All Times List

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Luckily, I was "forced" to read Mrs Dalloway for one of my classes last semester (Brit Lit), and I am happy that I was introduced to the novel in such a way a book club is set up. Not only did I enjoy reading Mrs Dalloway, but I got to spend a couple weeks discussing the book with my classmates. Because, after all, I didn't choose to be an English major with a promising career after graduation. 

Mrs Dalloway takes place post WW1 and over the course of a single day. If you know anything about my reading interests, you know I am a sucker for condensed writing and stream-of-conscience. I am also a sucker for parties, and By Golly! There is a party to be had at the end of the book! The reader is swept away by the narrator Clarissa, who is excellent at seeing the truths behind human nature in an uplifting/condescending way. Basically, Virginia Woolf is a human nature observation guru.

I think my favorite aspect of this book is the complete opposite life Clarissa and Septimus live. It's painful as a reader to travel back-and-forth from "happy-go-lucky" to depressed and dying. Woolf takes the reader on a heck of an emotional ride. 

If you start reading Mrs Dalloway and hate it, don't be distressed or put-off by the meaningless details Clarissa explains (it all) in the beginning. Trust me, just stick with it for a little longer and you will be happy you did. It's a satire piece, and the sooner you realize this, the happier you will be. Enjoy the little one-liners that mock society, those are my absolute favorite. The structure of writing will blow your mind, jumping from one stream-of-conscience to the next and interweaving until the end.

I recommend Mrs. Dalloway to (of course) my friends exploring Times Best Book list, anyone into classical/canonical novels, and people that love society satire pieces.

Some memorable quotes:

"He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink."

"It may be possible that the world itself is without meaning."

"Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame."

#184- My to-Read List : The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger


I didn't know this book would be an instant favorite when I placed it on two of my bucket-list items: All TIMES list and my 100 book list. The Catcher in the Rye was simply amazing. There is not much of a story line; the book is about a 16-year-old boy who gets kicked out of private school and is on his way back home. That's it! It's a simplistic novel, with the most in-depth character development I have encountered in a long time. The book is written from the point-of-view of the main character, Holden Caulfield, in a type of stream-of-conscience way. There are many flashbacks throughout when Holden recalls past events. I enjoyed this type of writing style, as it gives in-depth to characterization.

Let's take a look at the main character, Holden Caulfield. Holden is an angry teenager. I do not have my PhD in psychology, but one can assume that Holden has a different perspective of people and life than other teenagers that are within his social circle because of the death of his brother. He is the pure definition of a cynic, and often thinks of every negative in every situation he is placed in, really he does. This book kills me. I had several moments of actual laughter, as I found humor in the pessimistic Holden. Basically, everything and everyone sucks and everyone is a "phoney." My favorite example is when Holden explains that he would "rather die than join the army" but he doesn't mind dying in the Army, he minds the entire process of Army training. He criticizes Hollywood, prep-boys, and "sell-outs" which Salinger seems to partake in during his lifetime.

It's even more interesting that The Catcher in the Rye inspired numerous assassins into killing people, such as Ronald Reagan. The teenager angst seems to set off some type of psychopath tendency in some people. The book can come off as negative if that's what you take away from it. Personally, I feel like this novel really shows the angst one can feel when there is a death. When someone is taking from you in this life, it's easy to be angry and hate everything until time heals. I feel like in the end, when Holden is watching his sister on the carousel, life starts to look optimistic for the narrator.

There are a lot of great lines in The Catcher in the Rye:

"I am always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

"I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice"

"When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery."

"If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?" (Every man should live by this quote, I swear)

The Catcher in the Rye is filled with great one-liners. I personally believe it is so well-written. In fact, once I finished reading the novel, I immediately wanted to pick it back up and read it again. I would highly recommend The Catcher in the Rye to anyone that can appreciate great insightful writing without needing an extravagant plot.

Book Review- Beloved by Toni Morrison

So Beloved is actually on my bucket list of books I want to read- "Read All Times 100 Greatest Novels". I had to read it for a class so it worked out well!

So a quick summary of Beloved- A young woman Sethe who is born into slavery escapes to Ohio to meet with her mother-in-law and her children who she sent ahead of her.  While living here the white men from where she ran away from come back to take the children.  Sethe commits a horrible crime which shatters her family.  The book takes place in the future when her mother-in-law has passed and she is still dealing with the consequences of her actions from her past.


I feel like Toni Morrison is one of those writers you either love or hate.  Her writing style is pretty complex, and if you are a reader like me who gets annoyed at a "build up" of action only for it to be interrupted by 1-2 chapters of a stream of consciousness, you will most likely not like Beloved.  The most annoying part about reading book like this is when something big is going to happen- Like Sethe is going to attack with a ice pick- and instead of us reading the action, we are told second hand by another character after the fact.  This probably makes me sound like a sick individual but I want to know the gruesome details!

But as a literature snob, I know good writing when I see (read?) it. The language that Toni Morrison uses is like you are reading poetry one chapter after another, which makes sense as to why there isn't much detail about any of the action of the plot.  “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined." After reading three books from Morrison, I have noticed that she makes the reader feel bad for her characters and the crimes they commit.  That the reader is forced to accept the fact that someone could commit the worst of crimes that one cannot even imagine, to escape slavery.

Beloved is on the New York Time's list of greatest books ever written.  It is also in the "Black female literary canon" among many scholars- Although Morrison herself would argue that this particular canon should not exist.

I would recommend Beloved for any poetry lover, or anyone who reads for the beauty of words.  Anyone who is trying to read Times 100 novels, and anyone who has a great appreciation for 20th century literature.

Read all TIMES 100 novels

Today I am checking off...

American Pastoral written by Philip Roth.
It took me quite a while to get through this book. I feel like I said that about the last book on this list. The kindle has seriously made me underestimate the thickness of a novel but I have a feeling this one was pretty long.
I have never read a book by Philip Roth until this one. Roth is a very detailed writer. I enjoyed this book because the whole story is a flashback of the All-American-Boy Swede Levov, whose life turns out to not be so picture perfect as everyone around him thought it was going to be. In high school he was the city champ of practically every sport, joined the marine to serve his country, and after the marines ended up marrying Miss New Jersey,not to mention being a very wealthy man from taking over his father's glove business. Picture perfect American right? Until his daughter ruins everything.
I give it 3 out of 5 stars, only because it took me forever to read it and it wasn't a page turner for me. But I did like it, I enjoyed the sequence of events and the writing of course.

Favorite quote from American Pastoral... "What was astonishing to him was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for. It was as though while their lives were rich and full they were secretly ski of themselves and couldn't wait to dispose of their sanity and their health and all sense of proportion so as to get down to that other self, the true self, who was a wholly deluded fuckup."

Read Times 100 Best Novels

Time's list of the 100 Best novels

I want to read every novel on this list. As of today these are the titles that I have already completed reading…
“Atonement” (2002)- Ian McEwan (Great story. Favorite quote: “The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse)
“Gone with the Wind” (1936)- Margaret Mitchell (This is my all time favorite novel. So much better than the movie, although the movie is very good too. Favorite quote and let me be cliche: “My dear, I don’t give a damn”. I have always wanted to say that to someone!)
“The Great Gasby” (1925)- Scott Fitzgerald (Who hasn’t read “The Great Gasby”? I enjoyed it better the second time around)
“Light in August” (1932)- William Faulkner (I am not going to lie, this was a slow painful read)
“Lord of the Flies” (1955)- William Golding (Don’t remember a lot of it, except a lot of talk about how Piggy liked boys? Might have to go back and re-read it)
“The Lord of the Rings” (1954)- J.R.R. Tokien (Epic Adventure)
“To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960)- Harper Lee (All I remember is that no actual mockingbirds were harmed in the making of this book)
WOW 7 out of 100! I have a lot of reading to do! Guess my feminists pieces didn’t make the cut, such as “The Awakening” or “O! Pioneers”. Probably because they were terrible. Classics…but terrible terrible torture.