League of Extraordinary Books

New Item:
Walled Towns by Ralph Adams Cram (1919)
Essay on the problems of capitalism and communism and how we should all go live in a commune to get away from them both. Not the most original of ideas but this commune is a little different from most, its a sort of Omish / gated community / renaissance fair. Based on the walled towns and guild system of the medieval period. [3/5]

Old Item:
Meccania the Super-State by Owen Gregory (1918)
A chinese diplomat gets a tour of a sort of 1984 style police state. Its pretty interesting and creepy. One problem is that he never really gets to interview individual citizens but thats part of the state system and the lack of personal interaction or real information IS the real information. [4/5]

New Item:
A Voyage to the Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac (1657)
This claims to be a comedy and i expected something like the satire of Gullivers Travels, however while there is some of that there is far more focus on scientific and philosophical discussions. Its a little hard to understand in places but the ideas discussed are really interesting. [3/5]

Old Item:
The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham (1908)
A nasty tale of an evil magician who turns a woman who insults him into his personal sex-slave. I'm sure theres probably a Manga of this story somewhere ;(. For me this was a really difficult read until near the end when the woman was removed from the picture, then it seemed quite B-Movieish, like an episode of Tales from the Crypt or something. Others not as sensitive to the rape stuff as I, may just read the whole story like a B-Movie. [3/5]

New Item:
Blondel and King Richard by Joseph Noel Wailly (1876)
Short legend of the minstrel Blondel and how he helped rescue Richard the Lionheart from the dungeon of the King of Austria. [2/5]

Old Item:
Mysta of the Moon comic (1945-1952)
Old fashioned comic with a surprisingly strong female protagonist. Set in a post-apocalyptic future Mysta tries to guide the recovering human civilizations.
I got this strange theory in my head that in the meta-world of the 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', Mysta may in fact be Mina Murray in disguise. There are a number of similarities between Mysta and Alan Moore's Mina character.
(comics can be found on Lady, Thats my Skull blog) [4/5]

New Item:
The Goddess Of Atvatabar by William R. Bradshaw (1892)
There's a lot of interesting things in this book, not least of which is the very iffy reforms to utopia that the so called hero makes at the end.
This is about a ship which finds a way into the inner earth which turns out to be hollow. They then discovered the utopian society of Atvatabar.
Theres mecanical wing suits and giant mechanical ostriches, flying ships etc. Plus weird half plant half animal things and an interesting religion and social structure. Also actual magic, which is powered by magnets and celibacy! (and no that isn't a typo ).
The 3rd Act turns into a very pulpy adventure story with flying battles reminiscent of that 80's Flash Gordon movie with the Hawk-Men. BUT none of this compensates for the authors terrible inability to stop describing shiny things. Palaces, jewels, sculptures, dresses, furniture, it just goes on and on and on. So glad i got through it and lots to think about, but can't recommend it. [2/5]

Old Item:
three issues of Captain Mors the Air Pirate (1911)
Unfortunately i could only find 3 issues of this story in english. Its about an engineer who uncovers a plot by some businessmen to start a revolt in Russia for financial gain. The engineer has various flying machines such as a plane, helicopter and rocket ship aswell as a fortified island base from which he fights the conspirators and there mercenaries. Its quite decent pulp. [3/5]

New Item:
120 days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade (1785)
Whatever you may have heard, its worse. The frame story is about 4 of the vilest bastards to walk the earth. They retreat to a remote castle to be able to indulge themselves without fear of interruption. Those they take with them include 16 kidnapped teens aged 12-15, 8 boys and 8 girls. The main point of the story is a catalogue of every sexual fetish the author can imagine. Some are told each day by 4 storytellers who accompany the group.
Only the first 30 days are told in detail the rest is just sketched as the work was never finished. Just to give some idea of how dark things get, of the 46 participants at the castle only 16 make it out alive.
The score i've given this is only based on the quality of the writing NOT on the content.
NO ONE should read this except maybe people who want to be Profilers like on 'Criminal Minds'. [3/5]

Old Items:
Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe (1846) [2/5]
Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (1839) [2/5]
Not much to say about Amontillado its ok, nothing special. In Usher, Poe does a great job of building atmosphere, unfortunately the atmosphere he chooses is one of dullness and depression. Dullness isn't scary its just dull, so trying to make this into a horror story simply doesn't work.

New Item:
Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback (1912)
A pulpy sci-fi romance. The first half is really just a tour of New York circa 2660 and a chance to show off various sci-fi inventions. Its quite interesting if a little dry at times. The second-half is more devoted to the romance adventure, as Ralph has to deal with two rivals who are in love with his girlfriend. Its surprisingly gripping and with a real sense of danger.
The sci-fi stuff is mostly based on outmoded scientific principals but that didn't bother me. A small complaint, it would have been nice to have more info on the Martians. In addition the world doesn't seem to have advanced socially nearly as much as it has technologically. Overall though really good pulp. [4/5]

Old Items:
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
Surprisingly good crime/horror short story, despite knowing the ending due to cultural absorption. [3/5]

The Thousand and Second Tale of Scherezade by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
Scherezade from the 'Arabian Nights', tells one more outlandish tale to put off her execution but this one is based on real phenomenon.
So you hear of a monster which can push a boulder bigger than itself that turns out to be a dung beetle etc.
Its kind of funny especially the ending, but the idea is better than the implementation. [3/5]

New Item:
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James De Mille (1888)
A seemingly usual tale of lost civilization and rescue the princess, avoid the dinosaurs type story, but those are mostly background details.
Its a look at a civilization which truly embraces the self-sacrifice teachings of many religious orders, which turns out to be pretty terrifying when you see it in practice . As this single concept can't sustain an entire book and things start to drag, a love triangle appears (not unlike the one in the 80's Flash Gordon movie, with Ming's daughter) which keeps things interesting until the finale.
A very odd thing about all this is the occasional interruption by those reading the found manuscript. These characters feel like they were written by P.G. Wodehouse and are completely at odds tonally with the rather dark story. They also analysis and criticize the texts language, geography and descriptions as if the author was a bit desperate to justify himself.
It started to lose me a few times but kept dragging me back in. [3/5]

Old Item
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865) [2/5]
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (1871) [2/5]
Both of these are like listening to someone tell you a dream they had once. Impossible for me to care. Despite being much shorter than you'd think it still managed to bore me. Only good part of either for me was the 'Jabberwocky' poem, which is awesome!

Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll (1876)
Carrol should have stuck to poetry this is quite decent non-sense. [3/5]

New Item:
Some Words with a Mummy by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
Quite a funny short tale about some people who accidentally wake up an egyptian mummy. Started off really well but later they start arguing over who's civilization is better and the humor felt more dated.
I'm sure this was a big influence on the 'Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec' comics (and now a movie). [3/5]

Old Item:
Seven Voyages of Sindbad ed. Andrew Lang (1898)
A tough read for me as are all folk/fairytales. But it makes up for it with the content. This is NOT the Sindbad your familiar with. It's amazing to think they got all those films from this source.
You know he's only called 'the Sailor' because he travels by boat a lot, thats like calling someone 'the Pilot' cause they use a lot of air-travel!
He's also a coward, remarkably docile in captivity and with a nasty habit of figuring ways out of a trap once everyone ELSE is dead. Oh and the 3rd voyage, wow!! it really says everything you need to know about this guy :lol . [3/5]
(read from the Arabian Nights)

Edit: ooops that should have said 4th Voyage above not 3rd.

New Items:
Tannhauser by Richard Wagner (1843)
Text of an opera about a guy who falls for Venus and after leaves her as endless pleasure becomes tiresome. Having sinned by indulging in physical pleasure he asks god for forgiveness and is granted it, for the low low price of his would-be girlfriend killing herself. God really is a bit of a tool. [3/5]

Under the Hill by Aubrey Beardsley (1897)
Beardsley is more of an artist than a writer apparently, the drawings in this are quite odd looking. Its about a man who goes to a party under the hill much like the opera above, except Venus is referred to as Helen in this instance.
After the party the protagonist does a sort of list of his favorite erotic pictures and novels and then its pretty much over.
I don't really get it, its supposed to be filth and i got the occasional hint of that with women wearing false-mustaches and certain suggestive elements at the end between Helen and her pet unicorn Adolphe... but it felt pointless. [1/5]

Old Item:
The Purple Terror by Fred M. White (1898)
Short tale about a dangerous piece of jungle. Nothing special. [2/5]

New Item:
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
A sort of biography of someone who was in Dresden when it was bombed in WWII. The technique of telling a persons life story by jumping back and forth to different events, is not original. But here the author just goes with it literally, making the protagonist a time-travel who jumps randomly to different parts of his own life.
Add some aliens and a bunch of absurd events many of which might well be true, and you've got yourself enough honey to help the reader swallow this story. A tale which is poignant, dark and depressing, in which thousands of people die for reasons which remain foggy at best. [4/5]

Old Item:
The Birds by Aristophanes (414 BC)
Text of an ancient greek play, which i believe won a Silver at the Olympics. I can't imagine what won the gold this was really quite good. A group of birds decide to rebel against the gods and put heaven under siege. Things do not go how i expected them too :lol.
One of the most interesting things is Basileia who is effectively Zeus's secretary and the person who actually organizes the heavens. Its an oddly modern idea to have an organization being held together by the middle-management types rather than the executives .
(This play is were the phrase Cloud Cuckoo Land comes from.) [3/5]

New Item:
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (1952)
This is a work of folklore or fairytale, a bit like the seven voyages of sindbad in the Arabian Nights, or maybe a bit like Alice in Wonderland.
Its written in broken english and is very imaginative. If it had been really short i'd probably have scored it a 4/5 but all it has going for it for me is its novelty factor. Personally i find fairy-tales or things like Alice in Wonderland to be quite boring and difficult to read and by the end of this i'd lost interest. [2/5]

Old Item:
Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (1957)
Nothing to say really. [3/5]
So i'll just add a link to some awesome H.P. Lovecraft tales done in Dr.Seuss style http://drfaustusau.deviantart.com/gallery/ .

New Item:
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (1934)
Just a very solid noir. Surprisingly i was able to keep track of the different characters with relative ease. The conversational style of dialogue and some of the 30's slang can get a little confusing, but only a very little. The end came a little quick but it was a very nice ride.
I tend to quite dislike most crime stories but evidently that doesn't extend to noir. [5/5]

Old Items:
Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges (1947) [3/5]
Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges (1941) [4/5]
Two of Borges odd little stories. I think he may lose a bit in the translation but who knows. They're still pretty good. The 'Library of Babel' is obviously a big influence on the one from Terry Pratchetts discworld series.

New Item:
Sorrow in Sunlight by Ronald Firbank (1925)
A fairly short social comedy. A bit like the 'Beverly Hill Billys', country folk move to big city and try to fit into high society.
A LOT better than expected given the alternative title 'the Prancing ******'. Apparently the american publishers suggested that change so i forgive the author, plus the story is very surprisingly unracist. The N-word is only used by one person who's black and is only used as a term of endearment for her husband.
But there are other problems, the writing can be quite confusing at times and i mean apart from the fact that most of it is written in what i can only describe as a Jamaican accent. Its also often difficult to work out who's talking and there are references which only someone of the time could probably get. Still mildly entertaining though. [3/5]

Old Item:
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (1953)
Some say the version of Bond who appears in LOeG is based on the films and doesn't reflect Fleming's version but having read this that is clearly wrong. This version of Bond is just as incompetent and vile as his LOeG counterpart.
In particular there are two thoughts he has while thinking of Agent Vesper that are truly disturbing.
Overall this is about what i expected from a Bond story except for what i mentioned above. [2/5]

Edit:Oh i got censored, that was the N-word above.

New Item:
Adventures of two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg by Bertha Upton (1895)
A nice rhyming kids story (if you can ignore the inherent racism of a golliwog).
If your familiar with the LoEG version of the golliwog, the Galley-Wag as he likes to call himself, you'll see a lot of similarities here. Everything is more innocent of course but you can clearly see the origin of Moore's more adult versions.
Also an african doll turns up at one point, drawn in a much less racist way than the golliwog. It's very stange to have a black doll and a golliwog in the same place, it makes the golliwog really stand out as something 'Other'.
Which of course matchs the LoEG version were the Galley-Wag is actually an alien made of darkmatter. [3/5]

Old Item:
On The Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
A story of some losers who sponge money off their relatives and drive across country listening to jazz and trying to have sex with anything that moves. Its fine if a little too realistic.
It may have seemed incredible at the time with its stream-of-consciousness writing style but i can't say it blew my mind. [3/5]

The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock (1965)
That was a strange one. Kind of like one of those weird 70's spy series, 'Man from Uncle' or 'Sapphire and Steel' which i think involved time travel... Anyway this has some of that, shoot-outs, strange technologies, pursuits etc.
One of the oddest things is that sometimes you can't tell whether to take things literally or figuratively.
Its just got a really nice writing style and good ideas. [5/5]

Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (1894)
If you've seen the film 'Dave' with Kevin Klein, then you already know this story. Things are slightly different than the film version and its set in a sort of pre-world war one era.
The name of the fictional country from this book, 'Ruritania', has been used in a number of things so you might come across that elsewhere.
Its decent but the romance isn't as compelling as the film. There is a sequel to this though so that might be worth a look. [3/5]

New Item:
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948)
Short tale mixing the mundane with the horrific. Its pretty good but i knew what i was getting before reading it. Even so it did stay with me for a few days. [3/5]

Old Item:
Palos of the Dog Star Pack by J.U. Giesy (1918)
Tale of a man who can astral project himself. Becoming obsessed with the star Sirius, he projects himself to it and thence to an orbiting planet, Palos.
It makes a good start but after that descends into a fairly conventional sword-and-planet story. The main problem is the lack of suspense. The protagonists ability coupled with his access to earths technology, which is far beyond that of Palos, mean that there is never really any chance of him failing.
By the end he was using tanks against swordsmen it was just so one sided and hence boring. [2/5]

New Items:
short stories by Jorge Luis Borges

Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote (1939)
A tale of an author writing a new version of Don Quixote. Its completely identical in every way to the original but it's totally new, confused? good me too, but it was interesting in its absurdity . [3/5]

Death and the Compass (1942)
A nice riff on the classic Dupin or Holmes detective stories. [4/5]

The Zahir (1949)
A fantastic idea but let down a little by the style. I've had an experience like this when a tune got stuck in my head one night. Next day i couldn't tell whether it happened when i was asleep or awake but i was genuinely scared for the next 2 weeks, worrying i might remember the tune and then not be able to forget it again. [3/5]

The Aleph (1945)
This feels like a few different stories stuck together. The quality goes up and down, averaging out to decent. [3/5]

Brodie's Report (1970)
An encounter with the Yahoo's from Gulliver's Travels, but i just didn't see the point or feel i got anything of interest from it. [1/5]

Undr (1975)
An interesting albeit vague tale. It seems to have been influenced by Robert E.Howard's Conan stories. [3/5]

The Book of Sand (1975)
An interesting idea but nothing more and with no sense of payoff. [2/5]


Old Item:
Christianopolis by Johann Valentin Andreae (1619)
Utopian civilization description, build around a god-awful (pardon the pun) monastery build like a fortress. Boring as hell (oops there i go again ). [1/5]

New Items:
Exploits and Opinions of Dr.Faustroll by Alfred Jarry (1911)
A surreal boat trip, utter garbage. You can't even picture its absurdities due to the impenetrable style of writing. Keeping a dictionary beside you might help a very little. Also its made up of references or homages to other works few of which i or anyone else is likely to have read.
There are many other things which make it hard to read, such as its scientific references or mathematical jokes.
But i know this must be ART. I can tell because i got the exact same feeling from this as i do when i see a sculpture worth a €100,000, made out of cat-teeth and the artists own faeces. [1/5]

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning (1855)
A nicely dark poem about a knight on a quest which has already claimed the lives of many.[3/5]

Camiola and Roland by William Painter (1567)
Short tale, possibly true if i'm to believe wikipedia, about a noble who is ransomed from an enemy prison in exchange for a vow of marriage. After he gets out of course he denies ever having made the vow and the insulted woman makes him a public disgrace. [3/5]


Old Item:
The Secrets of Dr.Taverner by Dion Fortune (1926)
As supernatural detective fiction goes, this is quite good. It's about a doctor who runs an asylum but is a sort of wizard on the side and each chapter is a different 'monster-of-the-week' style story about a patient. It covers the usual assortment, ghosts, dark magic, past lives, nature spirits etc. [3/5]

New Item:
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois (1947)
Enjoyable children's adventure tale about a man discovering a secret society. A bit like 'The Beach' or 'The Village' but without the darkness.
The story starts off quite similar to the movie 'Up!'. A 66 year old man decides to spend a year ballooning to get away from things. He's a retired schoolteacher and therefore really dislikes children. Since he is going to be up there for so long he designs the basket of the balloon to resemble a small house complete with balustrade all around like a porch.
Its funny and interesting, however it loses some suspense since it's told in flashback so you already know the ending. [3/5]

Old Item:
A Voyage to Cacklogallinia by Samuel Brunt (1727)
Said to have been the inspiration for Gulliver's Travels. A Gulliver like social satire about a man who gets washed up on an island run by giant chickens. Later the chickens make an expedition to the moon to mine for gold.
Its great stuff and still fairly relevant, especially the parts about investment schemes.[4/5]

New Item:
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1910)
Well that was a lot funnier than i expected. I've read the Discworld parody of this story 'Masquerade', but had no idea how close it sticks to the source material. Also given how funny this is in places, it hardly seems worth doing a parody of.
Its like when Scary Movie came out after Scream, which was practically a horror parody by itself.
Of course its not all laughs, there's murders and romance too but the story is just as operatic as the setting which keeps even the deaths from making things very scary or dark.
The only problem is the structure, it goes back in time a lot to show the same events from another perspective, this can be both good and bad.
In addition the ending might feel a little anti-climatic to some but it didn't bother me much. [4/5]

Old Item:
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1871)
The original lesbian-vampire story. The rules of vampirism in this tale are a bit different from what most readers would be used to but i found the differences pretty interesting. Also the strong sexual undertone makes it quite compelling. Downside is its length, its quite short and ends just as your getting into it. [3/5]

New Items:
The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1913)
Oh boy, i was not looking forward to this after my last Burroughs experience but you know what, it was pretty damn good.
A posh nerdy bookworm gets washed up on an island full of cavemen. He's helped by a girl who teaches him to survive and he eventually becomes the great warrior she already mistakenly beleives him to be.
Its good solid stuff with surprisingly strong characterization for a Burroughs story. [4/5]

The Cave Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1917)
The sequel and continuation of Cave Girl. This is a real mixed bag. There's some great dramatic turns in the plot but its marred by many last minute rescues and Deux Ex Machina's.
Also the author clearly didn't reread Cave Girl before writing this as there are a number of elements which contradict the previous story.
Luckily all the investment in the characters garnered in Cave Girl kept me interested despite the flaws. [3/5]


Old Item:
Maza of the Moon by Otis Adelbert Kline (1930)
Another decent pulp story. A Tony Stark-like protagonist accidentally starts a war with the Moon-Chinese (this section is a twist on Verne's story 'Earth to the Moon'). Yes in this all Chinese and presumably all other asians, are descended from moonmen.
If that sounds a bit racist then you would be right, the descriptions of the moon-chinese are particularly stereotypical. However overall the chinese people on earth are fairly dealt with.
There is of course the requisite princess (a caucassian, needless to say), there are also space-ships, deathrays, spacedragons, etc.
This is at least as pulp as 'Princess of Mars' but i still liked it. One great thing was the background material about a war between Mars and the Moon. That really helped give the story-world a bit of depth. [3/5]

PS: The idea that all chinese people are descended from moonmen isn't that much stranger than what the Chinese actually believe.
Most chinese believe that they evolved from Homo-Erectus, not Homo-Sapien, and are thus a distinct species from the rest of us.
A top chinese geneticist attempted to prove this theory recently but succeeded in proving the opposite. The Chinese are indeed just people like the rest of us.

New Items:
Lamia by John Keats (1819)
A fairly long and confused poem about a tragic love affair between and man and...maybe a snake, as i mentioned its confused. A beautiful woman was a snake but before she was a woman, then she's a woman again only she's later accused of always having been a snake soooo... i give up. Its a mess. [2/5]

The Time Garden by Edward Eager (1958)
A children's magical adventure very much in the vane of E.Nesbit stories. Unfortunately, it's constantly acknowledging how similar it is to the works of E.Nesbit, which does not help matters. It is especially unhelpful due to the fact that it is quite dissimilar in one respect, which is that it is nowhere near as imaginative.
It picks up quite a bit towards the end but is still fairly tame and boring compared to the predecessors it tries to ape. [2/5]


Old Item:
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer (1596)
Epic poem. I really like this. Its overly long and there are so many characters you'll definitely get confused and feel lost at times, however there are so many memorable moments. The action scenes are particularly good which seems weird for poetry. Diespite magic and monsters there is also an odd amount of realism to many incidents which i enjoyed.
Plus there is plenty of violence and sex which is stange for something which is a self-confessed christian allegory.
Due to its length there is plenty to dig into and i liked it enough to buy a copy despite reading it for free on my ereader. [4/5]

PS: I put some thoughts about this elsewhere on the net might aswell reprint it here...
So the Faerie Queene is quite important in terms of the League comics, in the comics you find out 'Queen Gloriana I' setup the creation of the 1st League and it seems as if Alan Moore is saying that the 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' comics are a spiritual successor to the Faerie Queene.
And theres plenty of evidence to support this, the Queene has this mix of lots of different story elements just like League.
Theres christian mythology, greek myth, oberon the faerie king gets a mention, theres a dragon that wouldn't be amiss in Lord of the Rings, at one point we hear the mythological version of the founding of Britain by Brutus, and of course King Arthur shows up.
So you have this mix of all these elements in the same way the League comics combine characters from different stories and theres further similarities.
Sex, violence, numerous attempted sexual assaults, strong female characters, archaic language, good action scenes etc. (i really don't know how the action scenes work so well in poetry but they just do :lol )
And lastly i was struck by how mature and real some the Faerie Queene is which is weird to say for poetry and a christian allegory, i expected something like He-Man with this endless march of victory but its not like that.
I think the Faerie Queene is to poetry what the League and other Alan Moore works are to comics. They are both far more real and interesting than i would have thought given the medium in which they are written.

New Item:
A Plunge into Space by Robert Cromie (1891)
I have heard that Jules Verne critisized H.G.Well's novel 'First Men in the Moon' as "unscientific" due to its use of an anti-gravity maguffin. I find this hard to credit however given his foreword to this book which uses the same idea.
In fact the books are so similar at least in there basic idea, that Cromie accused Wells of plagiarism despite the fact that Cromie was not the first to use such a concept.
Anyway luckily Wells didn't take any more ideas from this as it's pretty bad. It manages to make travel to another world incredibly boring which i suppose i should be impressed by as that must be hard to do.
Its incredibly verbose but still manages to be as vague as any pulp-fiction when it comes to technology. While it's social satire is occasionally interesting its romance is clunky and i can't imagine what the author's overall aim was. [2/5]

Old Item:
Aucassin and Nicolete by unknown (1200)
This is an odd one. It's half poetry and half prose. Its an epic romance but also has some absurd bits. There's fights, captures, disguise's etc. It also has a surprisingly strong heroine who really does far more than the guy. Overall it's a nice oddity and as i understand it unique in its form of storytelling.[3/5]

New Item:
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
I was not looking forward to this one. There have been a number of desert island type stories on my reading list so far, so i was not expecting anything new from the quintessential one. However this book did have one thing going for it which i haven't seen much of and that is a great deal of psychological realism.
Crusoe becomes religious and philosophical about being on the island which helps give the story a lot more depth than one might expect.
The realism continues in other ways, events which if told differently would seem too lucky or coincidental instead come across as the vicissitudes of real life.
Also the amount of work and various things Crusoe is able to make on the island is far more realistic than other books such as the Mysterious Island etc.
I still think it could have been shortened somewhat especially the ending but i can't deny its pretty good if you can stick with it and far better than i was expecting. [4/5]

Old Item:
Fattypuffs and Thinifers by Andre Maurois (1930)
Two brothers stumble across a strange underground land which is at war. One nation being made up of fat and lazy people the other of thin, miserly people.
Although decently written the more i think about it the less good it looks. There are a number of problems with it.
First the level of death and destruction which seems odd for a children's book of this sort. Second the protagonists really have no influence on the course of events and finally in a story with too such extreme elements the logical conclusion is the emergence of a happy medium but from what i can recall that doesn't happen.
Overall its ok, but i have no idea what the author's point was or what he was aiming to achieve with it. [3/5]

New Items:
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (1924)
Classic short story, can't say too much about it without giving it away but most people will be aware of the general outline.
A man washes up on a mysterious island where he finds a hunter who tells him he hunts the most dangerous type of game and invites him to join in.
I could have done with a few more descriptive details but overall it's a pretty good thriller/action story.
This has clearly had a great impact and you'll find its influence in books, comics, movies, tv shows etc. [4/5]

New Atlantis by Francis Bacon (1627)
An unfinished fragment of a utopian novel. Sailors discover a highly advanced christian society that wishes to keep its existence a secret from the outside world. There is some proto-scifi concerning the technology possessed by the island thats interesting given the age of the story, but overall not much to write home about. [2/5]


Old Item:
Fortunio by Theophile Gautier (1838)
A funny and relatively short social satire/romance. Its about a man who grew up with every want indulged and need met. He finally visits england where he was born and causes all the ladies to fall for him.
Its quite funny, for example it spends an entire chapter talking about the heroines pet cat.
The ending comes on rather abruptly and is a bit disappointing, also modern readers might be a little disturbed by Fortunios harem, his favorite wife being only 12 years old.
Its been a while since i read it and my memory of it seems to have gotten better with age, perhaps my score will be higher if i ever get around to a reread (which i might well do). [3/5]