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Bilirubin posted:Just read belle hooks Anything you recommend? I read Teaching to Transgress, but that's more about education. On a different note, I went back to look for my February update in order to do March, and apparently I typed the whole thing out and never actually hit yhe post button. So this is for both February and March, and I am sorry for failing! February 5. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This is my reread for the challenge. This was one of my favorite books when I read it years ago, and I feel find myself loving it. Something about the way Steinbeck writes makes me feel America. 6. Bear by Marian Engel. Read this with the bookclub. I feel like I missed some of the literary themes and whatnot. Bearplay. 7. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This was recommended to me by a friend and was a big surprise. I absolutely loved this book. Ignatius is a true goony bastard, and one of my favorite characters of all time. This past month I broke my hand so I had to get surgery and hadn’t felt like reading much. I’ve been working my way through Look Homeward, Angel, but I think I should have gone for something lighter. March 8. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. I read this for poetry. Is this poetry? I enjoyed it well enough, but it mostly made me interested in reading other poetry. 9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey. This was for my local bookclub. The first half of the book was slow and I didn’t like it, but at one point in the book things just took off and the second half flew by. I liked it a lot. I also found out it’s been banned/challenged, so there’s that challenge! 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 9/40 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 5/9 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 3/9 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 12. Read a book with an awesome cover. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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Apr 2, 2019 05:51
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1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 38/52 2. 3. 4.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. 23. Read a book about art. 24. goodreads Furious Lobster fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Apr 30, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 06:34
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cryptoclastic posted:Anything you recommend? I read Teaching to Transgress, but that's more about education.
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Apr 2, 2019 08:06
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March was a pretty good month for reading! I got slightly more than my average number of books done, finished all the Canada Reads in time, had a pretty good assortment of different topics. 15. Deborah Blum - The Poison Squad. Interesting, illuminating history of American food safety. 3/5. 16. Max Eisen - By Chance Alone. Pedestrian, weak concentration camp memoir. Wanted more. 2/5. 17. Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah & Winnie Yeung - Homes. Touching, effective refugee life story. 5/5. 18. Anais Barbeau-Laviolette - Suzanne. Searing, tragic tale of lives grown and broken. Poetic. 5/5. 19. Alison Bechdel - Fun Home. Literary, elegiac queer family memoir. 4/5. 20. Kay Kenyon - Serpent In The Heather. Superheroic, well-textured British spy fiction. 4/5. 21. Lindsay Wong - The Woo-Woo. Black, burning exploration of mental health in Chinese families. 4/5. 22. Carrianne Leung - That Time I Loved You. Intricate, interlocked stories of suburbia. 5/5. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 22/50 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 15/22 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 5/22 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 14. Read a poetry collection. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 20. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21. Read something in the public domain. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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Apr 3, 2019 03:39
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Dammit it turns out I only have 3 renewals and not 6 at the library so I have to take back like 10 books today.
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Apr 3, 2019 14:31
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Oh crap, I haven't posted ANYTHING this year. Well, here's January through March. January 1. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak 2. Mortal Engines (Predator Cities #1) - Philip Reeve 3. The Witch Elm - Tana French 4. Flashman at the Charge - George MacDonald Fraser 5. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh 6. The Overstory - Richard Powers 7. Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) - Octavia Butler 8. The Golden State - Lydia Kiesling 9. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 10. Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis #2) - Octavia Butler 11. The Winter of the Witch (Winternight #3) - Katherine Arden 12. Speak No Evil - Uzodinma Iweala 13. Imago (Xenogenesis #3) - Octavia Butler February 14. The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2) - S.A. Chakraborty 15. America is Not the Heart - Elaine Castillo 16. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier 17. The House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea 18. Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy #1) - Marlon James March 19. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism - Doris Kearns Goodwin 20. Predator's Gold (Predator Cities #2) - Philip Reeve 21. NW - Zadie Smith 22. Milkman - Anna Burns 23. Infernal Devices (Predator Cities #3) - Philip Reeve 24. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje 25. Matilda - Roald Dahl 26. A Darkling Plain (Predator Cities #4) - Philip Reeve Rather than doing a rundown of every single book as I originally planned... back in January... I'll post the highlights. The Predator Cities series (Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, A Darkling Plain) - Inspired to revisit this series by the (apparently terrible) film adaptation of the first, I found this post-apocalyptic cities-on-wheels series a whole lot of fun. There are pretty engaging characters, neat concepts (the aforementioned cities on wheels, among other things) and lots of twists and turns. Shame that the movie is terrible! America is Not the Heart - an immigration story with a lot of... well... heart. The main character, Hero, has just come over from the Phillippines to live with her relatives in California after being held as a political prisoner and tortured by the Marcos regime. It has a decent number of minority/LGBT themes, but is also just a very good read about families and learning to adjust to a new life. I loved it. Milkman - an unconventional story of a young woman in Ireland during the Troubles who catches the attention of an older man who is involved with the IRA. Well, that's kind of how it seems, though most every relevant detail - the location, the character's names, etc. - has been cut out. So the main character is "middle sister", her boyfriend is "maybe-boyfriend" and the revolutionary is "Milkman." It's a tough read, but brilliant - the way she talks about how women have to deal with an oppressive male environment and the culture that supports this. Black Leopard, Red Wolf - An African Lord of the Rings... of sorts. A group of mercenaries is gathered to find a missing boy and travel through strange and fantastical lands to find him. Marlon James, the author, is known for books like A Brief History of Seven Killings, which told the tale of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley through a number of perspectives. This one, on the other hand, is from the perspective of just one of the mercenaries, Tracker, who has the ability to track anyone by smell. It's likely that his perspective on the story is biased, so the other books in the trilogy will be from the perspective of others. I'm looking forward to them, because this one kicked rear end. The Secret History - One of my favorites that I revisited this year, it tells the story of two murders at a private school in New Hampshire and the privileged group of students that commits them. Brat Pack meets Crime and Punishment is how I like to describe it. The Bully Pulpit - I love Doris Kearns Goodwin's biographies, and this one followed Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, their friendship, and their eventual rift as Roosevelt started a third party bid to oust his old friend from the presidency. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. (27/50) 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 53% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 38% 4. Read a book by an author from every continent (N. America, S. America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania). 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 7. Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. - Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Kingdom of Copper, Winter of the Witch 12. Read a book with an awesome cover. 13. Reread a book. - Matilda, The Secret History, Doctor Zhivago 14. Read a poetry collection. 15. Read a collection of short stories. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. (Milkman somewhat carries these themes, but I wouldn't quite say it's "about" feminism) 18. Read a book involving sports. 19. Read something biographical. - The Bully Pulpit 20. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen. Chamberk fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 5, 2019 18:04
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March! 12. Rayuela. Julio Córtazar. A very interesting and playful story, even if you can feel how it exudes postmodernism. 13. Macbeth. William Shakespeare. A nice and classic play, in all the style of Shakespeare. Always a pleasure to reread. 14. Time Enough for Love. Robert A. Heinlein. This was a weird story. I suppose Heinlein tried once again the moralistic tones of some of his works but failed. 15. The Aeneid. Virgil. This reads like some kind of weird fanfiction of The Illiad and The Odyssey with the Latinized names of the Gods. 16. Harbor. John Ajvide Lindqvist. Like reading a diluted (in water, heh) Stephen King with a lot of stories of some fictional island. Kind of fun though. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. (11/60) 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. (2/12) 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. (3/12) 4. Read a book by an author from every continent (N. America, S. America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania). (4/5) 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 7. Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 14. Read a poetry collection. 15. Read a collection of short stories. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 23. Read a book about art. Talas fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 02:13
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Chamberk posted:6. The Overstory - Richard Powers What'd you think of this one? I'm really interested, but haven't picked it up yet. quote:7. Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) - Octavia Butler And what'd you think of these? I found the trilogy powerfully weird and rewarding, but also dry and a little cold at times, which feels strange for a series that's so much about sex and sexual attraction. Here's where I'm at: 2019 March Tough month. I managed to read 1 book, and some short stories as homework for a creative writing class I'm in. 21. How To Read A Book - Mortimer J. Adler. As you might expect of someone named "Mortimer J. Adler," this was written by a white dude in the 1930s, and is mostly a polemic against the sorry state of the American educational system, but also has some cool bits that have made me think harder about which books I read, how I read them, and how I could get more out of the experience of reading. Adler's big thing is to read books that are smarter than you are, and read them multiple times, closely and analytically, approaching them from different angles with each pass. Short stories, in alphabetical order by author: Ingeborg Bachmann - Everything Ann Beattie - Jacklighting Paul Bowles - A Distant Episode Raymond Carver - Fat T. Coraghessan Boyle - Greasy Lake Julio Cortázar - Bestiary Richard Ford - Communist Flannery O'Connor - The Artificial friend of the family (sorry. that's the actual title. feels weird. good story though.) Luisa Valenzuela - I'm Your Horse in the Night All of these were both terrific and totally unlike one another, which I guess is to be expected from an anthology of literary all-stars. Personal faves were Bachmann (narrator goes down a dizzying intellectual/existential/emotional/quantum-physics-level spiral after the birth of his first child), Cortázar (floaty, bubbly, energetic, childlike story about a family mired in horrendous abuse), Ford (emotionally dry as dust, but weird and unnerving, with beautiful imagery, and a feeling of violence just off the horizon), and Valenzuela (rich but spare at the same time, with several sharp turns in a very short story, and amazing rhythmic language, with sentences sometimes like songs and sometimes like bullets) Hoping to get more reading time this month. 1. Personal Challenge. Total books: 21 Total short stories: 30 New-to-me "Classics": 0/20 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 7/21, or 33% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 0/21
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Apr 8, 2019 05:32
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March! Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy V. by Thomas Pynchon Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 10/20 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 3/10 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 0/10 (unless Borges counts?) 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 13. Reread a book. 14. Read a poetry collection. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 19. Read something biographical. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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Apr 8, 2019 15:28
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March! Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem A weird novel, even by Lem standards. This one is set in a Cold War style "Building" which houses something that might be the DoD or possibly some kind of exquisite bureaucratic Hell. Lust by Elfriede Jelinek This was a hard but satisfying read. Jelinek uses the language of Austrian tabloid journalism and TV commercials to tell a story about rape, all heterosexual intercourse being rape due to unequal power dynamics in a patriarchal society, capitalism being the rape of nature and history, as well as sport being an especially sinister and evil activity. Never before have I been so glad to read that the mother in the novel decided to kill her young son. I definitely recommend this book. The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Ananthaswamy Anil The author describes some of the current experiments aimed at discovering phenomena that have not been observed yet but should be there such as dark mass, dark energy, neutralinos and so on. They really do a great job of describing how delicate or insanely scaled the experiments are while providing some human interest stories as well. Quite enjoyable and surprisingly accessible.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:43
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Read 9 books in March. Monkey Beach - Eden Robinson - My favourite of the month, about a Haisla girl growing up. Framed by family tragedies and the ocean, with spirituality woven throughout Fifteen dogs by Andre Alexis - a sort of morality tale about what it is to be human. Strongest/saddest when showing the treatment of dogs by humans. Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher - I've had this on my shelf for a few years so finally read. Some strong critiques of economics as a science, but otherwise outdated. Meanwhile, Elsewhere edited by Fitzpatrick and Plett - A collection of short stories by transgender authors. Pretty major differences in quality, but can see some common themes like oppression and social justice, and being in the wrong body/moving to a new body (cloning, zombies, augmentation, consciousness transfer etc.) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - This could count as my book that is the basis of a movie I've seen, but I don't really want to think back to the 2000s adaptation of this. Iraq+100 edited by Hassan Blasim - A collection of short stories by Iraqi authors based on the premise of imagining Iraq 100 years in the future from 2003. Some of the stories were optimistic and centered around connecting with a forgotten past/culture. But many were more pessimistic and imagined new forms of colonization. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin A Sky So Close by Betool Khedari - A story about a girl growing up in Iraq, living through the Iran-Iraq war and then leaving to the UK before the Gulf war. The way this is book is written presents an interesting statement on life during a war, with the characters life more or less coming to a pause. Much of the middle of the book is interspersed with news reports from the front, giving it a surreal feeling. The reports continue but fade to the background when the character moves to London, and her life takes center stage again. The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim - A collection of short stories centering around war. All the stories have a sort of surreal feeling, offset by a sort of dark humour. Personal goal: read 5 books by Iraqi authors: 3/5 1 Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 23/50 2 Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 13/23 3 Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 15/23 4 Read a book by an author from every continent ( 5 6 7 Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8 Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9 10 11 Read a book published in 2019. 12 Read a book with an awesome cover. 13 Reread a book. 14 15 16 Read a play. 17 Read a book about feminism. 18 19 Read something biographical. 20 Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21 22 23 Read a book about art. 24 Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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Apr 9, 2019 00:43
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Way behind on both reading and posting about reading: 1. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn 2. Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blane Harden 3. Zone by Mathias Enard 4. The Great Movies 2 by Roger Ebert 5. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges 6. Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe 7. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado 8. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann 9. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin 10. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James 11. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson 12. Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera 13. The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany 14. Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon 15. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill 16. The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann 17. The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship & Espionage by Robert Lindsey Some highlights: Geek Love was a gift from my rad secret santa Antivehicular, shout out if you're in this thread. It was different than I expected based on the title and also good. Zone was really good once I was able to penetrate it, but that took me longer than I would like to admit. Book of Imaginary Beings was incredible, Borges is already so insightful and inventive and these little micro stories/entries about various mythical beings were fun and easy to read and then think about. Mouthful of Birds and Her Body and Other Parties were both really great short story collections in the vein of Kelly Link/Helen Oyeyemi; it's a weird fairy tale-esque genre that I love but am maybe getting burnt out on because I loved the stories at the time but am struggling to remember any specific ones outside of the opening one in HBaOP about a ribbon and a stitch. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is great, up there with the Vorrh for amazing literary fantasy saga openers. Also really looking forward to a book in an African setting with a gay main character winning the Hugo and bigot nerds flipping their dang lids. The Automobile Club of Egypt was also fantastic and highly recommended. For some reason I assumed it was significantly older than it actually is so I was pleasantly surprised by the more modern writing (although it is still set mid-20th century). Slow Learner was interesting, the best part was the introduction by Pynchon where he talks really candidly about his writing style and influences and stuff which was cool because I don't think I've actually read any interviews or anything with him. The stories were alright for the most part but the last one, the Secret Integration, was legitimately phenomenal and reminded me I was reading Pynchon. -- Haven't focused much on actually completing challenges although I am sure some of these fit certain categories. My local library branch closed for renovations so it has been harder to venture further out to other accessible branches, especially on days when they are open after work and it is no miserably cold walking further/waiting for an extra bus. So I have mostly been reading stuff on hand or available on Kindle, but once it warms up I can start putting in more holds. Also Furious Lobster I haven't forgotten my promise to rad Lust by Elfriede Jelinek; I'll probably get to that when I check out a bunch of books in July for an annual trip.
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Apr 10, 2019 16:48
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Still hoping to read 1 book
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Apr 10, 2019 18:30
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CestMoi posted:Still hoping to read 1 book Any progress so far?
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Apr 10, 2019 18:33
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I'm not going to try to do all the challenges but I am interested in keeping track of a few of the broader stats out of the list. Current count to date: 39 books Authors: Women - 16 PoC - 3 LGBT - 10
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Apr 10, 2019 19:27
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CestMoi posted:Still hoping to read 1 book Do your best, Cestmoi-san
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Apr 11, 2019 00:50
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Guy A. Person posted:Way behind on both reading and posting about reading: did you read the le clezio book yet?
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Apr 11, 2019 00:51
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A human heart posted:did you read the le clezio book yet? Nah not yet because of the branch renovations I mentioned, need to plan my trips more strategically. Will once it's a bit warmer.
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Apr 11, 2019 01:00
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In case anyone's having trouble finding something for the Banned/Challenged category, here's a good resource for challenged books in the USA!
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Apr 11, 2019 07:09
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Guy A. Person posted:Nah not yet because of the branch renovations I mentioned, need to plan my trips more strategically. Will once it's a bit warmer. the biggest library branch here where like 80% of the tedious european claptrap lives is closed indefinitely, its a real problem. i might have to start reading some ebooks, a truly terrible fate.
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Apr 11, 2019 08:52
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I need another wildcard, since my Amazon order for Bilge Karasu's Night fell through. This time I'd like something I can get through my local (large Canadian city) library, and I'm not sure how they rate on the "tedious european claptrap" scale.
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Apr 12, 2019 16:16
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Arivia posted:I need another wildcard, since my Amazon order for Bilge Karasu's Night fell through. This time I'd like something I can get through my local (large Canadian city) library, and I'm not sure how they rate on the "tedious european claptrap" scale. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.
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Apr 12, 2019 17:15
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Furious Lobster posted:When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Ordered, thank you.
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Apr 12, 2019 19:09
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https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1121392092440342529
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Apr 26, 2019 20:58
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Books by women: 7/24 Non-fiction: 1/12 Full reviews on Goodreads. I was sent free copies of The Friar's Lantern and Orion's Dawn because if you write reviews on Goodreads or Amazon people just do that sometimes. The Friar's Lantern is a weird choose-your-own-adventure book for adults. I only read it once and so only saw one outcome, so I don't know how fully I can judge it, but it was OK? The choices you make throughout the book didn't seem particularly meaningful so I wasn't really motivated to go back and see what would have happened if I'd chosen differently. The story is mostly a framing device for a sort of philosophical conundrum, which I thought was reasonably well-presented, but I didn't really agree with any of its potential conclusions. Orion's Dawn wasn't very good. It wasn't terrible, but it just didn't hook me at all - which is a major issue as it's a the first part of a serialised story and should be trying to make me want to pick up the next part, but I don't. Mostly it was just too diluted - too many characters, too many plot threads, nothing at the centre to make you care about what happens in the next book. I do think though that after the whole thing is finished it might be possible to go back and condense it into a single, decent novel. Grey Star was a neat change of pace from the Lone Wolf series - by the end of which the protagonist is basically an unstoppable god, whereas Grey Star is almost powerless and you are going to die a lot if you play the book without a walkthrough. But I don't see that as a bad thing - it's like an old video game where dying a lot is just how they extend gameplay. A child in the pre-internet days when this was published would get a lot of value out of this book, because they'd have to try over and over to beat it. And the combat and magic systems are much better than Lone Wolf's thanks to the addition of Willpower. This book doesn't make the best use of them because you're basically going to want to save up as much Willpower as you can for the second half of the book, but when you do get to fight you can win fights that Lone Wolf would almost certainly lose use just by spending more WP on them. And Spots the Space Marine was kind of weird. It's sort of written like a screenplay, both in the way it's formatted and the way the story plays out. Like, the whole conflict is fought in a way that allows for humans to be fighting aliens hand-to-hand so that the audience gets to see some cool action scenes. But I think in a movie I'd give more leeway for that conceit, and in a book it just stands out how little sense it makes. They've got FTL space travel, but they don't really use missiles, drones, automated or remote-controlled guns, etc. they put on power armour and go out and fight the aliens in person. And they've got forcefields but they only use them in ways that would be fun in a video game rather than ways that would be practical in real life. It actually seems like it would make a really cool video game, and I thought that several times while I was reading it. It's also got a lot of censored swearing, which is weird and makes me read a lot of things as much more vulgar than they were intended to be, because I just default to assuming that any censored word is "gently caress", even where it makes no sense. Over all it was OK; I enjoyed reading it. I'm not likely to bother with the sequel though.
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Apr 30, 2019 11:50
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New for April! 41. Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett - I'm finding that I enjoy Pratchett the most in books like Guards, Guards, where he's just writing funny, engaging fantasy with likeable (or at least, lovably unlikeable) characters. I kind of find him to be at his worst in books like this or Pyramids, where he's riffing off of a single idea (pyramid power in Pyramids, movies in this, obviously) and builds most of the comedy on the back of whether or not you get the references. None of the characters really grabbed me, the story was pretty ponderous and plodding and there was too much buildup to a couple of fairly lukewarm payoffs. I'm not sure it's my least favorite (so far that's still Pyramids) but I doubt I'll ever read this one again. All that said, I absolutely loved Wyrd Sisters and that was by and large an extended Macbeth reference so maybe it's dependent on the reader being a big fan, or very familiar with, whatever he's referencing in a given book. 42. The Doorbell Rang - Rex Stout - This was my first Nero Wolfe mystery and I really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what to expect, and honestly was surprised by how constant the activity was, compared to a lot of golden age mysteries that spend a lot of time establishing a bunch of suspects and slowly building up evidence to point you to one or another of them. Absolutely great ending, and it was far more critical of the US politics of its time than I would have expected. 7 43. From Doon with Death - Ruth Rendell - I was genuinely, completely disappointed in this book. This is the book that finally made me decide taht at least for long-running mystery series of books, there's no reason to start with the first book in the series. They're almost always a really bad indicator of the quality of later books in the series, and this one is no exception. The twist was undoubtedly shocking for its time, too, but honestly was pretty easy to call in 2019. 2 44. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Absolutely fantastic. I loved every moment of this book, even if I wasn't always certain what was going on. I have no doubt I will re-read this book very soon. Not sure I have much of intelligence to say about it at this point other than it was amazing, and I'm still digesting everything that happened in it. There was some very vivid, very beautiful imagery that I still think of nearly daily. 3,4,20 45. Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb - This may be one of my favorite fantasy novels I've read in a while. I couldn't pick out one thing that makes me say that, honestly, but the book as a whole really drew me in and got me invested in Fitz and all the unfortunate situations he got pitched into. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the trilogy. 2 46. Winter Tide - Ruthanna Emrys - This is a take on the Lovecraft universe from the perspective of an inhabitant of Innsmouth. The book started out very interesting, but kind of devolved into a bit of a contrived attempt at giving too many characters an equal voice in the story, and ultimately ended on a bit of a wet fart of a climax. It's too bad, because some of its core ideas were really intriguing, but the author wasn't particularly deft at spinning those ideas out into a novel's worth of writing. 2,5 47. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury - I think I enjoyed, and was frightened by, this book more than the first time I read it. I blame the last three years. 13,20 48. The Black God's Drums - P. Djeli Clark - A really intriguing take on a kind of alternate history, fantasy, steampunk kind of setting from a different perspective than we usually see in those genres. I want to read a full length novel set in this world, this was great but ended too soon for me.3 49. Wounds - Nathan Ballingrud - A short story collection where all the stories were connected by a central conceit (the subtitle is "Six Stories from the Boundaries of Hell" or something like that). Not every story was amazing, but they were all pretty strong. I'd read a whole lot of books like the last story, The Butcher's Table, if Ballingrud wrote them. It's basically Pirates of the Caribbean meets a lite version of Dante's Inferno. 11 50. A Song for Quiet - Cassandra Khaw - I was pretty disappointed with this. It's ostensibly the second book in the Persons Non Grata series, started by Hammers on Bone, which I totally loved. But it really feels like including it in the series might have been a publisher decision, rather than an authorial one, since the series namesake and most interesting element, John Persons, makes only a token appearance and really has no bearing on anything that happens in the novella. The rest of the story isn't that compelling, so if anything the book suffers from his inclusion since he was so interesting in the first one. 2,3 51. Depth of Winter - Craig Johnson - The newest Walt Longmire novel. I liked it a lot, but not much can be said about it without explaining the whole series. 52. Binti - Nnedi Okorafor - A fun, quick novella (novelette? shortish story?) in a pretty interesting sci fi setting. It didn't blow me away or anything, but I'm interested enough to read the next one. 2,3 53. Burnt Offerings - Robert Marasco - This is occasionally mentioned as a classic of horror fiction, but only occasionally, and now that I've read it, I get why. It's competently written, and there's nothing really wrong with the book, but it's such a product of its time that it feels pretty dated and the characters feel very stereotypical. The central concept of the book is pretty interesting, but would have worked better as a short story and ends up with a lot of dead weight in the middle of the book as a result. It also has the problem that a lot of horror from the period has: it takes about 3/4 of the book for it to reach the first genuinely interesting moment. I'm not sure if it just took that much ramp-up for audiences of the time, or if there was a particular interest in building dread over moving the story forward, but it also contributes to the dated feeling of this book. Also the book bears a lot of resemblances to The Shining, and is sort of an inferior book in a lot of ways, so I can see why it fell out of print for a while. quote:1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 53/70
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Apr 30, 2019 16:31
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MockingQuantum posted:41. Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett - I'm finding that I enjoy Pratchett the most in books like Guards, Guards, where he's just writing funny, engaging fantasy with likeable (or at least, lovably unlikeable) characters. I kind of find him to be at his worst in books like this or Pyramids, where he's riffing off of a single idea (pyramid power in Pyramids, movies in this, obviously) and builds most of the comedy on the back of whether or not you get the references. None of the characters really grabbed me, the story was pretty ponderous and plodding and there was too much buildup to a couple of fairly lukewarm payoffs. I'm not sure it's my least favorite (so far that's still Pyramids) but I doubt I'll ever read this one again. All that said, I absolutely loved Wyrd Sisters and that was by and large an extended Macbeth reference so maybe it's dependent on the reader being a big fan, or very familiar with, whatever he's referencing in a given book.
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Apr 30, 2019 17:05
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Tiggum posted:Nah, I think Wyrd Sisters is just really good regardless - and Pyramids and Moving Pictures aren't. I wasn't at all familiar with Macbeth when I read Wyrd Sisters the first time, and likewise I really enjoyed Soul Music the first time I read it despite only getting, like, a third of the references. That's good to know that it's not just me. When Pratchett's on, I really love the books, but boy did Moving Pictures feel DOA for me. Nothing about it grabbed me. I guess that's the thing that's most surprising as I read Pratchett for the first time, probably much later than most fans encountered him: the books are really pretty uneven in terms of quality of the humor and plot, and he writes a lot of ho-hum characters. I know I'm still relatively early in his output but it's been a bit discouraging how many of the books haven't really done it for me. So far Mort, Wyrd Sisters, and Guards, Guards are definitely the standouts.
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Apr 30, 2019 17:11
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MockingQuantum posted:48. The Black God's Drums - P. Djeli Clark I read this in April as well. I also did PDC's Haunting of Tram Car 015, a detective story set in a turn of the century djinn driven Cairo. I'm really excited about what else we may see from Clark going forward.
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Apr 30, 2019 17:55
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Ben Nevis posted:I read this in April as well. I also did PDC's Haunting of Tram Car 015, a detective story set in a turn of the century djinn driven Cairo. I'm really excited about what else we may see from Clark going forward. That one's on my list to read, I'm excited for it. I think Clark represents a trend I really enjoy-- there was a span of time in the mid 2010s where you saw a lot of diverse voices in scifi and fantasy who were telling really interesting stories from new perspectives, but they often felt like they were pointedly defining themselves by how they were different from the middle aged white dude perspectives that are so overwhelmingly prevalent in the genres. There's nothing wrong with that, but it always felt very present and intentional that the books were setting themselves apart from the (very tired) norm. Now I feel like there are a lot more authors who are kind of saying "I don't care how I'm different from the status quo or not, I'm going to write what I like and not give a poo poo". Black God's Drums felt like that to me and I think I enjoyed it more for that fact.
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Apr 30, 2019 18:02
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Moving Pictures and Pyramids all seem like relatively weak books to me as well but I think that's in part because while they're mostly one-note jokes Prachett was also using them to flesh out some other parts of the larger setting (the Assassin's Guild in Pyramids, some of the Unseen University stuff as well as Gaspode in Moving Pictures). Speaking of Prachett, I finally got around to reading The Shepherd's Crown, the absolute last Discworld book and man was it cathartic and devastating. There were a few points towards the end that could have used a lot more polish and fleshing out but, well, he just didn't have the time to do that. But I'd been dreading it after how much of a let down both Snuff and Raising Steam were and this one didn't disappoint. It's hard finally finishing a series that I'd been reading since I was a kid but looking back I really did enjoy the journey. And it just further highlights the frustrations I'm feeling in finding anything remotely like it which scratches the same drat itch thematically: humanity is fickle and stupid and capable of cruelty but we're also capable of breathtaking moments of kindness and possibilities. The other book I managed to read this month was Dead Again by T.J. Garrett. Yet another breezy urban fantasy only this time instead of dealing with magic it deals with ghosts. And because I believe that it's an unwritten rule at this point with regards to the urban fantasy that I pick up it was set in London. It wasn't bad per say but I'm not sure I'm going to bother with the rest of the books in the series if/when they come out. Which is a shame since, you know, it was fun. Just seems to be hitting some of the same notes of the Rivers of London. Due to real life getting in the way I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to actually achieve the challenge that I set for myself but I'm going to keep on muscling through whenever I end up with free time between my job and my rapidly expanding family.
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Apr 30, 2019 18:09
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April! 27. My Sister the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite 28. Billy Bathgate - EL Doctorow 29. Tiamat’s Wrath (Expanse #8) - James S.A. Corey 30. The Tenants of Time - Thomas Flanagan 31. The Witchwood Crown (Last King of Osten Ard #1) - Tad Williams 32. The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai I read some real good ones this month! I reread The Witchwood Crown in preparation for the next book in the series (I'm a sucker for Tad Williams and loved the old Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books); I read the new Expanse book because I really enjoy that series's take on interstellar conflict. Beyond those more genre-ey reads, Billy Bathgate was a fun gangster story (with some unfortunate sex scenes), The Great Believers was a heartbreaking take on the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 80s, My Sister the Serial Killer was a short little story about an unusual family dynamic, and The Tenants of Time was an incredibly long--but gripping--story of the struggle for Irish independence in the latter half of the 19th century. Each of them was certainly worth a look. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. (32/50) 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 53% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 37% 4. Read a book by an author from every continent (N. America, S. America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania). 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 7. Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. - Tiamat's Wrath 12. Read a book with an awesome cover. 13. Reread a book. - The Witchwood Crown 14. Read a poetry collection. 15. Read a collection of short stories. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 19. 20. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen. Also, to answer ENEMIES EVERYWHERE, I half-heartedly liked The Overstory (but felt The Great Believers deserved the Pulitzer more) and was... intrigued/offput by Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. (Kindred and the Parable novels were much better IMO) Any wildcard suggestions, anyone?
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Apr 30, 2019 21:42
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My hand has now healed and I am back to business. I can hold physical books properly! Three books in April, but over 1,000 pages read I think, so that's something. I've decided to read mostly short books for May. April 10. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. This covered the play challenge. There was a lot of hate in this book, and I can't say I liked any of the characters. I'm also not sure you were supposed to like anybody. The biggest thing going into this blind was my confusion as to what poor Virginia Woolf had to do with anything. 11. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. I chose to read this for the local author challenge, as Wolfe Grew up about an hour away from me, and "Altamont" is actually Asheville. It was very surreal reading about all these places and being able to picture almost the exact places he was describing. The book was very sad and slow, but also beautifully written. It was a very hard read, but I am happy to have read it. 12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This was a really powerful book. It pushed you down and then kept on kicking you. I was very angry and disappointed by the end. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 12/40 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 6/12 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 4/12 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 12. Read a book with an awesome cover. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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May 1, 2019 03:36
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cryptoclastic posted:April Edward Albee owns though. Now I need to reread this because its been too long
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May 1, 2019 05:34
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quote:
I read ten books in March-April. Two of them - How To Survive A Plague and Wild Swans - were very long, very sad audiobooks, that were exactly the wrong thing to listen to on an otherwise great holiday. I still need to read more non-white-dudes, so someone please WILDCARD ME something good! 14 - Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell. A really great book. Strange family traditions and interpersonal drama, the drudgery of low-wage work mirrored with the desolation of losing one's connection to the world. The three Bigtree children all journey through their own personal Underworlds, as their father struggles to keep their life of alligator wrestling from obsolescence. The prose is beautiful, often haunting - Russell makes the swampland of Florida come alive, and can twist even small details into grotesque or wonderful features as te scene demands. I'm almost upset that the book isn't longer - that we don't get more epilogue, more adventures - but I think that would go against the spirit of the story. I can absolutely see why this was Pulitzer-nominated, and I want more of Russell's work in my life. 15 - The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá & Dave Stewart. Loved the Netflix series based on this, so thought I should read the source material. It's a lot more pulpy than the show, but very stylish and fun. And a lot meaner/snarkier, more in the vein of mid-00s work like early Venture Bros or Atomic Robo. But I enjoyed it plenty, and got an appreciation for how much was altered in adaptation. 16 - If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin. This novel is as powerful and stirring as its reputation suggests. Baldwin writes the intensity of love - romantic love, familial love - with immense passion and skill, and the book's political core is still resonant 45 years later. 17 - If Cats Disappeared From The World, by Genki Kawamura. A short and sweet novel about a man discovering what's truly important to him on the eve of his death. Kawamura's protagonist is pleasant and personable, his antagonist is amusingly smug; he writes a compact little world around the story. It's not brilliant, but it didn't have to be. 18 - How To Survive A Plague: The Story Of How Activists And Scientists Tamed AIDS, by David French. gently caress me, this was an intense book. A deeply-researched, powerfully written account, year by year and sometimes even week by week, of the AIDS crisis, from first infections to the eventual long-overdue availability of treatment in the mid 90s. French takes us from the early desperation of a growing mystery plague through vicious struggles and activism, highlighting an enormous cast of key players. We meet researchers, activists, journalists, and the ordinary people whose lives were ravaged by the disease. There is genuine evil in this book, and those perpetuating it have very familiar names and faces - Jesse Helms and Ronald Reagan especially. But there is another major threat to the gay community that French does not shy away from describing: in-fighting. Circular firing squads, splits and fractures in advocacy groups, and simple personal pettiness send shockwaves through the narrative. There are constant comparisons to the Holocaust, from the reality of a state-sanctioned erasure of gay society to the brutal tragedy of survivors' guilt. As a 20something queer person I was struck over and over again by how powerful these stories are, by how I never learned even a fraction of this, and how much we NEED to learn about this. The book ends in 1996, and that was only 23 years ago. A single generation since we lost a whole generation. When the epilogue rolled out, I was filled with a sense of restlessness: the catharsis of battles won was accompanied by the deep queasy reality that the struggles continue. 19 - The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin. An excellent and powerful book. Two unlikely allies end up having to pull together for survival against an immense, uncaring onslaught of natural and manmade hardship. LeGuin does some interesting and cool things with gender and social hierarchies here, exploring nonbinary and genderfluid identities against a backdrop clearly inspired by monarchist and Soviet oppressions. Reading this fifty-plus years after it was written, aside from some grammar and language choices this still feels vibrant and gripping and affecting. Sometimes it can be difficult to go back and read "Important Works" in a genre so heavily influenced by them, but with LeGuin I've never been disappointed. 20 - Koa Of The Drowned Kingdom, by Ryan Campbell. This is a furry book, solidly in the YA bracket. There are definite influences from things like Redwall, but transplanted from the idyllic European countryside to a giant mangrove swamp. A story about disability and class, Campbell populates the world with simple but interesting magical rules, and broadly-drawn but personable characters. It took a little while before I was fully invested, but the final chapters were pretty satisfying. One major issue I had was the dialogue - especially with the "fantasy swears" replacing actual ones, the characters often feel younger than they're meant to be. There are illustrations too, that are cartoony enough to reinforce that slight childishness. That said, I enjoyed this more than I expected, and I think I'd like to read something heavier by the same author. 21 - Wild Swans: Three Daughters Of China, by Jung Chang. A history of 20th Century China through the eyes of three women - the author, her mother and grandmother. We're taken from feudal Manchuria through Japanese occupation and into the dizzying promises and atrocious miseries of Mao's communism. Reading about the book I've seen it described as an example of "misery lit", and I can see why: there is no end to the minor and major horrors perpetrated by and against the people in this book. From personal spitefulness to politicised zeal to the endless, endless misogyny, this is a history of cruelty and dehumanisation. The spirits of hope and despair ebb and flow slowly, and several parts are quite difficult to get through. Above all it's a very good and painful account of how the dreams of a better world can be crushed and perverted by megalomania and exploitation. 22 - Generations, by Flavia Biondi. A short graphic novel about a gay young adult reconnecting with his estranged family after three years in the city. Through taking care of his elderly grandmother and bonding with her nurse, the protagonist starts to carve out a place and identity for himself. It's a fairly by-the-numbers story, but t's wholeome and heartfelt, and the slice-of-life pacing and simple, pleasant art adds to the atmosphere. 23 - The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson. A beautiful story of a young girl's relationship with her grandmother. Jansson describes the minutiae and moods of island life so well that I could almost feel the sea air. Each episode of the story is a lovely self-contained tale, and altogether the way Sophia and her grandmother (as well as her father) grow and change over the summers they spend together is wonderfully realised. I think this might be one of the best books I've ever read; I can't stop thinking about the little moments, or the images Jansson conjures. It's just so good. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. - 23/52 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 1/3 of them are written by women - 8 - 2, 3, 7, 11, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 23 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 1/3 of them are written by someone non-white - 7 - 4, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 21 4. Read a book by an author from every continent (N. America, S. America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania). [*]N. America - 1, 3, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 [*]S. America - [*]Europe - 2, 4, 5, 8, 12, 22, 23 [*]Africa - [*]Asia - 9, 10, 17, 21 [*]Oceania 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 7. Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 10. Read a book by a local author. 11. Read a book published in 2019. 13. Reread a book. 14. Read a poetry collection. 15. Read a collection of short stories. 16. Read a play. 18. Read a book involving sports. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt.
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May 1, 2019 15:15
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Gertrude Perkins posted:I read ten books in March-April. Two of them - How To Survive A Plague and Wild Swans - were very long, very sad audiobooks, that were exactly the wrong thing to listen to on an otherwise great holiday. A p good non-white wildcard is The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
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May 1, 2019 16:46
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Phew. This was a big month, readingwise. I got through 12 books. Most were short, with a big run of novellas early in the month. Fully half were by women, likewise half were authors of color. Man of the books I read were good. A few fell disappointingly short. I managed to cross off Africa from the continents list. Arguably, I read something by an indigenous woman, as Jamaica Kincaid has a Carib grandmother, I might count it later if I don't find a way to it otherwise. 21. Miraculum by Steph Post - After the geek unexpectedly hangs himself, the circus is forced to leave town, taking along with it a mysterious and sinister new geek. Of course there are deaths, tattooed ladies, voodoo, and the launch of the first radio station in the south. I had high hopes based on the fact that I think I like books about circuses. Ultimately, this was disappointing. It's not very mysterious. The characters are sorta meh. Thinking about this for this first time since I finished, I'm tempted to go back and remove a star from the goodreads rating. Someone recommended a similar sounding book here, go read that if you really want the elements I described but good, I guess. 22. The Black God's Drums by P. Djeli Clark - Alt history New Orleans, voodoo, sky pirates, great fun. I hope it kicks off a series. 23. In the Vanisher's Palace by Aliette de Bodard - Sort of a sci-fi retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In a world broken by genetically engineered plagues, a failed scholar is sold to a dragon. It was a pretty good read about how people should be treated. 24. The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark - In a djinn powered turn of the century Cairo, an old pro from the spiritual investigations unit takes his new partner out for what out to be a pretty simple exorcism. Part of this is given over to the well worn dynamic of old officer and young partner. Part of it to exploring a cosmopolitan Cairo coming to terms with multiple religions, races, and now women's suffrage. And part of it to demon fighting. Definitely hype about whatever P Djeli Clark puts out next. 25. The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins - A classic crime novel. Eddie's a low level thug, mostly getting guns for more important criminals. With the gun runner on one side, bank robbers on the other, and an upcoming sentencing for a recent conviction, all Eddie wants to is find a way to reduce his sentence, even if it means ratting out some friends. This isn't going to go real well for Eddie, is it? Interestingly, very little of this is from Eddie's perspective. Mostly you get it from the gun runner, from the cops, from the robbers, and you watch everything start to get pretty grim for our boy Eddie. 26. Affections by Rodrigo Hasbun - I grabbed this after seeing an old interview with Samanta Schweblin talking about other Granta "Best Young Spanish Authors" and saying she'd been impressed by Hasbun. This book follows the Ertl family, Germans who immigrated to Bolivia due to some unfortunately close ties to the Nazis. Through their eyes, you see a half century of Bolivian history. It becomes apparent that the primary driver is the daughter Monika who falls in with Che. Interestingly, while the story isn't "true" per se, it's inspired by real people. The patriarch, Max Ertl, was a real person. He was an adventurer and Leni Riefenstahl's cinematographer. He had a daughter, Monika, who was a revolutionary with Che. Hasbun's picked an interesting family to explore Bolivian history. This was good and really quick too, you can finish in a day if you'd like. 27. Scribe by Alyson Hagy - I'd seen this on a best of list somewhere. Set in America after a civil war and a devastating plague, the titular character is a scribe. She lives on the edges of society, writing letters for people who can pay and provides some sense of atonement. One day a stranger shows up, asking that a letter actually be delivered. He upsets the delicate balance of her hard life and things spiral towards an end. This is a hard (in the sense of being unkind) spare book. A lot is sketched out and precious little filled in. It deals in loss, memory, and forgiveness. It was a pretty good read. 28. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan - George Washington Black, Wash was a slave in Caribbean, working on a sugar plantation. One day the owner's brother selects him as an ideal assistant in his experiments with a hot air balloon. You might imagine this leads to a daring escape on a hot air balloon. There is so much more besides. Edugyan takes the basic bones of an adventure novel and uses her young protagonist to explore friendship and freedom. This was really good, and fun to read besides. 29. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Seek by Anthony O'Neill - I admit, I was charmed by the name. 7 years after the death of Mr. Hyde and disappearance of Dr. Jekyll, a strange man claiming to Jekyll shows up. Only Utterson, Jekyll's faithful lawyer and confidante, knows that he can't be Jekyll. But can he convince anyone? This book sets up an interesting premise, but kinda fails it. I was disappoint. 30. The Cassandra by Sharma Shields - Talk about premises. Shields has a great one here. A girl with premonitory dreams takes a job at the Hanford Research Facility out on the Columbia River where they refined plutonium in secret during WW2. Absolute gold. It sets up questions about who is culpable for the destruction the A Bombs wreaked on Japan. What about the radioactive devastation in Washington as a result of the refinement? Does a girl who dreams about that have a responsibility to do anything? Do the people she tells? The Cassandra dodges almost all of this and winds up being the most disappointing read of the month. 31. Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola - Recommended by AHH as a fantastic tale out of Africa. Since birth, our protagonist has consumed amazing quantities of palm wine, that is until his palm wine tapster dies and the wine just doesn't taste as good. He goes on a search to try and bring the tapster back from the dead. Tutuola relies heavily on folk stories here and the English owes a lot to Yoruba oral storytelling techniques as well. A fascinating read bound to remind you of other folktales and myths you might know, but with a charm all its own. 32. The Autobiography of my Mother by Jamaica Kincaid - I read an old list of "We asked 13 authors their scariest books" and this was the book cited by Victor LaValle. Well, I like LaValle, so let's give this a shot. Let me start by saying there's a reason I haven't reviewed this for the General Horror Thread. I searched out LaValle's tweets on the subject after since it's not a traditionally scary book. He said, "it did startle and move me in ways few books ever have." So there you have it. This is the life story of Xuela, a Scots-Black-Carib woman on Dominica whose mother died in childbirth. She recounts her life and relationships, viewed particularly with respect with that missing mother. But also affected by her cruel father, her unborn children, and her unloved husband. And also the fact that she's 1/4 Carib, and a woman, and Dominica was a colonized island where the British wiped out the native people and imported Africans. Startling is fair. There's a good chance I'm thinking about this later as well. Kincaid's prose is the real star here, lyrical and just really striking. There were some long paragraphs I went back and re-read immediately, knowing I'd enjoy them more having just read their conclusion. A good read. Ben Nevis posted:1. Ice by Anna Kavan
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May 1, 2019 16:58
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:A p good non-white wildcard is The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima Cool, it's on my list! Thanks~
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May 1, 2019 18:13
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April! How Long 'Til Black Future Month by N. K. Jemisin If It Bleeds by Matthew M. Bartlett North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 13/20 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women. 4/13 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 1/13 (unless Borges counts?) 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 10. Read a book by a local author. 13. Reread a book. 14. Read a poetry collection. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 19. Read something biographical. 21. Read something in the public domain. 22. Read one book you didn’t finish in a previous attempt (think high school if nothing comes to mind!). 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen.
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May 2, 2019 03:34
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 10:19 |
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Hi everyone! I'll be joining in late so this is a bit of a long post, sorry! I've been reading solo, but it's much more fun to read with a group and I happened to notice the thread today. I primarily read books in my second language (Korean), so I'm very slow. I do try to take breaks and mix in English books as well, since that's my native language and I read those much more quickly in general. My personal goal is to try and read 30 books this year. I would like 10 books or more to be in Korean. I'm not sure the manga/manwha/webtoons I read really count towards the challenge, and won't be including them in my goals. I'm going to try and do what I can of the booklord challenge, but due to reading speed that just might not be possible. I've including the ones I've completed/am in the middle of below. 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge. 7 of 30 so far; 3 of 10 Korean books complete 2. 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 28% so far 4. Read a book by an author from every continent ( 5. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. in progress: 단아한 고양이/The Graceful Cat by 달그네/Dalgeune 6. Read at least one book by an indigenous author. 7. Participate in the TBB BotM thread at least once in 2019 (thread stickied each month at the top of the forum). 8. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. 9. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. to read: Peter Darling 10. Read a book by a local author. in progress: 단아한 고야이/The Graceful Cat by 달그네/Dalgeune 11. Read a book published in 2019. <- this is almost definitely not going to happen to be honest 12. 13. 14. Read a poetry collection. 15. Read a collection of short stories. 16. Read a play. 17. Read a book about feminism. 18. Read a book involving sports. 19. 20. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. 21. Read something in the public domain. - To do: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 22. 23. Read a book about art. 24. Read a book that is the basis for a movie/tv show you have already seen. in progress: 신세계에서 1/From the New World 1 2019 So Far 1.The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty - Twitty does a deep dive on his family history and how that is entwined with Southern US culinary history. Sometimes a bit dense, often a very difficult read due to the subject matter (slavery and the circumstances around it), it is still a deeply fascinating read and I don't regret it at all. If you have any interest in the origins of Southern US food, Twitty does an excellent job explaining how they came about thanks to slavery while tying that back into his personal search for his roots. 2. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - This was very simple and easy. I didn't really go all in for a lot of it, but it's the first time I read a book about organization I thought would actually work. And so far it has! While some days are better than others, I did try to follow the method here and found that for me it worked out pretty well. Plus Kondo has a lot of kindness in how she writes, so this was an easy, good read. 3. 흉가/The Haunted House by Shinzo Mitsuda - I tried to read this waaaay back in 2015, and I really just was not prepared at all then. Shinzo Mitsuda is a pretty famour horror author in Japan; I do think some of his work has been translated to English? Just based off this book, I'd recommend him--he has a very good grasp of tension, set up, and pay off, and I found it actually pretty creepy in a lot of spots. This particular book was born of him wondering if he could do a horror story with a protagonist who is powerless to escape (a kid who can't just choose to move away from the problem), and I really enjoyed it. I'm planning to try reading some more of his stuff when I can. 4. 돌이킬 수 없는 약속/The Unbreakable Promise by Gaku Yakumaru - This had an interesting premise; Satoshi (the main character) promises to kill two people who murdered and killed an old woman's daughter in order to get the money to start a new life, but then tries to never actually keep that promise. One day, a bunch of letters start showing up, and it seems like he has to actually go murder the two guys. It was mostly interesting because of instead of a murder mystery, it was a race against time to figure out who is trying to blackmail him--because it's not the old lady. Unfortunately, it kind of falls apart about halfway through, and then there's a twist in the last 20 pages that really wasn't set up at all prior. Really disappointing, to be honest. 5. The WoW Diary: A Journal of Computer Game Development by John Staats - A super interesting behind the scenes into how WoW was developed and published; I really wish he'd talked a little more about the stuff immediately after release. Other than that, a pretty good read. 6. Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov - I reread this book every few years anyway, and this year I got the urge to read it again. It's probably my favourite Nabokov book. I didn't really tease out much new this time, other than I still absolutely love Nabokov's prose. 7. 책을 지키려는 고양이/The Book-Guarding Cat by Sōsuke Natsukawa - I really hope this gets a (good) English translation, as I want to recommend it to people. I bought it because I loved the Korean cover; finding out it was a pretty good book too was nice. Nasuki Rintaro's grandfather dies before the book starts, and the book explores Rintaro's grief through the shared love of books that had. At the same time, it's a contemplation on just what motivates people to read and why they love it, and a magical journey through various places with a talking cat. It never really draws out any of the 'mazes', or beats Rintaro's grief and growth over your head, and the female lead Sayo gets to actually be her own person with her own voice and isn't shoved into a romance with Rintaro. This has probably been my favourite book this year. Currently reading 단아한 고양이/The Graceful Cat The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeier A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present 신세계에서 1/From the New World 1 (the Korean translation of the book that the anime Shinsekaiyori/From the New World was based off of) Anyway, tl;dr Hi, glad to be here, and looking forward to seeing more of what everyone else is reading!!! I'm gonna do my best to hit the booklord challenge goals 
felgs fucked around with this message at 05:35 on May 2, 2019 |
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May 2, 2019 05:33
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