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

My favorite list read from the year was The Handmaid's Tale/Margaret Atwood. It was a little weird reading a dystopia that was so clearly situated in the 1980s, but the story was so vivid with such a resonant message that I really enjoyed that book.

My least favorite list read was The Diaries of Jane Somers/Doris Lessing. The first diary about caring for the elderly lady was ok although almost a little too realistic/depressing, but the second diary about this older widow pining away for her married boyfriend for 200+ pages was dreadful, topped off by a horrible twist at the end. Definitely not a book I would recommend.

I had a hard time deciding which was my favorite, but I put here that it was All Quiet on the Western Front, which is a disturbing read to say the least. But I think it should be required reading, and it has such an important a message.

My least favorite is an easy choice: Gulliver's Travels. I could easily have gone a lifetime or two without having read this.

Good topic! I'm sure you will get many posts, Krenzel.

A few I really enjoyed this year (I can never pick just one favorite, so I'll list my top ten or eleven):

Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Sea by John Banville
A Hero of Our Times by Lermontov
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (a re-read for me)
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
The Death of Ivan Ilyish by Tolstoy
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
Waterland by Graham Swift

Honorable mention goes to the three le Carre titles on the lists, Smiley's People, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor Solder, Spy ( all re-reads for me) and
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (very memorable)

My least enjoyed include:
The Dairy of a Nobody by George Grossmith
Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater
Ulysses by James Joyce
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Green

My favourite list read was probably The Nine Tailors - which was just pure fun, and also not in the least a brain candy read.

My least favourite award is split between A Passage to India and The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Uuuugh.

If I have to pick just one as the favorite, it would be The Death of Ivan Illych. Favorite re-read would be Madame Bovary.

I didn't read any List books that were real dogs but I'll go with The Case of Comrade Tulayev given the struggle I had finishing it.

Judith wrote: "Good topic! I'm sure you will get many posts, Krenzel.

A few I really enjoyed this year (I can never pick just one favorite, so I'll list my top ten or eleven):

Possessing the Secret of Joy by A..."

Charlotte Bronte was the one who wrote Jane Eyre. I love that book too!:)

My least favorite read in 2011 was A Man of Feeling by Henry MacKenzie.

My favorite reads of the year were a tie between The Good Soldier Švejk and The Shadow-Line: A Confession.

Arggggh way to hard to pick one! My top three would be:

1. The Bell Jar
2. Wise Blood
3. The Postman always rings twice.

The last two I wouldnt have picked up had it not been for the list.

My three dunces were:

1. Lady Chatterleys Lover
2. The Human Stain URGH
3. Love in the time of Cholera snooooooooooooze

Looking forward to see more favourites from others so I can ransack readitswapit.co.uk!

Good question!

My favourites from this year were:

The Devil and Miss Prym
Life of Pi
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Cloud Atlas
What a Carve Up!

My least favourite was The New York Trilogy

And good call on the readitswapit.co.uk - this is something I may have to look into!

My least favorite reads in 2011 are a toss up between:

Naked Lunch
The Satanic Verses

One is simply disgusting, the other just plain WEIRD, I swear Rushdie had to have been tripping on whatever Muslims trip out on.

My faves this year, like everyone else, I can't pick just one! Here are a couple that I absolutely was delighted with, in no specific order:

Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Age of Innocence
Breakfast at Tiffany's

My Favorites of 2011 were:

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind

Honorable Mentions:

The Monk - Matthew Lewis
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

Least Favorite:

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy -- I really don't think this is an author for me.

My favourites this year were:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Woman in White

My least favourites:

The Nose
The Trial

Top Favorites are:

Dracula
Call of the Wild

Honorable Mention: Middlesex

Least favorite: The Human Stain by Philip Roth. AWFUL.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian had a good premise but the style was terrible. I was glad to be able to cross it off this list - otherwise reading it would have been a complete waste of time.

My favourite was Blindness which, while having a horrible, heartbreaking subject, was thoughtfully written, and absolutely beautiful.

My favourite one was Fingersmith

And least favourite was The English Patient

Katherine wrote: My favourite was Blindness which, while having a horrible, heartbreaking subject, was thoughtfully written, and absolutely beautiful. "

You linked to Blindness, which I learned in another thread is not on the list, this one Blindness is.

Definitely The Diary of a Nobody, it made my year. So much fun.
But other faves included
Candide,Disgrace,Cold Comfort Farm,The Baron in the Trees,Invisible Cities,Solaris,The Postman Always Rings Twiceand Cat's Eye

Amanda wrote: "Judith wrote: "Good topic! I'm sure you will get many posts, Krenzel.

A few I really enjoyed this year (I can never pick just one favorite, so I'll list my top ten or eleven):

Possessing the Sec..."

I'm really slipping up these days, Amanda! Thanks!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: You linked to Blindness (By Jose Saramago), which I learned in another thread is not on the list, this one Blindness (by Henry Green) is.

It's not on the list? *Check* My goodness, you're right. My bad! But it should be on there. It's awesome.

In that case, my favourite was after the quake.

My favorites of 2011 were:
Vanity Fair
The Wonderful O
The End of the Affair

...honorary mention should probably go to:
A Prayer for Owen Meany because it pulled off a great ending despite beating the reader over the head with certain points (I GET IT, MR IRVING, OWEN HAS AN ANNOYING VOICE).
Of Human Bondage because W. Somerset Maugham was so artful in writing absolutely frustrating characters.

My Least Favorite of 2011 were:
The Breast
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I'm pretty surprised that the only non-list book I read last year is ultimately my favorite: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It far surpasses Cannery Row by Steinbeck, which was on the original list!

Favorite read from list: Billiards at Half-Past Nine. Incredible, daunting, speaks damning psychological truths.

Least favorite read from list: Technically The Blind Assassin, but I really liked all the books I read off List this year, including this one.

Riona wrote: "My favorites this year were Cloud Atlas (amazing!), Middlesex, and The Handmaid's Tale.

I really disliked The Road and I Capture the Castle..."</i>

I love [book:Middlesex too, so on your recommendation I just requested Cloud Atlas from the library. Thanks!

Kristine wrote: "Definitely The Diary of a Nobody, it made my year. So much fun.
But other faves included
Candide,Disgrace,Cold Comfort Farm,[book:The Baron in t..."

Good as it is, "The Baron in the Trees" isn't on the list. After reading your post I went back and rechecked.

Some of my favorites:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

The MonkMatthew Lewis

Some of my least favorites are:

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

It's not a list book but my favorite read in 2011 was "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat-Moon. It's about his travels around the United States on the smaller highways stopping at the smallest towns. It was incredible.

Charity wrote: "My Favorites of 2011 were:

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind

Honorable Mentions..." Glad to see someone else that values Perfume! Lots of list readers don't seem to get it, but it's been a favourite of mine for years. So happy you enjoyed it too!

Dbolden wrote: "Glad to see someone else that values Perfume! Lots of list readers don't seem to get it, but it's been a favourite of mine for years. So happy you enjoyed it too!"

Yes! I thought the characterization and descriptions in that book were outstanding! Couldn't put it down!!

I read it just a couple months ago and enjoyed it a good deal.

My favorites for 2011 were:

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Jack Maggs by Peter Carey

There weren't really any that I hated, but I was pretty lukewarm about
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh and
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia - Samuel Johnson

Julie at All Ears wrote: "My favorites for 2011 were:

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
[..."
ah, I read Sometimes a Great Notion last year & loved it. (If you want an interesting read about Kesey, I recommend The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, and the 1960s - as the blurb says).

Your face tomorrow
A dance to the music of time
The Forsyte saga
The elegance of the hedgehog
Some experiences of an Irish R M
Harriet Hume
A dream of red mansions
Music and silence
W or memory of childhood
Things
Some of my favourites from 2011, reading A Heart so White by Marias at the moment, really enjoy his style of writing.

Least favourite: A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French. Awful.

Favourites: To Kill a Mockingbird (2nd reading),
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami,
East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

Just realised this is the 1001 Books to Read...list lol and Dawn French so ain't on that list!! Sorry about that. Are Murakami's other works featured on the list?

Kafka on the Shore
Sputnik Sweetheart
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
After the Quake are all on the 2006 list.

B0nnie wrote: "... ah, I read Sometimes a Great Notion last year & loved it. (If you want an interesting read about Kesey, I recommend The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, and the 1960s - as the blurb says).
..."

Thanks for the recommendation, Bonnie! A chance to learn about Kesey and cross another off the list!

My favorite is either War and Peace or Anna Karenina, with an edge going to War and Peace. 2011 was the year I fell in love with Tolstoy!

My least favorite of the ones I've read, so far, is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I couldn't stand the title character, for one thing.

My favorite is either War and Peace or Anna Karenina, with an edge going to War and Peace. 2011 was the year I fell in love with Tolstoy!

My least favorite of the ones I've read, so far, is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I couldn't stand the title character, for one thing.