Monthly Archives: March 2011

1% Well-Read Challenge

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The 1% well-read challenge traditionally runs for a year starting April 1st and, to the best of my knowledge, was inaugurated by Michelle of 1morechapter. Having waited patiently for the official start it turns out that there is no formal challenge this year!

So. It’s not rocket science. The challenge is based on all three editions of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (Because no-one wants to become less well-read as the editors maliciously tweak the contents!) Therefore, in order to increase your well-read quotient by a staggering 1%, it will be necessary to read thirteen books from the list. For my purposes the challenge now runs Jan 1st-Dec 31st, and I have judicially decided to allow myself to backdate.

[Here is the list of titles, which now contains nearly 1300 books. I forget the original source of this list, but I think some of the information was incomplete even before I fiddled with it. Plus, it is clunky. But don't let me put you off...]

Glancing through the list it is authors rather than titles that catch my eye:

  • BS Johnson
  • William Gaddis
  • Knut Hamsun
  • Sheridan LeFanu
  • Hunter S Thompson
  • Eudora Welty

…none of whom have I read.

And, just for the record, becoming a slavish disciple to the tryranny of the list is not on the agenda. There are titles on that list which are not, and never will be, for me!

Concrete Island – JG Ballard

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Having recently read several books which were by any literary standard successful, Concrete Island has had the singular virtue of leaving no trace of objective/subjective ambivalence. In addition to the very high standard of Ballard’s writing it is the sort of read which you would neither wish to put down nor to finish. Alas, it is barely more than a novella, not a long read. Luckily for me the OH is a big fan: the remainder of the Ballardian oeuvre is within easy reach.

Concrete Island is the second of Ballard’s thematic trilogy of urban disaster, following Crash and preceding High-Rise. I believe I was fortunate to get to this one last. Crash in particular has some baffling moments but, while I don’t aspire to grasp every nuance of Concrete Island, it has a seductively intuitive quality.
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The Art of Payne

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I haven’t read it, I’m not going to read it, I probably shouldn’t comment on it. But…

Bookaroundthecorner reviewed The Art of Love last year, and I was fascinated and impressed by the quality of enduring relevance she attributes to Ovid. The next step was to choose an edition. Alas. Amazon tempted me with a shiny new translation. With a pretty cover. Six months before the publication date! It’s not looking like a good judgement call on my part, but the Vintage Classics label did add some weight. And so, after an excessive period of waiting, my delightful new book finally turns up in the post.
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Retrospective Love in the Time of Cholera

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I was recently led to recall the Gabriel García Márquez masterpiece when it became part of World Book Night, one of 25 titles selected for a million book give-away in the UK. Initially prompted to read Love in the Time of Cholera in response to this scatologically inspirational review at Writer on Writer, (Gabriel’s take on cholera as metaphor for love, messy and incontinent, made a favourable impression) the die was cast when Nancy of Silver Threads published her unique thoughts. But it is almost exactly a year since I read the thing, so I shan’t dignify the following by suggesting that it in any way constitutes a review.
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The Chrysalids – John Wyndham

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I last read Wyndham’s post-apocalyptic tale of telepathic teenagers when I was myself a teenager. Always my favourite Wyndham, I wondered, with some anxiety, how it would stand up to my significantly older scrutiny.

The world has been destroyed in a nuclear catastrophe. Three hundred years later small areas of land have been reclaimed, but the majority of the land is unviable nuclear waste. Some unreliable word of mouth history has survived, and also the Bible…
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The Age of Reason – Jean-Paul Sartre

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The edition shown is not the one that I read, but of all the variants available this is the image that resonates with what I think I read.

Jean-Paul Sartre. Philosopher. Existentialist. His reputation precedes him, and I was perhaps understandably unnerved by the prospect, despite assurances from several sources that he writes an accessible novel.
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The Gathering – Anne Enright

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At some point I had acquired the notion that The Gathering was a difficult and challenging work, so when the novel was picked by the book group of which I am a member, I was rather pleased.

However… I might as well state at the offset that I was excessively irritated by this novel. And yet it has puzzled me to justify a negative response above and beyond personal preference. That it is literary is not in dispute, but is it successful in its aims? First identify the aims…

This post contains Spoilers. (Although the boundary here between spoiler and cliché is, in my eyes, somewhat vague.) For less spoilers and just, well, less, my abbreviated take is here.

Alternatively, Read (Lots) More

Dubliners – James Joyce

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Ahh, hubris. Having recently read Ulysses, thought processes much as follows. “Dubliners? Short stories,” thinks I, “this’ll be a doddle.”

Having suffered a mighty fall from this position of ill-judged pride I hesitate even to retrospectively assert that no Joyce is to be undertaken lightly, but it may be a fair assumption.
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