A book meme - I guess - that I shamelessly nicked from Normski over at Normblog. It "involves going through the alphabet and picking, for each letter, a novelist and one of his or her novels that you've read."
It's a personal bugbear of mine that I'm not reading as much as I once did. No excuses at my end. Just the realisation that I can feel the brain cells bailing out of my left ear each and every day I get further and further away from picking a book off a bookshelf . . . any book . . . any bookshelf.
Allen, Walter All in a lifetime Barker, Pat - The Eye in the Door Carr, JL - A Month in the Country Dostoevsky, Fyodor - Notes from Underground Ellroy, James - Brown's Requiem Friel, George - Mr Alfred M.A. Greene, Graham - Brighton Rock Hamilton, Patrick - The Slaves of Solitude Irving, John - The World According to Garp Jones, Lewis - Cwmardy Kundera, Milan - The Joke Legge, Gordon - I Love Me (Who Do You Love?) Mina, Denise - Garnethill Nasrin, Taslima - Shame Orwell, George - A Clergyman's Daughter Piercy, Marge - Vida Q - pass Rankin, Ian - Black and Blue Serge, Victor - The Case of Comrade Tulayev Tressell, Robert - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Upward, Edward - The Rotten Elements Vonnegut, Kurt - Slaughterhouse-Five Williams, Nigel - Star Turn X - pass Yourcenar, Marguerite - A Coin in Nine Hands Zamyatin, Yevgeny - We
A bit of an obvious list, though some of the usual suspects are temporarily missing. I can honestly say that I enjoyed reading all the books listed, though Edward Upward's novel was probably a bit of a struggle at the time.
Not so much for the novel itself, but for its painful honesty. To be in the same Party branch as Alan Sebrill (Edward Upward's fictionalised self) would have been my idea of hell.
With regards to the gaps in my alphabet, I get not reading an author with the surname beginning with X, but Q? I'll have to look out in future for an author to fill that particular gap. A David Quantick novella will suffice.
Do people still tag people when doing these memes, or was it finally rumbled years ago that memes are just a ruse to compel people who otherwise wouldn't be caught dead looking at your blog to have to give you the blogging time of day? I think I'll have to test that hypothesis out.
Kara; Cactus Mouth Informer's Highlander; FDTW's Stuart W; The Scottish Patient's Kevin W; Richard Curmudgeon; & Snappy Kat have been duly tagged.
Take your time comrades . . . I'm just finishing the start of this book in my hand.
14 comments:
It's a bit of a rushed list and I'm missing 4 letters, but it's the best I can do at the moment.
A- Alexie, Sherman - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
B- Blume, Judy - Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
C- Cisneros, Sandra - The House on Mango Street
D- de Pizan, Christine - The Book of the City of Ladies
E- Easton Ellis, Bret - Less than Zero
F- Fisher, Carrie - Postcards from the Edge
G-Glass, Julia -Three Junes
H- Hopkins, Jerry - No One Here Gets Out Alive
I-Irving, John - The World According to Garp
J-Joyce, James - A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
K-King, Stephen - Needful Things
L- Lamb, Wally - She's Come Undone
M- Maguire, Gregory - Wicked
N-Nesbit, Edith - The Railway Children
O-Orwell, George - 1984
P-Pamuk, Orhan - Snow
Q-???
R- Robbins, Tom - Jitterbug Perfume
S-Spark, Muriel - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
T-Tolkien, J.R.R. - The Hobbit
U-???
V-Vonnegut, Kurt - Cat's Cradle
W-Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
X-???
Y-Yolen, Jane - Encounter
Z-???
I'm too lazy to take part in a meme that involved so much thinking. what a cop out. if i can muster the energy though...
i've read 8 of the novels on your list darren. loved 7 of them.
How does Orhan Pamuk's 'Snow' finish again? I forget.
That comment was for Kara.
*Kara, why are you making that gesture with your finger at me?*
Fine. If you won't accept a book I haven't quite finished, I'll pick Choke by Chuck Palahniuk.
Happy?
Oh right, so that's what the business of the middle finger was all about?
You were pointing to your copy of 'Choke' on the bookshelf.
I've got unfinished copies of both Snow and Choke on my bookshelf. Was enjoying them both then got distracted...
"i've read 8 of the novels on your list darren. loved 7 of them."
Kevin, you'll have to put my out my misery and tell me which one you didn't love.
I've already mentioned Upward's 'The Rotten Elements', so it can't be that.
Thanks Darren! I'll put my probably-not-very-interesting list up on the blog soon.
Cheers
Orwell's one.
Stuart,
whatever. I bet you dazzle me with books that I've never even heard of you well read bastard. ;-)
Kevin,
Know what you mean about Clergyman's Daughter. Not one of his best but I still enjoyed it when I read it during my intense Orwell phase about 20 years ago.
My favourite Orwell books are 'Down and Out in Paris and London' and 'Homage To Catalonia', but sadly neither could be used for the meme.
I really struggled.
I do not read enough, too busy ripping records and blogging probably, and what I do read tends towards historical or factual. So I decided, in truly anarchical style I think you will agree, not to be bound 'by the rules' and allow myself free reign. (It was either that or look like a not-very-well-read fool).
And, with tongue firmly in cheek, here we go:
Azerrad, Michael - Come As You Are: The Story Of Nirvana
Beevor, Antony - Stalingrad
Conrad, Joseph - Heart Of Darkness
Du Maurier, Daphne - Rebecca
Easton-Ellis, Brett - American Psycho
Faludi, Susan - Stiffed
Greene, Graham - Brighton Rock
Hemingway, Ernest - For Whom The Bell Tolls
Irving, John - The World According To Garp
Johnston, Ian - The Wild Wild World Of The Cramps
King, John - The Football Factory
Levi, Primo - If This Is A Man
Marx, Karl - The Communist Manifesto
Newton, Kim - Anno Dracula
Orwell, George - 1984
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Q
Rice, Anne - Interview With The Vampire
Steinbeck, John - Of Mice And Men
Tolkien, JRR - The Lord Of The Rings
U
V
Welsh, Irvine - Trainspotting
X - The War Poetry Of
Yeats WB - The Works Of
Z
Missed 3 but I did get an X - Get In!
Shit, I mean missed 4 :(
H,
I've seen the meme knocking about the blogland for a few weeks now and the range is usually 2-4 missing letters. Only the brylcreem types get 1 or below.
Sort of enjoyed John King's 'Football Factory' at the time (I read all three books in the trilogy), but after seeing the film adaptation, I wonder if it was nothing more than a fictional variation of one of those footie hoolie books that used to do the rounds a few years back.
Us armchair types vicariously living out the aggro life via the piss stained pages of some half-memoir/half-mythology written by a bloke who we would cross a few postal codes to avoid if we saw them in real life.
If King was trying to make a more meaningful point than that, then the film makers sold him down the river. I hope he got a few quid for his troubles.
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