My favourite excerpt from War and Peace today was...
"Nothing has been found out, nothing discovered" Pierre again said to himself. "All we can know is that we know nothing. And that is the height of human wisdom"
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
Book V, Chapter I
Friday, 26 August 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
Seize the moments of happiness
Seize the moments of happiness, love and
be loved!
That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
Book IV, Chapter XI
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
The necessary society of clever women
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women."”
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
Book I, Chapter IV
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
Book I, Chapter IV
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Kicking off with Tolstoy
Time to start the fun bit - working down the list. I thought I would start with a big one, an epic, to get the ball rolling.
Following the maxim "go large, or go home" I decided to kick off with Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'.
I already have a copy of the book, but it is currently in a cardboard box along with everything else in my bookshelf, as we bought a house in June and we move house in 2 days time. I realise that I may not have mountains of free time for reading and bubble baths (my absolute favourite place to unwind with a good book) in the foreseeable future, so I have also made use of my audible account to buy the unabridged audiobook too, narrated by Frederick Davidson and published by Blackstone Audio Inc. The translation of this version is by Louise and Aylmer Maude. I know that there is always furious debate about which translations give the most authentic interpretation of Tolstoy's own nuances and connotations, so I will use my book (when it get's unpacked) as a cross reference for my own benefit.
The audiobook weighs in at 10 mins shy of 61 hours of listening time, so this should keep me occupied in the coming weeks as I pack up my life into boxes, clean the rented house from top to bottom, make umpteen trips back and forth between my old place and the new place (40 minutes in the car each way).
I will be starting tonight as I cook, I will dock my ipod n the kitchen and get started on the journey into Tolstoy's story about the French invasion of Russia in the 1800's and effect that the Napoleonic era had on Tsarist Russian society. Really looking forward to it!
Following the maxim "go large, or go home" I decided to kick off with Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'.
I already have a copy of the book, but it is currently in a cardboard box along with everything else in my bookshelf, as we bought a house in June and we move house in 2 days time. I realise that I may not have mountains of free time for reading and bubble baths (my absolute favourite place to unwind with a good book) in the foreseeable future, so I have also made use of my audible account to buy the unabridged audiobook too, narrated by Frederick Davidson and published by Blackstone Audio Inc. The translation of this version is by Louise and Aylmer Maude. I know that there is always furious debate about which translations give the most authentic interpretation of Tolstoy's own nuances and connotations, so I will use my book (when it get's unpacked) as a cross reference for my own benefit.
The audiobook weighs in at 10 mins shy of 61 hours of listening time, so this should keep me occupied in the coming weeks as I pack up my life into boxes, clean the rented house from top to bottom, make umpteen trips back and forth between my old place and the new place (40 minutes in the car each way).
I will be starting tonight as I cook, I will dock my ipod n the kitchen and get started on the journey into Tolstoy's story about the French invasion of Russia in the 1800's and effect that the Napoleonic era had on Tsarist Russian society. Really looking forward to it!
Monday, 1 August 2011
The Lit List
My Book List so far....
1. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
2. Jamaica Inn – Daphne Du Maurier
3. Iliad – Homer
4. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
5. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
6. 1984 – George Orwell
7. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
8. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
9. Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
10. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
11. Tess of The D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
12. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
13. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
14. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
15. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
16. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
17. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
18. Murders In The Rue Morgue – Edgar Allen Poe
19. Middlemarch – George Elliot
20. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
21. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
22. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
23. The Time Machine – HG Wells
24. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
25. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
26. Ulysses – James Joyce
27. Paradise Lost – Milton
28. The Pearl – John Steinbeck
29. Twenty thousand Leagues Under The Sea – Jules Verne
30. I Claudius – Robert Graves
31. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
32. East Of Eden - John Steinbeck
33. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
34. Odyssey – Homer
35. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
36. Diceman - George Cockcroft
37. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Berniéres
39. Persuasion – Jane Austen
40. Animal Farm – George Orwell
41. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
42. Lord Of The Rings – JRR Tolkien
43. Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
44. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
45. Neuromancer – William Gibson
46. A Perfect Spy – John Le Carré
47. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
48. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
49. 100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
50. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
51. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
52. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
53. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
52. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
53. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
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