The OF Blog: Lists
Showing posts with label Lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lists. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (2000-2024)

 I guess nearly 24 years of the 21st century (which technically began on 1/1/2001, but who's quibbling, right?) is as good of a time as any for some organization to begin trying to place tens of thousands of books in some sort of historical significance order, so it was with some curiosity that I read the recent New York Times attempt at doing such a thing.  I'll list the books below, with bold for titles that I have already read, if not reviewed way back when:


1.   Elena Ferrante (trans. by Ann Goldstein), My Brilliant Friend (2012)

2.   Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010)

3.   Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)

4.   Edward P. Jones, The Known World (2003)

5.   Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)

6.   Roberto Bolaño (translated by Natasha Wimmer), 2666 (2008) * Read in Spanish

7.   Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (2016)

8.   W.G. Sebald (trans. by Anthea Bell), Austerlitz (2001)

9.   Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)

10.  Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)

11.  Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Was (2007)

12.  Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)

13.  Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

14.  Rachel Cusk, Outline (2015)

15.  Min Jin Lee, Pachinko (2017)

16.  Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay (2000)

17.  Paul Beatty, The Sellout (2015)

18.  George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)

19.  Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2019)

20.  Percival Evertt, Erasure (2001)

21.  Matthew Desmond, Evicted (2016)

22.  Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers (2012)

23.  Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001)

24.  Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018)

25.  Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family (2003)

26.  Ian McEwan, Atonement (2002)

27.  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2013)

28.  David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004)

29.  Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai (2000)

30.  Jasmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017)

31.  Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)

32.  Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (2004)

33.  Jasmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones (2011)

34.  Claudia Rankine, Citizen (2014)

35.  Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)

36.  Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015)

37.  Annie Ernaux (trans. by Alison L. Strayer), The Years (2018)

38.  Roberto Bolaño (trans. by Natasha Wimmer), The Savage Detectives (2007) * -Read in Spanish

39.  Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)

40.  Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk (2015)

41.  Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These (2021)

42.  Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014)

43.  Tony Judt, Postwar (2005)

44.  N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (2015)

45.  Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (2015)

46.  Donna Tare, The Goldfinch (2013)

47.  Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2008)

48.  Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (2003)

49.  Han Kang (trans. by Deborah Smith), The Vegetarian (2016)

50.  Hernan Diaz, Trust (2022)

51.  Kate Atkinson, Life After Life (2013)

52.  Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (2011)

53.  Alice Munro, Runaway (2004)

54.  George Saunders, Tenth of December (2013)

55. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)

56.  Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (2013)

57.  Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dime: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001)

58.  Hua Hsu, Stay True (2022)

59.  Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)

60.  Kiese Laymon, Heavy (2018)

61.  Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (2022)

62.  Ben Lerner, 10:04 (2014)

63.  Mary Gaitskill, Veronica (2005)

64.  Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers (2018)

65.  Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004)

66.  Justin Torres, We the Animals (2011)

67.  Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree (2012)

68.  Sigrid Nunez, The Friend (2018)

69.  Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (2010)

70.  Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hager's Children (2006)

71. Tove Ditlevsen (trans. by Tina Nunnally and Michael Favala), The Copenhagen Trilogy (2021)

72.  Svetlana Alexievich (trans. by Bela Shayevich), Secondhand Time (2016)

73.  Robert Cano, The Passage of Power (2012)

74.  Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge (2008)

75.  Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (2017)

76.  Gabrielle Levin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022)

77.  Tyari Jones, An American Marriage (2018)

78.  Jon Fosse (trans. by Damion Searls), Septology (2022)

79.  Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women (2015)

80.  Elena Ferrante (trans. by Ann Goldstein), The Story of the Lost Child (2015)

81.  John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (2011)

82.  Fernanda Melchor, trans. by Sophie Hughes), Hurricane Season (2020)

83.  Benjamin Labatut (trans. by Adrian Nathan West), When We Cease to Understand the World (2021)

84.  Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies (2010)

85.  George Saunders, Pastoralia (2010)

86.  David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass (2018)

87.  Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby (2021)

88.  Lydia Davis, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (2010)

89.  Hisham Matar, The Return (2016)

90.  Việt Thanh Nguyễn, The Sympathizer (2015)

91.  Philip Roth, The Human Stain (2000)

92. Elena Ferrante (trans. by Ann Goldstein), The Days of Abandonment (2005)

93.  Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014)

94.  Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005)

95.  Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

96.  Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments (2019)

97.  Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped (2013)

98.  Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (2001)

99.  Ali Smith, How to Be Both (2014)

100.  Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (2007)


Currently, I've read 29 on this list.  It is not a bad list, but not a terribly surprising or bold one either.  There were more translated works listed for the past 25 years than I believe made most 20th century lists, so there is something to be said for the slow growth in translated fictions (I want to say there were around a dozen or so translated works on this list, so definitely above the bandied-about 3% number for translated works in a given year).  And while on the surface this is a more "diverse" list when it comes to the authors' ethnocultural backgrounds compared to 20th century "Best of" lists, thematically I just don't see quite the same diversity.

As I noted above, this is not a bad list at all, but it does certainly feel like the sort of list that I would expect the NYT to put out:  containing several no-doubt classics mixed in with secondary works from authors that do seem to be favored by the NYT editorial board.  Only surprising omission for me in all this was Javier Marîas's Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, but I'll certainly think of more in the coming days and weeks.  

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Popular Patristics Series

Yes, I'm still doing a deep dive into the writings of the Christian Church Fathers, this time through buying/reading several volumes of the Popular Patristics Series.  As is the norm for series, I will list in italics books owned but not yet read and bold the ones that I've read.  I'm cautiously optimistic that I will have time later this summer to write essays on at least a few of these, perhaps on a different blog than this venerable one.  

Total through 5/12/2024:  32 books owned.


  1. On the Priesthood by St. John Chrysostom
  2. Lectures on the Christian Sacraments by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (discontinued)
  3. On the Divine Images by St. John of Damascus (discontinued)
  4. On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius (discontinued)
  5. On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil the Great (discontinued)
  6. On the Holy Icons by St. Theodore the Studite
  7. On Marriage and Family Life by St. John Chrysostom
  8. On the Divine Liturgy by St. Germanus of Constantinople
  9. On Wealth and Poverty by St. John Chrysostom (2nd edition published 2020)
  10. Hymns on Paradise by St. Ephrem the Syrian
  11. On Ascetical Life by St. Isaac of Nineveh
  12. On the Soul and Resurrection by St. Gregory of Nyssa
  13. On the Unity of Christ by St. Cyril of Alexandria
  14. On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, vol. 1: The Church and The Last Things by St. Symeon the New Theologian
  15. On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, vol. 2: On Virtue and Christian Life by St. Symeon the New Theologian
  16. On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, vol. 3: Life, Times, and Theology by St. Symeon the New Theologian
  17. On the Apostolic Preaching by St. Irenaeus of Lyons
  18. On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies
  19. On the Mother of God by Jacob of Serug
  20. On Pascha by Melito of Sardis (discontinued)
  21. On God and Man: The Theological Poetry of St. Gregory of Nazianzus
  22. On the Apostolic Tradition by St. Hippolytus (discontinued)
  23. On God and Christ, The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius by St. Gregory of Nazianzus
  24. Three Treatises on the Divine Images by St. John of Damascus (new translation, replaces volume 3)
  25. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ by St. Maximus the Confessor
  26. Letters from the Desert by St. Barsanuphius and John
  27. Four Desert Fathers – Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Macarius of Alexandria
  28. Saint Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great
  29. On the Lord’s Prayer by Tertullian, St. Cyprian, & Origen
  30. On the Human Condition by St. Basil the Great
  31. The Cult of the Saints by St. John Chrysostom
  32. On the Church: Select Treatises by St. Cyprian of Carthage
  33. On the Church: Select Letters by St. Cyprian of Carthage
  34. The Book of Pastoral Rule by St. Gregory the Great
  35. Wider Than Heaven: Eighth-century Homilies on the Mother of God
  36. Festal Orations by St. Gregory of Nazianzus
  37. Counsels on the Spiritual Life, Volumes One and Two by St. Mark the Monk
  38. On Social Justice by St. Basil the Great
  39. Harp of Glory (Enzira Sebhat): An Alphabetical Hymn of Praise for the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
  40. Divine Eros: Hymns of Saint Symeon the New Theologian
  41. On the Two Ways: Life or Death, Light or Darkness: Foundational Texts in the Tradition
  42. On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil the Great (new translation, replaces volume 5)
  43. Works on the Spirit by St. Athanasius the Great and Didymus the Blind
  44. On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius the Great (new translation, replaces volume 4; available in Greek and English (44A) or English only (44B); own both)
  45. Treasure-house of Mysteries: Exploration of the Sacred Text Through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition
  46. Poems on Scripture by St. Gregory of Nazianzus
  47. On Christian Doctrine and Practice St. Basil the Great
  48. Light on the Mountain: Greek Patristic and Byzantine Homilies on the Transfiguration of the Lord
  49. The Letters by St. Ignatius of Antioch
  50. On Fasting and Feasts by St. Basil the Great
  51. On Christian Ethics by St. Basil the Great
  52. Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
  53. Two Hundred Chapters On Theology by St. Maximus the Confessor
  54. On the Apostolic Tradition (Second Edition) by St. Hippolytus (replaces volume 22)
  55. On Pascha (Second Edition) by Melito of Sardis (replaces volume 20)
  56. Letters to Saint Olympia by St. John Chrysostom
  57. Lectures on the Christian Sacraments (Second Edition) by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (replaces volume 2)
  58. The Testament of the Lord: Worship and Discipline in the Early Church
  59. On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy: A Theological Vision of the Liturgy by St. Maximus the Confessor
  60. Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists by St. Gregory of Nyssa
  61. Hymns of Repentance by St. Romanos the Melodist
  62. On the Orthodox Faith: Volume 3 of the Fount of Knowledge by St. John of Damascus
  63. Headings on Spiritual Knowledge: The Second Part, Chapters 1-3 by St. Isaac of Nineveh
  64. On Death and Eternal Life by St. Gregory of Nyssa
  65. The Prayers of Saint Sarapion: The Bishop of Thmuis
 

Saturday, May 06, 2023

Oxford Early Christian Texts

 One more list of bilingual Latin (or Greek)/English classics, this time writings of the Christian “Fathers” of the 2nd-7th centuries.  Lately, I’ve been doing some reading of the Church Fathers in order to become better educated about my beliefs and I stumbled upon Oxford’s annotated bilingual critical editions of the early leaders/defenders/martyrs of the Church.  These are not cheap books (often some are listed for $250+ on Amazon), but certainly books I will likely be collecting in the coming years.  Below are the current titles, listed by year of publication:

1.  Tatius, Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments

2.  Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters

3.  Eunomius, The Extant Works

4.  Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana

5.  Severus of Minorca, Letter on the Conversion of the Jews

6.  Augustine, De Bono Coniugali, De Sancta Virginitate

7.  Maximus the Confessor, Maximus the Confessor and His Companions

8.  Leonitus of Jerusalem, Against the Monophysites:  Testimonies of the Saints and Aporiae

9.  Sophronius of Jerusalem, Sophoronius of Jerusalem and Seventh-Century Heresy: The Synodical Letter and Other Documents

10. Symeon the New Theologian, The Epistles of St. Symeon the New Theologian

11. Justin Martyr, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr:  Apologies

12. Priscillian of Avila, Priscillian of Avila:  The Complete Works

13. John Behr (ed.), The Case Against Diodore and Theodore

14. Jerome, Jerome’s Epitaph on Paula: A Commentary on the Epitaphium Sanctae Paula

15. Virginia Burrus and Marco Conti (eds.), The Life of Saint Helia

16. Nonnus of Panoplis, Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John XI

17. Damascus of Rome, The Epigraphic Poetry

18. Èric Rebillard (ed.), Greek and Latin Narratives About the Ancient Martyrs

19. Leonitus of Byzantium, Complete Works

20. Wolfram Kinzig (ed.), Faith in Formulae:  A Collection of Early Christian Creeds and Creed-Related Texts (4 vol.)

21. Alden A. Mosshammer (ed.), The Prologues on Easter of Theophilis of Alexandria and Cyril

22. Origen, On First Principles

23. Adrian, Introduction to the Divine Scriptures

24. Ronald E. Heine (ed.), The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St. Matthew

25. Apollinarus of Laodicea, Metaphrasis Psalmorum

26. Marco Conti, Virginia Burrus, and Dennis Trout (eds.), The Lives of St. Constantina 

27. Thomas of Edessa, Explanations of the Nativity and Epiphany

28. Papias of Hierapolis, Exposition of Dominical Oracles 

29. Abraham Terian (ed.), The Life of Mashtots’ by his Disciple Koriwn

30. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Human Image of God

Monday, July 18, 2022

Cambridge Medieval Classics

 While the majority of the bilingual lists I’ve posted lately are still adding volumes, the Cambridge Medieval Classics list is an example of a purportedly extensive bilingual series of Medieval Latin and Greek works from 350-1350 CE being cut short, in this case after nine volumes.  However, 8 out of these 9 volumes are readily available via POD publishing.  Below are the volumes before the series was cut short (there were at least three other volumes-in-progress that never were published under the Cambridge Medieval Classics aegis), with italics for the ones owned, bold for books owned and read, and plain for volumes not yet purchased.


1.  Peter Dronke (ed.), Nine Medieval Latin Plays (Latin)

2.  Fleur Alcock (ed.), Hugh Primas and the Archpoet (Latin)

3.  Johannes de Hauvilla, Architrenius (Latin)

4.  Dante Alighieri, Monarchia (Latin)*

5.  Dante Alighieri, De Vulgari Eloquentia (Latin)

6.  Gregory of Nazianzus, Autobiographical Poems (Greek)

7.  Elizabeth Jeffreys (ed.), Digenis Akritas (Greek)

8.  Dhuoda, Handbook for her Warrior Son:  Liber Manualis (Latin)

9.  Adelard of Bath, Conversations with his Nephew:  On the Same and the Different, Questions on Natural Science, and On Birds (Latin)


* Not available in paperback


Thursday, July 07, 2022

I Tatti Renaissance Library

As is evidenced by the number of these posts over the past couple of months, I’ve lately been involved in collecting (and eventually, reading) volumes of certain classics in bilingual editions.  The I Tatti Renaissance Library, published by Harvard University Press since its inception in 2001, is one such list.  This series is devoted to publishing in Latin/English editions the Latin language works of many of the preeminent Renaissance thinkers.  Much of the literature presented here has never before been made available in English translation.  If I’ve read the volume, it’ll be listed in bold; italics for those owned but not yet fully read.


1.  Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women

2.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology  vol. I:  Books I-IV

3.  Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, Volume I:  Books I-IV

4.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology vol. II:  Books V-VIII

5.  Craig W. Kallendorf (ed.), Humanist Educational Treatises 

6.  Polydore Vergil, On Discovery

7.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology vol. III:  Books IX-XI

8.  Leon Battista Alberti, Momus

9.  Giannozzo Manetti, Biographical Writings

10. Cyriac of Ancona, Later Travels

11.  Francesco Petrarca, Invectives

12.  Pius II, Commentaries vol. I:  Books I-II

13.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology vol. IV:  Books XII-XIV

14.  Angelo Poliziano, Silvae

15.  Maffeo Vegio, Short Epics

16.  Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, Volume II:  Books V-VIII

17.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology vol. V:  Books XV-XVI

18.  Pietro Bembo, Lyric Poetry; Etna

19.  Gary R. Grund (ed.), Humanist Comedies

20.  Biondo Flavio,  Italy Illuminated, Volume I:  Books I-IV

21.  Angelo Poliziano, Letters, Volume I:  Books I-IV

22.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Baiae

23.  Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology vol. VI:  Books XVII-XVIII

24.  Lorenzo Valla,  On the Donation of Constantine

25.  Teofilo Folengo, Baldo, Volume I:  Books I-XII

26.  JoAnn DellaNeva (ed.), Ciceronian Controversies

27.  Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, Volume III:  Books IX-XII; Memoirs

28.  Pietro Bembo, History of Venice, Volume I:  Books I-IV

29.  Pius II, Commentaries, Volume II:  Books III-IV

30.  Bartolomeo Platina, Lives of the Popes, Volume I:  Antiquity

31.  Bartolomeo Scala, Essays and Dialogues

32.  Pietro Bembo, History of Venice, Volume II:  Books V-VIII

33.  Nicolas of Cusa, Writings on Church and Reform

34.  Marsilio Ficino, Commentaries on Plato, Volume I:  Phaedras and Ion

35.  Christoforo Landino, Poems

36.  Teofilo Folengo, Baldo, Volume II:  Books XIII-XXV

37.  Pietro Bembo, History of Venice, Volume III:  Books IX-XII

38.  Jacopo Sannazaro, Latin Poetry

39.  Marco Girolamo Vida, Christiad

40.  Aurelio Lippo Brandini, Republics and Kingdoms Compared

41.  Francesco Filelfo, Odes

42.  Antonio Beccadelli, The Hermaphrodite 

43.  Florentius de Faxolis, Book on Music

44.  Federico Borromeo, Sacred Painting; Museum 

45.  Gary R. Grund (ed.), Humanist Tragedies

46. Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Volume I:  Books I-V

47.  Bartolomeo Fonzio, Letters to Friends

48.  Lilia Gregorio, Modern Poets

49.  Lorenzo Valla, Dialectical Disputations, Volume I:  Book I

50.  Lorenzo Valla, Dialectical Disputations, Volume II:  Books II-III

51.  Marsilio Ficino, Conmmentaries on Plato, Volume II:  Parmenides, Part I

52.  Marsilio Ficino, Commentaries on Plato, Volume II:  Parmenides, Part II

53.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Dialogues, Volume I:  Charon and Antonius 

54.  Michael Marcellus, Poems

55.  Francesco Filelfo, On Exile

56.  Paulo Giovio, Notable Men and Women of Our Time

57.  Girolamo Fracastoro, Latin Poetry

58.  Jacob Zabarella, On Methods, Volume I:  Books I-II

59.  Jacob Zabarella, On Methods, Volume II:  Books III-IV; On Regressions

60.  Lorenzo Valla, Correspondence 

61.  Elizabeth R. Wright (ed.), The Battle of Lepanto

62.  Coluccio Salutati, On the World and Religious Life

63.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, On Married Love; Eridanus

64.  Coluccio Salutati, Political Writings

65.  Cyriac of Ancona, Life and Early Travels

66.  Marsilio Ficino, On Dionysius the Aeropagite, Volume I:  Mystical Theology and The Divine Names, Part I

67.  Marsilio Ficino, On Dionysius the Aeropagite, Volume II:  The Divine Names, Part II

68.  Girolamo Savonarola, Apologetic Writings

69.  Ugolino Verino, Fiammetta; Paradise

70.  Aldius Manutius, The Greek Classics

71.  Giannozzo Manetti, A Translator’s Defense

72.  Francesco Petrarca, My Secret Book

73.  Giovanni Marrasio, Angelinetum and Other Poems

74.  Biondo Flavio, Rome in Triumph, Volume I:  Books I-II

75.  Biondo Flavio, Italy Illuminated, Volume II:  Books V-VIII

76.  Francesco Petrarca, Selected Letters, Volume I

77.  Francesco Petrarca, Selected Letters, Volume II

78.  Aldius Manutius, Humanism and the Latin Classics

79.  Giannozzo Manetti, Against the Jews and Gentiles:  Books I-IV

80.  Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, Volume IV:  Ennead III, Part I

81.  Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Volume II:  Books VI-X

82.  Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, Volume V:  Ennead III, Part II and Ennead IV

83.  Pius II, Commentaries, Volume III:  Books V-VIII

84.  Ludovico Ariosto, Latin Poetry

85.  Giannozzo Manetti, On Human Worth and Excellence

86.  Angelo Poliziano, Greek and Latin Poetry

87.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, The Virtues and Vices of Speech

88.  Pier Candido, Lives of the Milanese Tyrants

89.  Angelo Poliziano, Miscellanies, Volume I

90.  Angelo Poliziano, Miscellanies, Volume II

91.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Dialogues, Volume II:  Actius

92.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Dialogues, Volume III:  Aegidius and Asinus

93.  Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; Oration

94.  Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, Ecologues; Gardens of the Hesperides

95.  Paolo Giovio, Portraits of Learned Men

96.  Leon Battista Alberti, Biographical and Autobiographical Writings

97.  Leon Battista Alberti, Dinner Pieces, Volume I (March 2024)

98.  Leon Battista Alberti, Dinner Pieces, Volume II (March 2024)



Saturday, September 20, 2014

The Franklin Library's 100 Greatest Books of All Time

Just now realized that I didn't have a corresponding list of The Franklin Library's 100 Greatest Books of All Time like I do for Easton Press's edition.  Since I own several Franklin Library books, thought I'd highlight those here, so whenever I do stumble across a Franklin Library edition in a local bookstore, I can make sure that I don't already own it in either this edition or the Easton Press version:

1.  The Iliad by Homer

2.  The Odyssey by Homer

3.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (own Easton Press edition)

4.  The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

5.  Confessions of St. Augustine (own Easton Press edition)

6.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

7.  The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

8.  Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

9.  The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

10.  Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

11.  Five Comedies by Aristophanes

12.  Don Quixote de La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (own Easton Press edition)

13.  Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (own Easton Press edition)

14.  Stories of Guy de Maupassant (own Easton Press edition)

15.  Plays by Anton Chekhov

16.  Politics by Aristotle (own Easton Press edition)

17.  Selected Writings of Sir Francis Bacon

18.  Oresteia by Aeschylus

19.  Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac (own in separate Franklin Library edition)

20.  Tales From The Arabian Nights by Sir Richard F. Burton

21.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (own Easton Press edition)

22.  Analects of Confucius (own Easton Press edition)

23.  Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (own Easton Press edition)

24.  The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (own Easton Press edition)

25.  The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (own Easton Press edition)

26.  Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

27.  The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (own Easton Press edition)

28.  The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

29.  Plays by Euripides

30.  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

31.  Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

32.  Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (own Easton Press edition)

33.  Essays of Michel de Montaigne

34.  Philosophical Works of René Descartes

35.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

36.  The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

37.  Collected Poems (1909–1962) of T. S. Eliot

38.  Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (own Easton Press edition)

39.  Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (own Easton Press edition)

40.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

41.  Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (own Easton Press edition)

42.  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin

43.  The Basic Works of Sigmund Freud (own in separate Franklin Library edition)

44.  The Poetry of Robert Frost

45.  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (own Easton Press edition)

46.  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (own Easton Press edition)

47.  Poems of John Donne

48.  Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (own Easton Press edition)

49.  Favorite Household Tales of the Brothers GrimmBrothers Grimm (own Easton Press edition)

50.  The Federalist by Hamilton, Madison and Jay

51.  The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (own Easton Press edition)

52.  The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

53.  Jane Eyre By Charlotte Brontë (own Easton Press edition)

54.  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (own Easton Press edition)

55.  A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

56.  Plays by Henrik Ibsen (own Easton Press edition)

57.  The Ambassadors by Henry James

58.  Nine Tales of Henry James

59.  Ulysses by James Joyce (own in separate Franklin Library edition)

60.  The Trial by Franz Kafka

61.  Poems of John Keats (own Easton Press edition)

62.  Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

63.  The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (own Easton Press edition)

64.  Five Stories of Thomas Mann

65.  Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (own Easton Press edition)

66.  Eight Comedies by William Shakespeare (own Easton Press edition)

67.  Poems of William Shakespeare

68.  Six Histories by William Shakespeare (own Easton Press edition)

69.  Six Tragedies by William Shakespeare (own Easton Press edition)

70.  Political Writings of John Stuart Mill

71.  Paradise Lost by John Milton (own Easton Press edition)

72.  Seven Plays by Molière

73.  Four Plays of Eugene O’Neill

74.  Political Writings of Thomas Paine (own Easton Press edition)

75.  Pensees by Blaise Pascal

76.  Satyricon by Petronius

77.  The Republic by Plato

78.  Twelve Illustrious Lives by Plutarch

79.  Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (own Easton Press edition)

80.  Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

81.  Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

82.  Six Tragedies by Jean Racine

83.  Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau (own Easton Press edition)

84.  Three Plays by Bernard Shaw

85.  The Tragedies of Sophocles

86.  Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (own Easton Press edition)

87.  Nana by Emile Zola

88.  Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

89.  The Red and the Black by Stendhal (own Easton Press edition)

90.  Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

91.  Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

92.  Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (own Easton Press edition)

93.  Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (own Easton Press edition)

94.  Walden by Henry D. Thoreau (own Easton Press edition)

95.  The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

96.  Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (own Easton Press edition)

97.  The Aeneid by Virgil

98.  Candide by Voltaire

99.  Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats (own Easton Press edition)

100.  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (own Easton Press edition)


13 of these editions owned, plus 3 more Franklin Library books in other editions and 43 Easton Press editions of the same or similar work isn't too shabby, I suppose.  But I'll resume occasional collecting in the near future, as I like the Franklin Library bindings just a little bit more (slightly thicker leather for many of these), not to mention the press is defunct, making these books scarcer than the Easton Press ones, which are still available for subscription order.  I also own a further 7 Franklin Library books that are not listed here.  That, plus the 77 Easton Press editions I own, makes my current leatherbound edition count exactly 100 at the moment.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

What would a starter list of "100 Great Novels of the 21st century" look like in 2014?

Almost six years ago, I wrote a post about "100 20th Century Fictions:  A Starter List," where I listed 100 books (without any ranking) that I thought deserved such a lofty consideration.  At the time, I did not consider it to be a "definitive" list (such things never really should be anything more than a gauge of a particular person/group's thoughts on a particular day), but rather as something meant to stoke curiosity.  If I were constructing such a list today, there would be several changes made to reflect my reading in the interim (more non-Anglo-American literature and certainly more women writers).

But what about more recent literature?  If I were to construct a list of 50/100 "21st Century Fictions" as a starter list for discussion, what works would you reasonably expect to be listed there?  Would the criteria differ due to a relative lack of influence on other writers/works?  Would certain styles and themes be emphasized more?  I might take a stab at this over the weekend, but I am curious to see which works should be considered for any such sort of list (who knows, it might lead to myself or others to investigating what is listed!). 


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

List of books/movies purchased/already owned that will be part of the World War I literature review project

Although I have most of the same titles listed over at World War I Literature, Art, and Cinema, I thought I would list here the titles I've already acquired for the review project.  Bolded titles indicate those I have already read in the past and italics the ones I'm currently working on at this time:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (novel; 1930 cinema)

Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring (cultural history)

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (history)

Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End (novel trilogy)

Liviu Rebreanu, The Forest of the Hanged (cinema; novel will be read in Romanian)

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, The Four Riders of the Apocalypse (novel)

Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That (memoir that in part covers his experiences in World War I)

Henri Barbusse, Under Fire (novel)

Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Svejk (novel)

John Dos Passos, The Three Soldiers (novel)

Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (novel)

Mario Rigoni Stern, Storia di Tönle/L’anno della vittoria (novels)

Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War (novel)

Pat Barker, Regeneration trilogy (novels)

Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (poetry – will cover his other major war poems as well)

Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (novel); The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon (poetry)

Greg King and Sue Woolmans, The Assassination of the Archduke:  Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World (history)

R.C. Sherriff, Journey’s End (play)

Miroslav Krleža, Hrvatski Bog Mars (short stories; title translated from Serbo-Croatian is The Croatian God Mars)

Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road (novel)

Tim Cross (ed.), The Lost Voices of World War I:  An International Anthology of Writers, Poets & Playwrights (anthology)
 
Sergeant York (movie)

H.G. Well, Mr. Britling Sees It Through (novel)

Alexander Soltzhenitsyn, August 1914 (novel)

Alan Karmer, Dynamic of Destruction:  Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (history)

Vejas Liulevicius,  War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (history)

C.S. Forester, Brown on Resolution (novel)

Jessica Gregson, The Angel Makers

Philippe Claudel, Les âmes grises (novel)


To these I expect to add at least 100-150 more over the next couple of years.  Yes, there's a very good reason why I decided to set up a dedicated site for this (plus I might for the first time ever solicit contributions from others, particularly for certain works that would benefit from having multiple perspectives presented).


Friday, September 20, 2013

Here is a list of books that I would love to see readers/reviewers consider

I have been fairly quiet the past couple of days, but that's in part because I have spent time looking at what others' have had to say about books in a variety of genres.  The Booker Prize shortlist and the National Book Award longlists have been announced (and yes, I will be reading as many of the shortlisted titles as possible, like last year, and most, if not all, of the longlisted fiction and YA titles).  There have been discussions elsewhere of other interesting books (and conversely, how certain segments of the reading population will not consider reading X because of Y...or XX). 

These have somehow melded in my mind to create a mish-mash of thoughts, but instead of elaborating on it right now, I thought I'd challenge those reading this, whether they are reviewers or just "average" readers, to choose one book from this list and tell me in the comments which book it is.  Then, if possible, they can talk about it on their blog, on Twitter, Facebook (granted, I likely won't be able to read most FB entries unless they are public), or anywhere else that they feel so inclined.  All I ask is that I hear about this, as I am curious to see what readers think.

Now this list will purposely be diverse in a number of ways, so hopefully there will be something of interest for someone (and hopefully more than one title will be unfamiliar, at least until investigated further).  So here goes:

Shani Boianjiu, The People of Forever are not Afraid

Leena Krohn, Tainaron

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria

Nimad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar

Sherman Alexie, Blasphemy

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince

Liliana Bodoc, The Days of the Deer

Milorad Pavić, Second Body

Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers are at Home

Kate DiCamillo, Flora and Ulysses 


Was originally going to write 5, but a few more immediately came to mind, so here's a list of 10.  Should be interesting to see which works are chosen and why.  Let me (us?) know!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Lists related to the announcement of the Booker Prize longlist

Now that the Booker Prize longlist has been released (I've only read Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being), there has already been some discussion regarding this list.  Here are some lists that could cover what someone might have derived from researching the longlist:

Lists of women on the longlist

Lists of nationalities within the Commonwealth

Lists of elderly people

Lists of new writers

Lists of those writers in the midst of a mid-life crisis

Lists of those who recently gave birth

Lists of those who wear scarves for their publicity photos

Lists of those who have snubbed "genre"

Lists of those who talk about writing a "genre" story

Lists of those who cite an online The Guardian article as their basis of judging the Booker longlist

Lists of the bald or balding

Lists of the hirsute

Lists of those whose recent familial loss spurred their writing

Lists of those whose drug habits fueled their creative energies

Lists of  Oxbridge graduates

Lists of monarchist writers

Lists of republican writers

Lists of cat owners

Lists of dog owners

Lists of the morbidly obese

Lists of the anorexic

Lists of those writers who overcome great odds, like being born into a bourgeois family

Lists of those writers most likely to have a hungover now after learning that their book was selected for consideration

Lists that summarize other lists

Lists that have nothing at all to do with the individual writers and everything to do with real and imagined enemies

Lists that speculate on which writers are secret Squirrelists


Hopefully these summaries of hypothetical (and real) lists might place the Booker Prize longlist in some perspective.  Pardon me while I try to purge my mind of any thought of lists, rankings, and sundry associations.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

An interesting "Best of the 20th Century English Language" list

This one that HTML Giant copy/pasted from Larry McCaffery (who has a post explaining each of his 100 selections) had some surprising choices on it.  Food for debate, I presume?  Bold for books read, italics for those owned but not yet read (just over 50 read, if I counted correctly):

1. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, 1962.
2. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922.
3. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon, 1973.
4. The Public Burning, Robert Coover, 1977.
5. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929.
6. Trilogy (Molloy [1953], Malone Dies [1956], The Unnamable [1957]), Samuel Beckett.
7. The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein, 1925.
8. Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine [1962], Nova Express [1964], The Ticket that Exploded, [1967]), William S. Burroughs.
9. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955.
10. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, 1941.
11. Take It or Leave It, Raymond Federman, 1975.
12. Beloved, Toni Morrison, 1986.
13. Going Native, Stephen Wright, 1994.
14. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowery, 1949.
15. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927.
16. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, William H. Gass, 1968.
17. JR, William Gaddis, 1975.
18. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952.
19. Underworld, Don DeLillo, 1997.
20. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 1926.
21. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916.
22. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.
23. The Ambassadors, Henry James, 1903.
24. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence, 1921.
25. 60 Stories, Donald Barthelme, 1981.
26. The Rifles, William T. Vollmann, 1993.
27. The Recognitions, William Gaddis, 1955.
28. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902.
29. Catch 22, Joseph Heller, 1961.
30. 1984, George Orwell, 1949.
32. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston, 1937.
32. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, 1936.
33. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany, 1975.
34. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939.
35. The Four Elements Tetrology (earth: The Stain [1984], fire: Entering Fire [1986], water: The Fountains of Neptune [1992], and air: The Jade Cabinet [1993]), Rikki Ducornet.
36. Cyberspace Trilogy (Neuromancer [1984], Count Zero [1986], Mona Lisa Overdrive [1988]), William Gibson.
37. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934.
38. On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957.
39. Lookout Cartridge, Joseph McElroy, 1974.
40. Crash, J.G. Ballard, 1973.
41. Midnight’s Children, Salmon Rushdie, 1981.
42. The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth, 1960.
43. Genoa, Paul Metcalf, 1965.
44. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932.
45. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster, 1924.
46. Double or Nothing, Raymond Federman, 1972.
47. At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien, 1951.
48. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, 1965.
49. The Cannibal, John Hawkes, 1949.
50. Native Son, Richard Wright, 1940.
51. The Day of the Locust, Nathaniel West, 1939.
52. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes, 1936.
53. Housekeeping, Marilynn Robinson, 1981.
54. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1969.
55. Libra, Don DeLillo, 1986.
56. Wise Blood, Flannery O’Conner, 1952.
57. Always Coming Home, Ursula K. LeGuin, 1985.
58. USA Trilogy (The 42nd Parallel [1930], 1919 [1932], and The Big Money [1936]), John Dos Passos.
59. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing, 1962.
60. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951.
61. Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett, 1929.
62. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver, 1981.
63. Dubliners, James Joyce, 1915.
64. Cane, Jean Toomer, 1925.
65. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905.
66. Ridley Walker, Russell Hoban, 1982.
67. Checkerboard Trilogy (Go in Beauty [1955], The Bronc People [1958], Portrait of the Artist with 26 Horses [1962]), William Eastlake.
68. The Franchiser, Stanley Elkin, 1976.
69. New York Trilogy (City of Glass [1985], Ghosts [1986], The Locked Room [1986]), Paul Auster.
70. Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins, 1986.
71. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, 1995.
72. The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus, 1996.
73. Tlooth, Harry Mathews, 1966.
74. Pricksongs and Descants, Robert Coover, 1969.
75. The Man in the High Castle, Phillip K. Dick, 1962.
76. American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis, 1988.
77. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles, 1969.
78. The Book of the New Sun Tetrology (The Shadow of the Torturer [1980], The Claw of the Conciliator [1981], The Sword of Lictor [1982], The Citadel of the Autarch [1982]), Gene Wolfe.
79. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962.
80. Albany Trilogy (Legs [1976], Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game [1978], Ironweed [1983]), William Kennedy.
81. The Tunnel, William H. Gass, 1995.
82. Omensetter’s Luck, William H. Gass, 1966.
83. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles, 1948.
84. Darconville’s Cat, Alexander Theroux, 1981.
85. Up, Ronald Sukenick, 1968.
86. Yellow Back Radio Broke Down, Ishamel Reed, 1969.
87. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson, 1919.
88. You Bright and Risen Angels, William T. Vollmann, 1987.
89. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, 1948.
90. The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop., Robert Coover, 1968.
91. Creamy and Delicious, Steve Katz, 1971.
92. Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee, 1980.
93. More than Human, Theodore Sturgeon, 1951.
94. Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino, 1979.
95. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe, 1929.
96. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser, 1925.
97. Easy Travels to Other Planets, Ted Mooney, 1981.
98. Tours of the Black Clock, Steve Erickson, 1989.
99. In Memoriam to Identity, Kathy Acker, 1990.
100. Hogg, Samuel R. Delany, 1996.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Interesting Top 100 book list from Lit Net

They recently did a new reader poll of favorite books and while I've read the majority of them, more unread on this list than I expected.  Needless to say, it's mostly Euro-American in focus.  Bold for books I've read, italics for those I own but haven't yet read, and plain for unread/not owned works:

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

24. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin (read first volume, own others)
25. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

27. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
28. Emma by Jane Austen
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
30. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

31. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
35. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
37. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
40. The Trial by Franz Kafka

41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
42. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
43. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
44. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
45. Fictions by J.L. Borges
46. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

49. The Magus by John Fowles
50. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
51. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
52. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
53. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
54. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
55. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
56. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
57. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey

68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy

76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramagos
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne

83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
86. 2666 by Robert Bolano

87. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
88. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino

89. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
90. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
91. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
92. The Castle by Franz Kafka
93. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
94. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
95. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
96. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
97. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
98. Confessions by Rousseau
99. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
100. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

How many have you read/own?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Books to read/re-read before the end of the year

While I'm not the sort of reviewer that regularly schedules reads, I do often have a few goals in mind for a week, month, or even a year.  Some goals are modest, like reviewing a certain book just before its release date, while others are a bit grandiose (like reading a novel, poem, and play in five different languages – I lack only reading a play in Italian in achieving this).  But I rarely ever set a specific date for posting about a specific work.

Therefore, with that in mind, here are the books that I'm hoping to have read or re-read before the year is out.  Tell me if you think this might be a bit ambitious (mind you, I plan on reading dozens of books around these):

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento (re-read)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El juego del Ángel (re-read)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El prisionero del cielo (copy should arrive in the next 2-7 days)
Umberto Eco, La Misteriosa Flamma della Regina Loana (hoping copy arrives in the next few days)
Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (re-read)
Umberto Eco, Тајанствени Пламен Краљице Лоане (Serbian translation I received as a gift)
Milorad Pavić, Drugo Telo (re-read)
Milorad Pavić, Second Body (re-read)
Milorad Pavić, Unique Item - Delta Novel
Milorad Pavić, Blue Book
Catherynne M. Valente, The Habitation of the Blessed
Catherynne M. Valente, The Folded World
Caitlín R. Kiernan, Two Worlds and In Between
Geoff Ryman, Paradise Tales
Marcel Proust, volumes 3-7, in both French and English, of In Search of Lost Time
Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
J.M. McDermott, Women and Monsters
Christopher Bollen, Lightning People
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Péter Nádas, Parallel Stories (in-progress)
Various, The King James Edition of the Bible (halfway through)

Hopefully, I can get some of these done by the end of the month, while others will be spread over the following month, as I won't be working much this winter and therefore should have plenty of time for reading and reviewing and maybe even translating.

Which of these have you read?  Which would you like to see receive a full review from me?

Monday, September 05, 2011

Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

This list was published back in the late 1990s, but it still is a markedly different list than what Anglo-American publications produced around the same time.  Bold for the titles read (whether in the original or in translation), italics for the ones owned but not yet read, and plain for unread works.

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1.              The Stranger    Albert Camus     
2.              Remembrance of Things Past     Marcel Proust           
3.              The Trial    Franz Kafka  
4.              The Little Prince    Antoine de Saint-Exupéry   
5.              Man's Fate           André Malraux         
6.              Journey to the End of the Night            Louis-Ferdinand Céline       
7.              The Grapes of Wrath      John Steinbeck
8.              For Whom the Bell Tolls             Ernest Hemingway  
9.              Le Grand Meaulnes         Alain-Fournier          
10.          Froth on the Daydream    Boris Vian      
11.          The Second Sex     Simone de Beauvoir
12.          Waiting for Godot            Samuel Beckett         
13.          Being and Nothingness     Jean-Paul Sartre       
14.          The Name of the Rose    Umberto Eco
15.          The Gulag Archipelago   Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn       
16.          Paroles     Jacques Prévert        
17.          Alcools      Guillaume Apollinaire          
18.          The Blue Lotus    Hergé
19.          The Diary of a Young Girl           Anne Frank   
20.          Tristes Tropiques            Claude Lévi-Strauss
21.          Brave New World            Aldous Huxley          
22.          Nineteen Eighty-Four     George Orwell           
23.          Asterix the Gaul      René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
24.          The Bald Soprano           Eugène Ionesco        
25.          Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality         Sigmund Freud        
26.          The Abyss/Zeno of Bruges         Marguerite Yourcenar         
27.          Lolita         Vladimir Nabokov    
28.          Ulysses     James Joyce   
29.          The Tartar Steppe          Dino Buzzati  
30.          The Counterfeiters         André Gide    
31.          The Horseman on the Roof        Jean Giono     
32.          Belle du Seigneur            Albert Cohen            
33.          One Hundred Years of Solitude            Gabriel García Márquez       
34.          The Sound and the Fury            William Faulkner      
35.          Thérèse Desqueyroux    François Mauriac      
36.          Zazie in the Metro           Raymond Queneau  
37.          Confusion of Feelings     Stefan Zweig
38.          Gone with the Wind        Margaret Mitchell    
39.          Lady Chatterley's Lover             D. H. Lawrence          
40.          The Magic Mountain       Thomas Mann          
41.          Bonjour Tristesse            Françoise Sagan       
42.          Le Silence de la mer        Vercors          
43.          Life: A User's Manual      Georges Perec           
44.          The Hound of the Baskervilles      Arthur Conan Doyle
45.          Under the Sun of Satan Georges Bernanos    
46.          The Great Gatsby            F. Scott Fitzgerald     
47.          The Joke   Milan Kundera         
48.          A Ghost at Noon/Contempt        Alberto Moravia       
49.          The Murder of Roger Ackroyd   Agatha Christie         
50.          Nadja        André Breton            
51.          Aurelien   Louis Aragon
52.          The Satin Slipper            Paul Claudel
53.          Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello        
54.          The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui             Bertolt Brecht           
55.          Friday       Michel Tournier       
56.          The War of the Worlds    H. G. Wells
57.          If This Is a Man/Survival in Auschwitz             Primo Levi     
58.          The Lord of the Rings     J. R. R. Tolkien           
59.          Les Vrilles de la vigne (French)      Colette      
60.          Capital of Pain     Paul Éluard   
61.          Martin Eden        Jack London  
62.          Ballad of the Salt Sea      Hugo Pratt    
63.          Writing Degree Zero       Roland Barthes         
64.          The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum     Heinrich Böll
65.          The Opposing Shore       Julien Gracq  
66.          The Order of Things       Michel Foucault        
67.          On the Road         Jack Kerouac
68.          The Wonderful Adventures of Nils       Selma Lagerlöf          
69.          A Room of One's Own     Virginia Woolf           
70.          The Martian Chronicles    Ray Bradbury           
71.          The Ravishing of Lol Stein          Marguerite Duras    
72.          The Interrogation           J. M. G. Le Clézio        
73.          Tropisms     Nathalie Sarraute     
74.          Journal, 1887–1910       Jules Renard
75.          Lord Jim   Joseph Conrad          
76.          Écrits        Jacques Lacan           
77.          The Theatre and its Double       Antonin Artaud        
78.          Manhattan Transfer       John Dos Passos       
79.          Ficciones   Jorge Luis Borges     
80.          Moravagine          Blaise Cendrars        
81.          The General of the Dead Army      Ismail Kadare           
82.          Sophie's Choice   William Styron          
83.          Gypsy Ballads      Federico García Lorca          
84.          The Strange Case of Peter the Lett       Georges Simenon     
85.          Our Lady of the Flowers             Jean Genet    
86.          The Man Without Qualities        Robert Musil
87.          Furor and Mystery          René Char     
88.          The Catcher in the Rye    J. D. Salinger  
89.          No Orchids For Miss Blandish    James Hadley Chase            
90.          Blake and Mortimer        Edgar P. Jacobs         
91.          The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge           Rainer Maria Rilke   
92.          Second Thoughts            Michel Butor
93.          The Burden of Our Time/The Origins of Totalitarianism      Hannah Arendt        
94.          The Master and Margarita         Mikhail Bulgakov      
95.          The Rosy Crucifixion       Henry Miller
96.          The Big Sleep       Raymond Chandler  
97.          Amers       Saint-John Perse      
98.          Gaston/Gomer Goof      André Franquin       
99.          Under the Volcano          Malcolm Lowry         
100.    Midnight's Children    Salman Rushdie 

OK, read just over a third of these.  How many have you read/own?  Which ones of the non-highlighted titles would you recommend to me and/or others and why? 
 
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