Vincennes Review of Books 2009

[ms_bracken]

I read a total of 36 books this year - 32 new, 4 re-reads - which is slightly disappointing. For those of you who think that this is not a bad total, here is a graph to illustrate why I am slightly disappointed. New books are pink, re-reads are blue.

Comments

[miss_annersley]

counterweight opinion: I've read Moby Dick and I think it is both brilliant and great fun to read.

Which Metamorphoses did you read? The Ted Hughes one/other?

[hoshuteki]

Or in the original LATIN maybe?

[ms_bracken]

Not the original Latin! I read this edition, although having done so would be interested to read the Ted Hughes version.

Thank you also for the Melville encouragement! I hope to let you know what I think of it within the next year...

[hoshuteki]

I find this post inspiring! This year I will read more books*! I really must actually take Lolita off the shelf and read it, since Pale Fire was so good...

* as well as everything else I've resolved to do

[ms_bracken]

Yes yes read Lolita! It is beautiful and funny - if you got on with Pale Fire, I'm very confident you'll enjoy.

You read Infinite Jest in 2009! This is an excellent reading achievement. On the reading more books thing, though, I've tended to pick a theme for a quarter (e.g. "read more classic sci-fi") when I've felt low on inspiration about what to read next, which helps with the feeling you get when you finish a book and have nothing specific lined up for afterwards.

[hoshuteki]

I've been in that nothing-specific groove since finishing IJ, so that sounds like a good way to gain impetus.

[slightlyfoxed]

I have to confess I've not read Dick - I went to a seminar on why boredom is an essential part of the experience of reading it (in short, because whaling is boring) so I decided to skip it.

Patrick Hamilton's The Bell is brilliant and remorselessly awful - I don't think I still have my copy of it, I had to get rid of it. It's horribly insightful about people who think they can write, but can't. It's the first of three novels stuck in one volume as Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, and I could probably face the second one about now.
Did you know he wrote Rope?

[ms_bracken]

I did not know that! And had The Midnight Bell in mind to read next. Maybe I could catch up and we could support each other through vol.2.

because whaling is boring

Part of my concern here is that I found The Old Man And The Sea to be a bit too much about fish, and that has, what, 16 pages?

[carsmilesteve]

I resolve that all of my 2010 lj posts SHALL HAVE GRAPHS!!! :)

[ms_bracken]

As soon as you start doing posts with GRAPHS you will find it hard to stop! They are very useful.

[alexmacpherson]

I read far fewer books last year than I wanted to...pretty much entirely down to Mason & Dixon tbh. And Jared Diamond's Collapse, which wasn't difficult to read as such but not conducive to burying yourself in for a week (this is why I don't read a great deal of non-fiction).

The Great Gatsby is definitely one of my favourite books ever too! Have you read Nabokov's King Queen Knave? Love that too...

I have yet to read any Iris Murdoch or AS Byatt.

CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE DROWNED WORLD

[ms_bracken]

This is why I'm a bit concerned about 2666, I'm either going to have to be really motivated about reading in the evenings or not read anything else for about three months.

Nope, not read King Queen Knave, thanks for the recommendation! Never sure which of Nabokov's translated novels to get, probably because I knew someone who was incredibly sniffy about most of them and I want to get "one of the good ones"

Obviously I'd recommend Iris Murdoch, but think you'd enjoy as well - The Black Prince is my favourite, and probably the best to start with as well. Vast melodrama in tiny lives is the general theme. They are also quite funny.

You also read The Drowned World this year, right? That was another of my favourites, that awesome reveal when you find out they are in London - sometimes when I think of Leicester Square I think of the Drowned World version rather than the one I know is actually there...

Re: CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE DROWNED WORLD

[awesomewells]

2666 is not especially difficult to read, it's just long. You can rip through it pretty quickly, especially the section that is essentially a long list of brutal murders.

Re: CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE DROWNED WORLD

[ms_bracken]

This is encouraging (that it is not difficult, rather than that it contains brutal murders). Still, there is something about starting a 900-page book that makes me think me and you, book, for the next month at least, I hope we get on with each other.