Should you read the book or see the movie? Part 3

I know it has been a while since I've posted anything... basically I've been reading the same book for over two months now. The whole house/moving thing has pretty much completely eaten into my reading time. So here's my third installment comparing books with their movie versions.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)  vs. Anne of Green Gables (1934 film) and (1985 television movie)
The book is definitely better than either of these two versions though both of them are pretty decent. The cast in both film versions do a good job at bringing the characters to life but the 1934 film pretty much ignores the last half of the book and the 1985 version also skips a good bit too even though it is fairly long. Decision: Read the book.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985) vs. The Handmaid's Tale (1990 film)
This one isn't even close. Despite being relatively faithful to the story of the book, the film somehow seems to get everything wrong and captures none of the emotion. Decision: Read the book.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844) vs. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002 film)
Another one that isn't close. The film version completely changes the story, omits major characters, and isn't entertaining at all. Decision : Read the book.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) vs. Gone with the Wind (1939 film)
The book just rubbed me the wrong way. The film version at least makes the characters a bit more likable and less racist. Plus the film version is pretty epic in depicting the burning of Atlanta. Decision: See the movie.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) vs. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981 BBC television series) and (2005 film version)
The 2005 film is just not good at all. The 1981 BBC version though is worth watching since it really captures the feel of the book (being low-budget probably helped). Decision: Read the book or see the BBC version.

MYSTERY/HORROR/SCIENCE FICTION book section

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955) vs. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999 film)
The cast of the film is really good and I couldn't not imagine Matt Damon and Jude Law as the main characters while I was reading the book. However the film misses too much of the book and doesn't really show us how twisted Tom Ripley's thoughts are as the book does. Decision: Read the book.

Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1887) vs. "A Study in Pink" 2010 episode of Sherlock
The first episode of the 2010 BBC Sherlock is a very loose adaptation of the first Sherlock Holmes book. In both Watson returns from a foreign war and quickly meets Sherlock Holmes and ends up as his roommate and assistant while solving a murder mystery. Both are really good and different from each other. Decision: Read the book and watch the television episode.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968) vs. Blade Runner (1982)
Despite having the same basic plot and characters the book and the film feel like two completely different things. The book really does involve electric sheep. Decision: Read the book and see the movie.

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (1981) vs. Manhunter (1986 film) and Red Dragon (2002 film)
The book is entertaining as is the first film, Manhunter. The remake is pretty faithful to the book but the cast just seems wrong. Ralph Fiennes is a great actor but just doesn't capture the character of the killer at all. Decision: Read the book or see Manhunter.

The Shining by Stephen King (1977) vs. The Shining (1980 film)
The novel of The Shining is a classic and pretty scary. But you know what... the Kubrick film is even better. Decision: See the movie.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1985) vs. Ender's Game (2013 film)
The film version looks nice but seems to miss the emotional point of the book. First off the kids are all way too old and they don't seem to have that hard of a time at battle school. Decision: Read the book.

Sci-Fi Book # 10 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has been on my want-to-read book for awhile... probably twenty years or so, and I'm not sure what was preventing me from actually reading it. Maybe it was because every time I watch Blade Runner (which is based on this book) I feel slightly disappointed in it, even though it theoretically is a movie I should really love.

Like in Blade Runner, the plot focuses on Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter that chases down androids that have returned to Earth and try to live as humans... besides that just about everything else is different, so in reading this book it is best to just forget all about the movie and take the book for what it is. In the book Rick is assigned to kill six androids that are living in San Francisco. He's excited for the job because with the bounty he'll be able to replace his electric sheep with an actual living animal. Weirdly enough, owning live random animals is a pretty big status symbol and people believe that having animals, either electric or living are important for their emotional well-being.

Like all good science fiction, the book had some stuff that was kind of weird... like all the electric animals, the empathy boxes, and of course androids so life-like that you can't tell they're not human. But also the human emotion was still relatable... a good portion of the book discusses being able to feel empathy for someone or something even if it isn't really "alive". The only thing I'd say against it is that it could have dug a bit deeper into the moral question on whether or not the androids should be 'retired' and if they really do have a right to 'life' if they feel that they are living beings with emotions and free will. But then again, this isn't a philosophy book. I'll give it an A-.

Horror Book # 21 - The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Going into The Turn of the Screw by Henry James I knew nothing at all about it. Before seeing it on the Best Horror Books list I hadn't even realized that it was a ghost story.

The story is about a young governess that is hired to take care of two young children whose only family is an uncle that isn't interested in being involved in any way with their lives. Once the governess arrives at the estate she begins seeing two ghostly people that match the description of the previous governess and her lover (both deceased). She also thinks that the children can see them too and interact with these ghosts whenever she isn't around.

What I liked about the story is that it is told from the viewpoint of the governess, and since no one else ever mentions seeing the ghosts it is never clear if there are actually ghosts or if the governess is just crazy. I'd lean toward the ghost theory, but "she's just crazy" theory is also valid.

It is a quick read and I'd recommend it for anyone liking turn of the century Gothic stories. I'll give it an A.

Mystery Book # 27 & Horror Book # 86 Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

Red Dragon is probably best known as the book that introduces Hannibal Lecter. But really Lecter has a pretty small part in it and the focus is on the hunt for the serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy. The search is led by Will Graham, the man responsible for capturing Lecter. Much like in Silence of the Lambs, the best resource to get into the mind of a serial killer is to consult with Hannibal Lecter.

The book seems like it would be a fairly standard thriller but the Tooth Fairy (or as he calls himself the Red Dragon) is such a weird and fascinating character that the book is a step above the usual crime novel. In the middle section of the book we get the history of the killer's childhood and it almost makes us feel bad for him... but then we're reminded that he is a totally crazy killer.

I rarely say this about a book, but I wish that it were longer! The story moves along very quickly and the climactic encounter between the main characters is just a few pages long and too short to build as much tension as it should have. After reading it I want to re-watch the first film version - Manhunter, and finally see the remake too (and read the sequel). It gets an A-.

Horror Book # 1 The Shining by Stephen King

After reading a bunch of literary classics and then throwing in additional science fiction classics and then adding a mystery/thriller list, I realized I should also add in a horror reading list too... What better way to get an excuse to read some more Stephen King, re-read books about the vampire Lestat, and finally get through the giant H.P. Lovecraft collection sitting on my bookshelf! And what better time to do this than October so as to get mentally ready for Halloween. So first off... I'm going to be using the list found at http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-horror-books-of-all-time. It is a list voted on by users (so it is likely to change a bit) and has a pretty good mixture of classic stuff like Edgar Allen Poe and newer stuff like Neil Gaiman. Will I read everything on the list? Probably not, but it will be nice to read something different every once in awhile.

I'm starting with re-reading The Shining since it has a new sequel that just came out, I just viewed the film Room 237 (which is about the film version) and it is at the very top of the list. The story of course is about the Torrance family, Jack, Wendy and Danny, as they live in the Overlook Hotel during the winter off-season. Five year old Danny has a 'gift' that allows him to occasionally see the future and know people's thoughts and feeling. Jack is a recovering alcoholic and is trying to get his life in order by working at the Overlook and to fix his marriage with Wendy at the same time. However the hotel is haunted by something evil that slowly takes over Jack's mind and encourages him to hurt his family. This evil presence also provides horrible visions to young Danny.

The book is probably one of King's best (probably because it is also one of his earliest). The relationships between the three main characters are nicely examined and you really get a sense of the family dynamic and the pressures that are influencing everyone's actions. The story has a great set up... in most haunted house books/movies I always wonder why the family just doesn't leave the house... but in this case the family really has no choice since they're snowed in and forty miles from the nearest neighbor. And it isn't really a ghost within the place causing the trouble, it is that the actual hotel is an evil entity. For such a horror classic, it surprisingly has a very low body count (1). Most of the suspense is in not wanting anything bad to happen to little Danny and seeing how at first he is busy coping with his 'gift' and his parents dissolving relationship  and then being forced to live in a haunted hotel.

It is hard to read a book like this that has been made into a classic film without comparing the two versions. And somehow Stanley Kubrick managed to make the film version even scarier and more intense than the book. Think of some of the creepiest parts of the film... the chase through the hedge maze, "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy", "Come play with us Danny", "Heeere's Johnny!", the elevator full of blood...  none of those things are actually in the novel. Instead the novel has topiary animals that come to life and a temperamental boiler that eventually blows up the Overlook. I also prefer the fate of Dick Hallorann in the film versus the book (not that I wanted anything bad to happen to Dick, but the film forces Danny to really save himself and what happens to Dick adds to the evil of the hotel).

I give the book an A and I can see how it could be voted number one on the horror list. The only thing that actually detracts from the book is that the movie version is an A+ classic.

Book # 18 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Of all the books on the list, Don Quixote is the oldest. I had high expectations for it since it appears near the top of every "best of" list I've looked at. The story is pretty simple (especially for such a long book), Don Quixote is a crazy old man that is obsessed with books about knights. After reading so many books he convinces himself that he himself is a knight and roams around the Spanish countryside along with his squire Sancho Panza having delusional adventures and causing trouble for most everyone that he encounters.

To say that the book is episodic is an understatement. Every twenty or thirty pages Don Quixote and Sancho encounter a new group of people and somehow wreck havoc with them. Most of the stories are funny and entertaining, from Don Quixote attacking people that he thinks are an evil cult, to him trying to get into a fight with a lion, to Sancho finally getting a governorship of an insula...but as I got closer to the end I started wishing for some larger plot to appear and it never really did.

As with a lot of the books on the list, I had to read a translation. I read the newer translation by Edith Grossman and found it very readable and modern but it still maintains a definite sense of style which I hope is reminiscent of the actual Cervantes text. Probably what I found funniest and most interesting is that in the second half of the book (the book is divided into two parts which were published separately) the first half of the text actually exists as a book within the narrative that many of the characters are aware of and use to know the history of Don Quixote and Sancho and use it against them. What is never really explained is how the book came into existence and how someone was able to accurately record what actually happened. And oddly enough Don Quixote doesn't think it is that weird that the book exists.

I've got to give the book an A+. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are great characters and they encounter quite a few interesting people on their crazy adventure. I really like that part of it willfully isn't explained and makes no sense other than that it is funny. I'll add it to my top 50.

Mystery Book # 4- The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

While reading another 1000 page book from our main list I took a day out to read something much shorter from the mystery book list, The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. This book is ranked pretty high on the list and on a similar list by the UK Crime Writers Association it is actually ranked as number one. So I had pretty high hopes for this one.

The story follows a detective that is stuck in a hospital bed while he is recuperating from an injury. While stuck there he becomes fascinated with Richard III and the crime that he allegedly committed hundreds of years ago - the murder of his two young nephews. He reads some books and gets someone to do some research for him and he ends up coming to his own conclusions on what really must have happened.

And that's about it. I must have missed something, because while I'd say it is a pretty good B+ type of book, I don't know  how anyone could say that it is the greatest mystery ever written. Maybe I'd need to be British and have lived in the 1950's to fully appreciate it. First off, I wasn't already familiar with the story of Richard the III. Pretty much everything I know about British kings I learned from watching The Tudors, so I never really knew this story (despite actually visiting the tower where the murder probably took place). So to call into question a major part of accepted history isn't a factor for me since I don't live in that country and it means nothing at all to me. Next, the book is clearly written as fiction so I don't actually know how much to believe of any of it. I feel like I would have enjoyed the unravelling of the real mystery and possible solutions if the book was presented as non-fiction complete with footnotes and references. The characters cite books and letters and such in dialogue but that isn't an actual cited reference. So how much of this book is actual research? I don't know and it sort of bugs me. Next, in the book everyone questioned about their knowledge of the story of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower have been taught that Richard had them murdered. Now maybe that was true sixty years ago when the book came out, but researching the true story on Wikipedia shows that no one now accepts that as an established fact and that really it is pretty much up in the air on what really happened. Maybe it was Richard III, maybe Henry VII, who knows? So maybe this has been a more recent development in the thinking of what happened (possibly caused by the publication of this book), or maybe the book just said that everyone thought history was wrong sixty years ago so that The Daughter of Time could exist. Again, I don't know.

Overall a B+. The mystery of who killed the princes is interesting, but I'd have preferred reading an actual non-fiction book that presents the evidence on what really happened.

Book # 35 & Sci-Fi Book # 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - by Douglas Adams

I remember the first time I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was for a ninth grade book report. I wish I still had a copy of that paper so I could just use that instead... Then at some point, probably in college, I reread the first book in the series with the intention of reading the whole series but only succeeded in reading the first book once again. Then finally, probably at least ten years ago, I got through all five books. So obviously this is a book I really love. The name of my video game "rock band" is even inspired by the book... though how we ended up spelling Slartibartfast so so incorrectly is a mystery.

The story follows Arthur Dent, a pretty regular guy, and his friend and secret space alien Fort Prefect as they escape Earth moments before it is destroyed and wind up on a crazy adventure where they find out that Earth was created by aliens in order to figure out what the Ultimate Question of Life is... not the Answer of Life though, since they already know that it is 42.

The whole book is pretty ridiculous and funny the whole way through. It is very British and very absurd and also insightful. I like when I find a passage in a science fiction book that accurately predicts something that has happened...such as this-

"For years radios have been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program"

I'd recommend the book to just about anyone. Don't let the big budget movie version sway you away from reading the book. The book stays in my top 50 and gets an A.

Book #3 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Progress Book # 27 of 100

I didn't have a very high opinion of this novel.  I remember hating the story when we read it in high school.  It was all about abundance and wealth.  Since the movie was coming out I wanted to get reread this before it was released.  Being rather small, less than 200 pages I read it the week before it was released.  It wasn't as bad as I remembered, but still not my favorite story. 

It's sad and all about greed, money and obsession.  Gatsby has risen to wealth from nothing, being labeled as "new money." Nick is Gatsby's neighbor and one true friend.  He is working in New York studying the stocks to try and make it big.  Daisy is Nick's cousin.  She lives with her husband Tom across the bay from Gatsby's house and Tom is definitely from the "old money"set. Gatsby and Daisy were in love when they were younger and Gatsby has done everything to win her back.  There is also a love story with Nick and Daisy's friend Jordan.

The novel doesn't have a happy ending and exploits the lavish lifestyle of people with money in the roaring twenties. 

I'll give this book a B 85%

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

In the year before we started this blog I had read eight Michael Connelly books. It isn't that they are the greatest books, but they are fun and enjoyable and don't require too much thought. Plus you can usually find them at library book sales for fifty cents. So after taking a break from Connelly I finally picked up the latest book in his Lincoln Lawyer series, The Fifth Witness. This time lawyer Mickey Haller has to defend a woman who is accused of murdering a banker that is foreclosing on her house.

The book was fairly enjoyable, but I kept waiting for some kind of twist in the case to make it a bit more interesting... and then in the last chapter we finally get the twist and find out how the crime was really committed... and it is pretty much the same "surprise" as in two other Lincoln Lawyer books, except this time it happens  after the case is closed. A bit of a disappointment. This one gets a C+. I do recommend the first book in the series though, The Lincoln Lawyer, or see the movie which follows it pretty closely.

Mystery Book # 71 - The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

.

Reading The Talented Mr. Ripley got me thinking about the movie version with Matt Damon. First I'll say that while reading this book I couldn't not imagine Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow as Tom Ripley, Dickie Greenleaf and Marge. I didn't remember too many specifics from the film but had a general remembrance of the plot... and then while reading about the film version I saw that it came out way back in 1999! That was fourteen years ago! How has it been that long since? I would have guessed maybe seven or eight years. Time really does fly.

Anyway, the book is about this guy Tom Ripley who is sent to Italy by a business man to tr y and talk the man's son, Dickie, into returning home to America. Tom and Dickie become best pals and decide to have a good time spending Dickie's dad's money instead. This in itself doesn't sound like the most interesting plot... but Tom is also a sociopath and becomes jealous of Dickie and pretty much wants to become Dickie and live his life instead. So, *SPOILER* when Dickie tries to cut Tom loose, Tom murders Dickie and takes over his identity. The second half of the novel is Tom trying to fool the people that know Dickie into thinking that Dickie is still alive somewhere in Europe, and trying to convince people that don't know Dickie that he is actually Dickie. It all gets complicated.

I really enjoyed the novel. Highsmith really brings the reader into Ripley's head and it was interesting to see a murder mystery from the point of view of the murderer. From his viewpoint it seems funny that no one is able to figure out the mystery when really it is so simple. He is able to fool Dickie's girlfriend into thinking that Dickie has left her to travel and at one point meets the same detective as Dickie and later as himself. Somehow nobody figures it out. Tom Ripley is a fascinating character, totally without empathy or guilt, and I might have to read some of the other books in this series someday. This one gets and A.

Oh yeah... it also mentions one of our top 100 books, The Ambassadors.

Book # 41 A Passage To India by E.M. Forster

Progress Book #26 of 100

I loved the movie A Room With A View also by E.M. Forster and was looking forward to reading this book.  So many of the novels and Masterpiece movies talk about British Imperialism in India.  A Little Princess starts in India, in Vanity Fair- Ameila's brother works in India and I'm sure there are hundreds of other stories that in some way or another mention British Imperialism.  This novel takes place completely in India and addresses the prejudices of the the two cultures clashing.  Forster doesn't hold back in addressing the issues that must have happened. 

The story centers around an Indian Dr. Aziz and his attempt to befriend a few British people.  Forster has a character for each level of prejudice the English have towards the Indians.  Ralph Moore is an officer that looks down on the Indians, he is happy to work and spend his free time in the English country club.  Mrs. Moore is his older mother that accompanies Ralph's fiancee to India and is very tolerant and understanding towards the Indian culture.  When she meets Dr. Aziz they have a good discussion and she wants to take in all the sights and traditions in that she can.  Adela is Ralph's intended, she is young and impressionable.  She is the middle ground.  Dr. Aziz doesn't think too highly of the English at first, but Mrs. Moore and Cyril Fielding change that.  He goes to great lengths, spending a lot of his money and time to impress the English.

As with most plots there is a big misunderstanding and all the progress made by Dr. Aziz, Mrs. Moore and Cyril to move forward and become friends in a less than tolerant society are set back.  Overall it was actually a pretty sad story.  Then there is an even bigger misunderstanding that causes Dr. Aziz to become bitter towards the English.  In the end Forster gives hope, but it just shows how much hate can take over and ruin your life.  How holding a grudge isn't the best way to live your life.  I'm looking forward to watching the movie adaptation.

I'll give this book an A 94%

Sci-Fi Book # 1 - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

In anticipation of the movie, I figured I'd reread Ender's Game now. I first read it about five years ago for school (the class was Young Adult Literature) and ended up reading all of the book in the series up to that point (which I think there were at least 8). The first book and second book in the series (Speaker for the Dead) are by far the best and then they slowly diminish in quality. And I guess now there are also a bunch of prequel books too... which I'm sure I'll never read.  But... Ender's Game started the whole series and I won't argue too much about whether or not it deserves to be number one on the Sci-Fi book list. It is one of the better science fiction books I've read, and I'll place it in my top 50 overall.

The story is set sometime in the future where Earth has already withstood two alien invasions. At the age of six Ender Wiggin is recruited to Battle School so that he can train to become a commander in the Earth's space fleet. Why they recruit so young is never really clear... but I'm guessing it is similar to why Jedi training also starts so young... so that the kids don't have attachments to other people and can be shaped into whatever the school needs them to be. The adults that brought him to the school think he is by far the most talented kid and they push him to succeed to the point where it is basically child abuse... but the teachers justify it since Ender is needed to save the world from aliens. So most of the book is about how Ender copes with all the pressures at Battle (and later Command) School. It really gets into his emotions and thoughts and the reader feels really bad for Ender. While there are space aliens and spaceship battles in the story, most of the action happens in either of the two schools with just Ender, his schoolmates and his teachers. 

I don't want to give anything away but there is also a twist near the end. It seemed kind of obvious to me the first time I read it and the most surprising thing is that Ender himself doesn't realize what is really going on until everyone tells him. (As a side note, in the book Ender's Shadow, which focuses on Bean a fellow classmate during the same time, Bean does figure out everything and isn't fooled at all). I'll give the book an A, while it is about the usual sci-fi type things it focuses the story on characters and their psychological issues.

Mystery Book # 47 Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

One of the very last projects I had in grad school was basically a book report and author profile of the book The Hunter and its author Donald Westlake (writing under the name Richard Stark). Yes, that seems like a random assignment, especially since it was for the one film class I took. Since then I've always wanted to read another book by Westlake and was excited to see that the mystery book list has three of them. I started with Bank Shot but now I realize that this is the second book in his Dortmunder series and the first book is on the list too... so maybe I should have started with that one. Oh well.

The set up of the novel is pretty simple. The story follows John Dortmunder and his band of thieves in their attempt to steal a bank. Not rob a bank... steal the entire bank. They think they can do this because the bank is temporarily housed in a mobile trailer while the original building is being remodeled. So basically their plan is to attach the trailer to a truck and just drive off with it. Of course there are complications and the whole thing is just one big comic misadventure after another.

The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking that it would be a funny movie... and apparently it was made into a movie in 1974, so now I've gotta try and track down a copy. I enjoyed the book and it was a funny quick read. I don't think I'd call it a classic though. The characters aren't that fully drawn out (maybe I'm just missing something since I didn't start with the first book in the series) and the whole plot is pretty simple. Good but not great. I'll go with a B+.

Book # 36 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

While Lucinda was reading The Count of Monte Cristo she kept telling me that she thought that I would really enjoy it. And I did enjoy it, but in the same way that I'd enjoy something overly melodramatic and cheesy with a bunch of ridiculous plot twists. After a while (and it is well over 1000 pages) all of the plot details and how all of the characters related to each other just gets to be too much. Frequently I had to refer to this chart to keep it all straight :

The story starts out with a young sailor, Edmond Dantes, who is just returning home from a voyage and is set to get married to the beautiful Mercedes and become the captain of a ship. However, through both malice and bad luck Edmond finds himself thrown into jail without any hope of ever getting out. While he is a prisoner he meets a fellow prisoner that tells him about a hidden treasure. After fourteen years in his cell he finally escapes and is able to find the treasure and become
extremely wealthy. He takes on several different personas, most notably as the Count of Monte Cristo, and spends years and years plotting out his super intricate revenge plot against the three men that got him thrown into jail. And his plan is super crazy detailed and really complicated. It is almost silly how he is always at the right place at the right time, and how no one can recognize him when he puts on a different disguise, and I still don't really understand how he was able to dig up all the dirt on his rivals that he uses against them. And he even starts to go after the families of his rivals until he realizes that most of them are totally innocent and don't even know who he is.

Overall I did enjoy it... but maybe something is also lost in the translation. The style seemed a bit plain and wasn't what I'd expect from a 19th century French novel. Plus I don't know why he went through such a complicated plan if he never tried or planned at winning back Mercedes who had gone on to marry one of the men he was after. The whole book is really about revenge, and after he escapes from his prison, Edmond becomes consumed with revenge and really has no other characteristics about him. He rarely seems to have any feelings or thoughts that aren't about his plan. I'll give it an A-.

Oh yeah... the book also mentions Don Quixote.

Updated rankings:

1. Les Misérables

2. Invisible Man

3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

4. The Hobbit

5. A Farewell to Arms

6. Great Expectations

7. The Stand

8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

9. Pale Fire

10. The Handmaid's Tale

11. The Chronicles of Narnia

12. The Name of the Rose

13. The Great Gatsby

14. The Sound and the Fury

15. Frankenstein

16. Things Fall Apart

17. Wind in the Willows

18. Anne of Green Gables

19. Rebecca

20. Anna Karenina

21. Sons and Lovers

22. War and Peace

23. The Count of Monte Cristo

24. Winnie-the-Pooh

25. Emma

26. Charlotte's Web

27. Possession

28. Mrs. Dalloway

29. Gone with the Wind

30. Atlas Shrugged

Sci-Fi Book # 25 - The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

After looking at that list of top sci-fi book I was pretty excited to read one that I hadn't read before and picked one that I knew nothing about, The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The set up is pretty simple, it is a thousand years in the future and mankind has spread out through space and there are hundreds of populated planets. Then we finally make first contact with an alien species which everyone refers to as the Moties. The Moties are pretty weird looking beings with three arms and asymmetrical bodies. Then the expedition that has met them has to decide what to do about them... should they be peaceful and try and trade? or should they just try and eliminate them now before they endanger human civilization.

I thought this book was just okay. The set up is pretty intriguing but the characters are all pretty bland and hard to differentiate, really I'd prefer to have read a Star Trek book instead. The topics of the debates are interesting but it seems like none of the characters make very in-depth arguments for their side... it is just "they'll wipe us out" or "no, they are peaceful beings". At one point they hint at the interesting theological debates that would occur if we met space aliens, but nothing comes of it.  And the ending is all a bit anti-climatic too. Overall a bit of a disappointment for a book that appears on so many lists. I'll give it a B-.

Mystery Book # 1 The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - A Study in Scarlet (Book 1 of 9)

So after telling Lucinda that I was also going to also read from a Science Fiction book list she mentioned that I should look to see if there is a similar list for Mysteries. Surprisingly there weren't that many, but a very good one was compiled by the Mystery Writers of America in 1995. Of course, after reading this list I feel like I want to read a bunch of books from this list too... So I'll probably read some from their list also. It can be found at http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/The+Top+100+Mystery+Novels+of+All+Time+Mystery+Writers+of+America.
I'd already read about a dozen of them before and enjoyed each of them, so it figures that I should enjoy the rest too. Luckily since the list is a bit dated it doesn't have any Dan Brown or Steig Larsson.

After deciding that, I figured the best place to start is with a book that I a) already own, b) haven't read yet, c) is near the top of the list, and d) is something that I've always wanted to read and haven't yet. So with that in mind it was pretty easy to choose the first Sherlock Holmes book which has literally been staring at me from my bookcase for months and is at the top of the list. Overall there are nine Sherlock Holmes "books". Four are novels and five are books of short stories. The first is A Study in Scarlet. The book quickly introduces us to John Watson and tells us how he first met Sherlock. Right after becoming roommates Watson follows Holmes to a murder scene out of curiosity. At the scene is a dead body without any marks and the word "Rache" written in blood on the walls. Sherlock follows the clues that he finds and allows the official detectives to go off and investigate the case separately. Of course the detectives get everything wrong and Sherlock actually manages to have the killer arrive right to his apartment not knowing that he's about to be arrested. That's all in the first half of the book. Then a good chunk of the second half is the back story of who the murderer was and why he committed the crime. That story was totally unexpected and really compelling, maybe because it has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes or even London. Then at the very end the narrative returns to Watson's narration and an explanation of how Holmes was able to figure out the mystery.

Overall it is a fun short read that lays the groundwork for the series and makes me want to read the next book very soon. I can see why it is regarded as a classic. The characters are unique, they mystery is compelling and the writing is terrific. I'll have to give it an A+.

Sci-Fi book # 19 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

After a bit of thought I've decided to read the top 25 books on the list at http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html. Maybe I'll read more than just the top 25 but in the year before we started this project I read books #26 and #27 (The Left Hand of Darkness and Speaker for the Dead) on the list and neither would be books I'd want to re-read so soon. I had also read books #74 and # 76 (A Princess of Mars and The Puppet Masters) and neither are ones that I'd ever want to re-read. Of the top 25 books, I've already read 15 of them and each are ones I'd want to re-read (5 of which are on out top 100 list so I'm going to be rereading them anyway). I've always been curious if I'd enjoy or 'get' Neuromancer more now than when I read it as a teenager.

The first time I read The War of the Worlds was right before the big giant Spielberg movie version came out in 2005. The story is pretty simple. On the outskirts of London in the 1890's an alien invasion takes place. The aliens arrive in 'rockets' from Mars and once they put together their tripod machines they go about using their heat ray and spreading black smoke that kills everything in the English countryside. The English don't have much defense against this so it is a good thing that *spoiler* that the Martians are vulnerable to bacteria and die after a week or so.

I enjoyed the book back then and enjoyed it again this time. In fact, I think I'll have to put this one in my top 50. There are quite a few alien invasion books and movies now, but The War of the Worlds was one of the very first and it is fair to say that most of these types of stories have taken something from The War of the Worlds. The story is told through a narrator that continually escapes the aliens out of luck and is able to give a first hand account of what the aliens do throughout their attack. It is never really a fair fight between the humans and the Martians, and given that the characters have absolutely no frame of reference for an alien invasion the book comes off almost more as a horror story rather than either science fiction or action. I also really liked H. G. Wells' style. It is very descriptive of the Martians and their machines and also of the narrator's emotions and has a nice balance of plot with emotion. I'll have to give it an A+.

If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes

A few weeks ago the L.A. Weekly had a really good article about deciding which book is the best ever "L.A. novel".  You can read the article at http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2013/07/best_la_novel_ever_if_he_hollers.php. After reading the article I knew that I'd have to read the book that won their contest, If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes. The only thing that made me skeptical was that The Black Echo by Michael Connelly ranked higher somehow than The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

So, If He Hollers Let Him Go was published in 1947 and is set a few years earlier. To quote the summary on the back of the book "the novel spans four days in the life of Bob Jones, a black man relentlessly plagues by the effects of World War II racism." I really enjoyed the book, it presented an insightful take on racism in Los Angeles and how it can really take its toll on someone. I'm not sure though that I'd call it the best L.A. novel ever though... just because I felt like Los Angeles wasn't really a major part of the novel. Sure it takes place here but it almost seems like this story could have been told in any major city. I'll give it an A.

Some other thoughts:
- The cover of the edition I bought is horribly boring... an extreme close up of some fingers. It is further evidence to me the "art" on modern book covers is just getting worse. When I write up these posts I always look at all of the different covers a book has had and I almost always like some really old cover over whatever is on the most current edition.
Just compare this...

to the original cover (which actually shows a scene from the book)

-One part of the book that did make it seem like an "L.A." novel is that the author frequently would give detailed directions of what streets he'd take to get around the city. Yes, the totally reminded me of the SNL skit "The Californians"



-Even though this book isn't on our Top 100 list, it does mention a Native Son which is.

Book # 68 The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James

Progress Book # 25 of 100

This book went on and on and on and on. A lot happens, but it doesn’t happen quickly.  Everything takes time.  It follows the story of young American woman Isabel Archer.   She is adopted by an Aunt and leaves her life in New York to go and tour Europe.  While there she is loved by all.  She quickly gets a marriage proposal from Lord Warbourton, and although she likes Lord Warbourton, Isabel is not ready to get married.  She wants to be an independent woman and marriage isn't in her future, at least that is what she thinks.  Her cousin in charmed by Isabel.  He likes her attitude and wants for her to be happy and live unmarried if she chooses.  He convinces his father to leave Isabel half of their family fortune.  So Isabel becomes a rich heiress.

Just as Bleak House had Mr. Skimpole, this novel had Madame Merle.  She is  friend of Isabel's aunt that has no money and seems to depend on her friends for support.  Madame Merle sees Isabel as a wife for Mr. Gilbert Osmond.  Once this is decided Isabel's future is decided.  She marries Mr. Osmond, devastating her cousin and Lord Warbourton.  She falls into a trap and doesn't realize until it's too late.  I wanted a happier Jane Austen type of story, but didn't really get it here.  That with the fact that the story goes on and on and on just didn't make this the best novel.

I'll give it 84% a B

 

With this review, I’ve completed 25% of the novels, only 75 titles to go!  I’m definitely enjoying this little project, but sometimes find writing these blogs a little challenging.  If I wasn’t doing this with Daniel I’m not sure I would be able to finish everything.  I know for sure I wouldn’t be reading them as fast as I am.  I think we are pushing each other to keep up the pace.   As for the blogs,   I’m usually at least two blogs behind the current book I’m reading.  In the next 25 I’ll tackle a few that I’m not looking forward to reading (Tolstoy and maybe another Faulkner and/or Woolf).    

Ok, so I wrote the above note 3 months ago and never actually posted this.  Right now I am 7 reviews behind, 5 books from the list and 2 fun ones.  I'll try and get them up soon so I can be caught up. 

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 4 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Another Harry Potter book... This is the third time I've read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and once again it was a pretty fun read. However the thing that comes to mind for me first about this book was the circumstances in which I read it for the second time back in 2007. I probably got through at least half of it while waiting in line an entire day in Hollywood for a chance to get a ticket to see The White Stripes play in a tiny room. The deal was that the first two hundred people to buy the cd would get a ticket to see them play the next day in a small shop that they had set up and called Icky Thump Records. Of course the CD didn't go on sale until midnight and I got in line at 6 AM. Even though I was there 18 hours early I was nowhere near the front of the line. Anyway, I sat in the sun all day reading The Goblet of Fire and stressing out that I wouldn't be one of the first two hundred. Luckily I barely made it and got my ticket so that I could wait in line again the next day for the actual show. And the show was awesome... it was the last time The White Stripes ever played in Los Angeles.

Thinking of this story got me thinking about some parallels between Harry Potter and The White Stripes. Both started and ended at the same time; the first Stripes performance was July 14th, 1997 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on June 26th, 1997. The final Stripes concert was July 31st, 2007 (just a month after my story) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released July 21st, 2007. So both existed as something current during the same time. Personally I discovered both at pretty much the same time also in 2001.  Both also started out really good and continually got better and I'd say both came to very satisfying conclusions.  While the middle White Stripes albums (White Blood Cells and Elephant) will go down as classics, Icky Thump was also a great album and only added to their legacy.... just like how most people love Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix most... but are still satisfied with The Deathly Hallows. I'm guessing Get Behind Me Satan is analogous to The Half-Blood Prince then.

Anyway, what I thought about most was how both Harry Potter and The White Stripes are supposedly finished. J.K. Rowling has said that she's done with Harry Potter forever now... just like Jack White said that the Stripes are a thing of the past.  And a part of me really hopes this is true and another conflicting part disagrees. My heart wants more of both... but my brain knows that it is pretty likely that if either continued they wouldn't be nearly as good as what came before. Kind of like the Star Wars prequels or that final Who record. I guess I hope we never see more Harry Potter books or White Stripes CDs, but you know if either one announced something new I'd have to admit I would be super excited for either one and be the first to pre-order it. And yes,  I'd be willing to wait in line an entire day once again to see Jack and Meg back together even if I knew deep down that it wouldn't be the same as seeing them back in 2007.

So, about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...  stuff happens with dragons, mer-people, and Voldemort gets a body. Harry survives it all. It gets an A.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The books that I've most been looking forward to reading on our list are the science fiction books. Unfortunately there aren't that many sci-fi books on the list so I've decided to also read (or re-read) the top 25 or so science fiction books of all time. The problem is that I can't decide on which list to use. NPR published a nice list at http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books but that list contains a bunch of series titles. Another good list is at http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html.  And yet another one is at http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12325.S_L_Top_100_Science_Fiction_Fantasy_Titles. Either way, near the top of each of these lists is Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I had found a used copy that contained all three books at a library book sale shortly before we started this project, so it has been staring at me from the bookshelf for the last year just waiting to be picked up. I was looking forward to it because I really had no clue what it was about since this is one of the few classic science fiction books that haven't been made into a movie.

This first book is really a set of five short stories set in the far future, so far in fact that mankind is spread out across the galaxy and they don't even remember that Earth was the birthplace of humans. The first story sets the foundation for what the series is about. A scientist, Hari Seldon, creates a new science 'psychohistory' which basically allows him to predict the future of society in very general terms. He comes to the conclusion that the current Empire will fall in a few hundred years and this will be followed by thirty thousand years of unrest, destruction and chaos. He believes it is already too late to save the Empire from collapse, but he sets in motion a plan that will help society make it through the collapse in only one thousand years. One the outside it appears this plan is to create a giant type of encyclopedia and library that will contain all knowledge and keep it safe through any type of destruction. Each of the next four short stories jump ahead generations at a time to see how this plan progresses and the obstacles it faces.

Overall I really enjoyed the book. The set up is really good and I enjoyed the jumping ahead in time in each new story. I'll have to read the second book in the trilogy pretty soon because the first book doesn't really offer much of a conclusion. The only difficulty in reading it was that there were so many characters with weird names, and once you learn them all they get replaced with another set of new characters. I also found it funny that in the far future people still read print newspapers and rely on microfilm. I'll give Foundation an A.

Should you read the book or see the movie? Part 2

Now it is time for another installment of "Should you read the book or see the movie?"



The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) vs. The Great Gatsby (the 2013 film)
I didn't get around to watching the 70's Great Gatsby film yet, but I did see the new shiny Baz Luhrmann version. I enjoyed both the novel and the film, but the book is an all time classic while the film is just a good adaptation. I'll say that the cast was pretty good and going through the story again made me appreciate the depth of the book and made me think a bit more about what really makes Gatsby tick. Decision: Read the book then see the movie

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (1951) vs. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008 film)
While Prince Caspian was probably my least favorite of the books in the Narnia series, I still enjoyed it. The film however was totally forgettable. Decision: Read the book.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis (1952) vs. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010 film)
Since I didn't think very highly of the Prince Caspian movie, I had pretty low expectations for the third movie and didn't see it until it was on DVD. Imagine my surprise when I found that I enjoyed it quite a bit, probably because Eustace was such a bratty kid. I was even more surprised that the book was almost as good as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Decision: Both, read the book and see the movie.


A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929) vs. A Farewell to Arms (1932 film)
This one isn't even close. I loved the book, it is perfect in so many ways. The movie however has many many flaws. The roles are miscast, there are unnecessary story changes and everything just seems off. The book is written in such a way that it does not add extra emotion and the narrator gives us just the facts up until the very emotional ending. The film on the other hand has a montage of war scenes set to highly emotional music and tries to manipulate the viewer way too hard. Decision. Read the book.

The first three Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling vs. the first three Harry Potter films.
Both are great. Decision: Both.


Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) vs. Great Expectations (2011 BBC miniseries)
The book of course is great. The 2011 miniseries is fairly faithful to the book plot wise but isn't as enjoyable. The cast is okay but the whole thing felt way more serious and depressing than the book and lacked the humor found throughout the novel. Decision: Read the book.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (1962) vs. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975 film)
Both the book and the movie are classics. The plot is pretty much the same but the two feel really different because the book gives the story from Chief Bromden's point of view (complete with hallucinations) while the film centers clearly on Jack Nicholson's McMurphy and is told with a more objective eye. Decision: Both.

Possession by A.S. Byatt (1990) vs. Possession (2002 film)
I'd give a lukewarm recommendation of the book. Good but not a classic. The film however is just bad. Aaron Eckhard is horribly miscast, the characters are given little depth or motivation, the viewer gets no sense at all of the types of works that Ash and LaMotte were supposed to have created, and. the characters in the flashback are very underwritten. Decision: Read
the book.

Emma by Jane Austen (1815) vs. Emma  (1996 film)
I had a bit of a hard time really getting into Emma the book. The same pretty much goes for the film. It was fairly faithful to the novel and did seem to capture its spirit, though both Gwyneth Paltrow and Toni Collette were a bit too old (by about 8 years) to be playing teenagers. Decision: Either one.


Notes- I found it interesting that both Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam are both in Possession and Emma. This lead me to trying to find out what actors appear in the most movies/adaptations of books on our list. So far I've found that John Malkovich is in six movies based on these book and Helena Bonham Carter five (that is if all those Harry Potter films count as only 1). Ian McKellan is also in five if you count two different versions of David Copperfield that he is in.

Book # 88 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This whole "reading the top 100 books" project is most rewarding when I read an exceptional book that I end up totally loving for the very first time. And after reading a few books in a row that I was kind of 'blah' about, it was even more rewarding to read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I will say it is somewhat classified as science fiction and presents a pretty bleak picture of the future, so those are two big pluses to start off with for me (though P.D. James' Children of Men had those two things going for it also and I didn't enjoy that book at all).

The story is about Offred, a women that is forced to become a 'handmaid', which basically means that she is assigned to some rich and powerful guy to try and have his baby. Due to dropping fertility rates, an anti-feminist religious group has taken over society and stripped all power and money away from every woman. This group then has the power to assign women to other men just for breeding, or to send the women to work colonies. Other religions are banned and basically no one is free anymore.

There's some weird dark stuff (and a few games of Scrabble) in this book and it was a welcome change after reading Jane Austen! It is at times a pretty depressing book and the narrator has such a sad story that it was hard to put the book down. While it would be pretty far-fetched to believe that anything like this could ever happen in America, it would be more believable in other parts of the world were women do not have equal rights and society is completely dominated by men. The book has a bit of an ambiguous ending, which doesn't bother me and actually ends with a bit of a 'commentary' on the 'text' from someone in an even further future reflecting back on this dark period. So I have to give it even more points for ending with a bit of meta-fiction that reveals that the possible double meaning of the book is not a coincidence.

I'll add this one to my top 50 for now and give it an A.

Book #37 Emma by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is my wife's favorite author, she literally has shelves full of books that are sequels to Pride and Prejudice. She has a t-shirt with Jane Austen's face on it, an "action" figure of Jane Austen, and her license plate holder says "I'd rather be at Pemberley". So I should only say very nice things in my thoughts on Emma...

Much like in The Guermantes Way, much of Emma is about people that don't seem to have real jobs paying visits to each other and gossiping about whoever in their social circle isn't there at the moment. At least in Emma most of the characters are a bit nicer and are well intentioned. The plot centers on Emma Woodhouse, her friend Harriet, and a bunch of neighbors. Most of their time is spent discussing who should end up marrying who. Characters fall in and out of love, have secret engagements, and have minor misunderstandings. And of course, in the end everyone is paired up with that perfect someone and everyone lives happily ever  after. Along the way they have dances and picnics and have to listen to old ladies talk on and on.

I gotta say it was a bit boring but sweet. Emma is a likeable character and really so is everyone else. Maybe that was a bit of the problem for me. None of the characters have major disagreements with each other and in the end they all get along and forgive each other once everything gets explained. I'll have to give this one a B+.

Book # 48 Remembrance of Things Past (Part 3 of 7)- The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

The first two volumes of Remembrance of Things Past were enjoyable mostly because of Proust's insights into life and the way he described and remembered everything people experience. The third volume The Guermantes Way picks up right after the end of the second volume with the Narrator moving into a new home after his vacation. And then pretty much nothing happens for the next 600 pages. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but instead of the narrator describing his own life, he becomes obsessed with his neighbors, The Guermantes, and wants to get to know everything about them. He eventually worms his way into their social circle and he just goes on and on and on about the lives of all the upper class Dukes and Duchesses he meets. And that is pretty much the bulk of the book. And to make it worse, all of the people he meets seem to be really snobby and just spend all of their time putting each other down. Plus I started to get all the characters confused because they have weird French titles and names; but that doesn't matter because there is no story. Still... at some points the Narrator tells of a few events that happen to him and these sections are really good. The sequence when his grandmother becomes ill is very touching and the inner conflict he describes when he can't decide if he should tell his best friend that his friend's girlfriend is actually a prostitute is memorable. It becomes clear in this volume that the Narrator is a weird sorta guy that becomes obsessed with people for no reason and has a knack for inserting himself into different social circles by just being persistent. When the novel focuses on his thoughts about life I really enjoyed it, but too frequently he gets lost in describing all the conversations between rich snobby French people about the politics of the time. I'll give this one a B.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Last weekend, Lucinda and I went to another library used book sale and we both ended up getting a whole bunch of books not on our list. After taking a whole month on Gone with the Wind I needed to read something short so I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The story is told by a teenager who seems to have Asperger's or something similar. One night he finds his neighbor's dog dead with a garden fork sticking out of it. He then sets out to figure out who the killer is and to write about it for a novel he is creating. While trying to solve it he finds out family secrets and forces himself to go outside his comfort zone and do some things that he isn't used to. I don't really have much to say about it except that it wasn't bad and that some of the logic problems he talks about are interesting. I'll give it a B.

Book # 14 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

According to my movie diary, it has been more than 19 years since I've seen the film of Gone with the Wind, and apparently I really liked it. However since then I've forgotten pretty much the whole story except that Atlanta gets destroyed, there is a really sad horse riding accident and that Rhett leaves at the very end. So I entered into reading the book with a pretty clean slate.

While reading it I was a bit conflicted. First off the book is very "readable" since Mitchell's style is fairly modern and the actual plot moves along and is interesting. Plus it was different to read about the Civil War from the South's point of view and it got me started on watching Ken Burn's Civil War miniseries. Though on the other hand... Scarlett and Rhett are incredibly unlikable people. Scarlett is in pretty much every scene and if you follow someone for over a thousand pages it helps if you actually like that character. I don't even know where to start... At the beginning she is just a spoiled teenager that loves being the center of attention. From the very start it is clear that she is in love with the wrong type of man for her, Ashley, and that Rhett is a perfect match for her. Scarlett however doesn't realize this until page 1022 at which point it is too late. Let me  a make a list of what makes me dislike Scarlett so much

-She marries her first husband to spite someone else.
-She honestly doesn't feel bad when that husband dies and doesn't want to mourn him.
-She never cares for her son and is usually kind of mean to him
-Not only is she a slave owner, in one scene she beats a slave
-After her slaves are freed she complains about having to do stuff herself and wants her slaves back
-And she makes a lot of racist remarks.
-And some Anti-Semitic ones too
-She lies to her sister's fiance that her sister has broken off the engagement
-So she can marry him instead... for his money
-She tries to steal away her sister-in-law's husband
-She doesn't love her first daughter either
-When she can't get slave labor she uses convict labor
-She shoots a Union soldier in the face and steals his money
-She lies about her business competitors

I'm sure I'm forgetting some other stuff, but she isn't a nice person. And Rhett isn't any better. He profits from the Civil War, brags about killing a freed slave for being "uppity to a lady", and is probably having an affair the whole time he's married to Scarlett. Really, the two characters totally belong together.

Even after all of that, I would have liked the book if I had felt that the author wanted us to dislike them and disapprove of her actions... but that isn't the case I feel. The way that slavery and racism is so casually accepted, the dislike of being a part of the United States, and the whole thing where the KKK is accepted really left a bad taste for me (which required I rewatch Django Unchained to feel better). Mitchell just idealized the whole Southern culture too much. Maybe she was just a bit naive and didn't study her history enough before writing the book. I actually started to feel a bit self-conscious about reading the book in public. 

The book mentions Les Miserables... it reminded me that I'd rather follow Jean Valjean for a thousand pages than Scarlett O'Hara. I guess I'll give it a C+.

Book # 3 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Of all the books on this list, The Great Gatsby is probably the one that I had read most recently before we started this project. Even though I had read it only about two years ago, I couldn't really remember too much about it. My opinion on a second reading is pretty much the same: it is a really good book, but I don't know how it could really be considered one of the top 5 books of all time. Maybe so many people read it in high school because it is so short.

The story is pretty simple. A rich guy, Jay Gatsby, throws big giant expensive parties in his huge house and is trying to win back a girl, Daisy, that he fell in love with five years earlier when he was poor and felt like he couldn't provide the lifestyle that she wanted. Unfortunately Daisy is now married and has a really unlikable husband. Then *spoiler* there is an accident and more bad stuff happens and everyone ends up either dead or sad. The end.

I really enjoyed Fitzgerald's writing style and the book is full of really beautiful passages. The narrator of the story is a pretty average guy that is easy to relate to and helps ease the reader into the type of world that Gatsby and Daisy live in. I really did enjoy it, but I can't say that I loved it. Most of the characters aren't really that likable at all, especially Daisy at the very end. It is hard to see what Gatsby really likes about her. The book does suggest that Gatsby loves the idea of what Daisy represents (wealth, the past, something to yearn for) and once he gets her back he is a bit let down by her. It also seems that the accident that drives the end of the book is almost too big of a coincidence and convenient for tying together all the story threads. Probably the fact that I could remember so little about it from my first reading just a couple of years ago should say something too. I give it an A, but it does not crack my top 50 list.

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 3 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

After having Voldemort (in one form or another) trying to kill Harry Potter in the first two books, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban changes it up to make the main villain Sirius Black, an escaped "killer". SPOILER ALERT I put "killer" in quotation marks because as anyone familiar with the series knows, at the end it is revealed that Sirius isn't a villain at all and is actually looking out for Harry Potter. So upon a second or third reading it loses some of its enjoyment because there really is no threat to Harry at all for the whole book. I guess it could be argued that Scabbers/Pettigrew is the villain, but he doesn't do anything either except hide and then run away. That being said... the book is still very enjoyable. Rowling's writing and pace is a bit more relaxed and the book doesn't rush through the story quite as much as the first two did. The Quidditch scenes are a bit longer and a good amount of time is spent describing what the students are learning in their classes. Plus the Hippogriff is pretty cool. I'll give this one an A-.

 And just because, here's a picture of a hippogriff that I took last week.

Book # 24 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - A Second Opinion

For a few months now Lucinda has been wanting me to read The Sound and the Fury so that we could discuss it. She didn't like it at all but she thought I might enjoy it since I tend to like books/movies/music that fall on the weirder/experimental side of things. And she was right. I did enjoy it. I reread what she wrote about it and saw that she gave a pretty detailed synopsis of the plot of the book already. So I won't do that... but that has me thinking that this isn't a book that a reader enjoys for the plot and is probably a big reason that Lucinda did not like it.

The book is divided into four major sections and each of the first three sections gives us a glimpse into the mind of a different Compson brother. The first section shows us what the mind of someone with severe mental handicaps is like. Everything is disorienting and the only hope to make sense of things are to find the reoccurring patterns and try to stick to them. Time seems meaningless to this character and details just fly by without having a chance to make sense. The entire first section is a challenge to read, but it is meant to confuse the reader since it is narrated by someone that is completely confused. Trying to make too much sense of it isn't the point of the section. Being confused by it helps the reader better understand the limitations of the character and makes us feel bad for him. The second section is also a challenge because that narrator is totally depressed and gets lost in his own negative thoughts about the past quite frequently. The text goes from normal narration right into a long stream of disoriented thoughts about the past and the narrator's sister. Knowing that this character is so sad and has such hopeless thoughts made me feel really sorry for him.  I think it would have been difficult to really show this character's despair if the book had been written in a more traditional manner. The third section shows the youngest brother's thoughts and really show how horrible of a person he is. Almost every thought shows how he is totally bitter against everything in his life. He hates his family, steals money from his niece, is hung up on losing a job fifteen years earlier and is completely sexist and racist. Being able to see how his mind thinks really is unpleasant, and again would have been difficult to show in another way.

The book is written in a very experimental and difficult way, but I think it pays off quite well and is a unique reading experience. I wouldn't recommend it though if you don't like depressing book. I don't hold a book's depressing nature against it though. It gets an A.

Oh yeah, the book also mentions another book on the list, Tom Jones.

An updating of my rankings :
1. Les Misérables
2. Invisible Man
3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
4. The Hobbit
5. A Farewell to Arms
6. Great Expectations
7. The Stand
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. Pale Fire
10. The Chronicles of Narnia
11. The Name of the Rose
12.The Sound and the Fury
13. Frankenstein
14. Things Fall Apart
15. Wind in the Willows
16. Anne of Green Gables
17. Rebecca
18. Anna Karenina
19. Sons and Lovers
20. War and Peace
21. Winnie-the-Pooh
22. Charlotte's Web
23. Possession
24. Mrs. Dalloway
25. Atlas Shrugged

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 2 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret by J.K. Rowling

 At first I thought this was going to be a super short entry... because of course I loved Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It may not be the best in the series (actually it might be my second least favorite), but it is still a Harry Potter book. Also, this is the book that introduces my favorite character Dobby the House Elf. There's really no need to describe it because we've all seen the movie or read the book before. I'll give the book an A-.

Reading it for a third time however did make me realize that this book has quite a few criticisms of the British Class system and could only have been written by someone from the Working Class. Maybe I'm only thinking this because I know Rowling's background but let us look at the evidence.

In this volume we really get a better picture of both the Weasley and Malfoy families. The Weasleys are obviously supposed to be loved by the reader. The dad has a difficult middle management job that he works at to support his family, the mom works all day to keep the household running and each of the many kids are lovable in their own way. They don't have a lot of money and the younger kids get everything second-hand. You never feel bad for them, they do have enough, but just barely and it requires constant work. Very middle class and throughout the series the Weaselys are at the very heart of the story. Compare this to the upper class Malfoys. The dad, Lucius, is on the board of governors at Hogwarts, is able to pull political strings to get Dumbledore removed, and hates people that are either somewhat poor like the Weasleys or have Muggle parents. He seems very concerned about peoples' heritage and wants to make that a condition for magic education. His son, Draco, basically copies his dad's opinions and believes that he's superior to everyone else at the school based on the family he comes from. 

Then throughout the story there is much discussion about who is the "Heir to Slytherin". Draco wishes that it was him, while on the other hand Harry hopes that he isn't the heir. Basically both see that position as being a form of royalty and Draco wants it and Harry rejects it. Harry is afraid of this power that is handed down from previous generations while the entire Malfoy family pledges their allegiance to whoever holds this power. So basically Rowling shows that the working class is good, the upper class is bad, and power shouldn't be handed down based on any type of birthright.

Also there is the whole case of Gilderoy Lockhart. The book doesn't say too much about his background, but within the wizarding world he is considered a celebrity and appears to be wealthy. By the end of the story we find out that he is a total fraud and is only concerned with appearances and is actually not very nice at all. Another strike against the upper class.

Then there is Harry Potter himself. He may technically be very wealthy, but he has a very middle class mindset since he was raised by the Dursleys. He feels bad when he sees the Weasleys struggle and wants to help them but doesn't know how to without hurting their pride. Also when he sees that the Slytherin Quidditch team has far superior brooms than the Gryffindor team, it doesn't even occur to him that he could use his own money to level the playing field. Using his fortune to help himself isn't how Harry solves his problems.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Dobby! He's basically a slave for the Malfoys. And at the very end Harry frees Dobby from the Malfoys and Lucius is mad that he's lost an elf slave.

So I wonder if all of this was intended by J.K. Rowling to get a point across or just shows her personal feelings and background.

 One last thing, here's a picture of me visiting Hogwarts at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Book # 50 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Progress Book # 24 of 100

This is the darkest book of the series. I like to just read through it really fast and pretend that I didn’t read the scenes where the characters die in the book. I understand that they are fighting a war against Voldemort who doesn’t care about murder, but this was a mostly happy coming of age story until this book. I still enjoyed reading it but this book is very dark. Harry, Ron and Hermione spend most of the novel on their own, hiding and searching for the final Horcruxes to ensure that once Voldemort is destroyed he will be destroyed forever. They finally learn the truth about Snape in this novel and it’s pretty sad. They also have a big battle at Hogwarts. Despite all the deaths, I did like the ending and was happy it jumped ahead to show that Harry, Ron and Hermione are happy.

I’ll give this an A- 93%

Book #50 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Progress Book # 23.86 of 100

In this book Snape finally becomes the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry is assigned a very important role by Dumbledore. He needs to get a hidden memory from the new Potions teacher Professor Slughorn. With the help of a used Potion’s book previously owned by someone called The Half Blood Prince, Harry excels in the potions and for once does better than Hermione. In this novel Ron gets a girlfriend which hurts Hermione and causes a rift in the trio's friendship.  In the end they make up, but the first big character is lost and it's a sad part of the series.

I'll give this book an A- 92%

Book #50 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Progress Book # 23.71 of 100

In this novel the Ministry of Magic is still refusing to believe that Voldemort has returned and has placed its influence inside Hogwarts by hiring Dolores Umbridge to be the new defense against the dark arts teacher. Dolores is one of the most unlikable characters in this series. She is mean, believes in physical punishment and refuses to teach them anything about defending themselves against evil. The Order of the Phoenix is a society of people that believe Lord Voldemort has returned. They are doing all they can to prevent his rise back to power. It’s the real beginning of clearly shaping good vs. evil. As the year progresses Harry, Ron and Hermione are getting by in their most difficult school year yet as they ready themselves for their end of the year O.W.L. tests. They also create a secret school club called the D.A. (Dumbeldor’s Army) to teach themselves defense charms since Professor Umbridge will not. With the help of the room of requirement and Hermione’s clever use of magical galleons students from three of the houses (no Syltherin’s allowed) the club meets in secret as Harry trains them in defense skills. This book also introduces a new character Luna Lovegood. Luna is weird and different and perfectly happy being that way.
     
This book get an A 94%