Reading 1001 discussion
Past TBR lists
>
Diane Z 2023 TBR List
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
3 stars
Trying to update my reading this year to books that were actually published in this century. First up is this Paulo Coelho book published in 2000. According to his website, his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide, in 170 countries and translated into 83 languages. This is my first book by the author and I look forward to seeing what all the fuss is about.
I appreciated the ease with which I could read this book. The story is very straight forward, good versus evil. I enjoyed the story but overall I felt I was reading young adult literature.
“If you steal the one gold bar but the village resists temptation, or vice versa, I will conclude that there are good people and evil people - which would put me in a difficult position because it would mean that there’s a spiritual struggle going on that could be won by either side.”
“If I leave the village with my eleven gold bars intact, then everything I wanted to believe in will have proved to be a lie.”
“She had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it.”
“So you see, Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being.”
Mod
4 stars
This is my first Sherlock Holmes book that I have read and I rather enjoyed it. The adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson were entertaining. I think this book has stood the test of time and I look forward to reading Doyle's other book on the list.
Mod
3 stars
A short book about 2 families in Italy mostly set during the 1930s as Mussolini comes to power.
Mod
4 stars
A heartbreaking novel about a Dominican family living in New Jersey. We travel back and forth from New Jersey and Dominican Republic. I listened to the Audible version narrated by Lin-Manual Miranda (Oscar) and Karen Olivo (Lola) which increased my satisfaction of the book, both were excellent in their readings. The story writing is very contemporary; footnotes are part of the story, Spanish is sprinkled throughout, magic realism plays a part (the fuku). The characters are very rich in history and well developed. I sure hope that growing up in New Jersey is better now, the bullying oh my! Definitely a story I will be thinking about for quite some time.
Mod
2 stars
I am glad that this is over. I can see why this book was chosen for the list as it has a unique style of telling a story but it did not work for me. This was a struggle for me to get through, I was not engaged in the story at all. Different strokes for different folks, this was just not for me.
Mod
5 stars
How do you rate someone’s personal account of the Holocaust? This is the companion volume to Survival in Auschwitz, also the second book in his trilogy. This book starts with his liberation from Auschwitz by the Russians and his long journey home. I enjoyed the map that the author included, I referenced it many times while reading. I found the final chapter and the afterward the most impactful.
“I can, however, formulate a certain assertion and it is this: if I had not lived the Auschwitz experience, I probably would never have written anything.”
“I do not find it permissible to explain a historical phenomenon by piling all the blame on a single individual (those who carry out horrendous orders are not innocent!).”
“Gas chambers and crematories were deliberately planned to destroy lives and human bodies on a scale of millions. The horrendous record belongs to Auschwitz, with 24,000 dead in a single day, in August 1944.”
“Death was a byproduct of hunger, cold, infections, hard labor.”
“…one entered the German camps, in general never to emerge. Death was the only foreseen outcome.”
Mod
2/5 stars
This is my first DeLillo book and I struggled to complete it. He has 8 books on the list and I am not sure how I am going to get through them all. What I liked best was the haunting images of the aftermath of the crash, his very descriptive writing I could easily visualize. What I did not like was the postmodern writing style in which the dialogue was constantly switching characters, it was hard to follow the thread at times on who was talking. The characters seemed cold and distant but maybe that was the point.
“She said to her mother, It was not possible, up from the dead, there he was in the doorway. It’s so lucky Justin was here with you. Because it would have been awful for him to see his father like that. Like gray soot head to toe, I don’t know, like smoke, standing there, blood on his face and clothes.”
“Who is that man? You think you see yourself in the mirror. But that’s not you. That’s not what you look like. That’s not the literal face, if there is such a thing, ever. That’s the composite face. That’s the face in transition.”
Mod
3 stars
I picked this book to read because it was described as “A Geriatric Comedy” it was far from humorous for me. The endorsement of Samuel Beckett on the cover should have been a clue as I described his book Malone Dies as one of the longest 120 pages. I can see why the book made the list as it has a unique story telling style comprised of 8 monologues from elderly folks that live with the “house mother”. Each chapter starts with the stats of the patient; age, medical status, and level of dementia. The monologues visually reflect the level of dementia which was the unique writing style I appreciated.
Mod
4 stars
This is the story of two young men, Billy and Issac, who fall into trouble in their small rural town that has been swallowed up by poverty after the steel mill closed. Each chapter was from the voice of one of the major characters which I liked. The whole story is over a short period of time which does not lend itself to much character development. Two of the characters are touted as genius which I did not find believable and made their decisions that much more baffling. Overall, I liked the story and I felt I got a taste of this rural Pennsylvania town.
"In the end it was rust. That was what defined this place."
Mod
4 stars
My husband saw me reading this book and said "your book has math and diagrams, what are you reading?" I took this book with me on vacation but my husband kept picking it up and reading it, it was a shared vacation book.
The story is told from Christopher's point of view which I rather liked. He is very particular on how he navigates through life but always gives reasons for his actions. I enjoyed the story overall and all the characters but the last quarter of the book sort of fell apart for me and the ending was just meh, a sentiment that my husband also felt. Overall enjoyable read and I would recommend it.
Mod
3.5 stars
Best first sentence in a book. "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead."
I enjoyed the first third of the book; getting to know Sarah, Henry and Bendrix. The second third my interest started to wane as I was reading Sarah's diary. The final third had some interest for me regarding Sarah but the rest regarding religion and jealousy just did not do it for me.
I didn't realize this book would be so dark. "How's Sarah? I asked because it might have seemed odd if I hadn't, though nothing would have delighted me more than to have heard that she was sick, unhappy, dying. I imagined in those days that any suffering she underwent would lighten mine, and if she were dead I could be free: I would no longer imagine all the things one does imagine under my ignoble circumstances. I could even like poor silly Henry, I thought, if Sarah were dead."
"...but that wasn't what Sarah had said, and sitting there beside Henry in the Victoria Gardens, watching the day die, I remembered the end of the whole 'affair' ".
2. Chess Story by Zweig, Stefan 104 pages
3. Passage to India by E.M. Forster 376 pages (movie)
4. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker 288 pages
5. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 231 pages (movie)
6. American Rust by Philipp Meyer368 pages(TV series)7. Max Havelaar; or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company by Multatuli 352 pages
8. Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard 351 pages (movie)9. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Bassani, Giorgio246 pages (movie)10. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho205 pages11. House Mother Normal by B.S. Johnson208 pages12. Falling Man by Don Delillo246 pages13. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz335 pages14. The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble 352 pages
15. If Not Now, When by Levi, Primo 331 pages
16. The Reawakening by Levi, Primo 231 pages17. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 250 pages (movie)
18. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene 160 pages (movie)19. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon226 pages20. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes 190 pages21. The Postman Always Rings Twice by Cain, James 116 pages (movie)
22. The Hound and the Baskervilles by Doyle(movie)23. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst 438 pages (TV series)
24. Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Ishiguro 288 pages (movie)