Review of the Day: Hard Times

Hard Times by Charles Dickens is one of the many Victorian Era classics that I had never gotten around to reading. But thanks to an audio version new on the shelf of my library branch, it made it to the top of my TBR pile. In equal parts good old fashioned storytelling and outdated social criticism, Hard Times is the tale of the Gradgrind family and their struggle to reconcile the rational, fact-based side of life with the emotional and imaginative side. Thomas Gradgrind, Sr. is proud of his “system” of raising children – his own and those in the school he runs – to know and depend only on facts, with no “wondering” or amusement. The ultimate failure of his system leads to the final showdown and resolution of the story. Dickens packed the book (first published in installments in 1854) full of his usual extraordinary characters. These really came to life in the audio version. Along with some Victorian moralizing, he mixed in plenty of humor and even a little intrigue and adventure. None of the characters are particularly likeable, perhaps especially to a modern reader with less sympathy for the outmoded social constraints under which the characters labor, but they all get their just deserts – for good or ill – in the end. Despite its age, Hard Times remains thoroughly entertaining.

National Book Award

Of the many lists of prize winners and recommended books I have going, I’ve been working for the past several years on reading the winners of the National Book Award. I recently found and joined the National Book Award Project – a group blog focusing on the winners and finalists of the NBA. I’ll be posting about my progress there as well as here. According to Lists of Bests, I am 38% finished with this list. Those I’ve finished are in red; those I own but haven’t read yet are in blue. 2007 Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson 2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers 2005 Europe Central by William T. Vollmann 2004 The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck 2003 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard 2002 Three Junes by Julia Glass 2001 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen 2000 In America by Susan Sontag 1999 Waiting by Ha Jin 1998 Charming Billy by Alice McDermott 1997 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier 1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett 1995 Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth 1994 A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis 1993 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx 1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy 1991 Mating by Norman Rush 1990 Middle Passage by Charles Johnson 1989 Spartina by John Casey 1988 Paris Trout by Pete Dexter 1987 Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann 1986 World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow 1985 White Noise by Don Delillo 1984 Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist 1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker 1982 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike 1981 Plains Song by Wright Morris 1980 Sophie's Choice by William Styron 1979 Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien 1978 Blood Ties by Mary Lee Settle 1977 The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner 1976 JR by William Gaddis 1975 The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams 1975 Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone 1974 Gravity's Ranbow by Thomas Pynchon 1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer 1973 Augustus by John Williams 1973 Chimera by John Barth 1972 The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor 1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow 1970 Them by Joyce Carol Oates 1969 Steps by Jerzy Kosinski 1968 The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder 1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud 1966 The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter 1965 Herzog by Saul Bellow 1964 The Centaur by John Updike 1963 Morte d'Urban by J.F. Powers 1962 The Moviegoer by Walker Percy 1961 The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter 1960 Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth 1959 The Magic Barrell by Bernard Malamud 1958 Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever 1957 The Field of Vision by Wright Morris 1956 Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara 1955 A Fable by William Faulkner 1954 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow 1953 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 1952 From Here to Eternity by James Jones 1951 The Collected Stories by William Faulkner 1950 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

Review of the Day: The Assistant

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud is the moving story of an Italian-American stranger who works his way into the lives of an immigrant Jewish shopkeeper and his family. Malamud perfectly portrays the grinding worries of running a mom-and-pop grocery, but also brings out bigger themes such as the importance of education and an individual’s ability to overcome bigotry. Focusing on the value of loyalty, repentance, and personal responsibility, it is a story of the redemptive power of love and forgiveness. Four stars.

List: Anthony Burgess

In 1984, Anthony Burgess (best known for A Clockwork Orange) published 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 (reviewed here).



His book included mini-reviews of the 99 novels (some are sets or series), which he chose on the basis of personal preference. I read the book, but now I don't remember why he started his list in 1939 and limited it to 99 books instead of an even 100.

This is my go-to book list when I'm looking for something good. There is some crossover with other Must Read lists, but a lot of originality. There are many books I've read only because they were on this list and I they now have permanent spots on my list of all-time favorites.

So far, I've read 39 of the 99 books on this list. The ones I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Here is the list, in the same chronological order by publication date that Burgess lists them in his book:

Party Going, Henry Green

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Aldous Huxley

Finnegans Wake, James Joyce (discussed here)

At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien

The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

Strangers and Brothers, C. P. Snow (an 11-novel series; A Time of Hope, reviewed here; George Passant, reviewed here)

The Aerodrome, Rex Warner

The Horse's Mouth, Joyce Cary

The Razor's Edge, Somerset Maugham (reviewed here)

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake (reviewed here)

The Victim, Saul Bellow

Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry

The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene

Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley

The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer (reviewed here)

No Highway, Nevil Shute

The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

The Body, William Sansom

Scenes from Provincial Life, William Cooper

The Disenchanted, Budd Schulberg

A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell (a 12-novel series; discussed here)

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger

The Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight, Henry Williamson

The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy (reviewed here)

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor

Sword of Honour, Evelyn Waugh

The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis

Room at the Top, John Braine

The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell

The London Novels, Colin MacInnes (a trilogy)

The Assistant, Bernard Malamud (reviewed here)

The Bell, Iris Murdoch

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe

The Once and Future King, T. H. White

The Mansion, William Faulkner

Goldfinger, Ian Fleming

Facial Justice, L. P. Hartley

The Balkans Trilogy, Olivia Manning

The Mighty and Their Fall, Ivy Compton-Burnett

Catch-22, Joseph Heller

The Fox in the Attic, Richard Hughes

Riders in the Chariot, Patrick White

The Old Men at the Zoo, Angus Wilson

Another Country, James Baldwin

An Error of Judgment, Pamela Hansford Johnson

Island, Aldous Huxley

The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing

Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov

The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

The Spire, William Golding

Heartland, Wilson Harris

A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood (reviewed here)

The Defense, Vladimir Nabokov

Late Call, Angus Wilson

The Lockwood Concern, John O'Hara

The Mandelbaum Gate, Muriel Spark (reviewed here)

A Man of the People, Chinua Achebe

The Anti-Death League, Kingsley Amis (reviewed here)

Giles Goat-Boy, John Barth

The Late Bourgeois World, Nadine Gordimer

The Last Gentleman, Walker Percy

The Vendor of Sweets, R. K. Narayan

The Image Men, J. B. Priestley

Cocksure, Mordecai Richler

Pavane, Keith Roberts

The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles

Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth

Bomber, Len Deighton

Sweet Dreams, Michael Frayn

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

Humboldt's Gift, Saul Bellow

The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury

The Doctor's Wife, Brian Moore

Falstaff, Robert Nye

How to Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong (reviewed here)

Farewell Companions, James Plunkett

Staying On, Paul Scott

The Coup, John Updike

The Unlimited Dream Company, J. G. Ballard

Dubin's Lives, Bernard Malamud

A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul

Sophie's Choice, William Stryon (reviewed here)

Life in the West, Brian Aldiss

Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

How Far Can You Go?, David Lodge (reviewed here)

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Lanark, Alasdair Gray

Darconville's Cat, Alexander Theroux

The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux

Creation, Gore Vidal

The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies (reviewed here)

Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer

NOTES

Updated March 19, 2018.

OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS

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Review of the Day: Havoc, in Its Third Year

Havoc, in Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett is a mystery and a morality play and a historical novel all rolled into one. In 1630, John Brigge is the coroner and one of the Governors in an unnamed Northern England town. When he is called into town from his family and farm on the other side of the desolate moor, he finds not only a woman accused of murdering her newborn son, but political upheaval as law-and-order extremists use fiery oratory and public torture to consolidate their power. There are times when the implicit comparison to modern times is a little heavy handed, but, in general, the author avoids preaching by focusing on human ambiguity rather than human hypocrisy. Whether the final ending is heard-heartedly cynical or comfortingly realistic is up for debate.