All About Books discussion

Here's another list of best novels in translation since 1900 according to Counter Punch: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/1...

What have you read, what are you dying to read, and is there anything missing on that list?

I have read quite a few. Too list them all would be time consuming. I will just name the ones I thought were very good:
The Master and Margarita
The Little Prince
The Lover
Zorba the Greek
The Emigrants
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

but there are also book listed there that are good but not exceptional and others I did not like at all! It is a long list!

I will need to check out some of those I have not read. Thanks for the list Jenny.

I thought The Old Capital was better than the one listed by Kawabata.

I just went for copy and paste here, so forgive the missing links. I think the entire list is quite good (with a few inevitable exceptions due to personal taste) and pretty much every book that I haven't read I would love to read.

1. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov [Russian] 1966
2. The Trial by Franz Kafka [German] 1925
3. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust [French] 1913-1927
4. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Spanish] 1967
5. The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil [German] 1942
6. The Stranger by Albert Camus [French] 1942
7. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann [German] 1924
8. The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Expurey [French] 1943
9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami [Japanese] 1995
10. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine [French] 1932
11. History: a Novel by Elsa Morante [Italian] 1974
12. How It Is by Samuel Beckett [French] 1961
13. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk [Turkish] 1998
14. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre [French] 1938
15. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco [Italian] 1980
16. Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz [Hungarian] 1975
17. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig [German] 1939
18. The Joke by Milan Kundera [Czech] 1969
19. The Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun [Norwegian] 1920
20. The Land of Green Plums by Herte Muller [German] 1994
21. Summer in Baden Baden by Leonid Tsypkin [Russian] 1981
22. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek [German] 1983
23. The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir [French] 1954
24. The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide [French] 1925
25. Sidetracked by Henning Mankell [Swedish] 1995
26. Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin [German] 1929
27. The Passion According to GH by Clarice Lispector [Portuguese] 1964
28. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis [Greek] 1946
29. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse [German] 1927
30. A Heart So White by Javier Marias [Spanish] 1992
31. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson [Swedish] 2005
32. The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers [German] 1942
33. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon [Spanish] 2001
34. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke [German] 1910
35. Jacob the Liar by Jurek Becker [German] 1969
36. The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald [German] 1995
37. The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch [Dutch] 1992
38. Embers by Sandor Marai [Hungarian] 1942
39. The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra [Arabic] 2006
41. The Leopard by Guiseppi Lampedusa [Italian] 1958
42. Homo Faber by Max Frisch [German] 1957

Has anyone read The Devil to Pay in the Backlands? I've been trying to get hold of a German translation but he seems to be forgotten here.

1.The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson [Swedish] 2005

Only one on this list, this needs to change.

Jenny wrote: "Has anyone read The Devil to Pay in the Backlands? I've been trying to get hold of a German translation but he seems to be forgotten here."

I've seen something, actually about a possible new English translation which says in passing that it's available in German. No other details though, Jenny.

Interesting list! Out of 100 titles I've only read 6 books (very poor result!), 3 I abandoned because I disliked them ( My Name is Red actually makes me really angry just remembering it) and many are on my TBR list. To be honest I had never heard of the majority of the books mentioned, so I'm curious to check them out.

I'm also taking a good look at the "100 Best Novels in English, Since 1900" mentioned in the article.


Jenny, I had never heard of The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, but I generally tend to avoid books with titles I can't read. This book title in the Italian translation is Grande Sertão. What letter is ã? How do you read it? Does the o change the way you pronounce the ã? It's all very confusing.

I am quite picky about translations and eternally frustrated with computerized programs that link books. I was hoping this list would name the translators or at least the ISBNs, but sadly it does not.

Jenny wrote: "Has anyone read The Devil to Pay in the Backlands? I've been trying to get hold of a German translation but he seems to be forgotten here."

Jenny, this link includes the name of the German translator. Hope it's some help.

http://thedeviltopayinthebacklands.wo...

Mmars, I agree, naming the translators would seem the natural thing to do, but I think their idea behind the list was less to do with the best 100 translations but with the 100 best books we wouldn't have read had they not been translated (still, picking a translation when there are many and giving credit would help)

Giorgia, I have no idea how to pronounce it but I would love to read it nevertheless ;) About Pamuk: I think you found a companion here as I simply fail to enjoy his writing no matter how often I try.

Gill: thank you! It has been translated in 1969 but isn't available any more unless you pay lots of money. I am half tempted to try and charm or bully the publisher into reprinting it however I doubt I'd be successful ;)

Giorgia wrote: "Interesting list! Out of 100 titles I've only read 6 books (very poor result!), 3 I abandoned because I disliked them ( My Name is Red actually makes me really angry just remembering it..."

I detested Pamuk's Snow also!

I agree Jenny! Never another Pamuk for me.

I've read four:

The Stranger
The Little Prince
The Mandarins
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

and have two on my to-read list:

Summer in Baden-Baden
Man's Fate

I saw and loved the movie adaptations of:-

The Lover (in English)
The Piano Teacher (in French)

I haven't seen The Lover Alice, but I love both the book and the movie of piano teacher (though I will never ever want to see it again, I am still traumatized I think) Michael Haneke is one of my favorite directors generally, all his movies are really worth seeing.

The books that I read:
1. The Trial.
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. The Stranger
4. The Little Prince
5. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
6. Snow Country
7. The Piano Teacher
8. Pedro Páramo
9. The Shadow of the Wind
10. The Rings of Saturn
11. The Leopard
12. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Authors Listed but not the book listed but the other book by the same author:
1. Haruki Murakami's After Dark
2. Elsa Morante's Aneddoti infantili
3. Alberto Moravia's Conjugal Love
4. Yukio Mishima's Patriotism
5. Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
6. Naguib Mahfouz's Echoes of an Autobiography
7. Stefan Zweig's Chess Story
8. Clarice Lispector's Água Viva
9. Pär Lagerkvist's Barabbas

To be Read:
1. Memoirs of Hadrian
2. The Name of the Rose
3. The Land of Green Plums
4. Black Rain

P.S. Many other authors/books listed here are constantly in my attention.

Giorgia wrote: "Interesting list! Out of 100 titles I've only read 6 books (very poor result!), 3 I abandoned because I disliked them ( My Name is Red actually makes me really angry just remembering it..."

Lol, I gave it up after some chapters and I don't think I will try it again!

I have read:
1. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
2. The Trial by Franz Kafka
3. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Expurey
5. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
6. The Conformist by Alberto Moravia
7. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (though not finished)
8. Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo (though I don't remember a lot of it, read years ago)
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
10. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
11. The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzatti
12. Embers by Sandor Marai
13. The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
14. The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesar Pavese

There are a lot I want to read like:
Homo Faber by Max Frisch
Furdeydurke by Witold Gombrowicz
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

I too have been thinking of Witold Gombrowicz for some time. His name was suggested by Czesław Miłosz. I collected it from C. Milosz' essay collection.

His Ferdydurke is on my list as well.

I was thinking of his Trans-Atlantyk. That was the book preferred by C. Milosz as he was dying. It was one of the books read out to him in his deathbed.

sounds great as well!

Jenny wrote: "I haven't seen The Lover Alice, but I love both the book and the movie of piano teacher (though I will never ever want to see it again, I am still traumatized I think) Michael Haneke is one of my f..."

I know what you mean re: Piano Teacher the movie - it was raw on the nerves!

The Lover was directed by Marguerite Duras herself and I loved it.

Sadly I have only read a few:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Expurey
3. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
4. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
5. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
6. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
7. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
8. The Leopard by Guiseppi Lampedusa

and I started but abandoned: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Travelin wrote: "Dhanaraj wrote: "I was thinking of his Trans-Atlantyk. That was the book preferred by C. Milosz as he was dying. It was one of the books read out to him in his deathbed."

A terrible p..."

No comments. As I am not a Polish I am not sure how to respond. Are you Polish by the way?

Jenny wrote: "Mmars, I agree, naming the translators would seem the natural thing to do, but I think their idea behind the list was less to do with the best 100 translations but with the 100 best books we wouldn..."

Jenny, This is my point exactly. If the creators of this list care so deeply for literaure, wouldn't they also want to ensure that as readers we choose good translations? If an author has meticulously chosen certain words and phrases to convey an action or thought or describe a scene don't they deserve a translation that respects and adheres to that?

I look at writing as an art. Talented authors paint vivid and precise pictures. Word choice can be sooo important. Not long ago I ran across a word I didn't know. I almost skipped over it but thought better of it. Knowing the meaning of that word was key to the central meaning of the book. So much of a book can be changed or lost in a poor translation.

I dealt with computer linking of books in my profession for years. Including a translator's name is not difficult and it would not have taken that much effort for this to have been included in the Counterpunch list.
Sigh....sometimes I wish I didn't care so deeply.

I was surprised I had read any on the list. I'm usually artist-intensive, grouping my readings around a single writer to sink into his/her voice and absorb technique, so my reading is deeper than broad. But here are the ones I've read ...

The Master and Margarita
The Little Prince
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Snow Country
The Joke
The Counterfeiters
Steppenwolf

I've read a few volumes of In Search of Lost Time, and Snow remains one of my favorite books that I never got to finish; hoping to go back to it soon. I have all other books by Orhan Panhuk and Mario Vargas Llosa, but The Feast of the Goat seems to be the only one I never finished - didn't like it much; ran out of gas 1/3 the way through.

Out of the ones I've read on the list, "Snow Country" is my favorite; but "The Master of Go" is my favorite book by Kawabata.

Only a few:

The Trial by Franz Kafka
Swann's Way (First book in "in Search of Lost Time") by Marcel Proust
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Solaris by Stanisław Lem
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I started and gave up on:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

I think I read years ago:

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

This is an area I know needs improving :D

Just to say that I am a fan of Orhan Pamuk. My favourite book are Silent House and My Name is Red, but I've read several others, including The Museum of Innocence (the central character is extremely self-indulgent IMO), Snow: A Novel, and Istanbul: Memories and the City.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich loved it.
The Name of the Rose a really drawn out novel.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Lover
Story Of O made me blush as a teenager
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo who hasn't read this?
The Shadow of the Wind
The Leopard

Just some of the ones I've read.

I've read
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (wonderful)
- The Stranger
- The Little Prince
- The Lover (almost hated..)
- Zeno's Conscience (read for school)
- The Moon and the Bonfire
- The Tartar Steppe (Italian literature is appreciated as I see!)
- A Heart So White (really good)
- Pedro Páramo (fascinating)
- The Shadow of the Wind (nice but overrated)
- Embers (I don't get the hype about it..)

@Bette: I have not read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo! :-D
I've watched the movie of The Conformist and sadly I didn't like it, after reading Time of Desecration by Moravia I decided that I will not read it soon..

Anastasia wrote: "I've read
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (wonderful)
- The Stranger
- The Little Prince
- The Lover (almost hated..)
- [book:Zeno's Conscience|847..."

It is true, there are a lot of Italian authors!

I liked Embers because of the wonderful prose but also because of the main theme: friendship. I thought Marai was able to look deep insight friendship but also what happens when things in which you believe suddenly change. For a whole life you think to know people (your wife, yourself and your best friend) and suddenly everything changes. This induces to question all our life and our values.

I like Moravia!

I'm with my tablet and can't write my titles. Quite a lot; I'd say 30/40. And yes several italians: Moravia, Morante, Svevo, Pasolini, Tommasi di Lampedusa...