Lord of the Flies by William Golding(#39 of 1001)

I've been really slacking off with posting, and with reading in general. Between the holidays, and other things taking up a lot of time, reading has been taking a back seat. Anyway, enough of the delay, I've still got a couple of reviews to post, and I've still got a few books in process. I'm going to try and find more of a balance, and get back to reading. I feel like I was reading too much though, so the break was nice.

Lord of the Flies was one of the 1001 books that I decided to read again, because I loved it when I first read it. After reading it one more time, I still found it to be one of my favorites of all time. It is an interesting story on human nature. A group of boys who are stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash, and how their society turns out. Its not an upbeat story, but it is short, and interesting. It says alot about human nature, society, and how things can get out of hand quickly.

I'm not one to re-read books. I generally read a book once and that is it. I've read a few again because of the 1001 list, and after not having read them since school, just wanted to read them again to see if they lived up to my high expectations. This was one of the ones that definitely did.

My rating: 5 stars

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho(#38 of 1001)

One of the things that I've enjoyed about the 1001 list is I've been reading books that I never would have picked up before.  I never even heard of this book, and wasn't sure what to expect from the title.  I'll pick a couple of books at random from the list, check and see if the library has them, and put them on hold.  This was one of the books that I picked out at random, and every once in a while it is nice to have no preconceptions about the book, no idea what the book is about, and just start reading it.  The first book off the list that I did that with was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and thought it was an absolutely fabulous book.  The Devil and Miss Prym was another one of those books.

This is a small book which talks of a simple question, are humans good or evil?  Maybe not such a simple question after all.  The basics of the plot are Miss Prym comes across a stranger in the woods, who has buried 11 gold bars in two holes, and shows her where one gold bar is located.  His proposition to Miss Prym, she needs to tell everyone in the small village of Viscos the story, and if after 7 days they murder one of their own, the 10 gold bars are theirs.  If after seven days, the villagers resisted the temptation and Miss Prym didn't steal the one bar of gold, he would conclude that people are good.  If one of the villagers is murdered and Miss Prym steals the gold bar, he would conclude that people are both evil.  If one of the two happened, he would conclude that their are both good and evil people.

I really enjoyed the book, it was an interesting book to read.  An interesting concept, and well written.  I'm not sure how much, if any, was lost in translation, but I really enjoyed the book, and enjoyed the author.  I even went out and got another one of his books, Veronika Decides to Die, which I'm in the process of reading right now.

I forgot to mention the one thing that drove me nuts about this book, no chapter numbers.  I don't know why that drives me so nuts, but that was the one thing I hated about this book!

My rating: 4 1/2 stars

The Falling Man by Don DeLillo (#37 of 1001)

This was the first DeLillo book that I've read, and found his writing to be fascinating, and have a couple more, Libra and White Noise that I'll be reading shortly.  He just seems to have a style and way with words that I really enjoyed.

The topic wasn't one I was really interested in reading about, 9/11.  I guess the memories are feeling from 9/11 are too fresh in my mind, and too political.  And not to get too political, when the outgoing vice president is asked what the highest moment of the last eight years is, and he answers 9/11, its just sad.

However, I did enjoy reading Falling Man, and found it a little chaotic, which given the topic, makes sense.  Sad, emotional, but real.

My rating: 4 stars

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

This was the first Vonnegut book that I've read, and it definitely won't be the last.  Its books like this that you discover that makes reading the 1001 list worthwhile, in my opinion.  

A bizarre, but fascinating story of Billy Pilgrim, a soldier who witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden, was a prisoner of war, has been abducted by aliens, works as an optometrist after the war, and time travels throughout the book.

An anti-war book, which I guess parts of could be described as science fiction, jumps from place to place, one minute Billy is a prisoner of war, the next minute he is in a zoo in Tralfamadore, the next minute he is with his wife.  I found it to be a very funny book.  Billy's reaction to a death is typically, "So it goes".  Apparently, the phrase "so it goes" appears 106 times in the book.  Without counting, that sounds about write.  

To me Slaughterhouse was a powerful, funny book, dripping with irony, and filled with fascinating characters.  Billy Pilgrim, Kilgore Trout, and Montana Wildhack, amongst others.  I can imagine that people will either love or hate this book.  I love it, but can see how some people wouldn't.  So it goes.

My rating- 4 1/2 stars

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (#35 of 1001)

I started this blog as a place to put my thoughts on each of the books I've read on the 1001 list, and somewhere along the way started feeling like I had to review each of the books, maybe since I started giving a rating for each of the books I've read.  I started out by emailing my sister my thoughts on each book I've read, since we have an unofficial competition going on who will get to 1001 first.  Some books that is easier to do, and other books that is more of a struggle.  If I really enjoy the book, I like spending some time researching the author, finding some things the book influenced, or taking a little bit extra time seeing what others thought of the book.  For some books, they just don't grab me, and that makes it feel like a chore, like Wide Sargasso Sea.  So just as a sanity check for myself, I want to make sure I write some thoughts on each of the books I read, but I'm not going to worry too much if I don't summarize the plot, or give a thorough review.  

Anyway, Lucky Jim was one of those books that I just seemed relieved to have finished.  I guess maybe part of my problem is I have high expectations for some books, and most everything I read about Lucky Jim was favorable.  There were funny parts, and it was a good story, but it just felt a little bit dated to me.  I know its 50 years old, so maybe that is to be expected, but this just didn't seem to age well to me.

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

Atonement by Ian McEwan (#34 of 1001)

Atonement was the second book that I read by Ian McEwan, with the first being Enduring Love.  I really enjoyed Enduring Love, so I was looking forward to reading Atonement.  I was a bit disappointed in the end, maybe because of my high expectations, from reading so much praise for Atonement.  

I did continue to enjoy McEwan's writing style, descriptive and powerful, although a little slow at times.  I enjoyed the story, or at least most of it.  I enjoyed the characters, and the premise of the plot.  I was not a big fan of the ending, without going in to details, the ending just left me frustrated.

Worth the read, but I'm not sure if this was the first McEwan book I read I would have wanted to read another.  

My rating: 3 1/2 stars  

Foundation by Isaac Asimov (#32 of 1001)

After reading Foundation by Isaac Asimov, I tried to think of any other science fiction books that I read, but couldn't come up with any.  I enjoy science fiction movies, but I think this was the first science fiction book that I have read.  

After I finished reading it, I have to say I was a little bit disappointed.  This was billed as a masterpiece in science fiction, and don't know if it lived up to my expectations.  I've waited a couple of weeks to post my review, but as I think back to it, I think my original disappointed wasn't justified.  Set in the distant future, the Galactic Empire is in control of the galaxy, and its destruction is predicted by Hari Seldon, a psycohistorian, who predicts the future, and sees the fall of the Galactic Empire.  Seldon creates a Foundation at the far reaches of the galaxy, preserving knowledge and documenting this in an encyclopedia.

There was a lot of jumping forward over a period of several years.  A lot of characters you met in the first part, were gone in the second part, then those gone by the third part.  This caused a little bit of confusion for me, and you never got to really know the characters too well.  While it didn't effect the story too much, for me it made Foundation very good, not great.

My rating: 4 stars