1001 Books Challenge: UPDATE 34
The first of the books given to me for Christmas...
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
I have always had an interest in the civil rights movement and black history. This is a family thing - my grandmother was feircely passionate about it to the point that, in 1950s Middle Class England she adopted an black orphan after hearing that black families weren't adopting. Of course, being a nineties child having a black Auntie and cousins was nothing special to me, and it's only as I've got older I've realised how unusual the situation was for my father and Auntie growing up, and the story has become a source of pride.
So I'm not sure, then, why I never got around to reading one of the definitive works of black fiction. Part of the answer is simple - our school never taught it and I never stumbled across a copy. But even picking up the book after recieving it for Christmas I was hesitant. It felt, somehow, like I wasn't qualified to read it. It was a book for intellectuals and people for whom the theme had a real importance to. I also knew it had been a bit of a phenomenon in the eighties, and like Fried Green Tomatoes, and other ground-breaking books of that era, as a 90s post-feminist child I felt rather left out. I've never been opressed by men, and my grandmother was fighting for civil rights back when my father was still in short trousers. What could the book mean to me?
That changed the second I read page 1. I only flipped through it while waiting for a computer program to load. By bedtime I was on page 100.
For other people who haven't read it, it's the story of Celie in the early 1900s. Sexually abused by her father, she gives birth to two children who she believes have been killed by him. She is then married of to the never named Mr ______ (though we learn his first name is Albert). Meanwhile her sister, Nettie, goes off and becomes a missionary. The story is told through a series of letters. Celie begins by writing to God as she has no one else to talk to, but as the book progresses she recieves letters from Nettie and, becoming angry, refuses to write to god, writing back to her long-lost sister instead. It charts the progress of Celie's extended family, her relationship with her husband's lover Shug Avery, her path to independance, and her own understanding of god.
The book I kept thinking of, as I read, was Fried Green Tomatoes (a must-read, BTW). It's set in a similar area at a similar time - and deals with a sexual relationship between two women in a similar way, as well as focusing heavily of freeing oneself from male oppression.
I could ramble about it all day, but quite frankly I don't feel intelligent enough to say anything meaningdul about it. I will come back to this book, I think, and I'll certainly read the second book focusing on Tashi.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 52
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 67
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 7
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
I have always had an interest in the civil rights movement and black history. This is a family thing - my grandmother was feircely passionate about it to the point that, in 1950s Middle Class England she adopted an black orphan after hearing that black families weren't adopting. Of course, being a nineties child having a black Auntie and cousins was nothing special to me, and it's only as I've got older I've realised how unusual the situation was for my father and Auntie growing up, and the story has become a source of pride.
So I'm not sure, then, why I never got around to reading one of the definitive works of black fiction. Part of the answer is simple - our school never taught it and I never stumbled across a copy. But even picking up the book after recieving it for Christmas I was hesitant. It felt, somehow, like I wasn't qualified to read it. It was a book for intellectuals and people for whom the theme had a real importance to. I also knew it had been a bit of a phenomenon in the eighties, and like Fried Green Tomatoes, and other ground-breaking books of that era, as a 90s post-feminist child I felt rather left out. I've never been opressed by men, and my grandmother was fighting for civil rights back when my father was still in short trousers. What could the book mean to me?
That changed the second I read page 1. I only flipped through it while waiting for a computer program to load. By bedtime I was on page 100.
For other people who haven't read it, it's the story of Celie in the early 1900s. Sexually abused by her father, she gives birth to two children who she believes have been killed by him. She is then married of to the never named Mr ______ (though we learn his first name is Albert). Meanwhile her sister, Nettie, goes off and becomes a missionary. The story is told through a series of letters. Celie begins by writing to God as she has no one else to talk to, but as the book progresses she recieves letters from Nettie and, becoming angry, refuses to write to god, writing back to her long-lost sister instead. It charts the progress of Celie's extended family, her relationship with her husband's lover Shug Avery, her path to independance, and her own understanding of god.
The book I kept thinking of, as I read, was Fried Green Tomatoes (a must-read, BTW). It's set in a similar area at a similar time - and deals with a sexual relationship between two women in a similar way, as well as focusing heavily of freeing oneself from male oppression.
I could ramble about it all day, but quite frankly I don't feel intelligent enough to say anything meaningdul about it. I will come back to this book, I think, and I'll certainly read the second book focusing on Tashi.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 52
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 67
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 7
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun