm glad we were finally introduced.

5/5

For those who like their food well seasoned...

Another challenge for 2009!

Melissa over at BookNut is hosting the Well Seasoned Reader Challenge. From January 1st through March 31st, read three books that will fit into any of the following categories:

1. food name in the title

2. about cooking and/or eating

3. place name in the title

4. about a person's travel experience

5. by an author who's ethnicity is not your own

Lot's of stuff to choose from! I went through my enormous TBR pile and chose three books from there that will fit into some of those categories. My books will be...

1. The Teahouse on Mulberry Street - Sharon Ownes (about eating)

2. The Girl in Saskatoon - Sharon Butala (place name)

3. The Toss of a Lemon - Padma Viswanathan (food name)

Who's your god...

Dar over at Peeking Between the Pages is having another book giveaway! One November 9th, she'll choose 5 winners of Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. Head on over to her blog to check out the rules to enter.

Per the rules of this giveaway, I need to mention my latest favorite book. When I read the rules over the first time, I apparently misread what was written and thought we were asked to mention our LEAST favorite book. So this is the second time I'm posting this. Ha. Good thing I looked at other people's responses before I linked this post in Dar's comments. As for my latest favorite book...currently I'm reading the Women in White by Wilkie Collins and I LOVE IT. My sister, the Librarian, told me that it was boring, but I can't put it down.

To be read...

Hopefully I am not adding as many books to my TBR list as last month...

The Spiritualist - Megan Chance
The Shape of Mercy - Susan Meissner
The Blackstone Key - Rose Meli Kan
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
The Story of a Marraige - Andrew Sean Greer
The Triumph of Deborah - Eva Etzioni Halevy
Immortal - Traci L Slatton
Cathedral of the Sea - Ildefonso Falcones
The Last Queen - CW Gortner
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson
The Glass of Time/The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox (2 books)
Time and Chance/Devil's Brood - Sharon Kay Penman (2 books)
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
The Shack - William P Young
Nine Coaches Waiting - Mary Stewart
A Short Guide to a Happy Life - Anna Quinlend
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
Broad Street - Christine Weiser
A Tale Out of Luck - Willie Nelson
The Likeness - Tana French
The Safety of Secrets - DeLaune Michel
The Firemaster's Mistress - Christine Dickason
The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Scratch Beginnings - Adam Shepard
Down River - John Hart
The Peculiar Crimes Unit Series - Christopher Fowler

29 books and one new series. Not too bad...

The wrap up...

The RIP III Challenge ends today, as today is Halloween. My original plan was to read The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Unfortunately, in my reading time line, I realized ahead of time that I had not left myself enough time to accomplish this. So instead I decided to count The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson as one of my two books instead, and am in the middle of reading The Woman in White as of right now (which, by the way, I am having the hardest time putting down...this book is awesome!).

So in review, I read...
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 2/5
The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury 4/5

I am not normally one to like scary things, but around Halloween time I like to pretend to be into mild spookiness. This worked for me.

The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury

the halloween tree
ray bradbury
c. 1972
160 pages

completed 10/16/2008

*may contain spoilers*

I finished this last week and already it's starting to fade from my mind. I don't think that says anything about the book itself, just that it was short and I finished another book and have started one more before writing this review. So...

I enjoyed this little book. Like I said, short, but an interesting way to explain what Halloween really means. It's not just fun costumes and candy, there's legend and loss and celebration behind it.

4/5

Wrap it up...

Okay, so I've been done with the Chunckster Challenge since forever (well, since July) and I'm tired of looking at it on my blog so I'm writing the wrap up and getting rid of it.
For this challenge, we were to read four books in 2008 that were over 450 pages long. These are the first four. I'm sure I've read more than that since July, but those were the first and they're the ones I counted.

I read...

1. LA Confidential - James Ellroy 4/5
2. The Red and the Black - Stendhal 4/5
3. Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg 4/5
4. The Virgin's Lover - Phillipa Gregory 4/5

Okay. So they were all consistently pretty good all across the board. I think Standing in the Rainbow was my favorite. All good reads.

I have also just finished up the Book to Movie Challenge. Between September 1st and December 1st, read three books that have been turned into movies.

I read...

1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott 5/5
2. The Pilgrim of Hate - Ellis Peters 4/5
3. The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury 4/5

All good, but Little Women was the best.

It's already time...

Well, it's about that time! The challenges for next year are starting to come out of the woodwork and it's time to start planning for them. I'm winding down the '08 Decades Challenge, one more book to go for the official rules. Even though we only needed to read 8, I planned on 12, one for each month of the year, and I think that might have been a little ambitious for me. I didn't cross them over with enough other challenges maybe. So this year I'll just stick to the rules instead of trying to be and over achiever. Book Nut is hosting the Decades '09 Challenge. Read 9 books in 9 consecutive decades in 2009. Last year I decided to start with 1810, this year I will be starting from 1900.

My list will be...
1. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham (1908)
2. Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (1910)
3. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (1925)
4. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (1937)
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway (1940)
6. Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury (1957)
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)
8. The World According to Garp - John Irving (1978)
9. The Gunslinger - Steven King (1982)

Some of these (The Wind in the Willows, Of Mice and Men) are books that I don't know how I haven't read them yet. Others (Phantom of the Opera, The Gunslinger) are me letting the influences of my sister, the librarian, take over. And the others I have at least all heard of before. 2009 is already shaping up to be a good year of books.

CNN Heroes

Okay, so normally this blog is strictly about books. However, today I heard about CNN Heroes and I had to post about it. From now until Thanksgiving, you can go here and vote between the top ten CNN Heroes of 2008 for who you believe should be the number 1 CNN Hero and winner of $100,000 (probably to be used to further their hero-ness). It's pretty cool to see the top ten people and read about why they're heroes. So if you're so inclined, check out the link and vote for who you think is the number 1 hero.

What is especially exciting about this for me is I KNOW ONE OF THE HEROES! I spent 2007 serving as a Team Leader in AmeriCorps*NCCC (which is the greatest program ever and you can learn more about here), a 10 month national service program. During that year, I spent most of July and August in the St. Bernard Parish of Louisiana, a little outside New Orleans, working with the St. Bernard Project, a non profit organization which helps Hurricane Katrina survivors rebuild their homes. The organization was founded by Liz McCartney and Zach Rosenburg in 2006, is run mostly by volunteers, and so far has helped to rebuild over 140 homes. This is a great organization, and an area of need that has faded from the minds of most of America. So vote for Liz (or anyone you like) as 2008's Number 1 CNN Hero!

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde
robert louis stevenson
c. 1886
90 pages
comepleted 10/7/2008

*may contain spoilers*

I think my sister, long a fan of all things Edward Hyde, would not be at all surprised when I start this review by saying "I didn't like it." But I was! I had always held off because this type of book isn't normally my thing, but when I decided to read it I went about it really objectively. Yes, this is not my favorite genre, but it's written by the author of my favorite book (Treasure Island) and I LOVE the musical (despite the cheese and seeing the TV movie version starring the Hoff). So I really tried to go into it optimistically.

Sadly, my optimism did not last long. I just felt like nothing happened. There was no character development as we really weren't seeing anything through Jekyll or Hyde's eyes, there wasn't very much action, and the structure of the book made it seem like you had to hear the story twice. I do think part of the problem was it was written so the identity of Mr. Hyde was a twist, and I obviously already knew the twist. Maybe that twist would have added some sensationalism to the story. Well, I tried.

2/5

The Pilgrim of Hate - Ellis Peters

the pilgrim of hate
ellis peters
c. 1984
190 pages
completed 10/6/2008

*may contain spoilers*

First off, I am happy to report that I have finally moved passed the first nine books of this series. It has taken me a long time, but I have broken that personal barrier.

I have always been wary of starting this book since it is the episode I like least in the "Mystery" TV version. But after reading it I have discovered it is NOTHING like the movie. Maybe some of the same names and circumstances (crippled boy, barefoot pilgrim, etc), but personality and motives? Totally different.

This book starts out different that all the others, at least it seemed to me. Up until now, the beginning of each novel showcases a crime: a murder or murder attempt or sometimes just a theft that will lead to murder, and Cadfael eventually takes upon himself the task of solving the mystery (or aiding Hugh in solving the mystery). This time, a murder is mentioned, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Cadfael and his goings on. It something sad he hears about, but he doesn't find himself connected with it until very late in the book, and then only by accident. He never goes looking to solve a case, information just falls into his lap. So you're never really caught up in the mystery.

It was enjoyable to have Olivier back. He's an interesting character and has a VERY interesting relationship with Cadfael. I hope that we see him again, and that eventually he will come to know his full relationship with Cadfael. And I was glad Hugh was confided in with both of Cadfael's secrets, both about Winifred and Olivier.

I love, Love, LOVE this series, but this one just didn't have the same structure as the others so I can't give it a perfect rating.

4/5

To be read...

September's additions to the TBR pile...

Kept - DJ Taylor
The Whiskey Rebels - David Liss
1776 - David McCullough
Nights in Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks
The Conqueror - Georgette Heyer
Messenger of Truth - Jacqueline Winspear
Belle Weather - Celia Rivenbark
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Company of Liars - Karen Maitland
East of the Sun - Julia Gregson
The Tsarina's Daughter - Carolly Erickson
The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susanna Clark
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
Broken - Daniel Clay
Sky Burial - Xinran
Sin in the Second City - Karen Abbott
The Thief Taker - Janet Gleeson
The Sealed Letter - Emma Donoghue
Murphy's Law - Rhys Brown
Murder on the Eiffel Tower - Claude Izner
American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld
Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
Fine Just the Way It Is, Close Range, Bad Dirt - Annie Proulx (3 books)
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Books of Lies - Brad Meltzer
American Eve - Paula Uruburu
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstresses - Dai Sijie
Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
Run - Ann Pratchett
The Chatham School Affair - Thomas H Cook
Testimony - Anita Shreve
In the Woods - Tana French
The Photograph - Penelope Lively
The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfeld
Girl in a Blue Dress - Gaijnor Arnald
The Heretic's Daughter - Kathleen Kent

40 new books. And 2 of them are the first in a series. Out Of Control.

Celebrate your freedom to read...

...with Banned Books Week!

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

little women
louisa may alcott
c. 1868
669 pages
completed 9/22/2008

*may contain spoilers*

This was read for several challenges: the Decades Challenge, the Classics Challenge, and the Book to Movie Challenge (see sidebar for all).

I can't believe I haven't read this book before now. I saw the movie (with Winona Ryder and Christian Bale) forever ago and even without having seen it I knew all the spoilers from Friends seeing as my favorite episode is "The One Where Monica and Richard Are Friends" (where Rachel and Joey trade books and then spoil the books for each other...and then in the end Joey has to put Little Women in the freezer since he's so upset about Beth). So this fitting into so many challenges seemed like a good time to finally read it.

I was a little worried I would find the book boring, especially since I already knew the story, but thankfully that turned out not to be the case. I was not expecting this book to be so focused on morals. The first half especially, it seemed like every chapter ended with one of the girls learning some kind of moral life lesson. And the lessons were sweet and you fell in love with the girls for learning them in their funny little ways, like Meg burning off her hair. I know Jo was supposed to be the heroine, but I think I liked Meg the best. She was sweet and she was funny and I enjoyed reading about the scrapes she got into the most. I couldn't stand Amy. Occasionally I felt sorry for her, like when she was embarrassed at school or when she had to man the flower booth instead of the art booth, but for the most part I just thought she was a brat. Yes, she grew up and learned what was really important in the end, but I had spent so much time not liking her that for me it was too late. She may have changed her ways, but by that time I didn't care. I skipped over the whole chapter that was just her letters home from her trip abroad. I just didn't care.

5/5

Blonde - Joyce Carol Oates

blonde
joyce carol oates
c. 2000
786 pages (481 read)
stopped reading 9/12/2008


*may contain spoilers*

I am so disappointed, but I just couldn't finish this book. I don't even really know what it was, but by the end it had just become such a chore. I was lugging it around in my purse everywhere and had to convince myself to start reading when I had time. The book just couldn't captivate me. It's an interesting subject, the life and inter workings of Marilyn Monroe's mind, but I didn't care too much about any of the characters, even Norma Jeane.

And I don't think I cared for the writing style: the nicknames for everyone (the Ex-Athlete, the Blond Actress, V, Z, Rumpelstiltskin, etc) and the confusing not quite consistent time line. And I know that the author made a big deal about how this is a "fictionalized" account of Marilyn Monroe, not a biography, and so she took creative liberties exploring just one foster home when in reality there were several, or exploring one abortion when there were reports of more, or whatever, but it was irritating for me to know what wasn't true. I don't know if I said that right, but like if you're writing historical fiction and we don't know exactly what happened and an author writes something to suggest what could have happened I think that is one thing. But when we do know what happened and an author writes that something different happened, well that irritates me. Not to say that it's bad writing and shouldn't be done, just that it is a personal pet peeve of mine and something I don't really enjoy. I don't like things to contradict.

And so, since I couldn't finish the book I have to give it a rating of 1/5.

Fall into reading...

Fall is almost here! I love Fall. Halloween and pumpkin and back to school supplies. And with Fall comes the Fall Into Reading Challenge!

September 22nd through December 20th, make a book list and read! I didn't do so well at the Summer Reading Challenge once I got stuck on Blonde, but this weekend I'm getting rid of it no matter what and it will be time for a fresh start. My booklist will be...

September...

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
The Pilgrim of Hate - Ellis Peters
October...
Daisy Miller - Henry James
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Alienist - Caleb Carr
The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury
November...
Adolphe - Benjamin Constant
The Picture of Dorien Gray - Oscar Wilde

Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas - Louise Rennison
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
American Gods - Neil Gaimon
December...
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Scarlett Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
An Excellent Mystery - Ellis Peters

Mostly I will be trying to finish up a few challenges before the end of the year!

Making the ultimate decision...

So I'm still stuck reading Blonde. I don't know what the deal is. I wrote about my troubles three weeks ago and I'm still trying to plod along. I've made some decent headway, but this is getting ridiculous how long it's taking me to read this book. And so I've made a decision. I have my next book in line to be read on hold waiting for me at the library (I just got the notice). And so I'm planning a library trip for this weekend, probably Sunday. And when I go...that's it. Blonde is going back. Finished or unfinished, I don't care.

Heading off to the lab...

So Dar at Peeking Between the Pages is having a book giveaway. On September 20th there will be a drawing for ten copies of Broken by Daniel Clay. Read about the giveaway here! One way of entering in the giveaway is to tell a story about some weird neighbors (as I guess their are some weird neighbors in Broken.) Right now I live in an apartment complex and I'm not so sure about the guy who lives below me. A cranky old dude who has screamed "SHUT UP!" at me for laughing a little too loudly with Girlfriend and her sister (in his defense it was 11pm, in my defense we were being quiet and it's not our fault his screen door was open. We all know you can hear EVERYTHING in this complex). He never leaves his apartment, but he always has his sliding door open so you can kind of see into his place. He sleeps in his living room and has this big tarp like thing hung up to close off his kitchen which makes the place look a little creepy. I like to think he's got a meth lab back there.....

To be read...

The new additions to the TBR list...

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
The Toss of a Lemon - Padma Viswanathan
Righting the Mother Tongue - David Wolman
The Milagro Beanfield War - John Nicols
The Gospel of Judas - Simon Mawer
The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle
Life Mask - Emma Donoghue
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
A Venetian Affair - Andrea di Robilant
The Serpent in the Garden - Janet Gleeson
Chasing Darkness - Robert Crais
Miscarriage of Justice - Kip Gayden
Cold Sassy Tree - Olive Ann Burns
Girls in Trucks - Katie Crouch
Cotillion - Gerogette Hayer
Jimmy's Stars - Mary Ann Rodman
The Heretic Queen/Nefertiti - Michelle Moran (2 books)
The Concubine - Norah Lofts
The Best of Everything - Rona Jaffe
Suite Scarlett - Maureen Johnson
Casanova in Bolzano - Sandor Marai
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
and the Sue Grafton ABC mystery series...I've always wanted to read them!

Wow. My TBR list is getting out of control! 24 books, plus a new series. For real real. out of control.

Let's go to the movies...

Callista at SMS Book Reviews is hosting a Book to Movie Challenge! September 1 - December 1 read at least three books that have been made into movies.

My books will be...

1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
2. The Pilgrim of Hate - Ellis Peters
3. The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury

And after I'm done I should go watch them all...

Something wicked...

Halloween is (slowly) approaching. And with that comes new challenges! I (sort of) participated in this challenge last year, my very first attempt at a reading challenge. And even then I made up my own rules. This time I'm officially joining the RIP Challenge! Click the link for the rules and all. I am doing "Peril the Second," reading two 'scary' books by October 31.

My books will be...

1. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
2. The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury

Exciting!

An uphill battle...

I don't know what the deal is, but I am having the hardest time with my current read, Blonde. I have wanted to read this book for a while and it's an interesting subject, but I have this book out from the library for almost five weeks and I've barely gotten to page 50. Some of the problem, I believe, is the heft of the book. Not that it's too long, but it's too big. It's a hardback edition of an almost 800 page book. And no joke, my hands get tired holding this book for much more than three or four pages at a time. So that's how I'm reading it. In four page increments. I considered turning it back into the library and just reading other things, maybe coming back to it near the end of the challenge, but I would still have the same problem. So I'm forging ahead, trying to get through it. But it's taking me forever.

The wrap up...

About a week ago I finished the Southern Reading Challenge.

I enjoyed 2 out of the 3 books I read for the challenge. Of the two I enjoyed I hope to read more by those authors. Of the one I didn't enjoy, I've heard really good things about this author and heard that the book I read was not one of her best, so maybe I'll give her another try sometime.

My books...
1. Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg 4/5
2. Quite a Year for Plums - Bailey White 2/5
3. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen 5/5

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen - Susan Gregg Gilmore

looking for salvation at the dairy queen
susan gregg gilmore
c. 2008
250-ish pages
completed 7/31/2008

*may contain spoilers*

I loved this book. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. It was so funny. The characters were great, they were all really well written. There were the usual small town weirdos and stereotypes, but they weren't so outrageous as to make them unbelievable. Catherine Grace's voice was wonderful, giving lots of insight and back story to every character and event.

What was especially impressive was the Christianity of the book. And by that I mean, this is a story about a preacher's daughter in small town Georgia. There was a lot of church talk and biblical references, but it was never too "preachy." And even though everyone learned to love one another and be good Christians after Catherine Grace gave her eulogy, I loved that she was like "let's be for real, that wasn't going to last long."

There were only two small things I wasn't thrilled with.

The characterization of Flora made me slightly...uncomfortable. It was a little too much of a stereotype for me. Of course this book was set in Georgia in the 70's and maybe I'm too much of a Seattle girl of the new millennium to know if that was just "how it was."

Also, the storyline of Lena Mae coming back from the dead was a little abrupt for me. I understand how it fit with the story, but there wasn't really enough explanation of why she left and couldn't come back. I know why she left, but why couldn't she come back? And then in the end, she just slipped away again.

Even with those two small issues, I still loved the book. And I look forward to more to come.

5/5

To be read...

More books from this past month added to my TBR pile. Part of me loves that this list is never ending, but part of me is sad knowing there's no way I will ever read everything I want to...

Dark Assassin - Anne Perry
Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones
Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
The Remains of the Day - Kasuo Ishiguro
The Last Queen - CW Gortner
Mistress of the Revolution - Catherine Delors
Eats Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
Leave it to Psmith - PG Wodehouse
The Black Tower - Louis Bayard
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Snuff - Chuck Palahnuik

15 new books added to the list...

Quite a Year for Plums - Bailey White

quite a year for plums
bailey white
c. 1999
240 pages
completed 7/29/2008



I really don't have a whole lot to say for this review. I almost didn't finish this book. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just...forgettable. It took me about a week to finish and I can't really tell you anything that happened. Because nothing really did. There was no conflict. There was no character growth.

Nothing happened.

2/5

An important question...

Do I need to jump on the "Twilight" bandwagon? Is it, in fact, the new Harry Potter where everyone and their mother needs to read these books? Or is something that's only for some and I can just pass this by?

And then some...

My usual format: books I've completed and books i've tried but didn't finish...

1001 Books to Read Before You Die

2000s
1. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday - Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty - Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man - JM Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest - Peter Manson
6. The Sea - John Banville
7. The Red Queen - Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
9. The Master - Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point - David Markson
11. The Lambs of London - Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones - Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
14. Drop City - T Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour - Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch - Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day - Graham Swift
18. What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
20. Islands - Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello - JM Coetzee
22. London Orbital - Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
25. The Double - Jose Saramago
26. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safron Foer
27. Unless - Carol Shields
28. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
29. The Story of Lucy Gault - William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun - John McGahern
31. In the Forest - Edna O'Brien
32. Shroud - John Banville
33. Middlesex - Jeffery Eugenides
34. Youth - JM Coetzee
35. Dead Air - Iain Banks
36. Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon
37. The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster
38. Gabriel's Gift - Hanif Kureishi
39. Austerlitz - WG Sebald
40. Platform - Michael Houellebecq
41. Schooling - Heather McGowen
42. Atonement - Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
44. Don't Move - Margaret Mazzantini
45. The Body Artist - Don DeLillo
46. Fury - Salmon Rushdie
47. At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill
48. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
49. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
50. The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargos Llosa
51. An Obedient Father - Akhil Sharma
52. The Devil and Miss Prym - Paulo Coelho
53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost - Ismail Kadare
54. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
55. The Heart of Redness - Zakes Mda
56. Under the Skin - Michel Faber
57. Ignorance - Milan Kundera
58. Nineteen Seventy-Seven - David Peace
59. Celestial Harmonies - Péter Esterházy
60. City of God - EL Doctorow
61. How the Dead Live - Will Self
62. The Human Stain - Philip Roth
63. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
64. After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
65. Small Remedies - Shashi Deshpande
66. Super-Cannes - JG Ballard
67. House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski
68. Blonde - Joyce Carol Oates
69. Pastoralia - George Saunder

1900s
70. Timbuktu - Paul Aster
71. The Romantics - Pankaj Mishra
72. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
73. As if I am Not There - Slavenka Srakuli
74. Everything You Need - AL Kennedy
75. Fear and Trembling - Amelie Nothomb
76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Salmon Rushdie
77. Disgrace - JM Coetzee
78. Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
79. Elementary Particles - Michel Houellebecq
80. Intimacy - Hanif Kureishi
81. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
82. Cloudsplitter - Russell Banks
83. All Souls Day - Cees Nooteboom
84. The Talk of the Town - Ardal O'Hanlon
85. Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Walters
86. The Poisonwood Bible - Barabra kingsolver
87. Glamorama - Bret Easton Ellis
88. Another World - Pat Barker
89. The Hours - Michael Cunningham
90. Veronika Decides to Die - Paula Coelho
91. Mason and Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
92. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
93. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
94. Great Apes - Will Self
95. Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
96. Underworld - Don DeLillo
97. Jack Maggs - Peter Carey
98. The Life of Insects - Victor Pelevin
99. American Pastoral - Philip Roth
100. The Untouchable - John Banville
101. Silk - Alessandro Baricco
102. Cocaine Nights - JG Ballard
103. Hallucinating Foucault - Patricia Duncker
104. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
105. The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
106. Forever a Stranger - Hella Haasse
107. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
108. The Clay Machine-Gun - Victor Pelevin
109. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
110. The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro
111. Morvern Caller - Alan Warner
112. The Information - Martin Amis
113. The Moor's Last Sigh - Salmon Rushdie
114. Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth
115. The Rings of Saturn - WG Sebald
116. The Reader - Bernhard Schlick
117. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
118. Love's Work - Gillian Rose
119. The End of the Story - Lydia Davis
120. Mr. Vertigo - Paul Auster
121. The Folding Star - Alan Hollinghurst
122. Whatever - Michel Houellebecq
123. Land - Park Kyong-ni
124. The Master of Petersburg - JM Coetzee
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony - Antonio Tabucchi
127. City Sister Silver - Jachym Topol
128. How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman
129. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
130. Felicia's Journey - William Trevor
131. Disappearance - David Dabydeen
132. The Invention of Curried Sausage - Uwe Timm
133. The Shipping News - E Annie Proulx
134. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
135. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
136. Looking for the Possible Dance - AL Kennedy
137. Operation Shylock - Philip Roth
138. Complicity - Iain Banks
139. On Love - Alain de Botton
140. What a Carve Up - Jonathan Coe
141. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
142. The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
143. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffery Eugenides
144. The House of Doctor Dee - Peter Ackroyd
145. The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
146. The Emigrants - WG Sebald
147. The Secret History - Donna Tratt
148. Life is a Caravanserai - Emine Ozdamar
149. The Discovery of Heaven - Harry Mulisch
150. A Heart So White - Javier Marias
151. Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker
152. Indigo - Marina Warner
153. The Crow Road - Iain Banks
154. Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson
155. Jazz - Toni Morrison
156. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
157. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg
158. The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe
159. Black Water - Joyce Carol Oates
160. The Heather Blazing - Colm Toibin
161. Asphodel - Hilda Doolitle (HD)
162. Black Dogs - Ian McEwan
163. Hideous Kinky - Esther Freud
164. Arcadia - Jim Crace
165. Wild Swans - Jung Chang
166. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
167. Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
168. Mao II - Don DeLillo
169. Typical - Padgett Powell
170. Regeneration - Pat Barker
171. Down River - Iain Sinclair
172. Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord - Louis de Bernieres
173. Wise Children - Angela Carter
174. Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard
175. Amongst Women - John McGahern
176. Vineland - Thomas Pynchon
177. Vertigo - WG Sebald
178. Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
179. The Music of Chance - Paul Auster
180. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
181. A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham
182. Like Life - Lorrie Moore
183. Possession - AS Byatt
184. The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
185. The Midnight Examiner - William Kotzwinkle
186. A Disaffection - James Kelman
187. Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson
188. Moon Palace - Paul Auster
189. Billy Bathgate - EL Doctorow
190. Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
191. The Melancholy of Resistence - Laszlo Krasznahorkai
192. The Temple of My Family - Alice Walker
193. The Trick is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway
194. The History of the Seige of Lisbon - Jose Saramago
195. Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
196. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
197. London Fields - Martin Amis
198. The Book of Evidence - John Banville
199. Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
200. Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
201. The Beautiful Room is Empty - Edmund White
202. Wittgenstein's Misstress - David Markson
203. The Satanic Verses - Salmon Rushdie
204. The Swimming-Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst
205. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
206. Libra - Don DeLillo
207. The Player of Games - Iain M Banks
208. Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga
209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - Douglas Adams
210. Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
211. The Radient Way - Margaret Drabble
212. The Afternoon of a Writer - Peter Handke
213. The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy
214. The Passion - Jeanette Winterson
215. The Pigeon - Patrick Suskind
216. The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
217. Cigarettes - Harry Mathews
218. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
219. The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
220. World's End - T Coraghessan Boyle
221. Enigma of Arrival - VS Naipaul
222. The Taebek Mountains - Jo Jung-rae
223. Beloved - Toni Morrison
224. Anagrams - Lorrie Moore
225. Matigari - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
226. Marya - Joyce Carol Oates
227. Watchmen - Alan Moore and David Gibbons
228. The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
229. Lost Language of Cranes - David Leavitt
230. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
231. Extinction - Thomas Bernhard
232. Foe - JM Coetzee
233. The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
234. Reasons to Live - Amy Hempel
235. The Parable of the Blind - Gert Hofmann
236. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
238. The Cider House Rules - John Irving
239. A Maggot - John Fowles
240. Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
241. Contact - Carl Sagan
242. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
243. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
244. Old Masters - Thomas Bernhard
245. White Noise - Don DeLillo
246. Queer - William Burroughs
247. Hawksmoore - Peter Achroyd
248. Legend - David Gemmell
249. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavi
250. The Bus Conductor Hines - James Kelman
251. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - Jose Saramago
252. The Lover - Marguerite Duras
253. Empire of the Sun - JG Ballard
254. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
255. Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter
256. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
257. Blood and Guts in High School - Kathy Acker
258. Neuromancer - William Gibson
259. Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes
260. Money: A Suicide Note - Martin Amis
261. Shame - Salman Rushdie
262. Worstward Ho - Samuel Beckett
263. Fools of Fortune - William Trevor
264. La Brava - Elmore Leonard
265. Waterland - Graham Swift
266. The Life and Times of Michael K - JM Coetzee
267. The Diary of Jane Somers - Doris Lessing
268. The Piano Teacher - Elfriede Jelinek
269. The Sorrow of Belgium - Hugo Claus
270. If Not Now, When - Primo Levi
271. A Boy's Own Story - Edmund White
272. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
273. Wittgenstein's Nephew - Thomas Bernhard
274. A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
275. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
276. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
277. The Newton Letter - John Banville
278. On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
279. Concrete - Thomas Bernhard
280. The Names - Don DeLillo
281. Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
282. Lanark: A Life in Four Books - Alasdair Gray
283. The Comfort of Strangers - Ian McEwan
284. July's People - Nadine Gordimer
285. Summer in Baden Baden - Leonid Tsypkin
286. Broken April - Ismail Kadare
287. Waiting for the Barbarians - JM Coetzee
288. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
289. Rites of Passage - William Golding
290. Rituals - Cees Nooteboom
291. Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
292. City Primeval - Elmore Leonard
293. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
294. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera
295. Smiley's People - John le Carre
296. Shikasta - Doris Lessing
297. A Bend in the River - VS Naipaul
298. Burger's Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
299. The Safety Net - Heinrich Boll
300. If On A Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino
301. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
302. The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
303. The World According to Garp - John Irving
304. Life: A User's Manual - Georges Perec
305. The Sea, the Sea - Iris Murdoch
306. The Singapore Grip - JG Farrell
307. Yes - Thomas Bernhard
308. The Virgin in the Garden - AS Byatt
309. In the Heart of the Country - JM Coetzee
310. The Passion of the New Eve - Angela Carter
311. Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
312. The Shining - Stephen King
313. Dispatches - Michael Herr
314. Petals of Blood - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
315. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
316. The Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector
317. The Left-Handed Woman - Peter Handke
318. Ratner's Star - Don DeLillo
319. The Public Burning - Robert Coover
320. Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice
321. Cutter and Bone - Newton Thornburg
322. Amateurs - Donald Barthelme
323. Patterns of Childhood - Christina Wolf
324. Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
325. W, or the Memory of Childhoos - Georges Perec
326. A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
327. Grimus - Salmon Rushdie
328. The Dead Father - Donald Barthelme
329. Fateless - Imre Kertesz
330. Willard and His Bowling Trophies - Richard Brautigan
331. High Rise - JG Ballard
332. Humbolt's Gift - Soul Bellow
333. Dead Babies - Martin Amis
334. Correction - Thomas Bernhard
335. Ragtime - EL Doctorow
336. The Fan Man - William Kotzwinkle
337. Dusklands - JM Coetzee
338. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum - Heinrich Boll
339. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John le Carre
340. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
341. Fear of Flying - Erica Long
342. A Question of Power - Bessie Head
343. The Siege of Krishnapur - JG Farrell
344. The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
345. Crash - JG Ballard
346. The Honorary Consul - Graham Greene
347. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
348. The Black Prince - Iris Murdoch
349. Sula - Toni Morrison
350. Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
351. The Breast - Philip Roth
352. The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
353. G - John Berger
354. Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
355. House Mother Normal - BS Johnson
356. In a Free State - VS Naipaul
357. The Book of Daniel - EL Doctorow
358. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
359. Group Portrait with Lady - Heinrich Boll
360. The Wild Boys - William Burroughs
361. Rabbit Redux - John Updike
362. The Sea of Fertility
363. The Driver's Seat - Muriel Spark
364. The Ogre - Michael Tournier
365. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
366. Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick - Peter Handke
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
368. Mercier et Camier - Samuel Beckett
369. Troubles - JG Farrell
370. Jahrestage - Uwe Johnson
371. The Atrocity Exhibition - JG Ballard
372. Tent of Miracles - Jorge Amado
373. Pricksongs and Descants - Robert Coover
374. Blind Man with a Pistol - Chester Hines
375. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
376. The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
377. The Green Man - Kingsley Amis
378. Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
379. The Godfather - Mario Puzo
380. Ada - Vladimir Nabokov
381. Them - Joyce Carol Oates
382. A Void/Avoid - Georges Perec
383. Eva Trout - Elizabeth Bowen
384. Myra Breckinridge - Gore Vidal
385. The Nice and the Good - Iris Murdoch
386. Belle de Seigneur - Albert Cohen
387. Cancer Ward - Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
388. The First Circle - Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick
391. Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid - Malcolm Lowry
392. The German Lesson - Siegfried Lenz
393. In Watermelon Sugar - Richard Brautigan
394. A Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines
395. The Quest for Christa T - Christa Wolf
396. Chocky - John Wyndham
397. The Electric Kool-Aid Test - Tom Wolfe
398. The Cubs and Other Stories - Mario Vargas Llosa
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
400. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgavok
401. Pilgrimage - Dorothy Richardson
402. The Joke - Milan Kundera
403. No Laughing Matter - Angus Wilson
404. The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
405. A Man Asleep - Georges Perec
406. The Birds Fall Down - Rebecca West
407. Trawl - BS Johnson
408. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
409. The Magus - John Fowles
410. The Vice-Council - Marguerite Duras
411. Wild Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
412. Giles Goat-Boy - John Barth
413. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
414. Things - Georges Perec
415. The River Between - Ngugi wa Thiong'o
416. August is a Wicked Month - Edna O'Brien
417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut
418. Everything That Rises Must Converge - Flannery O'Connor
419. The Passion According to GH - Clarice Lispector
420. Sometimes a Great nation - Ken Kesey
421. Come Back, Dr. Caligari - Donald Bartholme
422. Albert Angelo - BS Johnson
423. Arrow of God - Chinua Achebe
424. The Ravishing of Lol V Stein - Marguerite Duras
425. Herzog - Saul Bellow
426. V - Thomas Pynchon
427. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
428. The Graduate - Charles Webb
429. Manon des Sources - Marcel Pagnol
430. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John Le Carre
431. The Girl's of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
432. Inside Mr. Enderby - Anthony Burgess
433. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
434. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
435. The Collector - John Fowles
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
437. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
438. Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
439. The Drowned World - JG Ballard
440. The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
441. Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges
442. Girl With Green Eyes - Edna O'Brien
443. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - Giorgio Bassani
444. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
445. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger
446. A Severed Head - Iris Murdoch
447. Faces in the Water - Janet Frame
448. Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
449. Cat and Mouse - Gunter Grass
450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
451. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
452. The Violent Bear it Away - Flannery O'Connor
453. How It Is - Samuel Beckett
454. Our Ancestors - Italo Calvino
455. The Country Girls - Edna O'Brien
456. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
457. Rabbit, Run - John Updike
458. Promise at Dawn - Romaine Gary
459. Cider With Rosie - Laurie Lee
460. Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse
461. Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
462. The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
463. Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes
464. Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow
465. Memento Mori - Muriel Spark
466. Billiards at Half Past Nine - Heinrich Boll
467. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
468. The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
469. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring - Kenzaburo Oe
470. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
471. The Bitter Glass - Eilis Dilon
472. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
473. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Silitoe
474. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris - Paul Gallico
475. Borstal Boy - Brendan Behan
476. The End of the Road - John Barth
477. The Once and Future King - TH White
478. The Bell - Iris Murdoch
479. Jealousy - Alain Robbe-Grillet
480. Voss - Patrick White
481. The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham
482. Blue Noon - Georges Bataille
483. Homo Faber - Max Frisch
484. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
485. Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
486. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
487. The Wonderful "O" - James Thurber
488. Justine - Lawrence Durrell
489. Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
490. The Lonely Londoners - Sam Selvon
491. The Roots of Heaven - Romain Gary
492. Seize the Day - Saul Bellow
493. The Floating Opera - John Barth
494. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
495. The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
496. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
497. A World of Love - Elizabeth Brown
498. The Trusting and the Maimed - James Plunkett
499. The Quiet American - Graham Greene
500. The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
501. The Recognitions - William Gaddis
502. The Ragazzi - Pier Paulo Pasolini
503. Bonjour Tristesse - Francois Sagan
504. I'm Not Stiller - Max Frisch
505. Self Condemned - Wyndham Lewis
506. The Story of O - Pauline Reage
507. A Ghost at Noon - Alberto Moravia
508. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
509. Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
510. The Go-Between - LP Hartley
511. The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
512. The Unnameable - Samuel Beckett
513. Watt - Samuel Beckett
514. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
515. Junkie - William Burroughs
516. The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
517. Go Tell it On the Mountain - James Baldwin
518. Casino Royale - Ian Flemming
519. The Judge and His Hangman - Friedrich Durrenmatt
520. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
521. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
522. Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
523. The Killer Inside Me - Jim Thompson
524. Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar
525. Malone Dies - Samuel Beckett
526. Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
527. Foundation - Issac Asimov
528. The Opposing Shore - Julien Gracq
529. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
530. The Rebel - Albert Camus
531. Molloy - Samuel Beckett
532. The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
533. The Abbot C - Georges Bataille
534. The Labyrinth of Solitude - Octavio Paz
535. The Third Man - Graham Greene
536. The 13 Clocks - James Thurber
537. Gormenghast - Marvyn Peake
538. The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing
539. I, Robot - Issac Asimov
540. The Moon and the Bonfires - Cesare Pavese
541. The Garden Where the Brass Band Played - Simon Vestdijk
542. Love in a Cold Climate - Nanacy Mitford
543. The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge
544. The Heat of the Day - Elizabeth Bowen
545. Kingdom of This World - Alejo Carpentier
546. The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
548. All About H Hatterr - GV Desani
549. Disobedience - Alberto Moravia
550. Death Sentence - Maurice Blanchot
551. The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
552. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
553. Doctor Faustus - Thomas Mann
554. The Victim - Saul Bellow
555. Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau
556. If This is a Man - Primo Levi
557. Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
558. The Path to the Nest of Spiders - Italo Calvino
559. The Plague - Albert Camus
560. Back - Henry Green
561. Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
562. The Bridge on the Drina - Ivo Andri
563. Brideshead Revisted - Evelyn Waugh
564. Animal House - George Orwell
565. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
566. The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
567. Loving - Henry Green
568. Arcanum 17 - Andre Breton
569. Christ Stopped at Eboli - Carlo Levi
570. The Razor's Edge - William Somerset Maugham
571. Transit - Anna Seghers
572. Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
573. Dangling Man - Saul bellow
574. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
575. Caught - Henry Green
576. The Glass Bead Game - Herman Hesse
577. Embers - Sandor Marai
578. Go Down, Moses - William Faulkner
579. The Outsider - Albert Camus
580. In Sicily - Elio Vittorini
581. The Poor Mouth - Flann O'Brien
582. The Living and the Dead - Patrick White
583. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
584. Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf
585. The Hamlet - William Faulkner
586. Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler
587. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway
588. Native Son - Richard Wright
589. The Power and th Glory - Graham Greene
590. The Tarter Steppe - Dino Buzzati
591. Party Going - Henry Green
592. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
593. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
594. At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
595. Coming Up for Air - George Orwell
596. Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
597. Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
598. Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys
599. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
600. After the Death of Don Juan - Sylvie Townsend Warner
601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
602. Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre
603. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
604. Cause for Alarm - Eric Ambler
605. Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
606. USA - John Dos Passos
607. Murphy - Samuel Beckett
608. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
609. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
610. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
611. The Years - Virginia Woolf
612. In Parenthesis - David Jones
613. The Revenge of Love - Wyndham Lewis
614. Out of Africa - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
615. To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemmingway
616. Summer Will Show - Sylvia Townsend Warner
617. Eyeless in Gaza - Aldous Huxley
618. The Thinking Reed - Rebecca West
619. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
620. Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell
621. Wild Harbour - Ian MacPherson
622. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
623. At the Mountains of Madness -HP Lovecraft
624. Nightwood - Djuna Barnes
625. Independent People - Halldor Laxness
626. Auto de Fe - Elias Canetti
627. The Last of Mr. Norris - Christopher Isherwood
628. They Shoot Horses, Don't They - Horace McCoy
629. The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen
630. England Made Me - Graham Greene
631. Burmese Days - George Orwell
632. The Nine Tailors - Dorothy L Sayers
633. Threepenny Novel - Bertolt Brecht
634. Novel with Cocaine - M Ageyev
635. The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M Cain
636. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
637. A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
638. Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald
639. Thnk You, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
640. Call it Sleep - Henry Roth
641. Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
642. Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers
643. The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas - Gertrude Stein
644. Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
645. A Day Off - Storm Jameson
646. The Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil
647. A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
648. Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
649. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
650. Cold Comfort Night - Stella Gibbons
651. To the North - Elizabeth Bowen
652. The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett
653. The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth
654. The Waves - Virginia Woolf
655. The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett
656. Cakes and Ale - W Somerset Maugham
657. The Apes of God - Wyndham Lewis
658. Her Privets We - Frederic Manning
659. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
660. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
661. Hebdomeros - Giorgio de Chirico
662. Passing - Nella Larsen
663. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemmingway
664. Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammet
665. Living - Henry Green
666. The Time of Indifference - Alberto Moravia
667. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
668. Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Doblin
669. The Last September - Elizabeth Bowden
670. Harriet Hume - Rebecca West
671. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
672. Les Enfants Terribles - Jean Cocteau
673. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
674. Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
675. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
676. Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
677. The Well of Loneliness - Rodclyffe Hall
678. The Childermas - Wyndham Lewis
679. Quartet - Jean Rhys
680. Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
681. Quicksand - Nella Larsen
682. Parade's End - Ford Madox Ford
683. Nadja - Andre Breton
684. Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
685. Rememberance of Things Past - Marcel Proust
686. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
687. Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson
688. Amerika - Franz Kafka
689. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
690. Blindness - Henry Green
691. The Castle - Franz Kafka
692. The Good Soldier Svejk - Jaroslav Hasek
693. The Plumed Serpent - DH Lawrence
694. One, None, and a Hundren Thousand - Luigi Pirandello
695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
696. The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein
697. Manhattan Transfer - John Dos Passos
698. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
699. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
700. The Counterfeiters - Andre Gide
701. The Trial - Franz Kafka
702. The Artamonov Business - Maxim Gorky
703. The Professor's House - Willa Cather
704. Billy Budd, Foretopman - Herman Melville
705. The Green Hat - Michael Arlen
706. The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
707. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
708. A Passage to India - EM Forster
709. The Devil in the Flesh - Raymond Radiguet
710. Zeno's Conscience - Italo Svevo
711. Cane - Jean Toomer
712. Antic Hay - Aldous Huxley
713. Amok - Stefan Zweig
714. The Garden Party - Katherine Mansfield
715. The Enormous Room - EE Cummings
716. Jacob's Room - Virginia Woolf
717. Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
718. The Glimpses of the Moon - Edith Wharton
719. Life and Seath of Harriet Frean - May Sinclair
720. The Last Days of Humanity - Karl Kraus
721. Aaron's Rod - DH Lawrence
722. Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis
723. Ulysses - James Joyce
724. The Fox - DH Lawrence
725. Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley
726. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
727. Main Stree - Sinclair Lewis
728. Women in Love - DH Lawrence
729. Night and Day - Virginia Woolf
730. Tarr - Wyndham Lewis
731. The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
732. The Shadow Line - Joseph Conrad
733. Summer - Edith Wharton
734. Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsen
735. Bunner Sisters - Edith Wharton
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
737. Under Fire - Henri Barbusse
738. Rashomon - Akutagawa Ryunosuke
739. The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
740. The Voyage Out - Virginia Woolf
741. Of Human Bondage - William Somerset Maugham
742. The Rainbow - DH Lawrence
743. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
744. Kokoro - Natsume Soseki
745. Locus Solus - Raymond Roussel
746. Rosshalde - Herman Hesse
747. Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs
748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthroposts - Robert Tressell
749. Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence
750. Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
751. The Charwoman's Daughter - James Stephens
752. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
753. Fantomas - Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
754. Howards End - EM Forster
755. Impressions of Africa - Raymond Roussel
756. Three Lives - Gertrude Stein
757. Martin Eden - Jack London
758. Straight is the Gate - Andre Gide
759. Tono-Bungay - HG Wells
760. The Inferno - Henri Barbusse
761. A Room With a View - EM Forster
762. The Iron Heel - Jack London
763. The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennet
764. The House on the Bordeland - William Hope Hodgson
765. Mother - Maxim Gorky
767. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
768. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
769. Young Torless - Robert Musil
770. The Forsyte Sage - John Galsworthy
771. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
772. Professor Unrat - Heinrich Mann
773. Where Angels Fear to Tread - EM Forster
774. Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
775. Hadrian the Seventh - Frederick Rolfe
776. The Golden Bowl - Henry James
777. The Ambassadors - Henry James
778. The Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers
779. The Immoralist - Andre Gide
780. The Wings of the Dove - Henry James
781. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
782. The Hound of the Bashkervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
783. Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
784. Kim - Rudyard Kipling
785. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
786. Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

1800's
787. Some Experiences of an Irish RM - Somerville and Ross
788. The Stechlin - Theodore Fontane
789. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
790. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
791. The War of the Worlds - HG Wells
792. The Invisible Man - HG Wells
793. What Maisie Knew - Henry James
794. Fruits of the Earth - Andre Gide
795. Dracula - Bram Stoker
796. Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz
797. The Island of Dr. Moreau - HG Wells
798. The Time Machine - HG Wells
799. Effi Briest - Theodore Fontane
800. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
801. The Real Charlotte - Somerville and Ross
802. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
803. Born in Exile - George Gissing
804. Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
805. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
806. News From Nowhere - William Morris
807. New Grub Street - George Gissing
808. Gosta Berling's Saga - Selma Lagerlof
809. Tess of D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
810. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
811. The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy
812. La Bete Humaine - Emile Zola
813. Hunger - Knut Hamsun
814. The Master of Ballantrae - Robert Louis Stevenson
815. Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant
816. Fortunata and Jacinta - Benito Perez Galdes
817. The People of Hemso - August Strindberg
818. The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
819. She - H Rider Haggard
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
821. The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
822. Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
823. King Solomon's Mines - H Rider Haggard
824. Germinal - Emile Zola
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
826. Bel-Ami - Guy de Maupassant
827. Marius the Epicurean - Walter Pater
828. Against the Grain - Joris-Karl Huysmans
829. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
830. A Woman's Life - Guy de Maupassant
831. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
832. The House by the Medlar Tree - Giovanni Verga
833. The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
834. Bouvard and Pecuchet - Gustav Flaubert
835. Ben-Hur - Lew Wallace
836. Nana - Emile Zola
837. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
838. The Red Room - August Strindberg
839. Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
840. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
841. Drunkard - Emile Zola
842. Virgin Soil - Ivan Turgenev
843. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
844. The Hand of Ethelberta - Thomas Hardy
845. The Temptation of Saint Anthony - Gustav Flaubert
846. Far from the Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy
847. The Enchanted Wanderer - Nicolai Leskov
848. Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne
849. In a Glas Darkley - Sheridan Le Fanu
850. The Devils - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
851. Erewhon - Samuel Butler
852. Spring Torrents - Ivan Turgenev
853. Middlemarch - George Eliot
854. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There - Lewis Carroll
855. King Lear of the Steppes - Ivan Turgenev
856. He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope
857. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
858. Sentimental Education - Gustav Flaubert
859. Phineas Finn - Anthony Trollope
860. Maldoror - Comte de Lautreaumont
861. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
862. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
863. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
864. Therese Raquin - Emile Zola
865. The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
866. Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
867. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
868. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
869. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
870. Uncle Silas - Sheridan le Fanu
871. Notes From the Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
872. The Water-Babies - Charles Kingsley
873. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
874. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
875. Silas Marner - George Eliot
876. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
877. On the Eve - Ivan Turgenev
878. Castle Richmond - Anthony Trollope
879. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
880. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
881. The Marble Faun - Nathaniel Hawthorne
882. Max Havelaar - Multatuli
883. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
884. Oblomovka - Ivan Goncharov
885. Adam Bede - George Eliot
886. Madame Bovary - George Eliot
887. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
888. Hard Times - Charles Dickens
889. Walden - Henry David Thoreau
890. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
891. Villette - Charlotte Bronte
892. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
893. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
894. The Blithedale Romance - Nathaniel Hawthorne
895. The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
896. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
897. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
898. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
899. Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
900. Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
902. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
903. Agnes Gray - Anne Bronte
904. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
905. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery
906. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
907. La Reine Margot - Alexandre Dumas
908. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
909. The Purloined Letter - Edgar Allen Poe
910. Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens
911. The Pit and the Pendulum - Edgar Allen poe
912. Lost Illusions - Honore de Balzac
913. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
914. Dead Souls - Nikolay Gogol
915. The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal
916. The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe
917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens
918. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
919. The Nose - Nikolay Gogol
920. Le Pere Goriot - Honore de Balzac
921. Eugenie Grandet - Honore de Balzac
922. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
923. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
924. The Betrothed - Alessandro Manzoni
925. Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
926. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg
927. The Albigenses - Charles Robert Maturin
928. Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Robert Maturin
929. The Monastery - Sir Walter Scott
930. Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
931. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
932. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
933. Persuasion - Jane Austen
934. Ormond - Maria Edgeworth
935. Rob Roy - Sir Walter Scott
936. Emma - Jane Austen
937. Masfield Park - Jane Austen
938. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
939. The Absentee - Maria Edgeworth
940. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
941. Elective Affinities - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
942. Castle Rachrent - Maria Edgeworth

1700's
943. Hyperion - Friedrich Holderlin
944. The Nun - Denis Diderot
945. Camilla - Fanny Burney
946. The Monk - MG Lewis
947. Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
948. The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe
949. The interesting Narrative - Olaudah Equiano
950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams - William Godwin
951. Justine - Marquis de Sade
952. Vathek - William Beckford
953. The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis de Sade
954. Cecilia - Fanny Burney
955. Confessions - Jean-Jaques Rousseau
956. Dangerous Liaisons - Pierre Choderloas de Laclos
957. Reveries of a Solitary Walker - Jean-Jaques Rousseau
958. Evelina - Fanny Burney
959. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
960. Humphrey Clinker - Tobias George Smollett
961. The Man of Feeling - Henry Mackenzie
962. A Sentimental Journey - Laurence Sterne
963. Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne
964. The Vikar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith
965. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
966. Emile; or, on Education - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
967. Rameau's Nephew - Denis Diderot
968. Julie; or, the New Eloise - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
969. Rasselas - Samuel Johnson
970. Candide - Voltaire
971. The Female Quixote - Charlotte Lennox
972. Amelia - Henry Fielding
973. Peregrine Pickle - Tobias George Smollet
974. Fanny Hill - John Cleland
975. Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
976. Roderick Random - Tobias George Smollet
977. Clarissa - Samuel Richardson
978. Pamela - Samuel Richardson
979. Jacques the Fatalist - Denis Diderot
980. Memoires of Martinus Scriblerus - J Arbuthnot, J Gay, T Parnell, A Pope, J Swift
981. Joseph Andrews - Henry Fielding
982. A Modest Propsal - Jonathan Swift
983. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
984. Roxana - Daniel Defoe
985. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
986. Love in Excess - Eliza Haywood
987. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
988. A Tale of a Tub - Jonathan Swift

Pre-1700's
989. Oroonoko - Aphra Behn
990. The Princess of Cleves - Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
991. The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan
992. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
993. The Unfortunate Traveller - Thomas Nashe
994. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit - John Lyly
995. Gargantua and Pantagruel - Francoise Rabelais
996. The Thousand and One Nights - Anonymous
997. The Golden Ass - Lucius Apuleius
998. Aithiopika - Heliodorus
999. Chaireas and Kallirhoe - Chariton
1000. Metamorphoses - Ovid
1001. Aesop's Fabels - Aesopus