A post from turningturning.com, which appealed to me

Think less. Do more.





A recent idea for a project was going to require some problem-solving.

Things in my life this week feel extraordinarily complicated. Craziness is firing on all cylinders, and much of my free time has been drowned away in worry and doubt.

Resolving the project was going to push me beyond my current skill set. It was going to lead me out of my comfort zone and force me to take a hard look at my mistakes.

Originally, I tried to solve the problem the way I always do — by thinking, plotting, and obsessing over it.



Obsessing, though it is my preferred mode, is not always the best way to solve problems. Even cognitive ones.

Sometimes, taking a breath and getting to work is the only thing to do.



I needed this reminder — to stand still and tackle one hurdle at a time. To slow down and peacefully experiment. To stop rushing and obsessing and pushing. To take action, but calmly. To give myself permission to fail, but insist on trying anyway.

Think less. Do more.

Pause for thought!

When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
Spend some time alone every day.
Live a good, honourable life.
Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
Learn the rules, so you know how to break them properly.
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Be gentle with the Earth.
Remember the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

Must go and find something purple and a red hat... feeling old today

Perfume, the movie

OK I know I said I wasn't going to watch it, but on advisement I decided to give it a chance ( Thanks Andy)

I was very pleasantly surprised. I still think that Grenouille should be more grotesque but the lead actor was still incredibly disturbing. You could almost sense his detachment from the world.

The film was beautifully lit. The light shining in Grenouille's eyes was wonderful and a superb tool to show how he was able to hide. It was interesting, too, to see such a faithful adaptation of the book. In fact Anton has wondered where he can get extras work like that!!!!

The lesser roles were just as powerful. I loved Dustin Hoffman as the perfumier, once I had got over the fact that it was him, and Alan Rickman was perfect as Richis. And as usual the juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy was just right ( a cliche from A level English days) especially when each of his employers comes to a sticky end.

I should not be so fast to reject modern cinema. I have felt myself dumbing down lately though this has now been tempered by cryptic crosswords and listening to Woman's hour. My next home cinematic experience is the Pianist. Anton couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it until I explained this wasn't the PIANO, but the PIANIST!

Watch this space

Perfume and Kafka

Anton has finally finished reading "Kafka on the Shore' and found it as gripping and surreal as I did. Neither of us could put it down. It is one of the few books that we can discuss easily as it works on so many levels, and generally is very strange but compelling.

I've just finished 'Perfume'. I had wanted to see the film for a while but I am not sure I will bother now. Don't get me wrong I loved the book, but I can see how badly this could be Hollywoodised, especially as I already know that Grenouille in the film is far more attractive than he is described. I really enjoyed the fact that there were no heroes in this, just people trying to buck the system, to make easy money or just to survive. No one came out of it smelling of roses(!), and even the smallest characters had defining characteristics and flaws.

Unless by Carol Shields next, if I ever get my sewing projects finished

Twilight update

Having said that the Twilight series was a good introduction for young teenage girls to the challenge of romance, the fourth book has changed my mind somewhat. From chaste cuddles and stolen, breath taking kisses, the plot has developed into marriage, honeymoon and pregnancy ( with devil foetus) with some haste. Now the consummation is handled in a very vague fashion. Just like the old Mills and Boon epics of my youth, the door closes on the briefest of embraces, then our heroine wakes up to discover she is covered in bruises from the vampirical super strength of her husband.

I do approve of the fact that Bella, up until the pregnancy, was beginning to reconsider her desire to be a vampire and contemplating the human rites of passage she would miss if she changed. And I am enjoying the new narrative voice. LIstening to Jacob and his take on affairs is definitely preferable to the whimperings of Bella.

Twilight

Caitlin forced me to take a quiz on the film 'Twilight' this afternoon, out of her teenager magazine. I would have done anything to cheer her up as she was less than happy about her latest haircut. Turns out I know quite a lot about the Cullens and Quileute. Probably helps that I am in the middle of the fourth book. I got A+ and would have got full marks if only I knew about the music in the film. Well I knew about Debussy's Clair du Lune but not the modern stuff!

This series really is a phenomenon, almost as big as Harry Potter, and it has certainly gripped the teenage girl demographic. Caitlin and her friends are lapping it up, though my feeling is they have little understanding of the nuances of the story. The fourth book involves the wedding, honeymoon, pregnancy and doubtless 'death' of the heroine. Whilst there are no graphic details, I am not at all sure this is what my 11 year old should be reading!

It does make a change from all the stereotypical vampire and werewolf stories. Sparkly vampires and loyal werewolves are a completely new genre, even taking Buffy and Angel into the equation. The teenage angst of new school, new friends, hormones, love and the complication of relationships is handled in an accessible way, making it not unlike Buffy in its tone. That's probably why is appeals to this age group. It is very easy to read, or should I say gloss over !

I was pleasantly surprised at the cinema adaptation. It was incredibly true to the book; I suppose it had to be or there would have been hormonal complaints all over the place! There are some truly gorgeous people in the film, Edward, Jacob and Alice in particular. I have to pretend to prefer the older vampire 'Carlisle' although I think the werewolf will ultimately be the favourite.

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Marilyn!

You are a Marilyn -- "I am affectionate and skeptical."

Marilyns are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Be direct and clear


• * Listen to me carefully


• * Don't judge me for my anxiety


• * Work things through with me


• * Reassure me that everything is OK between us


• * Laugh and make jokes with me


• * Gently push me toward new experiences


• * Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a Marilyn

• * being committed and faithful to family and friends


• * being responsible and hardworking


• * being compassionate toward others


• * having intellect and wit


• * being a nonconformist


• * confronting danger bravely


• * being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a Marilyn

• * the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind


• * procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself


• * fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of


• * exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger


• * wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right


• * being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

Marilyns as Children Often

• * are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn


• * are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger


• * form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent


• * look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel


• * are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

Marilyns as Parents

• * are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty


• * are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence


• * worry more than most that their children will get hurt


• * sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Better?

Anton seems to be improving. He is happier and more relaxed in himself, is talking again about business ideas and is hardly talking to me apart from to complain that I buy too many coffees- inspite of the fact I went out for coffee once this week, with Marion from WW and spent a whole $6.50.

We went to the Sea food festival in Auckland yesterday because the kids were with Donna and we had to take the heart monitor back. Lots of mussels, oysters ( for the first time), champagne, salmon, clams. A cool event though I thought a bit expensive. Some decent music too. Heard a band called the Manukau project or something, very moroccan influenced! Must look them up online. Bet they are on myspace.

Ant was happy to spend nearly $100 there, as he saw it as something special, ie if I have coffee with him that is fine, on my own it isn't! Hmmmm

Roo seems very worried at the moment. He is very clingy, needs constant reassurance, lots of mommy time- with blocks of course. He even said he wanted to give up gym so that he could be with the family more. We disagreed and I offered to stay with him for the sessions so he felt better. This is the first time I have seen him really affected by Ant's situation. Maybe it has to do with Caitlin going to the big school and leaving him alone!

Short thoughts on books.

I loved Murakami's books. After Dark was simply delightful, beautifully written ( and translated) with sympathetic characters in an unusual environment. Kafka on the Shore was completely addictive, totally surreal and yet everything made sense. No matter how weird the events became, the characters remained true and thoughtful. I loved the way the story of the two main characters came together, merging the two journeys at a single point. I also loved the fact that the characters also took everything at face value, even the truck driver ( sorry no good with japanese names) who watched and participated in the weirdness from a slight distance.

Currently reading "New Moon'. Twilight was lovely and I am surprised by how well it was adapted for the screen. Not sure where the next one is going. Doesn't matter really as it is a light read, a rest from the more complicated novels I have read of late!

I have a

Cold

Another morning

And so another morning dawns, bright, sunny, hot.

I got up, emptied the dishwasher, fetched the paper, put the washing on and out, watered the plants with a little help from one of my little friends ( begins with R and ends in euben), had a shower, did a poo run ( in the garden picking up a couple of days worth) and then asked the immortal question 'How are you?" to two members of the family. One miserable face complained about her sunburn. She has very red shoulders but was told to apply cream before she left home and to reapply regularly, and another mum was in charge. Ah another day of misery guts. At least the cold and the tonsillitis are over!

The other one is monosyllabic, tense, pale and unaware that anyone exists apart from himself. He even spoke to his dad on skype and failed to mention me though he did get round to saying the kids are fine -yeah right they are both coping, just- and asking about his brother. I am getting to feel as though I don't matter, except to keep the house running, just, and to make sure food is on the table, providing I do it cheaply of course.

And then there is my duck murdering, oh and thrush murdering, dog. She and I have fallen out BIG TIME.

Needless to say taking her for a walk will calm me down and get me out of the house, though i will need to take the kids in case Ant decides to take himself to A&E! A good idea since I have a feeling the meltdown I have been expecting will happen very very soon.

New Year Resolve?

I have just returned from a seven a side football match, a successful one, played in glorious sunshine at seven o'clock in the evening. If there was a place to ride out the economic storm then surely it must be here. I am not saying life is easy, far from it, but the opportunities, the friendship, the support and the generosity of others make this a most beautiful country.

I don't really make resolutions, largely because it depends on which version of me makes them as to whether they last. I resolved last September to lose weight and I have been successful. I have resolved to start running again and, although it is proving tricky what with the kids being home and Ant either working or being ill, I have made a start. There is a pipeline path, virtually flat, which is 6.4km. Molly and I ran it in 50 minutes. I want to try it without her but she is reasonable company. I have entered a series of 10k runs, in the Auckland Series, as an incentive. I realise I need to be fit in order to cope with whatever life throws at me. Who knows what this year will bring.

We are all extremely worried about Anton. Right now he is experiencing palpitations every three or four minutes. He feels spaced and tense. He is going to see a cardiologist on Monday but has already said he feels he needs to go to A&E if only to sit and feel safe. It is affecting all of us hugely. Caitlin has been feeling as though she has to act like a mother to Reuben, to take the pressure off me, something Roo has taken none too kindly to. They understand about tightening our belts, especially as Ant has now given up on the Department of Corrections. I am sure it is a good thing for him and his health but it still raises issues. It will not help his sense of responsibility for us, for example. He seems to see everything in purely financial terms, without really stopping to consider how much we have already in our lives, in this place.

I am so unsure what to do for the best. I have resolved to be positive, to look forward. I mean to be mindful in both what I say and how I feel about myself. In the last few months I feel I have practiced that skill. I try to make less negative comments, to believe in myself and in my strengths. I have others to help me and remind me of my value, but it is still hard to accept compliments still. I wish I could be more like the kids who just say 'thank you' and earnestly believe what is said of them. They are BRILLIANT KIDS! I am so proud of them.




Couldn't resist this...

You Are "alt"

Some people might find you to be strange, mysterious, and even a bit off putting. You tend to be drawn to and influenced by alternative lifestyles. You're definitely not normal. Once people get to know you, they realize you're interesting, intriguing, and very intelligent. You have a lot of knowledge stored in that big brain of yours. Most of it is useless knowledge, but some of it is very useful.

What Keyboard Key Are You?

And...

Your Rising Sign is Aquarius

You are an interesting mix of introspective and outlandish. Waving your freak flag high, you really do things your own way. While you may seem distant, you care very deeply for humanity. You just have no tolerance for fools, slackers, or dullards. And while you're fairly misanthropic, many are drawn to you. Innovative and clever, people look to you for new ideas and trends.

What's Your Rising Sign?

The return of Blogthings!!!

You Find Some Parts of Your Family Frightening

You feel a bit overwhelmed by and resentful of your family right now. This is a good moment for you to take some time away from them. You feel like some members of your family are too unhappy. These family members tend to create unhappiness for everyone else. You believe that one of your relatives is truly evil. You wish to be protected from this person at all costs. You are honest and very outspoken with your family. You sometimes hurt feelings by saying things they don't want to hear.

How Do You Really Feel About Your Family?

Your Quirk Factor: 56%

You're a pretty quirky person, but you're just normal enough to hide it. Congratulations - you've fooled other people into thinking you're just like them!

How Quirky Are You?

You Are A Nightgown

You are a bit old fashioned and elegant. You aren't very casual. You are well mannered and modest. You don't make a fool of yourself. You tend to be a bit reserved, and it's hard for strangers to get to know you. You are likely to not let anyone outside your bedroom see you in your pajamas.

What Kind of Pajamas Are You?

You Should Live in Idaho

If you don't want to live in Idaho, you might also consider: Kansas Maryland New Mexico Oregon Virginia

What State Should You Live In?

Hmmm

Your Word is "Think"

You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations. And sometimes you feel like you don't have enough time to take it all in. You love learning. Whether you're in school or not, you're probably immersed in several subjects right now. When you're not learning, you're busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you've experienced.

What's Your Word?

Credit Crunch

I absolutely love this posting from one of my favourite blogs- the Age of Uncertainty. Made me smile.

The ladybird book of the recession

Wordle

Just discovered the website WWW.WORDLE.NET which takes a piece of text and displays it according to the number of times you use different words in it. I have just tried my last but one posting, about how being 40 sucks. Lots of middling words seemed to come out strongly- maybe, possibly- is this a good thing?

Not quite right yet

My challenge this week has been to add photos to the family blog and this one. Whilst I don't have the headers quite right yet, I am pleased with the results. The photo of the roller coaster is so cool I had to use it.



It has been a hard week since Anton's hospitalistion. I am still very worried about him, and the fact there is no diagnosis yet. The homeopath has given us injections of some remedy which I have to give him in the neck- so I am officially a pain in the neck! He has waves where he feels better but they never last for long and I am dreading the psychological issues that came with the last bout if this is Lyme.

I clung to some purpose yesterday, helping Elaine to do her Maths ( Gloss) testing. 4 hours and 12 kids down, only 16 to go! I felt I needed to leave Anton alone otherwise I would feel trapped. Even though I have been at home this past week I feel I have achieved very little. I still have curtains to make, and some painting to do and Idol costumes to perfect but relaxing on the sofa is nicer and less stressing for my OH.

Gave up on the Perfect Spy.It was far too long. The Arsonist's guide is really engaging and so far I have real sympathy for the main character. Hopefully this will last or my faith in my judgement will be sorely dented.

Being 40 sucks!

I haven't officially had a 40th birthday. I had a lovely 1920's cocktail party with 5 course meal all prepared by Anton...except for the cheese board of course.

Next morning, my actual birthday , Ant collapses with a suspected heart attack/angina/ who knows. Two days in hospital do not a celebration make. Lyme disease is most likely and he is currently undergoing any treatment he can find. Antibiotics, homeopathic, anthroposophic, herbal. Hm maybe the mixture is not a good thing.

I am coping but I am so aware of what happened the first time he suffered like this. I don't feel I can leave him alone for any length of time in case he has a panic attack or a relapse. Remembering him phoning me at Maria's will stay with me for a very very long time. I feel as though I want to cry, through helplessness mostly but possibly for very selfish reasons. I am having to shelve many of my activities to look after him, so I guess I feel I am missing out. Throwing my energies into keeping the house tidy doesn't seem to have helped. Maybe a good night's sleep will help.


On the book front, didn't really get 'Crash'. Not sure what I was expecting, possibly another Empire of the Sun but it so wasn't. Stuck with it to the end as it made compelling reading but can't say I enjoyed it. Ticked off another one of the 1000 though.

I have a few books cluttering up the bedside table. Am going through the 'not being able to focus on reading' phase so finding it a struggle. Trying to read 'the Perfect Spy' but may go for something shorter.

Hey ho. In NZ years I am officially only TWO (thanks Debs). I think I'll stick there

Is this what Eddie Izzard means by thinly read???

So here are the remaining books from the 1000 that I haven't read, just to remind myself of the classics I have missed. I have managed to cross two off the list withoutrealising it- Birdsong and Crash.

There will be a new list on the left of the next five I want to read.
Then of course, there are questions... Why do many by Don Delilo? Why so few by Agatha Christie? Where is Kevin, given we should be talking about him?


2000
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders
1900s
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Great Apes – Will Self
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Jazz – Toni Morrison
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
London Fields – Martin Amis
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Libra – Don DeLillo
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
Foe – J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
A Maggot – John Fowles
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Contact – Carl Sagan
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
Shame – Salman Rushdie
Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
La Brava – Elmore Leonard
Waterland – Graham Swift
The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Newton Letter – John Banville
On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
The Names – Don DeLillo
Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
Broken April – Ismail Kadare
Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Rites of Passage – William Golding
Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
Shikasta – Doris Lessing
A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
Yes – Thomas Bernhard
The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
The Shining – Stephen King
Dispatches – Michael Herr
Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
The Public Burning – Robert Coover
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
Grimus – Salman Rushdie
The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
Fateless – Imre Kertész
Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
High Rise – J.G. Ballard
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Dead Babies – Martin Amis
Correction – Thomas Bernhard
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
The Breast – Philip Roth
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Rebel – Albert Camus
Molloy – Samuel Beckett
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
The Third Man – Graham Greene
The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
The Victim – Saul Bellow
Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
The Plague – Albert Camus
Back – Henry Green
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
Arcanum 17 – André Breton
Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
Transit – Anna Seghers
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caught – Henry Green
The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
Embers – Sandor Marai
Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
The Outsider – Albert Camus
In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
The Hamlet – William Faulkner
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
Party Going – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Years – Virginia Woolf
In Parenthesis – David Jones
The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
England Made Me – Graham Greene
Burmese Days – George Orwell
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
A Day Off – Storm Jameson
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
Passing – Nella Larsen
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Living – Henry Green
The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
Amerika – Franz Kafka
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
1800s
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
1700s
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Been readin'

It seems a long time since I blogged. In fact it is a long time since I blogged. I have been feeling as though I was on a very slow roller coaster, going up and down though not as rapidly as normal. I have felt aimless, probably due to the lack of a job, or a purpose, or a routine. It has been difficult coping with other members of the family and their crises. OH can't make up his mind about jobs, what he wants, his health, the car etc ...which makes me feel inadequate for being unable to decide for him. Ridiculous I know! CAitlin is becoming more of a teenager but still with a little girl's responses to many things. Some days she IS 'Kevin" and some days she is a joy. Roo is still a sweetheart, loves cuddling up on the sofa, watching vids. I shall miss that when it disappears.

I have turned back to sewing, making clothes and curtains, as a means of controlling my life and surroundings. We have been in the house a year and I still haven't replaced all the curtains I hate! Soon though. I have made two dresses for me, and helped C to make a start on skirts. She wants to make an outfit for Prize day s o we have found a very easy pattern. t I will probably end up making it. She lacks a little application at the moment, unless it involves her guitar.

I have been reading more lately. Just finished Jpod by Douglas Coupland, which I loved. It was utterlyridiculous but compelling at the same time. I have read a couple of Jostein Gardner's book meditating on life and death, Traveller by Ron McLarty, who wrote the art of running. This one was about a man reminiscing about his childhood, whilst mourning the death of his childhood crush from a gunshot wound received when they were young ( The bullet was the traveller). Eoin Colfer has played a major role in the reading matter of the whole household. I read about the Half Pint detective, which was very odd and Roo and I read the latest Artemis Fowl which was brilliant.

Elaine has lent me yet more self improvement books. The latest was on the languages of love. There are apparantly five; Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Quality time, Personal touch and Acts of service. Supposedly each of us has a major leaning towards one of these and feels more loved if their significant other uses the right language. Trouble is OH poo poos the whole idea whilst I think a number fit my life. I do crave words of affirmation, no doubt, but I also need jobs doing without my needing to ask ( the bins for example, or mowing the lawn). Ant needs quality time, which I find difficult as someone who relishes space and peace and quiet. The kids are as interesting. They are not 'gift' people inspite of what we may think. They desire quality time most of all followed by personal touch, a hug or a family video curled up on the sofa.