If you're interested, here's what the Inkblots have read over the past several years. There are actually a few more than this, but I can't remember them. Like dummies, when we started we didn't keep a list. I think we didn't ever think we'd be heading into our FIFTH year!
I'll put them in extended entry, so they won't goober up the main page!
Till We Have Faces By C. S. Lewis (The very first book we ever read!)
Forsyte Saga by John Glasworthy
House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Cheri by Collette
Staggerford by Jon Hassler (The only author I've ever written a fan letter to!)
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
The Fall of the Year by Howard Frank Mosher
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
The Madwoman of Chaillot/Ondine/The Apollo of Bellac by Jean Giradoux
Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
Woman of the Pharisees by Francois Mauriac
The Essence of the Thing by Madeline St. John
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Such is My Beloved by Morley Callaghan
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (the only book I've hated)
Lying Awake by Mark Salzman
Collected Short Stories by Andre Dubus
The Man Born to be King by Dorothy Sayers
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
Pursuit of Love/Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Long Summer Day by R. L. Delderfield
Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis deBernieres
The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer
The Samurai by Shusaku Endo
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Original Sin by P. D. James
Moo by Jane Smiley
On Rue Tatin by Susan Loomis
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
A Dog's Life by Peter Mayle
The Haj by Leon Uris
The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson
Welding with Children by Tim Gatreaux
Here are the MamaT awards for the books on the list:
1. Best Book we've read in group? Tie, Till We Have Faces and The Power and the Glory.
2. New (to us) authors I'm glad we found: Jon Hassler and Richard Russo. Hands down, my favorite contemporary writers.
3. Worst book: Moo--parts were ok, but I thought I had wasted my time when I was finished.
4. Book I hated most: 100 Years of Solitude.
5. Book I was most surprised by: Mariette in Ecstasy
6. Book that will tear your heart out and stomp on it: The Samurai
i highly admire any woman who uses the word "goober" as an action word.
Thanks for a great blog (that I now visit every day). Have you read the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset? They were the last non-fiction books that I read (last spring), and they were such a wonderful surprise to me that I have hesitated to pick up a non-fiction novel since then for fear of being disappointed. (I know; I desparately need a book club!)
Hi, Laurrie!
Yes, I read them just this year. Weren't they wonderful? I have a friend who said that when she got out of college the first thing she bought was the hardcover edition of the trilogy. She has it still. I tell her it's the only thing I want her to leave me in her will!
:-)
The Samurai. Good book. Great book.
"I HAVE LIVED!"
Yep. Great book.