Thursday, July 31, 2008

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...

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

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

Monday, July 21, 2008

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?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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

The Virgin's Lover - Phillippa Gregory

the virgin's lover
philippa gregory
c. 2004
450 pages
completed 7/14/2008

*may contain spoilers*



I love Philippa Gregory. Well, I love her Tudor series. So far I have not been wild about her other novels.

The Virgin's Lover is the story of Queen Elizabeth I's first two years of rule and her alleged affair with Robert Dudley. Which I, for one, totally believed happened. It's interesting to me that she is known as the Virgin Queen, that her purity is so revered, and yet the rumors during her time and much of the literature about her today call her...less than chaste.

This was a very different depiction of Elizabeth than I've ever read before. Normally she is shown to be the strong queen that she is known for. Yes she was vane and self-centered, but she was still intelligent and loved her country. This book portrayed her as flighty, scared, and temperamental. She couldn't make up her mind on anything. She wouldn't listen to her councilmen. She was so besotted with Dudley that she couldn't rule her country. I really didn't like her.

This was the first time I really saw Amy as a character. So far before I've only read people talking about her, but here we got to know her. I feel sure she was murdered, and out of the three main suspects, I think this book made the most sense with their choice. I felt bad for her. She tried, but she was just not in the same league as Dudley. She wanted a quiet, simple life. They could never make each other happy. Though I was proud that she could stand up to Dudley in the end and not give him a divorce.

Probably not my favorite Philippa Gregory, but still good.

4/5

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Gimmie gimmie more...

I'm so excited! Lezlie at Books and Border Collies hosted a Georgette Heyer book giveaway and I won! Well, I was one of the winners. Soon I will have a nice new book to read, The Royal Escape. Very exciting. In other news I seem to have gotten a little off track with my summer reading plan. I've been living in San Diego for six months now (six months yesterday!) and have yet to get a library card. This wasn't a problem until now. Almost everything off my summer reading list I don't own! And I keep procrastinating, so I went off the list a little bit. But I'm trying to get back on track. I have plans to visit the library tomorrow to get a card and hopefully some of the books on my list! We'll see if I get back on track.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Saturday - Ian McEwan

saturday
ian mcewan
c. 2005
304 pages
completed 7/3/2008

*may contain spoilers*

This has been my favorite new read so far this year. I loved this book. Which leads me to wonder why it would be one of the books removed from the 1001 list.

I'm so glad I decided to give McEwan the benefit of the doubt after reading The Cement Garden. Glad this went the way of Atonement instead.

This book was filled with beautiful language. So much so that for a few seconds after I was done, I wanted to be a poet (but then I remembered my not so stellar relationship with poetry). Henry's day was so simple and easy, a Saturday to be filled with nothing but life's pleasures, yet one minor inconvenience changed not only his day, but in someway probably his life, forever.

I don't know what else to say. This book basically ran through Henry's thought process of his extra-ordinary Saturday. And I loved it.

5/5

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

To be read...

I did not find as many books to add to my TBR pile this past month. Which is probably good since that is a LONG list...

The Known World - Edward P Jones
The Tsarina's Daughter - Carolly Erikson
The Other Queen - Phillipa Gregory
My Lady of Cleaves - Margaret Campbell Barnes
The Meaning of Night (a Confessions) - Michael Cox
The Well and the Mine - Gin Phillips
The Lady Elizabeth - Alison Weir
Mudbound - Hillary Jordan

Only 8 new books to add to the list this time.