The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind

Ha.

2008-05-13T22:23:09Z

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My Birthday's Coming Up*

2008-04-08T14:23:04Z

*okay, it's not for about four months, but still...I WANT THIS CAKE!

Just Created a New LJ Community

2008-04-07T16:42:32Z

I just created a fiction writing community on LJ, inspired by anthology pulp magazines like "Weird Tales."

Any aspiring writers out there are more than welcome to post any of their weird fiction, in the horror, science fiction, steampunk and adventure genres. This includes short stories, poetry, serialized stories, book and movie reviews, or even plays or comic strips.

Here is the ink: http://community.livejournal.com/lunatic_mind/

So, comic books were right after all?

2008-04-07T14:19:14Z

Did anyone else listen to Opie and Anthony this morning, when they were talking to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku? He wrote books such as "Hyperspace," "Parellel Worlds," and his latest book is "Physics of the Impossible."

On the show, he talked about the idea that we really live in a Multiverse, where parallel realities, or universes, are created as a result of the choices we make or significant events playing out differently. Like, there is a universe where I didn't get fired from Starbucks, and as a result didn't work at Borders, and probably didn't become a journalist, and so on.

And DC and Marvel have been dealing with Multiverse storylines for how long now? Has this idea of an actual Multiverse been around for awhile, and I'm just hearing about it now? Or were comic book writers on to something before the scientists thought it was possible?

Robotic Prostatectomy

2008-04-03T19:04:15Z

Sheesh, the phrases that I hear and see at my job can be head-shakingly strange.

New York Comic Con

2008-04-03T15:14:14Z

So, I just realized that the NY Comic Con is coming up in a couple of weeks.

Is anyone planning on going this year? I won't be able to, but there was one piece of merchandising I was hoping to get. So if someone is going, can I give you money to pick it up for me?

The Train

2008-04-02T03:48:13Z

I never should have gotten out of the shower. I never should have answered the phone.

It was Rishard. He needed me to pick him up at the train station in Glen Rock.

"Sure. I just got out of the shower. Let me dry off and I'll head over there."

I combed my hair, threw on an old pair of jeans, my brown hoodie and I ran out the door. He said the train would be pulling into the station at 9:30; it was 9 o'clock already.

The night air was pleasant while I walked to my car. It felt like April. It felt like spring. There was a moisture to the air, though, like it was merely seconds from raining.

I pulled up to the train platform at 9:15. I was early; very early as I would find out.

04/01/08 09:16PM
Hey I should be
there around 9:40.
***END***

"Great. Instead of being 15 minutes early, I'm almost half an hour early. Guess I'll take a walk."

There was a Starbucks down the road. It was still open. I got an iced coffee and walked out the door in time to see an unearthly electrical show in the sky. Heat lightning filled the night sky with an ethereal blue glow that contrasted against the still bare trees as they swayed in the growing wind.

The train platform was empty except for a young couple that waited on a bench a few hundred yards from where I stood sipping my iced coffee and admiring the lightning show.

I checked my watch: 9:34PM. Any minute now.

A man in a black raincoat walked up to the platform on the other side of the tracks and checked his watch. He was drinking coffee too.

Another text came in.

04/01/08 09:39PM
Did the math wrong.
Will get there at
9:50.
***END***

I continued to watch the lightning, which had increased in intensity since it started when I walked out of the coffee bar. It wasn't long before I felt the first drop of rain strike my wrist, followed by a few more of his cousins.

The warning bell began to clang, and I could hear the train's horn not too far off in the distance.

It pulled up to the platform just as the downpour began. The train came to a complete stop, and paused. The doors did not open; passengers did not walk off.

Then the doors did open. But the passengers did not walk off.

They stampeded. In a frenzy. Bloodied, mouth foaming.

Hungry. God, they were hungry.

They got to the young couple before any of us standing on that platform could comprehend and acknowledge what was happening.

They popped the man's head off his shoulders as he jumped between them and his girlfriend. He shouldn't have bothered - her guts were on the platform floor before his neck muscles even cleared his corpse.

I ran. Or, I started to, but the rain continued to pour, and the ground was slick. No traction. I fell forward, and continued to kick my feet out, hoping for some friction. But they were on me; they would have been on me anyway, there was just so many of them.

They grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around to face them.

My phone started to vibrate. I had a text. The noise disturbed them and they backed away. I got to my feet and ran as I checked the text.

04/01/08 09:51PM
Whoops. Turns out I
got on the train that
stops at the other
Glen Rock station.
Can you meet me there?
***END***

Work Procrastination Post

2008-03-28T16:33:27Z

Am-I-Dumb.com - Intelligence Test

HumanForSale.com - Free Quizzes

Indiana Jones Widget

2008-03-25T13:38:41Z

"Buy a Ray Gun...Smoke Luckies...Fight the Commies..."

2008-03-19T19:44:31Z

This really tickled me! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but damn I love Steampunk. And this might be the coolest collection of high priced things I really don't need and have no room for in the first place.

Also, speaking of Steampunk, this site has really cool custom figures of Medieval Steampunk Star Wars, Victorian Justice League, and Venture Brothers. Too bad none of them are for sale.

"Whatever happened to Fay Wray..."

2008-03-19T15:14:20Z

On Saturday, Dani and I went to see the original 1933 KING KONG, in glorious black and white, at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, as part of their Big Screen Classics series.

I had always liked KING KONG. Liked. Not loved, but definitely really liked. But after seeing it on the big screen, I can't believe what a different experience it was, compared to watching it on a 19 inch television screen, which is how most people my age grew up watching it. I was just blown away by how visually striking it is, not to mention it's entertaining as hell.

Seeing KONG on the big screen in that old movie palace reminded me of what going to the movies should be like. Not to mention that prior to the movie, instead of advertisements on the screen, they have a guy playing an antique Mighty Wurlitzer organ. Stepping through the doors of the Lafayette is like stepping into a time machine. Between the giant chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, the intricately adorned opera boxes, and the luscious red theater curtain, it's easy to imagine what it must have been like to see KING KONG during its original release in 1933.

Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see a movie at the Lafayette Theatre, do it. You'll never want to go back to a megaplex again.

Official website: http://www.bigscreenclassics.com/indexlafayette.htm

CTHULHU FHTAGN CHEEZBURGER

2008-03-10T17:26:27Z

I know all my Lovecraftian friends will love this:

You can find more at www.lolthulhu.com.

For My Rock Band Friends

2008-03-06T16:16:49Z

LINGERIE GUITAR HERO!

Is it wrong that I could watch this all day?

Classic Film Festival

2008-03-04T16:55:38Z

The Lafayette Theatre in Suffern just announced the lineup for their Spring Classic Film Festival.

March 8 - Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint

March 15 - KING KONG, Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray - 75th Anniversary!

March 22 - GRAND HOTEL, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford

March 29 - DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Fred MacMurray,Barbara Stanwyck

April 5 - THE NATURAL, Robert Redford, Glenn Close

April 12 - JASON & THE ARGONAUTS, Special Effects by Ray Harryhausen

April 19 - Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, James Stewart, Jean Arthur

April 26 - STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (a.k.a. A MATTER OF LIFE & DEATH), David Niven, Kim Hunter

May 3 - ARTISTS AND MODELS, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis

May 10 - THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles

May 17 - ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland

May 24 - CITY LIGHTS, Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill

May 31 - IN A LONELY PLACE, Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame

June 7 - HIS GIRL FRIDAY, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell

June 14 - THE JOLSON STORY, Larry Parks, Evelyn Keyes

June 21 - CARTOON & COMEDY CARNIVAL, Looney Tunes, 3 Stooges, and more. ALL NEW!

While there are a number of movies on there that I would like to see on the big screen, I definitely want to see KING KONG and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.

Stupid Fanboy Geekery!

2008-02-22T20:00:01Z

Oh, I want this jacket so badly:

At least I finally have this to keep me happy until I can afford the jacket:

'All right stop, collaborate and listen..."

2008-02-22T17:17:33Z

Thanks to the webcomic "Subnormality," I just had the horrifying realization of my own age progession and mortality through the knowledge that the song "Ice Ice Baby" came out 18-fricken years ago!

When "Ice Ice Baby" was released:

I was a freshman in high school at the time.
I had just learned how to masturbate.
My current girlfriend? In Fifth Grade.
People ordered coffee in "Small," "Medium," and "Large."
Bush Sr. was still president.
There hadn't even been a FIRST attmept on the Twin Towers.
Sadaam Hussein was considered the most evil man in the world.
Johnny Carson was still hosting "The Tonight Show."
People wrote journal entries like this in books.
16-bit video games were "high tech."
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" had just been released on VHS.
Kevin Costner had a successful career.
Kurt Cobain was really just starting his career.
Gas was $1.30 per gallon.

This means that in two years, it will have been 20 years since I started high school, and in six years, I'll celebrate my 20th high school reunion.

Too Tired to Write a Clever Subject Line

2008-02-22T04:08:54Z

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich, maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

1. if you had the passes and permision to walk around on the new indiana jones movie set, have access everywhere, no limits and can talk to anyone, what would you do?
I would actually want to get access to the wardrobe department and try to make off with costume pieces, like the leather jacket, a fedora, the whip. Then I would go to the prop department and see what I could "liberate" from there. Really, I would probably just use the opportunity to get cool things for my collection. I wouldn't want to spoil the movie by watching the filming and talking to cast and crew about it.

2. where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Funny you should ask this question, because I asked myself the same thing last week. The answer I came up with is, I want to have a Ph.D in Mythology and Folklore, writing books on the subject and teaching it at a university. I'm just now looking into getting my Master's as a first step towards that Ph.D. Hopefully by this time next year, I'll be enrolled in an online Master's program.

I also plan on already being married to Dani by that time, living in Tarrytown or some other nice Westchester town.

3. what movie do you think most indentifies with your life or a moment in your life? why?
I would have to say that "High Fidelity" is the movie I most identify my life with, mainly because of John Cusack's character. I feel like I have an uncomfortable amount of the same hang-ups and neuroses that he has in that movie.

4. you are on a plane on your way to someplace and for some reason, you need to land in tokyo, japan for a week, what would you do there?
I would visit some Buddhist and Shinto shrines and temples, but mainly I would gorge myself on as much Kobe beef as I can shove in my pie hole.
EDIT: How can I forget Disneyland Tokyo? I would absolutely visit that and the sister park, Tokyo DisneySea.

5. what is your favorite quote? does it have particular meaning to you?
"Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before." -- Joseph Campbell. It's my signature line for my Gmail account. I had this written on an index card, and when I was still trying to get my journalism career going back in 2003, I would take it out and read as a reminder. Not too long after, I got my reporting job at the Suburbanite.

There is another quote; it's not a famous quote, in that a famous person didn't say it, but it does have a lot meaning for me: "The man who said it couldn't be done was interrupted by the man who did it." I heard this in high school from my Geometry teacher, Brother Ford, and I always think of that quote when I need some motivation.

1. I know you're an Indiana Jones fan (then again, who isn't?). What is it about Indiana Jones that you like so much? What first got you interested?
Like most kids who were born in the mid-70s and grew up in the 80s, there were really only two movie heros that mattered: Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The Indiana Jones movies were fun, action-packed, and tapped into the basic human thirst for mystery, adventure, and discovery. In the 90s, with Indy no longer at the multiplexes, James Bond and Quentin Tarantino became my general cinematic focus. I still appreciated Indy, but I was really under the spell of neo-noir movies, like a large chunk of the population was at that time.

Around 2002, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," popped up on Channel 9 one night, and I watched it, and was reminded of how awesome a movie it is, and I remember having this really long conversation with a co-worker about it the next day (damn I miss coffeehouse conversations). Then in 2003, I went to Disney MGM Studios for the first time, and saw the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular," and it reignited my love of the those movies. At the same time, the movies were finally released on DVD, so I got to watch them all over again, in widescreen format the way they were intended.

That lead to investigating how I could put together a screen accurate Halloween costume, and I found an online forum with information about how to buy the individual costume pieces, from the leather jacket to the fedora to the shirt, pants and belts/holsters. I spent the better part of a year, saving up and buying pieces when I had the money. The first thing I bought was the satchel, which is my favorite item because it's so functional -- I can use it without looking like I'm wearing a costume. However, the one costume piece I have yet to acquire, and desperately want, is a screen accuate leather jacket, manufactured by the original costume designers. If I only had $350 to blow.

2. You have a choice - get your dream career, working the hours you choose with very generous pay, become extremely successful... but lose all of the friends you have now. Or, keep the friends you have, but have mediocre day jobs for the rest of your life. What do you choose and why?
This is a tough question. If this were, say 8 years ago, I would say lose the friends for the money, because my friends at that time ended up not being good friends in the long run. Today, however, I have friends that are genuine and they are people that I couldn't imagine living without. So, 2008 Rob would have to say he wants to keep his friends.

3. You have $20 left to your name. You can spend it on only 3 things - one practical, one frivolous, and one of your choosing. What do you buy?
$10 on food that I could make last for awhile till more money came along (practical), $3 on a comic book (frivolous), and $7 on a ticket to "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (my choosing).

4. Tell me about your Rocky Devirginization.
I just had to fake an orgasm. Meh. Could have been worse.

5. I'm totally ripping this question off from what I asked someone else. But. If you could only listen to ONE album for the rest of your life, what would you choose and why?
I thought about this question A LOT because the album would have to have a degree of replay-ablity, and I would have to go with the amazing Reggae soundtrack "The Harder they Come," by Jimmy Cliff. It has a song for every mood, from upbeat ("The Harder They Come," "You Can Get It If You Really Want"), to somber ("Many Rivers to Cross") to pensively optimistic ("Sitting in Limbo").

Books--Yoinked from Amanda

2008-02-20T18:10:06Z

I saw that Amanda had posted this, and I was curious just how many of these books I had read (30).

This list made me realize that I have to read more Graham Greene, and by more I mean that I've read nothing at all and need to start. I also have to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I've read his short stories, which are amazing, but "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is still on my shelf waiting to be read.

Some surprises about this list -- Nothing by Michael Chabon, yet an overabundance of Don DeLillo. Also, only one Stephen King novel, and it's not even "It." And I'm surprised Neil Gaiman didn't make the list; "American Gods" should be required reading. And where's Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"? Also, for pre-1700 -- where's "The Epic of Gilgamesh"?

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
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
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 Saunders

1900s

Timbuktu – Paul Auster
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
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
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
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
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
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
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
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
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
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
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
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
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
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
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
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
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
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
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
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
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
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
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
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
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
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
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
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
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
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
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
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
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
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
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
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
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
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
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
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
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
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
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
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
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
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
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
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
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
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
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
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
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
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright
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
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
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
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
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
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
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
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
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
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
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
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
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
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
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
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
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
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
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
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
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
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
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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
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
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
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
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
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
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
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
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
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
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
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
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
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
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
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

EDIT: To include "The Razor's Edge," which I missed when I first went through the list.

I Have a Huge Geek Hard On Right Now...

2008-02-14T15:11:20Z

Because they finally released the teaser trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"!

I'm impressed. Would have liked to have seen more footage from the new movie, as opposed to the recap footage of the previous three, but g-ddamn it looks action packed!

Fellow Rock Banders

2008-01-31T22:03:40Z

I hope I didn't come across as being anti-social last night, sequestering myself in my room while all the Rock Band-goodness was going on downstairs. I'm battling a cold, and I was riding the Sudafed and Wild Turkey train. It made me loopy and really tired, so I threw on my pajamas and crawled into bed.

Hopefully next week I'll be back in shape for another round of band practice.

New Coaster to Debut at Great Adventure This Spring!

2008-01-28T18:30:26Z

I just found this bit of news today. They're building a new Batman coaster to coincide with the release of "The Dark Knight" this summer. It's a "wild mouse" indoor coaster that combines special effects with what seems like an audience participation aspect.

Here is the press release:

A new roller coaster is coming to Six Flags Great America after a three year wait. The Gurnee theme park announced today "The Dark Knight Coaster," will open to much fanfare in 2008.

The coaster will be built indoors, said Great America spokeswoman Brooke Gabbert, and will be based on the upcoming Warner Bros. "Batman"-themed movie, "The Dark Knight." The coaster is expected to cost about $7.5 million.

Officials said the coaster will transform guests into citizens of the fictitious Gotham City. Those people will be caught in the middle of a city under siege being torn apart by the villain, The Joker.

On the coaster, guests will venture through demented hallways of twists, turns and hallucinatory images while being tormented by The Joker. Then, after stepping on a distressed, vandalized train platform, they can only guess at what awaits them as they speed through hairpin turns, climb unseen hills, plunge into pitch darkness and dip into unforeseen danger.

Also, I heard that Heath Ledger was invited to the opening of the ride, but he said he planned on sleeping in that day.

EDIT: Thanks to Shawn for pointing out something that I forgot to mention -- I had to use the press release for the Great America version of the ride. So there's no confusion, there will be a Dark Knight ride at Great Adventure in New Jersey, in addition to Great America in Illinois, and Six Flags New England.

Snootch to the Muthafuckin' Nootch!

2007-11-27T18:06:55Z

Kevin Smith is appearing at the Bergen PAC in Englewood in March.

http://www.bergenpac.org/event.php?evid=373&sid=9

Who wants to go and see "An Evening with Kevin Smith"? We seriously should get a group thing going for this.

Tickets start at $29.

In Defense of "Plan 9 from Outer Space"

2007-10-26T16:55:02Z

Dani and I went to see a screening of this epic of crapulence at a horror movie festival last week. I've seen this numerous times before, and it's always a good time to spot the inconsistencies, the redundant and inane dialogue, and the "special" special effects.

Regarded as the Worst Film Ever Made, "Plan 9" is director Edward. D. Wood Jr.'s "masterpiece," as it were; it is THE film for which he is known. With hubcap spaceships (wires showing and all), obviously fake tombstones (that fall over with the slightest nudge), and the, shall we say, fluid nature of time, in which day becomes night becomes day again over the course of one scene, it is truly a monument to bad filmmaking.

But something has been nagging me since we were sitting in that darkened theatre, and it nagged me through most of the movie - "Plan 9 from Outer Space" should not be bad. It's obvious Ed Wood did not set out to just make a terrible B movie; he definitely had something to say. The story idea was just fine; it's just the execution of that idea which didn't go so well.

For those of you who haven't been had the dubious pleasure of sitting through a screening of "Plan 9," let me get you up to speed with a brief synopsis:

Old man's wife dies, he grieves, he gets hit by a car and dies. UFOs show up in the area and cause strange occurences. Dead wife returns from dead as zombie, kills grave diggers, kills inspector sent to investigate. Inspector and old man come back as zombies as well. Unfortunately dressed aliens return to space station to report on progress (and reveal plot to audience). Plan 9 involves reviving the dead to make the aliens presence known, as the govenrment has been denying their existence for years. Meanwhile, pilot sees UFOs over Los Angeles and is told to keep his mouth shut. Pilot also conveniently lives next to cemetary where the old man, wife and inspector were buried. After his wife is attacked by old man zombie, pilot investigates cemetary with Air Force officer and police. They find the UFO with the aforementioned unfortunately dressed alines and go inside. Unfortunately dressed aliens reveal their main mission - to prevent Earth scientists from stumbling upon the most destructive weapon in the universe: a bomb that harnesses the power of the sun a solar rays. This weapon can set off a chain reaction that would destroy not only the earth, but the entire universe. Fight ensues, fire is sparked, heroes escape before UFO explodes in cheaply produced fire effect. The end.

Okay, not so brief, but you get the point.

Sure the dialogue is terrible, the acting is awful, and often the plot contradicts itself. But, the basic idea that an advanced race of aliens coming to earth to prevent us from destroying ourselves and the universe with our mad dash to create more and more destructive weapons is a solid premise, and was executed more poignantly in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Ed Wood, after all, was a veteran of World War II, so it's no stretch to suggest that his wartime experiences, and the horrors he probably witnessed during the Battle of Guadalcanal, would lead him to create an antiwar film, which is what I feel "Plan 9" was intended to be at its heart - an antiwar film wrapped up in the conventions of a Sci-Fi Horror movie with zombies and UFOs.

Not to mention the multiple story line structure, where unrelated characters are brought together near the end of the film as a result of their connection to the phenomena is a pretty sophisticated narrative device, used to much greater effect in films such as "Traffic" and "Babel."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Plan 9" could be a legitimately good film (heck even a great film) if remade by a talented and competent filmmaker. There is an urban legend, I think, that says that Wood never or rarely did rewrites of his own scripts. I think if the script of "Plan 9" was given to a modern screenwriter today (not a hack, mind you), and had it's plot holes filled in, and that script was given to an A list director like Steven Soderbergh or Ridley Scott, it could be a much better - and thought provoking - film than it is now. Because "Plan 9" is a good film trapped in B movie body. And like the zombies the aliens created, all it needs is to have new life put into it.

Puttin' on the Ritz!

2007-10-16T16:06:15Z

Going to see "Young Frankenstein: The Musical" tonight with Dani.

I can't fucking wait!

Horror Movie Festival

2007-10-11T18:22:03Z

There is a Horror Movie Festival coming up at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, NY (near Ramapo College). They have it every year, and this year there are some pretty movies in the lineup.

Here is the complete lineup (from their website):

The Lafayette Theatre's HORROR-THON returns on October 19-20-21! FLASH:
Bela Lugosi's Dracula cape (worn by him on-screen in "Abbott &
Costello Meet Frankenstein") will be displayed at 2pm show on Sunday! This
one-of-a-kind genuine artifact comes to the Lafayette courtesy of
collector Todd Feiertag. Go to:
http://www.bigscreenclassics.com/indexlafayette.htm for more
information.

Here's the complete HORROR-THON line-up:

Friday, October 19,
8:00pm - Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE plus Ed Wood Home Movies
and more (Now in color for the first time!)

Saturday, October 20
2:00pm - FRANKENSTEIN starring Boris Karloff
4:15pm - MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, starring Vincent Price
8:00pm - PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, starring Lon Chaney, with LIVE Pipe
Organ Accompaniment by Jeff Barker

Sunday, October 21
2:00pm - ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN; PLUS - Bela Lugosi's
original Dracula cape (as worn in this film) will be displayed at this
showing!
4:15pm - CURSE OF THE DEMON starring Dana Andrews - uncut British
version!
7:30pm - Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING

I would like to go to see a few of these movies (namely "Plan 9," "Phantom of the Opera,"Frankenstein," and "Masque of the Red Death"), if anyone else is interested in coming along.

Also noteworthy to the Rocky crowd is "Curse of the Demon," which inspired the lyric from "Science Fiction/Double Feature" (Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes...)

It may be a good promo for Home of Happiness if we all went to the screening in our costumes. Just a thought.