This month I have slipped in a few new titles but I still have several books I want to read from the September pool so this new list might not be so exciting. As is usually the case, I find myself in the midst of three or four novels just as the month rolls over so, no matter how tempting the new titles are, I really must attend to finishing the old ones first. And this includes a couple of hefty tomes that may take quite some time to complete.
I’m still thrashing between trying to empty some space on my bookshelves by reading real ink and paper books but my iPad is just so convenient that I often start reading a new digital novel immediately after finishing the previous digital novel and never get to those hard-to-read paper things. Even when I schedule a real book to read, I often scurry around and obtain a digital copy beforehand and end up donating the physical book to the local Book Exchange (they love me … lots of essentially brand-new books for their collection).
It has started to cool off a little around here. It’s not that the alligators are forced to wear sweaters but just cool enough so I can sit out on the lanai and read at my leisure. This is a good time of the year.
Here is my reading pool for October 2014
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings— Maya Angelou *
- The Way the World Works — Nicholas Baker *
- Sellevision — Augustan Burroughs *
- Cities of the Red Night — William S. Burroughs
- The Man Who Was Thursday — C. K. Chesterton *
- Nostromo — Joseph Conrad *
- Nervous Conditions — Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Big Money — John Dos Passos
- Independence Day — Richard Ford *
- Two Girls, Fat and Thin — Mary Gaitskill
- Momo — Romain Gary *
- Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book — Maxine Hong Kingston
- Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy — John Le Carré *
- The Interrogation — J. M. G. Le Clézio *
- California — Edan Lepucki *
- I Hunt Killers — Barry Lyga *
- A Heart So White — Javier Marías *
- Defiance — Carole Maso
- Despair — Vladimir Nabokov *
- Mudwoman — Joyce Carol Oates *
- Doomed — Chuck Palahniuk *
- Martereau — Nathalie Sarraute
- Maigret Meets a Milord — Georges Simenon *
- Momento Mori — Muriel Spark
- Snowcrash — Neil Stephenson
- The Royal Family — William T. Vollmann
- Armageddon In Retrospect — Kurt Vonnegut
- Infinite Jest — David Foster Wallace
- Salamander — Thomas Wharton *
- Black Boy — Richard Wright
Momo is on my list for October. I hope to read Nostromo someday, but it’s not in the near future. Also Momento Mori has attracted my attention in the past. Maybe someday. The only one on your list which I have already read is The Man Who Was Thursday. Quite an interesting read.
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I read a novel by Romain Gary back in the late ’60s and this one has been on my Amazon wish list for a couple of years (translated title: Madame Rosa or The Life Before Us). I am about half-way through and the reading is pleasant and engaging … worth reading even if it wasn’t a reading group selection.
I like Muriel Spark but Momento Mori has been on and off of my list for months (I got a used copy at the book exchange). Is this the month I finally read it? Of interest, I have sampled several of the contemporary female authors (Drabble, Taylor, Lessing, Spark) and have been sufficiently stimulated so as to look for more titles. After all, how many times can you reread Ulysses?
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I’ve never read Romain Gary before, but now have two of them. When I was ordering The Life Before Us, I saw Lady L with Sophia Loren on the cover for a buck, so grabbed it too. I am one of those philistines that haven’t read Ulysses even once. I also only made it halfway through Proust.
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Oh boy! That’s a lot 😱😬😬 and it’s only for the month of October 👍 enjoy!
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