reading list

Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Nabokov

published: 1936, read: 6/3/25

240 pages, genre: Fiction

rating: 7.5/10, normalized: 7.222/10

0.224σ better than average

0.257σ or 0.277/10 better than average in Fiction genre

0.098σ or 0.083/10 better than average by Vladimir Nabokov

Kafka-esque indictment of context switching in which a man sentenced to death for the ambiguous crime of gnostical turpitude, and the time of his execution is kept a secret from him, thus preventing him from endeavoring to complete any significant work.

There was a paragraph a page and a half long, where all of the words started with the letter P

The compensation for death is knowledge of the precise time. Yet he is being subjected to the same conditions as those who live with liberty

The abstract concept of cold must have as its concrete form my body

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6/3/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Invitation to a Beheading	240	1936	Fiction	7.500	7.222
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7/10/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Look at the Harlequins!	224	1974	Fiction	8.286	8.095
7/7/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Transparent Things	127	1972	Fiction	8.250	8.056
6/24/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle	500	1969	Fiction	6.550	6.167
6/19/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Pnin	208	1957	Fiction	7.650	7.389
6/9/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Bend Sinister	272	1947	Fiction	7.250	6.944
6/7/25	Vladimir Nabokov	The Gift	384	1938	Fiction	6.250	5.833
5/31/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Laughter in the Dark	304	1933	Fiction	7.350	7.056
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5/8/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Mary	144	1926	Fiction	7.250	6.944
4/20/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Glory	224	1932	Fiction	6.750	6.389
4/19/25	Vladimir Nabokov	Despair	240	1934	Fiction	7.000	6.667
4/18/25	Vladimir Nabokov	The Luzhin Defense	280	1930	Fiction	7.850	7.611
10/25/24	Vladimir Nabokov	The Real Life of Sebastian Knight	236	1941	Fiction	7.150	6.833
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10/2/25	Brett Easton Ellis	The Informers	240	1994	Fiction	7.000	6.667
9/29/25	John Williams	Stoner	278	1965	Fiction	8.250	8.056
9/18/25	Fyodor Dostoevsky	Poor Folk	288	1846	Fiction	6.750	6.389		Tommy A.
9/16/25	David Foster Wallace	Brief Interviews with Hideous Men	288	1999	Fiction	8.633	8.481
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8/25/25	Roberto Bolaño	Amulet	154	1999	Fiction	7.000	6.667
8/9/25	Toni Morrison	Song of Solomon	338	1977	Fiction	7.350	7.056		Ben Roth
8/7/25	Roberto Bolaño	Monsieur Pain	134	1999	Fiction	8.100	7.889
8/6/25	Denis Johnson	Train Dreams	116	2002	Fiction	7.450	7.167		Ben Roth
8/6/25	Christina Brooke-Rose	Amalgamemnon	152	1984	Fiction	7.250	6.944		Dasha
8/5/25	Thomas Pynchon	The Crying of Lot 49	152	1965	Fiction	8.750	8.611		Preston
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7/31/25	William Faulkner	As I Lay Dying	288	1930	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Dasha
7/14/25	Mark Z. Danielewski	The Fifty Year Sword	280	2005	Fiction	5.500	5.000
7/4/25	Dino Buzzati	The Tartar Steppe	198	1940	Fiction	7.650	7.389		Ben Roth
5/31/25	Gillian Flynn	Sharp Objects	252	2006	Fiction	7.000	6.667
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5/24/25	Herman Melville	Bartleby the Scrivener	74	1853	Fiction	7.000	6.667		Ben Roth
4/18/25	Jane Austen	Sense and Sensibility	432	1811	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Emma
4/15/25	David Foster Wallace	The Pale King	636	2011	Fiction	7.750	7.500
4/14/25	Elisa Shua Dusapin	The Pachinko Parlor	164	2018	Fiction	7.850	7.611
2/7/25	James Joyce	Ulysses	732	1920	Fiction	8.181	7.978
1/30/25	Leo Tolstoy	The Death of Ivan Ilyich	128	1886	Fiction	6.750	6.389		King
1/29/25	Hubert Selby Jr.	Requiem for a Dream	288	1978	Fiction	7.500	7.222
1/21/25	Kaveh Akbar	Martyr!	352	2024	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Tommy A.
1/14/25	James Baldwin	Go Tell it on the Mountain	272	1952	Fiction	8.000	7.778
1/12/25	James Baldwin	If Beale Street Could Talk	197	1974	Fiction	6.250	5.833
1/10/25	James Baldwin	Giovanni's Room	159	1956	Fiction	6.500	6.111
1/10/25	Anthony Burgess	A Clockwork Orange	243	1962	Fiction	7.500	7.222
1/4/25	Khaled Hosseini	Kite Runner	371	2003	Fiction	6.750	6.389
12/26/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	Notes from Underground	168	1864	Fiction	7.500	7.222		Tommy A.
12/10/24	Neal Stephenson	Zodiac	316	1988	Fiction	7.000	6.667
11/6/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	The Gambler	191	1866	Fiction	6.500	6.111
11/5/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	The Double	144	1846	Fiction	6.250	5.833
10/30/24	David Foster Wallace	Infinite Jest	1451	1996	Fiction	10.000	10.000
10/25/24	Various	40 x 40	394	2003	Fiction	7.500	7.222
10/20/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	The Idiot	486	1869	Fiction	7.125	6.806		Tommy A.
10/18/24	John Kennedy Toole	A Confederacy of Dunces	405	1980	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Tommy A.
10/13/24	Italo Calvino	Invisible Cities	179	1972	Fiction	5.500	5.000
10/1/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	Crime and Punishment	527	1866	Fiction	7.286	6.984		Tommy A.
9/30/24	Jorge Luis Borges	The Zahir	13	1949	Fiction	7.250	6.944
9/26/24	Haruki Murakami	Kafka on the Shore	505	2002	Fiction	5.875	5.417
9/25/24	Franz Kafka	In the Penal Colony	33	1919	Fiction	7.500	7.222
9/25/24	Ray Bradbury	The Veldt	13	1950	Fiction	6.500	6.111
9/19/24	William Faulkner	Light in August	498	1932	Fiction	7.350	7.056
9/9/24	Thomas Pynchon	V.	545	1963	Fiction	7.221	6.912
8/14/24	Fyodor Dostoevsky	The Brothers Karamazov	898	1880	Fiction	8.654	8.504		Tommy A.
8/5/24	Brian O'Raleigh	Passage to Inis Mór	305	2020	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Grandpa
6/28/24	Te-Ping Chen	The Land of Big Numbers	236	2021	Fiction	5.625	5.139
6/26/24	Various	American Short Fiction Vol. 9, Issue 33	128	2006	Fiction	7.625	7.361
6/20/24	James Joyce	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man	299	1916	Fiction	6.500	6.111
6/7/24	Philip Roth	Everyman	193	2006	Fiction	4.500	3.889
6/6/24	Jorge Luis Borges	Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius	16	1940	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Chabon
6/3/24	Cormac McCarthy	The Road	257	2006	Fiction	7.500	7.222		Chabon
5/17/24	Neil Gaiman	American Gods	518	2001	Fiction	5.125	4.583		Nick W.
4/9/24	Roberto Bolaño	2666: A Novel	912	2004	Fiction	8.150	7.944		roon
3/21/24	John Steinbeck	East of Eden	601	1952	Fiction	8.688	8.542		Jack H.
2/19/24	Ray Bradbury	Mars is Heaven	12	1948	Fiction	8.000	7.778
9/1/23	Máirtín Ó Cadhain	Graveyard Clay	328	1949	Fiction	6.750	6.389
12/13/22	Adam Silvera	They Both Die at the End	243	2017	Fiction	2.000	1.111
7/25/22	Ray Bradbury	The Illustrated Man	256	1969	Fiction	7.500	7.222
6/13/22	Stephen King	The Institute	576	2019	Fiction	6.500	6.111
6/12/19	Stephen King	The Stand	1153	1978	Fiction	8.500	8.333		Dad
4/20/18	Anthony Powell	The Acceptance World A Dance to the Music of Time (3)	353	1955	Fiction	6.750	6.389		Steg
4/17/18	Anthony Powell	A Buyer's Market A Dance to the Music of Time (2)	292	1952	Fiction	6.750	6.389		Steg
4/15/18	Anthony Powell	A Question of Upbringing A Dance to the Music of Time (1)	230	1951	Fiction	6.750	6.389		Steg
3/10/18	Virginia Woolf	Mrs. Dalloway	224	1925	Fiction	6.500	6.111		Steg
11/12/17	Kazuo Ishiguro	Never Let Me Go	304	2005	Fiction	4.000	3.333
10/15/17	William Golding	Lord of the Flies	189	1954	Fiction	7.000	6.667
9/1/17	Hunter S. Thompson	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	225	1971	Fiction	6.000	5.556		Alex W.
8/12/17	Kurt Vonnegut	Slaughterhouse Five	190	1969	Fiction	7.750	7.500		Sean G.
6/21/17	Fredrik Backman	And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer	96	2016	Fiction	9.000	8.889		Mom
5/27/17	Franz Kafka	The Trial	150	1925	Fiction	7.500	7.222
2/15/17	Frank O'Connor	The Drunkard	6	1948	Fiction	8.000	7.778
10/20/16	Charles Dickens	A Tale of Two Cities	544	1859	Fiction	6.750	6.389
10/10/16	William Faulkner	The Sound and the Fury	326	1927	Fiction	8.250	8.056		Steg
5/20/16	J.D. Salinger	Catcher in the Rye	232	1951	Fiction	3.000	2.222
5/20/16	Kurt Vonengut	Timequake	278	2011	Fiction	8.250	8.056		Sean G.
9/11/14	Guy De Maupassant	The Prisoners	24	1880	Fiction	7.500	7.222
3/15/13	Richard Connell	The Most Dangerous Game	18	1924	Fiction	7.250	6.944		Mom

reading list

Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Nabokov

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