(tr) - read in translation

Best of

• (not new) Wszystko czerwone by Joanna Chmielewska - for quality & for serving as an injection of a healthy life attitude
• My Childhood (Gorky)
• (not new) The Luzhin Defense
• that only bit of Don Quixote that I've read (300 pages from vol. 2)
• several essays by Chukovsky about RU writers and poets (Block, Gorky, Akhmatova, Zoshenko)

Finished

• Joanna Chmielewska
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Boczne drogi (1976), Dec 14
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Krokodyl z Kraju Karoliny (1969), Dec 13
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Wszyscy jesteśmy podejrzani (1966), Dec 12 (some big laughs in the beginning; not edgy; strange thing: feels like absent-minded book)
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Dwie głowy i jedna noga (1996), Dec 11 (kind of boring, but she is still a good storyteller here, although the comedic edge went away totally; there is repetitiveness here, but it works out fine bc it is presented as an inner monologue, and people do go in circles when doing it, so...)
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Klin (1964), Dec 8
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Wszystko czerwone (1974) (reread for the 1st time since early teens), Dec 5 (read in one day, laughed wildly at least 5 times)
• PG Wodehouse
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Ring for Jeeves (reread for the 1st time in 7 years), Dec 1
  • ✔ 1x (tr) The Code of The Woosters (reread for the 1st time in 8-9 years), Nov 29
• ✔ 1x The Luzhin Defence by Nabokov (reread for the 1st time in 10 years), Oct 22
• Michael Stelmakh
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Shedryy vetcher (1967)(Sept 5), for the 1st time since childhood
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Gusi-lebedi letyat (1964) (Sept 3), for the 1st time since childhood
• ✔ 1x (tr) Oliver Twist (1838) by Dickens (Aug 29)
• ✔ 1x (tr) Bambi by Felix Salten (translated, "recapped" version), for the 1st time since childhood (Aug 7)
• Maksim Gorky
  • ✔ 1x My Universities (Jul 30)
  • ✔ 1x My Childhood (1914), early July
• ✔ 1x Gore ot uma by Griboyedov (Jul 20)
• ✔ 1x The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (Jul 19)
• ✔ 1x (tr) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (June 10)
• ✔ 1x (tr) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (May 18)
• Robert Louis Stevenson
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Kidnapped (1886) (May 24)
  • ✔ 1x (tr) The Wrecker by RL Stevenson and his stepson
  • ✔ 1x (tr) The Suicide Club (Apr 19)
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Apr 17)
  • ✔ 1x (tr) Treasure Island, for the 1st time since childhood.
• Audio, for diction/intonation
  • ✔ 1x The Humpbacked Horse

Willing to reread

• Robinson Crusoe

Didn't finish:

• and probably won't come back
  • a full collection of Edgar Poe' short stories (they just vary in quality too much! also, I was reading them in translation and it wasn't perfect for some of the stories), Nov 2014
• but I think I might come back
  • Don Quixote (read 1/3 of the 2nd volume), Nov 2014 (was enlightening re. my issues in communicating with people, but the writing style is like a one-trick pony and the book had a paralyzing effect on me; I still fell liek one day I should def-ly read it fully, and Nabokov's critique of it as well)
  • Bleak House (didactic stuff & the length of the book are just too much; gotta come back and analyze the speeches of that explanatory-rhetoric-rich guy)
  • Martin Chuzzlewit (to come back only for comedy-learning reasons, definitely not planning on reading the book fully)
  • Absalom, Absalom! (read abt 1/2 (the beginning and the end)? it's not my book at all - it seems to be a one-trick pony (that dramatic device of "waves" with opening-closing, with moments of sun in-between the "waves"), I don't have such shades of darkness inside and stay away from people with it bc I just get the feeling of being contaminated otherwise; also it seems the book is important in the context of American culture/mentality? and that's why it doesn't translate well to my lifeview. Also, maybe in EN the language provides some enjoyment and the translation I was reading wasn't that good?