#35 WINTER HAVEN by Athol Dickson

Date Began and Finished 6/02- 6/06 2008
Genre - Christian Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2008
Publisher - Bethany House
Number of Pages 333
Hardcover
Reason for reading: Review for Curled Up
Rating 4.5/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: I have only read two books by Athol Dickson, but I feel I can safely say that his books are some of the best I've read not only in the Christian fiction genre, but the previous book CURED was one of my favorite books from 2007. Dickson writes in a beautiful prose, and while they are Christian fiction books, I think those who normally don't read books in this genre may feel drawn to his books as well.

WINTER HAVEN takes on a Gothic feel as the story takes the reader into a world that is seemingly filled with mysterious doings along the foggy coast of Maine, with people that are filled with evil intent, at least it seems so on the outside.

The book opens with Vera taking a boat trip to an island off the coast of Maine. She feels out of place there, as she goes to retrieve the body of her deceased brother Siggy, who she has not seen in thirteen years. She was just a young girl when Siggy, a highly functioning autistic young man, ran away from home and was never seen again. but upon the news of his death, Vera rushes off to Maine, a trip that was out of character for the very shy and insecure woman she has become. but she needs to find the answers to why he ran away, and to confirm whether this body is truly her brother who disappeared without a trace.

Vera's search for the answers to her questions is not easy. The islanders do not appear to like her, and she feels that they are doing their best to keep her in the dark. What should have been a short trip turned into an extended one as she stumbles upon one roadblock after another in her search. While she at first denies that this body is her brother's, she finally accepts it and then realizes he has not aged a day. How could that be? Was there something wrong with him that he did not age a day since she had last seen him? Nothing made sense, and it gave her more cause to find those answers that she felt the islanders were keeping from her.

In her search for a place to stay, she ends up rooming at Ida Abernathy's home, a widow who appears to have her own secrets. She's abrupt with Vera, and gives Vera the creeps, but she needs a place to stay. And despite Ida's warnings, Vera ends up searching a part of the island that is supposed to be dangerous, and runs into a man that will change her life forever, a man that she isn't sure she could trust, or she could love.

I know WINTER HAVEN is labeled as Christian fiction, but it truly reminds me of the old Gothic suspense romances that were so popular back in the day. it is my favorite genre of fiction, and this book brought back all those memories. WINTER HAVEN does mimic the old Gothics, with the foggy atmosphere of the islands, the mysterious Ida Abernathy and her strange ways, a supposed ghost that scares Vera out of her wits, and the rumors and tales that are being passed around by the locals. Vera, while not the classic heroine of the old Gothic romances, still fits into the scheme of things as she continuously refuses to listen to the warnings of the locals while she searches for the answers to her
brother's death. And the mysterious man Evan Frost, a man that has his own secrets and is considered by some on the islands to be a danger to Vera, is the turning point in Vera's life. the intrigue presented by the book was enough to keep me reading.

Obviously, I'm recommending this book and it may end up on my 2008 list of top books read. I am definitely looking forward to his next book.

#34 MENDING FENCES by Sherryl Woods

Date Began and Finished 5/27- 6/02 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2008
Publisher - Mira
Number of Pages 387
Mass market Paperback
Reason for reading: Review for Curled Up
Rating 4/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Two families lived next door to each other for 10 years. Emily Dobbs and Marcie Carter were what they thought best friends, with their children nearly the same ages. While their husbands didn't' get along as wonderfully as the two women, the two families would often socialize with each other. Their lives were almost intertwined.

The book opens with a young shy college student comes forward and accuses a popular super star college athlete of raping her during a date. What shocks those who hear about it is that the accused is none other than Evan Carter, Marcie's oldest child. He is known to all as a very polite, popular, and just all around good guy. But is there another side to him?

The accusation is one thing. But what Emily notices is that this news has affected her daughter Dani. Emily knew that Dani had always had a crush on the older boy, but couldn't understand why she was as upset as she was. Dani was behaving in a radically different manner, and it didn't make sense. Also, Dani's close friendship with Marcie's daughter Caitlyn was falling apart. The only one who seemed to be affected very little was Emily's son Josh. While josh and Evan used to be the best of friends as children, the two drifted as they were older, and Emily never questioned it.

The alleged rape is what starts the breakup of a long close friendship. But the book not only covers this incident, but actually goes back in time and starts at the beginning, when the two families first meet, as their families grow, through Emily's divorce and Marcie's difficult marriage. While I felt there could have been some editing (her books seem to be a tad too long), I did enjoy this book over SEAVIEW INN, mainly because of the very fascinating story line. I'm recommending MENDING FENCES to all who enjoy reading what is now termed as "women's fiction". So far I've read two of Sherryl Woods' books, and I will definitely read more by her.

Ratmammys reads for May 2008

Here are the books I read in May 2008

(rating based on 5 Stars being the best)

#27 2cool2btrue by Simon Brooke Pgs 368 - 4/5 stars
#28 THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER by Theresa Rebeck pgs 335 - 3.5/5 stars
#29 DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT by Lauren Henderson Pgs 304- 4/5 stars
#30 A SOLDIER COMES HOME by Cindi Myers Pgs 242 - 4/5 stars
#31 SEARCHING FOR PARADISE in Parker, Pa by Kris Radish Pgs 343 -4/5 stars
#32 CRYSTAL CLEAR by Jane Heller Pgs 380 - 3.5/5 stars
#33 SWEET LOVE by Sarah Strohmeyer Pgs 297 -4.5/5 stars

My favorite book this month was a tie between SWEET LOVE, SEARCHING FOR PARADISE and THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER, followed closely by 2COOL and DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT... this was a really good reading month in terms of quality. I got lucky.

My least favorite book was CRYSTAL CLEAR and it wasn't a horrible book but i have read other books by this author, and this was definitely not her best.

Average 73.19 pages per day
Average pages per book: 324

I'm reading less per day, but the books are getting bigger... amazing...i was back to work in May (part time) so that explains why I read less. April was the month we went to Japan and I found a lot of time to read on the plane and in our hotel room in between events.

Of the 7 books I read this month, the following were books for review or requests by the author/publisher:

THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER - review for Curled Up
A SOLDIER COMES HOME - review for Love Romances
SEARCHING FOR PARADISE in Parker, Pa - review for Love romances
SWEET LOVE by Sarah Strohmeyer - review for Bookreporter

A good month of reading in terms of quality, but not quantity. June is already looking dismal, due to more work, but July we will be going to Maui for 10 days and I do spend a lot of time in the mornings reading.... it should be my best reading month of the year...

banned books

Andi over at Tripping Toward Lucidity and Michelle from Fluttering Butterflies posted a Banned Books list, sharing with readers which books from the list they have read.

The titles in bold are the books I have read, and the titles in italics are ones that I have on my shelves waiting to be read.

#1 The Bible (I actually own several different versions of the Bible and have attempted to read it on two occasions. Not sure I will try again.)
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (I have read bits and pieces of
this one.)
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

#33 SWEET LOVE by Sarah Strohmeyer

Number of Book #33
Date Began and Finished 5/24- 5/27 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2008
Publisher - Dutton
Number of Pages 297
Hard cover
Reason for reading: Review for Bookreporter (also review request by author)
Rating 4.5/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Inspired by the most important woman in her life, Sarah Strohmeyer wrote SWEET LOVE to honor the memory, but also to get closure after the passing of her beloved mother. SWEET LOVE opens with a prologue, written from the view point of Betty Mueller, who feels a need to correct a wrong she thinks she did to her middle aged daughter many years ago. Betty did not approve of her daughter's budding crush on the young man Michael Slayton, a family friend who was a bit older than Julie's teenage years. In the same breath, Betty also confesses she loves desserts and feels it's what helps make the world go around. She admits her own daughter Julie hates to cook because Betty was a slave to her own kitchen. Julie will have none of that.

And so, Betty decides to help fix a wrong that she did all those years ago, and through some finagling she manages to get Julie into a very exclusive cooking class featuring desserts. What Julie doesn't know is that Michael has also been given this same gift. When the two attend their first class, it's the beginning of a renewed acquaintance, where both Michael and Julie walk down memory lane and figure out what went wrong with what had been a good childhood friendship, and later was ruined by a misunderstanding in their professional lives. Julie is embarrassed to even see Michael, because her feelings were never reciprocated, that he only saw her as his best friend's little sister. What makes it worse, Michael doesn't' come to class alone. He brings a very attractive woman with him, and Julie is convinced they are involved.

Betty continues her manipulating, hoping to get the two of them together. But as she is doing this, she's also dealing with her own issues, health issues that will bring Julie and Michael even closer together.

SWEET LOVE I feel is the best book so far written by Sarah Strohmeyer. While her earlier novels, in particular the Bubbles Series of books, were light comedies with one-dimensional characters, her stand alone novels show a lot of depth. SWEET LOVE still showcases her humor, but there is a serious side to this book, with the characters being much more rounded and three dimensional, characters that change and grow from their mistakes. And while there is plenty of humor, there will be a times when the tissues will be needed as well. I was bawling by the end of the book.

As always, I am not disappointed by a Sarah Strohmeyer book, and this one especially rings true for me, as I can relate to Sarah's experiences in the loss of our mothers. SWEET LOVE is recommended.

#32 CRYSTAL CLEAR by Jane Heller

Number of Book #32
Date Began and Finished 5/18- 5/24 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction/Humorous
Year It Was Published - 1998
Publisher - Kensington Fiction
Number of Pages 380
Mass Market paperback
Reason for reading: Tbr/trade with friend
Rating 3.5/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Crystal Goldstein is an accountant living in Manhattan. Her life is very orderly and quiet. She's been seeing a boyfriend for a number of years now but realizes it's going nowhere. She had been content, but now feels that she's wasting her time with him. When she discovers he's been cheating on her with his ex-wife, she's just about had it. Her best friend, Rona, coaxes Crystal to make a visit to Sedona for a vacation and also to help find herself and find some direction in her life.

So, Crystal makes the trip, checks into a very posh resort, and signs up for a 5 day "Sacred Earth" jeep tour, something she would never have done before this idea of even GOING to Sedona came up. This could be a sign, but the leader of their tour was none other than Crystal's ex-husband from years ago, a man she never thought she'd set eyes on again. Terry looked even better than when she saw him last, but as she got to watch him in action, she realized he'd also grown up. he was no longer that immature young man she had been married to, a man that was more like a boy who had no real direction in life. Crystal had always had more discipline, knew how she wanted to lead her life, and Terry was holding her back. She couldn't stay with a husband that had no goals or direction.

But now here they were, together again on a jeep tour. Terry was actually the owner of the company who ran the tour, and he looked happy. The two still feel the sparks, but Crystal hears that he's got a woman in his life, not really sure if it is his wife or girlfriend, but she is disappointed that he's not free to carry on where they had left off.

It is during this jeep tour that one of the customers of the tour disappears. Amanda Wells Reid, an international jet-setter who for some reason or another was on this tour (along with her entourage), has been kidnapped and now the company and the town of Sedona are the hot spot for the media. This is big news. Suspects include Amanda's husband, all of her entourage, as well as Terry's business partner and friend Will Singleton, a Lakota Sioux who was the last person to be seen with Amanda.

In the meantime, Crystal's boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?) wants to see her, and now she's not so sure she wants him back in her life. She's rediscovered Terry, and likes what she sees.

I've read a few books by Jane Heller, and this one is probably the oldest of them all. I didn't' quite like it as much as the others; the humor seemed a bit forced and the characters were all rather stereotypical on top of that. The story was enjoyable however, and I had fun trying to figure out who actually was guilty of kidnapping Amanda.

Crystal was the main character, but I think her romance story between Terry and her troubles with the boyfriend back home for me held the same interest as the story of Amanda's kidnapping. I didn't' like nor dislike Crystal's character; i just didn't' really care about her. It wasn't a bad book, but i think if i hadn't read this book at all, it wouldn't have been a missed opportunity. This is the type of book one would take on an airplane to read - light humor, beach read. I give it a mild recommendation.

#31 SEARCHING FOR PARADISE in Parker, PA by Kris Radish

Number of Book #31
Date Began and Finished 5/13- 5/18 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2008
Publisher - Bantam
Number of Pages 343
hardcover
Reason for reading: Review for Love Romances And More
Rating 4/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Addy and Lucky Lipton have been married for nearly 30 years. And neither can say they are really happy. Addy is going crazy, angry at all the junk Lucky has collected over the years and has put in the garage. She doesn't feel a connection to him at all, and is on the verge of kicking him out.

When Lucky wins a trip to Costa Rica and asks Addy to go with him, they are both secretly hoping that this may revive their sinking marriage. But that morning as they are about to head on out, Lucky hurts his back so badly that he is bedridden and needs Addy to help him with the most smallest of things. Addy is angry and frustrated, does not want to even deal with him anymore, can't even face him in the mornings, and decides
she needs to make a change in her life.

With the help of her best friend and sister Hell (short for Helen) and their friends known as the "Sweat-Hers", a group of gals that all work out together, Addy makes some changes in her life and makes demands upon her husband. But it's not only Addy that makes some changes. It looks like the entire town is in on the act!

While Addy goes on her crusade to make life a little more livable (a paradise in Parker), Lucky becomes closer to the next door neighbor Bob(#1 - the other neighbor on the other side is Bob #2), who has been divorced for some time and has gone through some drastic changes himself. With Bob's help, Lucky makes some of his own drastic changes, which will shock the hell out of the ladies of Parker, Pa, if not just Addy Lipton. The two begin to "talk", unlike any conversation held between two men who are not gay. They start cooking sessions, dress a lot nicer, and basically, Lucky becomes a new man. And while this is all going on, Addy is busy with her female friends, wanting desperately to start a new life, because she feels that no matter what Lucky says or does to win her back, she is done with him. She's ready to move on.

SEARCHING FOR PARADISE was my introduction to author Kris Radish, and I am hooked! Her writing style reminded me in part of one of my favorite authors, Lorna Landvik. Same type of quirky characters living in a small town, with that same feel that I get from Landvik novels. All the characters are fun and unique and likable. The pace of the book is fast; there is a lot of humor despite the downer theme of a marriage on the rocks. The subplots include Addy and Lucky's son and his search for his biological mother, a plot line that adds to Addy's stress while she deals with her failing marriage.

I can't say enough about SEARCHING FOR PARADISE, a very fun and enjoyable read that I think may end up on my list of top books for 2008.

#30 A SOLDIER COMES HOME by Cindi Myers ("number" and date correction)

Number of Book #30
Date Began and Finished 5/7 - 5/10 2008
Genre - Contemporary Series Romance
Year It Was Published - June 2008
Publisher - Harlequin (Superromance #1498)
Number of Pages 242
Mass Market Paperback
Reason for reading: review for Love Romances And More
Rating 4/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: In A SOLDIER COMES HOME, Captain Ray Hughes has just come home from a tour of duty in Iraq. But no one is meeting him. Unlike all the other soldiers returning from war who have spouses waiting for them, his wife had decided before he came home that she wanted a divorce because she couldn't stand living the lonely life of a military officer's wife, and had moved on and was now living with an ex-friend of his. And, she had left their son behind, a toddler that hardly even remembered him. While at the Special Events Center while figuring out how to get home, a corporal from his unit asks if he needs a ride. Daniel has also just returned from Iraq, and his wife Allison was there by his side to meet him. Dan and Allison drop off Ray, noting the somber look he had when approaching his dark and lonely house.

Chrissie Evans works with Allison at a dental office, and she also happens to live next door to Tammy Hughes, the young woman whose husband Ray had gone off to war. Chrissie befriended Tammy, thinking that she was lonely and needed support, and would often baby sit her child young TJ when Tammy went out on the town. The two also would occasionally go out to bars, where Tammy would flirt and try to pick up other men. Chrissie soon wanted out of this friendship,but she continued to baby sit TJ, who needed love desperately.

By the time Ray had returned from Iraq, TJ was living with his grandparents while Tammy moved in with the new boyfriend. Ray was obviously bitter about what had happened, but he also blamed Chrissie for Tammy's wild ways. He thought that it was Chrissie who influenced Tammy to hang out in bars. While at first Chrissie had shown interest in the soldier, she now was angry that Ray had assumed some terrible things about her without even asking for the real story.

I found A SOLDIER COMES HOME to be a very captivating read. I hadn't' read a Superromance in a while, so this was a treat. Secondary characters Rita and her husband Paul, who was also about to sign up for the war, had a plot line that was equally as important as that of Chrissie and Ray. Often times too many characters bog down the story, but Rita and Paul's struggles with coming to terms with Paul's' brother's death in the war, as well as choosing between fighting in a war or staying home with your spouse was an intriguing part of the book. The story lines meshed well, with Rita being Chrissie's best friend, as well as both stories focusing on the war. I think this is the only romance I've read so far that has incorporated the Iraq war as the main theme of it's story, and Cindi Myers did a good job with it. A SOLDIER COMES HOME is recommended.

#29 DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT by Lauren Henderson

Number of Book #29
Date Began and Finished 5/7 - 5/10 2008
Genre - Chick Lit
Year It Was Published - 2003
Publisher - Downtown Press
Number of Pages 304
Trade paperback
Reason for reading: TBR
Rating 4/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Another fun DOWNTOWN PRESS book. In DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, Katie meets a new boyfriend and moves with him to London. Michael is a very popular good looking guy, and has a reputation for not committing. But Katie thinks he's the one. Michael's best friends Sally and Jude had watched as he constantly meets women and goes from one to another. Sally, by the way, is one of his many ex-girlfriends, but for some reason the two have remained best friends. What Sally can't admit is that she's still in love with him, but she tries to push those feelings away.

Things get complicated as Katie gets herself pregnant, and she and Michael plan for the baby. But Sally knows better, that he's freaking out and sooner or later he's going to run off again. Katie however is excited and thinks that she's got a future with him.

Jude is the friend that stands watch while her best friend Sally makes a fool of herself over Michael, a guy that had treated her horribly in the past and doesn't' get that she's still in love with him.

What i really liked about this book was how complex these characters were. I don't think they write chick lit like this anymore. It was a fun read but at the same time, it's not one dimensional but ultimately the characters do feel realistic, especially with the fact that it's not quite a happily ever after type of book. I recommend DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

#28 THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER by Theresa Rebeck

Number of Book #28
Date Began and Finished 5/2 - 5/7 2008
Genre - Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2008
Publisher - Shaye Areheart Books
Number of Pages 335
Hardcover
Reason for reading: TBR
Rating 3.5/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: Pulitzer finalist Theresa Rebeck's debut novel,THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER was a well-written satire on a segment of the population whose lives are constantly fodder for the entertainment tabloids. The three girls are Daria (age 18) Polly (age 17) and youngest sister Amelia (age 14). They, along with their brother Phillip (age 15) and their ex-beauty contestant mother find themselves at the center of celebrity-dom when the NEW YORKER decides to do a segment on the three girls, whose beauty soon becomes the talk of the town. The fact that the girls are the granddaughters of the famous literary critic Leo Heller is what ultimately helped them to get this attention.

The book is narrated in four parts, with each sibling taking his/her turn. Daria and Polly are obviously wanting the celebrity and are quite excited to become models. Amelia on the other hand is wanting a more normal life, and is quite anxious to return to school. She's a role model of student, enjoys her classes, but finds that once they become celebrities, her life becomes one big mess, with no privacy whatsoever.

Things could have stayed quiet, with just the one photo shoot, but unfortunately another celebrity sees this as an opportunity. Rex Wentworth, a very popular and famous actor, invites the girls for drinks (does he realize Amelia is underage?) and meets them along with their mother and his agent Maureen (a large almost frightening woman who claims she's the great granddaughter of Kafka). Phillip shows up for this outing at Amelia's insistence, against their mother's wishes, and after being served alcoholic drinks and Rex tries to come on to Amelia (he's old enough to be her father), Amelia does the unthinkable and bites him. It didn't' help that they had already angered Maureen during a previous meeting (thanks to Phillip).

Phillip starts the narration and ends his part when he is taken away from the girls to live with their father and his second wife, so that Phillip didn't get "in the way" of the girls' fame and brand new modeling career.

What i found interesting is that with each new narration, the reader gets a different view point of what really happened. Phillip is obviously loyal to Amelia, and it shows in his narration. Daria and Polly are painted as the evil sisters, but once the reader reaches their narration, they find that their motivations are quite different from what we had learned about them from Amelia and Phillip.

Ultimately, the story of the three girls, continues to unravel as Amelia soon is asked to try out for an off-Broadway play,which she at first thinks is dreadful. And then she discovers she's got the acting bug, and announces she will peruse this new interest. Things get out of hand with the media, so they are constantly doing damage control. (A stint on Regis and Kelly was classic). Their mother comes across (to me anyway) as the bad person in this story, as she's the one that really wants the fame and fortune, living vicariously through her daughters and doing what she can to help their careers along. The book ends with a rather over the top scenario, which led me to believe this book would be a great movie script; a lot of laughs, a lot of high drama antics.

Overall, while i found this book well-written, i wasn't' sure whether I really liked it or not. Keeping in mind this was a satire helps, and I have to admit, it IS a book that is hard to put down. It's one thing after another that keeps this book from getting stale. there's a lot of action, but at the same time there is some good psychological type of characterization going on, although it was not as big part of the story line as I'd hoped for. This is NOT a serious type of story, although the way the novel ended will make one think twice. It all reads like a movie script, but many in the industry will agree that it's all spot on.

#27 2COOL2BTRUE by Simon Brooke

Number of Book #27
Name and Author 2cool2btrue by Simon Brooke
Date Began and Finished 4/27 - 5/2 2008
Genre - Fiction
Year It Was Published - 2005 this edition
Publisher - Downtown Press
Number of Pages 368
Trade Paperback
Reason for reading: TBR
Rating 4/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: I'm finding that I'm really enjoying these older DOWNTOWN PRESS books. Such fun! In 2cool2btrue, male model Charlie Barrett is ready for a career change. Modeling was supposed to be just a transition to what he'd do later on in life. But in the interim he met fellow model Lauren and the two hit it off. Now living together and for quite a while, it seems things are cooling off between them, especially now that Lauren is focused on a career in television. They rarely see each other, and she seems to be spending all her time with her new boss.

In the mean time, Charlie is contacted by a man that wants to hire Charlie as a marketing person (marketing happened to be his major in college). This was the chance Charlie had been looking for, a chance to get out of modeling and use his degree. He knew his father had been disappointed when Charlie went into modeling, and now he would be able to prove to his father that he could be as successful with a proper job.

The new job is for a start up company called "2cool2btrue", a hip website that would be the place for all those savvy with the Internet to hang out. It all seemed to good to be true, too. He's given carte blanche almost to spend as much as he wants, and notices that his bosses are splurging left and right on many extravagant things. But Charlie, naive as he is, trusts them and figured that the company is doing great.

But then the unthinkable happens : The two founders of the company disappear, and no one seems to know where they have gone. And then they all find out that the two founders have been embezzling funds, and tons of bills are unpaid, and there is no money to pay these bills. Charlie is now the scapegoat,as he's the only one left that was "in charge" and he was also a cosigner on several checks. Charlie's world is falling apart, and not only that, his father is acting very strangely, more than usual, and Charlie needs to find out what is going on.

2cool2btrue was a really intriguing story that kept my glued to the pages until the very end. It's books like this that i keep coming back for more. What i loved about this book was the characters, and how the author kept me guessing on what was really going on, who was being deceptive and who was on the up and up. Nora, a journalist that keeps hounding Charlie regarding the company's problems, is a total mystery and kept me guessing about her ultimate motives. Was she just out to get a story, or did she have any feelings for Charlie? The really funny twist to the story had to do with Charlie's girlfriend and her boss, and that doesn't play out until nearly the end. Great story, great writing!

Ratmammy's reads for April 2008

Here are the books I read in April 2008

(rating based on 5 Stars being the best)

#18 START LIVING,START LOSING - Weight Watchers Pgs 232 - 4/5 stars (Amazon vine)

#19 IF LOVE IS GOOD TO ME by Francine Craft Pgs 296-2.5/5 stars

#20 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen Pgs 331 -4.5/5 stars

#21 BUBBLES BETROTHED by Sarah Strohmeyer Pgs 289 -4/5 stars

#22 HELLO, DOGGY! by Elaine Fox Pgs 371- 4/5 stars (curled up)

#23 THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS by Dorothea Benton Frank Pgs 354- 4.5/5 stars (LR)

#24 MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES by Gabriel Garcia Pgs 115 -3.5/5 stars

#25 EVERY SECRET THING by Ann Tatlock Pgs 364- 4/5 stars (curled up)

#26 TWISTED CREEK by Jodi Thomas Pgs 296 -4/5 stars (curled up)

My favorite book this month was WATER FOR ELEPHANTS. This will definitely be on my top 20 at the end of the year.

My least favorite book was IF LOVE IS GOOD TO ME, which is interesting because another of this author's book was my least favorite last month! She's written quite a lot of books, and I can't believe they are all this bad.. doesn't make any sense! But then again, it's all a matter of opinion and maybe what i think is bad passes for good with someone else...

Average 88.67 pages per day

Average pages per book: 294.2

I did better in April than i have the rest of the year so far. What helped was I got really sick that month and had more time to read. Plus a trip to Japan allowed me to finish 3 books while on the plane...

Of the 9 books I read this month, the following were books for review or requests by the author/publisher:

START LIVING,START LOSING - review for Amazon Vine

HELLO, DOGGY! - review for Curled up

THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS - review for Love romances and more

EVERY SECRET THING - review for curled up

TWISTED CREEK - review for Curled up

This was the best reading month I've had all year. Not sure how May will stack up. So far I have finished 3 books, so that's not too bad and all these books so far have been good.

Friday Fill-Ins: Friday Fill-Ins #73

1. On my laziest day I like to read all day!
2. Writing book reviews or cooking a meal makes me feel like I'm being productive.
3. I love little animals and big houses.

4. This summer I want to stay home and not have to work!.
5. A whim made me start my blog.
6. Red skies and orange hair. (this just popped up in my mind)
7.
And as for the weekend, Friday I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home, Saturday my plans included going grocery shopping and running to the bank and Sunday, I went out with friends to CROCE'S restaurant!

#26 TWISTED CREEK by Jodi Thomas

Number of Book #26
Date Began and Finished 4/25 - 4/27 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction
Year It Was Published - April 2008
Publisher - Berkley
Number of Pages 296
Mass Market Paperback
Reason for reading: Review for Curled Up
Rating 4/5 stars


Blurb or Synopsis: Allie Daniels hasn't had much success in life. She and her grandmother move from town to town, wherever the money can be made. Then she gets news that she's inherited property from an uncle she's never heard of, and because her luck has run out, she decides to see how much the property is worth. She brings her grandmother with her, and with what little they they drive to a small town in Texas, Twisted Creek,located almost in the middle of nowhere. What they find out is very discouraging, but it's all they have.

Allie has inherited a run down store that seems to be the main place where people in town get their supplies. The towns people are aware that Allie will be taking over for her "uncle", and help her get acquainted with the store and the people, and soon Allie is running the store and selling all sorts of products to any one that needs it. And with Nana in the kitchen, they also begin serving meals to the local regulars, a group of misfits that come to see the cafe a second home.

Luke is on a mission, but Allie and most of the townspeople don't really know who he is. However, he happens to be someone that knew Allie's "uncle",and part of his reason for sneaking into the vacated store is to find out who Allie is and whether she's got hidden motives regarding the inheritance. She's a woman that has never made an appearance in town until after her "uncle" has died, but Luke as well as the rest of the town were expecting her to show up, because of the inheritance. Luke appears to Allie as a bum, a hippie, but his appearance is deceiving, which is what he intended all along. But why he is in town, and who he really is, has to remain a mystery in order for him to accomplish what he was sent for. Allie doesn't' trust him, but at the same time she is intrigued by him and attracted to him.

I enjoyed TWISTED CREEK a lot more than i had expected. The writing was well done, the characters were well drawn out and likable, and I felt the structure of the story was also very solid. The reader will easily feel for Allie and her relationship with Nana, the woman who took care of her like a mother would. The various minor characters were as well-rounded as the main characters, and i enjoyed reading about them, especially the scenes in which they all met for dinner every night at the cafe. The only thing that bothered me a little is that I felt that the entire book should have been told in the 3rd person, but for some reason the book would switch to a first person narrative when it was told in Allie's perspective. It felt awkward to me switching from 1st to third throughout the book, and would have been much smoother if the author kept to the third person the entire time.

There are two plot lines in the story, one that follows the mystery of who this uncle is that named Allie in his will, and the other is the plot line that follows Luke's undercover mission. I felt both story lines were done well, and was surprised at how well Luke's story actually fit in. I would definitely read more by Jodi Thomas.

1% Challenge - My choices

Here are the books that I will pick from when I do the 1% challenge....


1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
4. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
5. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
6. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
7. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
8. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
9. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
10. Underworld – Don DeLillo
11. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
12. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
13. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
14. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
15. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
16. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
17. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
18. Beloved – Toni Morrison
19. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
20. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
21. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
22. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
23. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein

Books I've already read from the 1001 list of books

19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
27. Unless – Carol Shields
42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
195. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
199. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
243. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
258. Neuromancer – William Gibson
272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
303. The World According to Garp – John Irving
320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
425. Herzog – Saul Bellow
427. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
470. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
492. Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov (1/2 finished)
527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
542. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
566. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
587. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
588. Native Son – Richard Wright
603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence (1/2 finished)
695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
717. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
726. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
761. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
781. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
791. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain (im' not sure if i did or not)
840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (I may have startd this one)
854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
906. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
920. Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
925. Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
992. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

1001 Book list by 3M

I have decided to check out this list and accomplish this goal. I'll list the books I will read in the next post:

The goal of this challenge is to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. For you non-math people, 10 out of 1001 is approximately 1%, hence the title. The challenge will run from May 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009.

You may change your list at any time and cross-posting to other challenges is permitted. The only requirement is that your ten book choices must be on the ‘1001 List‘.

1001 List Published by 3M


1. 2000s Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Sea – John Banville
7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
9. The Master – Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point – David Markson
11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour – Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
20. Islands – Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
25. The Double – José Saramago
26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
27. Unless – Carol Shields
28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
29. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
31. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
32. Shroud – John Banville
33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
34. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
35. Dead Air – Iain Banks
36. Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
37. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
38. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
39. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
40. Platform – Michael Houellebecq
41. Schooling – Heather McGowan
42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
44. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
46. Fury – Salman Rushdie
47. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
48. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
50. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
51. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
55. The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
56. Under the Skin – Michel Faber
57. Ignorance – Milan Kundera
58. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
59. Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
60. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
61. How the Dead Live – Will Self
62. The Human Stain – Philip Roth
63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
64. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
65. Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
66. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
67. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
68. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
69. Pastoralia – George Saunder

1900s
70. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
71. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
72. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
73. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
74. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
75. Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
77. Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
78. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
79. Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
80. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
81. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
82. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
83. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
84. The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
87. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
88. Another World – Pat Barker
89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
91. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
94. Great Apes – Will Self
95. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
96. Underworld – Don DeLillo
97. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
98. The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
99. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
100. The Untouchable – John Banville
101. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
102. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
103. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
105. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
106. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
107. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
108. The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
110. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
111. Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
112. The Information – Martin Amis
113. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
114. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
115. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
116. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
118. Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
119. The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
120. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
121. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
122. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
123. Land – Park Kyong-ni
124. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
127. City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
128. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
130. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
131. Disappearance – David Dabydeen
132. The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
135. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
136. Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
137. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
138. Complicity – Iain Banks
139. On Love – Alain de Botton
140. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
141. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
142. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
144. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
146. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
148. Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
149. The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
150. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
151. Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
152. Indigo – Marina Warner
153. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
154. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
155. Jazz – Toni Morrison
156. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
158. The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
159. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
160. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
161. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
162. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
163. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
164. Arcadia – Jim Crace
165. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
166. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
167. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
168. Mao II – Don DeLillo
169. Typical – Padgett Powell
170. Regeneration – Pat Barker
171. Downriver – Iain Sinclair
172. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
173. Wise Children – Angela Carter
174. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
175. Amongst Women – John McGahern
176. Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
177. Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
178. Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
179. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
180. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
181. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
182. Like Life – Lorrie Moore
183. Possession – A.S. Byatt
184. The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
185. The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
186. A Disaffection – James Kelman
187. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
188. Moon Palace – Paul Auster
189. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
190. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
191. The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
192. The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
193. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
194. The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
195. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
197. London Fields – Martin Amis
198. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
199. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
200. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
201. The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
202. Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
203. The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
204. The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
205. Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
206. Libra – Don DeLillo
207. The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
208. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
210. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
211. The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
212. The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
213. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
214. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
215. The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
216. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
217. Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
218. The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
219. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
220. World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
221. Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
222. The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
223. Beloved – Toni Morrison
224. Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
225. Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
226. Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
227. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
228. The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
229. Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
230. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
231. Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
232. Foe – J.M. Coetzee
233. The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
234. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
235. The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
238. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
239. A Maggot – John Fowles
240. Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
241. Contact – Carl Sagan
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
243. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
244. Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
245. White Noise – Don DeLillo
246. Queer – William Burroughs
247. Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
248. Legend – David Gemmell
249. Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
250. The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
251. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
252. The Lover – Marguerite Duras
253. Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
255. Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
256. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
257. Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
258. Neuromancer – William Gibson
259. Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
260. Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
261. Shame – Salman Rushdie
262. Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
263. Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
264. La Brava – Elmore Leonard
265. Waterland – Graham Swift
266. The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
267. The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
268. The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
269. The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
270. If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
271. A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
273. Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
274. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
275. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
277. The Newton Letter – John Banville
278. On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
279. Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
280. The Names – Don DeLillo
281. Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
282. Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
283. The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
284. July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
285. Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
286. Broken April – Ismail Kadare
287. Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
288. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
289. Rites of Passage – William Golding
290. Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
291. Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
292. City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
293. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
294. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
295. Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
296. Shikasta – Doris Lessing
297. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
298. Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
299. The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
300. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
302. The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
303. The World According to Garp – John Irving
304. Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
305. The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
306. The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
307. Yes – Thomas Bernhard
308. The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
309. In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
310. The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
311. Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
312. The Shining – Stephen King
313. Dispatches – Michael Herr
314. Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
315. Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
316. The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
317. The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
318. Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
319. The Public Burning – Robert Coover
320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
321. Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
322. Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
323. Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
324. Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
325. W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
326. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
327. Grimus – Salman Rushdie
328. The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
329. Fateless – Imre Kertész
330. Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
331. High Rise – J.G. Ballard
332. Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
333. Dead Babies – Martin Amis
334. Correction – Thomas Bernhard
335. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
336. The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
337. Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
338. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
339. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
340. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
341. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
342. A Question of Power – Bessie Head
343. The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
344. The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
345. Crash – J.G. Ballard
346. The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
347. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
348. The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
349. Sula – Toni Morrison
350. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
351. The Breast – Philip Roth
352. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
353. G – John Berger
354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
355. House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
356. In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
357. The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
358. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
359. Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
360. The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
361. Rabbit Redux – John Updike
362. The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
363. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
364. The Ogre – Michael Tournier
365. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
366. Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
368. Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
369. Troubles – J.G. Farrell
370. Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
371. The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
372. Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
373. Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
374. Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
376. The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
377. The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
378. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
379. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
380. Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
381. Them – Joyce Carol Oates
382. A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
383. Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
384. Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
385. The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
386. Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
387. Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
388. The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
391. Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
392. The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
393. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
394. A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
395. The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
396. Chocky – John Wyndham
397. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
398. The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
400. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
401. Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
402. The Joke – Milan Kundera
403. No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
404. The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
405. A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
406. The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
407. Trawl – B.S. Johnson
408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
409. The Magus – John Fowles
410. The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
412. Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
413. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
414. Things – Georges Perec
415. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
416. August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
418. Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
419. The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
420. Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
421. Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
422. Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
423. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
424. The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
425. Herzog – Saul Bellow
426. V. – Thomas Pynchon
427. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
428. The Graduate – Charles Webb
429. Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
430. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
431. The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
432. Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
434. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
435. The Collector – John Fowles
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
438. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
439. The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
440. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
441. Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
442. Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
443. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
445. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
446. A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
447. Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
448. Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
449. Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
452. The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
453. How It Is – Samuel Beckett
454. Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
455. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
457. Rabbit, Run – John Updike
458. Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
460. Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
461. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
462. The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
463. Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
464. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
465. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
466. Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
468. The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
469. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
470. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
471. The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
472. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
473. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
474. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
475. Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
476. The End of the Road – John Barth
477. The Once and Future King – T.H. White
478. The Bell – Iris Murdoch
479. Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
480. Voss – Patrick White
481. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
482. Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
483. Homo Faber – Max Frisch
484. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
485. Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
486. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
487. The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
488. Justine – Lawrence Durrell
489. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
490. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
491. The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
492. Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
493. The Floating Opera – John Barth
494. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
497. A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
498. The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
499. The Quiet American – Graham Greene
500. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
501. The Recognitions – William Gaddis
502. The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
503. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
504. I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
505. Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
506. The Story of O – Pauline Réage
507. A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
509. Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
510. The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
511. The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
512. The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
513. Watt – Samuel Beckett
514. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
515. Junkie – William Burroughs
516. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
517. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
518. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
519. The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
520. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
521. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
522. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
523. The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
524. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
525. Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
526. Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
528. The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
530. The Rebel – Albert Camus
531. Molloy – Samuel Beckett
532. The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
533. The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
534. The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
535. The Third Man – Graham Greene
536. The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
537. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
538. The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
540. The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
541. The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
542. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
543. The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
544. The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
545. Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
546. The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
548. All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
549. Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
550. Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
551. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
552. Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
553. Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
554. The Victim – Saul Bellow
555. Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
556. If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
557. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
558. The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
559. The Plague – Albert Camus
560. Back – Henry Green
561. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
562. The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
565. Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
566. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
567. Loving – Henry Green
568. Arcanum 17 – André Breton
569. Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
570. The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
571. Transit – Anna Seghers
572. Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
573. Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
575. Caught – Henry Green
576. The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
577. Embers – Sandor Marai
578. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
579. The Outsider – Albert Camus
580. In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
581. The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
582. The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
583. Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
584. Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
585. The Hamlet – William Faulkner
586. Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
587. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
588. Native Son – Richard Wright
589. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
590. The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
591. Party Going – Henry Green
592. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
593. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
594. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
595. Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
596. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
597. Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
598. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
599. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
600. After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
602. Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
604. Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
605. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
606. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
607. Murphy – Samuel Beckett
608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
609. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
611. The Years – Virginia Woolf
612. In Parenthesis – David Jones
613. The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
614. Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
615. To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
616. Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
617. Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
618. The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
620. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
621. Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
622. Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
623. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
624. Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
625. Independent People – Halldór Laxness
626. Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
627. The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
628. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
629. The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
630. England Made Me – Graham Greene
631. Burmese Days – George Orwell
632. The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
633. Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
634. Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
635. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
636. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
637. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
638. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
639. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
640. Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
641. Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
642. Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
644. Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
645. A Day Off – Storm Jameson
646. The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
647. A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
648. Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
650. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
651. To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
652. The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
653. The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
654. The Waves – Virginia Woolf
655. The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
656. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
657. The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
658. Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
659. Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
661. Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
662. Passing – Nella Larsen
663. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
664. Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
665. Living – Henry Green
666. The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
667. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
668. Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
669. The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
670. Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
671. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
672. Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
673. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
674. Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
675. Orlando – Virginia Woolf
676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
677. The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
678. The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
679. Quartet – Jean Rhys
680. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
681. Quicksand – Nella Larsen
682. Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
683. Nadja – André Breton
684. Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
685. Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
686. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
687. Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
688. Amerika – Franz Kafka
689. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
690. Blindness – Henry Green
691. The Castle – Franz Kafka
692. The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
693. The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
694. One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
696. The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
697. Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
699. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
700. The Counterfeiters – André Gide
701. The Trial – Franz Kafka
702. The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
703. The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
704. Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
705. The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
706. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
707. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
708. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
709. The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
710. Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
711. Cane – Jean Toomer
712. Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
713. Amok – Stefan Zweig
714. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
715. The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
716. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
717. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
718. The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
719. Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
720. The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
721. Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
722. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
723. Ulysses – James Joyce
724. The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
725. Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
726. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
727. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
728. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
729. Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
730. Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
731. The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
732. The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
733. Summer – Edith Wharton
734. Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
735. Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
737. Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
738. Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
739. The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
740. The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
741. Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
742. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
743. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
744. Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
745. Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
746. Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
747. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
749. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
750. Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
751. The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
752. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
753. Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
754. Howards End – E.M. Forster
755. Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
756. Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
757. Martin Eden – Jack London
758. Strait is the Gate – André Gide
759. Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
760. The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
761. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
762. The Iron Heel – Jack London
763. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
764. The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
765. Mother – Maxim Gorky
766. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
767. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
768. Young Törless – Robert Musil
769. The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
770. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
771. Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
772. Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
773. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
774. Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
775. The Golden Bowl – Henry James
776. The Ambassadors – Henry James
777. The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
778. The Immoralist – André Gide
779. The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
781. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
782. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
783. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
784. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
785. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

1800s
786. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
787. The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
788. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
791. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
792. What Maisie Knew – Henry James
793. Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
794. Dracula – Bram Stoker
795. Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
796. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
798. Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
799. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
800. The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
801. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
802. Born in Exile – George Gissing
803. Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
805. News from Nowhere – William Morris
806. New Grub Street – George Gissing
807. Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
809. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
810. The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
811. La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
812. By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
813. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
814. The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
815. Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
816. Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
817. The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
818. The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
819. She – H. Rider Haggard
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
821. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
822. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
823. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
824. Germinal – Émile Zola
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
826. Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
827. Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
828. Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
829. The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
830. A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
831. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
832. The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
833. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
834. Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
835. Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
836. Nana – Émile Zola
837. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
838. The Red Room – August Strindberg
839. Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
841. Drunkard – Émile Zola
842. Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
843. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
844. The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
845. The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
847. The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
848. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
849. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
850. The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
851. Erewhon – Samuel Butler
852. Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
853. Middlemarch – George Eliot
854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
855. King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
856. He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
857. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
858. Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
859. Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
860. Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
861. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
862. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
864. Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
865. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
866. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
869. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
870. Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
872. The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
873. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
874. Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
875. Silas Marner – George Eliot
876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
877. On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
878. Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
879. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
880. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
881. The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
882. Max Havelaar – Multatuli
883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
884. Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
885. Adam Bede – George Eliot
886. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
888. Hard Times – Charles Dickens
889. Walden – Henry David Thoreau
890. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
892. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
894. The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
896. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
898. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
899. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
900. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
905. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
906. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
907. La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
908. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
909. The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
910. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
911. The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
912. Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
914. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
915. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
919. The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
920. Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
921. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
922. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
923. The Red and the Black – Stendhal
924. The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
925. Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
926. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
927. The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
928. Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
929. The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
930. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
932. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
933. Persuasion – Jane Austen
934. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
935. Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
936. Emma – Jane Austen
937. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
939. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
940. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
941. Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
942. Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth

1700s
943. Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
944. The Nun – Denis Diderot
945. Camilla – Fanny Burney
946. The Monk – M.G. Lewis
947. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
948. The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
949. The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
951. Justine – Marquis de Sade
952. Vathek – William Beckford
953. The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
954. Cecilia – Fanny Burney
955. Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
956. Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
957. Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
958. Evelina – Fanny Burney
959. The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
960. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
961. The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
962. A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
963. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
964. The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
965. The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
966. Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
967. Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
968. Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
969. Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
970. Candide – Voltaire
971. The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
972. Amelia – Henry Fielding
973. Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
974. Fanny Hill – John Cleland
975. Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
976. Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
977. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
978. Pamela – Samuel Richardson
979. Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
980. Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
981. Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
982. A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
984. Roxana – Daniel Defoe
985. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
986. Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
987. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
988. A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift

Pre-1700
989. Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
990. The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
991. The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
992. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
993. The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
994. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
995. Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
996. The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
997. The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
998. Aithiopika – Heliodorus
999. Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
1000. Metamorphoses – Ovid
1001. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus