Gerry's attempt at 1001 book list

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Gerry's attempt at 1001 book list

1GerrysBookshelf
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 19, 2013, 7:25 pm

Hi. My name is Gerry & I plan on using the "1001 book list" to help me broaden my reading experience.
I recently took the list with me to a huge annual used book sale in my area and came away with 47 books from the list out of a total of 78 purchased. Pretty good deal at $1.00 a book! One of the books I bought is this month's group read - "The French Lieutenant's Woman". So I'm ready to go!
The following is what I've read from the list (combined editions) over the years:

1. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
4. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. Candide by Voltaire
7. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
8. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, pere
10. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
11. Dracula by Bram Stoker
12. Emma by Jane Austen
13. Ethan From by Edith Wharton
14. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
15. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
16. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
17. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
18. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
19. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
20. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
21. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
21. The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
22. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
23. Hunger by Knut Hamsun
24. If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
25. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
26. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
27. The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells
28. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
30. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
31. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
32. King Solomon's Mines by H.Rider Haggard
33. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
34. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
35. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
36. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
37. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
38. Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
39. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
40. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
41. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
42. The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson
43. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
44. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
45. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
46. The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
47. Native Son by Richard Wright
48. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
49. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
50. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
51. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
52. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
53. Quo Vadis? (complete) by Henryk Sienkiewicz
54. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
55. The Red and the Black by Stendha
56. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFoe
57. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
58. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
59. The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
60. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
61. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
62. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
63. Smiley's People by John le Carre
64. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
65. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
66. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
67. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
68. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
69. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
70. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
71. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
72. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
73. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
74. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
75. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
76. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
77. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
78. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

2Yells
kesäkuu 5, 2013, 5:54 pm

Welcome! You have a pretty start and a decent TBR list :)

3amerynth
kesäkuu 6, 2013, 8:27 am

Welcome and happy reading!

4paruline
kesäkuu 6, 2013, 10:50 am

Welcome!

5GerrysBookshelf
kesäkuu 6, 2013, 12:54 pm

Thanks for the kind welcome everyone!
I've been reading some of the posts from this group and finding the book reviews to be VERY helpful.
I'm on vacation & have lots of garden work to do. But it's raining, so I guess I'll have to stay indoors and read! :)

6JonnySaunders
kesäkuu 7, 2013, 3:46 am

Welcome Gerry! A really nice selection of books you've already read by the looks of things.

I'd be interested to hear which of those were your favourites? Any must read (or must avoid!) recommendations?

7ursula
kesäkuu 9, 2013, 10:30 am

Welcome - you've got a nice list going already there!

8GerrysBookshelf
Muokkaaja: heinäkuu 6, 2013, 10:04 pm



79. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
-enjoyed reading it and kept picturing Meryl Streep (who was perfectly cast in it)

80. Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant

81. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
-Wonderful book about India's early nationalist movement.

82. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
-takes place in England/Scotland just prior to WWI. Nothing spectacular, but has all the ingredients for a good thriller - spies, chase scenes, murder, disguises, secret codes...

10GerrysBookshelf
marraskuu 24, 2013, 10:23 pm

90. The Monk by Matthew Lewis
91. Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
This book contains three separate stories about women living in a town called Bridgepoint. I really disliked this book. The author's repetitive style got to be very annoying and just made the stories boring. Not recommended.

11GerrysBookshelf
joulukuu 2, 2013, 8:36 pm

92. Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric is concerned with the lives of a French consul and two Austrian consuls in Travnik, Bosnia from 1807 to 1814 during the Empire reign of Napolean. The novel is full of rich descriptions of the Bosnian countryside and its inhabitants, the religious tensions among the Christians, Moslems and Jews, the constant conflict with Serbia and life under the ruling Turks.
Detailed portraits of the main characters leave the reader feeling all the loneliness, fears, hopes and frustrations of being a foreigner living in a politically unstable Bosnia at the time.
I liked this book mostly because: 1. I like historical fiction and this is the first novel I read that takes place in the Balkans. 2. The author's descriptive writing style draws you into the lives of the characters and gives you a real sense of place and history. 3.5 stars

12paruline
joulukuu 3, 2013, 9:13 am

I read The bridge on the Drina in 2011 and liked it for the same reasons you list: gorgeous writing and a strong sense of place and history.

14paruline
tammikuu 24, 2014, 9:22 pm

Any special plans for number 100? :)

15GerrysBookshelf
tammikuu 26, 2014, 9:02 pm

Yep - one of my goals for 2014 is to read Les Miserables for my 100th book.
I've read about 400 pages, so I still have quite a way to go. What a powerful book.
Victor Hugo was a genius!

16GerrysBookshelf
helmikuu 16, 2014, 8:37 pm

100. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 5 stars
I love historical fiction and this is as good as it gets.
I have an old edition that includes both volumes in one book for a total of 1429 pages.
It includes pictures from the 1935 movie starring Fredric March as Jean Valjean and Charles Laughton as Javert.







17puckers
helmikuu 16, 2014, 8:51 pm

Fantastic book to make the 100. Congratulations!

18streamsong
maaliskuu 2, 2014, 10:53 am

Many congratulations on your 100! And what a great idea for a 100th book!

I hope to make it there, too, this year and may steal your idea of reading Les Mis for my 100th. It's been sitting on my TBR shelf for too long.

19GerrysBookshelf
maaliskuu 22, 2014, 11:03 am

101. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

102. The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek
-a humorous satire about the military discipline in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI. Corrupt politicians and Catholic priests are lampooned as well.

103. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
-sometimes referred to as the greatest war novel of all time. I don't think that's an exaggeration.

As the centennial years of WWI approach, I find myself very interested in reading books written about or during the early 1900's. There are quite a few on the 1001 list and they've all just moved higher on my TBR pile.

104. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai

20arukiyomi
maaliskuu 23, 2014, 9:51 am

Well then,if you haven't read Storm of Steel, now is the time to do so. An absolutely remarkable true story. My review at http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=4010

21GerrysBookshelf
toukokuu 26, 2014, 12:42 pm

105. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

106. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
-gothic, horror, fantasy story. Not my cup of tea. I found it to be more boring than scary. At least it was short.

107. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
This is a gothic novel and a satire on religious fanaticism. The doctrine of predestination is used by the main character as an excuse for committing a number of heinous crimes under the influence of a "mysterious stranger". It turned out to be a pretty good read due to the element of psychological suspense.

108. The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof
There is a dark fairy tale quality to this book that I really liked.

109. The Red Room by August Strindberg
-a satire of Swedish society written in 1879. Very much liked this book.
Everything lambasted by Strindberg, from government bureaucracy, journalism, artists, philanthropy and the theater can easily be applied today.

22GerrysBookshelf
heinäkuu 28, 2014, 9:39 pm

110. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

111. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

112. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

113. Regeneration by Pat Barker
-a WWI historical fiction based on the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, their stay at Craiglockhart War Hospital for the treatment of "shell shock", and the psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. W.H.R. Rivers. This is the first (and in my opinion the best) book in Pat Barker's trilogy which also includes The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road.
It peaked my interest in WWI poetry and I've been spending time reading the works of both Sassoon and Owen. I recently picked up Some Desperate Glory: the first world war the poets knew by Max Egremont and can't wait to start that. This is why it's taking me so long to read books from the 1001 list - I keep going off on tangents!

114. The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
-winner of the 1995 Booker Prize.
I initially had a hard time connecting the various threads running through this book, but everything came together brilliantly in the end.

23GerrysBookshelf
lokakuu 4, 2014, 9:21 pm

115.The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

116. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

117. Marya: A Life by Joyce Carol Oates

118. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

119. The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The setting is loosely based on Brook Farm, an experimental Utopian community located in Massachusetts in the 1840's.
Hawthorne was one of the initial shareholders and briefly stayed there. Overall, the book is an interesting dark romance involving a poet narrator, a strong willed beautiful woman, a fanatic philanthropist, and a fragile, mysterious young woman.

120. The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings
-an autobiography detailing the author's experiences as a detainee in a French prison in WWI.

121 The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig
-a Russian POW escapes his German captors in WWI. He is recaptured and due to mistaken identity, is sentenced to be executed as a German deserter.

26GerrysBookshelf
Muokkaaja: kesäkuu 13, 2015, 9:36 pm

135. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons - Delightful!

136. Perfume: The Story of a Murder by Patrick Suskind
-weird horror story - not my cup of tea

137. The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
-not impressed. I hope DeLillo's other books on the list are better.

138. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster

139. July's People by Nadine Gordimer
- excellent story depicting South African race relations in the 1980s


33M1nks
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 25, 2016, 6:29 am

Those are some big books. Monkey especially if I remember correctly.

34GerrysBookshelf
marraskuu 25, 2016, 12:37 pm

In the 2010 edition listing of "1001 books" it says:
"Monkey is an abridged translation of the popular Chinese folk novel "A Journey to the West," attributed to a scholar and poet of the Ming dynasty, Wu Cheng-en."
So it was the abridged edition for me! I thoroughly enjoyed the 30 chapters of Monkey. The full novel has about 100 chapters.

35Jan_1
marraskuu 25, 2016, 7:49 pm

is the TV series "monkey" based on those stories? I used to love that show.

36GerrysBookshelf
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 26, 2016, 8:46 am

I had never heard of the TV series, so I looked in up on Wikipedia.
And yes, it was based on the book. Several times while reading I thought "this would make a cool movie with great special effects." Hmm, now I'm curious about that TV series.......!!!

I decided to read Monkey after listening to a lecture about the book from The Teaching Company's course: The History of World Literature. I enjoy folklore from all countries, especially when the stories (fantastic as they are) originate from a true event - in this case, the travels of a Buddhist monk bringing back scriptures from India to China.

37M1nks
marraskuu 26, 2016, 9:28 am

Well I need to read a mythology book for one of my challenges so I think I might read this. One of my libraries has two different electronic copies so it is convenient.

38Jan_1
marraskuu 27, 2016, 12:41 am

I'll have to move this up the list then, sounds like an interesting read!

45paruline
huhtikuu 19, 2018, 4:03 pm

Congrats on reaching 200!