The Year of 1984 is Complete!

So, I have completed 1984. One depressing book about the world destroying a man. Thank God our world is nowhere near that stage...ok, well, it is, but we do have our certain freedoms.

Speaking with a coworker yesterday, it was interesting to know that she had read 1984 before 1984 - she had felt some relief when 1984 came and went and was not anything like what like the author had predicted.

Besides the 50 pages I had to skip, this was a fascinatingly evil book that I would recommend to anyone.

Next up, The Ginger Man.

Guilt, too much Guilt...

So, I did something horrible. Something I swore I would never do.


I skipped, yes, skipped three pages in 1984. It goes against everything I believe in when reading a book. I skipped approx. 50 pages, 50 wasted pages that Mr. Wells could definitely have done without - the part where he writes out the philosophy of Oceania - confusing and aggravating. I put down the book for numerous weeks (as you can tell by my lack of blogging), and then made fateful decision that if I am ever to get through this project, I just had to skip it. So I did...skimming mildly still...but, lo and behold, when I get to the end, the auther describes Wilson as not having got anything out of the book, and was no better off than he was before in understanding.

That makes two of us! Whether I am lowering myself down to Wilson's level or not, I don't care. I need to get through it. And flying I am - through the torture of Wilson Smith, and the ideals and life of freedom as we know it.

There are only 15 ish pages left - I have a feeling this does not end well, as how can it? But I'm hoping...

Ughhhhh....

So, in the middle of 1984, and can't get past approx. 30 pages of political ramblings from the works of Mr. Goldstein. On and on and on and on and on. I am not one to give up on a challenge, nor one to skip a section of a book, so I will plough on, but, struggling at the moment. The Kindly Ones is also not a late night pure-entertainment read, but since I have Late Nights on Air signed out still, maybe I will start that.

Need...to...finish! At this rate, the list will take me a century to complete! And I have way too many things to do. I am NOT going to let 30 pages of political ramblings and philosophy stop me...this will hardly be the most challenging book on the list. I will prevail...just....tomorrow morning. Not tonight.

Loving it...forgetting it...

Ok, I am loving 1984. Although I'm finding the love story between the ages a little weird right now. The book is all about establishing suspicion, yet this love story happens out of the middle of no where. Odd, but otherwise good.

Along the same lines as The Children of Men movie, a genre of near future, realisitc disasters. Even though this book is supposedly set in 1984 (who really knows), it applies to today as well.

Enjoying it, enjoying...then forgetting it on my desk at work. What in the meantime? Must...have...something...to...read...

So, lo-and-behold, there is a book hold ready pick up - The Kindly Ones, by Jonathon Littell, full of sex, history, and war. Eight pages short of 1000, it's a hefty hardcover. Can I read it in conjunction with 1984...I think so!!!

Well...it's not any of the books I mentioned...

It's......

1984!! By George Orwell - very excited by the first couple of pages. Feel like it's a bit Wrinkle In Time ish.

I'm also trying to figure out to knit, workout, and read, all at the same time, to finish all of my projects :)

Off to bed...let's see if I can get past 2 more pages....

Back Atter

Ok, so, after another viewing of Julie&Julia (which was still just as inspiring and comical as the first time) and a little nudging from the b/f, I am back at it, and I am going to finish this project, damn it!


To be honest, I have been reading, although not as much as I'd like to - I was distracted by numerous other books. So, after having 12 or so sitting on my table from the library, all acquiring library fines, I finished one - Away, by Amy Bloom. Definitely worth reading, and a very interesting story of a life of beauty and hardship, and one very strong woman. A refreshing read, really, and a surprising end. Those who love historical fiction novels like I do, this is a quick read for you.

I have also started Suite Francais, a novel in which the author was an older Anne Frank, written about the war, during the war. A fascinating read, yet again for the historical fiction fans. And, yet again, it is late back to the library, but worth returning, paying the fine, and renewing if at all possible.



Now, I think my interest has waned a little from the Board`s list - time to hunker down, skip the library fines, and read what I have borrowed from others: from Andrew, the lovely Ayn Rand novels, of which there are several on the list. From Cindy, The Hunt for Red October. Or maybe it`s time to start Ulyssess, or Kim. I will see what grabs me...interest is waning here at 10:45 pm...

Next book...

Ok, so I am like a kid at the candy store when it comes to the library...as I think I've already mentioned in this blog. It's the beginning of September...the end of the triathlon world for me, the start of school, and the crisp cool air that has the promise of sharpened pencils and chalkboards. I miss school. And with the heavy amount of rain heading my way, I am going to pick up my reading...see how many books I can read before Christmas.

As mentioned before, I have quite a few books signed out, borrowed, and ready to take back. So, I have no idea which one I will go to tonight. It's going to be a mood thing. Do I want to read something like the last book, something enjoyable, something completely different? Ahhh, the stress.

Well, I take comfort in the fact that in the end, I have to read them all, so I can pick and choose from what I have now...the last month or two of this probably will be the most painful, struggling through some of the thrilling (not) non-fiction I see on the list. But, like the hill climb today, the steepest part is at the top, but in the end it has the best view.

Fall, here I come.

Depressing...

Well, if you want a full dose of absolute realism, you've got it with Tobacco Road! A story about a guy who just can't see reality, yet it's all around him - I have to give ol' Jeeter credit - he has hope. In the end, God, or whomever, decides it's time to end his miserable existence by burning his house down. So much for prayer and believing!

At this time in my life where everything seems to be going down hill, and I don't have a lot of hope in fixing it, I can almost admire Jeeter to be blissfully ignorant in his misery.

Jeeter was a courageous man, although stupid, based on this example:

"The urge he felt to stir the ground and to plant cotton in it, and after that to sit in the shade during the hot months watching the plants sprout and grow, was even greater than the pains of hunger in his stomach".

Time for me to get some hope! If you like dark humour, this book is for you. Onto the next book.

Someone told me recently that I need to work on finishing things. I really need to finish this project.

Mind Calm

So, I left my book out in car. It's late. I don't want to get it. I'm going to bed with another book....hmmm...which one shall I pick...(I have 6 or so out)....yay, my candystore of books :)

AAAACKKK! They Are Ripping My Library Apart!!!

Ok, so they are apparently going under renos, but I feel almost physically affronted to find the returns bin next to the security guard (who also is not a huge fan of the renos which are already apparently 2 weeks late). Will it make it better??? According to him, he is a skeptic as the plans have changed 4 times over the last couple of weeks. We shall see.

Now, onto my next book. I picked up "Loving" by Henry Green, written about the life of domestic servants during WW2 in the English country side. It's got a corny 1980s movie cover of those actors, I suspect. This is number 89 on the board's list.\

There is then Erskine Caldwell's novel "Tobacco Road" about the Lesters, a white family in the early 1930s living around Augusta, Georgia who are destitutely poor, apparently occupied by hunger, sexual longings, and fear they will descend to equate with black families, to sum up the back of the novel. This one is number 91 on the board's list.

Hmmm...

I think it comes down to the first sentence of the book:

Loving: "Once upon a day and old butler called Eldon lay dying in his room attended by the head housemaid, Miss Agatha Burch."

Tobacco Road: "Lov Bensey trudged homeward through the deep white sand of the gully-washed tobacco road with a sack of winter turnips on his back".

Although hard to decided between whom has the best name, either Eldon or Lov, I think I'll go with the Tobacco Road. Lov seems like he belongs in Loving....

At the Liberry....

So, I'm done. Finished number 100 on the board list, The Maginficent Ambersons. Alas, due to a fantastic birthday dinner of Chinese for a friend, I am a little late returning the book, but, for a 30c fine, I'm ok with that.

Tonight, as the pool is closed early unexpectedly, I decided to come to the library early, pick up my hold, and enjoy a tea as I complete my blog on the last book. True, I do have 5 books at home, but that's my style - I like the comfort of the fact that if I happen to finish a book at 3 am, I can then start another one.

I know, I'm crazy.

I just love being surrounded by books. Ideally, I would buy every one of them so I can add them to the library of my future, where I have ladders, a fireplace, and a comfy chair! Alas, I'll go for the free route (until they are overdue, of course). In the meantime, I'll enjoy this massive glass building that sounds like you are in a vacuum...I have been amazed by this building ever since I moved down here. Such light, such erethral quality unlike any new building. I love the way the sunlight streams during the day, and how you can watch people on many floors above you - I like to imagine what they are reading.

The Magnificent Ambersons is a novel that ends with several lasting lessons that have are summarized quickly in the last several pages, as if Booth just couldn't handle ending the book without leaving his legacy of advice to all who would hopefully read his book.

It's telling of the author, when he writes in the last 5 pages, how he states:

"The Ambersons had passed, and the new people would pass, and the new people that came after them, and then the next new ones, and the next - and the next -......'There's nothing in this family business,' George told him confidentially. 'Even George Washington is only something in a book."

The ending is perhaps sad, a character that learns his lessons, but redeems himself some toward the end. Unrequited love and regret reigns supreme, but you go away with a little hope.

I would recommend reading this book for the protaganist, George Amberson Minafor, who is fantastically mocked by the author. The book, although written in 1918, draws many a parallel and offers view points shared by many today on the modern world, and the "pre-automobile" lifestyle. Short, and easy to read. Definitely a fantastic book.

Based on a coworker's suggestion the other day, I've decided to make my own top 100 out of the 400 I am reading. This would definitely be on it.

Awww....do I have to?

Ok, so my first inclination when walking in the door after work today was: read. And never get up until I have finished this book. The MA is a short book, comprising of 263 pages of surprising wit, and I hate to put it down.

But alas, at 7:30 I decided to head on down to do my training swim. Beautfiul night, except for the policemen searching the water....

Driving to Distraction....

Ok, so this book has me putting off other duties, chores, etc. that I should really be doing, just to read one more page. The Tuesday library deadline is looming closer...and I don't want to restart the book.

I did, however, manage to get to the library - my favorite place in the world (go figure), and get 4 of my next books. They are all very small, especially compared to Atlas Shrugged and Ulyssess.

There are also several books that the library does not even have (which, with the size of the collection, is hard for me to believe. So it looks like I'll have to do some training and hunting before getting to them.

As I've had such a "magnificent" time with this book so far, and it was no. 100, I have decided to go bottomish upwards in my search for the next book (that's me, always starting, never finishing before starting on a new project - in this case, it's all for the greater good). Some books with pretty covers, a couple of international themes which I am of course excited about, for anyone who knows me.

Getting a laptop and rid of my stuffy computer desk has really helped to up my blogging - and the b/f being away also helps. It's also a way to justify not doing my chores....

A couple of noteworthy notes....

Chapter VII

"Git a hoss! Git a hoss!" Shout the children as the "horseless carriage" goes through town - sceptics of the inventor of the first car...going around prior to rubber tires blown up with air. What they were using, it doesn't say....

Chapter IX

"In his bitterness, George uttered a significant monosyllable."

I love writing from early 1900's...Let's just say I have been known to utter a significant monosyllable.

Back to groceries :(

The Morning Affair - Reading When you are supposed to be doing chores on a Sunday morning....

I have to say - The first 42 pages of this book have been wildly more amusing than The Great Gatsby!

Chapter I:

When the narrator is describing the Amberson's mansion, how fabulous does this sound: "A ballroom occupied most of the third story, and at one end of it was a carved walnut gallery for the musicians." How I would love to play in there, with the ladies twirling in waltzes of colour.

When describing the Ambersons: "And they eat these olives, too:green things they are, something like a hard plum, but a friend of mine told me they tasted a good deal like a bad hickory-nut. My wife says she's going to buy some; you got to eat nine and then you get to like 'em, she says. Well, I wouldn't eat nine bad hickory-nuts to get to like them, and I'm going to let these olives alone. Kind of a woman's dish, anyway..."

Well, I can say that this woman ain't no fan of a bad hickory-nut! How materialism started in the U.S....keeping up with the Jones'.

Chapter II:

baresark
n another word for → berserk → 2
(C19: literally: bare shirt)

I love this word, spelled the old way.

Pompous little Georgie Amberson says to the ladies smothering him with adoration: "Oh, go hire a hall!"

Ooohhh...I should use that one on my sister, that would go over well :)

And....the pressure

After watching Julia and Julie, or whatever, I feel that I should be writing more on this thing.

So, and update - apparently I have until Tuesday to finish the Magnificent Ambersons...apparently someone else would like to read it and therefore I cannot renew. Stupid library rules!

Hmmmm...I like challenges...dorky as it is. I have done a Twilight novel in a day (over 800 pages), I can certainly do this book (I believe approx. 200).

There is NO way I am incurring a fine over the last book on the Board`s List!

Book Number 100 - Is number 2

So, my next book (as it was the first to arrive at the library), is the The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, which apparently won the Pulitzer Prize in 1918. No idea what it's about, but it's book 100 on the fiction Board list.

I'm going to start this when I'm done The Diplomat's Wife.

The Great Gatsby...Not so Great??

So, it's over. Book number 1, the Great Gatsby, was, well, not so great, in my mind. Why this is at the top of the all time book list, I don't know.

Gatsby is supposed to be one of the greatest American characters of all-time, but all I can think is that we hardly end up knowing exactly who he is. Nick Carroway, his neighbor and narrator of the story, on the other hand - much more worthy of the title...

Apparently the title was chosen by the publisher, and not Fitzgerald - who wanted to call it, last minute, "Under the Red, White, and Blue"...a better name, but not best. Yes, it was set in America, yes, it was during boom-time 1920s, but Fitzgerald plays down the era besides the parties at Gatsby's house.

After all of it, it is amazing how a woman can crumble a great man. And that was it! Done...what makes Gatsby so great?

It was, however, an easy read, and pleasant to be able to finish on the ferry to Poet's Cove Resort this weekend.

On to book number 2. Although now I have been distracted by The Diplomat's Wife...chilling, romantic, with a swipe of history. What's not to love?

And I begin...

Jumping at the chance to start, I bought Ulysses by James Joyce, number 1 on the boards' list. It's a large book, and none-too-easy, I suspect. I think my renewals that the library would run out. So it will sit there until I'm motivated to start reading it.

I have started the prelogue of The Great Gatsby, number 2 on the board's list and number 13 on the reader's poll.

The prelogue touts Jay Gatsby to be America's greatest character of all time, so we shall see.

The Idea

On this lovely day off from work, after reading an add for a movie regarding a woman following the Julia Child cookbook, I decided I needed a life project of my own. My love in life? Reading. Boring, I know. There really is nothing like a good book, tea, and some rain to make a pleasant day disappear in no-time.

My idea: starting August 1st (I may cheat as I get excited and start these things early) 2009, I will read the 4 top 100 lists on the Random House website for fiction and non fiction:

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

voted by the public at the time, and a rival list set up by the board. As I hardly read non-fiction, and feel I need to read more, I have included the non-fiction lists to do as well.

My time line? 5 years. Whether or not I meet this, this is my goal. Who knows how realistic this is, but there are some duplications between the lists. I have also read a couple of the books already, so I will save those until the end, but as it has been a while since I have read them, I feel I should reread them again.

I also probably won't read them in order either. I hate the confines of reading by a list. I won't promise to finish all of them, but I will try. I also hate not finishing a book. It kills me to put it down and move on.

August 1, 2014, here I come. Wow. 2014 - crazy. Who knows what else will happen in my life between now and then, but I'm going to finish these lists (and hopefully be a little wiser :)).

Welcome to my blog - my first! I may not have any readers, but it's mostly for me to track my project.