A list about books that are un-put-down-able

There are some books you can read in one sitting. The ones you don't feel like putting down and you can't wait to get back to. I'm not including novel series in this, because those are a whole other thing and if I did I'd be forced to fill the list with Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy Novels. I'm going with books published after 1960 as well. I'm only allowing books I managed to finish in a week. Only novels, no short stories and poetry, memoirs, non-fiction etc

in no particular order :

15. Portnoy's Complaint - Phillip Roth - 1969 - USA

Quick Summary: Comedy, sexual frustration and self-consciousness. Portnoy's Complaint is one long monologue to a therapist about different stages of his life. This could get depressing but thankfully his life is hilarious.

14. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - 1989 - UK

Quick Summary: Mostly flashbacks of a butler from the time preceding World War II, in which his master was heavily involved in appeasement. The interactions with the household staff also play a major role.

13. Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee -1999- South Africa

Quick Summary : College professor loses his job and reputation. He moves out to the Eastern Cape onto his daughter's farm. Just when he's getting used to it and feeling familiar, events cause further necessary readaptation.

12. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - 1981- UK

Quick Summary: An allegorical novel about India pre and post partition. Set up as a biography and also full of magical realism.

11. White Teeth - Zadie Smith - 2000- UK

Quick Summary : A story about two friends in London and their respective lives as well as a narration about the lives of their families. A humor-filled novel representing the immigrant life in multicultural London

10. Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami - 2002- Japan

Quick Summary: Two separate but related plots, one involving a 15 year old boy who runs away from home and finds shelter in a private library. The other about an old man who can talk to cats and ends up on a road trip.

9. A Man of the People - Chinua Achebe - 1966 - Nigeria

Quick Summary: A novel about a young man who comes to work for the Minister of Culture. Really a satire of the political situation of Nigeria and applicable to the way many post-colonial politicians behave.

8. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez- 1967 - Colombia

Quick Summary: A story about several generations of the Buendia family as well as other residents of the village of Macondo. A magical realism novel where remarkable things happen and no one is surprised.

7.Catch -22 - Joseph Heller - USA -1961

Quick Summary: One of the funniest novels ever and a walk through of bureaucratic idiocy and the way in which logical reasoning can be twisted to make nonsense seem sensible.

6. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates - USA -1961

Quick Summary: Married life in the 1950's. A lot of the story really delves into marital difficulty and failed ambitions stemming from the inability to understand another's perspective.

5.Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger - India - 2008

Quick Summary: A tale of how the poor in India have it and how the narrator made it good by taking risks no one else would, or would even think to take for that matter

4. The Buddha Of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi - 1990- UK

Quick Summary: A story about a teenager eager to leave the suburbs of 1970's London and start living. Said to be highly autobiographical.

3. Snow - Orhan Pamuk - Turkey -2002

Quick Summary: A journalist goes to a town to investigate a spate of suicides. He also hopes to (and meets) a woman from his past. The snow cuts off the city and he ends up in discussions with all the different groups in the city.

2. The Damned Utd - David Peace - UK- 2006

Quick Summary: A retelling of Brian Clough's days in charge of Leeds United. All 44 days of it

1.On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan - 2007 - UK

Quick Summary: The night of their wedding a couple reflect on their differences and how they came to be a couple

Oscar Predictions-Film Awards (i)

Best Director Most likely winner : Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. Leaving out Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino pretty much made this Spielberg's to lose. And doesn't reflect too well on the Academy either. Backup Pick : David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook. The production company of Weinstein have been campaigning hard for this and it's a good film with the acting performances set up well. The thing about best director is it's the easiest award to give to someone the academy likes because it's ambiguous and the academy doesn't really love Russell. Most deserving : Michel Haneke for Amour. Haneke has the most carefully crafted film here. All in all it is definitely his film in every scene. His presence is all around the film and it is an excellent film. If they give it for the greatest impact a director has on the film, this is it. Best Adapted Screenplay Most li...

a list about plays (post 1950)

The general perception is good plays stopped being written. That all the plays being performed which remain popular are classics and there is no place for the playwright in the current dramatic world. The role of the playwright has been diminished but good plays have not become extinct in the 20th and 21st century.This list will attempt to reflect that by giving a selection of excellent plays written (and performed) after 1950. 20. Prelude to a Kiss- Craig Lucas. Premiered in California in 1988. Quick Description: Thought to be a metaphor for AIDS. A story about the switching of bodies between a new bride and an old man and how the husband must find the old man while keeping his love alive. Something of a Sci-fi style and one of the most original works in recent times. 19. Long Day's Journey Into Night - Eugene O'Neill.premiered in Stockholm at the Royal Dramatic theatre in 1956. quick summary: A play about addiction and how it affects everyone around the addict.The characters ...

Travel Writings- Rome (I)

Rome is a cliché. Usually that isn’t a good thing but when the cliché is that a city is cool, full of life and gorgeous, the clichés can stay. Rome is possibly the only European capital that can claim to rival Paris in the popular imagination in terms of having an expectation around it. Even Paris is now succumbing to parallel narratives due to the sheer size of the city (much like London), with the immigrant experience less of an unknown story (to non-immigrants anyway. Immigrants always knew it wasn’t cities paved with gold they’d find). Some combination of smaller population, less immigration and the weight of centuries of civilization being still visible across the city has allowed Rome to actually deserve the tag of “The Eternal City”. My idea of Rome comes to me primarily from Italian films of the 1960s. Rome is black and white in my mind just as it is on Fellini’s film reel. I had low expectations. Months in London had allowed cynicism to set in...

PONS IdiomasNovember 24, 2011 at 3:55 AM
Hola, quizás os interese saber que tenemos una colección que incluye el relato 'Strangers When We Meet' de Hanif Kureishi en versión original conjuntamente con el relato 'NippleJesus' de Nick Hornby.

El formato de esta colección es innovador porque permite leer directamente la obra en inglés sin necesidad de usar el diccionario al integrarse un glosario en cada página.

Tenéis más info de este relato y de la colección Read&Listen en http://www.ponsidiomas.com/catalogo/nick-hornby---hanif-kureishi.html

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