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Previously read: 1. Exoskeleton by Shane Stadler 2. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien 3. The Serpent by Claire North 4. Dear Mr Kershaw: A Pensioner Writes by Derek Philpott February 5. Bossypants by Tina Fey 6. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski 7. The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman 8. The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Steifvater 9. The Dream Thieves (Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Steifvater 10. Blue Lily, Lily Blue (Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Steifvater 11. Modern Romance by Aziz Anzari A good month for me reading wise, helped a lot by being off work last week and starting the Raven Cycle series that I read over a couple of days. They were pretty enjoyable overall and the plot kept me reading although I found some of the characters annoying in an unspecified 'oh for god's sake' kind of way. Probably quite typical for YA books though. Certainly a nice change from House of Leaves that I started in early January and took well over a month to finish. While I haven't really bought into the whole hidden messages cult thing about the book and just read it for what it was, it definitely left an impression and was worth the read. I don't expect I'll read as many in March, I have a couple of long and involved books on my list to read. Booklord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 11/35 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery.
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Feb 28, 2016 17:08
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My update for February. I really should read some longer books... 6. At Swim Two Birds (Flann O'Brien) This was my third attempt reading this since I got it and I finally finished it. I can’t say I understand what it’s all about. I found the Finn sections rather tedious but everything kept my interest. Not sure what the purpose of the structure - a story within a story within a story (within a story?) is. 7. Humber Boy B (Ruth Dugdale) Something more straightforward. A young man imprisoned for murder as a boy is paroled from prison. I really didn’t care about the personal/love-life of the parole officer which took up half the book. The flashbacks telling the story of what happened the day of the murder was more interesting than the present day of the story. 8. The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe) First in a series. A foreword explains that what follows is a translation of a future artifact sets the tone as Severian, an apprentice of the Torturers’ Guild begins his story. I’m intrigued enough to keep reading the series. 9. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) I didn't like this much. Of its time and not in a good way. Booklord Challenge 1) Vanilla Number: 9/52 2) Something written by a woman: Humber Boy B (Ruth Dugdale) 4) Something written in the 1800s: Persuasion (Jane Austen) 8) A work of Science Fiction: Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) 9) Something written by a musician: Wonders of Life (Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen) 13) Read Something YA: Only Ever Yours (Louise O'Neill) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now: At Swim Two Birds (Flann O'Brien) 17) The First book in a series: The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe)
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Feb 28, 2016 17:19
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My February: 6. Murakami Ryu – Magic Water (Kadokawa Horror Short Story Collection 2) A Collection of Short Stories with some famous japanese authors and some not so well known, at least internationally, chosen by Murakami Ryu. Included are Murakami Haruki, Yamada Amy, Renjo Mikihiko, Shiina Makoto, Harada Munenori, Yoshimoto Banana, Kageyama Tamio, Mori Yoeko and Murakami Ryu. Even though I’m reading Japanese I haven’t actually read most famous authors at all yet, so this was the first time I have read all these authors. To be honest I was kind of disappointed by Yoshimoto Banana, her story just didn’t grab me at all, I’ll still grab Kitchen someday though because it’s really famous and maybe her story in here was just not my thing. Murakami Haruki was really short but I liked it, I have Norwegian Wood somewhere on my shelf so I’ll read that later this year. The Murakami Ryu story Penlight was something else though, it was great right from the start and had me grabbed from the first page even though it was completely hosed up. It’s a kind of mistery thing about a prostitute living in squalor who has another person living inside her head all told from first person. I don’t want to spoil anything but in the last few pages the story turns around completely and ends really really violent. From reading around a bit I see Murakami Ryu has kind of a reputation for over the top violence but it came completely out of nowhere. I really want to read more of him and I enjoyed the writing a lot but I am a bit hesitant because it was just that gruesome. I have Coinlocker Babies and Almost Transparent Blue on my shelf. I think I’ll read Coinlocker Babies next, this time with the knowledge that hosed up things could happen. The other ones ranged from completely boring to good but there was nothing else that made me want to read a novel by the other authors. (21-A short story collection) 7. Stephen King – The Bazaar of Bad Dreams I liked most of the stories in this which is what I expected because Stephen King is just one of those authors who can really write Short Stories. Some were worse than others but by and large very enjoyable. Is Stephen King Airport Fiction? I’d guess so but I’m not sure what that “genre” includes. 8. Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go Very slow but very good. I enjoyed every moment of it even though it was one of the creepiest books I’ve read in a long time. There’s just an atmosphere of dread that permeates everything. If any of you plans to read this book I’d advise you not to look it up on the internet because of spoilers. I guess it’s still enjoyable to read with knowing what it’s about but I liked the figuring it out part of it too. 9. Steven Erikson – Blood Follows My first fantasy read this year. I am slowly working through the Malazan series and before diving into the next big title later this year I wanted something shorter. Fun quick read. Books Read: 9/40 Booklord Challenges: 7/22 Books in Japanese: 2/10 Books in German: 2/5
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Feb 28, 2016 22:28
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^Coin Locker Babies has become one of my favourite books since I read it a year and a half ago. Definitely worth checking out. My Booklord update for February: I read 5 books, bringing my total up to 11! 7 - Wolf In White Van, by John Darnielle. A hell of a debut novel. Told from the perspective of an isolated, disfigured man who runs a play-by-mail adventure game, the book follows episodes from his life, including traumas and mundane details from his past. Darnielle's writing style means that even the smallest details of a memory or a mental process are rendered in vivid, livable detail. I especially adored the way he describes the psychology of creating imaginary worlds, and of guiding people through them. There are parts that are silly, and parts that are poignant and very moving. I can see why it was on so many Best Of lists when it came out. 8 - New World: An Anthology of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, edited by C. Spike Trotman. I helped kickstart this, and I'm really happy with how it turned out! A chunky anthology of 24 SF comics, all with the theme of "cultures colliding". As with any anthology there are some entries I liked a lot more than others, but the average quality is pretty high. There's space opera, philosophical sci-fi, post-apocalypse, comedy, sadness, and a whole host of creatures, human and non-human. My favourites included 'Peopleology', by Magera Gordon, 'The Book House', by Jonathon Dalton, 'Daikaiju, Die!', by Iris Jay & Nero O'Reilly, and 'The Numbers Game', by Jakob Free, Mark Pearce & Nic J Shaw. 9 - The Gondola Scam, by Jonathan Gash. I got this book because of the blurb: 'Can one person - even Lovejoy, the quintessential rogue - steal all the antiques in Venice?' And by the time I was halfway through I realised I didn't care whether or not he could. Lovejoy is a weasely, sexist twerp, and the other characters are even less well-drawn, especially the women (even for 1986!). Two good things this book does: I learned a fair bit about art forgery, and about the architecture of Venice. In fact, Gash probably went on a nice holiday to Venice and thought he could use his travel diary as the basis for another book - it seems this is actually the sixth Lovejoy "mystery", so maybe he was just out of ideas at this point. It didn't make me want to go back and read any more, though. I preferred this book when it was just a silly title and a great tagline. 10 - Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay. A collection of essays by writer, cultural critic and self-described "bad feminist" Roxane Gay. A lot of the essays and articles surround current events from the last few years, from high-profile rape cases to major film releases. A large chunk of the book is Gay's writings on film and music, linking particular works and artists to their racial and patriachal contexts - her own writing comes under scrutiny, too. There are also a fair few more autobiographical pieces, where Gay discusses her own life, experiences, and her relationship with ideas of gender, race and activism. At times the book can be really jarring, as an anecdote about teenage uncertainty turns into a frank and vivid discussion of her own sexual abuse. She has a strong voice, and even the most innocuous-seeming essay (like, for instance, her brief career in professional Scrabble) feels important. 11 - Dept. Of Speculation, by Jenny Offill. Short, sweet and sad, this is the story of a woman and her life with a husband and daughter over several years. It's told through short snapshots and brief thoughts, letting the reader piece together the surrounding details about big, sudden changes and gradual shifts. It's a style that works pretty well, and also gives the book a more wistful, nostalgic feel, the prose rendered in vivid memories, quotations and snippets of conversation. I liked this book - it was fast but engrossing. BOOKLORD PROGRESS: 1) 52+ books - 11 2) At least 40% (21) by a woman - 5 - Supervillainz; AM/PM; New World; Bad Feminist, Dept. Of Speculation 4) Something written in the 1800s - 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - 12) Read Airplane fiction - 13) Read Something YA - 14) Wildcard! (City of Stairs) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. - 17) The First book in a series - 18) A biography or autobiography - 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc.) or from the Beat Generation - 20) Read a banned book - 22) It’s a Mystery. -
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Feb 29, 2016 00:57
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Total: 5/52 Female authors: 2/24 Non-Fiction: 1/12 Arabian Nights: 2/10(16) Goodreads As you can see, I read gently caress all this month. I'd blame having more to do than usual, but I also did a lot of procrastinating and didn't even use that time to read any books. Anyway, That's Not How You Wash Squirrels is great and you should read it if you've enjoyed any of Thorne's other stuff. If you've never heard of him, Look Evelyn, Duck Dynasty Wiper Blades. We Should Get Them is a bit better so I'd recommend that one instead. Or just read Missing Missy or Party in Apartment 3 on his website to see if you like his style.
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Feb 29, 2016 04:12
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February update. Previously: 1. White Line Fever by Lemmy Kilmister. 2. Slåttekar i himmelen by Edvard Hoem. 3. Half the World by Joe Abercrombie. 4. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. New: 5. I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire. Stole this as my wildcard book (someone else didn't want it). It was entertaining enough, although the scope was a bit more limited and shallow than I'd expected (basically it looked at marriage in a European/Christian context and ended with the dawn of the early modern age). No big revelations or shocks for this reader, at least. I rated it as okay. 6. Anabasis by Xenophon. This was February's BOTM and I jumped on it although I'd read it before (that was many years ago in college). Read the Dakyns translation which was free on Kindle, the English was a bit old-fashioned and stodgy but not painfully so (have read much, much worse before and managed to enjoy that as well). Big drat classic eye-witness tale of desperate military adventure, has been ripped off a zillion times by mil-SF writers alone (never mind writers outside that subgenre). Especially hilarious how Xenophon keeps presenting himself as the smartest yet humblest guy and the voice of reason who always has the best ideas. 7.-9. The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, The End has Come edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey. Picked up these because some goon mentioned them and blazed through all three concurrently. These are three short-story collections with stories mostly by the same authors where most of those stories are sequels to each other, and the division is roughly such that the first volume is about the run-up to and/or the early stages of some sort of apocalypse, the second is right in the middle of the poo poo and the third is about the aftermath/consequences. I made a little chart and read the stories by each author in sequence, as far as it was applicable. Like most such collections the quality and personal appeal (to me) of the stories varied quite a lot; mostly it was quite enjoyable and I found several new-to-me authors that I will be looking to read more from. 10. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck. Randomly found a copy of (an old Norwegian translation of) this book at my parents' place, thought to myself "Isn't Steinbeck counted as a Lost Generation writer and isn't that one of the points in the Booklord challenge?; also, I've never actually read any Steinbeck," so I took it from the shelf and read it. Even though I quickly found out that it is in fact the sequel to a more famous book of his, it was funny as poo poo and had some downright beautiful prose (even in translation) plus memorably quirky characters. Not going to be my last Steinbeck, if I can help it. 11. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold. So-far-last (and feeling pretty final) in the long-running Vorkosigan series (it's been 30 years since the first came out, 20-something years since I discovered them). A fairly tranquil plot about mature romance and personal life choices, but hell, Bujold could write a recipe book and I'd be all over it. This book just gave me the warm fuzzies all over and infused me with a deep and abiding love for all living things (which will probably last until the next time I hear a report of someone being an rear end in a top hat). Yeah, February was a pretty good month, in part because I had a whole week off with only the oldest of my three kids to watch, which left me with several hours of reading time per day. So am well ahead of the curve in most respects. There will be other months in 2016 with much less reading time. Booklord challenge: 1) Vanilla Number - 11/40 2) Something written by a woman- I Don't, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s - Three Men in a Boat 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Slåttekar i himmelen, Anabasis 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - much of The Apocalypse Triptych, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen 9) Something written by a musician - White Line Fever 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA - Half the World 14) Wildcard! - I Don't 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) - Half the World 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. - Three Men in a Boat 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography - White Line Fever 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration - Sweet Thursday 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection - all volumes of The Apocalypse Triptych 22) It’s a Mystery. Additional individual challenge: Norwegians: 1/10 Non-fiction: 3/5 Max re-reads: 1/5 BONUS INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGE: What the hell, I've followed the BOTM for both January and February; I'm going to keep doing that for the rest of the year. (Escape clause: Will reserve the option to skip books I've already read.)
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Feb 29, 2016 12:48
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Motherfucker this took longer than I wanted to. had to delay the last reading by a week because of really painful tonsilitis. Anyway ... 1) Vanilla Number - 1/20 2) Something written by a woman 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery. 1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy A marvelous read from cover to cover. Tolstoy really has a knack for writing characters that actually seem like real, living human beings. Nobody is only bad or only good. Everyone has a rich and complicated inner life, and the moment you try to judge somebody, e.g. Anatole Kuragin or Dolokhov, you're immediately presented with a chapter that forces you to reconsider. They're plausibly complex while still being melodramatic. This is a novel that pretty much has it all. Grand, epic depictions of the battlefields, longwinded philosophical musings about history, a glance at what life as a nobility in the early 1800s was like in Russia, social commentary, love triangles and drama and even moments of pure comedy. It took me aout a month and a half of active reading to get through, but it was well worth it. I think my favourite part in the book were when Tolstoy used beekeeping as a metaphor for what Napopleon expected to hear and see when he conquered Moscow versus the dead silence he was actually met with. There's also an absolutely brilliant paragraph about causality, described by peasant folklore and steam engines somewhere after the 2/3rd mark. From this point on I'll try to update monthly, at the end of each month. ulvir fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 13:13
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February - 6: 09. Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) 10. Ubik (Philip K. Dick) 11. The Vegetarian (Han Kang) 12. Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coetzee) 13. John Crow's Devil (Marlon James) 14. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) 6 this month. Two fewer than January, but one of them was 744 pages of Anna Karenina. Which was sublime in its detail and its portrait of Russia and this huge, living, breathing society. I doubt I can say much about it that hasn't been said before so I won't, but I'm glad I read it. Norwegian Wood on the other hand I was pretty cold on. The last 100 pages or so have something in them, but everything before that kinda fell flat for me. Ubik was the first Philip K. Dick I've read and I liked it a lot. It is one hosed up, weird book. The double twist and ambiguous ending really make it. My fiancée has tons of these (she wrote her dissertation on him) so I look forward to reading more. The Vegetarian was similarly hosed up and weird. "Woman has a dream, decides to become a tree" is an inherently strange premise. It is brilliant though, beautifully written, solid translation, and the three semi-novellas which comprise it work really well together to form a coherent whole. The narrators in each are starkly drawn and feel very different to each other, and their own smaller stories run into each other to form the larger narrative about Yeong-hye. I feel like after Norwegian Wood I was on a really good run and Waiting for the Barbarians and John Crow's Devil were both excellent parts of that. The universalised Empire in Barbarians is drawn perfectly, as is the Magistrate's battle to resist it. It works both as an allegory for South Africa and for imperialism in general. John Crow's I read after A Brief History of Seven Killings last year, and it confirmed how much I like Marlon James. Much shorter and more focused on the one small village of Gibbeah and the battle between light and darkness, both religious and otherwise. I feel like the ending wasn't particularly satisfying, but as a debut work this is really solid and you can see the foundations being laid for his style. Booklord-wise I hit something written in the 1800s (Anna K), sci-fi (Ubik) and something recently published (Vegetarian - actually published in 2007, but didn't appear in English until 2015 - I'm counting this because shamefully I don't read Korean so it's not like I had the opportunity to read it previously). Year to Date - 14: Booklord: 2-4, 6, 8, 11-12, 15-16, 18 01. Death and the Penguin (Andrey Kurkov) 6 02. Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto) 2 03. Sky Burial (Xinran) 3 04. The Shining (Stephen King) 16 05. Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana (Michael Azerrad) 18 06. A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Mohammed Hanif) 12 07. A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan) 11 08. King of the World (David Remnick) 09. Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) 10. Ubik (Philip K. Dick) 11. The Vegetarian (Han Kang) 12. Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coetzee) 13. John Crow's Devil (Marlon James) 14. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) Living Image fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 15:26
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I didn't finish any books this month.  But I have a lot of longer books going that should wrap up in quick succession, sooner or later...
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Feb 29, 2016 15:52
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February 2016, now with less detail than last month! 10. Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt (3.5/5) 11. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell (4/5) 12. The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela (5/5) 13. And Again by Jessica Chiarella (4/5) 14. Letters from Samaria by Louie Clay (4/5) 15. Unspeakable Things by Kathleen Spivack (4.5/5) 16. Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (3/5) 17-20. A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1-#4 by Lemony Snicket The Series of Unfortunate Events books I've been listening to at work. The stories work really well as audiobooks and most of them are read by Tim Curry. I loved the books when I was a kid, so it's been fun to revisit them. They're great work listening. My favorite books of the month were probably The Kindness of Enemies, which was about Muslim identity in contemporary Scotland intertwined with the story of Imam Shamil's actions in the Caucasus in the 1800s, and Unspeakable Things, a somewhat fantastical story about some Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in 1940s NYC. I highly recommend them both. I'm going to try to finish the books I'm working on now before starting any more, but that also depends on when books on hold arrive at the library. Those books are Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which I might switch to the audiobook of; I've been working on this one on and off since June and although I'm really enjoying it, I just haven't finished it), Welcome to Night Vale, The Best American Non-Required Reading 2015, Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow's biography), SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (because Mary Beard is AMAZING), A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Hild by Nicola Griffith. Book Lord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 20/52 2) Something written by a woman - The Ghost Network 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - The Wrath and the Dawn 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio 7) A collection of essays. - Letters from Samaria 11) Read something about or set in NYC - Unspeakable Things 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - Relic 13) Read Something YA - Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda 14) Wildcard! - Richard Yates 15) Something recently published - Mr. Splitfoot 17) The First book in a series - The Wicked + The Divine 18) A biography or autobiography - Lafayette in the Somewhat United States 20) Read a banned book - The Bad Beginning (Series of Unfortunate Events #1) 22) It’s a Mystery. - S. BookRiot Read Harder - 9/24 PopSugar Challenge - 15/40 nerdpony fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 17:00
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February: The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities by Matthew White - An irreverent look at "the 100 most violent events" in human history. Though the treatment is fairly lightweight it is to be commended for its discussion of several poorly known atrocities, like the massacres of political dissidents in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell - A collection of essays discussing the merits of religion. Well written, but most of the arguments seem old hat by now. Some essays seem very dated in that they cover matters topical to the interwar period. Overall, did not make much of an impression. For the good of the cause by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - A collection of short stories and vignettes whose unifying theme is "Soviet Communism is bad". Nothing particulary memorable here. Booklord challenge: 1) Vanilla Number 7/40 2) 3) 5) 7) 18) 21)
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Feb 29, 2016 17:31
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nerdpony posted:The Series of Unfortunate Events books I've been listening to at work. The stories work really well as audiobooks and most of them are read by Tim Curry. I loved the books when I was a kid, so it's been fun to revisit them. They're great work listening. Since you're reading the Best American Non-Required Reading too, you might be interested in the 2014 edition, which was actually edited by Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler.
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Feb 29, 2016 19:41
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Previously Read: 1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. 2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. 3. Made in America, An informal history of the English Language in the US by Bill Bryson. I read a lot more books this month, but they all tended towards short ones, 5 of the seven clocked in under 250 pages, 2 of them under 150. Makes for some quick going. It was, on the whole, a pretty good set. 4. Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson- A fantasy novel where an economist leads a revolution. This was pretty different from your usual fantasy book, and I really enjoyed it. As it was goon written and a previous BotM there's plenty written about it here already. A book published within the last year. 5. Ru by Kim Thuy- This story of a Vietnamese refugee, told in vignettes, looks at different aspects of the refugee experience. The vignettes tend to flow from theme to theme rather than chronological ordering. Some of the vignettes were quite poignant, others were just sort of short stories. As I try and type out a quick description, I realize there was a lot squeezed into few pages. How the Vietnam changed, how the protagonist and her family were changed by the war and later by the American dream. As the author was also a refugee, I wonder how much of the novel is biographical, or whether it's just heavily informed by her experiences. Nonwhite and woman author. 6. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester- A classic sci-fi story of revenge in a world where personal teleportation is possible. I knew little about this going in, and I wound up really enjoying it. Gully Foyle, the abandoned survivor of a wreck in space, is on a quest for vengeance. He's also the target of some major corporations as he unkowingly carries a secret that could change the course of a solar system-wide war. This was really good, and had some aspects reminiscent of PKD. Sci Fi and book I've been meaning to read for awhile. 7. Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey- Grabbed this one a whim from the new book shelf at the library. I won't lie, the fact that's a fourfer for TBC was a factor. A set of 10 short stories, told from the perspective of 10 animals killed in human conflicts. Each story is also an homage written in the style of a different author. If you've ever wanted to read a story told by Tolstoy's turtle, Colette's cat, or perhaps thought a mussel should take a Kerouacian journey, this is the book the for you. It is in turns funny, sad, haunting and heroic but never just devolves into the wallowing mess of animal death that you might fear. Despite grabbing it on a whim, this might be the best book I read this month. It's a short story collection narrated by animals written by a woman published in 2015 (in the US, 2014 overseas). 8. The Language of Food, A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky - Jurafsky looks at the language of food in two different ways. The first is expected, based on the subtitle; it's how language is used talking about food, whether on a menu or in reviews, and what that tells us about us and about the food. The second is tracing the history of some foods, linguistically and culinarily. The second bit you learn how a vinegary beef stew winds up becoming both ceviche and fish and chips after a few hundred years, or what the relationship is between macaroons, macarons and macaroni. This was a fun quick read full of interesting trivia and info about food and language. 9. Paris Nocturne by Patrick Modiano - I saw the author mentioned in some TBB thread, and then happened to run across this at the library the next day, so I checked it out. A young man is hit by a car. In an ether soaked haze at the hospital, he thinks he recognizes the car's driver from his past. When he checks out, he mysteriously receives an envelope full of cash. This begins a search, through his memories and through Paris, for the woman driving a sea-green Fiat. This one fell flat for me. It wasn't actively bad, I just wasn't really engaged and I almost forgot it typing up this list, despite finishing it a week ago. A new book. 10. Last First Snow by Max Gladstone - The 4th published, and first chronological, book in The Craft Sequence. I really like this series. It's original and interesting. Just the quick backstory, it's set in a world where humanity has overthrown the gods. Corporations run by powerful craft (magic) users have stepped in to fill the roles. The few remaining gods are held largely subservient to the populace. Magic in this is treated largely as a matter of contract law. The blurb on this book says something about assimilating Lord of Light, American Gods and John Grisham, and that gets the feel. This one is set in the same city as book 2 and features Temoc, The King in Red, and Elayne Kevarian (from book 1). This tells the story of a poor neighborhood rebelling against gentrification. A good story and fleshes out the history of 3 characters that were relatively minor in books to date. You know the series has to have at least 1 more book, but I feel it's worth noting that they're all complete stories and you could pick up and read one without reading anymore, were you so inclined. Good series, good book. Also new book 1) Vanilla Number 10/45 2) Something written by a woman - Ru, Only the Animals 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Ru 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Only the Animals 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - The Stars my Destination 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Lonesome Dove 11) Read something about or set in NYC - My Dead Body 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published - Only the Animals, Paris Nocturne, Last First Snow 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - Lonesome Dove, The Stars My Destination 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection - Only the Animals 22) It’s a Mystery.
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Feb 29, 2016 19:43
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Previously: 1. Modern Romance 2. Broom of the System 3. Sirens of Titan 4. Blood Meridian 5. Nine Stories Total Books Completed in February: 1 6. Vineland by T. Pynchon Well this book killed all momentum. 400 pages of ups and downs. I posted my thoughts in the What Did You Finish thread, so I'll keep it brief. Strong start, slow middle, with the end fizzing out. There is a great novel in here, but it's lost among the noise, with whole sections feeling rushed while others feel unedited. Still, interesting concept, and some of his most emotionally-fulfilling character arcs. (Qualifies for Book Riot Read Harder "Book written in the decade you were born".) I've been reading other books concurrently, so March will be a big month for me. Non-Fiction: 1/10 Book Riot Read Harder 1/25(?) Total: 6/52
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Feb 29, 2016 19:57
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February 10. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North I thought the writing was wonderful and it was an interesting story, but I also thought there were a lot of things that I couldn’t believe or just didn’t make sense or put in the story to try and fit it together. I liked it overall though. Interesting premise with a pretty flawed implementation. It's about a guy who when he dies is born again in the same time and everything happens again. 11. The handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood I really like this, it was the first book of hers I have read and have been putting it off for a while because it really didn’t interest me. I will try another of her books next month, good read. I know other people mentioned they were disappointed in it, but I thought the writing was neat, she has some flowery descriptions that I think work and make the book flow well. 12. The March of the Ten Thousand by Xenophon Book of the month and something really different. Part historic war log, part adventure of moving a huge army across thousands of miles. My favorite parts were the speeches. Time and time again he gets through his biggest challenges by just showing the troops the light. Probably part exaggeration and part truth, but really enjoyable. I think the weirdest part was most of the logistics are just glossed over, so it does read just like a log of the war in parts rather than a story. 13. The Dubliners byJames Joyce There were some stories in this that were amazing, I really loved the writing and also I was bored to death at times. great book though. 14. Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card I hated this book a lot. I felt like the writing was such that he sat down one weekend and jotted it down and turned it in. I wasn’t really in to Ender’s Game either though I enjoyed it, but this book was like a crappy fan fiction or something. Maybe he should write something form the Piggiies’ point of view. 15. A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara I go back and fourth on this one. I thought it was an amazing book, and enjoyed most of it. I thought the writing was amazing, and the story really pulled me in. However I think it lost me a bit when everyone in the group is famous and rich and pretty much at the top of their profession. I don't know why but any connection to them started to fade away at this point in the book. Also, I really thought the book was a lot more interesting before all of Jude's secrets are revealed, though I did find those parts in the book interesting reading, as horrible as they were.. I think the last third pulled me back in and I am glad I read it. It was the highlight of the month for me. Booklord Vanilla Number 15/50 Something Written by a nonwhite author Something written in the 1800s A collection of essays. Something written by a musician Read Airplane fiction Read Something YA Wildcard! That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. A biography or autobiography Read a banned book t’s a Mystery
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Feb 29, 2016 20:08
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February. 06. Quicksilver. Neal Stephenson- Most of the historical stuff was really interesting but it was more like vignettes of events. The characters were also interesting but not enough to make it a great book... it just takes forever to finish. 07. Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie. Pretty good, the characters were interesting and the mystery was good. I have to admit it surprised me a little, even if it's a classic. 08. A Case of Conscience. James Blish. A very promising start with good characters and then everything went to the dump. 09. The Bad Beginning. Lemony Snicket. Not bad, I kind of like it but it was too simple and the characters were almost like cartoons, but it works with the story. 10. Sphere. Michael Crichton. The characters and the story were good and some ideas were great but most of the book was really slow and the dialogues were terrible at some points. Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 10/60 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 9) Something written by a musician 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection Talas fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Mar 1, 2016 |
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Mar 1, 2016 04:34
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My goal was 30 books, and I'm already 11 in, so this goal might be put up to 52. That puts me at 2091 pages read in February, for an average of for an average of 72 pages/day during the month and 75 pages/day for the year to date. 1) Vanilla Number: 2) Something written by a woman - The Handmaids Tale 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Thousand Splendid Suns 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - A Travelers history of Southeast Asia 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. - Alien Hand Syndrome 8) A work of Science Fiction - Player of Games 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Gone with the Wind 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA - Guards, Guards, Guards! 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. - The Odyssey 17) The First book in a series - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery. Thousand Splendid Suns - 4/5 - It's interesting that I read this immediately after I read The Handmaids tale, because this feels like it's trying to tell a similar moral, but it's done a million times better. Handmaids Tale struggled to make the story feel like a possibility, but Thousand Splendid Suns made it feel gripplingly real because it a real life fundamentalist religious sect that is tormenting these girls. It was heartbreaking to watch Leila and Mariam go through all that, and I think anyone who didn't consider themselves a feminist before reading would be hard pressed not to have their mind opened a little bit by the story of the girls. Very good book. My only complaint is that it feels very soap opera-y at times, and aside from Mariam and Leila (who are wonderful characters), the rest are one dimensional. Clockwork Universe - 3/5 - This book goes through and talks about the great scientists of the 17-18th century and their contributions to science as a whole. I think the strongest part of the book was giving social context for the work, explaining the cultural assumptions that made the discoveries difficult. A lot of these cultural things I hadn't considered at all are fascinating. The book also does an exceptional job putting into easy words what the discoveries actually mean - even though I have a degree in physics, there were still a few points in the discussion of Calculus where I an insight into how it worked and how it was derived. On the other hand, the book was organized horrendously. There's no sense of chronology or dates, which really holds back a narrative of progress. It's by far my biggest complaint with the book - it's impossible to know what scienctists influenced each other, because the book jumps around so much. My other issue with the book was that since I've read on the subject before, a lot of the novel felt more like review that anything, though that's a personal thing and not a fault of the novel obviously. Overall certainly an interesting story, but it had flaws. Collider - 3/5 - I keep reading accidental sequels. I've had this on my tablet for ages and figured I'd read it, without even realizing that in a lot of ways it's the logical follow up to the Clockwork Universe. This book looks at particle physics, starting around when Newton finished and going all the way up to modern day, and then discusses a lot about the implications of the LHC research. Similar to above, interesting, but not quite as good. Collider spends a lot of time focusing on specific names and experiments which is interesting, but at some point there's just too many different people and accelerators and they all blend together. The book did do a good job explaining a lot of modern physics that, despite having a degree in physics, I hadn't ever quite wrapped my head around. I feel like know I have a much stronger understanding of what is actually entailed in a lot of the string theory/multiverse/supersymettry/etc theories that are bandied around a lot. Worth a read if you're interested in the last 200 years of high energy physics, but not at the top of my list. Player of Games - 3/5 - The second book in Ian Banks' Culture series, and my first book I've read in it. Basic plot synopsis is that in a post scarcity society one man is super good at playing games, and he is sent to a foreign civilization to win the game that decides who rules their empire. It was a fun relatively quick novel that had some interesting concepts with regards to how games can reflect our society and mindsets, but it was really tained by the not so subtle underpinnings of the White Savior coming in to rescue the heathens from their evil ways. From what I've heard, most of the Culture series revolves around trying to subjudicate civilizations to the "Culture" (which is the name for their highly advanced civilization), so I'm not sure how the books are going to avoid that trend over all. I'll probably dig deeper into the series at some point, but I'm a bit hesitant. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - 4/5 - I'm not sure how I got on this science/sci-fi kick for this month, but I swear this is the last one. I'd seen the movie to this years ago and remember it being pretty mediocre, but I'm happy to see that the book was actually very good. It's a very similar style to Terry Pratchett (I have no idea who came first), but done in a better way. Hillarious, with a plot that flowed very well and had a few interesting ideas. A pretty quick read, but definitely one I'd recommend to someone interested in Sci-Fi. I guess there's a reason why this is a classic! The Odyssey - NR - I have a hard time ranking this book. On the one hand, it was kinda dull and not particularly interesting to read. On the other hand, it was written 2500 years ago and shaped a shitton of modern literature so I'm glad I read it and is interesting to see some of the beginnings of literature.
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Mar 1, 2016 09:49
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Quandary posted:Player of Games - 3/5 - The second book in Ian Banks' Culture series, and my first book I've read in it. Basic plot synopsis is that in a post scarcity society one man is super good at playing games, and he is sent to a foreign civilization to win the game that decides who rules their empire. It was a fun relatively quick novel that had some interesting concepts with regards to how games can reflect our society and mindsets, but it was really tained by the not so subtle underpinnings of the White Savior coming in to rescue the heathens from their evil ways. From what I've heard, most of the Culture series revolves around trying to subjudicate civilizations to the "Culture" (which is the name for their highly advanced civilization), so I'm not sure how the books are going to avoid that trend over all. I'll probably dig deeper into the series at some point, but I'm a bit hesitant. You might try Consider Phlebas which is the first in the series. The main character is opposed to the Culture and spends a lot of time (sympathetically) raging against it. It's an interesting look at the Culture from the other side.
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Mar 1, 2016 12:26
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Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg February: 14) From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8) - Charlaine Harris: Still enjoying this series. Not much more to say. 15) The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr This was ok. Considering it came out almost 20 years ago I don't think a sequel is forthcoming, so I guess that's it for this series. 16) Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal - Mary Roach: This was a fun, pop-science read. I liked how the chapters of the book traveled from beginning to end of the alimentary canal, starting with a chapter on saliva and ending with a chapter on fecal microbiome transplants. 17) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Anne Brashares: This was awful. Sometimes I'll read a young adult novel as an adult and think that I would have liked it more if I had read it as a teen, but teen me would have hated this book as well. Poorly written, annoying characters, and apparently there are 4 sequels I won't be reading. At least it was short. 18) M Train - Patti Smith: This was disappointing. I liked 'Just Kids', but this one wasn't nearly as good. It's really just a bunch of random anecdotes with nothing to tie them together, and most of them aren't very interesting to begin with. 19) Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland - Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus: Memoir written by two of the women imprisoned for a decade by Ariel Castro in Cleveland. The writing quality varies, but it is a compelling read. It was difficult to read at some points (due to subject matter, not writing quality) 20) The Barbary Pirates (Ethan Gage #4) - William Dietrich: Marginally better than the last one. At least the main character has stopped having sex with every woman in his vicinity. 21) Victory of Eagles (Temeraire #5) - Naomi Novik: Finally, we get back to the main premise of the first book. I feel like she lost her thread for a while but this book is solidly back on track. 22) Beacon 23 - Hugh Howey: I picked this up because I really liked his Silo series. This wasn't quite as good, but it was an enjoyable, quick light sci-fi read. Subchallenges! A-Z challenge:: A: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion B: Book of a Thousand Days C: The Corinthian D: Definitely Dead E: Euphoria F: From Dead to Worse G: Gulp H: Hope Booklord: Written by a woman: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Written by a non-white author: Emperor of All Maladies Written in the 1800's: Agnes Grey Science fiction book: Beacon 23 Written by a musician: M Train Book about/set in NYC: The Angel of Darkness Young adult book: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Published in the last year: Hope First book in a series: Outlander Biography or autobiography: Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter Short stories: Three-Ten to Yuma and other Stories Overall: Total: 22/100 A-Z Challenge: 8/26 Booklord Challenge: 11/22 Presidential Biographies: 1/6
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Mar 1, 2016 15:38
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Still rolling along. In February, I read: Adam Sternbergh - Shovel Ready (It was alright, a quick read, yet another post-apocalypse book. Nothing too surprising here. I'm using this for my First Book in a Series challenge as it's the first 'Spademan' book.) Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song (This was my Wildcard. It took a long time to get through, because it's enormous, but this was wonderful. It really picks up after the first 150 pages. Completely exhaustive in the best possible way. I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in true crime, the prison system, etc. and thank you to whoever assigned this to me!) Joseph Fink - Welcome to Night Vale (I wanted to like this because I like the podcast, but the writing style is really grating when it's not in audio format. On the podcast, when the narrator doubles back and changes his description of something, it's because he's struggling to put it into words ["Picture a man. No, not like that at all, taller. Yes, even taller. And he has a hat. No, not that kind of hat"-type of stuff]. In a book, it just makes one sentence like "There was a man in a hat" take a page and a half to tell because it keeps fumbling all over itself. The story was fine but the book was just loving annoying to read. Anyway this is my Sci Fi book.) Tana French - The Likeness (Second book in the loosely tied together Dublin Murder Squad series, I liked this as much as the first despite focusing on a different character. I picked up all of this series and will be reading it through the year. This counts as my 500+ page book as it was just about 700, although the Executioner's Song could also have knocked off that challenge.) Carrie Brownstein - Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (A standard musician's autobiography though it ends abruptly and is kind of disjointed. I enjoyed it but unless you're a big Sleater-Kinney fan I would skip it. Also, using this as my Musician challenge and moving Richard Hell's book to the NYC challenge instead. Booklord Challenge progress: 1) Vanilla Number (currently at 11 of 40) 2) 15 books written by women (currently at 5 of 15) 3) Something written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 13) Read Something YA 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 19) Read something from the lost or beat generation 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery Moving along to March with a book of Kiese Laymon's essays and some Faulkner.
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Mar 1, 2016 16:37
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nefarias bredd posted:January update! It's been a pretty good month.
Booklord: Booklord Challenge progress: 1) Vanilla Number - 29/120 2) Written by a woman - 13 - first was Sarah Knight (not as many as I'd hoped/as usual, but not bad) 3) Something written by a nonwhite author - 3 - first was A Thousand Splendid Suns (many fewer than I'd hoped) 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Firmin 7) A collection of essays 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Cancer Ward 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction - [Before I Go to Sleep[/b] 13) Read Something YA - 4 - first was The Art of Being Normal 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published - The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a gently caress 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - The Beach - had been on my TBR the longest 17) The First book in a series - The Raven Boys 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost or beat generation - The Old Man and the Sea 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery - The Big Sleep
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Mar 1, 2016 22:28
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February 1. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky A novel about Russian aristocracy and patricide. I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would, it was extremely moving and a lot of the ideas presented about religion were very interesting. 2. This is Not a Game - Walter Jon Williams This was a wet fart of a book. The main idea of it was using Alternate Reality Games, or ARGS, as a tool to affect things in the real world, such as using it to rescue someone from a warzone or finding a murderer. The first section of the book was alright, but as soon as the main character got out of the situation she was in she turned incredibly unsympathetic and the dialogue went to hell. 3. The Stranger - Harlan Coben A solid thriller novel where a mysterious stranger shows up and drops some knowledge on you that ruins your life. 4.Go Set a Watchman - Harper Lee The sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird which is apparently not very well received. I enjoyed it mostly because of its thoughts on how everything changes and how its important to separate from your childhood ideals and from your own opinions going forward as an adult. 5. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl - Timothy Egan I enjoyed this book a lot, it is incredibly sad to read how much we hosed up the Midwest though. 6. Bossypants - Tina Fey Tina Fey's autobiography. Very entertaining. 7. Superman: Red Son - Mark Millar I'm not sure if Graphic Novels should be included here but what the hell. An alt-world comic set in a universe where Superman landed in Soviet Russia instead of America. Not the best Superman story I've read but it was entertaining. 8. Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances - Neil Gaiman A collection of short stories and poems dealing with horrific creatures and situations. Some of the stories were dull but overall was a good read. 9. Wool - Hugh Howey A short introductory novel to a series set in a post-apocalyptic world where people live in silos. The twist at the end was good enough to hook me, I'll probably read through at least the next in the series. 10. Robot Dreams - Isaac Asimov A highly entertaining collection of Science-Fiction short stories. I had only read I, Robot previously and Asimov's ideas on computers and space travel were equally interesting. Booklord Challenge 1) 13/60 2) Something written by a woman - Go Set A Watchman 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s - The Brothers Karamazov 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Samurai! 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - Robot Dreams 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - The Brothers Karamazov 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 17) The First book in a series - Wool 18) A biography or autobiography - Bossypants 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection - About Time: 12 Short Stories 22) It’s a Mystery.
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Mar 1, 2016 23:29
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screenwritersblues posted:Currently reading: The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell February! 1) Vanilla Number: 10/30 2) Something written by a woman: A Matter of Heart 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction you’re choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays: Massive Pissed Love 8) A work of Science Fiction: The Bone Clocks 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages 11) Read something about or set in NYC: Ten Thousand Saints 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA: Juniors 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge): The Great Glass Sea 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography: Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection: Magic for Beginners 22) It’s a Mystery: The Girl on the Train 7) The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell: I really never understood why people like Mitchell so much. Granted he's a great writer, but a little weird for my liking. 2.75/5 8) Magic of Beginners by Kelly Link: This might be the best short story collection that I've read. 4/5 9) Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson: A solid look at the Tompkins Square Park Riots and the events leading up to them. Also a good look at 1980s NYC. 3.70/5 10) Massive Pissed Love by Richard Hell: Hell's collection of writings is pretty drat awesome. 4/5 Currently reading: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter Vanilla: 10/30 Challenge: 9/22 Indiespensable: 2/15
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Mar 2, 2016 05:02
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Booklord Challenge Update posted:Count: 20/96 books, 1 nonfiction (5%), 1 reread (5%) 11. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume 1, tr. Powys Mathers & J.C. Mardrus (reread) The M&M translation isn't the best, but this is the version I had growing up and I always planned to one day read all four volumes (we only had the first one). These are out of copyright and available as PDFs, although none of them will work well out of the box on an e-reader and, annoyingly, none of them are quite typeset the same way either, so if you're cropping or repaginating them, you need to tune the script differently for each volume. This volume opens with a number of short and exciting stories before getting terribly bogged down in the tale of the barber, which then occupies most of the rest of the volume. Also, if there's a unifying theme to these stories, it's this: - Don't get married; your wife will cheat on you with every man in the city, your husband will lose everything you own in ill-advised business ventures, or if by some miracle neither of these happen, one of you will be framed by a jealous rival and killed by the other. - Djinni are colossal assholes and should be avoided whenever possible, even when they're ostensibly trying to help. 12. Planetfall by Emma Newman A good but unpleasant read, and not really what I was expecting or looking for. This was described as a "big dumb object" story, but to me what appeals about a BDO is the discovery, the way there's a new mystery or device or alien or just something cool around each corner. SF authors are often (and with some justice) accused of putting setting ahead of plot or characters, but a BDO story is a place where that vice can be indulged to the fullest. Instead, this is a story primarily about a group of religious fanatics living in the shadow of a BDO but refusing to do anything with it. 13. Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Aaron (as Rachel Bach) 14. Honour's Knight by Rachel Aaron (as Rachel Bach) 15. Heaven's Queen by Rachel Aaron (as Rachel Bach) MilSF heavily seasoned with romance. Also features power-armoured knights armed with thermite swords fighting zombie space velociraptors. I don't think is as good as the later books in the Legend of Eli Monpress, but I enjoyed the poo poo out of it. 16. The Green and the Grey by Timothy Zahn Timothy Zahn writes urban fantasy? Well, kind of. This is "sci-fantasy", in that it's functionally indistinguishable from urban fantasy in almost every way, but there's SF backstory/explanations for most things. There's a pretty obvious Romeo and Juliet influence, except instead of feuding Veronan nobles it's feuding New Yorker dryads and gargoyles, with the humans caught in the middle. 17. Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines 18. Codex Born by Jim C. Hines 19. Unbound by Jim C. Hines Urban fantasy where the central conceit is that there exists a secret society of wizards who can pull objects out of books. Anything that can fit through the page is fair game, but the more people have read the book (and the more recently), the easier it is and the more powerful the objects you extract from it are. Half the fun for me is (since the author seems to share a lot of my taste in books) trying to identify what book something is from when it's not explicitly stated. It's also nice seeing characters who are not complete idiots about relationships and manage to not completely gently caress it up, even when it's something new and unconventional to them. Also, unlike most UF in this vein that I've read (e.g. Dresden Files), where the protagonist starts out as a loose cannon at odds with the magical authorities over some past disagreement and gradually reconciles with them, in this Isaac is an active and trusted member of the secret society right from the start. Who then has a bitter falling-out with them and is in open conflict with them by the end of book 3, albeit with some pretty heavy justification. At least it's going in the opposite direction than usual. Unfortunately, I forgot to load the fourth and final book, Revisionary, onto my e-reader before leaving on a business trip. 20. This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong The sequel to John Dies at the End. I didn't like this nearly as much, actually; it holds together better as a coherent story (unsurprising, as it was written as a single book rather than as a bunch of serialized novellas), but it's more graphic and not as funny. John Dies was funny but also managed to be genuinely creepy in places, while Spiders is mostly just gory. The eulogy at the end was pretty great, though.
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Mar 2, 2016 06:07
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Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Ministery of Fear by Graham Greene. Another thriller where the most interesting thing is the setting, this time London under the blitz. I considered including him as part of the lost generation (born 5 years after Hemmingway) but gently caress it. 10 Bech is Back & Bech in Czech by John Updike. The second half, I'm not a bad enough dude to count a 30 page short story as number 11. Less lovable as Bech gets married and has an affair with her sister in short order, reflecting later that it's her fault. That's our John, I guess. 11 A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipul. A guy gets lumbered with property in Africa and doesn't sell at the most oppourtune time. The First Naipul I read, guy's a good stylist. 3 12 A Friend of Kafka by Isaac Bashevis Singer as translated by the author and many others. Short stories about a Jewish Pole now living in New York who insists in writing in Hebrew by a etc etc. I much preferred the magical ones in this collection. 13 The New Confessions by William Boyd. Another old fake biography by Boyd, this time of a Scottish film director who becomes obsessed with Rosseau. Occasionally so researched the weight of it deforms the book but enjoyable enough. 10 14 The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield. Boy I'd read a lot of these already. 15 The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Really enjoyed the beginning and end, though I must say I found the conclusion a little stagily unconvincing. 4 16 The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton. Micro-detective stories with about 2 pages of local colour, 6 pages of mystery, then 2 pages where Brown delivers the punchline. Mostly about how hosed-up foreigners are and how rational the Catholic church is. 22 17 The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith. There are so many dark intimations of danger in the background that I didn't realize it's basically The Stranger until 20 pages from the end. 17/60 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
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Mar 2, 2016 15:09
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Here's February: 7. All Souls by Javier Marias. A fictionalized story of Marias's time spent at Oxford as a translator, and the wacky things that the Brits get up to, over there, in England. It was not as good as The Infatuations, probably not gonna read any more Marias, bcuz life is too short to read authors that are only pretty good. 8. Whatever my Michel Houellebecq. His first novel, has the usual themes about modern society being poo poo, and getting laid being the only thing of any worth, at all, but u don't get to do it, because you're ugly. It was a reread, and i can't remember that much about it, even though I read it like three weeks ago, so it's probably crap. read The Map and the Territory instead, please. 9. The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. 'nother reread. Its pretty funny, but like not too complicated/deep. I'm gonna reread The Master and Margarita soon, so I um read this to get pumped up. 10. Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Cannons by Jonathan Rosenbaum. A good book of medium length essays about a whole bunch of movies, with a list of this critics 1,000 favorite films at the end. It's a cool way to get excited about movies u haven't heard of, for instance I want to watch a bunch of Jacques Demy films now, even though I hadn't heard of him a month ago... 11. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. I got this book bcuz Borges and Octavio Paz said it was perfect, and its short, so if they lied, no time wasted, you know? I don't know if it was perfect, but it was pretty cool, has a neat twist, and it sorta reminded me of the videogame The Witness by Jonathan Blow. If you need to think about videogames when reading your books, because, for instance, you take the book challenge each year on something awful and read 100 fantasy novels and nothing else, then I'd recommend this, because its actually good, and you will be doing the same thing as putting some asparagus on your pizza; basically it will be good for you to read something other than absolute poo poo, but this wont offend too strongly your hosed up palate, which you developed from reading all the dumb books of a series written by a 47 year old man with a pony tail. 12. Distant Star by Roberto Bolano. A story about a autodidact attractive young man who writes poetry, flies airplanes, and murders ppl. A very good book that continues Bolano's tirade against the Pinochet regime, and western right wing/fascistic ppl in general. I think the same story is told in a compressed form in Bolano's Nazi Literature in the Americas, because I knew the story already, but couldn't remember where I'd read it? Bolano is super cool about being hella self referential. I also read half of Don Quixote, stay tuned for my review next month, unless i die or just stop posting in this thread, as a protest against sci-fi book series.
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Mar 3, 2016 03:19
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February~ 9. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 - Michael Azerrad A really interesting look at some of the bands that never made a huge radio splash in the 80s, but had untold influence on the music of the 90s. I've discovered some good new bands, learned things about bands I already liked, and laughed when the Butthole Surfers put their balls on Jimmy Carter's suitcase. A good read. 10. Kindred - Octavia Butler An excellent time-travel story about an African-American woman who goes back in time to the era of slavery, meeting her ancestors - including a slave and the slaveowner. While the idea might seem kind of trite - lord knows there are plenty of "I traveled in time to meet my ancestors" stories - it's told with a keen understanding of the attitudes of the time. A very good introduction to Butler, who I'll definitely be reading more of. 11. Warlock - Oakley Hall One hell of a Western - and an intellectual one at that. I've jokingly called it "Middlemarch in the Wild West" - but there are some similarities. Sure, it's not a bucolic English town - it's a rough town in the Wild West - but it still incorporates the views of all walks of life in this town, from the sleazy saloon owners to the imperfectly moral lawmen to the roustabouts that make the town dangerous. It also has a lot to say about life on the fringe of civilization, and is a gripping Western showdown in its own right. Definitely my Best Book of the Month. 12. Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3) - Tana French Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad is a pretty solid series of mysteries, each following a different detective on a different case. This one, in which Frank Mackey returns to his home to investigate the disappearance of his teenage love, is not the best I've read so far - that would go to the second, The Likeness - but it definitely intrigued me and kept me reading. 13. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo - Tom Reiss File this under "things I didn't know" - Alexandre Dumas's father was half-black and one of the leading generals of the French Revolution, a contemporary and rival of Bonaparte with an amazing life. A pretty solid biography, though much of it dwelt on the French Revolution rather than Dumas itself. Most interesting was the focus on how this massive social upheaval affected people of color, such as Dumas's dad. 14. Changes (Dresden Files #12) - Jim Butcher The Dresden Files are just plain fun, and this one topped them all in terms of bringing 11 books of world-building into a satisfying climactic confrontation. Pretty much all of my favorite characters - Dresden's allies and enemies - make an appearance, and the stakes are, once again, raised higher than they've ever been. Possibly my favorite book of the series. 15. The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene Rereading for the first time, I found this one less gripping than some of Greene's other works. He has a deft hand at investigating the moral ambiguities of men in desperate straits, and the whisky priest on the run from the law is one of his most sympathetic - and pathetic - creations. 1) Vanilla Number (15/52) 2) Something written by a woman (Butler, French) 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author (Butler) 4) 5) Something History Related - The Black Count 6) 7) 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician - Our Band Could Be Your Life 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 15) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography - The Black Count 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery. - Faithful Place I'm also making my way, albeit slowly, through War and Peace. Hope to finish that in March so I can tackle some other longer books. Chamberk fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Mar 3, 2016 |
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Mar 3, 2016 04:24
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Chamberk posted:12. Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3) - Tana French I plan to read this in March, I finished The Likeness in February (which I agree was the best so far, of what I've read). Would you say Faithful Place is better than Into the Woods or worse?
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Mar 3, 2016 04:55
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My February went pretty well, though I had to sprint on Monday to get through Dracula and keep my fiction challenge going. 9. The Price of Politics, by Bob Woodward - If you’re looking for a deep dive into Washington dealmaking, this book does not disappoint. Bob Woodward covers the 2011 battle over the debt limit in exhausting detail, finishing with the passage of that fateful legislation with the sequestration provision. Woodward doesn’t overtly take sides, only calling out the most outrageous lies his interview subjects tell. But he does choose his anecdotes carefully to portray the Obama administration as the main reason Congress couldn’t do anything better, which especially in retrospect is ridiculous. Anyway, read this book for an extended exercise in getting pissed off. 10. Spices: A Global History, by Fred Czarra - A small book, hyper-focused on the role of a few spices (cinnamon, pepper, cloves, chiles, nutmeg) in global trade and culinary history. Its accuracy was fairly good, with some slip-ups, and the details were enjoyable, though much of the broad shape of its narrative was familiar to me from The Sea and Civilization last month. 11. Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All, by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson - The authors set out to explode the myths and falsehoods that have sprung up around Social Security in the last 70 years, and they do a fine job of it. They deal with the full scope of arguments around the program, including benefit cuts, privatization, and sustainability. The book is well supported by evidence and argument, and many of their points helped me see the subject in a new light. If anyone can recommend a similar close treatment of part of our government I’d love to read it. 12. Dracula, by Bram Stoker - This book is odd because it feels simultaneously fresh and stale. The atmosphere is nice, the plotting is exciting at points, and the initial section in Castle Dracula is a great read. But once multiple non-Dracula characters start interacting the quality just takes a nose-dive. The long-winded, meandering speeches seldom justify their length, and Stoker’s attempts to render accent and dialect are pitiful. There is plenty of great material here for an adapter to pick and choose from, obviously. If I ever get a hankering for Dracula again, I’ll go for the Francis Ford Coppola version. 13. The Clothes Have No Emperor, by Paul Slansky - This book was perfect for reading just a tiny bit at a time. It’s some comedian’s take on the Reagan years, choosing the most perfectly odd or iconic bit of news every day or so and giving you the money quote. I had it on my phone and for a while when I was bored I could just flip through a few days instead of checking the same social site for the umpteenth time. Very good for an irreverent take on this president. 14. The Truth with Jokes, by Al Franken - As TCHNE does for the Reagan years, this book does for the middle of the Dubya presidency. If you weren’t paying attention to politics then, Franken does a great job of portraying the character of the times here. The jokes, unfortunately, are mostly there to keep the whole thing from devolving into anger. If you look at today’s politics and think “Wow, things are so much worse now than they were X years ago!” where X is in living memory, I hope that this book can help dissuade you from that. It’s the same poo poo, different day. 15. Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit - Super fast read, and quite entertaining/informative. I’ve read a some of these essays before (and other modern feminist writing) so it’s not a newsflash to me, but for many people I can see this book being the one that makes them think “Oh, that’s what feminists are talking about, I suppose.” Could make a great gift book. 16. My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past, by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair - A book about a biracial woman who discovers that her grandfather was the literal villain of Schindler’s List. So the concept of this was great, and the reality of the situation is amazing; the execution was lacking. The book doesn’t seem so much cowritten as annotated by the journalist partnered with Teege. I can’t help but feel that this would have been better as a piece of long-form pure journalism, instead of the mashup it is. 17. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation, by Blake Harris - This book was a waste of its potential. Clearly Harris got a lot of info from his interview subjects, but he squanders that by insisting on writing decades-old conversations in dialogue form in order to keep a narrative going. And he screws up his flow by having chapters end in ambiguous cliff-hangers that won’t even get mentioned again for three or four chapters more. I would have liked an account of Sega of America and its business moves in its best years (the Genesis), but instead this book was trying way to hard to emulate the DaVinci Code. 18. Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins - When other people are talking about this book “Is it all bullshit?” tends to come up a lot. Like, did Perkins actually have the NSA play a role in his hiring, or did a mysterious femme fatale-type actually give him his training and secret over-arching mission, that sort of stuff. Which is valid since those kinds of things play a big role in this narrative, and are so unverifiable. But other parts of it stand alone; the experiences of the poor in industrializing nations is out there elsewhere, for example. Ultimately I’d read this for entertainment (which it's great at), not to get material for your next globalization argument (read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine for that). 18/80, 2/12 months with fiction. 2) Something written by a woman - The Language Police 3) Something written by a nonwhite author - My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me 4) Something written in the 1800s - Dracula 7) A collection of essays - Men Explain Things to Me 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - The Sea and Civilization 15) Something recently published - The Chimp and the River 21) A short story collection - Dubliners
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Mar 3, 2016 06:00
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The Berzerker posted:I plan to read this in March, I finished The Likeness in February (which I agree was the best so far, of what I've read). Would you say Faithful Place is better than Into the Woods or worse? I'd say it's a bit better than in the Woods but I liked that one too. Frank's family reminds me of Cassie's gang in The Likeness, and while it's a bit of a slow starter, it gets a lot more interesting about halfway through. I plan to read Broken Harbor and Secret Place sometime later this year, I like French's style, even if it is getting a bit predictable this far in the series. Oh yeah, could someone Wildcard me?
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Mar 3, 2016 07:34
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Chamberk posted:Oh yeah, could someone Wildcard me? Nada the Lily by Rider Haggard
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Mar 3, 2016 07:44
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Namirsolo posted:5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (non-white author)- The most depressing book I have ever read. marblize posted:3) Animal Farm - George Orwell - I somehow missed out on this in middle and high school. Pretty solid. Fuckin' Napoleon. I identify with the cat. 5/5 Chekans 3 16 posted:2. American Gods - Neil Gaiman thatdarnedbob posted:6. A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power - Jimmy Carter. It’s good to see that Carter is still sharp; though this book is short, it is still wide-ranging, clear, and insightful. Some might not appreciate his religious perspective on these issues, but we’ll have religious people in the world for the foreseeable future and I’d rather we had more like Carter than like Cruz. Radio! posted:5. Justice at Dachau: the Trials of an American Prosecutor- Joshua M. Greene. Like all good Holocaust books, this was incredibly fascinating and crushingly depressing. Gertrude Perkins posted:3. Kill Your Boyfriend, by Grant Morrison, Philip Bond, D'Israeli and Daniel Vozzo. A "cult" comic book, and a lovely little time capsule of empty mid-90s misanthropy. Shame it's insufferable and I hated it. Quandary posted:The Odyssey - NR - I have a hard time ranking this book. On the one hand, it was kinda dull and not particularly interesting to read. On the other hand, it was written 2500 years ago and shaped a shitton of modern literature so I'm glad I read it and is interesting to see some of the beginnings of literature. Prolonged Shame posted:17) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Anne Brashares: This was awful. Sometimes I'll read a young adult novel as an adult and think that I would have liked it more if I had read it as a teen, but teen me would have hated this book as well. Poorly written, annoying characters, and apparently there are 4 sequels I won't be reading. At least it was short. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_6CZ2JaEuc
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Mar 3, 2016 12:53
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What a curious selection of books to blare at.
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Mar 3, 2016 12:56
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i choose to interpret that post as books that a human heart has also read. the air horn is a blast of celebration, for they too, have read these books and shared similar reactions to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_6CZ2JaEuc, a human heart, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_6CZ2JaEuc indeed.
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Mar 3, 2016 15:33
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I'm not really sure what that airhorn entails? Am I being criticized for my book choice, or celebrated for it, or being called out for my review? Who knows.
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Mar 3, 2016 17:17
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Welcome to Major League Reading, where you get air horns for dank reads, is how I'm interpreting it.
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Mar 3, 2016 18:43
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FIFA book club https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E6ljLSOkbY
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Mar 3, 2016 19:14
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thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant City of Stairs was awesome, and City of Blades didn't disappoint. I love the world Bennett has created, and I really enjoyed Mulaghesh as an out-of-the-ordinary protagonist, not young, not male, disabled, retired, etc. All to the good. And nice to see Sigrud back again, even if the story does beat the living hell out of him. Well recommended.
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Mar 3, 2016 21:13
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2) Annals of the Former World, John McPhee (BLC# 10, Long) This was a very rewarding read. It's a heavy pop science intro to geology and plate tectonics, mostly focusing on the geology of the US along I-80. We follow the author as he travels with geologists, learning about their specialties and their lives. I spent a lot of time on wikipedia reading up on concepts that were skimmed over, but the things the author does focus on are well explained. The densest book I've read in a while, took me almost two full months to read its 650 pages. I'm no longer able to drive through a roadcut without staring at the walls, hopelessly trying to identify rock. 2/40, not looking good for my goal.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:58
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3/5, creative but vague. February 6. Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum- Jason Felch. From what I understand this is the expanded book version of this journalist's reporting on the subject during the early 2000s. I guess the story of western museums (specifically the Getty) trafficking in illegally looted antiquities might have been surprising at some point but I think that point is pretty well past. An interesting look at the behind-the-scenes goings on but definitely treated like the subject was way more shocking than it is. 7. The Rape of Europa: the Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War- Lynn H. Nicolas. The book that inspired the movie The Monuments Men. I don't know how it lives up to the film since I haven't seen it, but it's a meticulously-researched look into the movement of art objects during the war. It's not presented chronologically, though, so it's very easy to lose track of who's who and what's going on generally during the specific events being talked about. 8. The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington- Jennet Conant. Turns out Roald Dahl didn't really do much spying but this person sure wrote a 400 page book about it anyway. Boring as gently caress. 9. Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account- Miklos Nyiszli 10. The Law Jew of Treblinka- Chil Rajchman 11. Clay's Ark- Octavia Butler 12. Wondrous Moment: Selected Poetry- Aleksandr Pushkin. I don't know how good this translation is. The Russian and English versions of both poems are presented, but my Russian's not good enough to fluently read them. I could definitely tell there was a lot of variance in the English verses in word choice and just making things fit into an English rhyme scheme, though. I'll probably end up giving another translation of Pushkin's work a try in the future, because I overall I wasn't impressed by these.
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Mar 4, 2016 01:57
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