Slaughterhouse Five

I finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut yesterday. The book is inspired by his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden in World War II. It's the only World War II novel I've ever read that also features time travel and space aliens! Vonnegut is an innovative writer and in Slaughterhouse Five he plays with non-linear storytelling, motifs and an alien philosophy on life. Definitely worth reading.

27 down, 73 to go... This was another short one but I'm going to tackle the mammoth A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth next. I've got some holiday books to finish first and some BookCrossing book-rings on the way but I'll get to it soon.

References for the list

I have been asked what references I used when compiling this list.

The first port of call was my friend Betsi's list, which is her adaptation of a number of other lists.

I altered it according to my own ideas to make it more international and include more contemporary works. I also discussed it with people on the BookCrossing forum who gave me lots of ideas.

I had a look at the BBC Big Read but this was not particularly useful for my purposes as it is a) based on popularity with the general public and b) for all time not just the twentieth century.

The Folio Society's books of the 20th century is worth a look but it's not all fiction. Maybe that's one for another project?

There are also the following lists:

• Time magazine
  
• Random House
  
• The Obsever (but again, this is a list of all time not the twentieth century)
  
• There is even a list of lists

Waiting for the Barbarians

I have just finished reading Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M.Coetzee, the South African writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. The book was published in 1980 and is set in an outpost settlement of an Empire in no particular time and place but it has resonance for all times and seems particularly poignant in the light of recent history.

The story is about an aging Magistrate who desires nothing more than to live out his days in obscurity but is thrust into the thick of imperial politics when the Empire decides to crack down on the neighbouring Barbarians. His attempts to protect the Barbarians from the barbarity of the Empire lead to him being imprisoned and tortured as an enemy of the state and a brush with madness. The book is ultimately about the struggle, both internal and external, of decency against political expediency and what happens when a regime puts survival over justice.

It's brilliantly done - very complex and subtle and not at all didactic. It's a very short book - at 156 pages in my paperback edition it's really more a novella. Although it's got great intellectual heft, it's not a difficult read.

It's interesting too that Coetzee, who lived through the Apartheid era in South Africa, is now choosing to live out his life in the obscure outpost settlement of Adelaide in South Australia.

This is the second book I have read by Coetzee; the first was Disgrace, which was good but not a patch on this.

This was a BookCrossing copy. Please see here for all journal entries.

26 down, 74 to go...