The Magnificent Ambersons

Okay, so I finished this book a few weeks ago, but have been busy with Christmas and Honeymooning!!

I LOVED THIS BOOK!
I was disappointed to find out that this was the second of a trilogy. I don't know how much I missed having not read the first book, but nothing went unexplained. I would love to read the third book as well, but will have to put it off since this list of books is overwhelming enough for now.
The Magnificent Ambersons is a novel by Booth Tarkington, whose name sounded familiar but I have no idea why. Maybe because this book won him a Pulitzer? I'm sure this book is on tons of "must read" lists, I would definitely put it very high on mine!
I was intimidated at first, when Mr. Tarkington was introducing the setting of his novel. His detail was exquisite, and the pictures he drew in my mind where so vivid. My setback was the jargon he used, slang words, and words that haven't been heard in a hundred years. Luckily, I was reading on my shiny, new Kindle and could just put my cursor next to the word and have it defined! I also like to bring things up on Wikipedia if the dictionary doesn't have it, or doesn't explain enough. Plus, with Wikipedia, I could see pictures of the odd mustache styles and clothing fashions. I very quickly became immersed in the turn of the century world.
I absolutely hated George Minafer when I met him. I felt like all the gossiping townspeople, just waiting for his "come-uppance". I began to understand him though, and it became so painful to watch his world falling apart, mostly at his own hands.
I know that I am not anyone to be critiquing books, and I can only hope my writing improves through this experiment, but I cannot say enough about this book. I love the way it is written, the characters, the sacrifices they make. There are only a handful of books I have come across that make me truly care about the people in it, and this is one of them. Read this book! Okay, maybe read the whole trilogy, I know I will someday! Highly, highly recommended!

Next on the menu is The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy...I am almost half way through and all I have to say about it right now is UGG. :)

Happy Reading

Your mission-should you choose to accept it.

So, for a while now I have been wanting to read the "Top 100 Books of all time". I spent a whole lot of time staring at a computer screen comparing all the lists people have made. The one I finally chose, most likely because it was the most snooty, was the Modern Library Board's List.
Here it is:

1.     ULYSSES by James Joyce

2.     THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.     A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce

4.     LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov

5.     BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

6.     THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner

√.     CATCH-22

8.     DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler

9.     SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence

10.  THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

11.  UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry

12.  THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler

√.  1984 by George Orwell

14.  I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

15.  TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

16.  AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser

17.  THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers

√.  SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

19.  INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

20.  NATIVE SON by Richard Wright

21.  HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow

22.  APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara

23.  U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos

24.  WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson

25.  A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster

26.  THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James

27.  THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James

28.  TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald

29.  THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell

30.  THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford

√.  ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

32.  THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James

33.  SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser

34.  A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh

35.  AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

36.  ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren

37.  THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder

38.  HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster

39.  GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin

40.  THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene

√.  LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

42.  DELIVERANCE by James Dickey

43.  A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell

44.  POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley

45.  THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

46.  THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad

47.  NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad

48.  THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence

49.  WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence

50.  TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller

51.  THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer

52.  PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth

53.  PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov

54.  LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner

55.  ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

56.  THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

57.  PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford

58.  THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton

59.  ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm

60.  THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy

61.  DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather

62.  FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones

63.  THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever

√.  THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger

√.  A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess

66.  OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

67.  HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

68.  MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis

69.  THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton

70.  THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell

71.  A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes

72.  A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul

73.  THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West

74.  A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

75.  SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh

76.  THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark

77.  FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce

78.  KIM by Rudyard Kipling

79.  A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster

80.  BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh

81.  THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow

82.  ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner

83.  A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul

84.  THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen

85.  LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad

86.  RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow

87.  THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett

88.  THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

89.  LOVING by Henry Green

90.  MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie

91.  TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell

92.  IRONWEED by William Kennedy

93.  THE MAGUS by John Fowles

94.  WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys

95.  UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch

96.  SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron

97.  THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles

√.  THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

99.  THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy

               100.   THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

I checked off the ones that I have read and remember well enough. I know I have started a few more of these, and I'm pretty sure I read The Great Gatsby in school, but I guess I can't pretend that I remember it. Recently, I picked up Ulysses and after having read the first five pages three times and still having no idea what was going on, I quickly put the book back on the shelf before I flung at the furthest wall. Then I did some web surfing about said book and realized I had bitten off a little too much. Or maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Or maybe I am just not that smart or pretentious enough to pretend like I understand a literary masterpiece.

I have always been an avid reader, and am surprised that I haven't read more on the list. I almost crossed of Invisible Man, and then realized that it wasn't talking about the H.G Wells novel...hmm. 

So, this will be my journey through the next...I have no idea how long it will take. I will start at the bottom of the list, mostly to put off attempting to read Ulysses as long as I can. Wish me luck.