|
The Erland posted:
Yeah, it is kind of a truism, but its a frequent observation that PKD, while a good author, was too formulaic and predictable.
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 23:19 |
|
|
Previously: 1. Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts. 2. Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold. 3. Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. 4. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 5. The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson. 8. A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold. 9. The Martian, by Andy Weir. 10. Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser. 11. Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold. 12. Equations of Life by Simon Morden. 13. Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold. 14. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. 15. Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear. 16. Sand Omnibus by Hugh Howey. 17. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. 18. Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. 19. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. 20. Deadly Shores by Taylor Anderson. 21. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 22. Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. 23. The Scarpetta Factor by same. 24. The Bone Bed by same. 25. The Greatship by Robert Reed. 26. Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin. Update through July: 27. SS-GB by Len Deighton. A classic in the "Hitler wins" genre, written in the 1970s by an author who was otherwise known for "regular" espionage fiction rather than nerdfuckery. Set in early-40s Nazi-occupied Britain, starts out as a murder mystery and ends as a high-stakes spy thriller. Tightly plotted and tense as hell, even though the actual alternate history scenario is not believable (a successful Unternehmen Seelöwe being, basically, impossible). Hadn't read Deighton before but will check out some of his other stuff. 28. The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett (nominally) and Stephen Baxter (mostly). Third in its series, not that much in the way of plot really but good enough on the worldbuilding and exploration stuff to be worth reading. Hell, Baxter can write any amount of stories about cardboard characters exploring hosed-up weird planets and I'll read them and enjoy it. 29. Dominion by CJ Sansom. Was supposed to do this immediately after SS-GB but Pratchett/Baxter got in the way; yet another "Hitler wins (kinda sorta)" book by another writer going outside his usual genre (which is non-counterfactual historical crime fiction in this case). More believable scenario, longer timescale (set in the 1950s in a Britain which signed an armistice with Germany after France fell, and has slid towards its own fascism since). Also similar to SS-GB in how a mystery-type plot turns into a high-stakes spy thriller by the end (based on the same MacGuffin as well, and guessing what it is is worth no points nuclear weapons technology). Very fine book, pretty relentless in showing how, yeah, it "could happen here". The basic setting reminds me of Jo Walton's Farthing trilogy (also very fine). 30. Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan. Big fat fantasy brick, sequel to Blood Song. More conventionally structured with multiple PoVs. Not much wasted verbiage since a crapton of stuff happens and very many asses are kicked. Liked it a lot. 31. The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross. #5 in the ongoing "Laundry" series about a secret branch of the British civil service that deals with occult threats. Each entry has belonged to a slightly different genre; this time it's about how everyone knows that vampires do not exist. Pretty serious with a tinge of dark comedy, kicks the status quo in the head again. 32. World of Trouble by Ben Winters. Very fine conclusion to the "Last Policeman" trilogy, following the adventures of a small-town cop/ex-cop in a disintegrating society during the last months before a large asteroid probably hits the Earth and possibly wipes out humanity altogether. I particularly liked how the author had the integrity to reveal that all the stuff about a plan to save the world was complete bullshit, the book ends just as the asteroid actually hits the Earth, and the story is ultimately about facing the end with dignity. 33. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré. One of those genre-defining classics I'd never actually read before. Dark and tense, great read.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 06:23
|
|
|
Having registered this morning, partially to lurk in the Book Barn, I figured I might as well join in this thread sooner rather than later. My goal this year is a somewhat optimistic 40 books, adjusted down after badly failing 52 last year. To keep myself honest, I have a personal rule that the total number of pages after 40 books has to be above 14000, as decided by Goodreads, working out at an average of 350 pages per book. I've done this in order to allow myself to read shorter books without feeling like I'm cheating, and if I end up at less than 14000 pages I read until I exceed it. Ratings are given based not on how good I thought the book was, but on how much I enjoyed reading it. Quick run-through of the year so far: 1. Politi by Jo Nesbø (Read in Norwegian, published in English as Police): I kind of hated myself for liking this book as much as I did, as it's essentially trash. But it's extremely fast paced, exciting, page-turning, trash. 4.5/5 2. The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco: Really enjoyed it, despite everyone around me telling me it sucked. 4/5 3. Misery by Stephen King: Recommendation from a trusted friend. Only my second King, but far from the last. Loved it. 4.5/5 4. The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie: I'm reading Agatha Christie chronologically, partly because I'm a bit of a completist, but I actually really enjoyed this one. My favourite Christie to date. 4/5 5. One Among the Sleepless by Mike Bennett: Listened to this as a podcast when I was much younger, and bought it for the Kindle to support the author. A quick, very enjoyable, very British, read. 4/5 6. The 33, Episode 1: Pramantha by J.C. Hutchins: A short story. Again, bought this to support an author that I like, and en enjoyable, but way too quick, read. 3.5/5 7. Black Man by Richard Morgan (Also, and more commonly, published under the title "Thirteen"): Strong recommendation from a colleague. Not really my genre, but there is just so much to love about this book that the genre didn't matter. One of those books I randomly start thinking about, even months later. 4.5/5 8. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe: I know I'm cheating with this, but there is no way to tell Goodreads not to count this as a book, so I'm rolling with it. Anyway, while I've read this poem before, I've never really "Read" it. Spending an afternoon properly concentrating on it, I found that I actually really like it. 4/5 9. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King: Really pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this. Better than The Shining in my opinion, and just a really, really, great book. 5/5 10. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: Catching up on the Classics. American classics do have a tendency to leave me wanting more, and this wasn't an exception. There is a lot to like, but not quite enough. It hasn't aged badly, but not as well as many other classics. 3/5 11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: Figured I should read this since everyone else in the world apparently had. A really great book that unfortunately ebbs out just a little towards the end, preventing it from becoming one of my favourites. 4.5/5 12. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: Despite knowing exactly what this book would be, I wasn't prepared for what it would be like to read it. It is what it is, and I think it's an important piece of history. 4/5 13. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Despite my strained relationship with American classics, I really, really, loved this one. Not a very original view, but I think it's fantastic. 4.5/5 14. The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett (heavily rewritten 1992 edition): I feel that I'm long overdue when it comes to getting into Pratchett, so I'm tackling him chronologically. All his books, not just discworld. This was a little disappointing, but I probably shouldn't expect too much from a first book. 3/5 15. Daemon by Daniel Suarez: A really great book for too many reasons to list here, but it uses technology in a wonderfully fantastical, yet mostly plausible way. Unfortunately it doesn't really end, it just stops. 4.5/5 16. Carrie by Stephen King: After not really liking Pratchett's first published work I thought "Well, I bet even Stephen King was rusty in the start." He wasn't. Carrie is a really good book by any standards. 4/5 17. The Dark Side of The Sun by Terry Pratchett: I think Pratchett was still finding his footing by the second book. Some good concepts and a great ending, but overall the book is a bit of a mess. 3/5 18. Horns by Joe Hill: A recommendation which left me just a little underwhelmed, considering how strong the recommendation was. It's a very decent book with some really well done elements that makes it more than just another horror story. 4/5 Which at this point puts me at 18/40. A little behind schedule. So far Doctor Sleep holds the spot as my favourite book of the year. I'm currently reading Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez, the sequel to Daemon. Considering how much I liked Daemon, I have high hopes. Obligatory Goodreads profile link, where I also post slightly longer reviews. More than anything because it forces me to actually think about what I just read, and aids in remembering it later.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 10:15
|
|
|
clq posted:2. The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco: Really enjoyed it, despite everyone around me telling me it sucked. 4/5 Everyone around you must die.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 11:43
|
|
|
Yeah I'm only like, 125 pages into The Name of the Rose but the quality is already evident. It's pretty dense and slow but in a really good way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 15:09
|
|
|
quote:01. The Stranger - Albert Camus 34. Life and Death are Wearing Me Out - Mo Yan A Chinese landlord is executed in the late 1940s, gets sent to Hell and is reincarnated as donkey, etc. Very funny. I really enjoyed the first 2/3, and felt the last part wasn't quite as good. 35. The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor I really enjoyed this collection. These 31 short stories take place in the South and often involve Catholicism and racism. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a good example of her work. Flannery O'Connor posted:Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. 36. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon Incredible. This book was much funnier than I thought it would be. I can't wait to reread it in a couple years. You should check out the GR thread!!
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:29
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:50: The Reluctant Swordsman by Dave Duncan. ENjoying it so far. 50: The Reluctant Swordsman was really drat good. Interesting characters (albeit, suffering the same 'our world into their world issues as the previous one, but handled a lot differently), interesting world, interesting plots, and I liked the treatment of a guy coming into a slave-owning world, and NOT trying to instantly abolish the custom, because when he did try it was held up as an abomination and he was executed (unsuccessfully). It's going to be interesting seeing where this is going. 51: The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. You've all heard of Fantasy Vietnam? The concept of fantasy world which are as brutal as Vietnam, with short-lived characters and whatnot? This is ACTUAL fantasy Vietnam. Urban fantasy, set in Da Nang hospital, mid-Vietnam War. Very interesting, well-told, seems pretty well-fitted to the time and place, and slow-burn on the fantasy side of things which I like a lot. Very good so far. I'm going to try to hit 52 before I get married in a week!
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 09:23
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:... before I get married in a week! Congratulations!
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 10:27
|
|
|
I just went hiking in the Alps for 11 days and managed to read quite a bit and actually caught up after being 4 books behind for ages--I've now read 26/42 books! I also realized that I haven't posted a single progress report in the thread so LET'S DO THIS! 1. Nothing Lasts Forever, Roderick Thorpe - Reasonably fun action book, though I was a bit put off by some of the politics. I should've written a review right after having read it so that I could articulate that feeling more precisely. 2. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett - Fun and funny as hell. Top-notch Discworld. 3. Salem's Lot, Stephen King - Mostly quite entertaining, though it had a bit of an anticlimactic ending and I'm really starting to notice King's reliance on certain recurring elements. I swear there's been a special psychic child in every single novel of his that I've read. 4. A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah - Harrowing, but in the end not entirely bleak considering the positive outcome for Beah. Still, it was a painful read a lot of the time because of how horrific the events are and how effectively Beah relates them. 5. Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson - Loved it and am excited for the next one, whenever it comes out. I get the feeling that some events (e.g. Nightblood from Warbreaker popping up at the end) would lose a lot of impact for someone who hasn't read Sanderson books outside the Stormlight Archive, but that's not a problem for me personally since I've read everything of his. My only sticking point is that Kaladin's arc is really similar to his arc in the first book. I guess he's a stubborn bastard, so I suppose it makes sense for the character. I hope that he doesn't have to keep learning similar lessons throughout the rest of the series, though. 6. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins - Pretty good YA dystopian fiction. The writing is certainly nothing special, but it's plenty readable and paced well. 7. Me and You, Niccolo Ammaniti - Touching little book. The end was a gut-punch. 8. Without Blood, Alessandro Baricco - Fantastic and emotionally complicated. 9. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins - I think this series would be a lot better if it weren't aimed at teenagers. Or maybe that's not quite accurate - it seems to expect that the audience won't catch what it's trying to say, so it overexplains poo poo. The most egregious example is actually in the third book so I'll talk about it in a bit. That being said, this was also good. Not too much of a rehash of the first book, despite the similar structure. The press tour stuff was a billion times more interesting than the arena section, though. 10. Red Country, Joe Abercrombie - loving GREAT. Totally unsurprising that I loved it considering I like dark, funny fantasy and Westerns. My Goodreads update from about 2/3 of the way through: "I just realized that this is basically Deadwood With Swords and maybe that's why I love it so much." 11. The Old Man and the Sea, Earnest Hemingway - I never read this in school, and I'm glad of that since I'm sure I wouldn't have appreciated it at 14. 12. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins - The further I get from this, the less I like it. As inevitable as so much of it should have felt, a lot of it also seemed so contrived. The big chase sequence with the white lizard mutts that smell like blood came off as raising the stakes when they are already at their highest point with monsters that are more cheesy than scary, and that seem like they're just there to tear apart secondary characters to get a cheap emotional reaction. Also, the love triangle was irritating bullshit. Surprisingly, I didn't hate the epilogue. Sure, it had Katniss and Peeta married with kids, but it also kept their trauma and the horror of the world's past in mind, which I didn't really expect. OH! I almost forgot about the overexplaining thing. The worst instance was the Hanging Tree song, which I thought was actually well-written and interesting, but then Katniss spoon-feeds the meaning in her narration. It was so frustrating! 13. Touching the Void, Joe Simpson - Goodreads review: "I imagine this would be a lot less enjoyable to anyone with only a passing interest in/knowledge of mountaineering because there's a lot of unexplained jargon (moiraines, cols, climbing technique, etc.) but I thought it was terrific despite that. The fact that Simpson made it back alive is simply incredible, and his account of the experience is gripping." 14. And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini - Goodreads review: "I loved the roundabout way that Hosseini used to relate the emotional arc he started at the beginning of the book. At first it felt a bit too disconnected, but after the first couple of new perspectives it was clear what he was going for. It certainly helps that he writes such vivid characters. The only nitpick I have is that he tends to use the same words and phrases over and over to describe certain things: 'limp hair' and things 'whooshing' popped out at me." 15. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky - While I probably would have appreciated it even more when I was a shy, introverted (though not molested by my aunt teenager instead of a slightly-less-shy 23-year-old, this was still a fantastic book. Charlie's voice is unique, funny, and vibrant and never feels like an author writing a character. 16. Columbine, Dave Cullen - Holy poo poo this was amazing. Goodreads review: "Incredible journalism - meticulously researched and without any feeling of trying to exploit the tragedy. Very readable despite the gruesome subject matter." 17. Redshirts, John Scalzi - Not quite up to the level of the Ghost Brigades books, but still really entertaining. It's sort of a one-joke concept, but the characters carry it through. 18. City of Thieves, David Benioff - Second time reading this one, and it remains one of my all-time favorite books. Goodreads review: "Even better on reread. Beautifully written, and it would be a thoroughly harrowing if not for the humor injected throughout, which doesn't end up clashing at all with the often-brutal subject matter. Kolya's death was just as heartbreaking when I knew it was coming." 19. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Other Clinical Tales, Oliver Sacks - Gotta read me some more Sacks. I've got a copy of Musicophilia lying around at home that I've been meaning to read for a couple of years. Goodreads review: "Amazing. Sacks treats the subjects of his stories as complete human beings despite their often having disorders that give them ways of perceiving the world that are difficult to imagine, let alone relate to. All of the cases are fascinating, and many are more than a bit scary or heartbreaking, but the best thing about all of them is Sacks's compassion." 20. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks - Weird and disturbing, and all the better for it. It's hard to believe that this is his published debut since it's so confident and singular. 21. The God Engines, John Scalzi - Great concept and very cool extrapolations of that concept. I particularly liked how Scalzi looked at keeping faith despite getting the feeling there is something wrong with its basis. 22. When the Women Come Out to Dance, Elmore Leonard - Excellent collection of stories, and a wonderful introduction to Leonard. After this year, he and Iain Banks are two authors I wish I'd read more of while they were still alive. I just started reading Leonard because of Justified, so I particularly enjoyed "Fire in the Hole", but not one of the stories was less than great. 23. Pronto, Elmore Leonard - Again, I went straight for the Raylan Givens books because I loving adore Justified. Pronto was tight and fun, with rich characters and 24. Riding the Rap, Elmore Leonard - More or less direct sequel to Pronto. I loved the direction the characters went, and it's always fun to see a story I originally knew from Justified fleshed out into a full novel (yes, I know the novel came first). Goodreads review: "My only question is why none of you assholes told me to read Elmore Leonard before now." 25. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Philip K. Dick - Goodreads review: "The ending was a bit predictable, but it still made me laugh like a kid so that's okay." 26. Novecento: Die Legende des Ozeanpianisten, Alessandro Baricco - Totally different from Without Blood, and not just because I read this one in German. I wish my Italian were good enough to read the originals, but sadly my Italian is atrocious. I liked the monologue/play format, and the setting and characters were really evocative. The writing was really fun even in translation and reading in my second language. And I'm currently reading Raylan by Elmore Leonard! Whew, that was long. I should update more often so that I don't spend half an hour typing up something literally no one will read.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 10:46
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:106: Critical Failures - Robert Bevan 126: Robot vs Slime Monsters - A. Lee Martinez 126.5: Twittering from the Circus of the Dead - Joe Hill 127: The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty 128: The Reckoning - Jeff Long 129: Super - Ernie Lindsey 130: Broken Souls - Stephen Blackmoore 131: Hard Luck Hank: Screw The Galaxy - Steven Campbell 132: Hard Luck Hank: The Early Years - Steven Campbell 133: Hard Luck Hank: Delovoa - Steven Campbell 134: The (sort of) Dark Mage - Nelson Chereta 135: After The Rabbit - Nelson Chereta 136: New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel - Alisa Kwitney 137: The Dark Lord's Handbook - Paul Dale 138: Questing Sucks! - Levin Weinberg 139: Game Night - Jonny Nexus 140: NPCs - Drew Hayes Robot vs Slime Monsters was pretty awesome. Only didn't like one story that much, but the others were hilarious. I love this guy's work. It's a collection of short stories, each set in the books that he has written, so if you are a fan of the author (like I am) and you have read his books (like I have), you will get to hop back into each one and rock it. It's really nice seeing the various writing styles he can use also. Dude rocks. TFTCOTD was a short story from Joe Hill that was pretty good, but kinda retarded as well. The premise is "young girl tweets about being attacked while at the CIRCUS OF THE DEAD", and it IS an interesting (and very short) read, but the whole idea of tweeting OH GOD CALL THE COPS when you ARE ON A loving CELL PHONE kinda defeats the point of a horror novel. The Universe Builders was ok. It could have been a LOT better, but the story picked up about halfway through the book and became less lovely. Basically the main character is a god and he's trying to hold down a job as a "builder" (where they get to build universes). His arch rival and all around bully/rear end in a top hat from school is sabotaging his project, and then things happen. It's kind of a neat idea, and the perspective shift in the book is pretty nice but it's also a bit of a slog. The Reckoning was pretty good. I like Long's work. This was a horror story about a group of people who were digging for MIA bones in Cambodia getting stuck in a haunted/spooky rear end ancient city. Only real irritant was the main character being a rape survivor, because it didn't really add anything to the story and felt like it was tacked on for just general "feel bad for this character, FEEL drat YOU" points. Still, good book. Super was a story about a guy who does Superhero Assassinations, because sometimes Superheroes are actually colossal assholes who are also drug dealers or pedophiles and basically need to die and the government sends him to kill em. It's... it's an interesting book, and worth the read if you are a comics fan, but if you aren't I'd pass on it. Could be a lot better, but could have been a hell of a lot worse. 3/5 stars tops. Broken Souls is the new Blackmoore book, and it is awesome. If you liked the first book, Dead Things, you will loving LOVE this book. It's got an interconnected story to the rest of his universe, it builds the story up fairly well, and still leaves you with a few gut punches. Can't recommend it enough if you liked Dead Things. Hard Luck Hank series stuff is basically just the sequel to the first book, plus a few short story collections to flesh out the world a bit. I like the character, so I really loved these books. Also, they are on Kindle Unlimited so yay for free reading. The (sort of) Dark Mage/After The Rabbit are the first 2 books in a series, and they kinda suck. The first book is interesting, as it follows a Dark Mage on his first trial out in the real world, having to deal with people and settings completely different from what he is used to or expecting. ATR kinda sucked though. It took a fun and joy of the first book, and kinda pissed it away with a one note character (wacky gay ogre! hah!) and general "The author didn't really think this whole plot thing through, did he?" feeling. Most of the time the second book in the series is the worst, so I'll probably give the next one a shot. There was such a tonal shift between the first and second book that it was just kind of jarring. New Avengers was a novelization of the first few books of the New Avengers series, and was handled pretty well. They mostly focus on Hawkeye and Black Widow for the story, but it makes it a decent storyline when you realize this guy shoots arrows and she basically is a spy, and they are supposed to help save the world from people who can do incredibly powerful stuff. I'd recommend it if you are a fan of the comics. The Dark Lord's Handbook was... I want to say it was good, but it was just kind of weird. Decent read though. Worth reading if you are on a humor/fantasy kick like I was. Plus, it was cheap. Questing Sucks! was just a bad book. One note character who's main trait is to be so god damned annoying that you want him to die painfully, only he never does. The plot wanders around like a drunkard at a carnival, and there are plot holes you can throw a truck though. Bad, bad bad bad bad bad bad book. I made the mistake of reading because apparently the incredibly annoying lead character was going to die horribly and then he never loving did. It's a one star book and that's being generous with it. Game Night, on the other hand, was pretty good. It's a story about Gods playing D&D, and the world they create is real, so the perspective shift from "Gods around a table" to "actual characters in the scene" is pretty cool. I'd recommend it if you are on a fantasy kick. It's actually pretty good. I want to say it's like Discworld with the way the writing is handled, but that will give a bit of a wrong impression, so just assume it's pretty decent and grab it if you like. NPCs asks the question "What happens to the gaming world when the people playing the game leave?", and it handles it pretty well. Basically a "questing group" gets killed off pretty quick, and a group of NPCs from the local village where they managed to die have to take over the roles and go visit the king, because the king is batshit crazy and will raze the town if he thinks they had anything to do with the missing adventurers. Pretty great book. I was on a bit of a fantasy kick (still am), but out of everything I'd have to recommend the Hard Luck Hank stuff, Broken Souls, Game Night, and Robot vs Slime Monsters as the highlights of this particular update. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Aug 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 22:19
|
|
|
1) The Bone People - Keri Hulme. 2) The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson. 3) Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women - Geraldine Brooks. 4) Stargazing: Astronomy Without a Telescope - Patrick Moore 5) Great Australian Ghost Stories - Richard Davis 6) Tamsin - Peter S Beagle 7) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam plus the Fitzgerald translation of Bird Parliament. 8) The Breakwater House - Pascale Quiviger 9) The Cosmic Serpent - Jeremy Narby 10) The Disaster Artist - Greg Sestero and Tom Bissel. 11) Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God - Karl E. Peters. 12) Seven Little Australians - Ethel Turner 13) The Planets - Dava Sobel 14) My Place - Sally Morgan 15) Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon 16) Ritual: Power, Healing & Community - Malidoma Some 17) The Golem - Gustav Meyrink 18) Community Development in an Uncertain World - Jim Ife Textbook, but a good read for idealistic students heading into the human services field. 19) Animate Earth - Stephan Harding Interesting look at a not so common perspective of the world (from a western point of view, anyway). 20) Iwenhe Tyerrtye - Margaret Kemarre Turner An excellent introduction to the basics of Turner's traditional Arrernte culture. Highly recommended if you're interested in that kind of thing. 21) Ariel - Sylvia Plath It was okay. I'd like to re-read it at some point though, since I wasn't very patient with it this time around. 22) Welcome to My Country - Laklak Burarrwanga Another excellent book about a particular Aboriginal Australian culture. This one was slightly more geared towards kids, so less in-depth than Iwenhe Tyerrtye. 23) The Misogyny Factor - Anne Summers This was two speeches worked into a small book, put together around the time Julia Gillard made that famous misogyny speech. The book was decent, but the vibe was pretty second-wave feminist. 24) Green Heart - Alice Hoffman Really enjoyed it. It was two novellas in one book, and while the first was great, the second kind of dragged the whole thing down a bit. Still, the book has a neat, post-apocalyptic fairy-tale thing going on, and it's a quick read. (Goodreads review) Bolded my favourites so far. I'm still behind schedule by a few books, but I'm doing okay with my mini goals (3/5 books written by Indigenous Australians, an even spread of male and female authors). I'm surprised about half have been non-fic too. Should've made it another mini goal 
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2014 13:29
|
|
|
quote:01. The Stranger - Albert Camus 37. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jean-Dominique Bauby Tragic memoir of a man who suffered a stroke and woke up completely paralyzed except for his left eye. He wrote this book using a transcriber who would read a list of letters and he blinked once she got to the write letter. He died two days after publication.  38. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino I didn't enjoy this as much as Invisible Cities, but I still enjoyed it. Made me want to read Pale Fire more than anything. 39. Candide - Voltaire Hilarious. Quick read and available for free on Project Gutenberg so you have no excuse.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
Mahlertov Cocktail posted:
Is this the short story, or is this an extended version? I've read the short story, in the issue of F&SF it was released in. As I understand it, there are several versions of the story, one of which was written by Piers Anthony.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2014 01:51
|
|
|
Spadoink posted:
31. The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon 32. River of Shadows - Robert V.S. Redick 33. Night of the Swarm - Robert V.S. Redick 34. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck 35. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote 36. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami 37. Persuasion - Jane Austen 38. The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer 39. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville The Yiddish Policeman's Union was picked up after spying a fellow commuter reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and being intrigued by the book jacket. Since TAAOKC did not interest me specifically, I picked up The Yiddish Policeman's Union instead. It was an interesting conceit, a noir novel set in an alternate reality where Israel was never created and a bunch of Jewish refugees post WWII ended up in Alaska, but I found the overall narrative a little flat. Maybe it relied on the conceit too much to the detriment of the story and characters? I'm not sure, but something just didn't line up correctly for me. The two Robert V.S. Redick books were the final books in a quartet fantasy ship series that was pretty terrible. The story was okay, the ending unsatisfying, but the thing that bothered me the most was the continuation of straight-up print errors. Placeholders where names should be. Things spelled wrong. The whole series was a total waste, but I have a 'completion-compulsion' which motivated me to finish the series regardless. I had been avoiding The Good Earth for a long time, I'm not sure why, and am glad I finally picked it up. Farmer in pre-revolutionary China makes good through hard work, with bumps along the way. It coloured my reading of it to note that Pearl S. Buck was banned from China by the Communist government after the revolution. She was invited to return with Nixon on his historic trip, however, the Chinese government still refused to grant her entry. In Cold Blood was next. I enjoyed it, though I could hear Capote 'telling the story,' and altering bits to fit a nicer narrative structure. I love Haruki Murakami, and was very happy with Kafka on the Shore. I'm glad I didn't just tear through his whole back catalogue after discovering his work a few years ago, as I get to mete out my enjoyment over a longer period of time. More compelling narrative with touches of surreal weirdness. Also, talking cats. Despite holding a Bachelor's degree in English lit and taking all the lit classes I could get my hands on in high school, I have never read Jane Austen. I never wanted to. It seemed to me that I already knew the plot of all her books just from existing around other people who may have once read the book cover to a Jane Austen work. I read Persuasion to see if I might have been wrong, but I found I was right. By reading one Jane Austen book, I have now read them all. Smart, sensible heroine who is unlike her family/others around her, with the exception or one close friend/family member, has sense, heart and feeling, and by virtue of that sense, heart and feeling, attracts the love and affection of a smart, sensible, man, who may have mistook her looks, words, actions, previously as indicating that she was not full of said heart, sense and intelligence and/or not interested in a man of estimable virtue such as himself OR she may have mistook his looks, works, actions, previously as indicating that HE was not full of said heart, sense and intelligence and/or not interested in a lady of estimable virtue such as herself. Victorian sensibility conquers all. Ugh, terrible. Happily for you, you have now also read all of Jane Austen. The Executioner's Song was not the fastest 1000 pages I have ever read, as Dave Eggers tried to convince me it would be, in the introduction to the edition I picked up to read. This was mainly due to the fact that the size of the book prevented me from reading it on transit, which is where almost half of my reading takes place. It was a surprisingly compelling narrative, and my highest recommended read from this batch of updates. More true-to-life than In Cold Blood, the book is about Gary Gilmour, a murderer in the state of Utah, who in the late 70s, on being sentenced to death, tried to rush his execution date and bypass all the appeals process that a death-row convict usually takes part in. A fascinating study of so many of the parties involved in the story that just sucks you in and holds you. From Gary, his mom, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, to his girlfriend, her family, the legal teams on both sides of the case, the newsmen and women who chased such a big story, everyone is fleshed out and realized, and they are all, absolutely impossibly, interesting. I don't know how Mailer managed it, but he did. Fantastic, fantastic. Perdido Street Station was Perdido Street Station. I enjoyed the literary aspect to the writing, and was not surprised to see that China Mieville has some serious academic cred under his belt. Also, the Weaver was pretty great. I'm not really going to say much else - there's a whole thread discussing his work, but I went into this book blind and was pleased with the result.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2014 21:16
|
|
|
AreYouStillThere posted:
I've been keeping track of what I've read since 2010. My goal for 2014 was to cover a bit more ground than the 20 or so books I seem to average each year, while not sacrificing the quality or "cheating" with a bunch of novellas. I try to mix in plenty of non-fiction. My reading has been in fits and starts, but now I've already reached the bare minimum of ground I wanted to cover by the end of the year. I've read the following since January: The Civil War (Volume 2) - Foote If there's a more comprehensive history of the American Civil War, I've not heard of it. This was a bit of a slog, on account of its length and also the amount of information packed into each page. I'm going to wait a while before finishing the trilogy. The parts about Nathan Bedford Forrest, controversial figure though he may be, and also Beauregard's defense of Charleston were really the highlights for me. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez I'd read Conrad's Nostromo and Traven's more easy-going Treasure of Sierra Madre, but this was something altogether different. What a strange book. Insights into the culture went hand in hand with the surreal. I found some of it funny but I can imagine someone with a different disposition really laughing a lot at the craziness. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Rowling My S.O. loves these books, and I've tried to make headway with them for the sake of knowing what they're about for when we have kids. They're not badly written, and they're good stories, but I can't really call them page-turners. They seem useful to me more as good demonstrations of young adult literature. Rowling definitely nailed it. (Lovecraft collection) Great Tales of Terror - Lovecraft I'm sold on Lovecraft's command of language. I loved the first few bits of The Colour Out of Space. I also wanted to read about the much-talked-about Cthulhu. I can never look on places like Ball's Pyramid the same way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid A Confederacy of Dunces - Toole An oddball novel, but I laughed more while reading this than probably any other book I can remember. Jones is the most insightful jester I'd encountered since Ivanhoe. Sons and Lovers - Lawrence If I didn't have ancestry going back to the Welsh coal miners I probably wouldn't have finished this book. I couldn't get behind the sons. In terms of giving you a picture of the life in those parts, I guess it wasn't that bad. The characterization of the father was spot-on. Atlas Shrugged - Rand Big ideas, silly plot. I'll tackle The Fountainhead one of these days to see how it stacks up. The Ghost in the Machine - Koestler I studied microbiology and chemistry in undergrad, so (though not an expert myself) I was a bit taken aback by some of Koestler's sweeping conclusions. He seemed to think that a broad-based knowledge entitled him to make pretty bold claims about certain, very specific things. Animal Farm - Orwell It'd been years and years since I read this. A quick read. Poor Boxer, he gets me every time. Master and Commander - O'Brian I enjoyed the movie of the same name, and heard good things about the Aubrey/Maturin series, so I bought myself a copy of the first book. They're dirt cheap used. There is a lot more substance to it than I had expected. O'Brian did his homework not just on the naval aspects of the book but of the period itself. This kind of book is great for recharging my batteries. Brave New World - Huxley I'd read this years ago, at the beginning of college. It's very much a product of its time, and heavy-handed. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Twain I finally got around to finishing the other half of what seems like one long book. The trip down the river with the confidence artists really showed off Twain's silly sense of humor. I dig his novels but I still think you're better served reading his essays. Starship Troopers - Heinlein I bought this because of a a recommendation from my boss, of all people. He talked up the citizenship aspect of the book. He was right, in that the talk about citizenship and duty was what I enjoyed the most. The rest of pretty standard mid-century sci/fi, although with the clever twist of a common soldier's perspective from boot camp onward. The Culture of Narcissism - Lasch A buddy recommended I read some of the late Christopher Lasch. I was expecting political and social commentary more in the vein of Pat Buchanan but I found it to be closer to the level of Koestler. Lasch did his homework. I can't say that I agree with him on everything but he makes some good points. The psychoanalysis talk (this is a book from the late 70s) would be replaced nowadays with a polemic against pharmaceuticals. Ideas Have Consequences - Weaver A powerful tract from a University of Chicago professor. Written in the late 40s. You can see that he was a teacher of rhetoric. The whole thing reads like a speech. In Defense of Sanity (Essays) - Chesterton As much as I'd love to grab some booze and debate and discuss with late-in-life Chesterton, it's his earlier more frivolous essays that I enjoyed the most. The Revolt of the Elites - Lasch More Lasch. Although the Debate & Discussion guys would play whack-a-mole with me for daring to support a conservative viewpoint, I have to say that I endorsed (most of) Lasch's message here. If he had lived a few more years I wonder what he would've had to say about the state of affairs twenty years down the road from when this was written. The Campaigns of Alexander - Arrian This filled a gap in my collection of histories. The translator did a good job of making the writing accessible, and had annotations throughout. Alexander died at age 32 (my age), a sobering thought. I guess when Aristotle is your teacher and you're handed the keys to a powerful kingdom, you live life a little differently. Post Captain - O'Brian The books in my post are listed in order, and so after those last few I wanted to retreat into an adventure. This followup to Master and Commander is wonderful. O'Brian really did well to broaden this beyond another tale of a ship's crew piling up prize money (not that there's anything wrong with that). LLCoolJD fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Aug 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2014 20:33
|
|
|
Fellwenner posted:Congratulations! Thanks! 52: Wingman by Mark Maloney. I'm only about halfway through and this is a MASSIVE loving drag. The guy can write action sequences reasonably well, but otherwise it's plane porn with a massive Mary Sue protag set in a fairly unimaginative post-apocalyptic future, and not a small amount hypocritical in its treatment of women. It's really hard to keep reading. So unfortunately I didn't finish it prior to the wedding D:
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2014 22:17
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Is this the short story, or is this an extended version? I've read the short story, in the issue of F&SF it was released in. As I understand it, there are several versions of the story, one of which was written by Piers Anthony. As far as I know, it was the short story. In retrospect I feel a little bad including it because it's like 25 pages long at most but whatever.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
elbow posted:July - 48/52 August - 55/52 49. Wild Fell, by Michael Rowe. I had seen this recommended by a few people as a good take on the haunted house story, but I was disappointed by this. While the haunted house stuff was good, that was only a minimal part of the story, and I didn't feel it was tied in all that well with the first 2/3 of the book. 3/5 50. Schrodinger's Telephone, by Marion Stein. Saw a goon recommend this and thought it looked interesting (woman gets a phone call from her husband after he has died). It was an okay read, but it really focused a lot more on the psychological side than on the 'Schrodinger's telephone' side, and I wish it had been the other way around. 3/5 51. The Walking Dead Vol 21, by Robert Kirkman. I feel like I've been waiting for ever for this to come out - it did not disappoint. Negan is a great villain who kept surprising me. The only criticism I have is that the fighting scenes were sometimes really hard to make out. 4/5 52. The Anatomy of Motive, by John Douglas. This isn't a well-written book, and it's absolutely dripping with Douglas's view on the death penalty and what we should do with criminals, but boy does this hit my true crime sweet spot. 4/5 53 and 54. Y: The Last Man volumes 1 and 2, by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra. This series has its issues (ironically in depicting women), but it's great nonetheless. I've already ordered volumes 3 through 5. 4/5 55. The Giver, by Lois Lowry. The movie is coming out soon, and this is a classic kids/YA dystopian novel, so I thought I'd give it a read. I found it pretty disappointing, mostly because the story felt rushed and unfinished. I also hated the way she uses exposition to tell the story. 3/5  Reached my original goal, and have raised it to 70 books.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 03:53
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Thanks! 52: Wingman was, as noted above, a bit up-and-down. The action sequences were clear and well-written, and some of the big drat heroes moments genuinely made me happy. but mostly it was plane porn, with a protagonist who could basically do no wrong, amidst 'drat loving commies' setting. Aside from the action, pretty boring. 53: The Time of the Dark (i think it's called) by Barbara Hambly. It's OK so far, but it's another in a sequence of 'our world into theirs' type plots which seems to define this humble bundle and I'm getting kind of bored with those. It's got a good world with some interesting myth and backstory, I just can't understand why it NEEDS the whole 'person(s) from our world into theirs' to prop it up. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Aug 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 20:48
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:It's got a good world with some interesting myth and backstory, I just can't understand why it NEEDS the whole 'person(s) from our world into theirs' to prop it up. That poo poo used to be almost required of a fantasy story back in the day [1]. Out of the big foundational ones, the only exceptions I can think of are the Conan stories and Tolkien's stuff, and both of those instead used the conceit of "this is really our world in the distant past". No, wait, Fritz Leiber didn't use either in the Lankhmar stories, as far as I can remember. Doubtless other exceptions also exist. [1] One particularly hilarious example being The Worm Ouroboros which uses an astral traveler from our world as an establishing device and then completely forgets about him after the first chapter or two. Groke fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Aug 29, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 08:58
|
|
|
Groke posted:No, wait, Fritz Leiber didn't use either in the Lankhmar stories, as far as I can remember. Doubtless other exceptions also exist. In "Adept's Gambit" Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser go through a wizard portal to Macedonia where they kiss pigs and chat about Socrates.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 11:55
|
|
|
Siminu posted:In "Adept's Gambit" Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser go through a wizard portal to Macedonia where they kiss pigs and chat about Socrates. Figures; they did all kinds of weird crap.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 12:00
|
|
|
code:Nixonland - The story of how Richard Nixon took full advantage of a nation divided by the civil rights struggle. Best summed up in its final paragraph: Nixonland has never really gone away. It still exists.  Transition - Published without the M even though it's science fiction, a lot of reviewers have brought up a similarity to End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. I thought it was decent but nothing stellar (by his standards). A story about the Concern, an interdimensional organization that manipulates events in other universes. Escape from Camp 14 - Interesting to have a look into life in North Korea's work camps, but no other merits. Ebola-Helsinki - Crappy attempt at an airport thriller. Second book I've read by Soininvaara and the last. Pushing Ice - It's standard Reynolds, event and idea driven hard SF, you read it and you're engaged but you're not left with much to chew on afterwards. A crew of ice miners are dispatched to investigate a mysterious object in Rama style.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2014 10:53
|
|
|
ltr posted:1. The Fires of Heaven (Wheel of Time, #5) by Robert Jordan August Update 37. Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3) by James S.A. Corey 38. Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh 39. A New World: Taken (A New World, #4) by John O'Brien 40. Dust (Silo, #3) by Hugh Howey 41. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3 by George R.R. Martin 42. Rich Man's War by Elliott Kay 43. The Hunt for Atlantis (Nina Wilde & Eddie Chase, #1) Andy McDermott 44. The Player of Games (Culture, #2) by Iain M. Banks Progress: 44/52 A lot of reading this month as it's my slowest month of the year. Abbadon's Gate was alright. I'll catch up with the 4th book closer to when the 5th book is released. I liked Soft Apocalypse. Instead of our current civilization going out in a bang, it was a much slower eventual decline and the book goes through that slow decline. A Storm of Swords was good I guess. I'm a HBO watcher who reads the books after the fact so almost everything was spoiled for me before reading. I will say that the book does a better job of depicting how the war has impacted Westeros than the TV show did. Rich Man's War was good and expanded on the world the story of Poor Man's Fight takes place in. Looking forward to the third book of the series. The Hunt for Atlantis Goon author, not what I normally read but it was a fun read. Loved The Player of Games. I should have read this before Use of Weapons last year. Now I want to read the rest of the Culture books. ltr fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Aug 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2014 21:00
|
|
|
Female authors: 12/24 Non-fiction: 8/12 Goodreads. The Fall of the Roman Republic was not as good as The Makers of Rome, but does have Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar in it, so it's worth reading for those. As with the other, the Kindle version is badly put together and doesn't appear to have been edited to correct OCR errors. The Long Mars was OK. The Long Earth series is starting to lose me a bit. I'm pretty much sick of Joshua and Sally and Lobsang, but I liked the bits of this one that were focused on Maggie and her crew travelling out exploring. I find it disappointing that the aliens (Kobolds, Beagles, etc.) apparently aren't going to ever become central to the story in any way, and I don't much care for the "Next" introduced in this book, although they haven't done much so far, so they may turn out OK. From the Gracchi to Nero is apparently meant for highschool students, but it's less accessible than Plutarch, contains a lot of untranslated Latin and big chunks that are largely names and dates. It also jumps around a lot, skipping back and forward to focus on different things. And the Kindle version is made even harder to read by the numerous OCR errors and the fact that it's not correctly set up. For example, there is a table of contents that you can use to jump to different sections, but there is no way to jump to the table of contents. And I'm still behind on my target, although I have caught up on my non-fiction sub-target, so if I manage to read a bit more next month I should be back on track. Tiggum fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Sep 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 10:14
|
|
|
Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky as translated by David Magarshack. 75 The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. Since I've been recommending it so much I figured I'd reread it. It's still good. 76 Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror by James B. Twitchell. Some basic freudian interpretations of the appeal of the major Universal monsters. You've heard it all before; Dracula is the incestuous, sexually alluring father etc etc). Good overview of the history of these figures, from their pre-history in penny dreadfuls, the hazards that caused Universal to cement them, notable iterations from the cannibalistic horror boom, and some half-right speculations about the then-future now-past. It's a bit off that he restricts himself entirely to English and American films, I'm not sure how you can form an opinion of 70s slashers without some awareness of the Italians. 77 Flowers for the Judge by Marjory Allingham. Murder Mystery set in small publishing. Seemed a bit brisk. Good ending. 78 Dispatches by Michael Herr. Interesting. Basically just a soup of vietnam for 200 pages. Obviously a cornerstone in forming our impressions of the war. 79 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. A good short story with a fantastic tumour. It's also still good. ♀ 8/20 Σ 79/60 ]Obviously been having a difficult month reading. I've been flipping across numerous books, but still. I guess I've just been nervous.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 10:38
|
|
|
30) The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co #1) - Jonathan Stroud. Not a good book. The characters are unpleasant and irritating, they do stupid things for no other reason to maintain tension and there's one of those scenes where a two-dimensional antagonist picks on the main characters and is immediately smacked down by the authorial hand of God. Extensive grumbling here. 31) The Iron King (The Accursed Kings #1) - Maurice Druon. The first in a series of historical novels covering the fall of the French Capetian kings, with a few fictionalised elements like curses and witches to add drama. Interesting subject, but pretty awkwardly written in places. Goodreads review. 32) Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier. Really good. A modernisation and deconstruction of the Gothic romance, with great characterisation and atmosphere and some beautiful prose. It takes a lot of inspiration from Jane Eyre, except that this time the hero's mad first wife lives in the heroine's attic. Goodreads review. 33) We Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson. SO good. It's phenomenally atmospheric, the protagonist is insanely compelling (emphasis on insanely) and the prose is gorgeous. You know what, I'm actually embarrassed to talk about this book because whenever I do I seem to just collapse into this little pile of moron that occasionally yells SO GOOD or PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY like a misfiring See 'n Say. Definitely recommend. Goodreads review. 34) A Very British Murder: The Story of a National Obsession - Lucy Worsley. A history of the British obsession with murder. The first part covers media coverage of and popular responses to a variety of real-life killings through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and is pretty interesting. The second half charts trends in mystery fiction while giving away the endings of half the books mentioned because apparently Worsley completely missed the point of the genre. Goodreads review. 35) Operation Mincemeat - Ben Macintyre. A history of one of the madder deception plans of WW2, in which a dead man was dressed up as a major and tossed into the sea off Spain with a briefcase of fake letters chained to his belt. Well-written and easy to follow despite the huge number of players, and comes with like fifteen pages of bibliography and annotations. Goodreads review.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 11:51
|
|
|
screenwritersblues posted:35) The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt August! 36) We Our Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas: I wanted to like this book, but it was just too long and somewhat bland. I just couldn't get into it and just read it pretty quick just to get through it. 37) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: I really liked this book. Doerr did something different with it and made each chapter seem like a short story instead of a long, draw out book like it could have been. It was super interesting too. 38) The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison: This was an interesting collection of essays from the time that the she worked as a medical actor, a person who get paid to fake symptoms for med students. It was interesting and also really eye opening to what she was doing during this time frame in her life. 39) Insatible: A Porn Love Story by Asa Akira: Yes, I read this book. I can honestly say that Asa has lead probably the craziest life of any person that I've ever read. From doing drugs in her youth in NYC to moving out to California to enter the adult industry, it was some what fascinating. Also, the book has the best dedication that I've ever read: To my parents. But please don't read it. 40) The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings (Audiobook): I enjoyed her book The Descendents that I read last year and it made me really want to go to Hawaii, even though it painted a somewhat dismal picture of what is marketed to be a happy island. This book made me want to go to Colorado and see what it's really like too. 41) Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage by Molly Wizenberg: I wanted to like this book, but I didn't really like it. I don't know if it was the fact that it was about the opening of a restaurant or I just didn't expect it to be what it was, but there was just something about it that I didn't enjoy. Currently Reading: Annihilation(Book 1 of the Southern Reach Trilogy) by Jeff VanderMeer: I'm into it so far and it's good. I just hope that the other two books don't go south like most series do. Goal: 30/30 Year: 41/30
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
eagerly awaiting CestMoi's next update.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 18:08
|
|
|
August! 90. Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy #1) - Jeff Vandermeer 91. Life after Life - Kate Atkinson 92. The Martian - Andy Weir 93. Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy #2) - Jeff Vandermeer 94. The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer 95. The Doll’s House (Sandman #2) - Neil Gaiman 96. Dream Country (Sandman #3) - Neil Gaiman 97. A Season of Mists (Sandman #4) - Neil Gaiman 98. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin 99. A Game of You (Sandman #5) - Neil Gaiman 100. The Brothers K - David James Duncan 101. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling 102. Fables and Reflections (Sandman #6) - Neil Gaiman 103. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling 104. Last Call - Tim Powers 105. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling 106. Brief Lives (Sandman #7) - Neil Gaiman 107. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling 108. Worlds' End (Sandman #8) - Neil Gaiman 109. The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Reagan - Rick Perlstein This month has been a month of revisiting old favorites - as you can see, I’m tearing through both the Harry Potter series and the Sandman graphic novels. Both are so great in their own ways. Beyond those, the two clear favorites were The Martian and The Brothers K. The Martian was a really fun survival adventure set on Mars, with a hilarious narrator - the astronaut who got left behind. The flippant tone might turn people off - would someone left on an alien planet really be that blithe? - but I really enjoyed it. The Brothers K was a massive story of a family, baseball, and Vietnam. I know how cliched that sounds, but it's actually wonderfully done. It's inspired by Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, but a different beast in its own way, and probably the best book I read all year. I saw someone mentioned Nixonland, and today I finished Perlstein's new book, The Invisible Bridge, which follows the end of Nixon's presidency and the rise of Reagan's. It was, unfortunately, not as good as Nixonland, though it still had several interesting moments. Still, Nixon's a bit more intriguing of a person as Reagan, and the 60s seemed more interesting than the 70s. Chamberk fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
Ursus Veritas posted:January June 18. The Severed Streets (Shadow Police #2) by Paul Cornell August 19. Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem 20. The Magician's Land (The Magicians #3) by Lev Grossman 21. Echopraxia by Peter Watts I should really read more but school is starting up again so we'll see how that goes. All good books this time, The Severed Streets was weird with Neil Gaiman inexplicably showing up as a character in the book and killing one of the main characters, so yeah totally weird. Gun, With Occasional Music is a PKD inspired noir story with anthropomorphic animals and heaps of dystopia for good measure, it's good but a lot a couple of the sci-fi elements that are introduced never really get included in the plot. The Magician's Land was a great end to the series, fleshed out some of the under developed characters and tied up all the loose ends, I enjoyed it. Echopraxia rules, Peter Watts rules, writing a hard scifi book about god and religion, I love it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2014 23:04
|
|
|
64 books and thus my goal for this year hit.  55. Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh 56. Hellburner by C.J. Cherryh 57. Rimrunners by C.J. Cherryh 58. Cuckoo's Egg by C.J. Cherryh 59. The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh 60. The Faded Sun: Shon'Jir by C.J. Cherryh 61. The Faded Sun: Kutath by C.J. Cherryh Another CJC binge! Heavy Time and Hellburner are meant to be read in sequence (and have in fact been re-released as a single volume, Devil to the Belt). They're set before the Treaty of Pell, and along with Rimrunners are (I think) the only A-U books dealing with the Earth Company/Fleet side of things. I'd read them before, but out of order and separated by years; it's nice to finally read them in order. Things make a lot more sense when you've read Heavy Time first. The rest are straightforward rereads. The Faded Sun trilogy remains some of my favourite Cherryh. 62. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman Feynman's memoirs! Quite interesting, and some of the stories remind me of my Dad's stories of his time working as a programmer on a US navy base. A lot of it is funny, but in a "ha ha holy poo poo this guy is an rear end in a top hat" way; Feynman was quite the poo poo-stirrer. 63. In Golden Waters: Stories of the Seastead by Something Awful Another Goon short story collection. I didn't like this one nearly as much as Aluminum Sky. Part of this, I think, is that doesn't have as much to work with; "floating city-state built by, and for, libertarian assholes" just can't compete with "huge underground bunker complex built by, and for, people who have transplanted their brains into giant ten-dicked cybernetic dragon bodies made of magic future aluminum". On top of that, though, the overall quality is lower, and all the worst stories are front-loaded rather than scattered randomly through the book like in AS. Furthermore, there are a lot of stories that are clearly setting something up to be continued in a later chapter that never appears; presumably the author posted the first part and then hosed off and was never seen again. And there's a few stories from the thread that I remember liking that I can't find in this collection. All in all, rather a disappointment after Aluminum Sky. Despite the author's protestations in the foreword that he wrote this not to impart any sort of mortal lesson but simply for the fun of it, he sure spends a lot of words trying to hammer each story into a moral lesson! And like Volkman's Spies, it suffers from having a lot of quantity but not much quality. 64. If Only They Could Talk by James Herriot 65. It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet by James Herriot 66. Let Sleeping Vets Lie by James Herriot 67. Vet in Harness by James Herriot 68. Vets Might Fly by James Herriot 69. Vet in a Spin by James Herriot US readers may know these better as the omnibus editions All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Wise and Wonderful and All Things Bright and Beautiful. These are stories about rural veterinary practice in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1940s, and are mostly autobiographical -- with names changed to protect the guilty, and some embellishment. These too are rereads, but it's been over a decade since I read them last. In the intervening decade I've married one woman who grew up on a farm, and dated another; this has let me soak up some knowledge about farming and given me an even greater appreciation for them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 01:19
|
|
|
Prolonged Shame posted:1) Winters Heart - Robert Jordan August! I'm planning a cross country move, so I didn't read a lot this month. 76) The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides: I really liked the atmosphere he evoked in this book. It made me feel like I was growing up in a small town in the 70's. Unfortunately, it was another case of a book about women written by a man and the perspective was so male it was sort of funny how he thought females operated. Very well written though. 77) Mayflower - Nathaniel Philbrick: I picked this up because I am a descendant of some Mayflower passengers and thought it would be cool to read about their lives. Unfortunately, this book is more about King Philip's War than about the Pilgrims. Not bad, but it doesn't really deliver on the title premise. 78) The Two Gentlemen of Verona - William Shakespeare: Not bad. You can tell it was one of his early works, and you can see the beginnings of some of his later comedies in the plot. 79) The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris: Excellent. I decided to do the three volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt because it's supposed to be the best, and it does not disappoint. You really get a sense of his personality. Now, I just have to finish the next two volumes. 80) Napoleon's Pyramids - William Dietrich: Enjoyably mindless. I will probably read the rest of the series. 81) The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory: While I wait for the next Hilary Mantel book, there are plenty of Tudor court novels to tide me over. I liked this one. Catherine of Aragon is so often overlooked in favor of the more glamorous queens, it was neat to read something from her perspective. Overall:81/100 Sub-goals: Presidential biographies: 9/12 Books over 600 pages: 15/15 - done! Non-fiction books (not counting prez bios): 18/20
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 07:21
|
|
|
Fellwenner posted:35) East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. August! 40) Tower Lord, by Anthony Ryan. The POV is shared between four people now which is a disappointing change at first, and I kind of felt like a couple of the characters resolved their personal journey's too quickly. Still an excellent book, though. 41) Journal of a Novel, by John Steinbeck. I tried to keep the reading of this and East of Eden going in tandem until Steinbeck went and spoiled me on something that happens in the future of the book and I had to put it down. Still though, interesting and rewarding glimpse into Steinbeck's daily life and thoughts. 42) The Sixteenth of June, by Maya Lang. Character driven (sort of) love triangle experienced over the course of a Bloomsday in which a funeral for a family member is held as well. The POV is shared between the three and their personal issues intertwine nicely. I liked it. 43) Half a King, by Joe Abercrombie. More of the same, and it works as it always has. I liked it more than his Red Country. Maybe it's just the North in his setting which I like the most. 44) Fools Assassin, by Robin Hobb. It built up much slower than the other Fitz books. Emotional, melancholy, happy (yes, he's not all gloom). I really enjoyed it. The plot points are super obvious though, and you'll feel like you were bludgeoned over the head with them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 09:30
|
|
|
CestMoi posted:July update!! AUGUST 14) The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton (1986 BBC Radio Adaptation) 15) The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton (2005 BBC Radio Adaptation as read by Geoffrey Palmer) 16) The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton (Audiobook on LibriVox read by Zachary Brewster-Geisz) Good
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 13:46
|
|
|
48. Shadow of a Dead Star by Michael Shean Debut cyberpunk noir novel that surprised me, despite being about an angry white man, by being completely aware that it was about an angry white man. It had an abrupt ending that screamed "sequel" but overall, surprisingly good. I normally quit reading cyberpunk or noir books a quarter of the way through; this had me reading the sequel. longer goodreads review 49. Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler Disappointing. I was told this was a hilarious book set in the wild west that dealt with racial politics in American history. Hilarious is the wrong word to use; it had boring characters, a lovely story, and made me think that Karen Joy Fowler hates women. longer goodreads review 50. Redeye by Michael Shean Holy poo poo am I glad I picked up the sequel to Shadow. Badass book about a badass lady doing badass things that actually had tense, well-written "hacking battles" along with gross weird body horror stuff. So good. longer goodreads review 51. Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway Best book of the month. If Neal Stephenson read some Douglas Adams then went off to write a Guy Ritchie movie involving an 80 year old lesbian superspy. Phenomenally written. longer goodreads review Short month, but then, I had a breakdown go me. I meant to read more women authors than just one this month, but hey, poo poo happens. Michael Shean was my surprise author to find; I actually went and had lunch with the author too and he's a really down-to-earth guy who shares my opinion that books about dudes doing dude things are boring as poo poo. Angelmaker though; gently caress, Nick Harkaway deserves more fans. It wasn't as bizarre as Gone Away World, and it had a couple of problems, but overall what a fantastic fuckin' book.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 14:02
|
|
|
August - 6: 32. Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami) 33. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) 34. What is Property? (P.J. Proudhon) 35. Oryx & Crake (Margaret Atwood) 36. When the Lights Went Out: What Really Happened in Britain in the Seventies (Andy Beckett) 37. No Logo (Naomi Klein) Another good month. Dance Dance Dance was odd to read. It's fun, but the story seems a bit all over the place; a lot of the early build-up doesn't seem to pay off and near the end it just seems to peter out. I sort of feel like that was the point, but idk. I liked it for what it was. I picked up The Name of the Rose from a lucky dip last year and hadn't gotten around to reading it. I'm glad I have now because holy poo poo what a book. I'd half-seen the film years ago so I sort of knew the story, but despite that being a fun if fairly standard murder mystery it's the language itself which is really beautiful in this. Eco is really careful to build up the abbey as a real place and everyone in it lives and breathes. Fantastic. What is Property? Robbery. My copy of this is from some press I'd never heard of and the presentation was lazy as poo poo; all Greek words just had some garbled poo poo and then GREEK with some brackets written next to them, and in several places (particularly in the second half, the letter to Montesquieu defending the original treatise) editor's notes on the manuscript had been obviously left in. That didn't detract from the argument being made though. I'm not sure I'm convinced by everything Proudhon is saying, but I feel like I understand anarchism better now than I did previously. Oryx & Crake I shot through in an evening and a morning. I liked Atwood when I read the Handmaid's Tale earlier in the year, and I loved this. The pacing and the gradual build up of the story being told is excellent. I've heard mixed things about Year of the Flood and MaddAdam but I don't really care, I'm looking forward to them based on this. When the Lights Went Out was a really comprehensive look at British politics in the 1970s. It's thoroughly researched, admirably balanced and manages to keep up a brisk pace throughout. If you have any interest in the period at all, or British politics in general, this is the perfect history of the era. No Logo was really, really depressing. I'd read some of it as a kid but never finished, and I was way too young to grasp it then anyway. It's about a decade and a half out of date now, and the Shock Doctrine covers some of the same ground much better, but it's still a brilliant and insightful piece of work. Reading this helped to crystallise some of the train of thought I've had for a while now, and I don't think there's a better review of a book than that. I'm about 100 pages into The Quarry now. I was hoping to have it finished and get another month of 7 in but I took a little long on the last two books and then had a hellaciously busy week so that didn't happen. So far I really like it and I can't wait to get some time to read more. Year so far: 01. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Robert Tressell) 02. Always Managing: My Autobiography (Harry Redknapp) 03. Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe) 04. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened (Allie Brosh) 05. Dracula (Bram Stoker) 06. The Drowned World (JG Ballard) 07. The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty (G.J. Meyer) 08. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel) 09. The Politics (Aristotle) 10. The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) 11. Twelve Years a Slave (Solomon Northup) 12. The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) 13. If on a winter's night a traveller (Italo Calvino) 14. The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels) 15. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (Eric Hobsbawm) 16. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima) 17. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 (Alistair Horne) 18. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) 19. Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell) 20. Half Blood Blues (Esi Edugyan) 21. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600 (Halil Inalcik) 22. The Outsider (Albert Camus) 23. The Ottoman Empire: The Structure of Power 1300-1650 (Colin Imber) 24. Suleiman the Magnificent (André Clot) 25. Forbidden Colours (Yukio Mishima) 26. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) 27. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquéz) 28. On the Road (Jack Kerouac) 29. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 (Michael Azerrad) 30. Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (Mo Yan) 31. The Sound of Things Falling (Juan Gabriel Vásquez) 32. Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami) 33. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) 34. What is Property? (P.J. Proudhon) 35. Oryx & Crake (Margaret Atwood) 36. When the Lights Went Out: What Really Happened in Britain in the Seventies (Andy Beckett) 37. No Logo (Naomi Klein) Total: 37/60, 4+2/8 women, 6+2/8 non-white people, 16/20 non-fiction
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 19:08
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:126: Robot vs Slime Monsters - A. Lee Martinez 141: The Sorcerer's Widow - Lawrence Watt-Evans 142: Critical Failures 3 - Robert Revan 143: The Blinding Knife - Brent Weeks 144: Gun Monkeys - Victor Gischler 145: The Automatic Detective - A Lee. Martinez 146: The Infinity Agenda - David Conyers 147: The Elder Codex - David Conyers 148: Chasing the Moon - A Lee Martinez 149: Too Many Curses - A Lee Martinez 150: Immortal and the Madman - Gene Doucette 151: Immortal At Sea - Gene Doucette 152: Hard Boiled Immortal - Gene Doucette 153: In the Company of Ogres - A Lee Martinez The Sorcerer's Widow is the latest in the Esthar series ( I think ). Pretty good. Happy fantasy novels are always welcome since 99% of the time it's rape, torture, wars and just general negative poo poo. Critical Failures 3 was awesome. If you liked the first 2, then this is going to be your lucky day. It got a little weird in a spot, but basically this book has dethroned City of the Lost as my favorite book involving a psychopathic midget. The Blinding knife was a reread because I started The Broken Eye and could not remember what the gently caress happened in the last book. Gun Monkeys was pretty great. It's a noir novel, and STRICTLY a noir novel. Nary a spell or hex or fairy in sight. It had me laughing a few times though, which was pretty surprising. All the Martinez books are books you should own. Same as Discworld. Great writer, and he writes in a ton of different styles, and pulls em all off. Can't recommend him enough. The immortal series are short story/novellas featuring the immortal Adam from the Immortal series by Gene Doucette. Basically just filler backstory as to his life since we don't learn much about it in the books, but they are worth a read if you enjoy the series. Conyers had some great stories, the 3rd was a reread but the 4th was a new one. Few typos in there, which was kinda weird. I feel like I forgot a few books, but eh, if I remember what the hell they were I'll update the list. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Sep 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2014 21:23
|
|
|
Corrode posted:
Yeah, good when I read it but depressing. She has a new book coming out in a couple weeks that I just preordered.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2014 00:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 23:19 |
|
|
August. 50. The Algebraist. Iain M. Banks. I really liked this. Between the conjuntion of stories and the characters, it was a great book. The end was a little weird but the story makes up for it. 51. Hogfather. Terry Pratchett. Funny as hell. All the references to Christmas were amazing. 52. Rule 34. Charles Stross. Really good, but sometimes I was as confused as the characters, but the end was nice. 53. Pump Six and Other Stories. Paolo Bacigalupi. All the stories are awesome, I wish I could write like that. 54. Elric of Melniboné. Michael Moorcock. Pretty good and fast-paced dark fantasy. 55. Goliath. Scott Westerfeld. The references to real people started to get ridiculous. Also, the main characters got more annoying. I'm glad it's over.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2014 01:04
|
|
