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ALL-TIME BEST NOVELS
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60. |
21 Jan 2010 Thu 06:40 pm |
I have read three books by the modern Japanese author, Haruki Murakami - ´Norwegian Wood´, ´The Wind-up Bird Chronicles´ and ´Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Difficult to pinpoint the genre really and quite different to anything else I have read.
Three classic Japanese books: Silence by Shusaku Endo ( link ), Snow country by Yasunari Kuwabata ( link ) and the imo best one: Totto-chan, the little girl at the window by Tetsuko Kuroyagani ( link ). My Japanese friends living here were pleasantly surprised when they saw these books at my place. The last book made one of them cry as she remembered her childhood in Japan.
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62. |
21 Jan 2010 Thu 07:44 pm |
Frederic Beigbeder - Love Lasts Three Years (L`Amoure dure trois ans)
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63. |
22 Jan 2010 Fri 01:58 pm |
My absolute favorite is "War and Peace" and I can only agree with those who consider it one of the greatest novels ever written. An epic in prose (as author himself has qualified it), the novel fascinates me with its realistic story of five aristocratic Russian families and their life under extraordinary historical circumstances, in particular Napoleon´s invasion of Russia 1812. Besides author´s view of historical events and characters (based on years of researching historical facts), several love stories and fantastic portraits (Natasha Rostova, Andrey Bolkonsky, old Prince Bolkonsky), what fascinates me mostly are vivid descriptions: battle scenes, court balls, scenes of hunting… I read this book over and over again and it is never boring to me.
My favorite of modern novels is Paulo Coelho´s “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”. I accept that Coelho is a controversial author and I myself don´t like his manner of using the same successful formula in every novel, but this novel, the first Coelho´s novel I´ve read, really left me breathless! Not only because of the story, characters and message, but mostly because I found every other sentence a thought, an aphorism, and it was something I have seen for the first time as writing style, and loved. I read the book in one evening, and tomorrow I took it and read it again, which I never did before. This book also remained the one of those I read every now and then and every time enjoy it as at the first reading.
I can´t resist adding a couple of quotes from Coelho´s novel:
- Everyday, God gives us the sun - and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything...
- A fall from the third floor hurts as much as a fall from the hundredth. If I have to fall, may it be from a high place.
- You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
- Sometimes happiness is a blessing - but generally it´s a conquest. The magic moment of the day changes us and makes us take off in the direction of our dreams.
- Love perseveres. It´s men who change.
- The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no matter how foolish they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.
And here you can read more…
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64. |
22 Jan 2010 Fri 03:00 pm |
If you like Coelho, you´ll probably like Pamuk too. I feel there is a further link between these two and Umberto Eco. Eco strayed from usual novel form and these two followed in his foot steps. The difference being where the other two are just two laymen in matters they covered in their books, Eco has also a very strong philosophical and scientific background. He knows what he is writing better than everyone else therefore nobody speculates about him.
Like you I like the first two books of Coelho and a few books by Pamuk. They are fairly easy to read and relaxing. If you have an adventerous mind that likes to take excursions into myths, you may find yourself with puzzles. I prefer to iron them out in my mind for the sake of saving some grey matter for more down-to-earth uses.
Edited (1/22/2010) by vineyards
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65. |
22 Jan 2010 Fri 11:40 pm |
You are right, I like historically based novels, with translating historical circumstances to modern ones, and that’s why I like Eco’s The Name of the Rose and some novels of Orhan Pamuk (Beyaz Kale, Benim Adım Kırmızı ) – but I can’t say I like them generally, as well as Coelho. Talking about Coelho, not only you and me, everyone I talked about his novels said that he liked mostly the first his novel he read. After the first, every new novel was a kind of repeating, which became boring with time.
Edited (1/22/2010) by slavica
Edited (1/22/2010) by slavica
[a typo (again)]
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66. |
25 Jan 2010 Mon 01:04 am |
For slavica .
How are you?
May I ask you?
About Duda, old TLC ´ member.
Has she written her last novel?
Has she found a good Turkish translator for her novel?
We are waiting here for her new novel...
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67. |
26 Jan 2010 Tue 12:23 am |
For slavica .
How are you?
May I ask you?
About Duda, old TLC ´ member.
Has she written her last novel?
Has she found a good Turkish translator for her novel?
We are waiting here for her new novel...
I sent you a PM, dear
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68. |
26 Jan 2010 Tue 12:37 am |
You are right, I like historically based novels, with translating historical circumstances to modern ones, and that’s why I like Eco’s The Name of the Rose and some novels of Orhan Pamuk (Beyaz Kale, Benim Adım Kırmızı ) – but I can’t say I like them generally, as well as Coelho. Talking about Coelho, not only you and me, everyone I talked about his novels said that he liked mostly the first his novel he read. After the first, every new novel was a kind of repeating, which became boring with time.
I agree,I am bored with Coelho.I started reading him from the warrior of the light and Veronica decides to die and I loved the books,but the more I read the more repetitive he sounded.Then I discovered all his books are based on Don Miguel Ruiz and Toltecs teaching,had a swift on Erich Emmanuel Schmitt works and Ruiz Zafon Carlos as modern liyerature is concerned.
I sleep with the Lonely londoners by Sam Selvon these days and Andrea Levy´s small island not to neglect Zadie Smith but in a meanwhile I read A.saint-Exupery and the wizard of OZ by F.Baum
Anyway all books on yilgun´s list I am familiar with agreeing on Tolstoy´s masterpiece.
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69. |
26 Jan 2010 Tue 01:42 am |
Anyway all books on yilgun´s list I am familiar with agreeing on Tolstoy´s masterpiece.
Which one? Yilgun-7´s or Yilgun-2010´s list?
I agree with you about Yilgun-2010´s list, for the first one I must admit I´m not familiar with every book from it
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70. |
26 Jan 2010 Tue 12:43 pm |
I just realised ´Animal Firm´ is on the list. Great book! Follows on from the farmyard years after the guys meet up with Alan Sugar.
13- Knut HAMSUN : Victoria
14- George ORWELL : Animal Firm
15- Margaret MITCHELL : Gone With the Wind
Edited (1/26/2010) by lady in red
[added quote to upstage modification!!]
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