First there was the spreadsheet, now there’s the app.

Want more info?

1001booksapp.com

Can’t wait and want to download it right now?

Click to open iTunes and download.

As promised… in fact, even more than I promised…

Version 4 is packed full of new features and it blows anything released before out of the water. Don’t believe me? Well, see the feature list and if that doesn’t grab you, check out a few screenshots. If you’re still not convinced, there are four screencasts too.

And if you trust me enough to ignore all that, and just want to get your hands on it right now:

Choose your flavour…

oh… yeah, I almost forgot. Check out Arukiyomi’s Affiliate Club to find out how you can get paid for, frankly, doing nothing.

Context: Listened to the librivox.org recording of this while I washed up over many nights.

REVIEW

Another rollicking adventure from the pen of RLS. I’ll be kind of glad not to read much more from this genre if I can help it this year. It’s really not my sort of thing. And although he did apologise for it at the start, no amateur from the US should ever attempt a Scottish accent for an audiobook. Unless someone is paying you to do it, you’re not helping anyone, believe me. Atrocious!

(Click to read my review…)

Context: While I was reading this, we went next door to have dinner with some friends and their dog.

REVIEW

A colleague has this trilogy and highly recommended it so, being a fan of all things Lewis anyway, I was happy to start this off. First impressions… hmmm… I’m more curious about what is going to happen than what happened in this first book.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Got another pineapple out of the garden while I was reading this. Lovely!

REVIEW

Now here’s a wee tale that reads like a novelist’s version of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes. If you’re not familiar with that particular section of the Bible, I’d definitely suggest you check it out. It’s a piece of classic literature in its own right. But it is often criticised for being a bit laissez faire about life, as if there’s no real point in pursuing anything cos, ultimately, none of it really means anything.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Was reading this when I visited PNG’s only shopping centre in Port Moresby. Saw a Huli warrior in the supemarket in full regalia!

REVIEW

Took me a long while to get through this. It’s a fairly large book and I found the writing repetitive and a bit tedious in places. However, there’s no denying that this is an important book and a milestone in British literature, illustrating as it does, a pivotal moment in the political ideology of that nation.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: While reading this the 1001 App Facebook page got it’s 100th like.

REVIEW

Wow! This was some page-turner. Once you’re in there’s no escape, you just can’t wait to see how it’s going to turn out.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Mrs Arukiyomi started looking after the lovely Tikvah a couple of days a week while I was reading this.

REVIEW

A long while ago, I read Under the Net and it went completely over my head. Didn’t much enjoy it. One good thing about reading from a list is that you are forced to return to authors you didn’t like initially and then realise are so versatile that you can enjoy them, even if you don’t appreciate every one of their works. That’s exactly what happened with The Bell, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Finished this as Mrs Arukiyomi was hosting one of her popular cafes one Saturday.

REVIEW

This was a really strange novel. You can’t win the Nobel Prize without being a bit strange to read. I don’t think, on the whole, that I enjoyed this at all. And I struggled to get the point of it.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: having recovered from an infection in my left leg, I went out and badly sprained my right ankle while reading this.

REVIEW

Haven’t read Forster for a long while and the last time I tried I found him whimsical but wordy, kind of like he was playing straight man to Evelyn Waugh. This was good though. One of his earliest novels and I liked it.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Developed a terrible infection from a mosquito bite on my left leg while I finished this off. Doesn’t look much but it took a week in bed to get rid of it. Nearly had to have surgery!

REVIEW

Not read any Zola before so I was glad to find this a terrific read. Can’t really tell you much about the plot without spoiling it all for you. Suffice to say that we are in the hands of a master story teller here.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Listened to this as we used various dugout canoes to travel down the lower reaches of the Watut River in PNG on a language survey.

REVIEW

As I listened to this novel, a great feeling of pleasure came over me. But with the pleasure, I doubted and thus began a terror which grew to overwhelm me. I loved the novel, didn’t I? But as I read more, the love I felt overpowered me. Because I loved it I had to hate it. And in my hate, I came, yet again, to love it; to love beyond hating, with a fear that somehow brought peace and cast me into depths of heights and moved me into stillness as my love hated yet deeper. And thus and so on for hundreds of pages.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Saw the most amazing sunset on a language survey in Tsiletsile (aka Bencheng) while reading this. Why was it amazing? Well, this is the view looking East!

REVIEW

William Golding is, for every British schoolchild of my generation, associated so strongly with the set text Lord of the Flies that it’s hard to believe he wrote anything else. But he did and if Rites is anything to go by, it is excellent.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Finished this off as we headed back to the Markham valley in a dugout canoe on our Silisili Survey.

REVIEW

I’ve read a few of Le Carré’s novels before and always found them very complex and difficult to follow. I’ve found them a little like a game of chess or a teach-yourself book: I start out fine but about 15 mins in I realise that I’m supposed to know more than I actually do. At that point, I persevere but feel very insecure. Hardly an enjoyable experience. But this, thankfully, was so, so different.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Listened to this on a 14-hour hike from hell through some of the steepest mountains I’ve yet seen in Papua New Guinea.

REVIEW

If you’re looking for a sentimental feel-good tale where everything that goes wrong in the first half of the book is resolved to everyone’s delight in the second half, this is the book for you. I wasn’t.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Took my laptop to pieces to give it a clean while I read this. This included removing all the keys off the keyboard. It was disgusting under there!

REVIEW

This was a strange one, quite the most unusual Coetzee from the ones I’ve read before (Disgrace, Michael K, Heart of the Country, Youth). For a start it didn’t involve South Africa at any point. Neither was it a contemporary time period. But it was laced with the usual dark, foreboding analysis of the human condition we’ve come to expect from the Nobel Prize-Winner.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Was reading this while I visited the war memorial in Port Moresby. So many who died even after WW2 had officially ended…

REVIEW

Heard a lot about this before and so was keen to see what all the fuss was about. I’m still keen, so if anyone can enlighten me through the comments, I’d be grateful.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: As I was finishing this, a huge box of Christmas goodies was on its way to us from friends in Korea. Thanks guys!

REVIEW

Another constipation-inducing Thomas Mann digested. This was even harder to get through than The Magic Mountain but at least it was half the length. If you’re into the philosophy of musical theory, this is the book for you. I can’t think it’s the book for many though. Granted, Mann has pulled of an astonishing achievement here with his research, his attention to detail and his command of metaphor and allegory. But people in comas are more interesting than long stretches of this.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Was reading this when I visited the National Orchid Garden of PNG outside Port Moresby. Amazing variety of the weirdest-looking flowers I’ve ever seen.

REVIEW

I don’t think I’ve ever read any Naipaul before. Can’t think why. This was an excellent series of short stories wandering through themes of empire, colonialism and identity and is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago, if not more so.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Found this at a friend’s house as I visited Port Moresby and enjoyed the pool after work each day.

REVIEW

This book sits right at the top of the 2010 edition of the 1001 books list. It’s exactly the kind of philosophical realism that my experience of French literature has led me to expect. The tradition seems alive and well in the 21st century.

(Click to read my review…)

Context: Was reading this from the front seat as we came in to land at Jackson Field, Port Moresby’s airport.

REVIEW

My, my, what a sad novel. At the start of it, we have a bunch of characters, a setting, a family, a life going on. And by the end of it, we have A Handful of Dust.

(Click to read my review…)