Liz's (Eliz_M) Lists and Book Bites

I love reading and list-making and book buying (I've crammed 1200+ books in a tiny studio apartment!), and chatting about books, but I hate writing reviews and am perpetually behind.

For many, many years I have been reading primarily from the 1001-Books-to-Read-Before-You-Die list (952 read so far!) Other reads are chosen through reading challenge prompts, especially the #readingoceania24 challenge on Litsy and my global challenge on LT. Now that I spend more time on Litsy I am reading more contemporary novels, especially those featured in the Tournament of Books or listed for the International Booker.

Aside from reading, my weekdays are spent working for a large performing arts organization in NYC and my weekends are for eating brunch out, walking around my Brooklyn neighborhood/Prospect Park/Greenwood cemetery, occasionally visiting a museum, and cooking vegetarian meals for myself and/or baking treats for the office, and, of course, giving attention to his elderliness, Bert.

. . . .

Currently Reading:

.
.

LT / Litsy adds to the TBR:
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (recommended by dchaikin)
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (recommended by AlisonY)
All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (recommended by sarahbarnes + many others)
North Woods by Daniel Mason (recommended by Cariola)
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu (recommended by KeithChaffee)
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (recommended by RaeLovesToRead)
The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross (recommended by Willoyd)
The Master Key by Masako Togawa (recommended by vivastory)
James by Percival Everett (recommended by thorold)
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott (recommended by BLBera)
The Intimate City: Walking New York by Michael Kimmelman (recommended by katiekrug)
Dayswork by Chris Bachelder (recommended by sarahbarnes)
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield (recommended by AlisonY)

2023 Stats

Books read: 93
total pages read: ~23500 (excludes graphic novels with no page numbers)
ave. # pages: 253

1001-list-books: 29 (31%)
Female Authors: 49 (53%)
In Translation: 46 (49%)
Non-fiction: 6

Pre-1800: 3
1800s: 4
1900-1949: 7
1950-1999: 25
2000s: 51 (55%)

Libe books: 35 (38%)
Owned-pre-2023: 46 (49%)
Bought & read: 7 (7.5%)

New-acquisitions in 2023: 62

.

2024 Goals

At least 51% of books from the owned-tbr
At least 51% of books published before 2000
At least 51% of books written by women or poc
At least 51% of books translated into English
At least 33% of 1001 list books

1920: Women in Love
1921: Life of Christ
1922: Babbitt
1923: Whose Body?, The Fox, Anderby Wold
1924: The Home-Maker, Skylark
1925: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1926: The Castle
1927: Amerika
1928: Parade's End
1929: The Time of Indifference
1930: Insatiability
1931: Castle Gripsholm, Memories : from Moscow to the Black Sea
1932: The Return of Philip Latinowicz
1933: Testament of Youth
1934: The Bells of Basel, A Handful of Dust
1935: The House in Paris
1936: The Thinking Reed
1937: The Years, Ghosts
1938: After the Death of Don Juan
1939: At Swim-Two-Birds
1940: The Pilgrim Hawk, Mariana
1941: In Sicily, Between the Acts
1942: The Seventh Cross
1943: The Glass Bead Game, Love in a Fallen City,
1944: Masters of the Dew, Kaputt, Murder After Christmas
1945: The Folded Leaf, Apartment in Athens, Monsieur Monde Vanishes
1946: Temptation, The President
1947: Mood Indigo
1948: All About H. Hatterr
1949: Confessions of a Mask
1950: The Abbot C
1951: The Opposing Shore
1952: All Our Yesterdays, The Price of Salt, Stalingrad
1953: The Hothouse
1954: Death in Rome, The Mandarins
1955: A World of Love
1956: Zama, A Legacy
1957: The Deadbeats
1958: The Bitter Glass
1959: Naked Lunch, Billiards at Half-Past Nine
1960: The Winners
1961: No Fond Return of Love, Totempole
1962: Time of Silence
1963: Dog Years
1964: Sometimes a Great Notion, The Silentiary
1965: August is a Wicked Month
1966: Marks of Identity, The Birds Fall Down, Death and the Dervish
1967: The Manor
1968: Myra Breckinridge, The German Lesson, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
1969: Ada, or Ardor, A Void
1970: Abigail
1971: Group Portrait With Lady
1972: The Mad and the Bad
1973: Gravity's Rainbow
1974: Winter in the Blood, Oreo, The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe
1975: W, or the Memory of Childhood
1976: Patterns of Childhood
1977: The Passion of New Eve
1978: Life: A User's Manual, Tirra Lirra by the River
1979: Fool's Gold
1980: Smell of Sadness
1981: Lanark: A Life in Four Books
1982: Baltasar and Blimunda
1983: Fado Alexandrino, The Sorrow of Belgium
1984: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel
1985: Lonesome Dove
1986: Extinction
1987: The Radiant Way, The Enigma of Arrival
1988: Thus Were Their Faces, English, August: An Indian Story
1989: The Snows of Yesteryear
1990: Stone Junction
1991: The Laws, Changes: A Love Story
1992: Triple Mirror of the Self, The Discovery of Heaven
1993: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
1994: The Life of Insects
1995: The Unconsoled
1996: Ivory Pearl
1997: Bibliolepsy
1998: Another World, The Heretic
1999: The Romantics, Everything You Need, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2000: Celestial Harmonies
2001: Blonde, Don't Move, Schooling
2002: In the Forest, Bright
2003: The Colour
2004: 2666, The Silence and the Roar
2005: The Icarus Girl
2006: All for Nothing
2007: Elena Knows
2008: Visitation
2009: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Little Reunions
2010: Freedom
2011: Sand
2012: Our Lady of the Nile
2013: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, The Factory
2014: H is for Hawk
2015: The Story of the Lost Child Tentacle
2016: The Dry
2017: Home Fire
2018: Saudade
2019: Breasts and Eggs
2020: Interior Chinatown
2021: No One Is Talking About This
2022: Either/Or
2023: The Bandit Queens
2024:
2025:

Food and Lit 2024



Possibilities:

Ghana: Changes: A Love Story
New Zealand: Tauhou, Pet, Auē
South Korea: Bluebeard's First Wife
Venezuela: Mama Blanca's Memoirs, It Would be Night in Caracas
Spain: Boulder
Iceland:
Turkey:
Jamaica:
Malaysia:
Botswana:
Canada:
Finland:

.

Cookbooks:

Australia
Fiji
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Micronesia (Federated States of Micronesia)
Nauru
New Zealand: Tauhou, Pet, Auē
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Samoa: They Who Do Not Grieve
Solomon Islands
Tonga: We Are the Ocean?
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Antarctica

Around the World in 12 Months


I visited 8 countries of the United Nations (4.14%) out of 193.
Create your own travel map .

Ghana --> Atlantic Ocean --> Belize --> Guatemala --> Pacific Ocean --> Peru --> Pacific Ocean --> New Zealand --> Pacific Ocean --> Russia --> Sea of Japan --> Japan --> Sea of Japan --> South Korea

24 in 2024 - 1001 books

1. Death in Rome
2. The Life of Insects
3. King Lear of the Steppes
4. The Bitter Glass
5. 2666
6. Sometimes a Great Notion
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

Possibilities:
Broad and Alien Is the World, The Red Room, The Story of the Lost Child, The Years, Fool's Gold, Another World, Extinction, The Manor

24 in 2024 - Global books

A place to list books in translation, books by authors from and/or set in other countries. Most will be chosen by the challenges listed in >5 ELiz_M:, >6 ELiz_M:, >7 ELiz_M:

Resources in Storygraph Global Challenges:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/424d3ced-94d4-4b25-af10-381ead3...
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/09a88c1d-65a0-4eac-bcac-1f0fffd...
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/7aa836fe-42b9-45a4-b98b-b405bd6...
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/84b5d676-0411-4480-bc62-f486af0...
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/dfa6e3a0-c057-43f4-a9a9-6183dff...

1. Ghana - Changes: A Love Story
2. Belize - Beka Lamb
3. Guatemala - Human Matter
4. Peru - Ice for Martians
5. Iran - Women Without Men
6. South Korea - Bluebeard's First Wife
7. Malaysia - Lake Like a Mirror
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

Possibilities:
Amanat : Women's Writing from Kazakhstan, The Archive of Feelings (Switzerland), Bibliolepsy (Philippines), The Box (Bermuda), Chinatown (Viet Nam?), FEM (Romania), Fresh Dirt From the Grave (Bolivia), Distant View of a Minaret (Egypt), The Good Life Elsewhere (Moldova), High Tide (Latvia), Land of Snow and Ashes (Finland), The Last Pomegranate Tree (Iraq), Newcomers: Book One (Slovenia), Planet of Clay (Syria), Standing Heavy (France/Côte d'Ivoire), Straight from the Horse's Mouth (Morocco), Swallowing Mercury (Poland), They Who Do Not Grieve (Samoa), Tranquility (Hungary), The Unseen (Norway), Voroshilovgrad (Ukraine), Voyager (Chile), Woman Running in the Mountains (Japan), The Words That Remain (Brazil)

24 in 2024 - Diverse books

A place to list books by authors with different perspectives. As opposed to global reading, these will be authors that might have a different perspectives as minorities in their countries. This topic was inspired by Bibliophile: Diverse Spines

.

1. You Exist Too Much
2. Aue
3. Confessions of a Mask
4. Winter in the Blood
5. Lot
6. Boulder
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

Possibilities
March, Just Mercy, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, The Sentence, Bless Me, Ultima, Red Pill, Trust Exercise, The Yellow House, Dominicana, Everything I Never Told You, Patsy, America Is Not the Heart, Friday Black, Real Life, Under the Udala Trees, Crying in H Mart, Men We Reaped, The Undocumented Americans, Sympathizer

24 in 2024 - Owned books

Since reading 96 books a year is a stretch, half of the books that fill this category can be from the above categories.

1. You Exist Too Much
2. Women Without Men
3. Confessions of a Mask
4. Bluebeard's First Wife
5. Winter in the Blood
6. 2666
7. Lake Like a Mirror
8. Lot
9. Sometimes a Great Notion
10.
11.
12.

1. The Pilgrim Hawk
2. Zama
3. Castle Gripsholm
4. The Juniper Tree
5. Writers & Lovers
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Possibilities (books bought before I joined LT):
Humboldt's Gift, Under Fire, Gravity's Rainbow, All About H. Hatterr, The Unconsoled, The Cancer Ward, Lost Illusions, The Laramie Project, Baltasar and Blimunda, The Glass Bead Game, The Castle, V., Angle of Repose, Ada, or, Ardor, The Adventures of Augie March, Lanark: A Life in Four Books, The Third Wedding Wreath, Fado Alexandrino, Life: A User's Manual, The Last Temptation of Christ

First Quarter Reading Ideas:

Quarter 1 Chonky Book: 2666

Tribute: Zama, Blinding, Thirst: A Novel of the Iran-Iraq War, The Galley Slave, Mama Leone, Cyclops, Of Dreams and Assassins, A Tunisian Tale, Singing Away the Hunger, Minuet for Guitar

January:
LT 1001 Book: Death in Rome
FoodandLit: Changes: A Love Story
ReadingOceania:
192025: Fado Alexandrino* Patterns of Childhood
TBRTarot: You Exist Too Much*
BookSpin: Changes: A Love Story, Fado Alexandrino*

February:
LT 1001 Book: The Life of Insects
FoodandLit: Auē
ReadingOceania: Auē
192025: The Return of Philip Latinowicz, The Pilgrim Hawk, Gravity's Rainbow
TBRTarot: Ice for Martians or Carte Blanche
BookSpin: The Life of Insects, 2666

March:
LT 1001 Book: The Bitter Glass
FoodandLit (South Korea): The Impossible Fairy Tale, Bluebeard's First Wife
ReadingOceania: They Who Do Not Grieve, Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures, Pacific Island Legends
192025: The Years, The Winners, Fool's Gold, Another World, Extinction, The Manor
TBRTarot: 2666
BookSpin: 2666, Winter in the Blood

----------

Second Quarter Reading Ideas:

Quarter 2 Chonky Books: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship / Women in Love

Tribute: Blinding, Thirst: A Novel of the Iran-Iraq War, The Galley Slave, Mama Leone, Cyclops, Of Dreams and Assassins, A Tunisian Tale, Singing Away the Hunger, Minuet for Guitar

April:
LT 1001 Book: 10:04
FoodandLit: Mama Blanca's Memoirs, It Would be Night in Caracas
ReadingOceania: They Who Do Not Grieve
192025: Abigail, Where the Wild Ladies Are
TBRTarot:
BookSpin: The Sandman: Book Five, Extinction

May:
LT 1001 Book: By the Open Sea
FoodandLit: Boulder
ReadingOceania:
192025: Castle Gripsholm, No Fond Return of Love
TBRTarot: Mood Indigo, The Red Room
BookSpin: Extinction, The Thinking Reed

June:
LT 1001 Book:
FoodandLit:
ReadingOceania:
192025:
TBRTarot:
BookSpin:

----------

Key:
strike through book linked - A book I read this year
strike through - A book I have read before and don't plan to reread
book linked - A book I am thinking of reading for the relevant group/challenge/theme
book title - A book that I haven't read and currently don't plan to read
* - A book I own (paper copy)

spare

Hi Liz, Love your reading goals and planning! Will you be finishing the 1001 books in 2024?? X

Happy to see your thread here. You had a fantastic reading year last year. 29 from the 1001 is impressive. (I am tempted to give you a hard time on not having read any 2024 books yet. Sorry, my goofball moment). Wish you a great year.

Welcome back to Club Read, Liz! I am looking forward to following your thread again, especially as you work through all those translated books you bought at the Strand and Brooklyn book festival. I'm so impressed by your percentage of translated books read. I will also be scooping up ideas for my global challenge from your Oceania reading. Lots to look forward to here!

Belated Happy New Year. I note your reading of Dog Years from your one-per-year list. I take it that's the Gunter Grass novel. How did you like it? I read it pretty long ago, but I remember being entirely absorbed by it.

Wow, that's an impressive bit of planning, and some ambitious lists. I'll be very interested to see your comments on the books.

Hello Liz! Wishing you a year of good reading, and looking forward to tagging along.

Happy New Year, Liz! You have some great challenges going. Good luck. I hope 2024 is a great year of reading for you. Looking at your 2023 stats, you have an impressive percentage of work in translation.

>14 Simone2: Hi Barbara, happy to see you as my first visitor. :) If I was really dedicated, I could finish reading 1001 books from list this year (48 to go!), but it will likely take two more years.

>15 dchaikin: Hello Dan, thanks for stopping by. Now, if I was interested in ARC's I could have read a 2024 book already, but I still think of myself as someone that primarily reads "classics" even though more than half my reading is from the 2000s.

>16 labfs39: Morning Lisa, thank you for making CR such a welcoming place, even for those of us that have trouble maintaining our thread for more than a few months... I recently went back to that basement, far back corner table at the Strand and it was mostly the same books! I was a little disappointed. Luckily Brooklyn has many wonderful bookstores for finding intriguing translated novels.

>17 rocketjk: Hi Jerry! Yes, that is the Grass novel -- that post has trouble maintaining so many touchstones. I must work on it. I was glad to finish the Danzig trilogy, but didn't much like Dog Years, even though I enjoyed Cat and Mouse -- wrong time for the book I think.

>18 Jim53: Welcome to Club Read and my thread, Papa Jim!

>19 rachbxl: Hello Rachel! Thanks for the visit. I always enjoy your thread & reviews -- I get several ideas for global reading from it. :)

>20 BLBera: Hi Beth! I hear MN finally got some snow, just in time for the new year. I've starred your thread over in the 75ers, but haven't quite caught up to all the post-reading yet!

Now you've got me really interested--what 48 books did you leave for last on the 1001 list? I'm really impressed you are so close to completion. I seem to manage only 5-10 per year, which means I'll never get to the end.
I really hope you keep your thread up this year.(No pressure). Your reading is always so interesting!

>22 arubabookwoman: "what 48 books did you leave for last on the 1001 list?"

Yes! That would be a great list. :)

>22 arubabookwoman: >23 rocketjk:. Well, the combined list from all editions of the book is up to 1315?, or thereabouts. Since my goal is to only read 1001 of them, I have about 360 from which to choose -- too many to list here.

>24 ELiz_M: "too many to list here."

Oh, come on. Don't sell yourself short! :)

Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo, pub. 1991
Finished 7-Jan-2024

Not told in a “standard” western style, it is a story of women’s relationships, centered on Esi Sekyi – her first marriage to smothering husband Oko, her second polygamous marriage to Ali, and her lifelong friendship with Opokuya. The theme of changes is augmented with glimpses of Opokuya’s and Ali’s marriages. Each relationship blends tradition and modernity, none entirely successfully. But it portrays the possibilities for modern African women.

>26 ELiz_M: a new title to me. You leave me curious about the nature of the style.

Hi and happy New(ish) Year! I'm also looking forward to seeing what you thought of some of those works in translation. And everything else...

Look forward to your reading as always, Liz.

Hi, Liz! I love your categories, and I'm very impressed that you've nearly finished the 1001 Books Before You Die list. I'm waiting to receive a copy of Prophet Song that I requested from the Free Library of Philadelphia, and Study for Obedience is high on my wish list.

I'm interested to get your impression of the Ghanaian cookbook.

>25 rocketjk: OOps, I didn't mean to skip over this comment.

Compromise: I own the 2008 edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Here is the list of the 173 books in this edition that I haven't yet read:
https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=1001&view=ELiz_M

ETA: I think you'll have to chose the "To Read" collection.

Feel free to opine about which of these, in your opinion, I should read.

>31 ELiz_M: I had to change the setting on that page to get the 173, but of the ones listed there I would recommend:

Quo Vadis, a chunkster, but I've read it twice. Quite spellbinding
Testament of Youth, a vital memoir of WWI British youth
Good Soldier Svejk is fun, but does get long, IMO

>27 dchaikin: While mostly told linearly, doesn't feel as well structured as it is. There are odd gaps of time where the story jumps ahead months or year or two. The second chapter is told from the perspective of Esi's daughter, but then she's barely in the rest of the narrative. And there are places where descriptions of events are interrupted with a block quote of what I assume is an African or folklore aphorism that seems to be represent the character's thoughts. There is a section that begin as if a play script, but it is composed of one side of a series of phone calls.

But all this is just momentary diversions from a mostly linear narrative.

>28 lisapeet: >29 AlisonY: Hello Lisa & Alison, I am delighted to have you here. I do always enjoy following your threads.

>30 kidzdoc: Thank you. Well, one recipe I was interested in making is one of those recipes that refers you to the three other recipes to make first and at every stage there are some scotch bonnet peppers. Soooo I don't think I'm going to reproduce authentic versions of these recipes. My Midwestern palate can barely manage a jalapeño.

>32 labfs39: Ha, I thought (and hoped) that comment would get some takers! :D

But oh dear, you've recommended two books that I have half-read and never managed to convince myself to finish. Quo Vadis grated on my nerves, it felt too preachy (could be a bad translation). And "satirical farce" (Svejk) is among my least favorite writing style; it's just not my brand of humor.

>35 ELiz_M: Interesting about Quo Vadis. It's been a long time since I've read it, but I got sucked in both times. I agree about Svejk though. A little of that type of humor goes a long way with me. It was fun for a bit, but goes on for 100s of pages (depending too if you stop with Hasek's bit or continue on). I guess that leaves Vera Brittain!

I've never been a completist when it comes to lists like that in part because I find them full of dead white guys and in part because some of the choices strike me as really odd. Good luck! You are a better man than I Gunga Din.

>36 labfs39: I do like checking things off a list and I love finishing one! So for me it's a perfect situation to be in where I have 360 books to chose from but only need 48 to consider myself a completist.

I own a copy of Testament of Youth, so that means I will get to it in the next year or two.

>31 ELiz_M:

Quo Vadis is an old favorite. So is Svejk. However, the latter seems not to work for a lot of western readers so there is that.

Rob Roy is a nice adventure story - I loved it when I read it in my teens but it is very much a novel of its time.

The Idiot is one of my favorite Russian books.

>31 ELiz_M: ooh, a list! :) However, not a lot of lite, fun books. Will you attempt Finigan's Wake?

>33 ELiz_M: thanks for this post. I was curious and that's interesting to me.

>31 ELiz_M: That's quite a list! All I can do is offer a list of those books on the list I've read and enjoyed.

Here are the books I particularly recommend:
Good Soldier Svejk
The Things They Carried
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Unknown Soldier
The Tin Drum
Sometimes a Great Notion
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Crime and Punishment
Naked Lunch
The Human Stain
Wise Blood
Under the Volcano
Song of Solomon
The Handmaid’s Tale
All Quiet on the Western Front
Their Eyes Were Watching God
To Kill a Mockingbird

Here are the other books I've read and enjoyed and/or believe are valuable to read:
Madam Bovary
Voss
French Lieutenants’ Woman
The Scarlet and the Black
Dog Years
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Middlemarch
Brave New World
Of Human Bondage
Flaubert’s Parrott
The Bell Jar

Here are the books that are high up on my own "Haven't Read But Really Should" list:
The Grapes of Wrath
Native Son
Suite Francaise
Giovanni’s Room (I've read other Baldwin, though. He is definitely a writer everyone should visit.)

I can't imagine that helps any, but that's the best I can do for you. You'll note that my selection mostly come from the American/English shelf of that overall list. That certainly represents a drawback in my own reading experience.

You have some good ones left--it should be easy for you to reach the 1001 goal!

Of those I read, I've loved these, which means I thought they were very good books but also compelling reading for me. Also not "difficult", but fairly easy to read, and calling out to me when I was not reading:

Manon des Sources (and also the companion book, Jean de Florette There is a lovely movie too)
The Manor (and companion book The Estate. Jerry (rocketj) just read and reviewed this)
Life: A User's Manual A "puzzle" book I liked so much I've read it twice
Group Portrait With Lady
The Radiant Way I read and reviewed this last year.
Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit Redux I've liked all the Rabbit books, but a lot of people don't, and I think you have to read them all in order to appreciate them
Life and Times of Tristram Shandy I was laughing out loud on the bus on my commute reading this. I had been expecting a "dry" classic.
Ada Nabokov is so adept with words.
Sometimes a Great Notion I loved this family saga even more than his more widely read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The following are books I liked, very good, I highly recommend them, but I wasn't haunted by them when not reading them:

The Discovery of Heaven
The Old Wive's Tale
Under Fire
Alamut I read and reviewed this on LT shortly after I joined
2666
Billiards At Half Past Nine

The following are books I love/liked, but I did not find them easy to read:

Auto da Fe
The Idiot
Parade's End (I think you have to read the whole trilogy)
Lost Illusions
Cancer Ward
Journey to the End of the Night

Also these were ok--I liked them but they are not favorites:

Babbitt
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (read and reviewed last year or the year before on LT)
Quo Vadis

Finally these are the ones I actively disliked and would not choose to read again:

L'Abbe C
The Unconsoled
Naked Lunch
Tropic of Cancer
Any of the Samuel Beckett books

As I said, I think you have lots of good books left to choose from. There are several others on your list that I own but haven't read and am looking forward to. For example, I bought Fado Alexandrino several years ago when I think it was daryl (kid doc) highly recommended it, and every year it's been on my imaginary list of possible reads.

>38 AnnieMod: Hi Annie! The Brothers Karamazov is one of my rare five-star reads (I was even fascinated by the dreaded religious debate in Ch 5!), so I definitely will get to The Idiot someday. I found Ivanhoe a better read than I expected, so I really should stop avoiding Rob Roy -- it'll probably be a faster read than its length would suggest.

>39 dchaikin: I loved (and detested) Ulysses. Finnegan's Wake is not one I am likely to read.

>40 rocketjk: Hey Jerry, I think you might have been looking at the entire list -- the link does not chose the "To Read" collection automatically, as I thought it would. I hope you enjoyed perusing it and I appreciate the long lists provided!

So, I've read most of those you "particularly recommend" and all of the ones you find "valuable to read" and "really should" read. I had Sometimes a Great Notion off the shelf and had started reading it, but the style was too similar to something else I was reading so I set it aside. I will get back to it soonish -- I liked what I had read so far.

I found Suite Française to be a terrible book club book -- everyone thought it was fabulous and although the topic could lend itself to discussion, it was kind of a boring meeting. Of the little Baldwin I've read, I found Giovanni's Room to have the best prose.

>41 arubabookwoman: Deborah, thank you for taking the time to write up your lists. I think my reading taste are generally similar to yours.

I started Life: A User's Manual accompanied by printouts forthe diagram of how the stories move around the building and lists of all the items/elements that were supposed to be included in each chapter, etc. It was too much. I need to find a way to read it without also obsessing over finding all the things.

Thanks for the Manon recommendation. I hadn't really heard much about it and associate it with opera stories (Manon Lescaut, Manon) so hadn't really looked for it. It is now higher up the mental list.

And Beckett, ah Beckett. I am fascinated by his plays (I saw an amazing production of Happy Days and someday I would love to see Endgame), but really couldn't engage with the novel I attempted. I suspect I won't read the others.

>43 ELiz_M: Ah! Oh, well. Yes, I did enjoy the perusal and nice to know we have the same taste/history in "classics" reading. Cheers!

>45 rocketjk: exactly! now I know I need to get to the few on your lists I haven't read. 😊

I think that's why I read Life: A User's Manual twice. I was obsessed with finding all the connections, and during my second reading I kept a little notebook of how things fit together. I definitely found more connections than my first reading. That's why I call it a "puzzle" book ( and a big theme is jigsaw puzzles--when you get to the end you will see that). I'd just go with the flow reading it, not obsess too much about finding all the connections and fitting them together, because in the end it will all go together. I actually might enjoy a third reading.

>47 arubabookwoman: I should plan to read this on my summer vacation, when I can pay more attention to it. I just got caught up in trying to find each of the elements in his list of constraints in each chapter and that was exhausting.

Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell, pub. 1982
Finished 15-Jan-2024

Bright, but too contrary to accept without questions the teachings of the convent school, Beka reflects on the tumultuous past few months. Beginning with her failure to pass the term, we see her penchant for lying and it's punishment, her great-gran’s death and wake, a hurricane. In the background are Gran’s stories of the “befo time” of slavery and her participation in the People’s Independent Party working to end colonial rule while Beka’s more cautious parents are endeavoring to maintain the middle-class life they’ve obtained.

In the foreground is the gulf widening between her and her best friend, Trocycie. In contrast to Beka, Troycie is a few years older, a model student and working desperately hard to escape her background, but her inability to cope with ruinous events leads to a breakdown. Beka’s intelligence and contrariness see her (and the reader) through what could have been just a tale of misery.

>49 ELiz_M: 1001 list? Sounds interesting

>50 dchaikin: This one is from 500 Great Books by Women (although it actually lists 508 books).

>51 ELiz_M: I was just playing with the spreadsheet that Danielle/Yells sent me, and this was one of the lists. It only has 500 books though, so now I have to find the other 8! Thanks, Liz, lol. BTW, despite my trying to read lots of books by women, I have only read 33 of these. Eek! What am I doing with my life?

>51 ELiz_M: wow. I wasn’t aware of that list !

>52 labfs39: Try this list:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/442382-liz-m?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=500...

>54 ELiz_M: for just lists thread? ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/356056 )

I mentioned on the Lists thread, that I have 500 Great Books For Women on my shelf, and have discovered many good reads from it. I recognize the title Beka Lamb, and it intrigued me enough that if I had ever come across it in a bookstore, I probably would have purchased it, but I never did. I was interested in it from a Reading Globally standpoint as it is from a country for which I haven't come across many authors/books.

ETA: And I just now discovered it's available for Kindle for $5.99. So that's new.

I have the 500 Great Books by Women as well and have found many good books on it. It's a great resource.

>56 arubabookwoman: >57 japaul22: I love the indexes! It's so helpful to have the books listed by geographic region, publish date, genre, etc. when I am looking for a book to fulfill a specific reading prompt.

>58 ELiz_M: Yes, it's a great format. I have been a little surprised by some of the books they chose for the authors that I know, but nevertheless it's a great way to find new-to-me women authors, and I haven't gotten too worried about reading each specific book they recommend vs. exploring the author.

That's a great list! I'm going to show it to my book club, because it looks like a lot of good stuff there we haven't thought about.

>60 lisapeet: It's a great resource for finding authors! I agree with >59 japaul22: in that it oddly chooses much lessor known works for very well known authors.

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat, pub. 2020
Finished 22-Jan-2024

I might have purchased this book because I love the title and the cover is pretty.

It is a typical coming-of-age story with an atypical protagonist. A bisexual daughter of Palestinian immigrant, the unnamed protagonist is unable to please her beautiful, privileged mother (with issues of her own). Foreign in American situations and an outsider in summers spent with extended family in Arabic countries, she is forever sabotaging mundane, effortful relationships by pursuing unconditional love in idealistic, impossible ones. A particularly unpleasant upheaval sends her into a treatment program, which doesn’t solve her “love-addition” but at least interrupts her behavior enough for her to (eventually) make choices rather than following compulsions.

The novel reminds me a lot of Either/Or – it’s a counterpoint to that novel’s coming-of-age daughter-of-Turkish-immigrants protagonist that was too much in her head, overthinking and philosophizing and not making emotional/physical connections. However, to me YETM felt simpler, less layered and I doubt it will stick with me for long.

System Collapse by Martha Wells, pub. 2023
Finished 23-Jan-2024

Thank goodness my hold came through on this latest Murderbot installment when it did*. Another escapist read with the ever delightful and sarcastic construct as it tries to (once again) rescue its humans from destruction, but this time with less confidence.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a good enough memory of the previous two books to follow along this time, so the plot didn't quite make sense (not helped by the first chapter having intentionally "redacted" comments that only someone very familiar with Network Effect might have been able to fill in the gap). Also, there were offhand comments about characters that had a tiny role in this installment that assume you remembered exactly how they related to Murderbot, which I did not. I recommend reading this volume in close proximity to Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry.

(* due to damage from a broken water-pipe, my building was without hot-water for five days, and, a week later, they are still working to repair/restore cooking gas to the entire building.)

"(* due to damaged from a broken water-pipe, my building was without hot-water for five days, and, a week later, they are still working to repair/restore cooking gas to the entire building.)"

Yikes! We were without hot water after Ida flooded us, and it was Not Fun. You have my sympathy.

>63 ELiz_M: Thanks for the Murderbot review, I'll make sure to have the last three on hand before I start them. I tend to want to space out series I like, not wanting them to end, but it sounds like that would be the wrong strategy in this case.

Good luck getting everything working again!

I hope all is back to normal in your building, Liz! I was without hot water for a couple of days in January, and it wasn't fun.

Ugh, hope you got your hot water back. Was the apartment heat at least OK? Those were a cold few days to be without nice hot showers.

>64 katiekrug: >65 labfs39: >66 BLBera: >67 lisapeet: Thanks for the sympathy. The hot water was restored after 4 days, but the cooking gas will take longer. Long enough that the management company bought little two-burner countertop stoves for each unit in the building.

For future reference, I now know how long it takes to microwave a large bowl of water to use for a washcloth bath. And also, apparently, one can cook meals with a microwave.

>65 labfs39: I reread all the Murderbot books before reading System Collapse mostly to extend my Murderbot visit because I knew I would whip through the new one, but also to help remind me of who's who.

I also recommend reading them in chronological rather than publication order.

>68 ELiz_M: Could be useful knowledge for the zombie apocalypse?

>69 rhian_of_oz: I am planning (hoping) to be at ground zero in whatever apocalypse and in no need of these types of survival skills. ;)

>70 ELiz_M: Living in NYC, you just may be, at least according to the movies. :-)

>70 ELiz_M: Can I join you if I promise to share the cooking and cleaning responsibilities, Liz?

>71 labfs39: All part of the plan.
>72 kidzdoc: I'd love that, but my studio is not big enough for me, my cat, and my books. ;)

>73 ELiz_M: 😎

Co-opting this idea from rhian_of_oz. I have this list in >12 ELiz_M: but it'll be more fun to also include it in the dynamic portion of my thread.

1st Quarter Chonky: 2666

February Reading Ideas***:
LT 1001 Book: The Life of Insects
FoodandLit: Auē
ReadingOceania: Auē
192025 (Roll 100): The Return of Philip Latinowicz, The Pilgrim Hawk, Gravity's Rainbow
TBRTarot: Ice for Martians or Carte Blanche
BookSpin: The Life of Insects, 2666

More possibilities:
24/1001 books: The Life of Insects, The Bitter Glass, Sometimes a Great Notion, King Lear of the Steppes, The Fountain Overflows
24/Global books: Human Matter: a fiction, Auē, Women Without Men
24/Diverse books: Confessions of a Mask, Lot: Stories, Friday Black, Men We Reaped, The Yellow House: A Memoir
24/Owned books: The Return of Philip Latinowicz, The Pilgrim Hawk, Gravity's Rainbow, Sometimes a Great Notion, The Fountain Overflows, Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran, Confessions of a Mask

***I only read 5-6 books in a month so this is a list of choices, not plans.

I have both Pilgrim Hawk and Confessions of a Mask on Mt TBR. By Yellow House, do you mean the memoir? It was one of my book club’s selections last year, but I missed that month.

>75 ELiz_M: this is cool. I used a guide for Gravity’s Rainbow. It helped a lot, but not everyone likes to read that way.

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen, pub. 1954
Finished 29-Jan-2024

The introduction sold this as devastating, and while I found the story well-written and liked being inside the thoughts of the various narrators, it didn't resonate that deeply with me.

>78 ELiz_M: your review is terrific. And is everything I know about this book.

>76 labfs39: Yes, I meant the memoir. thanks for helping me realize i hadn't fixed the touchstones.

>77 dchaikin: Heh. GR is only a possibility, one that I keep pushing off (I did okay with Against the Day, but this one somehow feels like it'll be much more difficult)

>79 dchaikin: high praise, coming from you! thanks

I balked on Against the Day after hours and hours of Mason and Dixon didn’t do anything for me.

OOof, I am several reviews behind. I've vaguely recently finished Human Matter: A Fiction which is a non-fictional treatment of fictionalized events; the short short-story collection Ice for Martians; The Pilgrim Hawk which is a perfectly crafted novella; and the utterly strange The Life of Insects. All read because I needed small books for the commute due to ebook issues.

I am struggling with Aue because it is too emotional to read on the subway and 2666 which, for some reason, when I downloaded another ebook the library updated the file with the Hungarian edition and everything I tried either resulted in that or the Spanish edition, so now it's back at the library with a 3 week wait to get it again.

>82 ELiz_M: I'm glad to know you enjoyed The Pilgrim Hawk. I picked up a copy at some point because it's an NYRB, but know nothing about it. Weird about the e-version of 2666, especially Hungarian...

>84 ELiz_M: It's especially weird since it looks like my library only has an English and a Spanish edition.

Human Matter by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, pub. 2009
Finished 5-Feb-2024

This was a unique novel. It is a fictional work, based on real events, written in a non-fictional style.

It begins as a journalist’s research notes from a visit to an accidental and newly surfaced archive of Guatemalan secret police files, with a long list of arrest records. As the book progresses the journalist is given documents he was not supposed to have access to by the volunteer archivists that are cataloging and scanning the files, learning more about the history of some of the organizations/departments.

Then his access to the archives is denied and the notebooks become more of a journal of his continued investigations and requests for his access to be reinstated, interspersed with his day to day life ruminations about books he is reading, meta-fictional commentary on what he is going to do with the archival research, and so on. Eventually his investigations lead to the climatic discovery related to a traumatic event suffered by his mother. Unfortunately, between the episodic structure of the narrative and my lack of attention of the names of all the individuals the narrator interacts with, I missed the significance of the reveal.

Well, maybe it demanded too much attention, or was just overly complicated. Love the picture!

>85 ELiz_M: It is a fictional work, based on real events, written in a non-fictional style.

Oof. That sentence alone was enough for me to decide this wasn't a book for me.

>86 dchaikin: Actually i think it was sort of the opposite -- the story was so pared down, the essential details were lost.

>87 kidzdoc: It was an odd one -- unsettling the distinction between reality & fiction.

Ice for Martians by Claudia Ulloa Donoso, pub. 2023
Finished 6-Feb-2024

A collection of very short stories, all in some way inspired by "marciano" a word that can either mean popsicle or Martian. In each the characters have extra-ordinary reactions to ordinary happenings:

Ice for Martians (14 pgs) upon hearing her daughter is engaged and bringing her Norwegian fiancé for a visit, the mother obsesses over cleaning, then praising facts about Norway, and finally Peruvian culture.

Alarm (7 pgs) a woman’s nervous behavior at the airport brings about an outcome from which she was fleeing.

Transfiguration of Melina (12 pgs) at the scene of an accident, a young girl picks up a box, the contents of which sparks her sexual awakening

Actor (11 pgs) an unhappily married man fakes a sudden, inexplicable disability.

I Just Wanted a Cigarette (5 pgs) a bored young woman takes a late night walk, looking for a place to buy cigarettes, and is unmoored by an encounter.

I Closed My Eyes (4 pgs) a women suffers insomnia in the arms of her lover, tormented by the noises that night amplifies.

It is impressive how the author can evoke an entire story in a few pages. I was especially entranced by the two stories that are more realistic - "Alarm" and "I Just Wanted a Cigarette" - but she is skillful enough to make the weirder stories more uncomfortable and disturbing than they should be. On the other hand, they are told with a slight distance and any impressions left quickly melt away.

>89 ELiz_M: How did you come across this book?

>89 ELiz_M: Great photo with the book

>89 ELiz_M: This sounds interesting, and great photo of the book.

>90 dianeham: Browsing the translated books shelves at Books Are Magic. Other than Vargas Llosa, I hadn't encountered many Peruvian authors and the cover is beautiful.

>91 labfs39:, >92 rv1988: Thank you! It was the one day of snow in NYC so I had to take advantage of it.

>1 ELiz_M: Wishing you good luck with all your reading challenges. I think the hardest aspect of reading globally, is deciding what to read. There are so many choices!