Video...Testing Things Out

Hey guys, it's Shannon....just posting a quick video and just to let you know, you can check us out on youtube.com as well....I'll let rachel give you the links and stuff!! Only a few more days left of July and then August roles around and we get to start! I'm super excited! :)

yours truely,

Shannon

The First Two Books starting August 1st

Rachel's journey begins with the novel The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Shannon's journey begins wtih the novel A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

For those of you who are not farmiliar with these two books....

Both begin August 1 and have until August 8 to finish their first book :)

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The Adventures of Augie MArch by Saul Bellow (1953)
This novel centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression. This picaresque novel is an example of bildungsroman, tracing the development of an individual through a series of encounters, occupations and relationships from boyhood to manhood. Bellow explores the themes of belonging, poverty and wealth, love, and loss.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (2003)
This novel centers on a character in the late 1800s who grows through her teenage years by learning she has "magical" powers through a series of events, people, and places. With the help of her three friends at boarding school the main character develops. Bray explores the themes of belonging, love, friendship, and coming of age.

The Rules

When deciding to take on the project we decided there should also be some rules considering we are starting from two opposite sides of the list. The rules are as follows:


We must read one book per week
We can not spoil anything for the other reader
We must make one video documenting our opinions on each book
No spark notes (or anything of such sort)
Must read the book all the way thru regardless of our opinion on it

Our Booklist

The List:

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Dance to the Music by Anthony Powell
Deliverance by James Dickey
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Infinate Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Light in August by William Faulkner
Lord of the Flies by William Gold
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 by George Orwell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
White Noise by Don DeLillo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Paper Towns by John Green
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
Feathered by Laura Kasischke
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

We decided to read 43 of the New York Times 100 Best Novels and then chose 9 of our own. Some we have read, some we haven't. The ones we have read, we read again. Either way, this is going to be interesting....