Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

Time for your 2013 reading year in review!

Which books were you thrilled to read? Which do you wished you'd skipped?

Wishing everyone a very happy reading year in 2014!!

My BEST (4 or 5 star) list reads this year were:
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving


My WORST (1 or 2 star) list read this year was:
Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Høeg


My OKAY (3 star) list reads this year were:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Copied from the 2012 thread ...

Several 5-star reads in 2013, but my three favorites were Sentimental Education, Crime and Punishment, and for the third a toss up between The Diviners, Cigarettes, and The Old Wives' Tale.

Books I wish I'd skipped are Snow, Tono-Bungay, and Complicity.

Best (in No Particular Order)
Native Son
Beloved
The Golden Notebook
To the Lighthouse
The Lord of the Rings
Villette
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
The Dispossessed
The God of Small Things
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas
Regeneration
Gravity's Rainbow

Worst (iNPO)
The Leopard
The Namesake
Brideshead Revisited

HI Guys,

My Best
Lolita
Pale Fire
Gulliver's Travels
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
To the Lighthouse
The Bluest Eye
Silence
A Modest Proposal

Just Ok
Under the Skin
Almost Transparent Blue
The Golden Ass
Great Apes

Worse
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Crossfire
1Q84 - an Ok book but i don't think its okay by murakami standards

My best:

Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Thank You, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee

My worst:

Elementary Particles - Michel Houllebecq
Saturday - Ian McEwan

And I was disappointed by:

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas - Gertrude Stein
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Best:
Look Homeward, Angel -Wolfe
Babbitt -Lewis
Bouvard and Pecuchet -Flaubert
Sons and Lovers -Lawrence
Miss Lonelyhearts -West
Nostromo -Conrad
Red Harvest -Hammett
Decline and Fall -Waugh
The Trial -Kafka
Martin Eden -London
Middlemarch -Eliot
The 39 Steps -Buchan
Lord Jim -Conrad
Silas Marner -Eliot
L'Assommoir -Zola
The Idiot -Dostoyevsky
The Moonstone -Collins
Our Mutual Friend -Dickens
La Bete Humaine -Zola
Oblomov -Goncharov
The Rainbow -Lawrence
The Secret Agent -Conrad
Thank You, Jeeves -Wodehouse

Good:
The Mill on the Floss -Eliot
Far From the Madding Crowd -Hardy
Quo Vadis -Sienkiewicz
Max Havelaar -Multatuli
The Confessions -Rousseau
Tarzan of the Apes -Burroughs
Temptation of St. Anthony -Flaubert
Return of the Native -Hardy
Burmese Days -Orwell
Vile Bodies -Waugh
Their Eyes Were Watching God -Hurston
The Jungle -Sinclair
The Glass Key -Hammett
Passing -Larsen
The Blithdale Romance -Hawthorne
The Monastery -Scott
In A Glass Darkly -Le Fanu

Not so Great:
Fathers and Sons -Turgenev
The Awakening -Chopin
Interesting Narrative -Equiano
Cold Comfort Farm -Gibbons
House of Mirth -Wharton
The Professor's House -Cather
Sister Carrie -Dreiser
Mother -Gorky
The Marble Faun -Hawthorne

Mekki wrote: "HI Guys,

My Best
Lolita
Pale Fire
Gulliver's Travels
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
To the Lighthouse
The Bluest Eye
[book..."

interesting that you judge an author by his previous greatness, I do the same, but they say authors hate that and it leads to writers block because they fear not living up to their previously great acclaim.

I didn't read as much as I wanted to this year but the best one from the list was Rebecca. The worst was definitely Vanity Fair. Ugh!

Best: Dracula and 39 Steps.
Worst: Don quixote and The Great Gatsby.

The rest of the books I read were non list books

39 steps I will check that out, but how can Don Quixote be on your worst? That book was hilarious.

Four of the Best: Evelina, The Midnight Examiner, The Go-Between, Red Harvest.

Four of my least-enjoyed: Veronika Decides to Die, American Psycho, The Marble Faun, Molloy.

My best:

House of Leaves (the only five star)
The Handmaid's Tale
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Things Fall Apart
The Woman in White

My worst:
Thérèse Raquin
The Trial

And I'll add a category, most disappointing:
The War of the End of the World - It was good but I had just finished The Feast of the Goat, which is probably the best book I've ever read, and War... did not live up to my expectations. I wish I had read it first.

Steve wrote: "Mekki wrote: "HI Guys,

My Best
Lolita
Pale Fire
Gulliver's Travels
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
To the Lighthouse
The Bluest Eye..."</i>

<i>Ian wrote: "Four of the Best: Evelina, The Midnight Examiner, The Go-Between, Red Harvest.

Four of my least-enjoyed: Veronika Decides to Die, American Psycho, The Marble Faun, Molloy."</i>

<i>Steve wrote: "Mekki wrote: "HI Guys,

My Best
[book:Lolita
Pale Fire
Gulliver's Travels
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
To the Lighthouse
[book:The Bluest Eye..."

Hi steve

1Q84 had a lot of editing and maybe translation type problems in comparison to his other works that i read. For example, in my ebook copy i found close to 60 times characters said the phrase "in other words". So one characters would says something and the next character would repeat the same thing but with other words you mean this and that. It got very annoying

ahhh that is annoying thanks for the heads up Mekki.

This list only reflects how much I enjoyed them, not their literary value or claim to be included on the lists!

Great to Very Good:
Growth of the Soil - Hamsun
Viper's Tangle - Mauriac
No-one Writes to the Colonial - Marquez
Wittgenstein's Mistress - Markson
Cat and Mouse - Grass
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Kesey
Cloud Atlas - Mitchell
Home - Robinson
What Maisie Knew - James
Soldiers of Salamis - Cercas
Absolute Beginners - McInnes
The Singapore Grip - Farrell
The Man Who Loved Children - Stead

Good to Just Okay:
The Year of the Death of Recardo Reis - Saramago
Clear Light of Day - Desai
Neuromancer - Gibson
The Diviners - Laurence
The Heat of the Day - Bowen
Seize the Day - Bellow
Troubles - Farrell
The Rainbow - Lawrence
Sister Carrie - Dreiser
The Radiant Way - Drabble
The Master - Toibin
House of Leaves - Danielewski
1Q84 - Murakami
Cause for Alarm - Ambler
The Marble Faun - Hawthorne
City Primeval - Leonard
Season of Migration to the North - Salih
The Tin Drum - Grass
Mrs. 'arris Goes to Paris - Gallico
Joseph Andrews - Fielding
Agnes Grey - Bronte
The Master of Ballantrae - Stevenson
Don Quixote - Cervantes

Least enjoyed:
Ouo Vadis - Sienkiewicz
Spring Torrents - Turgenev
Antic Hay - Huxley
Zeno's Conscience - Svevo
Bouvard and Pecuchet - Flaubert
The Sorrow of Belgium - Claus

It's funny, I didn't even know about the "lists" until 2014, and I read 11 list books last year.

Best Books - 5 Stars:
The Sun Also Rises
Cry, The Beloved Country
Heart of Darkness
The Sense of an Ending
Cloud Atlas

Very Good Books - 4 Stars:
Uncle Tom's Cabin
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Underworld
The Elegance of a Hedgehog

Disliked - 2 Stars:
Crime and Punishment
Amsterdam

Steve wrote: "39 steps I will check that out, but how can Don Quixote be on your worst? That book was hilarious."

It was hilarious how long it took me to read it!

Lauren wrote: "It's funny, I didn't even know about the "lists" until 2014, and I read 11 list books last year.

Best Books - 5 Stars:
The Sun Also Rises
Cry, The Beloved Country
Heart of Darkness
The Sense of a..."

Glad we agree that the sense of an ending is brilliant and Amsterdam is not. It's a bit frustrating because McEwan is obviously very gifted and the descriptions were fantastic, the actual story was rubbish though.

Laura wrote: Glad we agree that the sense of an ending is brilliant and Amsterdam is not. It's a bit frustrating because McEwan is obviously very gifted and the descriptions were fantastic, the actual story was rubbish though. "

Amsterdam was the third Ian McEwan book I've read, and the third one I've disliked. I didn't even like Atonement, which everyone raved about. For some reason, something about his writing just rubs me the wrong way, so I'm really dreading all the books of his on the list!

I totally agree with you Lauren...there is something very irritating about Ian McEwan books. My motto is ....life is too short to waste a minute reading a book you are not enjoying. There are plenty of fabulous books out there waiting to be read so if you find yourself not enjoying a book, place it on the to be completed shelf and one day when you have read the other 990 books....or on your 95 th birthday, whichever happens first, you can have a look at the to be completed shelf and contemplate whether or not you really need to read them at all. Chances are they may not even be on the list any more!

Jan wrote: "I totally agree with you Lauren...there is something very irritating about Ian McEwan books. My motto is ....life is too short to waste a minute reading a book you are not enjoying. There are plent..."
Jan--you're completely right! I decided after Amsterdam I wasn't going to read any more Ian McEwan books. I think I'll stick to that resolution!

I had a really good year for list books. Nothing I hated!

My best:
The Poisonwood Bible
The Hours
The Grapes of Wrath
The Handmaid's Tale

I didn't hate, but was underwhelmed by:
The Marriage Plot
The Sense of an Ending ( I think, really, that I am too young to appreciate this one. I gave it 4 stars because it's beautiful, but the story line didn't appeal to me and I failed to sympathize with any of the characters.)

Erika wrote: "I had a really good year for list books. Nothing I hated!

My best:
The Poisonwood Bible
The Hours
The Grapes of Wrath
The Handmaid's Tale

I didn'..."

Could be Erika, one of the main points from Sense of an Ending for me was regrets, looking back on life what ifs, and I should haves.

In 2013 I read quite a number of 5-star books. There were also some pleasant surprises, but also some surprises on the negative side.

WORST:
Veronica decides to die by Paulo Coelho
A Gate at the stairs by Lorrie Moore
Fear and Loathing in las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Accidental by Ali Smith

The one novel I probably was most disappointed in this year was Cloud Atlas. I had heard so much praise for it but I only found it very mediocre.

BEST:
The Club Dumas by Arturo Peréz Reverte
Chess Story by Stephan Zweig
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984 by George Orwell
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Embers by Sandor Marai
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

PLEASANT SURPRISES:
There but for the by Ali Smith
The Devil in the Flesh by Raimond Radiguet
The Left-Handed Woman by Peter Handke

All in all a very mixed year with lots of ups but also a few downs.

I didn't like "The Marriage Plot" or "The Sense of an Ending" very much, but I read both books just a few weeks apart and found it strange that they had almost identical sex (sort of) scenes!

Robert wrote: "I didn't like "The Marriage Plot" or "The Sense of an Ending" very much, but I read both books just a few weeks apart and found it strange that they had almost identical sex (sort of) scenes!"

These were my first two list reads of 2014 and while I (for the most part) enjoyed both, I have to admit that I got the story lines crossed at one point.

I only read 3 list books last year: The 39 Steps, which I really liked, Emma, which was typical Jane Austin, so I liked it and Doctor Zhivago which when I finished, I was glad I made it through, but as time passes it's growing on me.

My two favorite books last year were The Elegance of the Hedgehog and The Feast of the Goat. I will gladly re-read both of those.

I started the year with Samuel Beckett's trilogy of Malloy/Malone Dies/The Unnameable and I'm still shuddering from the painful memory. By the end of that I was definitely questioning my policy of never abandoning a book no matter how bad it is!

I'm starting this year with Don Quixote and so far so good. Although, it is taking me, too, a ridiculously long time to get through it.