What are you reading?

when guernsey invaded cayman it got ugly

How can you have a 100 top novels of all time list without Steinbeck? I’m triggered lol. To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, Count of Monte Cristo, Dorian Gray not top 100? Jeez.

Lots of good ones here though. I’m at 22 if I count Swann’s way, but I haven’t read all 7 (?) volumes of In Search of Lost Time. Am halfway through the Rings of Saturn and bored out of my mind. Have Persuasion on my shelf.

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Ditto. Steinbeck was my favourite American author until I discovered Sinclair Lewis. Have lost track of the number of times I have read Grapes of Wrath or watched the movie.

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Yes, in the comments in the accompanying article you hit some of the titles that were most mentioned as notable omissions (Grapes, Mockingbird, Monte Cristo). There were a couple of American authors mentioned as having been surveyed but it seems that most surveyed were British/Irish.

I’m at about 15. It’s very hard to tell because almost everything I think I’ve read, I would have read a long time ago - to the point that I don’t remember those books at all. And a few I was going to add, I kept off because I think I may have only seen in movie form.

next genre Woman’s Literature. Going with Milk Glass Moon - Adriana Trigiari

changing to Big Stone Gap, the first in the series

Just finished ā€œThe Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianosā€ by Kendra Langford Shaw. If the title doesn’t immediately appeal to you, then don’t bother reading the book, but if it does, then the promise of quirkiness is amply fulfilled.

There is an unevenness to the book: I am
willing to suspend my disbelief, but the world has to be internally consistent and this is where it frayed a little at times.

However, the weaknesses are more than overcome by the strengths. The writing style is both fun and easy to read, but also conveys some powerful moments, beautifully written, without breaking stride. I found myself glossing over them and then thinking, ā€œWhoa! What did she just do there?ā€ and going back to enjoy them again.

Overall, despite its weaknesses, I still greatly enjoyed it. I want to read it again.

Broken Country. I fear there’s going to be a bad ending for everyone.

next genre is Biography/ Autobiography/ Memoir. I chose A Million Little Pieces, which is controversial for being at least, exaggerated. Will still count it as Bio.

Also quite a few repeats. Virginia Woolf is one of my faves but she doesn’t need 4 slots. Orlando is frankly a pretty dumb book, for example. It’s cute, but you know not the cutest book of all time or anything.

Also, imo, if you’re going to try to increase minorities, you should maybe also consider some books from the past 100 years since that’s when we started educating minorities.

Dr. Fautus - Marlowe for Fantasy and then
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store McBride because I needed another book on my cruise

Really liked this book and Deacon King Kong.

I just finished reading his book ā€œThe Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Motherā€.

It’s his memoir about growing up with a white orthodox Jewish mother from Poland. Very good.

I think it was his first book, first published in 1996.

I have Color of Water on my bookshelf, I will get there

Top 100 guardian readers list for y’all.

I’m at 49. Relate to this list much more than the first one.

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I’m reading Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. I’m enjoying it so far.

I was reading Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb, but my loan expired on my e-reader and I accidentally left the book so I lost the loan and have to wait a few weeks to grab another copy.

I’ve read 23 on this list.

It’s interesting how they differ, with 3 of the top 5 not even appearing in the writers/critics top 100 .

I guess if you are spending most of your working hours in the world of books you will have somewhat different tastes than someone who reads a book every week or two. Professionals may read some books several times for research and if it’s a book that doesn’t really blossom until the 3rd or 4th read-through, most readers won’t experience that blossoming.

The same happens in the movie world. I still don’t get what all the fuss is about with Citizen Kane.

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42 of these

Same here