Reading Across Borders Challenge
10 books published in 10 different original languages as well as others published in English with a foreign setting and author.
My title A-Z List:
A. Angle of Repose - Stegner – Rating: 4 B. The Birds - Aristophanes Rating: 2.5
C. Coraline by Neil Gaiman Rating: 4.5
D. The Door in the Wall – de Angeli Rating: 4
E. The Echo Maker – Powers Rating: 4 F. Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury Rating: 4.5 G. Gathering Blue - Lowry Rating: 4.5 H. The Handmaid’s Tale – Atwood Rating: 4.5
I. The Inheritance of Loss – Desai Rating: 3.5
J. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Clarke Rating: 4.5
K. The Kite Runner – Hosseini Rating: 4
L. The Little Prince - Saint-Exupery Rating: 4.5
M. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Edwards Rating: 4.5
N. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – Smith – Rating: 4.5
O. O Pioneers! – Willa Cather Rating: 4
P. The Princess and the Goblin – MacDonald Rating: 4.5
Q. Queen of the Tambourine – Jane Gardam Rating: 3.5
R. The Road- McCarthy Rating: 4.5
S. Silas Marner – Eliot – Rating: 4.5
T. To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee – Rating: 5
U. The Uncommon Reader – Bennett Rating: 4
V. Veronika Decides to Die – Coelho Rating: 4.5
W. The Woman in White - Collins Rating: 4.5
X. The Xanadu Adventure – Alexander Rating: 3.5
Y. Year of Wonders – Brooks Rating: 4
Z. Zia – O’Dell Rating: 4
And my author A-Z List:
A. The Translator by Leila Aboulela Rating: 4
B. March by Geraldine Brooks Rating: 3.5
C. Heart of Darkness – Conrad Rating: 5
D. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - DiCamillo – Rating: 4.5
E. Peace Like a River – Enger – Rating: 4.5
F. Inkheart - Funke Rating: 4
G. Grendel – Gardner Rating: 2
H. The Bone People – Hulme Rating: 4
I. Never Let Me Go - Ishiguro Rating: 3
J. The Known World – Jones Rating: 4
K. Broken for You – Kallos Rating: 4 L. The Giver – Lowry Rating: 4.5
M. Atonement – McEwan – Rating: 3.5
N. Suite Francaise – Nemirovsky
O. The Black Pearl - O’Dell Rating: 4.5
P. My Sister’s Keeper – Picoult Rating: 4 Q. Ishmael - Quinn Rating: 3.5
R. Everyman - Roth Rating: 1
S. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – See – Rating: 5
T. The Amateur Marriage by Ann Tyler Rating: 4
U. The Wreath – Undset Rating: 4.5
V. A Severe Mercy- Vanauken Rating: 4
W. The Color Purple - Walker Rating: 4
X. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather – Xingjian Rating: 4
Y. Amos Fortune, Free Man – Yates Rating: 4
Z. The Book Thief – Zusak Rating: 5
It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson revised A Child’s Garden of Verses and wrote Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a time span of under two years–if only all of us could be so productive! This is a very short book and can easily be read in a few hours, so I encourage you to read it if you have not. I was very surprised I waited this long myself.
It tells the story of how Dr. Jekyll conducted an experiment to separate the evil and the good in his personality. Mr. Hyde was the result of his evil side coming out. Dr. Jekyll’s appearance was so altered that he was unrecognizable–both in appearance and actions. What was very interesting to me was that the experiment was done not just for “scientific research”, but because Dr. Jekyll admitted to actually enjoying his more sinful side. He wanted to separate the two personalities, in other words, so he could participate in the evil activities while still considering his “real self” to be essentially good. Of course he eventually loses control of the experiment with disastrous results. This simple tale teaches us the true nature of good and evil and our propensity to desire sin. It should be read by all!
Favorite passages:
First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man’s shoulders; and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.
I could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul.
I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it was as an ordinary secret sinner, that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation. There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.
I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.
1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust 9. Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov 10. Middlemarch by George Eliot
50%–is that bad or good? I have War and Peace and Middlemarch slated for 2008. Not sure when I’ll get to the other three. My favorite book of all time: The Bible!!
Comment brought over from other blog:
1 comments: Nyssaneala said… 50% is better than moi. I only read four: Anna Karenina, Lolita, Huck Finn, and Hamlet.I wonder how they decided on that list. February 13, 2007 1:42 PM
