Cecilturtle - 1001 Challenge

Keskustelu1001 Books to read before you die

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Cecilturtle - 1001 Challenge

1Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:58 am



Over many years, I've tried and stopped and tried again to meet the challenge. I'll unlikely finish it - simply because some titles don't speak to me at all - but it's helped me discovered some really magnificent authors, so away I go.
I'm using Arumiyomi's composite spreadsheet, so some are old some are new titles from the list.

2Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 21, 2022, 12:11 pm

0000-1700

3Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:38 am

1701-1800

1. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
2. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
3. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
4. Candide by Voltaire
5. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
6. Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
7. Les liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
8. Jacques le fataliste by Denis Diderot

4Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:41 am

1801-1900

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
5. Le rouge et le noir by Stendhal
6. Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac
7. Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
8. Le Nez by Nikolai Gogol
9. La chartreuse de Parme by Stendhal
10. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
11. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
12. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
13. La Mare au Diable by George Sand
14. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
15. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
17. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
18. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
19. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
20. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
21. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
22. Pères et fils by Ivan Turgenev
23. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
24. Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
25. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
26. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
27. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
28. Anna Karénine by Leo Tolstoy
29. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
30. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
31. Une vie by Guy de Maupassant
32. La mort d'Ivan Ilitch by Leo Tolstoy
33. Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant
34. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
35. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
36. Pierre et Jean by Guy de Maupassant
37. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
38. Tess of the d'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
40. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
41. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
42. Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
43. Dracula by Bram Stoker
44. What Maisey Knew by Henry James
45. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
46. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
47. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

5Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:53 am

1901-2000

1. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
4. L'Immoraliste by André Gide
5. L'Appel de la forêt by Jack London
6. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
7. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
8. Howards End by E.M. Forster
9. La Mort à Venise by Thomas Mann
10. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
11. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
12. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
13. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
14. Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
15. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
16. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
17. Claudine en ménage by Colette
18. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
19. The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
20. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
21. The Trial by Franz Kafka
22. Les Faux-Monnayeurs by André Gide
23. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
24. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
25. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
26. Sous le soleil de Satan by Georges Bernanos
27. The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
28. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
29. À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust
30. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
31. Les Enfants terribles by Jean Cocteau
32. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
33. Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
34. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
35. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
36. Voyage au bout de la nuit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
37. La Marche de Radetsky by Joseph Roth
38. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
39. Le Noeud de vipères by François Mauriac
40. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
41. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
42. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Vaugh
43. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
44. Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
45. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
46. The Years by Virginia Woolf
47. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
48. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
49. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
50. La Nausée by Jean-Paul Sartre
51. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
52. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
53. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
54. Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
55. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
56. Farewell my Lovely by Raymond Chandler
57. The Hamlet by William Faulkner
58. L'Étranger by Albert Camus
59. Le Joueur d'échecs by Stefan Zweig
60. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
61. Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
62. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maughm
63. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
64. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
65. Animal Farm by George Orwell
66. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
67. Bonheur d'occasion by Gabrielle Roy
68. Exercices de style by Raymond Queneau
69. La Peste by Albert Camus
70. L'Écume des jours by Boris Vian
71. Nineteen Eighty-Four by Geroge Orwell
72. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
73. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
74. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
75. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
76. Day of the Triffids byby John Wyndham
77. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
78. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
79. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
80. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
81. Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Sagan
82. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
83. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
84. Les Racines du ciel by Romain Gary
85. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
86. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
87. Le docteur Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
88. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
89. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico
90. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
91. Le Léopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
92. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring by Kenzaburo Oe
93. La Promesse de l'aube by Romain Gary
94. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
95. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
96. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
97. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
98. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John LeCarré
99. Manon des sources by Marcel Pagnol
100. The Graduate by Charles Webb
101. Herzog by Saul Bellow
102. The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon
103. The Magus bu John Fowler
104. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
105. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
106. Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz
107. La Plaisanterie by Milan Kundera
108. Cent ans de solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
109. The Quest for Christa T. by Christa Wolf
110. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
111. Belle du Seigneur by Albert Cohen
112. Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
113. Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
114. The French Lieutenant's Woman by Jon Fowles
115. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
116. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
117. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
118. Le Château des destins croisés by Italo Calvino
119. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
120. The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
121. Le Lièvre de Vatanen by Arto Paasilinna
122. L'Automne du patriarche by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
123. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
124. The Wars by Timothy Findley
125. The Shining by Stephen King
126. Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
127. The World According to Garp by John Irving
128. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
129. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
130. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
131. Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli by Milan Kundera
132. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
133. La Maison aux esprits by Isabel Allende
134. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
135. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
136. L'Amant by Marguerite Duras
137. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by José Saramago
138. L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être by Milan Kundera
139. Le Parfum by Patrick Süskind
140. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
141. Oranges are not the only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
142. L'Amour aux temps du choléra by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
143. Marya by Joyce Carol Oates
144. Le Pigeon by Patrick Süskind
145. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
146. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
147. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
148. The Afternoon of a Writer by Peter Handke
149. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
150. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
151. The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
152. The Beautiful Room is Empty by Edmund White
153. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
154. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
155. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
156. Possession by A.S. Byatt
157. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
158. Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
159. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
160. The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte
161. Jazz by Toni Morrison
162. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
163. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
164. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
165. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
166. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
167. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
168. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
169. Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
170. Soie by Alessandro Baricco
171. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
172. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
173. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
174. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
175. Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
176. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
177. Stupeur et tremblements by Amélie Nothomb
178. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
179. Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard
180. The Human Stain by Philip Roth
181. Under the Skin by Michel Faber
182. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
183. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
184. La Fête au Bouc by Mario Vargas Llosa

6Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:55 am

2001-

1. Atonement by Ian McEwan
2. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
3. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
4. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. Everything is Illuminated by Johnathan Safran Foer
7. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
8. Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
9. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
10. Unless by Carol Shields
11. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
12. The Colour by Rose Tremain
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
14. Suite française by Irène Nemirovsky
15. The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
16. 2666 by Roberto Bolano
17. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
18. Saturday by Ian McEwan
19. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
20. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
21. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
22. L'Élégance du hérisson by Muriel Barbery
23. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
24. Home by Marilynne Robinson
25. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
26. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
27. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
28. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
29. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
30. The but for the by Ali Smith
31. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
32. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
33. L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante
34. H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker
35. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

7Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 29, 2022, 6:06 pm

I finished La Mare au Diable by George Sand, my 5th book in 2022 on the 1001 list.

8annamorphic
maaliskuu 29, 2022, 7:57 pm

>7 Cecilturtle: how was that? It’s on my tbr shelf.

9Cecilturtle
huhtikuu 11, 2022, 4:44 pm

>8 annamorphic: it's a quick read. I definitely recommend reading the commentary to understand why it's an important piece for the era. To modern eyes, the plot is simplistic with a corny romance. From a historical perspective, it's great insight into how people lived in the day.

10Cecilturtle
Muokkaaja: toukokuu 24, 2022, 7:22 pm

I finally finished Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. I found it trite save some poignant scenes. I would much rather see Un long dimanche de fiançailles on the list which deal with the same themes but with much more originality (it was written two years previously to much acclaim).

11Cecilturtle
heinäkuu 18, 2022, 6:17 pm

I finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it were shorter without all the annoying Weltschmertz that was explained at length. Otherwise a good story.

12Cecilturtle
lokakuu 28, 2022, 5:46 pm

I finally finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I never thought I'd be interested in the history of American comic books, but the characters are so well developed, I was completely engrossed in the dynamic story. This is the first in a while that I've really enjoyed a book from the list.

13Cecilturtle
joulukuu 8, 2022, 4:53 pm

I've got another couple of books on the go but this will likely be my last this year for the 1001 series. I've finished Agnes Grey and quite enjoyed it: light, pleasant and remarkably modern with a keen eye to human nature.

14Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 4, 2023, 9:52 am

I've finished Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry which I loved. Charlie and Maurice are way up there with the quirky literature duos in the likes of Vladimir and Estragon or Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern.

15puckers
maaliskuu 4, 2023, 3:37 pm

>14 Cecilturtle: sounds like I need to add this “new” list book to my TBR pile.

16Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 4, 2023, 5:51 pm

>15 puckers: It's one of the newer ones, published in 2019 - something I would never have picked up if it hadn't been for this list and no regrets!

17Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 7, 2023, 1:10 pm

I finally finished L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante and found it disappointing. It seemed like a marathon of events each explained in gruesome detail - no need for imagination! There was also a curious distance in the tone, despite a first-person narration. I didn't like any of the characters, particularly, including the narrator, and didn't really feel like I knew who they were.
The context was interesting: Naples in the 1980s and 1990s, but that was the only thing that salvaged this book.

18Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 14, 2023, 1:05 pm

I've finished The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and loved it. It resonated with me on several levels: proximity in generation; love of literature, religion and philosophy and mostly Leonard's experience of mental illness. It helped me look at depression with a bit of distance. I appreciated Eugenides's compassion but also realism. This is definitely a book that I need to digest for a few days before moving on.

19Cecilturtle
maaliskuu 18, 2023, 5:45 pm

I finished H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker, an amazingly strange and beautiful book that mixes art, music, and philosophy in a sci-fi setting: not easily described but quite literally is experienced rather read. It certainly defies categories! I would say not for everyone, but I loved it!

20Cecilturtle
huhtikuu 19, 2023, 9:52 am

I finished Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys.
I'm a little torn about this one: it's short but deceptively simple - the story weaves in and out of the present and past as Sasha struggles to stay afloat of reality. It's tough to keep the threads of the story together, what is happening, what is imagined. It is very bleak and grim, but overall I did enjoy this sense of fogginess with dots of joy.

21Cecilturtle
toukokuu 13, 2023, 8:02 pm

I finished The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.
I was surprised by how modern this book was: smart, incisive, bold and incredibly rich. I slogged with parts of it but did not regret sticking it through. It's definitely a masterpiece.

22Cecilturtle
joulukuu 26, 2023, 9:31 am

I've added The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble to the list.
Liked: insight into Korea's history (18th century), more specifically, Lady Hong's story and the book's unique structure
Disliked: the author's plodding, rigid almost pedantic style