Two days' worth of Guardian books

[nwhyte]

Two days’ worth of Guardian novels to report here, because of last night’s distractions. Thanks again to drasecretcampus for supplying the lists. They are two particularly odd selections.

I have read only 24 out of 145 of the Guardian’s the “Family and Self” selection, with another four started but not finished. It is interesting that they have chosen a number

Comments

[deborah_c]

Gosh. There are even a few of these that I've read and you haven't, which surprises me. (Many more the other way round, of course.)

One of these is Camus' The Plague. I read this sitting in a hotel in Algiers, expecting to go to Oran the following day (until the youth orchestra staff put their collective foot down and said they weren't moving -- that was an interesting tour). This may not have been the most sensible of reading material, given the subject matter!

[drasecretcampus]

I'm trying desperately not to see these as a to-read pile (although there are plenty on that pile on the list, and plenty I do want to read). Again the mixture of books which are part of series and entire series annoys me. Not clear either why graphic novels occurred in the Self and Family listing, save for the nagging thought they came up with the lists then the categories (I don't think I've omitted any but why only 133?)

[lasultrix]

I read Shame when I was bored, 14 and couldn't have told you anything about Pakistan other than, "it's in Asia". I didn't like it, partly because it was my first experience with magical realism and partly because I had no idea what the hell was going on. Much later, I learned some stuff about Pakistan's recent history, remembered Shame, and realised was about. The Benazir Bhutto character and the General Zia character are central to the book.

I still strongly dislike magic realism. I'm fairly certain I would have done so anyway, but I wonder if encountering it for the first time in Shame influenced that.

[cassave]

Honoré de Balzac, La Comédie Humaine???
That means... um... everything?
I'm alright with that, I love Balzac, but I wonder if there's anyone who has read the complete Comédie Humaine. (It's one of my life projects.)
There's a complete (and very beautiful) edition of it in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (the most prestigious French collection): 12 volumes of (more or less) 1500 pages at €50 to €60 per volume...

[cassave]

P.S.: "La Comédie Humaine" consists of THESE titles.

[nwhyte]

Blimey!

[cassave]

To be fair, each of those titles can be read independently of the others, but they gain an extra dimension as part of a whole (many characters return, each with their individual history, often described elsewhere).
Perhaps Balzac should be (re)considered as the inventor of the "spin-off"?

[raycun]

25 from each list