i should just carry a copy with me at all times. any minor inconvenience i face can then be solved by me just lobbing crawdads at the nearest target
(i’m weirdly attached to my copy at this point. the poor thing has been trapped there for years 🥲)
Books #42
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(i’m weirdly attached to my copy at this point. the poor thing has been trapped there for years 🥲)
I’m trying to find my next read amongst the hundreds in my kindle library. I want thoughtful but not too demanding.
Has anyone read Woodworking by Emily St James? I’d been seeing it on a lot of bookstagram accounts last year, bought it on a kindle deal recently, and then saw this on Threads. Everyone’s favourite octopus writer endorsed it!
Has anyone read Woodworking by Emily St James? I’d been seeing it on a lot of bookstagram accounts last year, bought it on a kindle deal recently, and then saw this on Threads. Everyone’s favourite octopus writer endorsed it!
Oh goodness I’d not seen this before. It’s so beautiful and sad at the same timeI hadn’t read it in years and looked it up just now. So beautiful. But also how heartbreaking that it was misconstrued so by the media at the time
March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media
A humbling reminder that self-righteousness is the greatest enemy of compassion and judging another human being’s private struggle is a disgrace to our own humanity.www.themarginalian.org
I fell into a George Eliot rabbit hole, she was such an impressive person, absolutely revolutionary really. I didn’t know she was apparently “famously weird”. I wonder how many of her male peers were judged first on their appearance.
A fellow novelist said the below:
A fellow novelist said the below:
Just finished The Chemist by AA Dhand. Crime isn’t usually my genre of choice but I raced through it. I find stressful chapters highly increase my reading speed 
need something more chilled to read next!
need something more chilled to read next!I think we know the answer..
He was at least a fan of hers, he wrote very disparagingly of Austen.
I think Henry James was notoriously a bit of an hole.
I really hate old timey books and find these lists really boring. I'd love to see a list of the top 100 contemporary novels.
I have read 12/100 on the list. The only 2 that I actually enjoyed were Catch 22 and The Handmaid's tale. Everything else was boring.
I read The Great Gatsby earlier this year. I only read it has I keep seeing books that are ' remixes' of it, eg what if the story was told by a different character? What if it it was romance between Nic and Gatsby? What if it was in modern times and they were all celebs/influencers and also women for some reason?
It was surprisingly boring. To much happens off screen and Nic just explains it after the fact. I expected there to be a big scene showing Nic learning his secret, but instead Nic just randomly drops in that they had previously had a chat and it was all revealed.
I read The Great Gatsby earlier this year. I only read it has I keep seeing books that are ' remixes' of it, eg what if the story was told by a different character? What if it it was romance between Nic and Gatsby? What if it was in modern times and they were all celebs/influencers and also women for some reason?
It was surprisingly boring. To much happens off screen and Nic just explains it after the fact. I expected there to be a big scene showing Nic learning his secret, but instead Nic just randomly drops in that they had previously had a chat and it was all revealed.
The Guardian did it in 2019, Wolf Hall coming first
And then the NYT with My Brilliant Friend, following a very similar voting mechanism and article format as what the Guardian just did
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
As voted on by 503 book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
I have read far more from these modern lists!
even as a classic lit lover, now we’re talking!The Guardian did it in 2019, Wolf Hall coming first
And then the NYT with My Brilliant Friend, following a very similar voting mechanism and article format as what the Guardian just did
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
As voted on by 503 book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.www.nytimes.com
I have read far more from these modern lists!
View attachment 3993070View attachment 3993071
kavalier and clay! lincoln in the bardo! tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow! the great believers! the goldfinch! gilead! i’ll ignore that frankly insane placement for the overstory and detransition, baby!
ngl i really enjoyed the entire ferrante quartet but i do think they’re insanely overhyped. i don’t know if it was the translation but the writing style just didn’t work for me.
I ended up with a final score of 34. After seeing the list of books that didn’t make it, and with things like Wolf Hall appearing so far down I was feeling slightly hopeful that the top 20 might be something a bit different but sadly not! Not denying there are some real classics in there but it definitely feels a list of books people have named because they think they should.
I do have to stick up for The Great Gatsby though. A big chunk of my degree was American Lit so it’s one I’ve had to read and dissect more than normal, and I still love it! (Not the always the case - looking at you Little Women!)
I do have to stick up for The Great Gatsby though. A big chunk of my degree was American Lit so it’s one I’ve had to read and dissect more than normal, and I still love it! (Not the always the case - looking at you Little Women!)
i love the great gatsby too. i get why people don’t but, at its heart, it’s just such a tragic story (with some beautiful writing) that i can’t help but love it. i read it over lockdown for the first time in about 15 years and was surprised by how much i liked it. i get why there’s so many retellings of it because the basic core of it (throwing parties to get someone’s attention! make them look at your green light across the bay
) transfers to most things.It’s the classic “myth of the American dream”/wealth v happiness story which still makes a good narrative for a book and fits with most time periods.i love the great gatsby too. i get why people don’t but, at its heart, it’s just such a tragic story (with some beautiful writing) that i can’t help but love it. i read it over lockdown for the first time in about 15 years and was surprised by how much i liked it. i get why there’s so many retellings of it because the basic core of it (throwing parties to get someone’s attention! make them look at your green light across the bay
There's a Storygraph reading challenge for the NYT list linked above.
I think I've read about 16, I doubt I'll ever complete it either.
I think I've read about 16, I doubt I'll ever complete it either.
I've only read 10 of these. I'm not doing very well hereThe Guardian did it in 2019, Wolf Hall coming first
And then the NYT with My Brilliant Friend, following a very similar voting mechanism and article format as what the Guardian just did
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
As voted on by 503 book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
I have read far more from these modern lists!
View attachment 3993070View attachment 3993071
Love his reviews too, he’s actually costing me a fortune buying his recommended books
Some other lists if people want to compare/contrast!
The New York Times did another one for books of the 20th Century back in 1998.
+ a list from the Guardian from 2015 of the 100 best books written in English as selected by Robert McCrum, who I believe at the time was the Observer's Literary Editor.
and 15 books added when the readers had thoughts! https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...st-novels-in-english-readers-alternative-list
+ Their Non-Fiction top 100: https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...st-nonfiction-books-of-all-time-the-full-list
+ The BBC Big Read list from 2003 https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
Would love if the BBC did a new Big Read thing. There's been so many great novels in the last two decades to add into competition (like those mentioned in the NYT's 21st C list).
The New York Times did another one for books of the 20th Century back in 1998.
+ a list from the Guardian from 2015 of the 100 best books written in English as selected by Robert McCrum, who I believe at the time was the Observer's Literary Editor.
and 15 books added when the readers had thoughts! https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...st-novels-in-english-readers-alternative-list
+ Their Non-Fiction top 100: https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...st-nonfiction-books-of-all-time-the-full-list
+ The BBC Big Read list from 2003 https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
Would love if the BBC did a new Big Read thing. There's been so many great novels in the last two decades to add into competition (like those mentioned in the NYT's 21st C list).
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Would people be interested in us doing our own list? Posters give a Top 10 and I'll compile them into an overall list?
There might not be enough of us to get 100 novels but I bet it would be more varied!
There might not be enough of us to get 100 novels but I bet it would be more varied!
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