All About Books discussion

January
1) Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (audiobook)
2) The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty (ebook)
3) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
4) Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
5) Lettere alla cugina by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
6) My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
7) The Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde (ebook)
8) A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
9) Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta (audiobook)
10) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (ebook)
11) Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro (ebook)

Themed Reads:
I've started a themed challenge by myself, in which I read two/three books monthly for three months about the same theme. It has not to be always the central element of the story, but it has to be clearly present.
I know that this belongs to "2014 challenges" but my intentions were only to divide reads made for particular reasons in the list. :)

December 2013 - February 2014: musicians
(view spoiler)[ These are my reads made in December:
- A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- Mozart's Sister by Rita Charbonnier
- The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin (hide spoiler)]
- Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
- Lettere alla cugina, Mozart
- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (not finished)
- The Loser, Thomas Bernhard
- Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

March 2014 - May 2014: books set in Madrid
- A Heart So White, Javier Marìas
- The Short Stories, Hemingway

June 2014 - August 2014: Ancient Rome
- I Am Livia, Phyllis T. Smith

For the pleasure of sharing, I have to let you know the dark side of Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This is one of the letters to his cousin:

"Wouldn't you like to visit Herr Gold-smith again?—but what for?—what?—nothing!—just to inquire, I guess, about the Spuni Cuni fait, nothing else, nothing else?—well, well, all right. Long live all those who, who—who—who—how does it go on?—I now wish you a good night, shit in your bed with all your might, sleep with peace on your mind, and try to kiss your own behind; I now go off to never-never land and sleep as much as I can stand. Tomorrow we'll speak freak sensubly with each other. Things I must you tell a lot of, believe it you hardly can, but hear tomorrow it already will you, be well in the meantime. Oh my ass burns like fire! what on earth is the meaning of this!—maybe muck wants to come out? yes, yes, muck, I know you, see you, taste you—and—what's this—is it possible? Ye Gods!—Oh ear of mine, are you deceiving me?—No, it's true—what a long and melancholic sound!—today is the write I fifth this letter. Yesterday I talked with the stern Frau Churfustin, and tomorrow, on the 6th, I will give a performance in her chambers, as the Furstin-Chur said to me herself. Now for something real sensuble!"

LOL. Well, weirdly he seems to be just one among many digestion-obsessed artists/genuises ;)

By the way, I love your theme thing, I realize I do this as well more and more, to circle a certain theme with my choice of books, though I am never quite as systematic. It usually ends up being a spontanious decision because of a certain book I am reading which spikes my interest in something that I then continue reading about in novel or non-fiction form.
I really like the music theme, I am curious to see the others! Oh and the book I've just finished The Fish Can Sing would fit in quite well :)

A fine example of Herr Mozart's Tourette's syndrome there, I think ;)

Have you ever come across Amadeus Anastasia? It is fiction, although the feud between him and Salieri may be based on fact. And if you get a chance, do watch the brilliant film!

Jean wrote: "A fine example of Herr Mozart's Tourette's syndrome there, I think ;)

Have you ever come across Amadeus Anastasia? It is fiction, although the feud between him and Salieri may be ba..."

I thought that was an amazing movie!

Yes, I watched it again recently and was amazed how well it holds up as it's quite old now! The street scenes, for instance, would be done with CGI now, but not then!

It's yet another example of a play I first saw in the West End (London) before it became a film. Do hope you can find a copy of the DVD, Anastasia. It fits right in with your theme :)

I didn't know that behind the movie there was a book! I definitely have to read and watch it, I have the VHS here at home. :)

Jenny wrote: "LOL. Well, weirdly he seems to be just one among many digestion-obsessed artists/genuises ;)

By the way, I love your theme thing, I realize I do this as well more and more, to circle a certain th..."

I have this kind of "passion" (or addiction) for planned reads, I love making a list of the reads for the next month every time. It makes me happy and I don't know why, but it doesn't "stifle" me. But for example I hate to do it for movies, so I follow a more spontaneous way.
Fortunately The Fish Can Sing is avalaible on my library, I will read it! My literary experience with scandinavian literature is very scarce: I've only read The Year of the Hare (boooring!), L'età felice, A Doll's House and The Orange Girl (that I want to forget, ugh). LOL, Pippi Longstocking too.

About Scandinavian authors: I've discovered Hjalmar Söderberg last year, when reading his Doctor Glas. I liked it a lot. Also Knut Hamsun I really like.

And yes, what's up with Jostein Gaarder lately? I haven't read the Orange Girl, but the last book I've read by him was ...a catastrophe!!

Jenny wrote: "And yes, what's up with Jostein Gaarder lately? I haven't read the Orange Girl, but the last book I've read by him was ...a catastrophe!!"

I loved that one! Pity his other book is not to his standards ...

Uh, I've heard great things about Doctor Glas and Knut Hamsun too! LOL, to be honest, I remember his name really well because I've used one of his titles, Hunger, to answer to a questionnaire in which one of the question was "What do you fear the most?".
You had to reply with a book title. :P

I think that The Orange Girl can easily divide the opinion: I find it excessively buttery, but others appreciate it or don't think that is excessive.. I wonder how Sophie's World is.

9) Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
10) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
11) Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro

Monthly Awards: January (thanks, Pink!)

11 books, 2828 pages.

The winner is: Tell the Wolves I'm Home. It has been like a warm blanket. :3 I grew fond of Greta, June and Toby and many passages have touched me. I'd place it in those books for which you are grateful. I hope the writer will write something else sooner or later, I would be very happy to read her again.

My Razzie Award goes to: Friend of My Youth. Ehm, I'm a little uncomfortable about this one. "Everyone like it but me": that's the case. Something went wrong: maybe it wasn't the right moment, maybe I need a break from short stories, maybe the light risk of fail between me and Munro that I've already felt in Too Much Happiness (but at the end it was good and I escaped it) came true in this book. I really don't know what happened, I know that the half of these ten stories didn't capture me.

Honorable mention: The Husband's Secret. I didn't expect to like this as sincerely as I did. My group read surely has helped, but I didn't find superficial, but entertaining, with heavy moral issues that were thought-provoking. I've really enjoyed the reading, a good example of "light read" without being frivolous.
It is followed istantaneously by My Cousin Rachel and A History of Reading. Bot of them were predictably good, the first for the author (I loved Rebecca), the second for the topic. :P

February

12) Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill

Anastasia wrote: "February

1) Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill"

Oh, this is on my TBR list - how was it?

Very good! (And obviously very depressing, everything is built masterfully, you can feel the heavy atmosphere in the house from which all of the members of the family are escaping in their own ways). How awful must have been living in a family like this one for O'Neill, given that the play is a semi-autobiography.
The expressivity does very much (there are a lot of indications), it would be interesting to see the play performed (for me it would be impossible, here in Italy Eugene O'Neill is quite unknown).
It's the first play that I read by him and I want to read more. :) Have you read anything of his works? recommendations?

I haven't read any but I chose Anna Christie as the group play for next winter. I have seen movie versions of several, Long Day's Journey... and Mourning Becomes Electra are the ones I remember best.

I am surprised O'Neill would be unknown as he won the Nobel Prize... although I suppose that I don't know quite a few of those myself!

I wonder whether theatre simply still does work less 'globally' maybe? And maybe it's because most of us read and see less plays during the year than we read other fiction.

One thing that always surprises me is that most people have never heard of Yasmina Reza before, yet within the past 10 years she's become one of the most played playwrights in the world (says the newspaper) and The God of Carnage was a rather popular movie a few years back (she wrote the script together with Roman Polanski who directed).

Jenny wrote: "One thing that always surprises me is that most people have never heard of Yasmina Reza before, yet within the past 10 years she's become one of the most played playwrights in the world (says the newspaper) ..."

I saw a local performance of her play "Art" which I found excellent. But maybe this would be a good discussion for the "Plays" thread - whether theater is more regional than other fiction.

Oh, and Anastasia - you should try to find the 1962 movie version of Long Day's Journey into Night with Katherine Hepburn and Jason Robards. Very excellent acting!

I've made a little research because you made me curious after raising this issue.
Well, here in Italy it's very rare to go assiduosly to the theater: the ticket are expensive. One or two of the people I know go frequently to the theater.
Let's say: a ticket for a movie (not in 3D) costs 8 euro (10 dollars, 6 pounds), an average theatrical show costs 25 euros (33 dollars or 20 pounds). If you don't go in big towns, you'll find nothing or minor theaters with a very reduced program. So you have to pay also the hypotetical drive to Milan, Rome, and towns like these.
In the program of Rome and Milan, for example, there are often foreign plays, but by authors globally known . The most played author in Milan is Carlo Goldoni, then Bertolt Brecht, William Shakespeare, Luigi Pirandello, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and so on, authors like George Bernard Shaw or Arthur Miller have been performed 32-3 times, while Brecht 2964 or Goethe 658. The less played are Peter Brook (1 show), Enda Walsh (2 shows). Albert Camus 10 times, Alfred de Musset 15, Tennessee Williams 17.
Eugene O'Neill, and here my suspects are confirmed, doesn't exsist at all in the archive..!
I said that Eugene O'Neill is quite uknown because I've never seen here on italian Goodreads someone reading him, although there are italian editions of his plays (but, again, shelved very rarely). My parents who have an average literary culture (my dad is italian, but my mother is russian) have heard of him, but only as a name. A friend of mine that reads very much again knows him, but only like a name.
What a pity..! And I must confess I've discovered him not so long ago and here on english Goodreads.

Anastasia wrote: "I've made a little research because you made me curious after raising this issue.
Well, here in Italy it's very rare to go assiduosly to theater: the ticket are expensive. One or two of the people ..."

What a deep analisys Anastasia! And you're right: theatre is very seldome attended to, and mainly by midfleaged middleclass people mainly interested in showing off their mink coats than in the play. That's why Shakespeare, Moliere or Chekov are much more present than O'Neil: how could otherwise shiw off? Who would think you smart for going to see something they don't even know it exhists?
But the same thing goes fir exhibitions, or music concerts, I'm afraid

Anastasia wrote: "I've made a little research because you made me curious after raising this issue.
Well, here in Italy it's very rare to go assiduosly to the theater: the ticket are expensive. One or two of the peo..."

You are correct that going to the theater is much more expensive and harder to find venues. I am lucky to live in a city that has active repertory theatre companies, so I don't have to pay as much as for what I still think of as "real" theater (in the downtown city theater district). I was shocked as a young adult when I moved to Los Angeles that it was virtually impossible to see live theater on a grad student salary unless I saw university productions. I had assumed all cities had repertory theater (and L.A. has all those actors!).

I like your monthly awards :) I've been intrigued by Tell the Wolves I'm Home but haven't picked it up so far. Seems like we read a few of the same books in January.

I don't ever go to the theatre to see plays, but i do occasionally go to watch musicals or opera, but these are so expensive as well. Next weekend I'm taking my daughter for a birthday treat to see Les Mis and for 2 decent tickets that will cost me £200, without getting there or anything to eat. That's why we don't go often, though I usually pick up more bargains, such as tickets at the Royal Opera House for £35 sitting in the rafters!

Sometimes matinees are a bit cheaper. Or previews. Or "restricted view" seats (stuck behind a pillar). Or if you get together with like-minded people and buy a "series" picking several different shows/concerts they might give you free ones or cheaper deals. It's the add-ons though too, as you say - actually getting there etc :(

It's a bit sad: theater is the perfect intersection of fiction and reality, actors are real, you are a hair's breadth away from the story itself and the play, it can be so..vivid..!
But, unfortunately, it's clearly not for everybody, but for "privileged" people who can afford it, and like Laura said, often they go there only for show theirselves..

Pink wrote: "I like your monthly awards :)

Thanks, Pink! :-D

13) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (abandoned on page 371 of 580)

Ahhh, I give up! I'm not interested in reading how it ends and nothing more of the stories into it. It was getting too boring and therefore frustrating to keep reading without wasting clearly my time. So many books..

Good for you! (This is not a comment on Cloud Atlas at all, you understand. It's a book I mean to try reading myself eventually!)

But to give up at the point you did takes courage!! You know full well that you have given it time, and a fair chance to impress you, and are not tempted to finish it just for the sake of it! :)

Anastasia ,
I'm with you ! Life is too short and there are too many other books to read rather than spend time reading something you don't like . I used to feel that if I started a book, I had to finish it no matter what . Then as I got older , I decided I didn't want to give up my time - good for you !

Btw - this was one that I made myself finish - 2 stars!

Anastasia wrote: "2) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (abandoned on page 371 of 580)

Ahhh, I give up! I'm not interested in reading how it ends and nothing more of the stories into it. It was getting too ..."

Don't worry, you don't miss anything.

I always thought that when you bear in mind the whole story of an author you can judge entirely it, but if you don't, it would be unfair to criticize it as a plot (for example) or as a message or idea. Well, sometimes I prefer to just let go..:)
In fact I'm not regretful now. :-D

14) The Loser by Thomas Bernhard (themed read: musicians)

How did you like the big Austrian grump ;)?

So depressed that he intoxicates you with his atmospheres (I had to read it with pauses, ..cough), but the structure of this book, for example, is lodable! And he knows how to describe a failure, really.
I've appreciated him sincerely, but after re-emerging from the book, and after reading some articles about it.
It's obsessive and hammering in every aspect, in the form and in the content!

15) I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano (funny and cute!)

Anastasia wrote: "So depressed that he intoxicates you with his atmospheres (I had to read it with pauses, ..cough), but the structure of this book, for example, is lodable! And he knows how to describe a failure, r..."

LOL, yes, I'd agree. I quite liked his Heldenplatz but I suffered through most of his novels. I guess the 'hammering' effect is a result of his appreciation for repetition, however it often made me feel like I needed to stop reading for the sake of oxygen.

Repetition of concepts in the immediate! :-D The main characters seems to need to repeat things twice for clearing himself, always!
But it's a particular style, you can like it or not. :)

16) Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann
17) The Confidant by Hélène Grémillon (audiobook)
18) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

How did you like the Buddenbrooks Anastasia?

I loved that book! Much more than his The Magic Mountain or Death in Venice: I particularly like family sagas!

OH yes, the Magic Mountain felt like I was mounting a never-ending rock of novel (though I really like the idea behind it actually).

I really liked it! Looking forward to read The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice but, ehm, I'm a bit scared by the first one, so I'll read Death in Venice.
The characters were so well-defined and certain chapters really thrilled me, like some episodes in which you are eager to now what will happen and every image of it lasts in your mind.
(view spoiler)[My favorite and unforgettable part was the one with Morten, I hoped at every failed marriage - especially the first - she will return to him in a very girlie and dreamy way (coff, excuse me, sometimes the "teenager" part of me shows itself), but I've appreciated that Mann has been very realistic about that, we are not in an Austen's novel. :P
And, given that Thomas was my favorite character, I've felt so sorry about his weird death, and Hanno then.. :( (hide spoiler)]
Ahh, I have to ask you that, ..what's your favorite character? :-D

Oh dear, I am afraid it's too long ago for me to remember. Now you make me want to re-read it!

Surely a more pleasant idea than re-reading The Magic Mountain! :P

Monthly Awards: February

7 books, 1933 pages.

The winner is: Buddenbrooks without doubt. I've already explained some of the reason why I've loved it. Characters masterfully builded, unforgettable episodes and of course a certain attachment by the undersigned. :P

My Razzie Award goes to: Cloud Atlas without doubt again. Like I said before, I couldn't even finish it. Boring, I would have liked to see the genius so hyped, but I have not seen it in the structure and in any story of it.

Honorable mention: Long Day's Journey Into Night, even if I'm still uncertain on Bel Canto. I caught myself thinking about this play often during the month, it's really well written and you can feel the sorrow behind it, like O'Neill said, "A play of old sorrow written in tears and blood".

March:

19) The House of Paper by Carlos María Domínguez
20) Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (audiobook)

*It's March, and it's time for a new theme. After the first on musicians, the second one will be on books set in Madrid, written only by spanish authors. The only exception will be probably The Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway. :)
The list will be updated in the main post here.

Anastasia wrote: "*It's March, and it's time for a new theme. After the first on musicians, the second one will be on books set in Madrid, written only by spanish authors. The only exception will be probably [book:T..."

I look forward to seeing what you read for this theme! :)