Thursday, July 31, 2008

Is Reading Really Good for You?

PopMatters is running a series of excerpts from The Solitary Vice: Against Reading, written by Mikita Brottman and published by PopMatters with Counterpoint Press. Some of us will find what the book says rather familiar. Are our lives truly enriched by reading? Or are we merely feeding into an addiction that ruins our eyesight? Imagine the amount of space I would have around the house, if I don't read...

Should he give free rein to his desires, the bibliomaniac can ruin his life, along with the lives of his loved ones. He’ll often take better care of his books than of his own health; he’ll spend more on fiction than he does on food; he’ll be more interested in his library than in his relationships, and, since few people are prepared to live in a place where every available surface is covered with piles of books, he’ll often find himself alone, perhaps in the company of a neglected and malnourished cat. When he dies, all but forgotten, his body might fester for days before a curious neighbor grows concerned about the smell.

[To read more]

PS: PopMatters also has a series on secondhand bookstores.

Eco Interview

From The Paris Review, Issue 185, Summer 2008.

INTERVIEWER

Have you read The Da Vinci Code?

ECO

Yes, I am guilty of that too.

INTERVIEWER

That novel seems like a bizarre little offshoot of Foucault’s Pendulum.

ECO

The author, Dan Brown, is a character from Foucault’s Pendulum! I invented him. He shares my characters’ fascinations—the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist.

More here

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Muppet Habanera

Stole this from the duck thief (Thanks! Everybody needs to see this!)

YOGA | Hanoi's Coming Back!

Okay, this needs some explanation.

One of my favourite yoga teacher left the studio last year to teach in Thailand. But he's coming back this October for the Singapore Sun Festival - and he's teaching Anusara classes! Awesome!

SHAUN "HANOI" HANNOCKS
Saturday 25 Oct - Sunday 26 Oct • Various Times

Already teaching and practising yoga for many years, Shaun discovered the heart opening practice of Anusara Yoga in 2006. In 2007, John Friend, the Founder of Anusara Yoga, invited Shaun to study with him on scholarship in Tokyo. Anusara means “flowing with grace” and since then Shaun has been using the Universal Principles of Alignment and the Heart Opening Focus of Anusara Yoga to deepen his practice and his teaching. Shaun is now based in Koh Samui Thailand, teaching at Absolute Sanctuary, Thailand’s Premiere Detox & Yoga Center.

Date: Saturday 25 October
Instructor: Shaun “Hanoi” Hannocks

Time Workshop
0830 – 1000 Introduction to Anusara Yoga: Flowing with the Heart
1030 – 1230 The Dance of the Five Elements
1400 – 1600 Shri, Beauty. See the Beauty in Everything, Transform Your Life

Date: Sunday 26 October
Instructor: Shaun “Hanoi” Hannocks

Time Workshop
0830 – 1000 Indulge in the Bliss of Backbends
1030 – 1230 Celebration of Self
1400 – 1600 Expanding Your Energy from Inside Out


Full details here

Except that I probably will not be around in October.

With the way things are going though, I might still be around for Christmas. I hate this uncertainty. If I know for certain that I will still be around in October, I am definitely signing up for his classes. It would be great to see him again.

Most of all, it would be great to immense myself in the Anusara practice again.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

'FESS UP FRIDAY | What Do the Characters Want?

Michelle Paradise wrote, produced and starred in the Logo TV series, "Exes & Ohs". She has a series of video blogs centered around the series, and recently she talked about the writing process behind "Exes & Ohs".

One of the things she talked about was figuring out, "What do the characters want?" - either personally or professionally - and how they go about achieving that. Once you have that figured out, the story falls into place.

Which is sort of my problem right now.

I don't actually know what my characters want. In fact, right now the two lead characters are at a crossroad romantically and professionally. I don't quite know how to proceed.

Yeah, this 'Fess Up is LATE.


Talk to the Hand Because The Face Stopped Listening

While I've heard it earlier on the grapevine, the official word has only been announced today: my posting to Dubai has been delayed. Again. To September.

Yeah. Right.

First they said I was supposed to fly out 1st August. Then it was 18th August. Now 15th September. At this rate, I will still be around for Christmas. To think that I finally started packing last week. (Okay, so all I did was drag out my old backpack and put 4 blouses in. That's still packing)

My next post on Dubai will be when I am actually in the country itself. The whole deal is so anti-climatic I'm not even going to bother posting about it anymore. *grumble*

What a f**king waste of time. (Yes, I know it's not really their fault - but still!)

Monday, July 28, 2008

YOGA | I Have What It Takes, Because I Practice

I'm back on the mat today. With all the training last week I had to miss a few days of practice. Even though I have no control over some aspects of my life at the moment - the Dubai issue being the biggest bugbear of no control - at least for my yoga practice, I hope things can be more settled.

Tonight's Power Yoga with Michelle is challenging without the "boot-camp" intensity. She's playing her usual traditional music CD during class, so it's indicative of a more meditative mood for the evening. When she plays Beyonce or hip-hop, I worry.

I was a little edgy when I came to class this evening. I was angry and frustrated again about how some people chooses not to share important information.

I know learning to live with the people we do not like is one of the foundations of a spiritual practice. Or, as one of my yoga teacher once said to me, "Yoga is about working with your likes and dislikes." But sometimes - there are just people whose character you just cannot admire. I'm trying to be mature about it - but it feels like I'm at the losing end of it all. I just want to live an ethical, compassionate life. I want to do no harm – but often I wonder if the price is to be a victim to bullies.

*Breathes deeply* I can weather through this sort of petty behaviour. I know it. I have the emotional strength and courage built through my practice. I have what it takes to rise above this narrow-mindedness.

Right before we closed our practice tonight, Michelle asked the class to think about why we practice. If our practice do not make us a better person, a kinder person, a less stressful person – then why are we practicing yoga?

Dinner with Friends

[Cross-posted at A Stranger a Strange Land]

Last Sunday, I met up with a couple of old friends from school (has it really been about 9 years since we graduated?) We had dinner at Original Sins - the Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant that proves just how flavourful and sinful vegetarian cuisine can truly be. I love that place. It will be one of the things I will miss when I leave the country. Will I ever find anything just as wonderful as Original Sins?

Meanwhile, some food porn:




On a more irrelevant and irreverent note, we spotted this sign outside the public toilet. They have an award for joyous toilets.

Oh, do share: What is the criteria for a "Happy" toilet? Does it do the happy Snoopy Dance? WHAT THE HELL IS A HAPPY TOILET????!



Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my home - where we have happy toilets.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

My Training for Dubai

Miss Laxative tells me I need to blog more. So.

This past week has been so overwhelming that I haven't had much time for yoga class, to read or to write. The training for my stint in Dubai has been a crash-course, trying to pack months of training into 16 hours. It is unrealistic and I barely have time to absorb a lot of what was taught. And along the way my trainers and I would often look at each other, and ask: "Is this even irrelevant for Dubai?" "No?" "Then why do they want you to learn this?"

Thankfully I had good trainers who are patient and who don't try to insult my intelligence.

Well, not too much. When I make mistakes they do laugh. A lot of the humour this week was at my expense. My ego has been reduced to the size of a tomato after this week. (Why a tomato? Because they are small and red and edible.)

I learned the lesson a long time ago: that when you're learning something new, it's easier to be able to set aside your ego, and be willing to laugh at yourself screwing up. Besides, it was funny watching me fumble like a child. :)

That, and the fact my trainer had to scold me for my itchy fingers - when my trainer's back was turned, I happily started to click on unknown functions on the computer system. Isn't that how you learn? By trial and error and trying new things? Well, if clicking on the wrong function can erase all sales history and potentially freeze the entire system - NO.

You know that joke about famous last words? "I wonder what will happen if I pull this lever...?"

Training me is an uphill task. I'm so glad I don't have to train myself. :)

Friday, July 25, 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Keeping Cool

[Cross-posted at A Stranger in a Strange Land]

This blog has been quiet for a while, so I thought I would upload a picture.

This is a gift from Miss Laxative. I suppose it's her idea of how to keep cool in Dubai. (My friends and their sense of humour)

Thanks. Heh. :\


[ Enlarge ]

A little post, a little update

It's been a hectic week. I slept little and I barely had time to blog or read - hence the lack of responses to your comments recently. Sorry.

The upside for the week: I did manage to catch up with some friends last week.

Last Friday was a great night for friends. Alice gave us the "progress report" on her pregnancy. Leslie gave us the report on his rejected marriage proposal to his fiancee (she's a smart one, this girl). And Tinny said she was going to bring durians.

(For the uninitiated, durian is a type of tropical fruit with a hard, thorny outer shell, and a creamy flesh inside. It's has an intense, pungent smell that turns off a lot of people. But we love it.)

Tinn thought about what I would miss most in Dubai, and she decided on durians - the King of Fruits with the bitter-sweet creaminess that is so much a part of what we know as Home.

I'm often negligent, too caught up in my own world to notice the people around me. So sometimes I'm just caught off-guard by the lightest gesture of love and friendship. Tinn's consideration was one of those reminders of how lucky I am to have these people as my friends.

As for the rest of the weekend: I managed to catch a few movies - Hellboy 2, Red Cliff and The Dark Knight.

Heath Ledger totally crawled into the skin of The Joker in this one. Who are they going to cast as the Joker now that he's claimed the role? Maybe it's because I really liked Jeph Loeb's Batman run on The Long Halloween - Two-Face is one of my favourite Batman villain. (And if you're interested, the Absolute Batman: The Long Halloween has an introduction by Christopher Nolan (director of The Dark Knight himself!)

A moment of literary confession: I should be reading Dubai Explorer: The Complete Residents' Guide right now. It's pertinent research afterall - but I would much rather read The Idiot.

I'm reading The Idiot slowly - not because I'm not enjoying the novel, but because I enjoy it immensely. I would read a scene and I find it necessary to reach for a pencil, or Post-It notepads - to make notes. Sometimes I would read something so interesting I just have to stop - and think. Then the mind just takes itself into other places until you lose track of your reading.

You see why not reading this book fast is a very good thing? It's a delicious book.

Finally, for everyone who's asking: Dubai might still happen - again, I'm not getting worked up until I see the air ticket. We might have to be there right before Ramadan though - which means we have the hottest season to look forward to. Oh. Joy. :(

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Monday, July 21, 2008

Emma Thompson's Proust Questionnaire Answers

I stumbled (if one can stumble online) onto the Vanity Fair Proust Questionaire with Emma Thompson.

When asked, "What is the quality you most like in a man?" - she replied, "Uxoriousness."

I admit - I have no idea what that means. I now stand in awe of her vocabulary.

But most of all, I admire her answer to this question:

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Then who would I be?

Because no matter how flawed we are, we are all that we are.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Books I Feel I Need to Buy

I know some of you will laugh when you read this. For the past month I've been trying NOT to buy anymore books.

The way I figured it: If I'm really leaving the country for a year, I wouldn't be able to read them anyway. It's just not practical to ship books over. So, why buy books? In fact I've also stopped going to the library, in case I forget to return them and come back with a massive overdue fines.

But for books, it's always more than just about the reading of them. For many of us, there is the compulsion to possess - you guys know what I'm talking about. Last week I've picked up two books I had my eyes on: Wild, by Jay Griffiths (I have been waiting for the paperback after reading about it in The Guardian), and Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels, recommended by Ovidia. (Can you believe my local library do not have a copy available for this title?)

But I have more. Here's a picture of a small stack of books I have been keeping on reservation - waiting for the day I bring them home:


List of books, from the top:

  1. Stoner, John Williams
  2. Afloat, Guy De Maupassant
  3. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson (NYRB Classics)
  4. A Winter Book, Tove Jansson
  5. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
    (I'm still of two-minded on whether I should pick up the UK edition, published by Sort Of Books instead of the NYRB edition. Sort Of Books has published Tova Jansson's A Winter Book, The Summer Book and Fair Play, with foreword by Ali Smith. As a collection they make a nice set. But my personal partiality to NYRB is making it difficult to choose. Even with books we have brand affiliation.)
  6. The Italian, Ann Radcliffe (Oneworld Classics edition)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Feist ! On Sesame Street!

Can Leslie Feist be any cooler? First her gig on Colbert - now on the most awesome show ever - Sesame Street! I want to be on Sesame Street!

Feist's guest-appearance (Singing with muppet chickens, monsters and penguins! Awesome!) was supposed to premiere August 11, but the clip was leaked online. So, here's a Youtube video of Feist counting to 4.

I can't tell you how many times I've replayed the video. :)

Monday, July 14, 2008

Sharleen Spiteri's Melody is Out!

"People are really surprised about how different the album sounds to Texas stuff. There are influences I’ve been able to explore on this album which never really fitted into Texas. Texas were a guitar-based band, kinda in-your-face, whereas this is more about the intimacy of the vocals. It’s perhaps a more feminine sound… and because I produced the album myself, it was made very differently to how a Texas album was made."

Saturday, July 12, 2008

It's a lazy Saturday and I have dinner plans later in the evening with some colleagues. Yes, I'm still doing the farewell meet-up with friends. Sometimes one have to reflect with a certain degree of irony - that for all my anti-social habits, I actually have a lot of friends.

I'm reading The Idiot right now. There is something about Dostoevsky that I find soothing. It says something about my own life when I confess that I recognise his tortured characters, their passionate intensity. That moment when The Prince sees the portrait of Natasya Filippovna for the very first time, and he recognises the suffering in her - that connection through suffering - I think I understand.

I want to take it slow today, after a hectic week. Hope everyone have a nice weekend rest.

BOOKS | The Making of a Chef

The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

In 1996, writer Michael Ruhlman decided to enrol in the Culinary Institute of America. His goal is to get the insider's scope in the process of becoming a cook. He transplanted his family to New York so that he could attend the culinary classes. What should have been a personal account of the process thankfully stopped one-third into the book, and he began focusing on the other people in the story: the other students, the teaching staff. For me, the most interesting part of the book are the stories of the real chefs – the teachers of the CIA: men and women who had served the line, and are now in the CIA imparting what they have learned.

The turning point in the book came during a great blizzard that coincided with the tests at the CIA. Ruhlman was one hour late that day, and he left earlier later to avoid the snow. The next day he called in to his Skills instructor, Chef Pardus, that he was going to skip the test because of the snow.

Over the phone, when Pardus said something that affected Ruhlman. Pardus told Ruhlman that perhaps he was just "cut from a different cloth" – a statement that shamed Ruhlman. It came with the implication that Ruhlman was just not cut out to be a chef.

That was when the question of what maketh a chef is truly explored. For me, this is when the book really started being interesting. For what defines a chef?

As Chef Pardus later explains to Michael Ruhlman:

"Part of what we're training students to be here is chefs—and when chefs have to be somewhere, they get there. …

"Chefs are the people who are working on Thanksgiving and Christmas, when everyone else is partying," he said. "Or at home with their family."

For chefs like Pardus, they believe that chefs are the stoic heroes. They are the ones who get things done despite the circumstances.

To be a chef is more than a training, or learning the skills. Along the way, Ruhlman finds himself evolving; his action becomes more efficient - for example, he makes less trips between the wardrobe to his suitcase when he packs, he plans the shortest route in advance when he's out for errands. To be a chef is to embrace a whole philosophy - a whole "ethics" of being. Which is why it is more than a job - it is a calling.

One comes out of this book with a greater respect for a chef.

Friday, July 11, 2008

YOGA | Buddhists Not Buddhas

First: a thank you note to all who commented on the earlier post on S. I messaged her earlier and she wrote back to say she's fine, and not to worry. The surgery was successful. She's been discharged. Now I just hope she heals well.

And thank you to the friend who read my earlier post and messaged to reassure me that S. is okay. You know who you are. :)

So, onto one of my favourite topic: yoga and the dharma, because I am suddenly feeling a little self-conscious about that earlier post.

I received an email from a friend earlier, directing me to a blog post by a fellow yogini who practices at our yoga studio. The post had a link to this David Swenson message:

Just because we practice yoga does not mean that we are yogis. I think that a mistake we all make is to think that the world of yoga will be any different than the rest of the world. In fact, in some ways I believe that yoga tends to amplify who we are. The practice of yoga, or any discipline of self-exploration, is something like tilling the soil to prepare a garden. The practice brings fertility into our being, but our maturity as a practitioner is determined by what we plant in our garden. If we choose to plant an ego, we can grow an even bigger one than the average person.

Just because some of us call ourselves Buddhists, it doesn't mean we are enlightened or even particularly wise. Some of us in fact, continue to gossip, to backstab our co-workers, to envy, to hate - we continue to behave badly, like normal human beings. Practicing yoga doesn't make you a better person - but if that's where you want to be - yoga can point the way. You have to walk there yourself though.

Buddha said his teachings is like the finger pointing to the moon - but you shouldn't mistake the finger for the moon. Maybe Buddha never actually said this - maybe somebody else said it, and they just attributed it to Buddha to make it sound better. My point is: Nothing should be taken for granted in our spiritual practice.

Some of us think once we are "signed on" - we are guaranteed for spiritual attainment. Not true. Like Swenson said: we reap what we bring to the practice, and I believe some of us have met some major assholes who claim to be yogis. They brag about which famous yoga teachers they have studied with, and how their chosen style of yoga is better than others. I once met a guy who bragged to me about a meditation retreat he's been to. Duh. Who brags about a meditation retreat?

The ego has is a tricky bugger, and it always manages to creep up when I least expects it. I set out with the best of intentions, and only on hindsight - and sometimes, with a nugget of self-awareness - I realise I am really just serving my own interest.

'FESS UP FRIDAY | Work the Heat

I've finally finished reading Kitchen Confidential - which is fun for research, especially the chapter where Bourdain writes about one day in the life of an executive chef. It's practically a walk-through for me.

Now the real test is whether I can write a scene of a restaurant kitchen on full service convincingly. The chaos, the adrenaline, the heat and camaraderie and feuding between line cooks, their runners and all the while telling a story about these characters, their relationship with each other.

Why is writing this scene important? I ask myself. Because it sets my sous-chef in her natural environment. Here is a well-brought up young woman, educated - something of an artist and a thinker. She enjoys all the advantages of her upbringing, yet something made her choose to work as a chef.

I'm using this story as a way of thinking through one of those questions I like to think about: what leads us to the choices in our lives? When everything in our life points in one direction, there are some of us who would choose another.

But first - how to write the scene? I need to think this through.

Penguin Great Ideas Series Three

11 July 2008 - Just an update on an earlier post: The full covers for the third series of Penguin Great Ideas are finally available online via Flickr

Penguin first launched their Great Ideas series in 2004. The concept is to take extracts of great books that have shaped thoughts and societies through history, and publish them in pocket-sized booklets priced at £4.99 each.

The first series proved so popular that in 2005, the second series of Penguin Great Ideas was released. There are 20 titles in each series - nuggets of ideas from philosphers, thinkers, writers - such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel de Montaigne, Henry David Thoreau and Confucius.

In August 2008, Penguin UK will launch the third - and probably the final - series of Great Ideas. The series will be launched at a later date in the US.

List of titles on the Penguin Great Ideas Series Three:

  1. A Confession, Leo Tolstoy
  2. The Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard
  3. Some Anatomies of Melancholy, Robert Burton
  4. Man Alone with Himself, Friedrich Nietzsche
  5. The Evils of Revolution, Edmund Burke
  6. Concerning Violence, Frantz Fanon
  7. The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Frederick Jackson Turner
  8. The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud
  9. The Invisible Hand, Adam Smith
  10. Useful Work V. Useless Toil, William Morris
  11. The Fastidious Assassins, Albert Camus
  12. The Spectacle of the Scaffold, Michel Foucault
  13. In Consolation to His Wife, Plutarch
  14. An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe, Leon Trotsky
  15. The Lamp of Memory, John Ruskin
  16. Human Happiness, Blaise Pascal
  17. Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson
  18. Days of Reading, Marcel Proust
  19. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin
  20. Books V. Cigarettes, George Orwell

Personally, I'm curious about Orwell's Books V. Cigarettes, where he ponders this dilemma: does he spends more money on reading or smoking? He explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops (sounds famiiar, anyone?) to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means.

I'm also interested in Proust's Days of Reading, because, can we ever get enough of Old Marcel? (Actually, there are days when I just want to smack that snobbish little prig) In this essay, Proust explores all the pleasures that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.

Oh, I'm feeling the vapours just from the description. Must buy!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

JULY WoYo | July 8th 2008

I just found out that one of my colleague S. is on hospitalisation leave. She is keeping the details of her condition private, so as much as we are worried and concerned, we also need to respect her right to privacy.

I found out about the hospitalisation through a phone message this evening. I was making my way to Ashtanga class, and I just decided to check my mobile phone for messages. The news caught me off guard. We knew S. has been going to the doctor for some medical tests the past few months - but again, because she has kept it out of the workplace, I feel I do not have the right to ask.

I wish there is something I could do. I like S. I wish I could help. I guess this is where I am not a very good Buddhist, because I feel S. deserves better - and this shouldn't be happening to her. I can't bring myself to accept that bad things like illness happens.

Right before yoga class, I spoke to a mutual friend about S. The friend pointed out that S. isn't as strong as she liked to pretend she is. She has a lot of people who cares about her, but she has problem allowing them to be there for her. You don't want to force your concern on them and get in their face. They have enough to deal with. But you also wish there is something you can do.

It should be about them - not what you want for them.

I was in the bathroom right before yoga class, and for a brief moment, I lost control of my emotions; I cried - a little. I'm not even sure why. I don't even know what's happening to S. exactly.

They say prayer helps, even when the intended party has no idea they are being prayed for. A part of me wonders if we need to believe this because praying allows us at least, to pretend that we are doing something.

Do I have so little faith? Maybe. What do I have faith in? And why is this a WoYo post?

All I know is that there are different ways of praying. I also believe we need to be able to pray, because we need to believe there is a way of communicating with something larger than ourselves.

All I know is that this evening, when I was waiting for my yoga teacher to come to class, all I could think about was what my Anusara teacher once taught us, about making our practice something larger than ourselves.

So tonight, my practice is dedicated to S. If there is any benefits in my practice, may it all go to you.

Because I don't know what else is there I can do.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Pratchett Interview

Neil Gaiman talks to Terry Pratchett. And Pratchett reads odd stuff.

To be a writer is to read - and whenever Terry and I talk we compare reading matter. 'I'm reading A Midwife's Tale: the Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diary, 1785-1812 edited by Laurel Ulrich,' says Terry. 'Martha Ballard was a real-life Granny Weatherwax. She was a good midwife but you don't read it for that. You read it for the other things you can learn from it: about how a colonial settlement was run by the women while the men were away at war, and the men thinking that they were making all the decisions and running the country when in fact they weren't. I'm also reading Six Thousand Years of Bread: its Holy and Unholy History, and a history of false teeth.'

A history of bread. And a history of false teeth. Yet, it makes sense, somehow.

New Wolverine Promo

{via SuperheroHype.com}

Hugh Jackman in white tank-top. I don't recall the claws being that BIG...


X-Men Origins: Wolverine, scheduled for May, 2009 release.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

'FESS UP FRIDAY | Random Anecdote

In lieu of an actual 'Fess Up, I offer something tangential - which is the way I function, really.

Several years back I was at the supermarket with my friend, Ana. A couple of us arranged for a movie marathon at her place and we swung by the supermarket for provisions. We were paying at the cashier, when Ana, looking through our purchases, expressed her surprise that I did not pick up any snacks for myself.

"Don't you eat?" she exclaimed, totally baffled.

"I eat," I replied.

"Just three square meals? No snacks? No junk food? Are you on some kind of diet? Are you anorexic?"

"I do eat."

"Do you know in all the time I've known you, I have never seen you eat, ever?"

"I eat," I insisted.

This minor episode found its way into my story about existential rock-star vampires. One of the character, Seth, would remark to a mysterious woman in leather jacket and sunglasses, that he has never seen her eat. Ever.

The mysterious woman in the leather jacket and sunglasses, who goes by the name, Noir, would reply matter of factly, "I eat."

Later in story, Seth and his friends would be attacked by two goth-punks infected by vampiric blood. Noir would tear through the throats of those goth-punks, and she would feed on their blood. Right before she collapses from her injuries, she would turn to Seth, and she would say to him:

"Told you I eat."

Which says something about how all the little things in our lives are fodder for fiction.

By the way, I did not work on my story about the sous-chef this week. Instead, I revisited one of my old stories, the one about the existential vampires (with the awful working title: "Orpheus Sings the Guitar Electric". Now you know the source behind the name of this blog)

I was in a morose state of mind the whole week, which is exactly the state of mind that would want to write a story about angsty vampires who also happen to be rock-gods. Since we are throwing in random information: the Dark Orpheus is actually a prized guitar used by one of the characters in the story.

Which might also tell you something.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Shambhala Sun Feature on Yoga and the Dharma

This month's (July 2008) issue of Shambhala Sun focuses on Yoga and Dharma - and it asks the important question: is this the best combination for the mind-body practice?

I do not possess the wisdom to speak for everyone if a combination of dharma and yoga is the BEST practice. I speak only for myself when I say that the two builds on each other, and allows a stronger foundation for a person's (well, me) emotional and spiritual growth. I can't imagine separating yoga and the dharma, because they are so inexplicably linked in my own experiences.

You can of course guess how well I take to this current issue's theme. One of my favourite segment is Andrea Miller's profile of five teachers (Cyndi Lee, Frank Jude Boccio, Sarah Powers, Jill Satterfield and Phillip Moffitt) who combine hatha yoga with Buddhist meditation.

I quote from Sarah Powers, who talks about a body versus mind-based approach:

"Coming through the doorway of the body, people eventually realize they have a mind that needs attention and, coming through the doorway of the mind, they eventually realize they have a body that is going to be either an obstacle of a support. Both directions point to their opposite, but more people become freer with just mind-based practices than become freer with just body-based practices. There are more pitfalls for body-based people. There's a tendency to do body practices to stay thin, have tight buns, and get attention for doing certain postures--egocentric motivations stemming from not knowing oneself truly. Eventually, as a yoga community we tap into deeper truths, but it's slower if they're not in the yoga room to start with. And they need to be there, because it's not really yoga if it doesn't involve the heart and mind."

I take this to heart: "it's not really yoga if it doesn't involve the heart and mind."


________________________


Sidenote: A previous issue of Shambhala Sun also featured an interview with singer k.d. lang on her music and her Tibetan Buddhist practice. The interview is now available online.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Taking a Break on 4th of July

It's the 4th of July, and I believe some of you out there get a day's rest. :)

I took a day off today. I'm hoping to run some errands (eg. develop at least 12 passport-sized photos in case I need them - for the Dubai work permit, residential visa etc). The jury is still out on going over. Meanwhile I'm still preparing for the trip, but also mentally preparing myself in case it doesn't work out.

It sucks being left in the limbo like that. People have tried explaining to me it's not their fault. It was the circumstances. Yes, they are not responsible for the circumstance - but they are responsible for the manner in which they handled the situation. The very lack of transparency is what pisses me off. That these people who you work for are willing to shuffle you around and drain every last drop of you - and they don't believe in honest communication. That their reservation for NOT giving you the full facts is: they are afraid you might change your mind about going to Dubai.

WTF.

They expect me to put one year of my life on hold for them. Of course I need the facts to make an informed decision. Do they think my life doesn't matter?

But enough about stupid employers.

I'm also hoping to get some reading done today. Maybe even blog something about The Making of a Chef, which I found very useful. I will probably continue reading Kitchen Confidential, and some of the comics trade paperback I bought a while back. Later in the evening I will probably drop by for yoga class.

I just want to take a break right now.

GRAPHIC NOVELS CHALLENGE | Closing

I'm trying to streamline my challenges and reading right now. We have just entered July and I barely made a dent in the Russian Reading Challenge. I am also highly skeptical that I would have time for more challenges for 2008 either.

Since I've technically finished the 6 graphic novels required for Dewey's The Graphic Novel Challenge, I've decided to close on it. Just to settle the books.



[To Read 6 Graphic Novels from January 2008 to December 2008]

Completed for the challenge:


  1. Welcome to Tranquility Vol. 1 • Gail Simone & Neil Googe
  2. Manhunter: Unleashed • Marc Andreyko et al
  3. Birds of Prey: Dead of Winter • Gail Simone e al
  4. Batman: The Killing Joke (The Deluxe Edition) • Alan Moore & Brian Bolland
  5. Checkmate: Fall of the Wall • Greg Rucka, Joe Bennett & Chris Samnee
  6. B.P.R.D. Killing Ground • Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Guy Davis
  7. The Question: The Five Books of Blood • Greg Rucka
  8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You • Brian K. Vaugh, Georges Jeanty & Joss Whedon
  9. Hellboy: Darkness Calls • Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo

Visit The Graphic Novel Challenge Blog

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2008)

{Updated on 2nd July 2008 with more irrelevant commentaries}

On the heels of Alison Bechdel's Compulsory Reading, where we argue against reading the classics just because we think we should - I follow up with this list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - the revised 2008 edition! Because I'm just a bag of contradictions. :D

(I cut-and-pasted the list from Random Field Notes. Thank you for doing the spadework.)

You know what? Sorting through lists like these gives me pleasure.

Red indicates books I have actually finished reading. Then there are those books, like Little Women, Great Expectations and Robinson Crusoe that I vaguely recall reading when I was very young, but I can't be sure if I read the abridged versions or the full thing. So I left them out. Titles like American Psycho - that I have started but never finished, I left them unmarked also. It's embarrassing to see how many books I have actually left unfinished. Bad reader.

Of course, this is just a way of justifying why I don't seem to have read much from this list of 1001 titles! ;p

I'm actually glad this revised version is more aware of global literature. Romance of the Three Kingdoms definitely needs to be included because it is THE great war epic of Chinese literature. I'm not putting it down as read though, because I always stopped somewhere towards the end, after Guan Yu dies. Everything just goes downhill and depressing from there onwards.


Now, for The List:

* new to the list


: Pre 1800 :
0001 : The Thousand and One Nights . Anonymous
0002 : The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter . Anonymous *
0003 : The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu *
0004 : Romance of the Three Kingdoms . Luó Guànzhong * (Never finished. *sigh*)
0005 : The Water Margin . Shi Nai'an & Luó Guànzhong *
0006 : The Golden Ass . Lucius Apuleius
0007 : Tirant lo Blanc . Joanot Martorell *
0008 : La Celestina . Fernando de Rojas *
0009 : Amadis of Gaul . Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo *
0010 : The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes . Anonymous *
0011 : Gargantua and Pantagruel . François Rabelais
0012 : The Lusiad . Luís Vaz de Camões *
0013 : Monkey: A Journey to the West . Wú Chéng'en *
0014 : Unfortunate Traveller . Thomas Nashe
0015 : Thomas of Reading . Thomas Deloney *
0016 : Don Quixote . Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
0017 : The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda . Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra *
0018 : The Conquest of New Spain . Bernal Díaz del Castillo *
0019 : The Adventurous Simplicissimus . Hans von Grimmelshausen *
0020 : The Princess of Clèves . Comtesse de La Fayette
0021 : Oroonoko . Alphra Behn
0022 : Robinson Crusoe . Daniel Defoe (I remember reading the part with the footprint - but I can't recall if it's an abridged version or not. *sigh*)
0023 : Love in Excess . Eliza Haywood
0024 : Moll Flanders . Daniel Defoe
0025 : Gulliver's Travels . Jonathan Swift
0026 : A Modest Proposal . Jonathan Swift
0027 : Joseph Andrews . Henry Fielding
0028 : Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus . Arbuthnot, Gay, Parnell, Pope, Swift
0029 : Pamela . Samuel Richardson
0030 : Clarissa . Samuel Richardson (You have to be kidding. Life is too short, and that book too long)
0031 : Tom Jones . Henry Fielding
0032 : Fanny Hill . John Cleland (Yes, I read it for the sexy bits. It was fun. Classic porn)
0033 : Peregrine Pickle . Tobias George Smollett
0034 : The Female Quixote . Charlotte Lennox
0035 : Candide . Voltaire
0036 : Rasselas . Samuel Johnson
0037 : Julie; or The New Eloise . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0038 : Émile; or, On Education . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0039 : The Castle of Otranto . Horace Walpole
0040 : The Vicar of Wakefield . Oliver Goldsmith
0041 : Tristam Shandy . Laurence Sterne
0042 : A Sentimental Journey . Laurence Sterne
0043 : The Man of Feeling . Henry Mackenzie
0044 : Humphry Clinker . Tobias George Smollett
0045 : The Sorrows of Young Werther . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0046 : Evelina . Fanny Burney
0047 : Reveries of a Solitary Walker . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0048 : Dangerous Liasons . Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
0049 : Confessions . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
0050 : The 120 Days of Sodom . Marquis de Sade (Tried reading. Was bored to tears)
0051 : Anton Reiser . Karl Philipp Moritz *
0052 : Vathek . William Beckford
0053 : Justine . Marquis de Sade (See comments for The 120 Days of Sodom)
0054 : A Dream of Red Mansions . Cao Xueqin *
0055 : The Adventures of Caleb Willams . William Godwin
0056 : The Interesting Narrative . Olaudah Equiano
0057 : The Mysteries of Udolpho . Ann Radcliffe (Why is it I never read any Ann Radcliffe?)
0058 : Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0059 : The Monk . M.G. Lewis
0060 : Camilla . Fanny Burney
0061 : Jacques the Fatalist . Denis Diderot *
0062 : The Nun . Denis Diderot
0063 : Hyperion . Friedrich Hölderlin

: 1800s :
0064 : Castle Rackrent . Maria Edgeworth
0065 : Henry of Ofterdingen . Novalis *
0066 : Rameau's Nephew . Denis Diderot *
0067 : Elective Affinities . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
0068 : Michael Kohlhaas . Heinrich von Kleist *
0069 : Sense and Sensibility . Jane Austen
0070 : Pride and Prejudice . Jane Austen
0071 : Mansfield Park . Jane Austen
0072 : Emma . Jane Austen
0073 : Rob Roy . Sir Walter Scott
0074 : Frankenstein . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
0075 : Ivanhoe . Sir Walter Scott
0076 : Melmoth the Wanderer . Charles Robert Maturin
0077 : The Life and the Opinions of the Tombcat Murr . E.T.A. Hoffmann *
0078 : The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner . James Hogg
0079 : The Life of a Good-for-Nothing . Joseph von Eichendorff *
0080 : Last of the Mohicans . James Fenimore Cooper
0081 : The Betrothed . Alessandro Manzoni
0082 : The Red and the Black . Stendhal (Trying to get to Stendhal soon)
0083 : The Hunchback of Notre Dame . Victor Hugo
0084 : Eugene Onegin . Alexander Pushkin *
0085 : Eugénie Grandet . Honoré de Balzac
0086 : La Père Goriot . Honoré de Balzac
0087 : The Nose . Nikolay Gogol
0088 : Oliver Twist . Charles Dickens
0089 : The Lion of Flanders . Hendrick Conscience *
0090 : The Charterhouse of Parma . Stendhal
0091 : The Fall of the House of Usher . Edgar Allan Poe
0092 : Camera Obscura . Hildebrand *
0093 : A Hero of Our Times . Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov *
0094 : Dead Souls . Nikolay Gogol
0095 : Lost Illusions . Honoré de Balzac
0096 : The Pit and the Pendulum . Edgar Allan Poe
0097 : The Three Musketeers . Alexandre Dumas (Again, the question: Did I read an abridged version or the full thing?)
0098 : Facundo . Domingo Faustino Sarmiento *
0099 : The Devil's Pool . George Sand *
0100 : The Count of Monte Cristo . Alexandre Dumas (I read an abridged version, I think)
0101 : Jane Eyre . Charlotte Brontë (Yes, I know - how could I not have read Jane Eyre - I'm an English major, for gawd's sake!)
0102 : Vanity Fair . William Makepeace Thackeray
0103 : Wuthering Heights . Emily Brontë
0104 : The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . Anne Brontë
0105 : David Copperfield . Charles Dickins
0106 : The Scarlet Letter . Nathaniel Hawthorne
0107 : Moby-Dick . Herman Melville (NEVER!)
0108 : The House of the Seven Gables . Nathaniel Hawthorne
0109 : Uncle Tom's Cabin . Harriet Beecher Stowe
0110 : Cranford . Elizabeth Gaskell
0111 : Bleak House . Charles Dickens (I have a version at home with Gillian Anderson on the cover)
0112 : Walden . Henry David Thoreau
0113 : Green Henry . Gottfried Keller *
0114 : North and South . Elizabeth Gaskell
0115 : Madame Bovary . Gustave Flaubert
0116 : Indian Summer . Adalbert Stifter *
0117 : Adam Bede . George Eliot
0118 : Oblomov . Ivan Goncharov
0119 : The Woman in White . Wilkie Collins
0120 : The Mill on the Floss . George Eliot
0121 : Max Havelaar . Multatuli
0122 : Great Expectations . Charles Dickens (I remember the chapter with the wedding cake. But pretty sure it's an abridged version)
0123 : Silas Marner . George Eliot (Never finished. Maybe because it was on the syllabus for the module taught by the prick, Dr D.)
0124 : Fathers and Sons . Ivan Turgenev
0125 : Les Misérables . Victor Hugo
0126 : The Water-Babies . Charles Kingsley
0127 : Notes from the Underground . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0128 : Uncle Silas . Sheridan Le Fanu
0129 : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . Lewis Carroll
0130 : Journey to the Center of the Earth . Jules Verne
0131 : Crime and Punishment . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0132 : Last Chronicle of Barset . Anthony Trollope *
0133 : Thérèse Raquin . Émile Zola
0134 : The Moonstone . Wilkie Collins
0135 : Little Women . Louisa May Alcott
0136 : The Idiot . Fyodor Dostoevsky (never finished)
0137 : Maldoror . Comte de Lautréamont
0138 : Phineas Finn . Anthony Trollope
0139 : Sentimental Education . Gustave Flaubert
0140 : War and Peace . Leo Tolstoy
0141 : King Lear of the Steppes . Ivan Turgenev
0142 : Alice Through the Looking Glass . Lewis Carroll
0143 : Middlemarch . George Eliot
0144 : Spring Torrents . Ivan Turgenev
0145 : Erewhon . Samuel Butler
0146 : The Devils . Fyodor Dostoevsky
0147 : In a Glass Darkly . Sheridan Le Fanu
0148 : Around the World in Eighty Days . Jules Verne
0149 : The Enchanted Wanderer . Nicolai Leskov *
0150 : Far from the Maddening Crowd . Thomas Hardy
0151 : Pepita Jimenéz . Juan Valera *
0152 : The Crime of Father Amado . José Maria Eça de Queirós *
0153 : Drunkard . Émile Zola
0154 : Anna Karenina . Leo Tolstoy
0155 : Martín Fierro . José Hernández *
0156 : The Red Room . August Strindberg
0157 : Ben-Hur . Lew Wallace
0158 : Nana . Émile Zola
0159 : The Portrait of a Lady . Henry James
0160 : The House by the Medlar Tree . Giovanni Verga
0161 : The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas . Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
0162 : Bouvard and Pécuchet . Gustave Flaubert
0163 : Treasure Island . Robert Louis Stevenson
0164 : A Woman's Life . Guy de Maupassant
0165 : The Death of Ivan Ilyich . Leo Tolstoy
0166 : Against the Grain . Joris-Karl Huysmans
0167 : The Regent's Wife . Clarín Leopoldo Alas *
0168 : Bel-Ami . Guy de Maupassant
0169 : Marius the Epicurean . Walter Pater
0170 : The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Mark Twain
0171 : Germinal . Émile Zola
0172 : King Solomon's Mines . H. Rider Haggard
0173 : The Quest . Frederik van Eeden *
0174 : The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Robert Louis Stevenson
0175 : The Manors of Ulloa . Emilia Pardo Bazán *
0176 : The People of Hemsö . August Strindberg
0177 : Pierre and Jean . Guy de Maupassant
0178 : Under the Yoke . Ivan Vazov *
0179 : The Child of Pleasure . Gabriele D'Annunzio *
0180 : Eline Vere . Louis Couperus *
0181 : Hunger . Knut Hamsun
0182 : By the Open Sea . August Strindberg
0183 : La Bête Humaine . Émile Zola
0184 : Thaïs . Anatole France *
0185 : The Kreutzer Sonata . Leo Tolstoy
0186 : The Picture of Dorian Gray . Oscar Wilde
0187 : Down There . Joris-Karl Huysmans *
0188 : Tess of the D'Ubervilles . Thomas Hardy
0189 : Gösta Berling's Saga . Selma Lagerlöf
0190 : New Grub Street . George Gissig
0191 : News from Nowhere . William Morris
0192 : The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes . Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
0193 : The Diary of a Nobody . George & Weedon Grossmith
0194 : The Viceroys . Federico De Roberto *
0195 : Jude the Obscure . Thomas Hardy
0196 : Effi Briest . Theodor Fontane
0197 : The Time Machine . H.G. Wells
0198 : The Island of Dr. Moreau . H.G. Wells
0199 : Quo Vadis . Henryk Sienkiewicz
0200 : Dracula . Bram Stoker
0201 : What Maisie Knew . Henry James
0202 : Compassion . Benito Pérez Galdós *
0203 : Pharaoh . Boleslaw Prus *
0204 : Fruits of the Earth . André Gide
0205 : The War of the Worlds . H.G. Wells
0206 : As a Man Grows Older . Italo Svevo *
0207 : Dom Casmurro . Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis *
0208 : The Awakening . Kate Chopin
0209 : The Stechlin . Theodor Fontane
0210 : Eclipse of the Crescent Moon . Géza Gárdonyi *
0211 : Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. . Somerville and Ross

: 1900s :
0212 : Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem . Emilio Salgari *
0213 : Sister Carrie . Theodore Dreiser
0214 : None but the Brave . Arthur Schnitzler *
0215 : Kim . Rudyard Kipling (I actually rather enjoyed it)
0216 : Buddenbrooks . Thomas Mann
0217 : The Hound of the Baskervilles . Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (A legacy of my misspent youth)
0218 : Heart of Darkness . Joseph Conrad (*yawn*)
0219 : The Wings of the Dove . Henry James
0220 : The Immoralist . André Gide
0221 : The Ambassadors . Henry James
0222 : The Riddle of the Sands . Erskine Childers
0223 : The Call of the Wild . Jack London *
0224 : Memoirs of my Nervous Illness . Daniel P. Schreber *
0225 : The Way of All Flesh . Samuel Butler *
0226 : Hadrian the Seventh . Frederick Rolfe
0227 : Nostromo . Joseph Conrad
0228 : The House of Mirth . Edith Wharton
0229 : Professor Unrat . Heinrich Mann
0230 : Solitude . Víctor Català *
0231 : Young Törless . Robert Musil
0232 : The Forsyte Saga . John Galsworthy
0233 : The Jungle . Upton Sinclair
0234 : The Secret Agent . Joseph Conrad
0235 : Mother . Maxim Gorky
0236 : The House on the Borderland . William Hope Hodgson
0237 : The Old Wives' Tale . Arnold Bennett
0238 : The Inferno . Henri Barbusse
0239 : A Room with a View . E.M. Forster
0240 : Strait is the Gate . André Gide
0241 : The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge . Rainer Maria Rilke *
0242 : Howards End . E.M. Forster
0243 : Impressions of Africa . Raymond Roussel
0244 : Fantômas . Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre
0245 : Ethan Frome . Edith Wharton
0246 : The Charwoman's Daughter . James Stephens
0247 : Death in Venice . Thomas Mann
0248 : Sons and Lovers . D.H. Lawrence
0249 : The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists . Robert Tressell
0250 : Platero and I . Juan Ramón Jiménez *
0251 : Tarzan of the Apes . Edgar Rice Burroughs
0252 : Locus Solas . Raymond Roussell
0253 : Kokoro . Natsume Soseki
0254 : The Thirty-Nine Steps . John Buchan
0255 : The Rainbow . D.H. Lawrence
0256 : Of Human Bondage . William Somerset Maugham (Since reading The Painted Veil, I've come to admire Maugham. Will get to it soon)
0257 : The Good Soldier . Ford Madox Ford
0258 : Rashomon . Akutagawa Ryunosuke *
0259 : Under Fire . Henri Barbusse
0260 : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . James Joyce (I was reading the hellfire and brimstone chapter while standing in the queue in a bank. It was the most surreal and intense banking experience ever)
0261 : The Underdogs . Mariano Azuela *
0262 : Pallieter . Felix Timmermans *
0263 : Home and the World . Rabindranath Tagore *
0264 : Growth of the Soil . Knut Hamsun
0265 : The Return of the Soldier . Rebecca West
0266 : Tarr . Wyndham Lewis
0267 : The Storm of Steel . Ernst Jünger *
0268 : Women in Love . D.H. Lawrence
0269 : Main Street . Sinclair Lewis
0270 : The Age of Innocence . Edith Wharton
0271 : Chrome Yellow . Aldous Huxley
0272 : Life of Christ . Giovanni Papini *
0273 : Ulysses . James Joyce (My Penguin copy sits very impressively on my bookshelf)
0274 : Babbitt . Sinclair Lewis
0275 : Claudine's House . Colette * (Read all the Claudine novels. Loved that saucy girl)
0276 : Life and Death of Harriett Frean . May Sinclair
0277 : The Forest of the Hanged . Liviu Rebreanu *
0278 : Siddhartha . Hermann Hesse (I really don't think it's that great. Or all that spiritual - but that's just me)
0279 : The Enormous Room . e.e. cummings
0280 : Kristin Lavransdatter . Sigrid Undset
0281 : Amok . Stefan Zweig
0282 : The Devil in the Flesh . Raymond Radiguet
0283 : Zeno's Conscience . Italo Svevo (Getting there)
0284 : A Passage to India . E.M. Forster
0285 : We . Yevgeny Zamyatin
0286 : The Magic Mountain . Thomas Mann
0287 : The Green Hat . Michael Arlen
0288 : The New World . Heruy Wäldä-Sellassé *
0289 : The Professor's House . Willa Cather
0290 : The Artamonov Business . Maxim Gorky
0291 : The Trial . Franz Kafka
0292 : The Counterfeiters . André Gide
0293 : The Great Gatsby . F. Scott Fitzgerald
0294 : Mrs. Dalloway . Virginia Woolf
0295 : Chaka the Zulu . Thomas Mofolo *
0296 : The Making of Americans . Gertrude Stein
0297 : The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . Agatha Christie
0298 : One, None and a Hundred Thousand . Luigi Pirandello
0299 : Under Satan's Sun . Geroges Bernanos *
0300 : The Good Soldier's Svejk . Jaroslav Hasek
0301 : Alberta and Jacob . Cora Sandel *
0302 : The Castle . Franz Kafka
0303 : Blindness . Henry Green
0304 : The Sun Also Rises . Ernest Hemingway
0305 : Amerika . Franz Kafka
0306 : The Case of Sergeant Grischa . Arnold Zweig *
0307 : Tarka the Otter . Henry Williamson
0308 : To the Lighthouse . Virginia Woolf
0309 : Remembrance of Things Past . Marcel Proust (GETTING THERE!)
0310 : Steppenwolf . Hermann Hesse
0311 : Nadja . André Breton
0312 : Quicksand . Nella Larsen
0313 : Decline and Fall . Evelyn Waugh
0314 : Some Prefer Nettles : Junichiro Tanizaki *
0315 : Parade's End . Ford Madox Ford
0316 : The Well of Loneliness . Radclyffe Hall (It's more than old-school. It's an institution - sort of like prison. Hence, the avoidance)
0317 : Lady Chatterley's Lover . D.H. Lawrence (Yes, I read it for the sexy bits when I was in school)
0318 : Orlando . Virginia Woolf (One day. Because of Tilda Swinton)
0319 : Story of the Eye . Geroges Bataille
0320 : Retreat Without Song . Shahan Shahnoor
0321 : Les Enfants Terribles . Jean Cocteau
0322 : Berlin Alexanderplatz . Alfred Döblin
0323 : All Quiet on the Western Front . Erich Maria Remarque
0324 : The Time of Indifference . Alberto Moravia
0325 : Living . Henry Green
0326 : I Thought of Daisy . Edmund Wilson *
0327 : Farewell to Arms . Ernest Hemingway
0328 : Passing . Nellas Larsen
0329 : Look Homeward, Angel . Thomas Wolfe *
0330 : The Maltese Falcon . Dashiell Hammett
0331 : Her Privates We . Frederic Manning
0332 : The Apes of God . Wyndham Lewis
0333 : Monica . Saunders Lewis *
0334 : Insatiability . Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz *
0335 : The Waves . Virginia Woolf
0336 : To the North . Elizabeth Bowen
0337 : The Thin Man . Dashiell Hammett
0338 : Journey to the End of the Night . Louis-Ferdinand Céline
0339 : The Return of Philip Latinowicz . Miroslav Krleza *
0340 : The Radetzky March . Joseph Roth
0341 : The Forbidden Realm . J.J. Slauerhoff *
0342 : Cold Comfort Farm . Stella Gibbons (I need to read this one, because it looks really funny)
0343 : Brave New World . Aldous Huxley
0344 : Vipers' Tangle . François Mauriac *
0345 : The Man Without Qualities . Robert Musil
0346 : Cheese . Willem Elsschot *
0347 : Man's Fate . André Malraux *
0348 : A Day Off . Storm Jameson
0349 : Testament of Youth . Vera Brittain
0350 : The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas . Gertrude Stein (Only if I'm marooned on an island with nothing else)
0351 : Murder Must Advertise . Dorothy L. Sayers
0352 : Miss Lonelyhearts . Nathanael West
0353 : Call It Sleep . Henry Roth
0354 : The Street of Crocodiles . Bruno Schulz
0355 : Thank You, Jeeves . P.G. Wodehouse
0356 : Tender is the Night . F. Scott Fitzgerald
0357 : Tropic of Cancer . Henry Miller
0358 : The Postman Always Rings Twice . James M. Cain
0359 : On the Heights of Despair . Emil Cioran *
0360 : The Bells of Basel . Louis Aragon *
0361 : The Nine Taylors . Dorothy L. Sayers
0362 : Auto-da-Fé . Elias Canetti
0363 : They Shoot Horses, Don't They? . Horace McCoy
0364 : The Last of Mr. Norris . Christopher Isherwood
0365 : Untouchable . Mulk Raj Anand
0366 : Independent People . Halldór Laxness
0367 : Nightwood . Djuna Barnes (yes, I said I would read it, but life has a way of interfering with plans)
0368 : At the Mountains of Madness . H.P. Lovecraft
0369 : Absalom, Absalom! . William Faulkner
0370 : War with the Newts . Karel Capek *
0371 : Keep the Aspidistra Flying . George Orwell
0372 : Gone with the Wind . Margaret Mitchell
0373 : The Thinking Reed . Rebecca West
0374 : Eyeless in Gaza . Aldous Huxley
0375 : Summer Will Show . Sylvia Townsend Warner
0376 : Rickshaw Boy . Lao She * (I've read it in Chinese, so it counts.)
0377 : Out of Africa . Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
0378 : In Parenthesis . David Jones
0379 : Ferdydurke . Witold Gombrowicz *
0380 : The Blind Owl . Sadegh Hedayat *
0381 : The Hobbit . J.R.R. Tolkien
0382 : Their Eyes Were Watching God . Zora Neale Hurston
0383 : Of Mice and Men . John Steinbeck
0384 : Murphy . Samuel Beckett
0385 : U.S.A. . John Dos Passos
0386 : Brighton Rock . Graham Greene (My first Graham Greene, which I didn't enjoy)
0387 : Cause for Alarm . Eric Ambler
0388 : Alamut . Vladimir Bartol *
0389 : Rebecca . Daphne du Maurier
0390 : Nausea . Jean-Paul Sartre
0391 : Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day . Winifred Watson
0392 : On the Edge of Reason . Miroslav Krleza *
0393 : The Big Sleep . Raymond Chandler
0394 : Goodbye to Berlin . Christopher Isherwood
0395 : The Grapes of Wrath . John Steinbeck
0396 : Good Morning, Midnight . Jean Rhys
0397 : At Swim-Two-Birds . Flann O'Brien
0398 : Finnegans Wake . James Joyce
0399 : Native Son . Richard Wright
0400 : The Tarter Steppe . Dino Buzzati
0401 : The Power and the Glory . Graham Greene
0402 : For Whom the Bell Tolls . Ernest Hemingway
0403 : The Man Who Loved Children . Christina Steed *
0404 : Broad and Alien is the World . Ciro Alegría *
0405 : The Living and the Dead . Patrick White
0406 : The Harvesters . Cesare Pavese *
0407 : Conversations in Sicily . Elio Vittorini
0408 : The Outsider . Albert Camus
0409 : Embers . Sándor Márai
0410 : Chess Story . Stefan Zweig *
0411 : The Glass Bead Game . Hermann Hesse
0412 : Joseph and His Brothers . Thomas Mann *
0413 : The Little Prince . Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
0414 : Dangling Man . Saul Bellow
0415 : The Razor's Edge . William Somerset Maugham (I like it, but I preferred The Painted Veil)
0416 : Transit . Anna Seghers
0417 : Pippi Longstocking . Astrid Lindgren *
0418 : Loving . Henry Green
0419 : Animal Farm . George Orwell ("Four legs good, two legs bad...")
0420 : The Bridge on the Drina . Ivo Andric
0421 : Christ Stopped at Eboli . Carlo Levi
0422 : Arcanum 17 . André Breton
0423 : Brideshead Revisited . Evelyn Waugh
0424 : Bosnian Chronicle . Ivo Andric *
0425 : The Tin Flute . Gabrielle Roy *
0426 : Andrea . Carmen Laforet *
0427 : The Death of Virgil . Hermann Broch *
0428 : Titus Groan . Mervyn Peake
0429 : Zorba the Greek . Nikos Kazantzakis *
0430 : Back . Henry Green
0431 : House in the Uplands . Erskine Caldwell *
0432 : The Path to the Nest of Spiders . Italo Calvino
0433 : Under the Volcano . Malcolm Lowry
0434 : If This Is a Man . Primo Levi
0435 : Exercises in Style . Raymond Queneau
0436 : The Plague . Albert Camus
0437 : Doctor Faustus . Thomas Mann
0438 : Midaq Alley . Naguib Mahfouz *
0439 : Froth on the Daydream . Boris Vian *
0440 : Journey to the Alcarria . Camilo José Cela *
0441 : Ashes and Diamonds . Jerzy Andrzejewski *
0442 : Disobedience . Alberto Moravia
0443 : All About H. Hatterr . G.V. Desani
0444 : Cry, the Beloved Country . Alan Paton
0445 : In the Heart of the Seas . Shmuel Yosef Agnon *
0446 : This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman . Tadeusz Borowski *
0447 : Death Sentence . Maurice Blanchot
0448 : Nineteen Eighty-Four . George Orwell
0449 : The Man with the Golden Arm . Nelson Algren
0450 : Kingdom of this World . Alejo Carpentier
0451 : The Heat of the Day . Elizabeth Bowen
0452 : Love in a Cold Climate . Nancy Mitford (Our local library do not have a copy! How dare they!)
0453 : The Case of Comrade Tulayev . Victor Serge
0454 : The Garden Where the Brass Band Played . Simon Vestdijk
0455 : I, Robot . Isaac Asimov (Did I read it or not? Or was that another novel with the robots?)
0456 : The Grass is Singing . Doris Lessing
0457 : A Town Like Alice . Nevil Shute *
0458 : The Moon and the Bonfires . Cesare Pavese
0459 : Gormenghast . Mervyn Peake (Tried to, but the language was heady and droned in my head)
0460 : The 13 Clocks . James Thurber
0461 : The Labyrinth of Solitude . Octavio Paz
0462 : The Abbott C . Georges Bataille
0463 : The Guiltless . Hermann Broch *
0464 : Barabbas . Pär Lagerkvist *
0465 : The End of the Affair . Graham Greene (My second Graham Greene, and one of the few books that made me cry - it confirmed me as a Greene fan)
0466 : Molloy . Samuel Beckett
0467 : The Rebel . Albert Camus
0468 : The Catcher in the Rye . J.D. Salinger (I do not identify with Holden Caulfield at all. I think he's a whiny, self-indulgent kid who needs to grow up)
0469 : The Opposing Shore . Julien Gracq
0470 : Foundation . Isaac Asimov (I read all the Foundation books by Asimov)
0471 : Malone Dies . Samuel Beckett
0472 : Day of the Triffids . John Wyndham
0473 : Memoirs of Hadrian . Marguerite Yourcenar
0474 : The Hive . Camilo José Cela *
0475 : Wise Blood . Flannery O'Connor
0476 : The Old Man and the Sea . Ernest Hemingway
0477 : Invisible Man . Ralph Ellison
0478 : The Judge and His Hangman . Friedrich Dürrenmatt
0479 : Excellent Women . Barbara Pym *
0480 : A Thousand Cranes . Yasunari Kawabata *
0481 : Go Tell It on the Mountain . James Baldwin
0482 : Casino Royale . Ian Fleming
0483 : Junkie . William Burroughs
0484 : Lucky Jim . Kingsley Amis
0485 : The Lost Steps . Alejo Carpentier *
0486 : The Hothouse . Wolfgang Koeppen *
0487 : The Long Good-Bye . Raymond Chandler
0488 : The Go-Between . L.P. Hartley
0489 : The Dark Child . Camara Laye *
0490 : A Day in Spring . Ciril Kosmac *
0491 : A Ghost at Noon . Alberto Moravia
0492 : The Story of O . Pauline Réage (I tried reading it, but was bored. S&M bores me, because my own life is more interesting)
0493 : Under the Net . Iris Murdoch
0494 : Lord of the Flies . William Golding
0495 : The Mandarins . Simone de Beauvoir *
0496 : Bonjour Tristesse . Françoise Sagan
0497 : Death in Rome . Wolfgang Koeppen *
0498 : The Sound of Waves . Yukio Mishima *
0499 : The Unknown Soldier . Väinö Linna *
0500 : I'm Not Stiller . Max Frisch
0501 : The Ragazzi . Pier Paolo Pasolini
0502 : The Recognitions . William Gaddis
0503 : The Burning Plain . Juan Rulfo *
0504 : The Quiet American . Graham Greene (I think this might actually be my favourite Greene novel, because it is so re-readable)
0505 : The Trusting and the Maimed . James Plunkett
0506 : The Tree of Man . Patrick White *
0507 : The Last Temptation of Christ . Nikos Kazantzákis
0508 : The Devil to Pay in the Backlands . João Guimarães Rosa *
0509 : Lolita . Vladimir Nabokov
0510 : The Talented Mr. Ripley . Patricia Highsmith
0511 : The Lord of the Rings . J.R.R. Tolkien (Read it before the movie. Didn't like the happy, singing Hobbit bits)
0512 : The Lonely Londoners . Sam Selvon
0513 : The Roots of Heaven . Romain Gary
0514 : The Floating Opera . John Barth
0515 : Giovanni's Room . James Baldwin
0516 : Justine . Lawrence Durrell
0517 : The Glass Bees . Ernst Jünger *
0518 : Doctor Zhivago . Boris Pasternak
0519 : Pnin . Vladimir Nabokov
0520 : On the Road . Jack Kerouac (Didn't finish)
0521 : The Manila Rope . Veijo Meri *
0522 : The Deadbeats . Ward Ruyslinck *
0523 : Homo Faber . Max Frisch
0524 : Blue of Noon . Geroges Bataille
0525 : The Midwich Cuckoos . John Wyndham
0526 : Voss . Patrick White
0527 : Jealousy . Alain Robbe-Grillet
0528 : The Birds . Tarjei Vesaas *
0529 : The Once and Future King . T.H. White
0530 : The Bell . Iris Murdoch
0531 : Borstal Boy . Brendan Behan
0532 : Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon . Jorge Amado *
0533 : Saturday Night and Sunday Morning . Alan Sillitoe
0534 : Things Fall Apart . Chinua Achebe
0535 : The Bitter Glass . Eilís Dillon
0536 : The Guide . R.K. Narayan *
0537 : The Leopard . Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (I want to read this before I die)
0538 : Deep Rivers . José María Arguedas *
0539 : Breakfast at Tiffany's . Truman Capote
0540 : Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring . Kenzaburo Oe
0541 : Billiards at Half-Past Nine . Heinrich Böll
0542 : Down Second Avenue . Ezekiel Mphahlele *
0543 : Cider With Rosie . Laurie Lee
0544 : The Tin Drum . Günter Grass
0545 : The Naked Lunch . William Burroughs
0546 : Billy Liar . Keith Waterhouse
0547 : Absolute Beginners . Colin MacInnes
0548 : Promise at Dawn . Romain Gary
0549 : Rabbit, Run . John Updike
0550 : To Kill a Mockingbird . Harper Lee (Still my favourite book)
0551 : The Magician of Lublin . Isaac Bashevis Singer *
0552 : Halftime . Martin Walser *
0553 : The Country Girls . Edna O'Brien
0554 : Bebo's Girl . Carlo Cassola *
0555 : God's Bit of Wood . Ousmane Sembène *
0556 : The Shipyard . Juan Carlos Onetti *
0557 : Catch-22 . Joseph Heller
0558 : Solaris . Stanislaw Lem
0559 : Cat and Mouse . G¨nter Grass
0560 : The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . Muriel Spark
0561 : A Severed Head . Iris Murdoch
0562 : Franny and Zooey . J.D. Salinger
0563 : No One Writes to the Colonel . Gabriel García Márquez *
0564 : Faces in the Water . Janet Frame
0565 : Memoirs of a Peasant Boy . Xosé Neira Vilas *
0566 : Stranger in a Strange Land . Robert Heinlein (I enjoyed Friday more)
0567 : Labyrinths . Jorge Luis Borges
0568 : The Golden Notebook . Doris Lessing
0569 : Time of Silence . Luis Martín-Santos *
0570 : Pale Fire . Vladimir Nabokov (I think Nabokov is just a smart-ass)
0571 : A Clockwork Orange . Anthony Burgess
0572 : One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest . Ken Kesey
0573 : Girl With Green Eyes . Edna O'Brien
0574 : The Death of Artemio Cruz . Carlos Fuentes *
0575 : The Time of the Hero . Mario Vargas Llosa *
0576 : The Garden of the Finzi-Continis . Giorgio Bassani *
0577 : One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0578 : The Third Wedding . Costas Taktsis *
0579 : Dog Years . Günter Grass *
0580 : The Bell Jar . Sylvia Plath
0581 : Inside Mr. Enderby . Anthony Burgess
0582 : The Girls of Slender Means . Muriel Spark
0583 : The Spy Who Came in From the Cold . John Le Carré
0584 : Manon des Sources . Marcel Pagnol
0585 : The Graduate . Charles Webb
0586 : Cat's Cradle . Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
0587 : V. . Thomas Pynchon
0588 : Herzog . Saul Bellow
0589 : The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein . Marguerite Duras
0590 : Arrow of God . Chinua Achebe
0591 : Three Trapped Tigers . Guillermo Cabrera Infante *
0592 : Sometimes a Great Notion . Ken Kesey
0593 : The Passion According to G.H. . Clarice Lispector
0594 : Back to Oegstgeest . Jan Wolkers *
0595 : Closely Watched Trains . Bohumil Hrabal *
0596 : The River Between . Ngugi wa Thiong'o
0597 : Garden, Ashes . Danilo Kis *
0598 : Everything That Rises Must Converge . Flannery O'Connor
0599 : Things . Georges Perec
0600 : In Cold Blood . Truman Capote
0601 : Death and the Dervish . Mesa Selimovic * (Never finished)
0602 : Silence . Shusaku Endo *
0603 : To Each His Own . Leonardo Sciascia *
0604 : The Crying of Lot 49 . Thomas Pynchon (No way! I hated Vineland)
0605 : Giles Goat-Boy . John Barth
0606 : Marks of Identity . Juan Goytisolo *
0607 : The Vice-Consul . Marguerite Duras
0608 : The Magus . John Fowles
0609 : The Master and Margarita . Mikhail Bulgakov
0610 : Wide Sargasso Sea . Jean Rhys (It was so depressing and bleak)
0611 : The Third Policeman . Flann O'Brien
0612 : Miramar . Naguib Mahfouz *
0613 : Z . Vassilis Vassilikos *
0614 : Pilgrimage . Dorothy Richardson
0615 : The Manor . Isaac Bashevis Singer *
0616 : One Hundred Years of Solitude . Gabriel García Márquez (Never finished)
0617 : No Laughing Matter . Angus Wilson
0618 : Days of the Dolphin . Robert Merle *
0619 : The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . Tom Wolfe
0620 : Eva Trout . Elizabeth Bowen
0621 : The Cathedral . Oles Honchar *
0622 : A Kestral for a Knave . Barry Hines
0623 : In Watermelon Sugar . Richard Brautigan
0624 : The German Lesson . Siegfried Lenz
0625 : The Quest for Christa T. . Christa Wolf
0626 : Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? . Philip K. Dick
0627 : 2001: A Space Odyssey . Arthur C. Clarke
0628 : Belle du Seigneur . Albert Cohen
0629 : Cancer Ward . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0630 : Myra Breckinridge . Gore Vidal
0631 : The First Circle . Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
0632 : A Void/Avoid . Georges Perec
0633 : Them . Joyce Carol Oates
0634 : Ada . Vladimir Nabokov
0635 : The Godfather . Mario Puzo
0636 : Portnoy's Complaint . Philip Roth
0637 : Jacob the Liar . Jurek Becker *
0638 : The French Lieutenant's Woman . John Fowles
0639 : Slaughterhouse-five . Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
0640 : Blind Man With a Pistol . Chester Himes
0641 : Pricksongs and Descants . Robert Coover
0642 : Tent of Miracles . Jorge Armado
0643 : The Case Worker . György Konrád *
0644 : Moscow Stations . Venedikt Yerofeev *
0645 : Heartbreak Tango . Manuel Puig *
0646 : Seasons of Migrations to the North . Tayeb Salih *
0647 : Here's to You, Jesusa! . Elena Poniatowska *
0648 : Fifth Business . Robertson Davies * (I could argue for Rebel Angels instead...)
0649 : Play It As It Lays . Joan Didion *
0650 : Jahrestage . Uwe Johnson
0651 : A World for Julius . Alfredo Bryce Echenique *
0652 : I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . Maya Angelou
0653 : The Bluest Eyes . Toni Morrison
0654 : The Sea of Fertility . Yukio Mishima
0655 : Rabbit Redux . John Updike
0656 : Cataract . Mykhaylo Osadchyl *
0657 : Group Portrait With Lady . Heinrich Böll
0658 : Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . Hunter S. Thompson
0659 : The Book of Daniel . E.L. Doctorow
0660 : Lives of Girls & Women . Alice Munro *
0661 : House Mother Normal . B.S. Johnson
0662 : In a Free State . V.S. Naipal
0663 : Surfacing . Margaret Atwood
0664 : G . John Berger
0665 : The Summer Book . Tove Jansson
0666 : The Twilight Years . Sawako Ariyoshi *
0667 : The Optimist's Daughter . Eudora Welty *
0668 : Invisible Cities . Italo Calvino
0669 : Gravity's Rainbow . Thomas Pynchon
0670 : The Honorary Consul . Graham Greene
0671 : Crash . J.G. Ballard
0672 : The Castle of Crossed Destinies . Italo Calvino
0673 : The Siege of Krishnapur . J.G. Farrell
0674 : A Question of Power . Bessie Head
0675 : Fear of Flying . Erica Jong
0676 : The Dispossessed . Ursula K. Le Guin *
0677 : The Diviners . Margaret Laurence *
0678 : The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum . Heinrich Böll
0679 : Dusklands . J.M. Coetzee
0680 : The Fan Man . William Kotzwinkle
0681 : The Port . Antun Soljan *
0682 : Ragtime . E.L. Doctorow
0683 : The Commandant . Jessica Anderson *
0684 : The Year of the Hare . Arto Paasilinna *
0685 : Humboldt's Gift . Saul Bellow
0686 : Woman at Point Zero . Nawal El Saadawi *
0687 : Willard and His Bowling Trophies . Richard Brautigan
0688 : Fateless . Imre Kertész
0689 : The Dead Father . Donald Barthelme
0690 : Correction . Thomas Bernhard
0691 : A Dance to the Music of Time . Anthony Powell
0692 : W, or the Memory of Childhood . Georges Perec
0693 : Autumn of the Patriarch . Gabriel García Márquez
0694 : Patterns of Childhood . Christa Wolf
0695 : Blaming . Elizabeth Taylor *
0696 : Cutter and Bone . Newton Thornburg
0697 : Interview With the Vampire . Anne Rice
0698 : The Left-Handed Woman . Peter Handke
0699 : Kiss of the Spider Woman . Manuel Puig *
0700 : Almost Transparent Blue . Ryu Murakami *
0701 : In the Heart of the Country . J.M. Coetzee
0702 : The Engineer of the Human Soul . Josef Skvorecky *
0703 : Quartet in Autumn . Barbara Pym *
0704 : The Hour of the Star . Clarice Lispector
0705 : Song of Solomon . Toni Morrison
0706 : The Wars . Timothy Findley *
0707 : Dispatches . Michael Herr
0708 : The Shining . Stephen King
0709 : Delta of Venus . Anaïs Nin (Don't judge me)
0710 : The Beggar Maid . Alice Munro *
0711 : Requiem for a Dream . Hubert Selby Jr. *
0712 : The Singapore Grip . J.G. Farrell
0713 : The Sea, The Sea . Iris Murdoch
0714 : Life: A User's Manual . Georges Perec
0715 : The Back Room . Carmen Martín Gaite *
0716 : The Virgin in the Garden . A.S. Byatt
0717 : The Cement Garden . Ian McEwan
0718 : Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy . Douglas Adams
0719 : If on a Winter's Night a Traveler . Italo Calvino
0720 : So Long a Letter . Mariama Bâ *
0721 : Burger's Daughter . Nadine Gordimer
0722 : A Bend in the River . V.S. Naipaul
0723 : A Dry White Season . André Brink *
0724 : The Book of Laughter and Forgetting . Milan Kundera
0725 : Fool's Gold . Maro Douka *
0726 : Smiley's People . John Le Carré
0727 : Southern Seas . Manuel Vásquez Montalbán *
0728 : The Name of the Rose . Umberto Eco
0729 : Clear Light of Day . Anita Desai *
0730 : Confederacy of Dunces . John Kennedy Toole
0731 : Rituals . Cees Nooteboom
0732 : Smell of Sadness . Alfred Kossmann *
0733 : Broken April . Ismail Kadare *
0734 : Midnight's Children . Salman Rushdie (Many false starts. Never finished it though)
0735 : Waiting for Barbarians . J.M. Coetzee
0736 : Summer in Baden-Baden . Leonid Tsypkin (I tried, but the "swimming" metaphor for sex was just ridiculous. Susan Sontag loved it. She's a different kettle of fish altogether)
0737 : The House with the Blind Glass Windows . Herbjørg Wassmo *
0738 : Leaden Wings . Zhang Jie *
0739 : The War at the End of the World . Mario Vargas Llosa *
0740 : Lanark: A Life in Four Books . Alasdair Gray
0741 : Rabbit is Rich . John Updike
0742 : Couples, Passerby . Botho Strauss *
0743 : July's People . Nadine Gordimer
0744 : On the Black Hill . Bruce Chatwin
0745 : The House of the Spirits . Isabel Allende
0746 : Schindler's Ark . Thomas Keneally
0747 : A Pale View of Hills . Kazuo Ishiguro
0748 : Wittgenstein's Nephew . Thomas Bernhard
0749 : The Color Purple . Alice Walker (I loved it)
0750 : A Boy's Own Story . Edmund White
0751 : If Not Now, When? . Primo Levi
0752 : The Book of Disquiet . Fernando Pessoa *
0753 : Baltasar and Blimunda . José Saramago *
0754 : The Sorrow of Belgium . Hugo Claus
0755 : The Piano Teacher . Elfriede Jelinek (I think the book is unreadable)
0756 : The Life and Times of Michael K . J.M. Coetzee
0757 : Waterland . Graham Swift
0758 : LaBrava . Elmore Leonard
0759 : The Christmas Oratorio . Göran Tunström *
0760 : Fado Alexandrino . António Lobo Antunes *
0761 : The Witness . Juan José Saer *
0762 : Shame . Salman Rushdie
0763 : Money: A Suicide Note . Martin Amis
0764 : Flaubert's Parrot . Julian Barnes
0765 : Professor Martens' Departure . Jaan Kross *
0766 : Blood and Guts in High School . Kathy Acker
0767 : Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel . Julián Ríos *
0768 : Nights at the Circus . Angela Carter
0769 : Neuromancer . William Gibson (Read the entire cyberpunk series. Never again, will I read aWilliam Gibson title)
0770 : The Wasp Factory . Iain Banks
0771 : Democracy . Joan Didion *
0772 : The Lover . Marguerite Duras
0773 : The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis . José Saramago
0774 : Empire of the Sun . J.G. Ballard
0775 : The Busconductor Hines . James Kelman
0776 : Dictionary of the Khazars . Milorad Pavic
0777 : The Unbearable Lightness of Being . Milan Kundera
0778 : Legend . David Gemmell (How did this get here? It was epic, and so rich in human heroics and passions)
0779 : The Young Man . Botho Strauss *
0780 : Love Medicine . Louise Erdrich *
0781 : White Noise . Don DeLillo
0782 : Half of Man is Woman . Zhang Xianliang *
0783 : Reasons to Live . Amy Hempel
0784 : The Handmaid's Tale . Margaret Atwood
0785 : Hawksmoor . Peter Ackroyd
0786 : Perfume . Patrick Süskind
0787 : Blood Meridian . Cormac McCarthy *
0788 : Contact . Carl Sagan (Great book, and a pretty good film with Jodie Foster)
0789 : Simon and the Oaks . Marianne Fredriksson *
0790 : The Cider House Rules . John Irving
0791 : Annie John . Jamaica Kincaid *
0792 : The Parable of the Blind . Gert Hofmann
0793 : Love in the Time of Cholera . Gabriel García Márquez
0794 : Ancestral Voices . Etienne van Heerden *
0795 : The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman . Andrzej Szczypiorski *
0796 : The Drowned and the Saved . Primo Levi
0797 : Watchmen . Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
0798 : Extinction . Thomas Bernhard
0799 : An Artist of the Floating World . Kazuo Ishiguro
0800 : Memory of Fire . Eduardo Galeano *
0801 : The Old Devils . Kingley Amis
0802 : Matigari . Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
0803 : Anagrams . Lorrie Moore
0804 : Lost Language of Cranes . David Leavitt
0805 : The Taebak Mountains . Jo Jung-rae
0806 : Ballad for Georg Henig . Viktor Pasokov *
0807 : Enigma of Arrival . V.S. Naipaul
0808 : World's End . T. Coraghessan Boyle
0809 : The Pigeon . Patrick Süskind
0810 : Of Love and Shadows . Isabel Allende *
0811 : Beloved . Toni Morrison
0812 : All Souls . Javier Marías *
0813 : The New York Trilogy . Paul Auster
0814 : Black Box . Amos Oz *
0815 : The Bonfire of the Vanities . Tom Wolfe
0816 : The Black Dahlia . James Ellroy
0817 : The Afternoon of a Writer . Peter Handke
0818 : The Radiant Way . Margaret Drabble
0819 : Kitchen . Banana Yoshimoto *
0820 : Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency . Douglas Adams
0821 : Cigarettes . Harry Mathews
0822 : Nervous Conditions . Tsitsi Dangarembga
0823 : The First Garden . Anne Hébert *
0824 : The Last World . Christoph Ransmayr *
0825 : Oscar and Lucinda . Peter Carey
0826 : The Swimming-Pool Library . Alan Hollinghurst
0827 : The Satanic Verses . Salman Rushdie
0828 : Wittgenstein's Mistress . David Markson
0829 : Paradise of the Blind . Duong Thu Huong *
0830 : Foucault's Pendulum . Umberto Eco (It took me 2 years to finish, I think)
0831 : Gimmick! . Joost Zwagerman *
0832 : Obabakoak . Bernardo Atzaga *
0833 : Inland . Gerald Murnane *
0834 : A Prayer for Owen Meany . John Irving
0835 : Like Water for Chocolate . Laura Esquivel
0836 : The History of the Siege of Lisbon . José Saramago
0837 : The Trick is to Keep Breathing . Janice Galloway
0838 : The Great Indian Novel . Shashi Tharoor *
0839 : The Melancholy of Resistance . László Krasznahorkai
0840 : The Remains of the Day . Kazuo Ishiguro
0841 : London Fields . Martin Amis
0842 : Moon Palace . Paul Auster
0843 : Sexing the Cherry . Jeanette Winterson (I didn't understand it)
0844 : Like Life . Lorrie Moore
0845 : The Buddha of Suburbia . Hanif Kureishi
0846 : The Shadow Lines . Amitav Ghosh *
0847 : The Midnight Examiner . William Kotzwinkle
0848 : The Things They Carried . Tim O'Brien
0849 : The Music of Chance . Paul Auster
0850 : Stone Junction . Jim Dodge
0851 : Amongst Women . John McGahern
0852 : Get Shorty . Elmore Leonard
0853 : The Daughter . Pavlos Matesis *
0854 : Vertigo . W.G. Sebald
0855 : American Psycho . Bret Easton Ellis (Didn't finish)
0856 : The Laws . Connie Palman *
0857 : Faceless Killers . Henning Mankell *
0858 : Astradeni . Eugenia Fakinou *
0859 : Regeneration . Pat Barker
0860 : Typical . Padgett Powell
0861 : Mao II . Don DeLillo
0862 : Wild Swans . Jung Chang
0863 : Arcadia . Jim Crace
0864 : Hideous Kinky . Esther Freud
0865 : Memoirs of Rain . Sunetra Gupta *
0866 : Asphodel . H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
0867 : The Butcher Boy . Patrick McCabe
0868 : Smilla's Sense of Snow . Peter Høeg
0869 : The Dumas Club . Arturo Pérez-Reverte *
0870 : Written on the Body . Jeanette Winterson (one of my top 4 Winterson favs - but why is The Passion not on the list? Or Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit?)
0871 : The Crow Road . Iain Banks
0872 : Indigo . Marina Warner
0873 : The English Patient . Michael Ondaatje (One of the few books I re-read)
0874 : Posessing the Secret of Joy . Alice Walker
0875 : All the Pretty Horses . Cormac McCarthy *
0876 : The Triple Mirror of the Self . Zulfikar Ghose *
0877 : Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture . Apostolos Doxiadis *
0878 : The Discovery of Heaven . Harry Mulisch
0879 : Life is a Caravanserai . Emine Sevgi Özdamar
0880 : Before Night Falls . Reinaldo Arenas *
0881 : The Secret History . Donna Tartt
0882 : The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll . Álvaro Mutis *
0883 : Remembering Babylon . David Malouf *
0884 : The Holder of the World . Bharati Mukherjee *
0885 : The Virgin Suicides . Jeffrey Eugenides
0886 : The Stone Diaries . Carol Shields
0887 : A Suitable Boy . Vikram Seth
0888 : What a Carve Up! . Jonathan Coe
0889 : On Love . Alain de Botton
0890 : The Twins . Tessa de Loo *
0891 : Looking for the Possible Dance . A.L. Kennedy
0892 : Birdsong . Sebastian Faulks
0893 : The Shipping News . Annie Proulx
0894 : Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light . Ivan Klima *
0895 : The Invention of Curried Sausage . Uwe Timm
0896 : Disappearance . David Dabydeen
0897 : Deep River . Shusaku Endo *
0898 : Felicia's Journey . William Trevor
0899 : Captain Corelli's Mandolin . Louis de Bernières
0900 : How Late It Was, How Late . James Kelman
0901 : City Sister Silver . Jáchym Topol
0902 : Pereira Declares: A Testimony . Antonio Tabucchi
0903 : The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle . Haruki Murakami (My introduction to Murakami)
0904 : Our Lady of the Assassins . Fernando Vallejo *
0905 : Land . Park Kyong-ni
0906 : Whatever . Michel Houellebecq
0907 : Troubling Love . Elena Ferrante *
0908 : The Late-Night News . Petros Markaris *
0909 : The End of the Story . Lydia Davis
0910 : Love's Work . Gillian Rose
0911 : A Fine Balance . Rohinton Mistry
0912 : The Reader . Bernhard Schlink
0913 : Santa Evita . Tomás Martínez *
0914 : Morvern Caller . Alan Warner
0915 : The Unconsoled . Kazuo Ishiguro
0916 : Alias Grace . Margaret Atwood
0917 : The Clay Machine-Gun . Victor Pelevin
0918 : Infinite Jest . David Foster Wallace
0919 : Forever a Stranger . Hella Haasse
0920 : The Ghost Road . Pat Barker
0921 : Fugitive Pieces . Anne Michaels
0922 : Hallucinating Foucault . Patricia Duncker
0923 : A Light Comedy . Eduardo Mendoza *
0924 : Fall on Your Knees . Ann-Marie MacDonald * (I loved it. Sorry Bybee ;p)
0925 : Silk . Alessandro Baricco
0926 : The God of Small Things . Arundhati Roy
0927 : Margot and the Angels . Kristien Hemmerechts *
0928 : The Life of Insects . Victor Pelevin
0929 : Money to Burn . Ricardo Piglia *
0930 : Jack Maggs . Peter Carey
0931 : Underworld . Don DeLillo
0932 : Enduring Love . Ian McEwan
0933 : Crossfire . Miyabe Miyuki
0934 : The Poisonwood Bible . Barbara Kingsolver
0935 : Veronika Decides to Die . Paulo Coelho
0936 : The Hours . Michael Cunningham
0937 : All Souls Day . Cees Nooteboom
0938 : The Heretic . Miguel Deliber *
0939 : Elementary Particles . Michel Houellebecq
0940 : The Talk of the Town . Ardal O'Hanlon
0941 : Dirty Havana Trilogy . Pedro Juan Gutiérrez *
0942 : Savage Detectives . Roberto Bolaño *
0943 : Disgrace . J.M. Coetzee
0944 : As If I Am Not There . Slavenka Drakulic
0945 : Pavel's Letters . Monika Moron *
0946 : In Search of Klingsor . Jorge Volpi *
0947 : The Museum of Unconditional Surrender . Dubravka Ugresic *
0948 : Fear and Trembling . Amélie Nothomb (What is the big deal with Nothomb?)

: 2000s :
0949 : Bartleby and Co. . Enrique Vila-Matas *
0950 : Celestial Harmonies . Péter Esterházy
0951 : Small Remedies . Shashi Deshpande
0952 : The Human Stain . Philip Roth
0953 : White Teeth . Zadie Smith
0954 : Under the Skin . Michel Faber
0955 : The Heart of Redness . Zakes Mda
0956 : Spring Flowers, Spring Frost . Ismail Kadare
0957 : The Devil and Miss Prym . Paulo Cohelo
0958 : The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . Michael Chabon *
0959 : The Feast of the Goat . Mario Vargas Llosa
0960 : I'm Not Scared . Niccolò Ammaniti *
0961 : Soldiers of Salamis . Javier Cercas *
0962 : Atonement . Ian McEwan
0963 : Austerlitz . W.G. Sebald
0964 : Life of Pi . Yann Martel
0965 : The Corrections . Jonathan Franzen (I actually enjoyed it)
0966 : Platform . Michel Houellebecq
0967 : Snow . Orhan Pamuk *
0968 : Nowhere Man . Aleksandar Hemon
0969 : Everything is Illuminated . Jonathan Safran Foer
0970 : Kafka on the Shore . Haruki Murakami
0971 : Islands . Dan Sleigh
0972 : The Namesake . Jhumpa Lahiri *
0973 : Vernon God Little . DBC Pierre *
0974 : The Successor . Ismail Kadare *
0975 : Lady Number Thirteen . José Carlos Somoza *
0976 : What I Loved . Siri Hustvedt
0977 : The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . Mark Haddon
0978 : A Tale of Love and Darkness . Amos Oz *
0979 : Your Face Tomorrow . Javier Marías *
0980 : Cloud Atlas . David Mitchell
0981 : The Swarm . Frank Schätzing *
0982 : Suite Française . Irène Némirovsky *
0983 : The Master . Colm Tóibín
0984 : The Plot Against America . Philip Roth
0985 : The Book about Blanche and Marie . Per Olov Enquist *
0986 : Small Island . Andrea Levy *
0987 : 2666 . Roberto Bolaño *
0988 : The Line of Beauty . Alan Hollinghurst *
0989 : The Accidental . Ali Smith *
0990 : The Sea . John Banville
0991 : A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian . Marina Lewycka *
0992 : Measuring the World . Daniel Kehlmann *
0993 : Mother's Milk . Edward S. Aubyn *
0994 : Carry Me Down . M.J. Hyland *
0995 : Against the Day . Thomas Pynchon *
0996 : The Inheritance of Loss . Kiran Desai *
0997 : The Kindly Ones . Jonathan Littell *
0998 : Half of a Yellow Sun . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie *
0999 : The Reluctant Fundamentalist . Mohsin Hamid *
1000 : Falling Man . Don DeLillo *
1001 : Animal's People . Indra Sinha *

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