blue_russian

an impossibly long list of books

2008-05-13T12:51:50Z

Up to 117 for certain out of 1001 (from 112, when I first posted this). Not counting a handful of "I'm pretty sure I read that. Didn't I?"

2000s
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster - 113
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie - 1
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunder

1900s
Timbuktu – Paul Auster - 2
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Underworld – Don DeLillo
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis - 3
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster - 4
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx - 5
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson - 6
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe - 7
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis - 8
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster - 9
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt - 10
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi - 115
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster - 116
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro - 11
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
London Fields – Martin Amis - 12
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco - 13
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie - 14
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey - 15
Libra – Don DeLillo
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy - 117
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe - 16
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster - 17
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison - 18
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons - 19
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
Foe – J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
A Maggot – John Fowles
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood - 21
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo - 22
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavic - 23
The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera - 24
Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
Shame – Salman Rushdie
Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
La Brava – Elmore Leonard
Waterland – Graham Swift
The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard - 25
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Newton Letter – John Banville
On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin - 26
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard - 27
The Names – Don DeLillo
Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
Broken April – Ismail Kadare
Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie - 28
Rites of Passage – William Golding
Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco - 29
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera - 30
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré - 31
Shikasta – Doris Lessing
A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino - 31
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams - 32
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan - 33
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch - 34
The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
Yes – Thomas Bernhard
The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
The Shining – Stephen King
Dispatches – Michael Herr
Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
The Public Burning – Robert Coover
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice - 35
Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
Grimus – Salman Rushdie
The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
Fateless – Imre Kertész
Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
High Rise – J.G. Ballard
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Dead Babies – Martin Amis
Correction – Thomas Bernhard - 36
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré - 37
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Crash – J.G. Ballard
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino - 38
The Breast – Philip Roth
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima - 39
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe - 41
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov - 42
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera - 43
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon - 44
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor - 45
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut - 40
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré - 46
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath - 47
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess - 48
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein - 49
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger - 50
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller - 51
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee - 52
Rabbit, Run – John Updike - 53
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
The Bell – Iris Murdoch
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien - 54
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith - 55
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Lord of the Flies – William Golding - 56
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler - 57
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming - 58
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison - 59
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway - 60
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
Foundation – Isaac Asimov - 61
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger - 62
The Rebel – Albert Camus
Molloy – Samuel Beckett
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
The Third Man – Graham Greene
The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell - 63
All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
The Victim – Saul Bellow
Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
The Plague – Albert Camus
Back – Henry Green
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm – George Orwell - 64
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
Arcanum 17 – André Breton
Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
Transit – Anna Seghers
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caught – Henry Green
The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
Embers – Sandor Marai
Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
The Outsider – Albert Camus - 65
In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
The Hamlet – William Faulkner
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler - 66
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright - 67
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
Party Going – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler - 68
After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
U.S.A. – John Dos Passos - 69
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck - 70
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston - 71
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien - 72
The Years – Virginia Woolf
In Parenthesis – David Jones
The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner - 73
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
England Made Me – Graham Greene
Burmese Days – George Orwell - 74
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse - 75
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West - 76
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
A Day Off – Storm Jameson
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley - 77
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett - 78
Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
Passing – Nella Larsen
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Living – Henry Green
The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner - 79
Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Amerika – Franz Kafka - 80
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka - 81
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie - 82
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald - 83
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka - 84
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse - 85
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis - 86
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis - 87
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad - 88
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 89
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

1800s
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Awakening – Kate Chopin - 90
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James - 91
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells - 92
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 93
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 94
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
Germinal – Émile Zola
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain - 95
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky - 96
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky - 97
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky - 98
The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Walden – Henry David Thoreau - 99
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville - 100
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne - 101
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë - 102
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë - 103
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe - 104
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe - 105
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper - 106
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - 107
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen - 108
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth

1700s
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift - 109
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift - 110
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe - 111
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift

Pre-1700
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan - 112
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

cognitive dissonance

2008-02-22T06:48:48Z

The truth is that when I go on vacation, besides getting away from work, I am also trying to get away from all the russians (if you read this, no offense intended, sasha). i'm not sure i could explain exactly what i mean any better than that -- just to be someplace for a while where everything is a noticeably... easier. and i'm not talking about all the nasty "patriotism" that's been growing for the last three or four years, that's something different, and i'm glad to be away from it, but just as i'm glad to avoid american "patriotism."

but see, here's the weird thing, what i really wanted to post about: here i am in stupid little skiing town in austria, full of tourists of all stripes, and i'm walking around asking myself, "where are my people?" (i.e. those self-same russians). is this freedom or alienation? i'm not sure.

even stranger: last night i go into an italian restaurant here. (a "real" one, i think, i.e. most of the waiters really seemed to be italian.) the menu is in italian and german - no problem since everybody knows the names of italian food and my restaurant german is adequate. when the waiter brings my food, he asks, "Хлеб?" I just kind of stare at him. "What?" I say. "Khleb?" he asks again, making some kind of bread-like gesture. "No." I say, and he's clearly proud that he's figured out where I'm from. He even brings me another menu - in Italian and Russian - for dessert. I try and think what "stereotypical" signal I could be giving off that leads him to think I am a Russian tourist, e.g. displaying roll of hundred-dollar bills? no. expensive but tastelessly dressed bottle blonde on my arm? no. furry hat? vodka shots? no and no. (and basically the only words I've said are "torteillini bolognese" and "valpolicella".)

okay, okay, my 2007 best of list

2008-01-02T11:08:27Z

A succinct list, vs. the wordy version on last.fm. Toward the end, I'm definitely kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, but more or less this pretty much covers the full list of "new" songs that I at one point or another said, "Hey, right now I really want to listen to X."

Songs, almost 50 of them:
1. Regina Spektor - Better
2. Stars - Window Bird
3. Yelle - Tristesee/Joie
4. Tegan and Sara - The Con
5. Sonicflyer - Sun in My Pocket
6. Margaret Berger - Will You Remember Me Tomorrow?
7. Alicia Keys - No One
8. Beirut - Nantes
9. Zemfira - Мы разбиваемся
10. Girls Aloud - Teenage Dirtbag (Call the Shots)
11. The Aphrodisiacs - The Hour is Late But Please Consider
12. Kylie Minogue - In My Arms (2 Hearts)
13. Charlotte Hatherley - Behave
14. Bloc Party - Flux (JFX Remix)
15. Fall Out Boy - "The Take Over, the Breaks Over"
16. Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
17. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends (Someone Great)
18. Thomas/Mayer - Überwiesen
19. Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life
20. Sugababes - About You Now
21. Emma Pollock - Adrenaline
22. Timbaland - The Way I Are (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.)
23. Imperial Teen - Everyone Wants to Know
24. The Early Years - So Far Gone (The Simple Solution)
25. Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
26. Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse
27. Siobhan Donaghy - 12 Bar Acid Blues
28. Tracey Thorn - Raise the Roof
29. T2 - Heartbroken (feat. Jodie Aysha)
30. Groove Armada - Song 4 Mutya (Out of Control)
31. Feist - My Moon My Man (1234)
32. !!! - Must Be the Moon
33. Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining
34. Digitalism - Pogo
35. Robyn - Robotboy
36. Enrique Iglesias - Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)
37. Kate Nash - Foundations
38. The National - Fake Empire
39. Yulia Savicheva - Nikak (Юлия Савичева - Никак)
40. The Chemical Brothers - Burst Generator
41. Amy McDonald - Mr. Rock and Roll
42. Blonde Redhead - 23

This year saw a number of albums that I felt were good, but didn't find myself wanting to listen to that often. I made a good faith effort to follow up on some of alexmacpherson's R&B recommendations, and it shows up here rather than my singles list.

As this is my first pass thinking about albums, I may tinker a bit later, but these five albums all clearly got a lot of repeat, full-album play from me. It's interesting that I didn't even think of M.I.A. when putting together my songs list, even though "Boys" is a standout. Total 8 was the easy winner here, though.

Top Five:
1. Various Artists - Total 8 (Kompakt)
2. Digitalism - Idealism
3. Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
4. M.I.A. - Kala
5. Gui Boratto - Chromophobia

The bulge bracket: Some of these got a fair amount of play but were somehow disappointing (T&S), others "charted" well despite themselves (Rilo Kiley, Of Montreal). Towards the bottom of the list we've got stuff that I won't say is out and out bad, but which I probably won't listen to (Mekons, Coral) as well as things that I either haven't paid attention to (Roisin) or honestly listened to (Skepta, Bural). Pretty much every full album I acquired this year...

6. Tegan and Sara - The Con
7. Rilo Kiley - Under the Black Light
8. Alicia Keys - As I Am
9. Zемфира - Спасибо (Zemfira - Spasiba)
10. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
11. Мумий Тролль - Амба (Mumiy Troll - Amba)
12. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
13. !!! - Myth Takes
14. Keren Ann - Keren Ann
15. The Chemical Brothers - We Are the Night
16. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
17. Amerie - Because I Love It
18. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad
19. Kylie - X
20. The Hours - Narcissus Road
21. Girls Aloud - Tangled Up
22. Blonde Redhead - 23
23. The National - Boxer
24. Crowded House - Time on Earth
25. Various Artists - After Dark: Italians Do It Better
26. Ulrich Schauss - Goodbye
27. Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
28. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic
29. Son Volt - The Search
30. Siobhan Donaghy - Ghosts
31. Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War
32. Justice - †
33. Britney Spears - Blackout
34. Field Music - Tones of Town
35. Tracey Thorn - Out of the Woods
36. Kelly Rowland - Ms. Kelly
37. Skepta - Greatest Hits
38. Burial - Untrue
39. Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
40. Buffalo Tom - Three Easy Pieces
41. Bryan Ferry - Dylanesque
42. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
43. The Good, the Bad & the Queen - The Good, the Bad & the Queen
44. Mekons - Natural
45. The Coral - Roots and Echoes

The bottom of the barrel
I am unable to delete these from my hard drive because I'm a pack rat.
- Feist - The Reminder - A couple of good singles and a lot of MOR. No thanks.
- The Arcade Fire - The Neon Bible - This time it just seems like histrionics.
- The Go! Team - Proof of Youth - No magic this time. :(
- Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position - Although "The Magic Position" is actually okay, I think my subconscious associates the whole album with the distorted vocals at the start of "Accident and Emergency." One of the few albums that will make me reach for the stop key.

Yawn, why am i doing quizzes when i should be on the way to the gym?

2007-11-24T06:41:50Z

My score on The Brutally Honest Personality Test:

Loser - INTP

(6% Extraversion, 53% Intuition, 80% Thinking, 40% Judging)

http://is3.okcupid.com/users/136/238/13623884563866545256/mt1165223494.jpg

Talked to another human being lately? I'm serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn't become apparent to you...

Nerd's a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn't care less about the different definitions of the word and why you're actually more of a geek than a nerd. Don't pretend you weren't thinking that. You want every single miniscule fact and theory to be presented correctly.

Critical? Sarcastic? Cynical? Pessimistic? Just a few words to describe you when you're at your very best...*cough* Sorry, I mean worst. Picking up the dudes or dudettes isn't something you find easy, but don't worry too much about it. You can blame it on your personality type now.

On top of all this, you're shy. Nice one, wench. No wonder you're on OKCupid! Now, quickly go and delete everything about "theoretical questions" from your profile page. As long as nobody tries to start a conversation with you, just MAYBE you'll now have a chance of picking up a date. But don't get your hopes up.

I am interested though. If a tree fell over in a forest, would it really make a sound?

*****************

If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, &check out this.

*****************

The other personality types are as follows...
&Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
&Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging
&Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
&Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging
&Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
&Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

&Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

&Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
&Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging
&Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
&Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging
&Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
&Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
&Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
&Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test
(OkCupid Free Online Dating)

(And no, I'm not on OKCupid.)

lord i love the king of spain today

2007-11-12T08:45:54Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7089131.stm

haiku meme

2007-11-05T07:43:57Z

Haiku² for blue_russian
can't change people go for someone who you can listen to all that
@

Created by Grahame

90s albums meme

2007-10-07T03:13:48Z

Fudged in places, e.g. I find it difficult to imagine I've never heard Dummy all the way through, but I can't actually remember it. Also, as usual, there are very few of these albums that I really feel passionate about per se (as opposed to individual songs) nowadays. And (no fun!) I can't honestly say anything immediately jumped out at me as missing, although I do prefer Laser Guided Melodies out of the Spiritualized albums.

—Bold = own
—Italics = heard all through/used to own
—Strikethrough = hate (heard or not)
—Underline = wd like one day to hear
—Asterisk = replay much bcz love

1 Nirvana - Nevermind 1991
2 Radiohead - OK Computer 1997*
3 Massive Attack - Blue Lines 1991
4 R.E.M. - Automatic for the People 1992*
5 Beck - Odelay 1996
6 Primal Scream - Screamadelica 1991
7 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless 1991*
8 Portishead - Dummy 1994
9 Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory? 1995*
10 U2 - Achtung, Baby 1991*
11 Oasis - Definitely Maybe 1994
12 Radiohead - The Bends 1995
13 Jeff Buckley - Grace 1994
14 DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... 1996
15 Tricky - Maxinquaye 1995
16 Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted 1992
17 Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet 1990*
18 Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 1998
19 Air - Moon Safari 1998
20 Nirvana - In Utero 1993
21 Pulp - Different Class 1995*
22 The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin 1999
23 Dr. Dre - The Chronic 1992
24 Björk - Debut 1993
25 P J Harvey - To Bring You My Love 1995
26 Pearl Jam - Ten 1991
27 Blur - Parklife 1994
28 Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream 1993
29 Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) 1993
30 Bob Dylan - Time Out of Mind 1997
31 Metallica - Metallica ("The Black Album") 1991
32 The Verve - Urban Hymns 1997
33 R.E.M. - Out of Time 1991
34 Moby - Play 1999
35 Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs 1999
~~36 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik 1991~~
37 Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road 1998
38 Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs 1998
39 Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral 1994
40 Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville 1993
41 The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole 1997
42 The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness 1995
43 Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine 1992
44 Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 1994
45 Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun 1999**
46 Beastie Boys - Ill Communication 1994
47 Hole - Live Through This 1994
48 Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space 1997*
~~49 Soundgarden - Superunknown 1994~~
50 Beck - Mellow Gold 1994
51 Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York 1994
52 A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory 1991
53 Fugees - The Score 1996
54 Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches 1990
55 Björk - Post 1995
56 Daft Punk - Homework 1997
57 Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die 1996
58 Massive Attack - Mezzanine 1998
59 Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness 1999
60 Leftfield - Leftism 1995
61 Slint - Spiderland 1991
62 Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister 1996
63 P J Harvey - Rid of Me 1993
64 Beastie Boys - Check Your Head 1992
65 Johnny Cash - American Recordings 1994
66 Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got 1990
67 Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby 1998
68 Basement Jaxx - Remedy 1999
69 Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill 1995
70 Buena Vista Social Club - Buena Vista Social Club 1997
71 Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual 1990
72 The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation 1994
73 P J Harvey - Dry 1992
74 Björk - Homogenic 1997
75 The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land 1997
76 Nas - Illmatic 1994
77 Green Day - Dookie 1994
78 Roni Size/Reprazent - New Forms 1997
79 Eminem - The Slim Shady LP 1999
80 The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die 1994
81 The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld 1991
82 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92 1992
83 Suede - Suede 1993*
84 Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go 1996*
85 Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Ragged Glory 1990
86 Wilco - Summer Teeth 1999*
87 Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour 1990
88 Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes 1992
89 Bob Dylan - Live 1966 - The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert 1998
90 Weezer - Weezer ("The Blue Album") 1994
91 Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque 1991
~~92 Sonic Youth - Goo 1990~~
93 Tom Waits - Mule Variations 1999
94 The LA's - The LA's 1990
95 Goldie - Timeless 1995
96 The Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust 1995
97 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call 1997
98 The Breeders - Last Splash 1993
99 Madonna - Ray of Light 1998
100 Depeche Mode - Violator 1990
101 Missy Misdemeanor Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly 1997
102 Manu Chao - Clandestino 1998
103 Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the Sea 1998
104 Talk Talk - Laughing Stock 1991
105 OutKast - Aquemini 1998
106 Blur - Blur 1997
107 TLC - CrazySexyCool 1994

Off to Scotland...

2007-08-07T17:56:12Z

via la la Londinium tomorrow. Poorly organized so I am missing Poptimism, although since "poorly organized" = "have organized nothing besides plane ticket and taxi to airport" that should probably be the least of my worries. I should probably be looking into that rather that trying to load up my iPod with Scottish pop, eh?

Hopefully I will get an e-mail tomorrow with my B&B arrangements for the Great Glen sorted, at least. One of the advantages of developed country travel - sod it, everything can be sorted if you're willing/able to pay.

Well, that's that, then.

2007-07-21T21:07:01Z

Just finished Harry Potter, and when I say finished, this time I mean it. No spoilers, and, frankly, I'm not sure I want to spoil the satisfaction by thinking about it too much at the moment. Anyway, cheers to you, JK Rowling - I don't begrudge you one penny of what you've earned. In fact, few people deserve it more.

League of Pop "Live"

2007-05-26T14:02:49Z

Well, not exactly. For any of you with broadband connections who haven't taken the time to download all the League of Pop tracks (or didn't want to spend the time labelling the files), you can listen to a surprising number of the submissions on last.fm, via this little widget thing that I am pasting in right here:

This is supposed to work with livejournal. So, keep your fingers crossed...

off to the pub

2007-04-13T16:08:11Z

one of the things i love about london (among other places, moscow not among them unforutnately) is going down to the pub after work. we are counting the minutes...

Off to London. Today is the greatest day...

2007-04-11T10:13:53Z

so far this month, anyway. Between last night and this morning, I totally cleaned up my apartment (desperately necessary), which actually brought me a great deal of pleasure. Ironically I only did this because I am heading out of town for a few days, and a friend will be crashing there while I'm away.

But it's the "away" that I am really happy about. I so need to travel regularly to keep my spirits up, even if, like this trip, I don't really have anything particularly planned (and I am going to a rather familiar and definitely expensive place).

Okay, back to work...

Further to today's discussion

2007-03-28T18:24:20Z

I want to dash down a few thoughts now as I'm thinking of them, despite being quite tired and potentially not making much sense. Maybe I will repost to poptismists tomorrow, if they seem worth it.

Pop vs. Indie
Pop for me quite simply is music that is music that is designed to be easily accessible. That ease may be complete (production/arrangement, performance, song structure, melody, to come up with categories off the top of my head) or it may be only partial (my classic example here is "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, which I would argue is totally pop, despite being inapproachable to many people based on the production and performance).

Not all pop is popular, and this is where things get confusing. What are our options?
Failed (bad?) pop - This is the stuff that really is aimed for mass market consumption, "product" that doesn't sell. Let's say Lisa Scott-Lee is an example (although I haven't actually heard any of her stuff, so maybe that's not fair. But you get the idea.

This is probably also a good time to answer a question that looks at this the other way around: Is everything that's popular by definition "pop"? My gut tells me "no," especially in the present when the charts - our standard measure of popularity until now - can be relatively influenced by relatively few sales. Setting that aside, though, I still have my doubts. An example, again not the best one, but a vivid one from my personal memory, is "When Doves Cry" by Prince. I HATED this song when it came out. It was undeniably catchy (and popular), but at the same time, the arrangement and performance were completely bizarre. I remember clearly thinking, and complaining to friends, "This isn't a song." Back to our categories, though...

Unambitious pop - A working definition - a lot of this is called commonly "indie" (which is itself an term with such broad meanings as to be almost useless, despite the fact that most people who follow music closely probably instictively feel it in their bones). What does it include? Well, one group would be music that follows all the pop conventions above BUT which flouts popular conventions, frequently... well, let's say "current styles." There are lots of examples here - this might be, say, a jangly guitar band in the era of Britney Spears and *Nsync. My submission to the League of Pop this week was unambitious - there really isn't anything un-pop about it, it just happens to be a) jangly, somewhat twee guitar pop and b) sung in Swedish.

What is indie, then? Well there's a straightforward "factual" definition, which is simply the kind of music produced by someone with limited finances and/or skills. Growing out of that you have, say, an indie "sound," that sort of lo-fi shambolism that has been popular in various places at different times. There's a certain "willful indie" - who are the people who quite actively avoid sounding like anything popular, either in terms of production values or the other criteria I mention above. (When that willfulness also brings ambitious to musical Art, that's when you start getting close to prog. See here, Mew.)

Okay... enough thoughts for now. This will never be super-rigorous, both because I'm not a cultural studies graduate student and because I don't think it's possible, but it still needs a bit more work. To be continued...

If you're reading, comments welcome.

Relationship advice from Mel C

2007-03-26T06:06:18Z

I've always been faithful. But I don't believe in working at a relationship. If it needs working at, then it's probably broken. Don't kid yourself: you can't change people. Go for someone who you can really talk to. (This among other strung together thoughts in the Guardian.)

Reading this was one of those moments where someone verbalizes something that, on one hand, is completely obvious, and on the other, completely undermines your worldview.

I have always believed - quite realistically, I thought - that relationships were something you have to work at. (Ironically enough, I also still believe in love at first sight.) Maybe it's the shock of seeing "If it needs working at, then it's probably broken" stuck logically in the middle of a set of statements that I agree with.

Maybe Mel is totally rubbish at relationships. Or maybe she's just resigned herself - as I have not been able to - to the idea that life is a tapestry, and most of the relationships are just short threads that don't run its length.

Reading is fundamental, Alexei Ivanovich!

2007-03-17T11:18:18Z

Yesterday I finished my second book in two weeks, namely Dostoevsky's The Gambler.

Yes, I read it in Russian! I am proud of myself, too, although the truth is that over the last five or so years, almost any substantial reading I've done is as much the result of being driven to освоить (master) the language as it is the pure pleasure of reading.

I usually tell people that Dostoevsky is my favorite Russian writer, and I guess that is basically true: I read Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov all out of more of less pure personal interest, which is certainly many more pages that any other "classic" Russian author. I've read a bit of Tolstoy, and Chekhov of course, and Nabokov, but really a just sampling.

It's been a while, though, since I picked up any of the classics, basically since my unsuccessful effort at Demons three or so years ago. Somehow the idea of engaging the 18th or 19th century simply hasn't been appealing. But after finishing my previous book - I'll write about it later in the week, maybe - I immediately wanted another cheap paperback (84 rubles or $3.25! and that was overpaying), and this was the only thing even halfway recommending itself at the time.

And what do you know? A perfect read. My guess at the time was that it was another one of those novellas that written in a serialized form - lots of short chapters of more or less the same length. A bit of philosophizing, yes, but also definitely plot-driven.

Convenient, isn't it?

2007-03-15T06:58:19Z

Key 9/11 suspect confesses guilt

I'm sorry - does anybody really believe a confession that appears after someone has been held for five years, incommunicado or virtually so, with no hope of a trial, and interrogated under conditions that - even by a generous assessment - test the limits of what is and is not "torture"?

Please.

(A more thorough story here in the NYT - accesible at the moment, although a free subscription is required)

Fall in love with something new

2007-01-10T20:51:59Z

Someone asked over in the The Other Place, in an excruciatingly long-titled thread, about those presumably rare moments in hours and hours of listening to music when a chill runs down your spine and you remember why it is you listen to all that music. Lately I've been a bit worried about that: as handy as iPods are, having virtually every piece of music I've ever liked more or less instantly accessible seems desensitizing. Not only is it all there, but shuffle almost guarantees that it's impossible to forget a group or an album, because something is always randomly being dragged out of obscurity. Or you're scrolling through everything you own, looking for whatever specific song-whim you have, and being reminded in painful detail of it all.

But there's always something new coming along, and despite all odds, history is still spitting out diamonds. Just a few minutes ago I was listening to stevem78's last.fm radio and heard "Louise," an old Human League track. An electro version of that moment when Neil Young sends Crazy Horse off the stage and plays "The Needle and the Damage Done" on solo acoustic, it's just a relatively simple synth line and Phil's vocal, another little story that somehow builds up a head of emotion, and then lets it off in a one-line chorus. Amazing, and even moreso that I don't think I'd ever heard it before.

Other groovy stuff over the last few days: "Behave" by Charlotte Hatherley, and "Mon Homme Presse" by Valerie Leiullot (which I wrote about over on last.fm). Neither of which seem particularly poptimist to me.

End of Year List: Albums

2007-01-03T09:35:40Z

[cross-posted from last.fm; i need to figure out how to automate that somehow]

I started to write "I didn't do very well on full albums this year," but then I checked iTunes, and it turned out much better than I expected. That may reflect quality, but in any case...

By any measure, the two albums of the year for me have to be Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops and Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. I'm fairly empirical about these things - Ten Silver Drops is the first album in a long time where I really got to know virtually every song, where I didn't think, "Oh, I want to hear [single x]" and then heard jumped away from the album as soon as another whim took me. On those terms, maybe Fox Confessor wasn't quite as strong, but it's still quite deep.

Leading the rest of the pack, I'd highlight two other strong albums: Cannibal Sea by The Essex Green, which suffers somewhat for being just another indie-pop album amongst thousands, but it's packed full of hooky songs and just suggestive enough of 60s power-pop (think "And Your Bird Can Sing") to give you a warm glow. On the other side of the coin, I'd also highly recommend Scritti Politti's White Bread Black Beer, which sounds like nothing else. I've never been a fan of the band, or even understood why anyone would care about them, until this year, when something freakytigger wrote prompted me to listen to "The Boom Boom Bap." Something about it stuck, and moreover made me wonder what that sound would be like carried over a full album. To a degree it's mood music to me - I don't find myself wanting to hear a particular song, just feeling like putting the album on.

Finally, a bit of a consensus album, such as there is on the internet: Silent Shout. I really like one song ("Silent Shout") and one title ("We Share Our Mother's Health"), but the fact of the matter is that I keep coming back to this album. The Knife is one of the few bands recently that I regret not seeing live.

All together, I guess some 20 albums "rated" for me this year. Here's the rest of the list:

Lily Allen - Alright, Still - Solid, although I wouldn't miss half the album if it disappeared from my hard drive (in which case it would compare unfavorably to Paris, which had four great songs.
Beth Orton - Comfort of Strangers - Disappointing. I think it needed a strong(er) single, and I think Beth's movement away electronica touches and/or a full band takes away a lot of her distinctiveness.
Snow Patrol - Eyes Open - Somehow this album got a lot of play, which bewilders me, given that it's just a retread of Final Straw (and therefore less interesting). I guess it's got hooks, though.
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds - It's been a long time since I've heard a good new Marvin Gaye album. I was surprised that I liked this, although after that first week I've found myself hitting "skip" when a song comes up. Maybe it's not a singles album.
Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis - Yeah, yeah, I love Jarvis, but there are really on three good songs here ("Don't Let Him Waste Your Time," "A to I," and "Running the World") and some real clunkers ("Black Magic").
Bob Dylan - Modern Times - I am totally NOT a Dylan fan; I guess I was in the mood for some blues? Maybe low expectations are starting to work in his favor.
Paul Simon - Surprise - Eno's electronics occasionally stick out like a sore thumb, and the presence of a song from an animated movie galls, but somehow the album is pleasantly listenable, which I haven't been able to say about Simon for about 16 years.
Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah - One monster single, one okay one. Why isn't the rest of the album that good?
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit - Would you believe that I had never listened to Tigermilk or If You're Feeling Sinister before this came out? They're both quite good, although I wonder if this is better. I remember thinking that to myself at the beginning of the year, and then never really returning to the album.
Cat Power - The Greatest - The trend this year was for albums that were solid but uncharismatic, and here's another one. I put this on all the time, but I raving about it is beyond me. (Release the damn Blondie cover already!)
The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes - See Jarvis above.
Marisa Monte - Universo ao Meu Redor, and
Marisa Monte - Infinito Particular - Like the Beth album, these were a big disappointment. In fact I would've bought the expensive South American imports were it not for the DRM. Maybe the two albums at once were too much to absorb, but again, I felt no singles and I needed to.

Also-rans and late entries:

Mňága a Žďorp - Dutý, ale free
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
Танцы Минус - ЭЮЯ

(I liked them, more or less, just not much to say about them.)