A nice lady called Erin in Australia tipped me off a while back that a new version of the 1001 Books book (ISBN: 0789320398) is due for release on March 23, 2010. I have confirmation that this is a brand new edition. From the lips (well… fingers) of the editor herself

Our revised edition is slightly more updated than the UK edition published in 2008 by Cassell. It includes books published in 2008 and 2009 and we deleted some titles to make room for the new titles.

Rest assured people that v4 of your beloved spreadsheet is in process and will itself have new features. Not many, but some anyway. I only wish that I could send out some kind of importer thing so that we can all import what we’ve read off the old lists to the new version but alas, I’m no programmer. It’s kind of cool to add all the books in again though…

For the time being, you can still get copies of v3 of the spreadsheet by clicking here.

Spreadsheet Love

I’m preordering my copy of the new book. If any one of the well over 30,000 of you who’ve downloaded this thing so far wants to say thanks for the spreadsheet, you could do one of three things. One of you could offer to buy me the book (!) or you could buy your own copy through my UK Amazon store or my US Amazon store links. Or you can use the paypal buttons below to donate in the currency of your choice:

Your appreciation is much appreciated

Context: finished this on my way down to Tesco’s to get myself some shopping.

REVIEW
Yet another Austen and, as I suspected, they’re starting to take on much of a muchness now. Catherine, the heroine of choice this time, is about the most naive and susceptible I’ve followed so far. There are all the usual misunderstandings about love and relationships, and it all turns out the same and ends in the inevitable marriage. In fact, this one seems not to be heading to that conclusion until about the last two pages. It’s a bit like Austen suddenly got bored of writing it.

I’m not going to say much about it, as there’s not much to say. The only thing of vague interest to me was that there was a bit of debate about novels and their role in our lives. There are arguments that novels inspire fantasy to the extreme that they deprive us of our ability to be rational and realistic. I don’t think that’s the fault of novels but perhaps the spirit they’re read in.

Er… that’s it.

FIRST LINE
No one who ever had seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

CLOSING LINE
To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

RATING

Key: Legacy | Plot / toPic | Characterisation / faCts | Readability | Achievement
Read more about how I come up with my ratings

Context: I read this in near-freezing conditions as our boiler broke down and a useless and very expensive plumber took 10 days to fix it.

REVIEW
Oh, I’ve got an hour or so before I really need to turn the light off,” I said as I finished up Hosseini’s Splendid Suns, I’ll just make a start on this next little Turgenev I’ve got. Compared to Fathers and Sons, this was like floating on air compared to being set in concrete. I finished it in one go.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: The wife bought some lovely flowers and the room filled with their scent as I read this.

REVIEW
“It’s better than the Kite Runner,” said a friend. Even the Washington Post sells it as such. That was good enough for me. I thought the Kite Runner was a flawed attempt at a first novel which, despite starting very promisingly, descending into the outer reaches of plausibility as it went on. I’m glad to say that Hosseini’s second novel does not do that although there are times at which I’m sure the average reader will wish it wasn’t so true to life.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: put some new strings on my old Eko and then got a blister I played it so much!

REVIEW
They don’t write books like this anymore. You know when you open a book and you fall back into a bygone era and can’t find your way out again? That’s what happens when you open the pages of Monckton’s memoirs. And as the era he’s writing about has long since past, for better and worse, you discover things about the world that you never knew existed. I found this two-volume set in a local Oxfam shop for under £5. As we’re due to emigrate to Papua New Guinea this very summer, it was a very timely find.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: This is the first of a few books I’ll be reading from the collection of Russian literature the guy we’re living with has.

REVIEW
Never heard of Lermontov, Philistine that I am. I’ve read quite a bit of Russian literature over the last few years. I have to say that this is probably one of the oldest Russian novels I’ve read and yet one of the most readable. Granted, it’s five short stories really all of which feature Pechorin, the Hero.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: As I was reading this, our Dell printer ran out of ink and I got some ink to refill them manually. Never done that before. Dead easy.

REVIEW
This is one of the most unusual books dealing with the holocaust that you are likely to read. By the end of it, even the characters themselves are frustrated with the views of Gyuri, the protagonist. Just as likely you will be too… at least a bit. I was. A bit. But I was also full of admiration.

The novel takes place in the mind of a 14 year old Hungarian Jew as his life becomes part of the Final Solution. The whole book is written in such a dreamlike passive state and this works, it really feels like you are seeing the world the way Gyuri sees it. And that’s important because that is the point of this novel: the individual point of view of the insider.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: Started this off at a friend’s house in Studley Green in the rolling Chiltern hills.

REVIEW
Another book given to me on my last birthday which I thought I should finish by my next. In fact, I even had two months’ start on this one as the lady who kindly gave me it thought my birthday was in March when it’s in May. I’m glad I waited actually because a large part of the story takes place in Haiti. It wouldn’t have been the same had I not been aware of it since the earthquake.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: Finished this off as we stayed with friends in Flackwell Heath.

REVIEW
Got this for my last birthday and thoughtI’d better finish it before my next birthday comes round! I started this after finishing Think and, appropriately, it pretty much picked up where that left off: mathematics and questions of life the universe and everything. It wasn’t as hard going as Think thankfully, in fact, some bits of it were very interesting.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: listened to this while I took the car to get its MOT. It failed, then, after some new front brake hoses and a tyre, it passed.

REVIEW
A loooooong time ago, a very good friend of mine and I decided that we’d read a book together. He was in the US, I was in South Korea at the time. He said he’d found me a copy of this in a second-hand bookshop and he’d sent it over. It never arrived. We never did read it together. Now that I’ve just finished listening to it though, I know why he wanted me to read it.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: while I was reading this, the guy who owns the house we’re living in broke his ankle.

REVIEW
My wife’s aunt gave me this one for Christmas…. (ahem) Christmas 2008. Thought it was about time I got round to it. I was definitely intersested to read it as I’ve always wanted to know more about philosophy. If you do, Simon Blackburn, Prof of Philosophy at Cambridge University is your man. Thing is, having read the book, I’m not sure I do still want to know more…
(Click to read my review…)

Context: While reading this I started wearing reading glasses and… boy!… they really took some getting used to!

REVIEW
Battles, rivalry, espionage, subterfuge, love, filial honour, tradition, strategies, mysticism, kingdoms, suicide, plots, intrigue, betrayal, loyalty, cunning, wisdom, wealth, corruption, conquest, weaponry, tactics, plots, debauchery, virtue, memorials, poetry… if any of these are what you’re looking for in a novel then The Romance of the Three Kingdoms might interest you.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: finished this off as we made a long and very snowy drive back from up north to Cambridge.

REVIEW
Influential in terms of its contribution to the sci-fi fantasy adventure genre, controversial in terms of its portrayal of sexuality, I’d not heard much of this novel before listening to it via librivox.org. I’ve read a large number of these Victorian adventure sagas and I don’t on the whole like them much. This explored moral themes a lot more than Wells and Verne do I thought, but, for that, it wasn’t as engaging as their work.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: 2009 became 2010 while I was reading this.

REVIEW
I don’t read thrillers as a rule so, when I unwrapped this book on Christmas day, I was intrigued to see if it would break the rules. I was inspired to read on the front cover that this was the winner of the British Book Awards Crime Trhiller of the Year last year and that, according to no less than Philip Pullman, it was supposed to be “Several cuts above most thrillers.” In fact, right at the end of the book, I came across a page that stated that this book was “destined to be regarded as amongst the best crime novels ever written.”

Er… hang on. Let’s not get carried away with our omniscience shall we? So, now I’ve read it, what did I think?
(Click to read my review…)

Context: read while I was suffering from the worst cold I’ve had in years.

REVIEW
It begins with the discovery, by young Michele, of something horrific which is all his own secret. But he’s mistaken and what he thinks is horrific is much, much worse. To cap it all, it’s not a secret at all.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: Night fell on my day in bed while I finished this off – the fourth book in a day. Felt much better afterwards.

REVIEW
Not only has Hamid got a good idea for a book here, he’s chosen the perfect vehicle for it. The novel is told entirely in monologue by the reluctant fundamentalist. It is told to a USAnian who wanders into a market in downtown Lahore. This nameless, faceless, voicless USAnian is a great character and the way Hamid uses him in the book is a superb compliment to the monologue. I read this in one sitting and greatly appreciated it all the way through.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: Read this while feeling grim in bed in my grandmother’s old bedroom with her crucifix above me.

REVIEW
A friend (the same one who lent me the superb Knowing Me, Knowing You) lent me this just yesterday. It seemed an easy read and so I decided to polish it off this morning. It came with strong recommendations, but, I’m afraid, it didn’t really deliver as I had hoped.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: One of four books I finished in a day in bed in Stockton. Not feeling great.

REVIEW
This is a disturbing book. Of that, there is no doubt. Quite what it contributes to humanity I’m not sure. What Bataille was attempting to do, I’m not sure either. Was it worth reading? I didn’t think so. For a book that disturbs so deeply, it’s incredibly short. My version was barely 70 pages long. But in those few pages, Bataille draws the reader into arenas of sex and violence that are shocking in their brutality and pointlessness.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: The first book I finished on my new Sony Reader. Read while the snow melted on the new housing estate foundations they’re building over the road. Thi

REVIEW
This is a novella that, if you’re a fan of Edith Wharton, would really appeal to you. In fact, it was this story that probably inspired her to begin her writing streak and take Chopin’s ideas a lot further. The title tells it all. In fact, it’s somewhat prophetic; it marks an awakening not just in the life of Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, but in the lives of women throughout the western world.
(Click to read my review…)

Context: Got this for my niece for Christmas… when, unusually, I got a stocking from the mother-in-law.

REVIEW
This is one of the few books on the list which a 7 year old could read. In fact, it may be the only one. I didn’t think I’d ever read a copy of it. I don’t have kids and, although I do buy books for my sister’s children, I’d never seen a copy of this anywhere. The other day though, I was online and saw a copy of this trilogy. I was able to read it before giving it to my niece.
(Click to read my review…)