Reading 1001 discussion

It's that time to vote for October botm. October authors; Vladimir Nabokov through Boris Pasternak. Voting is open from today through the 23. Winners will be announced on the 24th.

How to Vote: Send your votes to the new shelf personality's email address: 1001secondedition@gmail.com


Books over 600 pages are not included and books that have been past botm in 2024 are not included.

Randomizer selection: One book is chosen by the randomizer from the books submitted by you. Only books that have not been previous botm (*) in past 10 years (2016 +) will be added to the randomizer. Each book you choose that has not been previously botm in the past 10 years will be fed into the randomizer. Books not eligible for the randomizer are marked with a *.

Vladimir Nabokov - Russian/US
*1. Pale Fire - 1962, 246 pages, botm 2020
2. Pnin - 1957, 184 pages
3. Lolita - 1955, 331 pages, botm 2010, 2012
*4. Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, botm 2018

V.S. Naipaul - Trinidad
5. The Enigma of Arrival
6. A Bend in the River
7. In a Free State

R.K. Narayan - India
8. The Guide, 1958 224 pages

Thomas Nashe - England
9. The Unfortunate Traveller: Or, the Life of Jack Wilton - botm 2010

Zora Neale Hurston - US
10. Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937, 238 pages

Irène Némirovsky- Ukraine/France, Jewish
11. Suite Française, botm 2010

Anaïs Nin - France
12. Delta of Venus, 1977, 271 pages

Cees Nooteboom - Netherlands
13. Rituals, 1980, 145 pages
2024 botm was All Souls Day

Amélie Nothomb - Belgium
14. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death

Novalis - Germany
15. Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance.,169 pages

Edna O'Brien - Ireland
16. In the Forest, 2002, 217 pgs
17. August Is a Wicked Month
18. Girl with Green Eyes
19. The Country Girls, botm 2014

Flann O'Brien - UK
20. The Poor Mouth
*21. At Swim-Two-Birds, botm 2022
22. The Third Policeman

Tim O'Brien - US
23. The Things They Carried, botm 2012, 2014

Flannery O'Connor - US
24. Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories
25. The Violent Bear It Away
26. Wise Blood

Ardal O'Hanlon, Ireland
27. The Talk of the Town, 1999

Jamie O'Neill, Ireland
*28. At Swim, Two Boys, botm 2020

Kenzaburō Ōe, Japan
29. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids or Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring

Michael Ondaatje - Canada Sri Lanka
30. The English Patient, botm 2010

Juan Carlos Onetti - Uruguay
31. The Shipyard

George Orwell - UK, India
32. Burmese Days
33. Keep the Aspidistra Flying
34. Nineteen Eighty-Four, botm 2010
35. Animal Farm, botm 2012
36. Coming up for Air

Mykhaylo Osadchy - Ukraine
37. Cataract,1971, 240 pgs

Amos Oz - Israel
*38. A Tale of Love and Darkness, botm 2016
*39. Black Box, botm 2020

Emine Sevgi Özdamar - Turkey
*40. Life Is a Caravanserai, botm 2022

Arto Paasilinna - Finland
41. The Year of the Hare, botm 2014

Marcel Pagnol - France
42. Manon des sources

Chuck Palahniuk - US
*43. Choke botm 2010, 2016

Connie Palmen - Netherlands
44. The Laws

Orhan Pamuk - Turkey
45. Snow, botm 2014

Giovanni Papini - Italy
46. Life of Christ

Viktor Paskov - Bulgaria
*47. A Ballad for Georg Henig, botm 2018

Pier Paolo Pasolini - Italy
48. The Ragazzi

Boris Pasternak - Russian
49. Doctor Zhivago

That's all folks!!! What would you like to read? How many have you read? Please share with us what you've, what you would like to read and why we should read it.

I think I've read about 18 from these letters! I am most interested in completing Flann O'Brien with The Poor Mouth

That would also complete Flann O'Brien for me.

I have read 16 of this list. I am traveling in October so my reading will be light. I will see what gets voted. At 128 pages, The Poor Mouth seems like a good vote for me:)

I’ve read 17 which is a huge number for me. Manon des sources has been vaguely on my radar for a bit, and Cataract looks interesting to me (I am always looking at the Russian ones because I have a daughter studying it). I read at swim two birds and definitely felt a bit at sea from a lack of getting the cultural references but happy to try another one.

I've completed 25 here. A couple of choices from my TBR boxes:

Manon des Sources (Pagnol)
Doctor Zhivago (Pasternak)

Two real classics. I'll back at least one of them or both, we'll see.

Well Dr Zhivago is indeed fabulous so I’m not going to try to talk you out of voting for that Patrick, but since you are a second possibility for Manon I’ll probably vote there.

I have also read about 18 of these. I would have thought that Dr. Zhivago would be a quarterly book but I guess most editions come in under 600 pages. I could go with Manon des Sources but I have also not read any Flan O'Brien, so the Poor Mouth could be a good start. I will wait to see if there are other favorites.

I've read 33 of these books. I've checked to see what is most available. I have Wise Blood on my shelf. So I am most interested in that one.

Others I can get include
The Violent Bear it Away
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids

If those don't interest anyone, I will feed the randomizer with those 3.

Gail wrote: "I have also read about 18 of these. I would have thought that Dr. Zhivago would be a quarterly book but I guess most editions come in under 600 pages. I could go with Manon des Sources but I have a..."

About Zhivago, I agree. The current Vintage edition (2011) comes at 704 pages. My French edition (Folio) comes at 779 pages. I would suspect that the edition used for the number of pages here was probably one of those printed with a very small font. It would be great if one day there exists a source which lists the number of words in a book in addition to the number of pages. Maybe we should ask someone at Anthropic to collect the information before they pulp their copies (after scanning and model-training).

Patrick wrote: "Gail wrote: "I have also read about 18 of these. I would have thought that Dr. Zhivago would be a quarterly book but I guess most editions come in under 600 pages. I could go with Manon des Sources..."

It can be moved to the Quarterly groups. It isn't a fast read.

Patrick wrote: " It would be great if one day there exists a source which lists the number of words in a book in addition to the number of pages..."

The AI sites (chatgpt and gemini.google) will give you what seems to be a very good estimate of the number of words in a book (they say Zhivago is about 155,000). So that's good for comparing books to see which is longer. But then what's the average number of words on a page for novels? They say about 280 (but mass-market paperbacks have smaller fonts and usually a reduced number of pages). So dividing 155,000 words by 280 pages puts Zhivago at about 554 pages.
That's so close to 600 I think it appropriate for a quarterly read. I would actually approve having most books over 500 pages qualify for quarterly read.

I've read 22 of these- that's probably a new PR for me. My 1st choice here would be O'Connor's 'The Violent Bear it Away'- been on my tbr list a long time. I'd also like 'Ada, or Ardor' (i've read 2 of the other Nabokovs).
I would definitely join in on 'Poor Mouth', 'Black Box' or 'Fear and Trembling' if they were picked.
The Edna O'Brien novel 'Girl with Green Eyes' was originally published with the title 'The Lonely Girl'. The movie made from it was given the title Girl with Green Eyes and later editions of the book have this title.

I can get behind Manon des Sources. I watched the film adaptations on Criterion last year, and they are absolutely gorgeous. Highly recommend.

A bit more than 24 hours left to vote!

I have received votes from about half of the usual voters, so I think the popular selection could still be anything, even though there are 3 books that have already received multiple votes.

Contrary to prior months, the voting was fairly concentrated this time. Only 7 books earned at least a vote. The popular vote ended up in a landslide, thanks to some late (multiple) support; it attracted 16 votes, far ahead its nearest rival (7).

Popular vote: Manon des Sources by Marcel Pagnol
Random selection: Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (submitted by Kristel)

What will you be reading in October?

I hope to read both. I ordered Manon because I was sure that one would be the popular vote and I own Wise Blood so I should be set for October.

It looks like I can access Manon (after a deep search in the internet archive), so I will see if I can fit it in. I'm not fond of O'Connor, so will skip that one.

I will read Manon, my library has it. I’ve already read Wise Blood, loved it.