All directors* of whose movies I've seen everything. Counting Prada- and Gucci-sponsored "short films" and art installations and TV shows and other such weird stuff is up for arbitrary interpretation.
Kurosawa Akira (31)
Peter Weir (20)
George Roy Hill (14)
Miyazaki Hayao (13)
Shinkai Makoto (13)
Mel Brooks (11)
Harmony Korine (7)
Adam Elliot (7)
George Lucas (6)
Satoshi Kon (5)
Dan Gilroy (3)
Yoshifumi Kondou (3)
Jordan Peele (2)
* except for the ones I've forgotten to add
Donezo Dir.s
Re: Donezo Dir.s
Scene Deux
Why don't you just get high and watch paddington for the 5th time?
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User avatarHolymanm
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BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:29 pm
2023
February 2023
February 2nd - The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955) - 5/5
January 2023
January 20th - The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
January 7th - The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
2022 (30)
December 2022 (2)
December 20th - The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
December 12th - To-morrow (Joseph Conrad, 1902) - 3/5
November 2022 (2)
November 24th - We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story (Simu Liu, 2022) - 3/5
November 12th - The Chrysalids (John Wyndham, 1955) - 4/5
October 2022 (2)
October 25th - High-Risk Homosexual (Edgar Gomez, 2022) - 1.5/5
October 11th - Ghost Boys (Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2018) - 3/5
September 2022 (1)
September 21st - All about Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business (Mel Brooks, 2021) - 3/5
July 2022 (2)
July 21st - Son of a Critch: A Childish Newfoundland Memoir (Mark Critch, 2018) - 3.5/5
July 7th - A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars (Hakeem Oluseyi, 2021) - 3.5/5
June 2022 (6)
June 30th - I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir (Brian Wilson, 2016) - 4/5
June 27th - Punch Me Up to the Gods (Brian Broome, 2021) - 3/5
June 22nd - Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began (Guido Tonelli, 2020) - 4/5
June 11th - Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking, 2018) - 4/5
June 7th - Beyond the Gender Binary (Alok, 2020) - 4/5
June 6th - George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt (Lucy Hawking, Stephen Hawking, 2009) - 3/5
May 2022 (1)
May 28th - A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking, 1988) - 4/5
April 2022 (2)
April 29th - The Slender Thread (Stirling Silliphant, 1966) - 1/5
April 9th - MirrorMask (Neil Gaiman, 2005) - 1/5
March 2022 (2)
March 25th - The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman, 2013) - 1/5 (2nd reading)
March 16th - Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman, 2005) - 2/5
February 2022 (3)
February 23rd - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Frederick Douglass, 1845) - 4/5
February 16th - American Gods (Neil Gaiman, 2001) - 2/5 (2nd reading)
February 8th - The 50th Law (50 Cent, Robert Greene, 2008) - 2/5
January 2022 (7)
January 23rd - The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (Neil Gaiman, 1997)
January 23rd - Crazy Hair (Neil Gaiman, 2009)
January 23rd - Cinnamon (Neil Gaiman, 1995)
January 23rd - The Sleeper and the Spindle (Neil Gaiman, 2013)
January 17th - The Wolves in the Walls (Neil Gaiman, 2003)
January 10th - How the Marquis Got His Coat Back (Neil Gaiman, 2015) - 2/5
January 9th - Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman, 1996) - 3/5
2021 (44)
December 2021 (2)
December 21st - Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism (Peter Staley, 2021) - 4/5
December 8th - Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter (50 Cent, 2020) - 4/5
November 2021 (2)
November 23rd - Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other (Ken Dryden, 2019) - 3/5
November 8th - The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008) - 3.5/5
October 2021 (7)
October 30th - Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy (Mike Love, 2016) - 3/5
October 23rd - Odd and the Frost Giants (Neil Gaiman, 2008) - 3.5/5
October 21st - Coraline (Neil Gaiman, 2002) - 3/5
October 17th - Fortunately, the Milk... (Neil Gaiman, 2013) - 2/5
October 11th - Stardust (Neil Gaiman, 1998) - 3.5/5
October 8th - James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl, 1961) - 3/5
October 3rd - Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman, 2017) - 4/5
September 2021 (2)
September 28th - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Trevor Noah, 2016) - 2.5/5)
September 20th - The Moon and Sixpence (W. Somerset Maugham, 1919) - 3/5
August 2021 (2)
August 23rd - Son of the Mob (Gordon Korman, 2002) - 2.5/5
August 9th - Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar (Keith Richards, Theodora Richards, 2014) - 4/5
July 2021 (1)
July 25th - Twelve Years a Slave (Solomon Northup, 1853) - 4/5
May 2021 (1)
May 10th - Toast on Toast: Cautionary Tales and Candid Advice (Steven Toast, 2016) - 4/5 (3rd reading?)
April 2021 (3)
April 11th - Burke's Law: A Life in Hockey (Brian Burke, 2020) - 3/5
April 9th - Number Two: More Short Tales from a Very Tall Man (Jay Onrait, 2015) - 3/5
April 6th - How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents (Jimmy O. Yang, 2018) - 3.5/5
March 2021 (6)
March 31st - Teaching: It's Harder Than It Looks (Gerry Dee, 2012) - 4/5
March 26th - The Call of the Wild (Jack London, 1903) - 3.5/5
March 25th - See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody (Bob Mould, 2011) - 3/5
March 17th - Anchorboy (Jay Onrait, 2013) - 3/5
March 8th - A Lost Lady (Willa Cather, 1923) - 3/5
March 5th - The Razor's Edge (W. Somerset Maugham, 1944) - 4/5
February 2021 (3)
February 21st - Prester John (John Buchan, 1910) - 4/5
February 14th - Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880) - 4.5/5
February 8th - Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899) - 4/5
January 2021 (15) (BOOK MONTH)
January 30th - Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir (Norm Macdonald, 2016) - 3.5/5
January 28th - Family Lexicon (Natalia Ginzburg, 1963) - 3.5/5
January 26th - The Story of Abelard's Adversities (Pierre Abélard, 1135) - 3/5
January 24th - The Bed Book (Sylvia Plath, 1976)
January 22nd - Houseboy (Ferdinand Oyono, 1956) - 3.5/5
January 20th - The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 1900) - 2/5
January 18th - The Mirror Maker: Stories and Essays (Primo Levi, 1986) - 3/5
January 16th - Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880) - 4/5
January 14th - The Monkey's Wrench (Primo Levi, 1978) - 4/5
January 12th - The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata, 1962) - 3.5/5
January 10th - Amores (Ovid, 16 BC) - 3/5
January 8th - Nothing More than Murder (Jim Thompson, 1949) - 2.5/5
January 6th - Acts of Worship: Seven Stories (Yukio Mishima, 1965) - 2.5/5
January 4th - War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1869) - 5/5
January 2nd - Love in a Bottle (Antal Szerb, 1946) - 3/5
2020 (42)
October 2020 (2)
October 24th - Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography (Johnny Marr, 2016) - 3/5
October 5th - The Hustler (Walter Tevis, 1959) - 3.5/5
September 2020 (10)
September 29th - Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (Nam-Joo Cho, 2016) - 3.5/5
September 26th - The Locked Room (Paul Aster, 1986) - 1.5/5
September 23rd - Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor E. Frankl, 1946) - 4/5
September 20th - A Room with a View (E.M. Forster, 1908) - 3.5/5
September 17th - Ghosts (Paul Aster, 1986) - 1/5
September 14th - City of Glass (Paul Aster, 1985) - 2.5/5
September 12th - Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling, 1902) - 3.5/5
September 9th - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Haruki Murakami, 2006) - 2.5/5
September 6th - I Have My Mother's Eyes: A Holocaust Story Across Generations (Barbara Ruth Bluman, 2009) - 3.5/5
September 3rd - Maurice (E.M. Forster, 1971) - 3.5/5
August 2020 (1)
August 17th - The Princess de Clèves (Madame de La Fayette, 1678) - 1/5
July 2020 (2)
July 26th - I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust (Inge Auerbacher, 1986) - 3/5
July 22nd - The Ghost-Seer (Friedrich Schiller, 1787) - 3/5
June 2020 (4)
June 30th - No Longer Human (Osamu Dazai, 1948) - 3.5/5
Juny 20th - The Vegetarian (Kang Han, 2007) - 1.5/5
June 16th - Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 3.5/5
June 4th - Katalin Street (Magda Szabó, 1969) - 3/5
May 2020 (4)
May 26th - A Damsel in Distress (P.G. Wodehouse, 1919) - 3.5/5
May 11th - Trees on a Slope (Sun-won Hwang, 1960) - 3.5/5
May 1st - Barbuchín (Daniel Armas, 1941)
May 1st - Singapore Dream and Other Adventures: Travel Writings from an Asian Journey (Hermann Hesse, 1911) - 4/5
April 2020 (8)
April 24th - A Fantasy of Doctor Ox (Jules Verne, 1872) - 3/5
April 21st - Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883) - 4.5/5
April 17th - Pilgrim at Sea (Pär Lagerkvist, 1962) - 4/5
April 16th - Scriblerus (Alexander Pope, 1741) - 4/5
April 13th - Dead Men Tell No Tales (Émile Zola, 1899) - 3.5/5
April 10th - Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945) - 2.5/5
April 9th - Daddy-Long-Legs (Jean Webster, 1912) - 2/5
April 7th - Smoke (Ivan Turgenev, 1867) - 4/5
March 2020 (5)
March 28th - Transformation (Mary Shelley, 1831) - 2.5/5
March 27th - Eye in the Sky (Philip K. Dick, 1957) - 3/5
March 25th - The Grifters (Jim Thompson, 1963) - 3/5
March 23rd - The Elephant Vanishes (Haruki Murakami, 1993) - 2/5
March 22nd - The Sandman (E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1815) - 3/5
February 2020 (3)
February 26th - Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton, 1934) - 3.5/5
February 14th - The Wild Geese (Ōgai Mori, 1911) - 2.5/5
February 6th - Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window (Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, 1981) - 4/5
January 2020 (3)
January 20th - Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne, 1872) - 4/5
January 15th - Thunder and Lightning: A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir (Phil Esposito, 2003) - 3/5
January 9th - Poor People (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1846) - 2/5
2019 (58)
December 2019 (4)
December 26th - Mr. Summer's Story (Patrick Süskind, 1991) - 3/5
December 23rd - Is Shakespeare Dead? (Mark Twain, 1909) - 3/5
December 16th - The Lonely Londoners (Sam Selvon, 1956) - 3.5/5
December 7th - The Persians (Aeschylus, 472 BC) - 3/5
November 2019 (15) (BOOK MONTH)
November 30th - Seven Against Thebes (Aeschylus, 467 BC) - 3/5
November 28th - A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare, 1595) - 5/5
November 26th - The Suppliants (Aeschylus, ~460 BC) - 3/5
November 24th - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
November 22nd - The Two Gentlemen of Verona (William Shakespeare, 1594) - 4/5
November 20th - A Double Life (Karolina Pavlova, 1848) - 4/5
November 18th - The Victorian Chaise-Longue (Marghanita Laski, 1953) - 3/5
November 16th - Blake's Job (William Blake, 1826) - 3/5
November 14th - Men Without Women (Haruki Murakami, 2014) - 2/5
November 12th - The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter, 1957) - 2.5/5
November 10th - The Caretaker (Harold Pinter, 1960) - 3.5/5
November 8th - Netochka Nezvanova (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1849) - 4/5
November 6th - Prometheus Bound(Aeschylus, ~470 BC) - 3/5
November 4th - The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories (Mark Twain, 1916) - 3/5
November 2nd - Theatre (W. Somerset Maugham, 1937) - 4/5
October 2019 (4)
October 29th - Falling Man (Don DeLillo, 2007) - 0/5
October 27th - Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery, 1915) - 3/5
October 22nd - Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery, 1909) - 2.5/5
October 4th - Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (Haruki Murakami, 2011) - 3/5
September 2019 (2)
September 23rd - Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery, 1908) - 4/5
September 15th - Offside: My Life Crossing the Line (Sean Avery, 2018) - 3/5
August 2019 (3)
August 28th - We (Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924) - 3/5
August 19th - The Road Back (Erich Maria Remarque, 1931) - 4/5
August 3rd - Egyptian Dreamer (Božin Pavlovski, 2001) - 1/5
July 2019 (4)
July 25th - Pudd'nhead Wilson (Mark Twain, 1893) - 3.5/5
July 19th - The Quiet American (Graham Greene, 1955) - 3/5
July 15th - As a Man Grows Older (Italo Svevo, 1898) - 1.5/5
July 1st - Fountains in the Sand (Norman Douglas, 1912) - 3.5/5
June 2019 (2)
June 21st - The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (Erskine Childers, 1903) - 2/5
June 8th - Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (W. Somerset Maugham, 1930) - 4/5
May 2019 (5)
May 30th - Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen, 1811) - 3/5
May 18th - The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, 1895) - 1.5/5
May 12th - Rumble Fish (S.E. Hinton, 1975) - 3/5
May 9th - The Reader (Berhnhard Schlink, 1995) - 2.5/5
May 6th - Emma (Jane Austen, 1815) - 2/5
April 2019 (1)
April 14th - Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 2/5
February 2019 (14) (BOOK MONTH)
February 28th - The Cossacks and Other Stories (Leo Tolstoy, 1863) - 3.5/5
February 26th - The Gambler (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866) - 3.5/5
February 24th - My Man Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse, 1919) - 3/5
February 22nd - Dancers at Night: Stories (David Adams Richards, 1978) - 2/5
February 20th - Memoirs of an Egotist (Stendhal, 1862) - 3.5/5
February 18th - The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Edgar Allan Poe, 1843) - 4/5
February 16th - Spring Torrents (Ivan Turgenev, 1872) - 5/5
February 14th - The Tempest (William Shakespeare, 1611) - 3/5
February 12th - Alphabet of Wit (Voltaire, 1945) - 3.5/5
February 10th - Whale Music (Paul Quarrington, 1989) - 3/5
February 8th - The Survivor (Primo Levi, 1988) - 3/5
February 6th - The Ogre Downstairs (Diana Wynne Jones, 1974) - 3.5/5
February 4th - The Book of Sand (Jorge Luis Borges, 1975) - 3/5
February 2nd - The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or How Violence Develops and Where it Can Lead (Heinrich Böll, 1974) - 3.5/5
January 2019 (4)
January 28th - Amsterdam (Ian McEwan, 1998) - 2.5/5
January 23rd - Under the Yellow & Red Stars (Alex Levin, 2009) - 4/5
January 17th - Liquidation (Imre Kertész, 2003) - 3.5/5
January 10th - The Gate (Natsume Sōseki, 1910) - 4/5
2018 (43)
December 2018 (2)
December 22nd - The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories (P.G. Wodehouse, 1917) - 3/5
December 13th - Skylark (Dezső Kosztolányi, 1924) - 3.5/5
October 2018 (1)
September 13th-October 16th - Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington, 1900) - 3/5
September (1)
August 17th-September 8th - The Aeneid (Virgil, 19 BC) - 2.5/5
August (3)
August 9th-14th - The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells, 1897) - 2.5/5
August 6th-10th - Rudin (Ivan Turgenev, 1856) - 4/5
July 27th-August 5th - Diario de Greg: Un renacuajo (Jeff Kinney, 2004) - 2.5/5
July (3)
July 20th-25th - The Sickness Unto Death (Søren Kierkegaard, 1849) - 1/5
July 9th-19th - On the Eve (Ivan Turgenev, 1860) - 3/5
April 5th-July 8th - Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy, 1878) - 4/5
June (BOOK READING MONTH) (15)
June 29th-30th - The Underdogs (Mariano Azuela, 1916) - 3/5
June 27th-28th - The Dwarf (Pär Lagerkvist, 1944) - 4.5/5
June 25th-26th - Look Back in Anger (John Osborne, 1956) - 3.5/5
June 23rd-24th - Red's Story (Red Storey, 1994) - 4/5
June 21st-22nd - The Bhagavad Gita (?, ~400 BC) - 2/5
June 19th-20th - Passing (Nella Larsen, 1929) - 2/5
June 17th-18th - Minimum of Two (Tim Winton, 1987) - 3.5/5
June 15th-16th - Closely Watched Trains (Bohumil Hrabal, 1965) - 2.5/5
June 13th-14th - As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams (Lady Sarashina, ~1050) - 4/5
June 11th-12th - The Diary of Lady Murasaki (Murasaki Shikibu, ~1010) - 2.5/5
June 9th-10th - Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958) - 3/5
June 7th-8th - Pinball, 1973 (Haruki Murakami, 1980) - 3.5/5
June 5th-6th - Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami, 1979) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
Jan 24th-June 4th - The Marquis of Bolibar (Leo Perutz, 1920) - 3.5/5
June 1st-2nd - Diary of a Madman (Brad "Scarface" Jordan, 2014) - 1.5/5
April (1)
March 4th-April 5th - Mockingbird (Walter Tevis, 1980) - 3.5/5
February (1)
February 2nd-28th - A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami, 1982) - 3.5/5
January (BOOK READING MONTH) (16)
January 30 - Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia (1971) - 3/5
January 28 - Sasuke's Story: Sunrise (Masashi Kishimoto, Shin Towada, 2015) - 3/5
January 26 - Itachi's Story, Vol. 2: Midnight (Masashi Kishimoto, Takashi Yano, 2015) - 3.5/5
January 24 - Itachi's Story, Vol. 1: Daylight (Masashi Kishimoto, Takashi Yano, 2015) - 3/5
July 16 2017-January 22 - Tales of Student Life (Hermann Hesse, 1976) - 4.5/5
January 19-20 - Moments of Reprieve (Primo Levi, 1981) - 4/5
January 17-18 - In Praise of Shadows (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1933) - 4/5
January 16 - To Every Thing there is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story (Alistair MacLeod, 1977) - 3/5
January 14-15 - The Tales of Belkin (Alexander Pushkin, 1831) - 4/5
January 12-13 - All the Way: My Life on Ice (Jordin Tootoo, 2014) - 3/5
January 10-11 - Night (Elie Wiesel, 1958) - 2.5/5
January 8-9 - Strait Is the Gate (André Gide, 1909) - 4.5/5
January 6-7 - Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett, 1953) - 3/5
January 4-5 - The Fall (Albert Camus, 1956) - 3/5
January 2-3 - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Kenzaburō Ōe, 1958) - 4/5
November 26 2017-January 1 - Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami, 1988) - 3/5
2017 (18)
November
September 12-November 7 - Fatelessness (Imre Kertész, 1973) - 4/5
September
September 8-11 - After Dark (Haruki Murakami, 2004) - 3/5
August
antigone
August 1 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard (J.K. Rowling, 2007) - 2.5/5
July
July 5-6 - The Mother of All Questions (Rebecca Solnit, 2017) - 2/5
July 4-5 - Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit, 2014) - 2/5
June
June 20-25 - Snow Country (Yasunari Kawabata, 1937) - 3/5
May 27-June 16 - Lady Chatterley's Lover (D.H. Lawrence, 1928) - 2.5/5
May
November 7 2016-May 27 - Sun and Steel (Yukio Mishima, 1968) - 5/5
May 16-23 - The Wounded and the Slain (David Goodis, 1955) - 3/5
May 11-14 - Vita Sexualis (Ōgai Mori, 1909) - 2/5
May 7-10 - Botchan (Sōseki Natsume, 1906) - 4/5
May 5-7 - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami, 2013) - 3/5
October 5 2016-May 3 - Scission (Tim Winton, 1985) - 2.5/5
April
April 6-? - Why I Write (George Orwell, 1946) - 3/5
March
February 17-March 24 - Coin Locker Babies (Ryū Murakami, 1980) - 5/5
February
January 12-February 5 - Mouchette (Georges Bernanos, 1937) - 4/5
January
December 21 2016-January 8 - The Truce (Primo Levi, 1963) - 4/5
UPDATE!!
2016 (18)
December
November 26-December 16 - Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (Bob Mehr, 2016) - 3/5
September
September 21-25 - Charlotte's Daughter (Susanna Rowson, 1828) - 2.5/5
September 12-21 - Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson, 1790) - 1/5
August
August 19-27 - No Great Mischief (Alistair MacLeod, 1999) - 3.5/5
August 5-8 - The Death of Ahasuerus (Pär Lagerkvist, 1960) - 4/5
August 3-4 - Herod and Mariamne (Pär Lagerkvist, 1967) - 3.5/5
July 31-August 2 - Shikamaru's Story (Takashi Yano, 2015) - 2.5/5
July
July 30 - Kakashi's Story (Akira Higashiyama, 2015) - 2/5
July 21-25 - Last Words from Montmartre (Qiu Miaojin, 1996) - 3/5
February 14-July 20 - The Beautiful and Damned (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922) - 3/5
May 13-July 10 - Kim (Rudyard Kipling, 1901) - 4/5
May
April 21-May 8 - The Riders (Tim Winton, 1994) - 4/5
April
April 18 - In the Miso Soup (Ryū Murakami, 1997) - 5/5
March 29-April 5 - Home of the Gentry (Ivan Turgenev, 1859) - 4/5
March
March 19-26 - The Other Victims (Ina R. Friedman, Ana R. Friedman, 1990) - 3/5
February 2-March 9 - If This Is a Man (Primo Levi, 1947) - 4/5
March 1 - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Tadeusz Borowski, 1947) - 4/5
January
January 17-28 - Still Alive (Ruth Klüger, 1992) - 3/5
2015 (16)
December
December 3-24 - Searching for Bobby Orr (Stephen Brunt, 2006) - 2/5
October
October 18-31 - The Confusions of Young Torless (Robert Musil, 1906) - 3/5
September 13-October 8 - The End of a Family Story ( Péter Nádas, 1977) - 2/5
August
August 5-28 - Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte, 1847) - 1.5/5
July
July 13th-20th - Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895) - 3/5
July 8th-10th - Confusion (Stefan Zweig, 1927) - 3/5
June 27th-July 8th - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992) - 2.5/5
June
June 13th-27th - The Game (Ken Dryden, 1983) - 2.5/5
June 2nd-4th - Popol Vuh (155?) - 4/5
May
May 14th-17th - Thousand Cranes (Yasunari Kawabata, 1952) - 3/5
May 1st-13th - Glamorama (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998) - 2.5/5
April
March 25th-April 30th - The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Bernal Díaz, 1568) - 5/5
March
March 10th-23rd - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima, 1963) - 3.5/5
March 3rd-5th - In the Pond (Ha Jin, 1998) - 3.5/5
February
February 7th-12th - Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (Judith C. Brown, 1986) - 3.5/5
January
December 29th 2014-January 3rd 2015 - The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1935) - 4/5
2014 (55)
December 2014
December 26th-29th - Uneasy Money (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916) - 4/5
December 23rd-26th - The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925) - 4/5
December 22nd-23rd - Project X (Jim Shepard, 2004) - 2.5/5
December 20th-22nd - The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890) - 2.5/5
December 19th-20th - A Dream Play (August Strindberg, 1907) - 1.5/5
October 21st-December 19th - The Piano Teacher (Elfriede Jelinek, 1983) - 3/5
December 12th-19th - The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850) - 2.5/5
December 3rd-11th - King Leary (Paul Quarrington, 1987) - 3/5
November 29th-December 3rd - The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, 1963) - 4.5/5
November 2014
November 18th-29th - Ubik (Philip K. Dick, 1969) - 3/5
November 13th-18th - Journey by Moonlight (Antal Szerb, 1937) - 4/5
November 6th-13th - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1962) - 4/5
October 28th-November 4th - Crabwalk (Günter Grass, 2002) - 2.5/5
October 2014
October 15th-20th - Accident: A Day's News (Christa Wolf, 1987) - 3/5
October 6th-14th - Ready Player One (Ernest Cline, 2011) - 2/5
September 2014
September 20th-23rd - The Father (August Strindberg, 1887) - 2.5/5
September 19th - The Eumenides (Aeschylus, 458) - 2.5/5
September 18th - The Libation Bearers (Aeschylus, 458) - 3/5
September 16th-17th - Agememnon (Aeschylus, 458) - 3.5/5
September 14th-16th - A Doll House (Henrik Ibsen, 1879) - 3/5
September 6th-12th - Headbirths, or: The Germans Are Dying Out (Günter Grass, 1980) - 2/5
September 5th-6th - Strange News from Another Star and Other Tales (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 4/5
August 14th-September 4th - The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse, 1943) - 4.5/5
August 2014
August 10th-13th - Diary of a Mad Old Man (Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, 1961) - 3.5/5
August 6th-9th - The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon, 1966) - 3.5/5
August 4th-6th - A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887) - 3/5
August 2nd-4th - Tom Sawyer Abroad (Mark Twain, 1894) - 2.5/5
July 31st-August 1st - Anthem (Ayn Rand, 1938) - 1/5
July 2014
July 29th-31st - The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson, 1952) - 4/5
July 29th - Klingsor's Last Summer (Hermann Hesse, 1920) - 3.5/5
July 26th-29th - Klein and Wagner (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 2.5/5
July 22nd-26th - The Defense (Vladimir Nabokov, 1930) - 2.5/5
July 19th-21st - Rosshalde (Hermann Hesse, 1914) - 4/5
July 13th-18th - The Diary of Anne Frank (Anne Frank, 1944) - 5/5
July 4th-13th - Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726) - 4/5
June 18th-July 4th - The Little Nugget (P.G. Wodehouse, 1913) - 3/5
June 2014
December 10th, 2013-June 16th - The Man Upstairs and Other Stories (P.G. Wodehouse, 1914) - 3/5
May 25th-June 2nd - Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert, 1856) - 2/5
May 2014
May 20th-25th - W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes (Robert Taylor, 1949) - 3.5/5
May 19th - No More Dead Dogs (Gordon Korman, 2002) - 5/5 (4th reading?)
May 14th-18th - Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury, 1962) - 3/5
May 7th-10th - Othello (William Shakespeare, 1603) - 2.5/5
May 7th - Chess Story (Stefan Zweig, 1942) - 4.5/5
May 7th - Lyra's Oxford (Philip Pullman, 2003) - 3/5
April 8th-May 6th - The Amber Spyglass (Philip Pullman, 2000) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
April 2014
April 2nd-7th - The Subtle Knife (Philip Pullman, 1997) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
March 29th-April 2nd - The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman, 1995) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
March 2014
March 27th-28th - Demian (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 5/5 (2nd reading)
March 23rd-25th - Anchorboy (Jay Onrait, 2013) - 2.5/5
February 27th-March 21st - Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (Richard Powers, 1985) - 3/5
February 2014
February 21st-25th - Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen, 1817) - 4/5
February 13th-20th - The Quest for Juice (Jonathan-David Jackson, 2013) - 2.5/5
January 5th-February 12th - The Devils (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1872) - 5/5
January 2014
January 3rd-4th - Born Weird (Andrew Kaufman, 2012) - 3/5
December 18th-January 2nd - The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1880) - 4/5
2013 (51)
December 2013
December 16th-18th - The Box Man (Kōbō Abe, 1973) - 2.5/5
December 14th-15th - The Genius and the Goddess (Aldous Huxley, 1955) - 4.5/5
December 5th-9th - The Prince and Betty (P.G. Wodehouse, 1912) - 3/5
November 18th-December 3rd - The Gourmet Club (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1911-55) - 4/5
July 25th-December 2nd - Seven Japanese Tales (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1910-59) - 4/5
November 2013
November 7th-14th - Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1835-71) - 3/5
August 16th-November 13th - The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, 10XX) - 5/5
October 2013
September 2013
September 15th-17th - Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones, 2006) - 2/5
September 6th-14th - Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1861) - 4.5/5
August 2013
August 6th-16th - Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol, 1842) - 5/5
August 4th-6th - The Key (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1956) - 3/5
August 1st-4th - Arrowroot (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1931) - 4/5
July 27th-August 1st - A Cat, a Man, and Two Women (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1918-36) - 4/5
July 2013
May 8th - July 22nd - Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates, 1961) - 2/5
July 14th - Captain Shigemoto's Mother (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1949) - 4.5/5
July 13th - The Reed Cutter (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1932) - 4/5
July 12th-13th - The Witches (Roald Dahl, 1983) - 3.5/5
July 7th-12th - The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton, 1908) - 3/5
July 1st-7th - Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin, 1837) - 4/5
June 2013
June 28th-29th - Kokoro (Natsume Sōseki, 1914) - 5/5
June 23rd-28th - Rupert of Hentzau (Anthony Hope, 1898) - 2.5/5
June 19th-21st - Doctor Faustus (Christopher Marlowe, 1592) - 2.5/5
June 13th-18th - My Life in Hockey (Jean Béliveau; Chrys Goyens; Allan Turowetz, 1994) - 3/5
June 6th-13th - The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole, 1764) - 2/5
May 31st-June 6th - Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1816) - 3.5/5
May 2013
May 21st-24th - The Island of Doctor Moreau (H.G. Wells, 1896) - 3.5/5
May 18th-21st - The Prisoner of Zenda (Anthony Hope, 1894) - 3.5/5
May 15th-17th - The Woman in the Dunes (Kōbō Abe, 1962) - 4/5
May 11th-15th - Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) - 3.5/5
May 7th-10th - Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë, 1847) - 4/5
March 20th-May 7th - The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, 1929) - 4/5
May 2nd-3rd - The Informers (Bret Easton Ellis, 1994) - 3.5/5
May 2nd - Choke (Chuck Palahniuk, 2001) - 0/5
April 24th-May 1st - Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949) - 2.5/5
April 2013
November 21st 2012-April 23rd 2013 - Twilight of the Idols (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889) - 3.5/5
April 19th-22nd - Quicksand (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1930) - 3/5
March 30th-April 3rd - The Rules of Attraction (Bret Easton Ellis, 1987) - 4/5
March 2013
March 13th-18th - Geek Love (Katherine Dunn, 1989) - 2.5/5
March 9th-12th - Doppler (Erlend Loe, 2004) - 3/5
March 4th-5th - The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
February 13th-March 2nd - The Odyssey (Homer, 8?? BC) - 3.5/5
February 2013
February 23rd-25th - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 3.5/5
February 8th-10th - Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare, 1597) - 2/5
January 30th-February 6th - Galatea 2.2 (Richard Powers, 1995) - 5/5
January 2013
January 26th-29th - Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872) - 2.5/5
January 20th-25th - Piccadilly Jim (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916) - 4/5
January 13th-17th - The Queen of Spades and Other Stories (Alexander Pushkin, 1828-41) - 5/5
January 7th-12th - Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell, 1933) - 3.5/5
January 4th-7th - Satyricon (Petronius, 0?? AD) - 4/5
January 3rd-4th - A Spy in the House of Love (Anaïs Nin, 1954) - 2/5
December 13th-January 2nd - Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, 1615) - 4/5
2012 (58)
December 2012
April 8th-December 1st - The Eternal Husband and Other Stories (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1862-1877) - 3.5/5
November 2012
November 3rd - The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848) - 1.5/5
October 2012
October 27th-31st - Candide (Voltaire, 1759) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
October 18th-20th - The Devil in the Flesh (Raymond Radiguet, 1923) - 2/5
September 2012 (school books)
September 24th-28th - Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (Marvin Harris, 1975) - 3/5
September 15th-18th - Macbeth (William Shakespeare, 1606?) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
September 14th - Oedipus the King (Sophocles, 429 BC) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
September 1st-5th - Sanshiro (Natsume Sōseki, 1908) - 4.5/5
August 2012 (easy reading books)
August 29th-31st - The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925) - 2.5/5
August 27th-28th - The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan, 1915) - 4.5/5
August 27th - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Jean-Dominique Bauby, 1997) - 2.5/5
August 26th-27th - Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk, 2008) - 2/5
* August 16th-25th - The Iliad (Homer, 8?? BC) - 4/5
* August 12th-15th - Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov, 1957) - 1/5
August 10th-12th - This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920) - 4/5
August 4th-10th - Strangers (Taichi Yamada, 1987) - 3.5/5
August 2nd-4th - Less than Zero (Bret Easton Ellis, 1985) - 4/5
* July 29th-August 1st - All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque, 1929) - 4.5/5
July 2012 (french books)
* July 18th-28th - Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) - 2.5/5
July 11th-17th - Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938) - 3/5
July 9th-10th - The Immoralist (André Gide, 1902) - 3/5
July 8th - L'Ingenu (Voltaire, 1767) - 3/5
July 5th-7th - The Bridge over the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle, 1952) - 3.5/5
* June 30th-July 4th - Effi Briest (Theodor Fontane, 1896) - 4/5
June 2012 (long books)
June 26th-29th - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813) - 4/5
June 15th-26th - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez, 1967) - 3.5/5
June 1st-14th - The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1939) - 2/5
May 2012
May 30th-31st - The Leaf Storm (Gabriel García Márquez, 1955) - 3/5
May 29th-30th - John Manjiro, The Castaway (Masuji Ibuse, 1947) - 4.5/5
May 22nd-26th - Some Prefer Nettles (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1929) - 4/5
May 20th-21st - Naomi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1924) - 3.5/5
May 13th-20th - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884) - 4/5
May 9th-12th - Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel García Márquez, 1981) - 3/5
February 23rd-May 9th - A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929) - 3/5
April 25th-May 1st - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968) - 3.5/5
April 2012
April 21st-25th - American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis, 1991) - 3.5/5
April 17th - Breakfast at Tiffany's (Truman Capote, 1958) - 2/5
April 11th-17th - The Diary of a Country Priest (Georges Bernanos, 1936) - 4/5
April 7th-8th - South of the Border, West of the Sun (Haruki Murakami, 1992) - 3.5/5
April 2nd-7th - Through the Looking Glass (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, 1871) - 2/5
March 30th-April 1st - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865) - 1.5/5
March 2012
March 22nd-26th - Open (Andre Agassi, 2009) - 3/5
March 16th-18th - 69 (Ryu Murakami, 1987) - 4/5
March 12th-14th - Beware the Fish (Gordon Korman, 1980) - 2.5/5
March 9th-11th - A Geisha Remembers (Masuji Ibuse, 1952) - 3/5
March 1st-9th - Shoeless Joe (W.P. Kinsella, 1982) - 2/5
February 2012
February 29th - Go Jump in the Pool (Gordon Korman, 1979) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
February 14th-21st - Solaris (Stanisław Lem, 1961) - 3/5
February 16th - For the Good of the Cause (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1963) - 2.5/5
February 12th-13th - The Death of Ivan Ilych (Leo Tolstoy, 1886) - 4/5
February 11th - The Forged Coupon (Leo Tolstoy, 1904) - 4/5
November 14th-February 10th - In the Winter Dark (Tim Winton, 1988) - 4/5
January 21st-February 10th - The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937) - 3.5/5
February 2nd-3rd - Fire on Ice (Eric Lindros, 1991) - 3/5
January 2012
January 14th-17th - Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 3/5
January 11th-13th - The Queen's Gambit (Walter Tevis, 1983) - 4/5
January 7th-10th - Beowulf (???, ???) - 3/5
December 16th-January 4th - Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1866) - 4.5/5
2011 (57)
December 2011
December 9th-15th - Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev, 1862) - 4/5
December 7th - Egyptian Nights (Alexander Pushkin, 1837) - 3/5
December 6th-7th - Dubrovsky (Alexander Pushkin, 1832) - 3.5/5
November 28th-December 3rd - The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934) - 3/5
November 2011
November 22nd-26th - Triple Crown: The Marcel Dionne Story (Ted Mahovlich, 2004) - 2.5/5
September 30th-November 19th- The Anti-Christ (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888) - 3.5/5
November 10th-12th - Les Enfants Terrible (Jean Cocteau, 1929) - 4/5
November 3rd-7th - Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury, 1953) - 3.5/5
October 2011
October 7th-16th - The Pearl (John Steinbeck, 1947) - 3.5/5
October 3rd-9th - Talk Show (Dick Cavett, 2010) - 2.5/5
September 2011
September 15th-29th - The Sound of the Mountain (Yasunari Kawabata, 1954) - 4/5
September 7th-14th - Being There (Jerzy Kosinski, 1971) - 3/5
October 11th, 2011-September 3rd - Black Rain (Masuji Ibuse, 1965) - 5/5
August 31st-September 1st - Exiles (James Joyce, 1918) - 3/5
August 2011
August 30th - This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (Gordan Korman, 1978) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
August 29th - Suffer Little Children (Dereck O'Brien, 1991) - 3.5/5
August 25th-29th - Marcovaldo (Italo Calvino, 1963) - 3/5
August 21st-24th - The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1846) - 4/5
August 19th-20th - No One Writes to the Colonel (Gabriel García Márquez, 1961) - 3.5/5
August 18th - Clouds (Aristophanes, 423 BC) - 2.5/5
August 14th-17th - Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1864) - 3/5
June 5th-August 17th - The Clicking of Cuthbert (P.G. Wodehouse, 1922) - 3/5
August 15th - The Dyskolos (Menander, 317 BC) - 2.5/5
August 10th-13th - Thirst for Love (Yukio Mishima, 1950) - 3/5
August 9th - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962) - 4/5
August 3rd-8th - Death in Venice (Thomas Mann, 1912) - 2/5
July 30th-August 2nd - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876) - 5/5
July 2011
July 6th-21st - The Stone Carvers (Jane Urquhart, 2001) - 2/5
June 16th-July 4th - The Songlines (Bruce Chatwin, 1986) - 4/5
June 2011
June 10th-13th - The Tiny Wife (Andrew Kaufman, 2011) - 2/5
June 7th-12th - Psmith in the City (P.G. Wodehouse, 1910) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
June 6th - Mike and Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 3.5/5 (2nd reading)
June 5th - Mike at Wrykyn (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
June 1st-3rd - A Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov, 1841) - 4/5
May 2011
May 5th-30th - The Makioka Sisters (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1948) - 5/5
April 28th-May 5th - Popular Hits of the Showa Era (Ryu Murakami, 1994) - 2.5/5
April 2011
April 22nd - The Stuff That Nightmares Are Made of (Yasutaka Tsutsui, 1967) - 2.5/5
April 22nd - Alcestis (Euripides, 438 BC) - 3.5/5
April 21st-22nd - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Yasutaka Tsutsui, 1967) - 2.5/5
April 15th-20th - Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk, 1996) - 8/10
April 8th-14th - The Holocaust Industry (Norman G. Finkelstein, 2000) - 8/10
April 5th - The Boat
March 27th-April 1st - Hunger (Knut Hamsun, 1890) - 8.5/10
March 2011
March 29th - Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1835) - 7/10
March 5th-25th - The Leopard (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1956) - 9/10
March 22nd - And We Sold the Rain (Carmen Naranjo) - 5.5/10
February 25th-March 4th - The Waterproof Bible (Andrew Kaufman, 2010) - 7.5/10
March 2nd - A Mother's Tale (James Agee, 1952) - 6.5/10
February 2011
February 19th-24th - The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774) - 9/10
February 14th-19th - Love All the People (Bill Hicks, 2004) - 7.5/10
February 18th-19th - The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952) - 7.5/10
February 11th-13th - Daisy Miller (Henry James, 1978) - 7/10
February 7th - Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow (Kurt Vonnegut, 1954) - 7/10
February 4th-6th - Naïve. Super (Erlend Loe, 1996) - 9/10
January 2011
January 24th - The Subliminal Man (J.G. Ballard, 1963) - 6/10
January???-20th - Billy Budd (Herman Melville, 1924) - 8/10
January 17th - A Sound of Thunder (Ray Bradbury, 1952) - 6/10
2010 (47)
December 2010
December 14th - Wolfbay Wings
November 19th-December 13th - Dubliners (James Joyce, 1907) - 9.5/10
November 2010
October 2010
October 3rd-5th - The Moon in the Gutter (David Goodis, 1953) - 9/10
September 2010
September 30th - All My Friends Are Superheroes (Andrew Kaufman, 2003) - 9/10
September 17th-26th - The Man Who Fell to Earth (Walter Tevis, 1963) - 8/10
September 7th-15th - An Open Swimmer (Tim Winton, 1981) - 8/10
August 28th-September 6th - Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coatzee, 1980) - 8/10
August 2010
August 25th-28th - Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse, 1932) - 9/10 (2nd reading)
August 21st-25th - Mount Analogue (René Daumal, 1952) - 8/10
August 18th-20th - Audition (Ryu Murakami, 1999) - 8/10
August 15th-16th - Lysistrata (Aristophanes, 411 BC) - 7.5/10
July 16th-August 14th - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce, 1916) - 9/10
August 2nd-7th - King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1603-1606) - 8.5/10
July 2010
July 12th-13th - The Outsider (Albert Camus, 1942) - 8/10
July 7th-9th - Boys and Girls Together (William Saroyan, 1963) - 8/10
June 27th-July 1st - A Devil in Paradise (Henry Miller, 1956) - 8/10
June 2010
June 4th-23rd - The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1869) - 9.5/10
May 30th-June 3rd - Macbeth (William Shakespeare, 1606?) - 8/10
May 2010
May 19th-20th - A Child's Heart (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 7.5/10
May 16th-18th - Breath (Tim Winton, 2008) - 9/10
May 7th-14th - The Argonautica (Apollonius, 300-400 BC) - 8.5/10
May 4th-5th - That Eye, the Sky (Tim Winton, 1986) - 9/10
April 29th-May 2nd - Candide (Voltaire, 1759) - 8.5/10
April 2010
April 27th-28th - Zadig (Voltaire, 1747) - 8/10
April 25th-26th - Venus in Furs (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, 1870) - 8/10
April 23rd-24th - The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde, 1895) - 8.5/10
April 21st-23rd - Lady Windermere's Fan (Oscar Wilde, 1892) - 8.5/10
April 19th-20th - Summer Crossing (Truman Capote, 1949?) - 8.5/10
March 29th-April 19th - Not George Washington (P.G. Wodehouse, 1907) - 8.5/10
April 1st-16th - Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami, 2002) - 7.5/10
March 2010
March 23rd-28th - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818) - 8/10
March 27th - A Last Will (Williston Fish, 1908) - 7/10
March 22nd - Antigone (Sophocles, 442 BC) - 8/10
March 21st - Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles, 406 BC) - 8/10
March 18th-19th - Playing With Fire (Theoren Fleury, 2009) - 7.5/10
March 16th - The Misanthrope (Moliere, 1666) - 8.5/10
March 7th-11th - The Blonde on the Street Corner (David Goodis, 1954) - 8/10
February 27th-March 5th - The Viceroy of Ouidah (Bruce Chatwin, 1980) - 9/10
February 2010
February 24th-25th - The Sound of Waves (Yukio Mishima, 1954) - 9/10
February 17th-22nd - Beneath the Wheel (Hermann Hesse, 1906) - 9/10
February 15th-16th - The Symposium (Plato, 385-380 BC) - 7.5/10
February 12th-14th - Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger, 1951) - 8/10
February 10th - Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov, 1899) - 8.5/10
February 2nd-8th - Cloudstreet (Tim Winton, 1991) - 9.5/10
January 28th-February 1st - Knulp (Hermann Hesse, 1915) - 8.5/10
January 2010
January 22nd-26th - Junkie (William S. Burroughs, 1953) - 8/10
December 29th-January 19th - The Red and the Black (Stendhal, 1830) - 9/10
2009 (60)
December 2009
December 28th - A Season in Hell (Arthur Rimbaud, 1873) - 8/10
December 20th-25th - Children of the Mind (Orson Scott Card, 1996) - 7.5/10
December 12th-20th - Xenocide (Orson Scott Card, 1991) - 7.5/10
December 6th-11th - Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card, 1986) - 8/10
November 30th-December 5th - Ender in Exile (Orson Scott Card, 2008) - 7.5/10
November 2009
November 26th-29th - Shadow of the Giant (Orson Scott Card, 2005) - 8/10
November 21st-25th - Shadow Puppets (Orson Scott Card, 2002) - 8/10
November 17th-20th - Shadow of the Hegemon (Orson Scott Card, 2001) - 8/10 (2nd reading)
November 13th-16th - Ender's Shadow (Orson Scott Card, 1999) - 8/10 (2nd reading)
November 12th - A War of Gifts (Orson Scott Card, 2007) - 7/10
November 12th - Investment Counselor (Orson Scott Card, 1999) - 7/10
November 11th - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card, 1977) - 7.5/10
November 10th - Teacher's Pest (Orson Scott Card, 2003) - 7/10
November 10th - The Polish Boy (Orson Scott Card, 2002) - 7/10
November 8th-9th - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card, 1985) - 8.5/10 (2nd reading)
October 2009
October 25th-November 6th - Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, 1847) - 9/10
October 7th-16th - Morrissey & Marr - The Severed Alliance (Johnny Rogan, 1993) - 8.5/10
September 29th-October 5th - Scoop (Evelyn Waugh, 1938) - 8.5/10
September 2009
September 28th - Okame-San (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 9/10
September 28th - The Nest of Stars (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 8/10
September 28th - The Champion in a Padded Kimono (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 8.5/10
September 22nd-26th - Barabbas (Pär Lagerkvist, 1950) - 9/10
September 20th - Knots (R.D. Laing, 1970) - 7.5/10
September 16th-20th - The Voyeur (Alberto Moravia, 1986) - 8.5/10
September 13th-14th - Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945) - 8/10
September 3rd-10th - Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut, 1969) - 8.5/10
August 2009
August 29th-31st - Love Among the Chickens (P.G. Wodehouse, 1906/1921) - 8/10
August 28th - The Swoop! (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8/10
August 22nd-27th - Something Fresh (P.G. Wodehouse, 1915) - 8/10
August 16th-18th - A Gentleman of Leisure (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8/10
August 14th-16th - The White Feather (P.G. Wodehouse, 1907) - 8/10
August 12th-13th - The Head of Kay's (P.G. Wodehouse, 1905) - 8/10
August 10th-11th - The Gold Bat (P.G. Wodehouse, 1904) - 8/10
August 7th-9th - Tales of St. Austin's (P.G. Wodehouse, 1903) - 8/10
August 5th-6th - A Prefect's Uncle (P.G. Wodehouse, 1903) - 8/10
August 3rd-5th - The Pothunters (P.G. Wodehouse, 1902) - 8/10
July 2009
July 27th-August 2nd - Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov, 1955) - 9.5/10
July 21st-26th - The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov, 1903) - 9/10
July 14th-20th - Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami, 1987) - 9.5/10
July 10th-13th - Leave It to Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1923) - 8.5/10
July 6th-8th - Cassidy's Girl (David Goodis, 1951) - 8.5/10
July 3rd-4th - Patriotism (Yukio Mishima, 1966) - 8/10
June 2009
June 28th-31st - Psmith Journalist (P.G. Wodehouse, 1915) - 8/10
June 23rd-27th - Psmith in the City (P.G. Wodehouse, 1910) - 9.5/10
June 21st-23rd - Mike and Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 9/10
June 18th -20th - Mike at Wrykyn (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8.5/10
June 8th-16th - Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1939) - 7/10
May 2009
May 28th-30th - Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami, 1979) - 9/10
May 13th-17th - Almost Transparent Blue (Ryu Murakami, 1976) - 9/10
May 1st-10th - Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1601) - 9/10
April 2009 (2)
April 23rd-24th - Why I Didn't Say Anything (Sheldon Kennedy, 2006) - 7.5/10
April 4th-7th - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) - 9/10
March 2009 (3)
March 27th-30th - The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890) - 9/10
March 16th-22nd - The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells, 1898) - 7.5/10
March 11th-15th - Le Grand Meaulnes (Alain Fournier, 1913) - 10/10
February 2009 (4)
February 22nd-24th - Piercing (Ryu Murakami, 1994) - 7.5/10
February 17th-19th - Utz (Bruce Chatwin, 1988) - 9/10
February 9th-14th - Confessions of a Mask (Yukio Mishima, 1948) - 9.5/10
????????????? - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami, 1995) - 8.5/10
January 2009 (1)
????????????? - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - (Haruki Murakami, 2008) - 8/10
before then, and to be sorted...
Old World Landowners (Nikolai Gogol, 1835) - 8/10
Diary of a Madman (Nikolai Gogol, 1835) - 9/10
White Noise (Don DeLillo, 1985) - 9/10
Fires on the Plain (Ōoka Shōhei, 1951) - 8.5/10
Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami, 1999)- 9/10
Against Nature (Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1884) - 8.5/10
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock 'n' Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'n' Roll (Lester Bangs, 1987) - 9/10
Narziss and Goldmund (Hermann Hesse, 1930) - 9.5/10
High Fidelity (Nick Hornby, 1995) - 8.5/10 (2nd)
American Gods (Neil Gaiman, 2001) - 9/10
Gertrude (Hermann Hesse, 1910) - 9/10
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami, 1995) - 9.5/10
The I Chong (Tommy Chong, 2006) - 7/10
About a Boy (Nick Hornby, 1998) - 7/10
Oedipus the King (Sophocles, 429 BC) - 9/10
Demian (Hermann Hesse, 1919 - 9.5/10
Underground (Haruki Murakami, 1998) - 9/10
After the Quake (Haruki Murakami, 2000) - 9/10
Nightfall (David Goodis, 1947) - 8.5/10
Phaedo (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8/10
Meno (Plato, 3?? BC) - 7/10
Crito (Plato, 3?? BC) - 9/10
Apology (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8.5/10
Euthyphro (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8.3/10
The Gun Seller (Hugh Laurie, 1996) - 8.5/10
A Long Way Down (Nick Hornby, 2005) - 8/10
Peter Camenzind (Hermann Hesse, 1904) - 9.5/10
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse, 1922) - 9.5/10
Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse, 1927) - 9.5/10
The Little Prince (Antoine Saint-Exupéry, 1943) -8/10
Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller, 1934) - 8.5/10
Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse, 1932) - 8.5/10
On the Road (Jack Kerouac, 1957) - 9.5/10
The Time Machine (H.G. Wells, 1895) - 9/10
Gogol - Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Last edited by Holymanm on Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:32 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Ben » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:50 pm
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by johnnyutah » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:33 pm
does makioka sisters ever get interesting? i mean i imagine it would but i just didn't feel motivated to read on... it's like the only perfect book on your list -____-
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:04 pm
Ben wrote:
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
idealistic answer: reading is pinnacle of human expression through art, makes it worth it
honest answer: read on the toilet more often (yes)
Depends on factors sometimes (honestly!).
Place/environment is huge... on the bus is alright, in bed is okay, but sometimes the absolute best spots are needed: mainly in the bathroom, but park benches and things can work out alright sometimes. The main thing is avoiding having reading around the computer, or on the couch where there's also a TV, as the main spots -- unless you're reading a comic or a Harry Potter book, which can be read anywhere and for hours straight, it's deathly to read in front of the TV for more than a few pages before starting to play NHL 11 (I'm sure you have that problem too). There are probably many studies out there on reading environments, but I don't like studying, so I dunno. But it's wholly empirical: both when I was reading Lolita, and when I was reading The Idiot, for two examples I remember, there was a very clear distinction in paces... I was reading 10-20 pages a day, sometimes, just out of lack of suitable opportunities (doing shit-all otherwise, but still), but then I managed to get it together and finish the last 200 pages one night with a combination of bathroom and in bed reading, booya. But both of those are very readable books, which leads into...
Readable books! Readable books get a bad rep, because they're the opposite of Proust, or Balzac, or untranslated Homer, but some of them manage to keep the quality up as well. (Harry Potter, hint hint)
Some who do this well:
Haruki Murakami, of course
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet; Breath
David Goodis - any of his pulpy, semi-noir books
P.G. Wodehouse - all the early school stories and pretty much everything else, although you have to like old English humour and school stories and stuff for the former, but I can't see why not
Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends are Superheroes
Erlend Loe - Naive Super (yes yes yes)
and of course occasionally the highest brow of pomp can go by at quite a pace, maybe more easily once used to reading nonsensical amounts. I must've read at least 500 books, including re-reads, between 8-10 or so, though, so I definitely got used to the habit. Mainly, just order a copy of Naive Super and see if it doesn't do the trick :ugeek:
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:07 pm
johnnyutah wrote:
does makioka sisters ever get interesting? i mean i imagine it would but i just didn't feel motivated to read on... it's like the only perfect book on your list -____-
I thought it was interesting the whole way through pretty much... but if you mean "things really happening instead of the sisters drinking tea for hundred of pages"-wise, then more or less, yes, in the second half that happens a fair amount. The early, uneventful parts make it seem all the more realistic when anything exciting does happen, and those parts complement the mundane parts in return; the absolute realism and subtlety - and not in a terrible way like most boring movies which try to be realistic but are just boring (not all) - are what make it such a masterpiece! It's the only perfect one there, maybe, but that's just a product of ratings, although it might be top 5 {{0}} ____ {{0}}
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Ben » Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:35 pm
Holymanm wrote:
Ben wrote:
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
idealistic answer: reading is pinnacle of human expression through art, makes it worth it
honest answer: read on the toilet more often (yes)
Depends on factors sometimes (honestly!).
Place/environment is huge... on the bus is alright, in bed is okay, but sometimes the absolute best spots are needed: mainly in the bathroom, but park benches and things can work out alright sometimes. The main thing is avoiding having reading around the computer, or on the couch where there's also a TV, as the main spots -- unless you're reading a comic or a Harry Potter book, which can be read anywhere and for hours straight, it's deathly to read in front of the TV for more than a few pages before starting to play NHL 11 (I'm sure you have that problem too). There are probably many studies out there on reading environments, but I don't like studying, so I dunno. But it's wholly empirical: both when I was reading Lolita, and when I was reading The Idiot, for two examples I remember, there was a very clear distinction in paces... I was reading 10-20 pages a day, sometimes, just out of lack of suitable opportunities (doing shit-all otherwise, but still), but then I managed to get it together and finish the last 200 pages one night with a combination of bathroom and in bed reading, booya. But both of those are very readable books, which leads into...
Readable books! Readable books get a bad rep, because they're the opposite of Proust, or Balzac, or untranslated Homer, but some of them manage to keep the quality up as well. (Harry Potter, hint hint)
Some who do this well:
Haruki Murakami, of course
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet; Breath
David Goodis - any of his pulpy, semi-noir books
P.G. Wodehouse - all the early school stories and pretty much everything else, although you have to like old English humour and school stories and stuff for the former, but I can't see why not
Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends are Superheroes
Erlend Loe - Naive Super (yes yes yes)
and of course occasionally the highest brow of pomp can go by at quite a pace, maybe more easily once used to reading nonsensical amounts. I must've read at least 500 books, including re-reads, between 8-10 or so, though, so I definitely got used to the habit. Mainly, just order a copy of Naive Super and see if it doesn't do the trick :ugeek:
Duder! You are a champ for replying with such depth and verve and enthusiasm. I think my main obstacle is my own lack of enthusiasm, my brain being dead most of the time (I chalk this up to clicking the mouse one to many a thousand times a day), and people in and out of the house, and getting sleepy almost every time I pick up a book no matter if I am actually sleepy the moment before. I used to love reading. I remember going to the downtown LA library, prowling their shelves until I had a big stack o' books and going to my favorite bench at the base of the Hollywood hills, where it seemed no one but me ever sat. So, now it's all medical/mental me thinks. Have we ever talked David Goodis? He's a damn fine pulper.
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:06 pm
sounds like you need to go back to LA! i don't think i'd particularly want to go there though...
this guy gave me a copy of down there aka shoot the piano player aka don't shoot the piano player when i was maybe 15-16, aka one of the reading-deficient stages, but it just might have contributed to getting out of it. i got nightfall a few years later, and then a few more, and golly gosh but they are classics! even (or especially) the ones with very little in the way of crime, but just mundane depression-era dudes walking around and smoking a lot. damn!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by johnnyutah » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:56 pm
gimme your top 10 books
ima start reading a shitton of books but i imagine the best bet for a book i can finish is notes from underground. 96 pages!!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:14 pm
the first two are in order
alain-fournier - le grand meaulnes
dostoyevsky - the idiot
tanizaki - the makioka sisters
stendhal - the red and the black
joyce - dubliners
hesse - demian
winton - cloudstreet
murakami - the wind-up bird chronicle
kesey - one flew over the cuckoo's nest
ibuse - black rain
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:58 pm
December 23rd-26th - The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
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4/5
December 26th-29th - Uneasy Money (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916)
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getting back to the mike and psmith early days heights! not as blatantly hilarious every fourth or fifth page as some of the other books, but super playing out of the intricate plot... crowd-pleasing stuff, golly
4/5
December 29th 2014-January 3rd 2015 - The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1935)
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more fantastic tanizaki!! which is the same as saying, more tanizaki!!
4/5
February 7th-12th - Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (Judith C. Brown, 1986)
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great account of religious illusion, delusion, posturing, censure, and passion... what more do you want? of particular note are the descriptions of grotesque angels and devils, in fevered religious dreams and illusionst
3.5/5
March 3rd-5th - In the Pond (Ha Jin, 1998)
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good fun! very concise and elegant... no needless farce (though there is much farce) or sideplots or anything. and no one learns any lessons - if anythingeach person just learns better how to manipulate or work within the system for their own ends. good lesson!
3.5/5
March 10th-23rd - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima, 1963) - 3.5/5
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March 25th-April 30th - The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Bernal Díaz, 1568)
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worth it for the chapter "the flight from mexico" alone, which is about the most insane and greatest historical military account you can read, but obviously all kinds of fascinating and invaluable aside from that... obviously i say. read if you are interested in colonial history, first contact with the new world, dysentery, etc. worth noting that cortes comes off primarily as an amazing individual, up there with the 'great men' in history, the rightful hero of the expedition - not so much in a saving babies from burning buildings way but more in a doing unimaginable things, inexplicably getting everyone on his side with ridiculous poise and cunning, and generally moving mountains to conquer the shit out of the place, without even being overly rapacious, let alone murderous. seems like quite the guy. and diaz denounces all kinds of excesses, and criticises cortes a bunch too, so this is no mere panegyric to cortes and the great spanish and all...
5/5
May 1st-13th - Glamorama (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998)
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first 100 pages or so are (and specifically were) some great plane reading, if slightly more... dare i say... superficial than the usual great ellis stuff. then yes, like people say, it meanders for the rest of the first half and turns stupid in the second half and who cares. but the last chapter is really great so don't listen to people who complain about the end! (i mean the end as a whole is stupid but the last chapter is great and relaxing and calming)
2.5/5
May 14th-17th - Thousand Cranes (Yasunari Kawabata, 1952) - 3/5
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June 2nd-4th - Popol Vuh (155?)
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The ancient version of this book was a complex book of symbols and charts, used in assemblies of lords and seers to determine the best dates for ceremonies or political events by interpreting the charts. And so it’s the "Popol Vuh", or, “Council Book”. There were occasional “performances” in which a seer would interpret and draw actual stories from the symbols and charts, with an absurdly complicated astronomically-entwined system - for example, the movements of a star over millennia are perfectly described by, and themselves describe, the journey of a god-character in the myth - and tell of the whole creation of the Earth and about the gods and the early humans. The stories are comparable to the Torah or Greek, Roman, Etruscan mythologies or numerous others, with its floods, angry and jealous gods, and constant violence.
The version of the Popol Vuh we know today was written down in phonetic Quiche (a people and area in modern Guatemala) in the Roman alphabet around 1550 or so, after the Spanish made the locals start writing only in this alphabet. No one knows if they were writing this version based on an extant ancient Popol Vuh, or based on memories of oral performances, but anyway Tedlock (the translator of this edition) suggests that it can be taken as a sort of written “performance”, like the oral ones which used to tell the whole grand story, as this one does.
"The Mayan Bible", as some say? No... no one knows how much this represented the actual thought of any people at any point in history, owing to its mysterious origin and discovery, but maybe it did, who knows. It does have a great "Genesis" origin story of the Earth and humans and everything, and has a fairly Torah-esque history of the early people and with whom they fought and where they lived; but it also has flat out the most bizarre gods-and-demi-gods myths you will ever read in the middle. It's a little bit similar to the Greek pantheon - there are a few supreme, universal deities which the PV implies are worshiped by all people in the area (provinces? Country? Continent? Who knows the extent), but there are also all these patron deities. The Quiche in particular, whom the PV rather specifically and unduly extols (making this, at most, the Quiche Bible, not the Mayan Bible!), get the best patron deities - those of the other peoples are mostly effete and soon to be defeated, much like the other peoples themselves.
Interesting things about the book:
- It’s sort of an implicit protest, or act of resistance, by the Quiche, against the subsumption of their culture by Spanish Christianity. Written about 30 years after the razing and conquest of the Quiche region, the Spanish occupation was in full swing. Tedlock describes the Christians preventing old Mayan culture from being taught or talked about: they even banned them from wearing certain kinds of clothing because they were paranoid that the textiles contained hidden Mayan messages. So the Popol Vuh probably would have been written covertly; it was at least written anonymously, only saying “we the Quiche people” at the beginning. It was only discovered by Europe in 1701 by some friar, and translated from phonetic Quiche to Spanish. These Quiche and Spanish versions are what all subsequent editions of the Popol Vuh are based on.
- It's tempting to compare this to the Torah, with its description of a "Chosen People" (the Quiche) who generally survive and defeat other peoples to claim their rightful territory and place in the world... but it is really more similar to Greek myth - the pre-human gods go around hurting, tricking, laughing at, and killing each other - and to Nazi ideology: the mythological Quiche ancestors essentially ruthlessly slaughter or enslave all the other peoples, proclaiming, along with their patron deities, that they are simply the best and deserve to be preeminent among all peoples.
This makes for some irony... the Quiche, and the surrounding peoples in general, were of course conquered by the Spanish, who also had a similar "chosen people" ideology supporting them... what happens when two such societies meet? One will probably be subjugated, no?
- The stories themselves! The "Genesis" story is very beautiful in its poetic descriptions of the sky, the ocean, the wind, and the lights and sounds (or lack thereof). The pre-human god stories are absolutely astoundingly odd. Stories of "the 400 Boys" vs the crocodilian monster named Zipacna where they mercilessly try to trick and kill him because he's strong; the story in which one of the two main hero-gods (mostly referred to as the Boys, not to be confused with the 400 Boys) has his head bitten off by a bat so his brother beseeches the gods to furnish him with a new one, and they mold and chisel a squash and endow it with intelligence and put it back on his head and no one can tell the difference, and then they play soccer with their enemy with his decapitated head until they can trick their enemy into playing with the squash instead at which point the head is returned; stories of shin-hairs being plucked and turned into sentient mosquitoes to spy on people; humans being made out of corn; etc...
Overall this is well worth reading if you like mythology or just... funny stories
4/5
June 13th-27th - The Game (Ken Dryden, 1983)
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locker room scenes are phenomenal (maybe cause i am a dumb jock mentally suspended in early adolescence myself), yeah, and the on-ice scenes are great, and the childhood biographies of a few players are must-read (lafleur's and houle's are ironically much more interesting than dryden's)... not so enthused about the argumentative 'essay' components though. dryden figures he is the great writer of the hockey, and the great historian as well, and rambles on and on about various technical parts of the game to no particular effect. edit this down about 100 pages and it's great!
2.5/5
June 27th-July 8th - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992)
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i figure this is probably much more interesting if
a) one is reading it when it was published and this internet shit is still all a 'frontier' to be explored and explicated,
b) one has not grown up on the internet to the point that it's just a normal part of life, or
c) both
for me, reading it in 2015 at the age of 24, it is basically just another in a long line of sci-fi books which feature the internet as this whole new world within the world of the book, but which are basically about MMOs, or the fusion of MMOs and 'the real world'. and my reaction is another in a long line of 'i don't care'. that said, the book is not bad or anything... just really really hip and shit... way too many 'cool' characters. (raven is pretty cool though, yes.) and if you're the type to friggin know a thing or two about mythology and history already then you might be slightly offended or at least wearied of the terribly erudite and super didactic parts where they talk about 'cool old shit'
2.5/5
July 8th-10th - Confusion (Stefan Zweig, 1927) - 3/5
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July 13th-20th - Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
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more late 1800s self-obsessed english chaffe that doesn't hold a candle to the other great european stuff
okay that's just my controversy-stirring opener... but nevertheless this is just not any kind of top-notch writing in my view. the characters are either underwritten to the point of artificiality, or super-realistic to the point of tedium, or alternately each to the point of inconsistency. tough to say but either way it was dull. i get that all the characters are realistically 'flawed' - so that's why we're supposed to be constantly disappointed in them - but it does make it hard to pull for people whom you do not respect. but i guess they're occasionally pitiful enough to be pitied. by parts:
part 1 - standard dickensian origin story, jumps ahead years at a time for no reason when this is one of the most interesting parts of the book (despite hardy basically calling it necessary to get through but uninteresting)
part 2 - reality sets in, yeah fine
part 3 - enormous 150 page block of 'will they or won't they'. omg. obscure the pages so i don't have to read please
part 4 - back to the fun
i must complain about the repression in the book. i get that it was victorian england and all, and so even though this book was rallying against prudishness it couldn't ever explicitly mention sex or use swear words or anything, but... enough is enough with the 'these two characters pass by an inn and even though they showed no chemistry or signs of wanting to, a few chapters later it turns out they had sex at the time and you were obviously expected to know this'. it's boring in old movies and it is boring here. and in general, writing about how prudishness is bad but in a prudish way is super stultifying and limp in general. no wonder the english and french writers were mortified to realise in russia they were writing real books while these poor fellows had to write all this crap about virtues and whatnot
in summation: prudishness is bad. for 400 friggin pages. (not a bad book though)
3/5
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User avatarHolymanm
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BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:29 pm
2023
February 2023
February 2nd - The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955) - 5/5
January 2023
January 20th - The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
January 7th - The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
2022 (30)
December 2022 (2)
December 20th - The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
December 12th - To-morrow (Joseph Conrad, 1902) - 3/5
November 2022 (2)
November 24th - We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story (Simu Liu, 2022) - 3/5
November 12th - The Chrysalids (John Wyndham, 1955) - 4/5
October 2022 (2)
October 25th - High-Risk Homosexual (Edgar Gomez, 2022) - 1.5/5
October 11th - Ghost Boys (Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2018) - 3/5
September 2022 (1)
September 21st - All about Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business (Mel Brooks, 2021) - 3/5
July 2022 (2)
July 21st - Son of a Critch: A Childish Newfoundland Memoir (Mark Critch, 2018) - 3.5/5
July 7th - A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars (Hakeem Oluseyi, 2021) - 3.5/5
June 2022 (6)
June 30th - I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir (Brian Wilson, 2016) - 4/5
June 27th - Punch Me Up to the Gods (Brian Broome, 2021) - 3/5
June 22nd - Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began (Guido Tonelli, 2020) - 4/5
June 11th - Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking, 2018) - 4/5
June 7th - Beyond the Gender Binary (Alok, 2020) - 4/5
June 6th - George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt (Lucy Hawking, Stephen Hawking, 2009) - 3/5
May 2022 (1)
May 28th - A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking, 1988) - 4/5
April 2022 (2)
April 29th - The Slender Thread (Stirling Silliphant, 1966) - 1/5
April 9th - MirrorMask (Neil Gaiman, 2005) - 1/5
March 2022 (2)
March 25th - The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman, 2013) - 1/5 (2nd reading)
March 16th - Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman, 2005) - 2/5
February 2022 (3)
February 23rd - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Frederick Douglass, 1845) - 4/5
February 16th - American Gods (Neil Gaiman, 2001) - 2/5 (2nd reading)
February 8th - The 50th Law (50 Cent, Robert Greene, 2008) - 2/5
January 2022 (7)
January 23rd - The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (Neil Gaiman, 1997)
January 23rd - Crazy Hair (Neil Gaiman, 2009)
January 23rd - Cinnamon (Neil Gaiman, 1995)
January 23rd - The Sleeper and the Spindle (Neil Gaiman, 2013)
January 17th - The Wolves in the Walls (Neil Gaiman, 2003)
January 10th - How the Marquis Got His Coat Back (Neil Gaiman, 2015) - 2/5
January 9th - Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman, 1996) - 3/5
2021 (44)
December 2021 (2)
December 21st - Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism (Peter Staley, 2021) - 4/5
December 8th - Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter (50 Cent, 2020) - 4/5
November 2021 (2)
November 23rd - Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other (Ken Dryden, 2019) - 3/5
November 8th - The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008) - 3.5/5
October 2021 (7)
October 30th - Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy (Mike Love, 2016) - 3/5
October 23rd - Odd and the Frost Giants (Neil Gaiman, 2008) - 3.5/5
October 21st - Coraline (Neil Gaiman, 2002) - 3/5
October 17th - Fortunately, the Milk... (Neil Gaiman, 2013) - 2/5
October 11th - Stardust (Neil Gaiman, 1998) - 3.5/5
October 8th - James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl, 1961) - 3/5
October 3rd - Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman, 2017) - 4/5
September 2021 (2)
September 28th - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Trevor Noah, 2016) - 2.5/5)
September 20th - The Moon and Sixpence (W. Somerset Maugham, 1919) - 3/5
August 2021 (2)
August 23rd - Son of the Mob (Gordon Korman, 2002) - 2.5/5
August 9th - Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar (Keith Richards, Theodora Richards, 2014) - 4/5
July 2021 (1)
July 25th - Twelve Years a Slave (Solomon Northup, 1853) - 4/5
May 2021 (1)
May 10th - Toast on Toast: Cautionary Tales and Candid Advice (Steven Toast, 2016) - 4/5 (3rd reading?)
April 2021 (3)
April 11th - Burke's Law: A Life in Hockey (Brian Burke, 2020) - 3/5
April 9th - Number Two: More Short Tales from a Very Tall Man (Jay Onrait, 2015) - 3/5
April 6th - How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents (Jimmy O. Yang, 2018) - 3.5/5
March 2021 (6)
March 31st - Teaching: It's Harder Than It Looks (Gerry Dee, 2012) - 4/5
March 26th - The Call of the Wild (Jack London, 1903) - 3.5/5
March 25th - See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody (Bob Mould, 2011) - 3/5
March 17th - Anchorboy (Jay Onrait, 2013) - 3/5
March 8th - A Lost Lady (Willa Cather, 1923) - 3/5
March 5th - The Razor's Edge (W. Somerset Maugham, 1944) - 4/5
February 2021 (3)
February 21st - Prester John (John Buchan, 1910) - 4/5
February 14th - Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880) - 4.5/5
February 8th - Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899) - 4/5
January 2021 (15) (BOOK MONTH)
January 30th - Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir (Norm Macdonald, 2016) - 3.5/5
January 28th - Family Lexicon (Natalia Ginzburg, 1963) - 3.5/5
January 26th - The Story of Abelard's Adversities (Pierre Abélard, 1135) - 3/5
January 24th - The Bed Book (Sylvia Plath, 1976)
January 22nd - Houseboy (Ferdinand Oyono, 1956) - 3.5/5
January 20th - The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 1900) - 2/5
January 18th - The Mirror Maker: Stories and Essays (Primo Levi, 1986) - 3/5
January 16th - Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880) - 4/5
January 14th - The Monkey's Wrench (Primo Levi, 1978) - 4/5
January 12th - The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata, 1962) - 3.5/5
January 10th - Amores (Ovid, 16 BC) - 3/5
January 8th - Nothing More than Murder (Jim Thompson, 1949) - 2.5/5
January 6th - Acts of Worship: Seven Stories (Yukio Mishima, 1965) - 2.5/5
January 4th - War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1869) - 5/5
January 2nd - Love in a Bottle (Antal Szerb, 1946) - 3/5
2020 (42)
October 2020 (2)
October 24th - Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography (Johnny Marr, 2016) - 3/5
October 5th - The Hustler (Walter Tevis, 1959) - 3.5/5
September 2020 (10)
September 29th - Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (Nam-Joo Cho, 2016) - 3.5/5
September 26th - The Locked Room (Paul Aster, 1986) - 1.5/5
September 23rd - Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor E. Frankl, 1946) - 4/5
September 20th - A Room with a View (E.M. Forster, 1908) - 3.5/5
September 17th - Ghosts (Paul Aster, 1986) - 1/5
September 14th - City of Glass (Paul Aster, 1985) - 2.5/5
September 12th - Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling, 1902) - 3.5/5
September 9th - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Haruki Murakami, 2006) - 2.5/5
September 6th - I Have My Mother's Eyes: A Holocaust Story Across Generations (Barbara Ruth Bluman, 2009) - 3.5/5
September 3rd - Maurice (E.M. Forster, 1971) - 3.5/5
August 2020 (1)
August 17th - The Princess de Clèves (Madame de La Fayette, 1678) - 1/5
July 2020 (2)
July 26th - I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust (Inge Auerbacher, 1986) - 3/5
July 22nd - The Ghost-Seer (Friedrich Schiller, 1787) - 3/5
June 2020 (4)
June 30th - No Longer Human (Osamu Dazai, 1948) - 3.5/5
Juny 20th - The Vegetarian (Kang Han, 2007) - 1.5/5
June 16th - Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 3.5/5
June 4th - Katalin Street (Magda Szabó, 1969) - 3/5
May 2020 (4)
May 26th - A Damsel in Distress (P.G. Wodehouse, 1919) - 3.5/5
May 11th - Trees on a Slope (Sun-won Hwang, 1960) - 3.5/5
May 1st - Barbuchín (Daniel Armas, 1941)
May 1st - Singapore Dream and Other Adventures: Travel Writings from an Asian Journey (Hermann Hesse, 1911) - 4/5
April 2020 (8)
April 24th - A Fantasy of Doctor Ox (Jules Verne, 1872) - 3/5
April 21st - Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883) - 4.5/5
April 17th - Pilgrim at Sea (Pär Lagerkvist, 1962) - 4/5
April 16th - Scriblerus (Alexander Pope, 1741) - 4/5
April 13th - Dead Men Tell No Tales (Émile Zola, 1899) - 3.5/5
April 10th - Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945) - 2.5/5
April 9th - Daddy-Long-Legs (Jean Webster, 1912) - 2/5
April 7th - Smoke (Ivan Turgenev, 1867) - 4/5
March 2020 (5)
March 28th - Transformation (Mary Shelley, 1831) - 2.5/5
March 27th - Eye in the Sky (Philip K. Dick, 1957) - 3/5
March 25th - The Grifters (Jim Thompson, 1963) - 3/5
March 23rd - The Elephant Vanishes (Haruki Murakami, 1993) - 2/5
March 22nd - The Sandman (E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1815) - 3/5
February 2020 (3)
February 26th - Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton, 1934) - 3.5/5
February 14th - The Wild Geese (Ōgai Mori, 1911) - 2.5/5
February 6th - Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window (Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, 1981) - 4/5
January 2020 (3)
January 20th - Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne, 1872) - 4/5
January 15th - Thunder and Lightning: A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir (Phil Esposito, 2003) - 3/5
January 9th - Poor People (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1846) - 2/5
2019 (58)
December 2019 (4)
December 26th - Mr. Summer's Story (Patrick Süskind, 1991) - 3/5
December 23rd - Is Shakespeare Dead? (Mark Twain, 1909) - 3/5
December 16th - The Lonely Londoners (Sam Selvon, 1956) - 3.5/5
December 7th - The Persians (Aeschylus, 472 BC) - 3/5
November 2019 (15) (BOOK MONTH)
November 30th - Seven Against Thebes (Aeschylus, 467 BC) - 3/5
November 28th - A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare, 1595) - 5/5
November 26th - The Suppliants (Aeschylus, ~460 BC) - 3/5
November 24th - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
November 22nd - The Two Gentlemen of Verona (William Shakespeare, 1594) - 4/5
November 20th - A Double Life (Karolina Pavlova, 1848) - 4/5
November 18th - The Victorian Chaise-Longue (Marghanita Laski, 1953) - 3/5
November 16th - Blake's Job (William Blake, 1826) - 3/5
November 14th - Men Without Women (Haruki Murakami, 2014) - 2/5
November 12th - The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter, 1957) - 2.5/5
November 10th - The Caretaker (Harold Pinter, 1960) - 3.5/5
November 8th - Netochka Nezvanova (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1849) - 4/5
November 6th - Prometheus Bound(Aeschylus, ~470 BC) - 3/5
November 4th - The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories (Mark Twain, 1916) - 3/5
November 2nd - Theatre (W. Somerset Maugham, 1937) - 4/5
October 2019 (4)
October 29th - Falling Man (Don DeLillo, 2007) - 0/5
October 27th - Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery, 1915) - 3/5
October 22nd - Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery, 1909) - 2.5/5
October 4th - Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (Haruki Murakami, 2011) - 3/5
September 2019 (2)
September 23rd - Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery, 1908) - 4/5
September 15th - Offside: My Life Crossing the Line (Sean Avery, 2018) - 3/5
August 2019 (3)
August 28th - We (Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924) - 3/5
August 19th - The Road Back (Erich Maria Remarque, 1931) - 4/5
August 3rd - Egyptian Dreamer (Božin Pavlovski, 2001) - 1/5
July 2019 (4)
July 25th - Pudd'nhead Wilson (Mark Twain, 1893) - 3.5/5
July 19th - The Quiet American (Graham Greene, 1955) - 3/5
July 15th - As a Man Grows Older (Italo Svevo, 1898) - 1.5/5
July 1st - Fountains in the Sand (Norman Douglas, 1912) - 3.5/5
June 2019 (2)
June 21st - The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (Erskine Childers, 1903) - 2/5
June 8th - Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (W. Somerset Maugham, 1930) - 4/5
May 2019 (5)
May 30th - Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen, 1811) - 3/5
May 18th - The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, 1895) - 1.5/5
May 12th - Rumble Fish (S.E. Hinton, 1975) - 3/5
May 9th - The Reader (Berhnhard Schlink, 1995) - 2.5/5
May 6th - Emma (Jane Austen, 1815) - 2/5
April 2019 (1)
April 14th - Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 2/5
February 2019 (14) (BOOK MONTH)
February 28th - The Cossacks and Other Stories (Leo Tolstoy, 1863) - 3.5/5
February 26th - The Gambler (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866) - 3.5/5
February 24th - My Man Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse, 1919) - 3/5
February 22nd - Dancers at Night: Stories (David Adams Richards, 1978) - 2/5
February 20th - Memoirs of an Egotist (Stendhal, 1862) - 3.5/5
February 18th - The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Edgar Allan Poe, 1843) - 4/5
February 16th - Spring Torrents (Ivan Turgenev, 1872) - 5/5
February 14th - The Tempest (William Shakespeare, 1611) - 3/5
February 12th - Alphabet of Wit (Voltaire, 1945) - 3.5/5
February 10th - Whale Music (Paul Quarrington, 1989) - 3/5
February 8th - The Survivor (Primo Levi, 1988) - 3/5
February 6th - The Ogre Downstairs (Diana Wynne Jones, 1974) - 3.5/5
February 4th - The Book of Sand (Jorge Luis Borges, 1975) - 3/5
February 2nd - The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or How Violence Develops and Where it Can Lead (Heinrich Böll, 1974) - 3.5/5
January 2019 (4)
January 28th - Amsterdam (Ian McEwan, 1998) - 2.5/5
January 23rd - Under the Yellow & Red Stars (Alex Levin, 2009) - 4/5
January 17th - Liquidation (Imre Kertész, 2003) - 3.5/5
January 10th - The Gate (Natsume Sōseki, 1910) - 4/5
2018 (43)
December 2018 (2)
December 22nd - The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories (P.G. Wodehouse, 1917) - 3/5
December 13th - Skylark (Dezső Kosztolányi, 1924) - 3.5/5
October 2018 (1)
September 13th-October 16th - Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington, 1900) - 3/5
September (1)
August 17th-September 8th - The Aeneid (Virgil, 19 BC) - 2.5/5
August (3)
August 9th-14th - The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells, 1897) - 2.5/5
August 6th-10th - Rudin (Ivan Turgenev, 1856) - 4/5
July 27th-August 5th - Diario de Greg: Un renacuajo (Jeff Kinney, 2004) - 2.5/5
July (3)
July 20th-25th - The Sickness Unto Death (Søren Kierkegaard, 1849) - 1/5
July 9th-19th - On the Eve (Ivan Turgenev, 1860) - 3/5
April 5th-July 8th - Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy, 1878) - 4/5
June (BOOK READING MONTH) (15)
June 29th-30th - The Underdogs (Mariano Azuela, 1916) - 3/5
June 27th-28th - The Dwarf (Pär Lagerkvist, 1944) - 4.5/5
June 25th-26th - Look Back in Anger (John Osborne, 1956) - 3.5/5
June 23rd-24th - Red's Story (Red Storey, 1994) - 4/5
June 21st-22nd - The Bhagavad Gita (?, ~400 BC) - 2/5
June 19th-20th - Passing (Nella Larsen, 1929) - 2/5
June 17th-18th - Minimum of Two (Tim Winton, 1987) - 3.5/5
June 15th-16th - Closely Watched Trains (Bohumil Hrabal, 1965) - 2.5/5
June 13th-14th - As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams (Lady Sarashina, ~1050) - 4/5
June 11th-12th - The Diary of Lady Murasaki (Murasaki Shikibu, ~1010) - 2.5/5
June 9th-10th - Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958) - 3/5
June 7th-8th - Pinball, 1973 (Haruki Murakami, 1980) - 3.5/5
June 5th-6th - Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami, 1979) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
Jan 24th-June 4th - The Marquis of Bolibar (Leo Perutz, 1920) - 3.5/5
June 1st-2nd - Diary of a Madman (Brad "Scarface" Jordan, 2014) - 1.5/5
April (1)
March 4th-April 5th - Mockingbird (Walter Tevis, 1980) - 3.5/5
February (1)
February 2nd-28th - A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami, 1982) - 3.5/5
January (BOOK READING MONTH) (16)
January 30 - Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia (1971) - 3/5
January 28 - Sasuke's Story: Sunrise (Masashi Kishimoto, Shin Towada, 2015) - 3/5
January 26 - Itachi's Story, Vol. 2: Midnight (Masashi Kishimoto, Takashi Yano, 2015) - 3.5/5
January 24 - Itachi's Story, Vol. 1: Daylight (Masashi Kishimoto, Takashi Yano, 2015) - 3/5
July 16 2017-January 22 - Tales of Student Life (Hermann Hesse, 1976) - 4.5/5
January 19-20 - Moments of Reprieve (Primo Levi, 1981) - 4/5
January 17-18 - In Praise of Shadows (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1933) - 4/5
January 16 - To Every Thing there is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story (Alistair MacLeod, 1977) - 3/5
January 14-15 - The Tales of Belkin (Alexander Pushkin, 1831) - 4/5
January 12-13 - All the Way: My Life on Ice (Jordin Tootoo, 2014) - 3/5
January 10-11 - Night (Elie Wiesel, 1958) - 2.5/5
January 8-9 - Strait Is the Gate (André Gide, 1909) - 4.5/5
January 6-7 - Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett, 1953) - 3/5
January 4-5 - The Fall (Albert Camus, 1956) - 3/5
January 2-3 - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Kenzaburō Ōe, 1958) - 4/5
November 26 2017-January 1 - Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami, 1988) - 3/5
2017 (18)
November
September 12-November 7 - Fatelessness (Imre Kertész, 1973) - 4/5
September
September 8-11 - After Dark (Haruki Murakami, 2004) - 3/5
August
antigone
August 1 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard (J.K. Rowling, 2007) - 2.5/5
July
July 5-6 - The Mother of All Questions (Rebecca Solnit, 2017) - 2/5
July 4-5 - Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit, 2014) - 2/5
June
June 20-25 - Snow Country (Yasunari Kawabata, 1937) - 3/5
May 27-June 16 - Lady Chatterley's Lover (D.H. Lawrence, 1928) - 2.5/5
May
November 7 2016-May 27 - Sun and Steel (Yukio Mishima, 1968) - 5/5
May 16-23 - The Wounded and the Slain (David Goodis, 1955) - 3/5
May 11-14 - Vita Sexualis (Ōgai Mori, 1909) - 2/5
May 7-10 - Botchan (Sōseki Natsume, 1906) - 4/5
May 5-7 - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami, 2013) - 3/5
October 5 2016-May 3 - Scission (Tim Winton, 1985) - 2.5/5
April
April 6-? - Why I Write (George Orwell, 1946) - 3/5
March
February 17-March 24 - Coin Locker Babies (Ryū Murakami, 1980) - 5/5
February
January 12-February 5 - Mouchette (Georges Bernanos, 1937) - 4/5
January
December 21 2016-January 8 - The Truce (Primo Levi, 1963) - 4/5
UPDATE!!
2016 (18)
December
November 26-December 16 - Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements (Bob Mehr, 2016) - 3/5
September
September 21-25 - Charlotte's Daughter (Susanna Rowson, 1828) - 2.5/5
September 12-21 - Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson, 1790) - 1/5
August
August 19-27 - No Great Mischief (Alistair MacLeod, 1999) - 3.5/5
August 5-8 - The Death of Ahasuerus (Pär Lagerkvist, 1960) - 4/5
August 3-4 - Herod and Mariamne (Pär Lagerkvist, 1967) - 3.5/5
July 31-August 2 - Shikamaru's Story (Takashi Yano, 2015) - 2.5/5
July
July 30 - Kakashi's Story (Akira Higashiyama, 2015) - 2/5
July 21-25 - Last Words from Montmartre (Qiu Miaojin, 1996) - 3/5
February 14-July 20 - The Beautiful and Damned (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922) - 3/5
May 13-July 10 - Kim (Rudyard Kipling, 1901) - 4/5
May
April 21-May 8 - The Riders (Tim Winton, 1994) - 4/5
April
April 18 - In the Miso Soup (Ryū Murakami, 1997) - 5/5
March 29-April 5 - Home of the Gentry (Ivan Turgenev, 1859) - 4/5
March
March 19-26 - The Other Victims (Ina R. Friedman, Ana R. Friedman, 1990) - 3/5
February 2-March 9 - If This Is a Man (Primo Levi, 1947) - 4/5
March 1 - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Tadeusz Borowski, 1947) - 4/5
January
January 17-28 - Still Alive (Ruth Klüger, 1992) - 3/5
2015 (16)
December
December 3-24 - Searching for Bobby Orr (Stephen Brunt, 2006) - 2/5
October
October 18-31 - The Confusions of Young Torless (Robert Musil, 1906) - 3/5
September 13-October 8 - The End of a Family Story ( Péter Nádas, 1977) - 2/5
August
August 5-28 - Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte, 1847) - 1.5/5
July
July 13th-20th - Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895) - 3/5
July 8th-10th - Confusion (Stefan Zweig, 1927) - 3/5
June 27th-July 8th - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992) - 2.5/5
June
June 13th-27th - The Game (Ken Dryden, 1983) - 2.5/5
June 2nd-4th - Popol Vuh (155?) - 4/5
May
May 14th-17th - Thousand Cranes (Yasunari Kawabata, 1952) - 3/5
May 1st-13th - Glamorama (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998) - 2.5/5
April
March 25th-April 30th - The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Bernal Díaz, 1568) - 5/5
March
March 10th-23rd - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima, 1963) - 3.5/5
March 3rd-5th - In the Pond (Ha Jin, 1998) - 3.5/5
February
February 7th-12th - Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (Judith C. Brown, 1986) - 3.5/5
January
December 29th 2014-January 3rd 2015 - The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1935) - 4/5
2014 (55)
December 2014
December 26th-29th - Uneasy Money (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916) - 4/5
December 23rd-26th - The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925) - 4/5
December 22nd-23rd - Project X (Jim Shepard, 2004) - 2.5/5
December 20th-22nd - The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890) - 2.5/5
December 19th-20th - A Dream Play (August Strindberg, 1907) - 1.5/5
October 21st-December 19th - The Piano Teacher (Elfriede Jelinek, 1983) - 3/5
December 12th-19th - The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850) - 2.5/5
December 3rd-11th - King Leary (Paul Quarrington, 1987) - 3/5
November 29th-December 3rd - The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, 1963) - 4.5/5
November 2014
November 18th-29th - Ubik (Philip K. Dick, 1969) - 3/5
November 13th-18th - Journey by Moonlight (Antal Szerb, 1937) - 4/5
November 6th-13th - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1962) - 4/5
October 28th-November 4th - Crabwalk (Günter Grass, 2002) - 2.5/5
October 2014
October 15th-20th - Accident: A Day's News (Christa Wolf, 1987) - 3/5
October 6th-14th - Ready Player One (Ernest Cline, 2011) - 2/5
September 2014
September 20th-23rd - The Father (August Strindberg, 1887) - 2.5/5
September 19th - The Eumenides (Aeschylus, 458) - 2.5/5
September 18th - The Libation Bearers (Aeschylus, 458) - 3/5
September 16th-17th - Agememnon (Aeschylus, 458) - 3.5/5
September 14th-16th - A Doll House (Henrik Ibsen, 1879) - 3/5
September 6th-12th - Headbirths, or: The Germans Are Dying Out (Günter Grass, 1980) - 2/5
September 5th-6th - Strange News from Another Star and Other Tales (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 4/5
August 14th-September 4th - The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse, 1943) - 4.5/5
August 2014
August 10th-13th - Diary of a Mad Old Man (Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, 1961) - 3.5/5
August 6th-9th - The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon, 1966) - 3.5/5
August 4th-6th - A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887) - 3/5
August 2nd-4th - Tom Sawyer Abroad (Mark Twain, 1894) - 2.5/5
July 31st-August 1st - Anthem (Ayn Rand, 1938) - 1/5
July 2014
July 29th-31st - The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson, 1952) - 4/5
July 29th - Klingsor's Last Summer (Hermann Hesse, 1920) - 3.5/5
July 26th-29th - Klein and Wagner (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 2.5/5
July 22nd-26th - The Defense (Vladimir Nabokov, 1930) - 2.5/5
July 19th-21st - Rosshalde (Hermann Hesse, 1914) - 4/5
July 13th-18th - The Diary of Anne Frank (Anne Frank, 1944) - 5/5
July 4th-13th - Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726) - 4/5
June 18th-July 4th - The Little Nugget (P.G. Wodehouse, 1913) - 3/5
June 2014
December 10th, 2013-June 16th - The Man Upstairs and Other Stories (P.G. Wodehouse, 1914) - 3/5
May 25th-June 2nd - Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert, 1856) - 2/5
May 2014
May 20th-25th - W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes (Robert Taylor, 1949) - 3.5/5
May 19th - No More Dead Dogs (Gordon Korman, 2002) - 5/5 (4th reading?)
May 14th-18th - Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury, 1962) - 3/5
May 7th-10th - Othello (William Shakespeare, 1603) - 2.5/5
May 7th - Chess Story (Stefan Zweig, 1942) - 4.5/5
May 7th - Lyra's Oxford (Philip Pullman, 2003) - 3/5
April 8th-May 6th - The Amber Spyglass (Philip Pullman, 2000) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
April 2014
April 2nd-7th - The Subtle Knife (Philip Pullman, 1997) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
March 29th-April 2nd - The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman, 1995) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
March 2014
March 27th-28th - Demian (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 5/5 (2nd reading)
March 23rd-25th - Anchorboy (Jay Onrait, 2013) - 2.5/5
February 27th-March 21st - Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (Richard Powers, 1985) - 3/5
February 2014
February 21st-25th - Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen, 1817) - 4/5
February 13th-20th - The Quest for Juice (Jonathan-David Jackson, 2013) - 2.5/5
January 5th-February 12th - The Devils (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1872) - 5/5
January 2014
January 3rd-4th - Born Weird (Andrew Kaufman, 2012) - 3/5
December 18th-January 2nd - The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1880) - 4/5
2013 (51)
December 2013
December 16th-18th - The Box Man (Kōbō Abe, 1973) - 2.5/5
December 14th-15th - The Genius and the Goddess (Aldous Huxley, 1955) - 4.5/5
December 5th-9th - The Prince and Betty (P.G. Wodehouse, 1912) - 3/5
November 18th-December 3rd - The Gourmet Club (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1911-55) - 4/5
July 25th-December 2nd - Seven Japanese Tales (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1910-59) - 4/5
November 2013
November 7th-14th - Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1835-71) - 3/5
August 16th-November 13th - The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, 10XX) - 5/5
October 2013
September 2013
September 15th-17th - Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones, 2006) - 2/5
September 6th-14th - Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1861) - 4.5/5
August 2013
August 6th-16th - Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol, 1842) - 5/5
August 4th-6th - The Key (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1956) - 3/5
August 1st-4th - Arrowroot (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1931) - 4/5
July 27th-August 1st - A Cat, a Man, and Two Women (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1918-36) - 4/5
July 2013
May 8th - July 22nd - Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates, 1961) - 2/5
July 14th - Captain Shigemoto's Mother (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1949) - 4.5/5
July 13th - The Reed Cutter (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1932) - 4/5
July 12th-13th - The Witches (Roald Dahl, 1983) - 3.5/5
July 7th-12th - The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton, 1908) - 3/5
July 1st-7th - Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin, 1837) - 4/5
June 2013
June 28th-29th - Kokoro (Natsume Sōseki, 1914) - 5/5
June 23rd-28th - Rupert of Hentzau (Anthony Hope, 1898) - 2.5/5
June 19th-21st - Doctor Faustus (Christopher Marlowe, 1592) - 2.5/5
June 13th-18th - My Life in Hockey (Jean Béliveau; Chrys Goyens; Allan Turowetz, 1994) - 3/5
June 6th-13th - The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole, 1764) - 2/5
May 31st-June 6th - Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1816) - 3.5/5
May 2013
May 21st-24th - The Island of Doctor Moreau (H.G. Wells, 1896) - 3.5/5
May 18th-21st - The Prisoner of Zenda (Anthony Hope, 1894) - 3.5/5
May 15th-17th - The Woman in the Dunes (Kōbō Abe, 1962) - 4/5
May 11th-15th - Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) - 3.5/5
May 7th-10th - Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë, 1847) - 4/5
March 20th-May 7th - The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, 1929) - 4/5
May 2nd-3rd - The Informers (Bret Easton Ellis, 1994) - 3.5/5
May 2nd - Choke (Chuck Palahniuk, 2001) - 0/5
April 24th-May 1st - Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949) - 2.5/5
April 2013
November 21st 2012-April 23rd 2013 - Twilight of the Idols (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889) - 3.5/5
April 19th-22nd - Quicksand (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1930) - 3/5
March 30th-April 3rd - The Rules of Attraction (Bret Easton Ellis, 1987) - 4/5
March 2013
March 13th-18th - Geek Love (Katherine Dunn, 1989) - 2.5/5
March 9th-12th - Doppler (Erlend Loe, 2004) - 3/5
March 4th-5th - The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
February 13th-March 2nd - The Odyssey (Homer, 8?? BC) - 3.5/5
February 2013
February 23rd-25th - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 3.5/5
February 8th-10th - Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare, 1597) - 2/5
January 30th-February 6th - Galatea 2.2 (Richard Powers, 1995) - 5/5
January 2013
January 26th-29th - Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872) - 2.5/5
January 20th-25th - Piccadilly Jim (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916) - 4/5
January 13th-17th - The Queen of Spades and Other Stories (Alexander Pushkin, 1828-41) - 5/5
January 7th-12th - Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell, 1933) - 3.5/5
January 4th-7th - Satyricon (Petronius, 0?? AD) - 4/5
January 3rd-4th - A Spy in the House of Love (Anaïs Nin, 1954) - 2/5
December 13th-January 2nd - Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, 1615) - 4/5
2012 (58)
December 2012
April 8th-December 1st - The Eternal Husband and Other Stories (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1862-1877) - 3.5/5
November 2012
November 3rd - The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848) - 1.5/5
October 2012
October 27th-31st - Candide (Voltaire, 1759) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
October 18th-20th - The Devil in the Flesh (Raymond Radiguet, 1923) - 2/5
September 2012 (school books)
September 24th-28th - Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (Marvin Harris, 1975) - 3/5
September 15th-18th - Macbeth (William Shakespeare, 1606?) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
September 14th - Oedipus the King (Sophocles, 429 BC) - 4/5 (2nd reading)
September 1st-5th - Sanshiro (Natsume Sōseki, 1908) - 4.5/5
August 2012 (easy reading books)
August 29th-31st - The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925) - 2.5/5
August 27th-28th - The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan, 1915) - 4.5/5
August 27th - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Jean-Dominique Bauby, 1997) - 2.5/5
August 26th-27th - Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk, 2008) - 2/5
* August 16th-25th - The Iliad (Homer, 8?? BC) - 4/5
* August 12th-15th - Pnin (Vladimir Nabokov, 1957) - 1/5
August 10th-12th - This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920) - 4/5
August 4th-10th - Strangers (Taichi Yamada, 1987) - 3.5/5
August 2nd-4th - Less than Zero (Bret Easton Ellis, 1985) - 4/5
* July 29th-August 1st - All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque, 1929) - 4.5/5
July 2012 (french books)
* July 18th-28th - Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) - 2.5/5
July 11th-17th - Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938) - 3/5
July 9th-10th - The Immoralist (André Gide, 1902) - 3/5
July 8th - L'Ingenu (Voltaire, 1767) - 3/5
July 5th-7th - The Bridge over the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle, 1952) - 3.5/5
* June 30th-July 4th - Effi Briest (Theodor Fontane, 1896) - 4/5
June 2012 (long books)
June 26th-29th - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813) - 4/5
June 15th-26th - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez, 1967) - 3.5/5
June 1st-14th - The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1939) - 2/5
May 2012
May 30th-31st - The Leaf Storm (Gabriel García Márquez, 1955) - 3/5
May 29th-30th - John Manjiro, The Castaway (Masuji Ibuse, 1947) - 4.5/5
May 22nd-26th - Some Prefer Nettles (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1929) - 4/5
May 20th-21st - Naomi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1924) - 3.5/5
May 13th-20th - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884) - 4/5
May 9th-12th - Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel García Márquez, 1981) - 3/5
February 23rd-May 9th - A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929) - 3/5
April 25th-May 1st - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968) - 3.5/5
April 2012
April 21st-25th - American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis, 1991) - 3.5/5
April 17th - Breakfast at Tiffany's (Truman Capote, 1958) - 2/5
April 11th-17th - The Diary of a Country Priest (Georges Bernanos, 1936) - 4/5
April 7th-8th - South of the Border, West of the Sun (Haruki Murakami, 1992) - 3.5/5
April 2nd-7th - Through the Looking Glass (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, 1871) - 2/5
March 30th-April 1st - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865) - 1.5/5
March 2012
March 22nd-26th - Open (Andre Agassi, 2009) - 3/5
March 16th-18th - 69 (Ryu Murakami, 1987) - 4/5
March 12th-14th - Beware the Fish (Gordon Korman, 1980) - 2.5/5
March 9th-11th - A Geisha Remembers (Masuji Ibuse, 1952) - 3/5
March 1st-9th - Shoeless Joe (W.P. Kinsella, 1982) - 2/5
February 2012
February 29th - Go Jump in the Pool (Gordon Korman, 1979) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
February 14th-21st - Solaris (Stanisław Lem, 1961) - 3/5
February 16th - For the Good of the Cause (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1963) - 2.5/5
February 12th-13th - The Death of Ivan Ilych (Leo Tolstoy, 1886) - 4/5
February 11th - The Forged Coupon (Leo Tolstoy, 1904) - 4/5
November 14th-February 10th - In the Winter Dark (Tim Winton, 1988) - 4/5
January 21st-February 10th - The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937) - 3.5/5
February 2nd-3rd - Fire on Ice (Eric Lindros, 1991) - 3/5
January 2012
January 14th-17th - Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915) - 3/5
January 11th-13th - The Queen's Gambit (Walter Tevis, 1983) - 4/5
January 7th-10th - Beowulf (???, ???) - 3/5
December 16th-January 4th - Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1866) - 4.5/5
2011 (57)
December 2011
December 9th-15th - Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev, 1862) - 4/5
December 7th - Egyptian Nights (Alexander Pushkin, 1837) - 3/5
December 6th-7th - Dubrovsky (Alexander Pushkin, 1832) - 3.5/5
November 28th-December 3rd - The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934) - 3/5
November 2011
November 22nd-26th - Triple Crown: The Marcel Dionne Story (Ted Mahovlich, 2004) - 2.5/5
September 30th-November 19th- The Anti-Christ (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888) - 3.5/5
November 10th-12th - Les Enfants Terrible (Jean Cocteau, 1929) - 4/5
November 3rd-7th - Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury, 1953) - 3.5/5
October 2011
October 7th-16th - The Pearl (John Steinbeck, 1947) - 3.5/5
October 3rd-9th - Talk Show (Dick Cavett, 2010) - 2.5/5
September 2011
September 15th-29th - The Sound of the Mountain (Yasunari Kawabata, 1954) - 4/5
September 7th-14th - Being There (Jerzy Kosinski, 1971) - 3/5
October 11th, 2011-September 3rd - Black Rain (Masuji Ibuse, 1965) - 5/5
August 31st-September 1st - Exiles (James Joyce, 1918) - 3/5
August 2011
August 30th - This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (Gordan Korman, 1978) - 2.5/5 (2nd reading)
August 29th - Suffer Little Children (Dereck O'Brien, 1991) - 3.5/5
August 25th-29th - Marcovaldo (Italo Calvino, 1963) - 3/5
August 21st-24th - The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1846) - 4/5
August 19th-20th - No One Writes to the Colonel (Gabriel García Márquez, 1961) - 3.5/5
August 18th - Clouds (Aristophanes, 423 BC) - 2.5/5
August 14th-17th - Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1864) - 3/5
June 5th-August 17th - The Clicking of Cuthbert (P.G. Wodehouse, 1922) - 3/5
August 15th - The Dyskolos (Menander, 317 BC) - 2.5/5
August 10th-13th - Thirst for Love (Yukio Mishima, 1950) - 3/5
August 9th - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962) - 4/5
August 3rd-8th - Death in Venice (Thomas Mann, 1912) - 2/5
July 30th-August 2nd - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876) - 5/5
July 2011
July 6th-21st - The Stone Carvers (Jane Urquhart, 2001) - 2/5
June 16th-July 4th - The Songlines (Bruce Chatwin, 1986) - 4/5
June 2011
June 10th-13th - The Tiny Wife (Andrew Kaufman, 2011) - 2/5
June 7th-12th - Psmith in the City (P.G. Wodehouse, 1910) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
June 6th - Mike and Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 3.5/5 (2nd reading)
June 5th - Mike at Wrykyn (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 3/5 (2nd reading)
June 1st-3rd - A Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov, 1841) - 4/5
May 2011
May 5th-30th - The Makioka Sisters (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1948) - 5/5
April 28th-May 5th - Popular Hits of the Showa Era (Ryu Murakami, 1994) - 2.5/5
April 2011
April 22nd - The Stuff That Nightmares Are Made of (Yasutaka Tsutsui, 1967) - 2.5/5
April 22nd - Alcestis (Euripides, 438 BC) - 3.5/5
April 21st-22nd - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Yasutaka Tsutsui, 1967) - 2.5/5
April 15th-20th - Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk, 1996) - 8/10
April 8th-14th - The Holocaust Industry (Norman G. Finkelstein, 2000) - 8/10
April 5th - The Boat
March 27th-April 1st - Hunger (Knut Hamsun, 1890) - 8.5/10
March 2011
March 29th - Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1835) - 7/10
March 5th-25th - The Leopard (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1956) - 9/10
March 22nd - And We Sold the Rain (Carmen Naranjo) - 5.5/10
February 25th-March 4th - The Waterproof Bible (Andrew Kaufman, 2010) - 7.5/10
March 2nd - A Mother's Tale (James Agee, 1952) - 6.5/10
February 2011
February 19th-24th - The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774) - 9/10
February 14th-19th - Love All the People (Bill Hicks, 2004) - 7.5/10
February 18th-19th - The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952) - 7.5/10
February 11th-13th - Daisy Miller (Henry James, 1978) - 7/10
February 7th - Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow (Kurt Vonnegut, 1954) - 7/10
February 4th-6th - Naïve. Super (Erlend Loe, 1996) - 9/10
January 2011
January 24th - The Subliminal Man (J.G. Ballard, 1963) - 6/10
January???-20th - Billy Budd (Herman Melville, 1924) - 8/10
January 17th - A Sound of Thunder (Ray Bradbury, 1952) - 6/10
2010 (47)
December 2010
December 14th - Wolfbay Wings
November 19th-December 13th - Dubliners (James Joyce, 1907) - 9.5/10
November 2010
October 2010
October 3rd-5th - The Moon in the Gutter (David Goodis, 1953) - 9/10
September 2010
September 30th - All My Friends Are Superheroes (Andrew Kaufman, 2003) - 9/10
September 17th-26th - The Man Who Fell to Earth (Walter Tevis, 1963) - 8/10
September 7th-15th - An Open Swimmer (Tim Winton, 1981) - 8/10
August 28th-September 6th - Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coatzee, 1980) - 8/10
August 2010
August 25th-28th - Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse, 1932) - 9/10 (2nd reading)
August 21st-25th - Mount Analogue (René Daumal, 1952) - 8/10
August 18th-20th - Audition (Ryu Murakami, 1999) - 8/10
August 15th-16th - Lysistrata (Aristophanes, 411 BC) - 7.5/10
July 16th-August 14th - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce, 1916) - 9/10
August 2nd-7th - King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1603-1606) - 8.5/10
July 2010
July 12th-13th - The Outsider (Albert Camus, 1942) - 8/10
July 7th-9th - Boys and Girls Together (William Saroyan, 1963) - 8/10
June 27th-July 1st - A Devil in Paradise (Henry Miller, 1956) - 8/10
June 2010
June 4th-23rd - The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1869) - 9.5/10
May 30th-June 3rd - Macbeth (William Shakespeare, 1606?) - 8/10
May 2010
May 19th-20th - A Child's Heart (Hermann Hesse, 1919) - 7.5/10
May 16th-18th - Breath (Tim Winton, 2008) - 9/10
May 7th-14th - The Argonautica (Apollonius, 300-400 BC) - 8.5/10
May 4th-5th - That Eye, the Sky (Tim Winton, 1986) - 9/10
April 29th-May 2nd - Candide (Voltaire, 1759) - 8.5/10
April 2010
April 27th-28th - Zadig (Voltaire, 1747) - 8/10
April 25th-26th - Venus in Furs (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, 1870) - 8/10
April 23rd-24th - The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde, 1895) - 8.5/10
April 21st-23rd - Lady Windermere's Fan (Oscar Wilde, 1892) - 8.5/10
April 19th-20th - Summer Crossing (Truman Capote, 1949?) - 8.5/10
March 29th-April 19th - Not George Washington (P.G. Wodehouse, 1907) - 8.5/10
April 1st-16th - Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami, 2002) - 7.5/10
March 2010
March 23rd-28th - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818) - 8/10
March 27th - A Last Will (Williston Fish, 1908) - 7/10
March 22nd - Antigone (Sophocles, 442 BC) - 8/10
March 21st - Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles, 406 BC) - 8/10
March 18th-19th - Playing With Fire (Theoren Fleury, 2009) - 7.5/10
March 16th - The Misanthrope (Moliere, 1666) - 8.5/10
March 7th-11th - The Blonde on the Street Corner (David Goodis, 1954) - 8/10
February 27th-March 5th - The Viceroy of Ouidah (Bruce Chatwin, 1980) - 9/10
February 2010
February 24th-25th - The Sound of Waves (Yukio Mishima, 1954) - 9/10
February 17th-22nd - Beneath the Wheel (Hermann Hesse, 1906) - 9/10
February 15th-16th - The Symposium (Plato, 385-380 BC) - 7.5/10
February 12th-14th - Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger, 1951) - 8/10
February 10th - Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov, 1899) - 8.5/10
February 2nd-8th - Cloudstreet (Tim Winton, 1991) - 9.5/10
January 28th-February 1st - Knulp (Hermann Hesse, 1915) - 8.5/10
January 2010
January 22nd-26th - Junkie (William S. Burroughs, 1953) - 8/10
December 29th-January 19th - The Red and the Black (Stendhal, 1830) - 9/10
2009 (60)
December 2009
December 28th - A Season in Hell (Arthur Rimbaud, 1873) - 8/10
December 20th-25th - Children of the Mind (Orson Scott Card, 1996) - 7.5/10
December 12th-20th - Xenocide (Orson Scott Card, 1991) - 7.5/10
December 6th-11th - Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card, 1986) - 8/10
November 30th-December 5th - Ender in Exile (Orson Scott Card, 2008) - 7.5/10
November 2009
November 26th-29th - Shadow of the Giant (Orson Scott Card, 2005) - 8/10
November 21st-25th - Shadow Puppets (Orson Scott Card, 2002) - 8/10
November 17th-20th - Shadow of the Hegemon (Orson Scott Card, 2001) - 8/10 (2nd reading)
November 13th-16th - Ender's Shadow (Orson Scott Card, 1999) - 8/10 (2nd reading)
November 12th - A War of Gifts (Orson Scott Card, 2007) - 7/10
November 12th - Investment Counselor (Orson Scott Card, 1999) - 7/10
November 11th - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card, 1977) - 7.5/10
November 10th - Teacher's Pest (Orson Scott Card, 2003) - 7/10
November 10th - The Polish Boy (Orson Scott Card, 2002) - 7/10
November 8th-9th - Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card, 1985) - 8.5/10 (2nd reading)
October 2009
October 25th-November 6th - Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, 1847) - 9/10
October 7th-16th - Morrissey & Marr - The Severed Alliance (Johnny Rogan, 1993) - 8.5/10
September 29th-October 5th - Scoop (Evelyn Waugh, 1938) - 8.5/10
September 2009
September 28th - Okame-San (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 9/10
September 28th - The Nest of Stars (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 8/10
September 28th - The Champion in a Padded Kimono (Takeshi Kitano, 1987) - 8.5/10
September 22nd-26th - Barabbas (Pär Lagerkvist, 1950) - 9/10
September 20th - Knots (R.D. Laing, 1970) - 7.5/10
September 16th-20th - The Voyeur (Alberto Moravia, 1986) - 8.5/10
September 13th-14th - Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945) - 8/10
September 3rd-10th - Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut, 1969) - 8.5/10
August 2009
August 29th-31st - Love Among the Chickens (P.G. Wodehouse, 1906/1921) - 8/10
August 28th - The Swoop! (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8/10
August 22nd-27th - Something Fresh (P.G. Wodehouse, 1915) - 8/10
August 16th-18th - A Gentleman of Leisure (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8/10
August 14th-16th - The White Feather (P.G. Wodehouse, 1907) - 8/10
August 12th-13th - The Head of Kay's (P.G. Wodehouse, 1905) - 8/10
August 10th-11th - The Gold Bat (P.G. Wodehouse, 1904) - 8/10
August 7th-9th - Tales of St. Austin's (P.G. Wodehouse, 1903) - 8/10
August 5th-6th - A Prefect's Uncle (P.G. Wodehouse, 1903) - 8/10
August 3rd-5th - The Pothunters (P.G. Wodehouse, 1902) - 8/10
July 2009
July 27th-August 2nd - Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov, 1955) - 9.5/10
July 21st-26th - The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov, 1903) - 9/10
July 14th-20th - Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami, 1987) - 9.5/10
July 10th-13th - Leave It to Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1923) - 8.5/10
July 6th-8th - Cassidy's Girl (David Goodis, 1951) - 8.5/10
July 3rd-4th - Patriotism (Yukio Mishima, 1966) - 8/10
June 2009
June 28th-31st - Psmith Journalist (P.G. Wodehouse, 1915) - 8/10
June 23rd-27th - Psmith in the City (P.G. Wodehouse, 1910) - 9.5/10
June 21st-23rd - Mike and Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 9/10
June 18th -20th - Mike at Wrykyn (P.G. Wodehouse, 1909) - 8.5/10
June 8th-16th - Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1939) - 7/10
May 2009
May 28th-30th - Hear the Wind Sing (Haruki Murakami, 1979) - 9/10
May 13th-17th - Almost Transparent Blue (Ryu Murakami, 1976) - 9/10
May 1st-10th - Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1601) - 9/10
April 2009 (2)
April 23rd-24th - Why I Didn't Say Anything (Sheldon Kennedy, 2006) - 7.5/10
April 4th-7th - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) - 9/10
March 2009 (3)
March 27th-30th - The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890) - 9/10
March 16th-22nd - The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells, 1898) - 7.5/10
March 11th-15th - Le Grand Meaulnes (Alain Fournier, 1913) - 10/10
February 2009 (4)
February 22nd-24th - Piercing (Ryu Murakami, 1994) - 7.5/10
February 17th-19th - Utz (Bruce Chatwin, 1988) - 9/10
February 9th-14th - Confessions of a Mask (Yukio Mishima, 1948) - 9.5/10
????????????? - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami, 1995) - 8.5/10
January 2009 (1)
????????????? - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - (Haruki Murakami, 2008) - 8/10
before then, and to be sorted...
Old World Landowners (Nikolai Gogol, 1835) - 8/10
Diary of a Madman (Nikolai Gogol, 1835) - 9/10
White Noise (Don DeLillo, 1985) - 9/10
Fires on the Plain (Ōoka Shōhei, 1951) - 8.5/10
Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami, 1999)- 9/10
Against Nature (Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1884) - 8.5/10
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock 'n' Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'n' Roll (Lester Bangs, 1987) - 9/10
Narziss and Goldmund (Hermann Hesse, 1930) - 9.5/10
High Fidelity (Nick Hornby, 1995) - 8.5/10 (2nd)
American Gods (Neil Gaiman, 2001) - 9/10
Gertrude (Hermann Hesse, 1910) - 9/10
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami, 1995) - 9.5/10
The I Chong (Tommy Chong, 2006) - 7/10
About a Boy (Nick Hornby, 1998) - 7/10
Oedipus the King (Sophocles, 429 BC) - 9/10
Demian (Hermann Hesse, 1919 - 9.5/10
Underground (Haruki Murakami, 1998) - 9/10
After the Quake (Haruki Murakami, 2000) - 9/10
Nightfall (David Goodis, 1947) - 8.5/10
Phaedo (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8/10
Meno (Plato, 3?? BC) - 7/10
Crito (Plato, 3?? BC) - 9/10
Apology (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8.5/10
Euthyphro (Plato, 3?? BC) - 8.3/10
The Gun Seller (Hugh Laurie, 1996) - 8.5/10
A Long Way Down (Nick Hornby, 2005) - 8/10
Peter Camenzind (Hermann Hesse, 1904) - 9.5/10
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse, 1922) - 9.5/10
Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse, 1927) - 9.5/10
The Little Prince (Antoine Saint-Exupéry, 1943) -8/10
Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller, 1934) - 8.5/10
Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse, 1932) - 8.5/10
On the Road (Jack Kerouac, 1957) - 9.5/10
The Time Machine (H.G. Wells, 1895) - 9/10
Gogol - Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Last edited by Holymanm on Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:32 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Ben » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:50 pm
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by johnnyutah » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:33 pm
does makioka sisters ever get interesting? i mean i imagine it would but i just didn't feel motivated to read on... it's like the only perfect book on your list -____-
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:04 pm
Ben wrote:
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
idealistic answer: reading is pinnacle of human expression through art, makes it worth it
honest answer: read on the toilet more often (yes)
Depends on factors sometimes (honestly!).
Place/environment is huge... on the bus is alright, in bed is okay, but sometimes the absolute best spots are needed: mainly in the bathroom, but park benches and things can work out alright sometimes. The main thing is avoiding having reading around the computer, or on the couch where there's also a TV, as the main spots -- unless you're reading a comic or a Harry Potter book, which can be read anywhere and for hours straight, it's deathly to read in front of the TV for more than a few pages before starting to play NHL 11 (I'm sure you have that problem too). There are probably many studies out there on reading environments, but I don't like studying, so I dunno. But it's wholly empirical: both when I was reading Lolita, and when I was reading The Idiot, for two examples I remember, there was a very clear distinction in paces... I was reading 10-20 pages a day, sometimes, just out of lack of suitable opportunities (doing shit-all otherwise, but still), but then I managed to get it together and finish the last 200 pages one night with a combination of bathroom and in bed reading, booya. But both of those are very readable books, which leads into...
Readable books! Readable books get a bad rep, because they're the opposite of Proust, or Balzac, or untranslated Homer, but some of them manage to keep the quality up as well. (Harry Potter, hint hint)
Some who do this well:
Haruki Murakami, of course
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet; Breath
David Goodis - any of his pulpy, semi-noir books
P.G. Wodehouse - all the early school stories and pretty much everything else, although you have to like old English humour and school stories and stuff for the former, but I can't see why not
Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends are Superheroes
Erlend Loe - Naive Super (yes yes yes)
and of course occasionally the highest brow of pomp can go by at quite a pace, maybe more easily once used to reading nonsensical amounts. I must've read at least 500 books, including re-reads, between 8-10 or so, though, so I definitely got used to the habit. Mainly, just order a copy of Naive Super and see if it doesn't do the trick :ugeek:
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:07 pm
johnnyutah wrote:
does makioka sisters ever get interesting? i mean i imagine it would but i just didn't feel motivated to read on... it's like the only perfect book on your list -____-
I thought it was interesting the whole way through pretty much... but if you mean "things really happening instead of the sisters drinking tea for hundred of pages"-wise, then more or less, yes, in the second half that happens a fair amount. The early, uneventful parts make it seem all the more realistic when anything exciting does happen, and those parts complement the mundane parts in return; the absolute realism and subtlety - and not in a terrible way like most boring movies which try to be realistic but are just boring (not all) - are what make it such a masterpiece! It's the only perfect one there, maybe, but that's just a product of ratings, although it might be top 5 {{0}} ____ {{0}}
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Ben » Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:35 pm
Holymanm wrote:
Ben wrote:
Eh oh, what's the secret to reading so much? I don't think I've managed five novels in the past year, and forget non-fiction!
idealistic answer: reading is pinnacle of human expression through art, makes it worth it
honest answer: read on the toilet more often (yes)
Depends on factors sometimes (honestly!).
Place/environment is huge... on the bus is alright, in bed is okay, but sometimes the absolute best spots are needed: mainly in the bathroom, but park benches and things can work out alright sometimes. The main thing is avoiding having reading around the computer, or on the couch where there's also a TV, as the main spots -- unless you're reading a comic or a Harry Potter book, which can be read anywhere and for hours straight, it's deathly to read in front of the TV for more than a few pages before starting to play NHL 11 (I'm sure you have that problem too). There are probably many studies out there on reading environments, but I don't like studying, so I dunno. But it's wholly empirical: both when I was reading Lolita, and when I was reading The Idiot, for two examples I remember, there was a very clear distinction in paces... I was reading 10-20 pages a day, sometimes, just out of lack of suitable opportunities (doing shit-all otherwise, but still), but then I managed to get it together and finish the last 200 pages one night with a combination of bathroom and in bed reading, booya. But both of those are very readable books, which leads into...
Readable books! Readable books get a bad rep, because they're the opposite of Proust, or Balzac, or untranslated Homer, but some of them manage to keep the quality up as well. (Harry Potter, hint hint)
Some who do this well:
Haruki Murakami, of course
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet; Breath
David Goodis - any of his pulpy, semi-noir books
P.G. Wodehouse - all the early school stories and pretty much everything else, although you have to like old English humour and school stories and stuff for the former, but I can't see why not
Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends are Superheroes
Erlend Loe - Naive Super (yes yes yes)
and of course occasionally the highest brow of pomp can go by at quite a pace, maybe more easily once used to reading nonsensical amounts. I must've read at least 500 books, including re-reads, between 8-10 or so, though, so I definitely got used to the habit. Mainly, just order a copy of Naive Super and see if it doesn't do the trick :ugeek:
Duder! You are a champ for replying with such depth and verve and enthusiasm. I think my main obstacle is my own lack of enthusiasm, my brain being dead most of the time (I chalk this up to clicking the mouse one to many a thousand times a day), and people in and out of the house, and getting sleepy almost every time I pick up a book no matter if I am actually sleepy the moment before. I used to love reading. I remember going to the downtown LA library, prowling their shelves until I had a big stack o' books and going to my favorite bench at the base of the Hollywood hills, where it seemed no one but me ever sat. So, now it's all medical/mental me thinks. Have we ever talked David Goodis? He's a damn fine pulper.
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:06 pm
sounds like you need to go back to LA! i don't think i'd particularly want to go there though...
this guy gave me a copy of down there aka shoot the piano player aka don't shoot the piano player when i was maybe 15-16, aka one of the reading-deficient stages, but it just might have contributed to getting out of it. i got nightfall a few years later, and then a few more, and golly gosh but they are classics! even (or especially) the ones with very little in the way of crime, but just mundane depression-era dudes walking around and smoking a lot. damn!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by johnnyutah » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:56 pm
gimme your top 10 books
ima start reading a shitton of books but i imagine the best bet for a book i can finish is notes from underground. 96 pages!!
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:14 pm
the first two are in order
alain-fournier - le grand meaulnes
dostoyevsky - the idiot
tanizaki - the makioka sisters
stendhal - the red and the black
joyce - dubliners
hesse - demian
winton - cloudstreet
murakami - the wind-up bird chronicle
kesey - one flew over the cuckoo's nest
ibuse - black rain
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Re: BOOK READING LOG
Post by Holymanm » Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:58 pm
December 23rd-26th - The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham, 1925)
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4/5
December 26th-29th - Uneasy Money (P.G. Wodehouse, 1916)
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getting back to the mike and psmith early days heights! not as blatantly hilarious every fourth or fifth page as some of the other books, but super playing out of the intricate plot... crowd-pleasing stuff, golly
4/5
December 29th 2014-January 3rd 2015 - The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, 1935)
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more fantastic tanizaki!! which is the same as saying, more tanizaki!!
4/5
February 7th-12th - Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (Judith C. Brown, 1986)
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great account of religious illusion, delusion, posturing, censure, and passion... what more do you want? of particular note are the descriptions of grotesque angels and devils, in fevered religious dreams and illusionst
3.5/5
March 3rd-5th - In the Pond (Ha Jin, 1998)
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good fun! very concise and elegant... no needless farce (though there is much farce) or sideplots or anything. and no one learns any lessons - if anythingeach person just learns better how to manipulate or work within the system for their own ends. good lesson!
3.5/5
March 10th-23rd - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima, 1963) - 3.5/5
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March 25th-April 30th - The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Bernal Díaz, 1568)
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worth it for the chapter "the flight from mexico" alone, which is about the most insane and greatest historical military account you can read, but obviously all kinds of fascinating and invaluable aside from that... obviously i say. read if you are interested in colonial history, first contact with the new world, dysentery, etc. worth noting that cortes comes off primarily as an amazing individual, up there with the 'great men' in history, the rightful hero of the expedition - not so much in a saving babies from burning buildings way but more in a doing unimaginable things, inexplicably getting everyone on his side with ridiculous poise and cunning, and generally moving mountains to conquer the shit out of the place, without even being overly rapacious, let alone murderous. seems like quite the guy. and diaz denounces all kinds of excesses, and criticises cortes a bunch too, so this is no mere panegyric to cortes and the great spanish and all...
5/5
May 1st-13th - Glamorama (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998)
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first 100 pages or so are (and specifically were) some great plane reading, if slightly more... dare i say... superficial than the usual great ellis stuff. then yes, like people say, it meanders for the rest of the first half and turns stupid in the second half and who cares. but the last chapter is really great so don't listen to people who complain about the end! (i mean the end as a whole is stupid but the last chapter is great and relaxing and calming)
2.5/5
May 14th-17th - Thousand Cranes (Yasunari Kawabata, 1952) - 3/5
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June 2nd-4th - Popol Vuh (155?)
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The ancient version of this book was a complex book of symbols and charts, used in assemblies of lords and seers to determine the best dates for ceremonies or political events by interpreting the charts. And so it’s the "Popol Vuh", or, “Council Book”. There were occasional “performances” in which a seer would interpret and draw actual stories from the symbols and charts, with an absurdly complicated astronomically-entwined system - for example, the movements of a star over millennia are perfectly described by, and themselves describe, the journey of a god-character in the myth - and tell of the whole creation of the Earth and about the gods and the early humans. The stories are comparable to the Torah or Greek, Roman, Etruscan mythologies or numerous others, with its floods, angry and jealous gods, and constant violence.
The version of the Popol Vuh we know today was written down in phonetic Quiche (a people and area in modern Guatemala) in the Roman alphabet around 1550 or so, after the Spanish made the locals start writing only in this alphabet. No one knows if they were writing this version based on an extant ancient Popol Vuh, or based on memories of oral performances, but anyway Tedlock (the translator of this edition) suggests that it can be taken as a sort of written “performance”, like the oral ones which used to tell the whole grand story, as this one does.
"The Mayan Bible", as some say? No... no one knows how much this represented the actual thought of any people at any point in history, owing to its mysterious origin and discovery, but maybe it did, who knows. It does have a great "Genesis" origin story of the Earth and humans and everything, and has a fairly Torah-esque history of the early people and with whom they fought and where they lived; but it also has flat out the most bizarre gods-and-demi-gods myths you will ever read in the middle. It's a little bit similar to the Greek pantheon - there are a few supreme, universal deities which the PV implies are worshiped by all people in the area (provinces? Country? Continent? Who knows the extent), but there are also all these patron deities. The Quiche in particular, whom the PV rather specifically and unduly extols (making this, at most, the Quiche Bible, not the Mayan Bible!), get the best patron deities - those of the other peoples are mostly effete and soon to be defeated, much like the other peoples themselves.
Interesting things about the book:
- It’s sort of an implicit protest, or act of resistance, by the Quiche, against the subsumption of their culture by Spanish Christianity. Written about 30 years after the razing and conquest of the Quiche region, the Spanish occupation was in full swing. Tedlock describes the Christians preventing old Mayan culture from being taught or talked about: they even banned them from wearing certain kinds of clothing because they were paranoid that the textiles contained hidden Mayan messages. So the Popol Vuh probably would have been written covertly; it was at least written anonymously, only saying “we the Quiche people” at the beginning. It was only discovered by Europe in 1701 by some friar, and translated from phonetic Quiche to Spanish. These Quiche and Spanish versions are what all subsequent editions of the Popol Vuh are based on.
- It's tempting to compare this to the Torah, with its description of a "Chosen People" (the Quiche) who generally survive and defeat other peoples to claim their rightful territory and place in the world... but it is really more similar to Greek myth - the pre-human gods go around hurting, tricking, laughing at, and killing each other - and to Nazi ideology: the mythological Quiche ancestors essentially ruthlessly slaughter or enslave all the other peoples, proclaiming, along with their patron deities, that they are simply the best and deserve to be preeminent among all peoples.
This makes for some irony... the Quiche, and the surrounding peoples in general, were of course conquered by the Spanish, who also had a similar "chosen people" ideology supporting them... what happens when two such societies meet? One will probably be subjugated, no?
- The stories themselves! The "Genesis" story is very beautiful in its poetic descriptions of the sky, the ocean, the wind, and the lights and sounds (or lack thereof). The pre-human god stories are absolutely astoundingly odd. Stories of "the 400 Boys" vs the crocodilian monster named Zipacna where they mercilessly try to trick and kill him because he's strong; the story in which one of the two main hero-gods (mostly referred to as the Boys, not to be confused with the 400 Boys) has his head bitten off by a bat so his brother beseeches the gods to furnish him with a new one, and they mold and chisel a squash and endow it with intelligence and put it back on his head and no one can tell the difference, and then they play soccer with their enemy with his decapitated head until they can trick their enemy into playing with the squash instead at which point the head is returned; stories of shin-hairs being plucked and turned into sentient mosquitoes to spy on people; humans being made out of corn; etc...
Overall this is well worth reading if you like mythology or just... funny stories
4/5
June 13th-27th - The Game (Ken Dryden, 1983)
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locker room scenes are phenomenal (maybe cause i am a dumb jock mentally suspended in early adolescence myself), yeah, and the on-ice scenes are great, and the childhood biographies of a few players are must-read (lafleur's and houle's are ironically much more interesting than dryden's)... not so enthused about the argumentative 'essay' components though. dryden figures he is the great writer of the hockey, and the great historian as well, and rambles on and on about various technical parts of the game to no particular effect. edit this down about 100 pages and it's great!
2.5/5
June 27th-July 8th - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992)
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i figure this is probably much more interesting if
a) one is reading it when it was published and this internet shit is still all a 'frontier' to be explored and explicated,
b) one has not grown up on the internet to the point that it's just a normal part of life, or
c) both
for me, reading it in 2015 at the age of 24, it is basically just another in a long line of sci-fi books which feature the internet as this whole new world within the world of the book, but which are basically about MMOs, or the fusion of MMOs and 'the real world'. and my reaction is another in a long line of 'i don't care'. that said, the book is not bad or anything... just really really hip and shit... way too many 'cool' characters. (raven is pretty cool though, yes.) and if you're the type to friggin know a thing or two about mythology and history already then you might be slightly offended or at least wearied of the terribly erudite and super didactic parts where they talk about 'cool old shit'
2.5/5
July 8th-10th - Confusion (Stefan Zweig, 1927) - 3/5
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July 13th-20th - Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
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more late 1800s self-obsessed english chaffe that doesn't hold a candle to the other great european stuff
okay that's just my controversy-stirring opener... but nevertheless this is just not any kind of top-notch writing in my view. the characters are either underwritten to the point of artificiality, or super-realistic to the point of tedium, or alternately each to the point of inconsistency. tough to say but either way it was dull. i get that all the characters are realistically 'flawed' - so that's why we're supposed to be constantly disappointed in them - but it does make it hard to pull for people whom you do not respect. but i guess they're occasionally pitiful enough to be pitied. by parts:
part 1 - standard dickensian origin story, jumps ahead years at a time for no reason when this is one of the most interesting parts of the book (despite hardy basically calling it necessary to get through but uninteresting)
part 2 - reality sets in, yeah fine
part 3 - enormous 150 page block of 'will they or won't they'. omg. obscure the pages so i don't have to read please
part 4 - back to the fun
i must complain about the repression in the book. i get that it was victorian england and all, and so even though this book was rallying against prudishness it couldn't ever explicitly mention sex or use swear words or anything, but... enough is enough with the 'these two characters pass by an inn and even though they showed no chemistry or signs of wanting to, a few chapters later it turns out they had sex at the time and you were obviously expected to know this'. it's boring in old movies and it is boring here. and in general, writing about how prudishness is bad but in a prudish way is super stultifying and limp in general. no wonder the english and french writers were mortified to realise in russia they were writing real books while these poor fellows had to write all this crap about virtues and whatnot
in summation: prudishness is bad. for 400 friggin pages. (not a bad book though)
3/5
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