I’ve read twelve of them. Many were in literature courses, although a few were my own choosing
Left Hand of Darkness
Turn of the Screw
Dracula
Crime and Punishment
Metamorphosis
Heart of Darkness
The Handmaid’s Tale
David Copperfield
1984
Moby Dick
The Great Gatsby
War and Peace
I’ve read Dracula more than once, and in four different annotated versions. I’ve read Moby Dick more than once, too. (There’s an exhibit goin on right now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA about different published editions of Moby Dick). Read 1984 more than once, as well.
As I’ve remarked before, I was halfway through The Handmaid’s Tale when I realized that it was set in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where Margaret Atwood was either living at the time, or had lived), and I could recognize the settings – Harvard Square, Harvard Yard, the Hyatt Regency on Memorial Drive (where the Arisia science fiction convention has met several times, including this past year).
War and Peace I started reading on my own, then found out there was a college course being given on it, so I signed up. I figured I ought to get credit if I was already reading the book.
7
Left Hand of Darkness
Rebecca
The Master and Margarita
Great Expectations
Frankenstein
The Great Gatsby
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
There’s about 6 or 7 others I started but couldn’t maintain an interest in, probably because to misquote Emperor Joseph II “There’s simply too many words.”
I’ve read 39 of them. It’s tough to pick one, but I’m going to say Ragtime.
Finished The Strange Bird by Jeff Vandermeer, which was very frustrating because the main character was so interesting and then the plot just collapsed. Also finished Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction, by Edward M. Lerner, which was okay.
Next up: Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales, by Justin Richards; How Soon Can You Get Here, Doc?; by David Wynia (memoirs of a South Dakota farm vet); and Northwest Smith, by C. L. Moore, a collection of SF short stories from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.
Finished The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose…listened to the whole thing yesterday as I was on an 10-hour road trip. Okay mystery, but a rather unbelievable ending.
I’ve read 60 books on that Guardian list. Of course, I also have a BS and a Master’s in English so…
I started Lindsay Davis’ Flavia Albia series, the follow up to her Marcus Didius Falco Roman mystery series. The first book was really good. I like how she highlighted the differences between a female investigator vs Falco’s male experiences. Albia can’t just go barging into people’s houses like her dad did and her professional relationship with the vigiles is much more fraught. The difference in the city under Domitian’s rule versus Vespasian’s has a lot to do with it as well. I didn’t guess the aedile’s true identity until near the end which was some nice misdirection on the author’s part.
In bad book news, I did not like Isle McElroy’s People Collide and do not recommend it. I have a rant drafted, but I haven’t posted it yet because I had medical procedure yesterday that threw my regular schedule in an uproar for the last few days.
1984, I think – that’s the one I’m most likely to reread.
We read a good bit of Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis) in my third-year high-school German class, but I wasn’t at all interested in getting it in English from the library so I could finish it.
Finished Platform Decay, it was dependably good. Someone over at Goodreads said it felt like more of a side quest, and you know…they were right. I don’t know if there’s a story arc in this series, or just the further adventures of Murderbot. Fortunately I don’t care.
This morning I read Sour Candy, by Kealan Patrick Burke. At only 84 pages long, it was more of a short story. It passed the time alright, but didn’t pack any more punch than an episode of Tales From the Crypt.
Finished Camino Ghosts, by John Grisham, the third installment in his Camino Island series. Set on the fictional Camino Island off the coast of northern Florida, the story centers on the also-fictional, nearby small barrier island of Dark Isle, deserted, supposedly cursed and previously inhabited for hundreds of years by escaped slaves, mainly from Georgia, and their descendants. A big Miami developer wants to turn it into a resort/casino, but 80-year-old Lovely Jackson, who now lives on Camino Island, is supposedly the owner of Dark Isle, being the last surviving descendant. However, she left Dark Isle with her mother in 1955 at the age of 15, the last two residents, and state law says in the absence of any ownership records, of which there is none, there must be continuous occupation for the previous seven years to claim ownership. The fight is on. I spotted one mistake that kept being repeated. The novel opens in June 2020. It does not give the year at the outset, but it is made clear several times later on that this is 2020. The action proceeds into the next year, which of course would be 2021. It never specifically states 2021 but at one point does say the previous year was 2020. But we come to this: “… at 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, April 21, and by noon …” One of my habits is looking up dates like these whenever I come across them, and looking at a 2021 calendar I see April 21 was a Wednesday. April 21 was a Tuesday the previous year, 2020, and the author later gives two more dates that also correspond to the 2020 calendar and not 2021. Grisham, this is pure sloppiness, and you should be more careful in the future. But it’s an enjoyable read. Recommended.
Next up is The Running Man, by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while. It’s been made into at least two, by all accounts crappy films over the years, but I hear it’s actually a good story. We’re flying up to northeastern Thailand for a couple days this week to visit friends, and I’ll take it with me, although I don’t know how much time there will be for reading.
Still reading Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales, by Justin Richards. Finished How Soon Can You Get Here, Doc?; by David Wynia, which was okay, and Northwest Smith, by C. L. Moore, a collection of SF short stories from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, which was not. Most of these stories did not age well at all. Not recommended.
Next: Forensics and Fiction: Clever, Intriguing, and Downright Odd Questions from Crime Writers, by D. P. Lyle, M.D.; and Gather Round, by John R. Aurelio.
