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Didn't get a chance to post for January, so I'll be doing double-duty this month. 1 Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn 2 The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell 3 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer 4 Tidewater by Libbie Hawker 5 The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley 6 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison 7 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins 8 Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbot 9 The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland 10 Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard 11 A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger 12 Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon 13 I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai 14 A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel 15 Born To Run by Christopher McDougall 15/60 Booklord Challenge 1) Vanilla Number 2) Something written by a woman [The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley] 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author [I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai] 4) Something written in the 1800s 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) [Tidewater by Libbie Hawker] 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 7) A collection of essays [The Partly Cloud Patriot by Sarah Vowell] 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages [A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel] 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA [Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard] 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published [Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon] 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 17) The First book in a series [Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer] 18) A biography or autobiography [Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbot] 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 [Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn] Some good books this time around. Perhaps my favorite was Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon, which I started as soon as I heard that Justice Scalia had died. Justice Ginsburg is pretty much my hero now.
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Mar 4, 2016 02:02
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Quandary posted: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. Death of the
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Mar 4, 2016 02:14
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1. The Slade House, David Mitchell. 5/5 2. The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood. 2.5/5. 3. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula LeGuin. 5/5 A classic, not much I can say about this that hasn't already been said. I wish these books had entered my life sooner. It's interesting that these isn't a broader awareness of them among fantasy fans.I should've kept going with the Earthsea cycle instead of trying... 4. Shift, Hugh Howey. Couldn't finish this one. I was a big fan of Wool, even though the ending was generic. Shift however is a ponderous, poorly-written bore, with flimsy character development and gaping holes in the plot's logic. Howey fails to give you a reason to care about anything that is happening. I don't know if I'll read anything else by him for some time. 0/5 Reading The Three-Body Problem now. Interesting beginning.
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Mar 5, 2016 14:07
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thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant
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Mar 6, 2016 11:00
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thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant Traitors was good, as I've come to expect from Rusch. Interesting world, well told characters, solid plotline, avoided over-exposition nicely, generally a strong scifi story, if unexceptional. Hunt was surprisingly decent given the title and the premise (YA high school kid becomes embroiled with the Faery court), mostly because it dealt with the Faery in the old traditions of Thomas Rhymer and the classic faery stories where the faery court really isn't good, nice, or pleasant, but does have style. Enjoyable enough that i'm considering picking up the rest of the series. The Magic Touch was fun, and surprisingly touching in places. Again, solid, unexceptional, enjoyable. Nothing to rave about, but perfectly fine to fill some lunch breaks. All told a decent haul from one or other of the ebook bundles.
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Mar 25, 2016 16:25
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1) Vanilla Number - 4/30 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 2. The Silent Cry, Kenzaburo Oe 3. Aurora det niende mørke, hymne og myte, Stein Mehren 4. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath The Silent Cry starts off describing an absurd suicide involving a naked man with his face painted red and a cucumber shoved up his butt, and keeps getting weirder from there on. Aurora is a poetry collection from Norwegian poet Stein Mehren. A lot of the poems use imagery from Greek folklore and mythology. As for The Bell Jar, I don't have too much to say about it. Some parts I really liked (like Esther sitting down trying to tackle Finnegans Wake), the rest was just kinda mediocre I guess. I like Plath better as a poet.
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Mar 29, 2016 08:42
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and I want to involve myself with poetry a lot more than I do, so if somebody could give me a poetry-related wildcard, that'd be brilliant. like, That One Brilliant Collection Nobody Has Read But Should, or whatever
ulvir fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 29, 2016 08:46
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Do you want actually obscure things or just obscure by the standards of poetry because no one ever reads poems. If it's the latter read A little larger than the entire universe by Pessoa. It's big because it's covering about 6 different writers but it's also really good + nicely translated + I want to talk to people about how good Alberto Caeiro is (he's really good).
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Mar 29, 2016 13:17
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I read a collection from Alberto Caeiro last year. it seems like there might be some overlap between the one I read and A littler larger than the entire universe, because when looking it up I regocnised some of the poems. I'll keep an eye out for it though. do you have another suggestion? I'll gladly go for two
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Mar 29, 2016 14:26
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ulvir posted:and I want to involve myself with poetry a lot more than I do, so if somebody could give me a poetry-related wildcard, that'd be brilliant. like, That One Brilliant Collection Nobody Has Read But Should, or whatever Native Guard - Natasha Tretheway
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Mar 29, 2016 14:30
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March - 10: 15. The Dream Life of Sukhanov (Olga Grushin) 16. Farewell, Cowboy (Olja Savicevic) 17. A History of Sparta 950-192BC (W.G. Forrest) 18. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) 19. The Guest Cat (Takashi Hiraida) 20. The Book of Memory (Petina Gappah) 21. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) 22. Fury (Salman Rushdie) 23. Ninja (John Man) 24. Concrete Island (JG Ballard) I read a lot this month although a lot of it was short and I've been off work for like a week and a half (WHICH IS MAGICAL). Sukhanov was cool and the "dream life" part was done pretty effectively. Farewell, Cowboy is Savicevic's first novel. It's glorious. The main PoV is Rusty, a woman from Nowheresville, Croatia, recently returned from Zagreb to look after her senile mother. Along the way she's examining the circumstances of her brother's suicide a few years before. All that is really a gloss on examining modern Croatia and the book absolutely drips with imagery. It's stunningly written and translated. A History of Sparta I bought for a GCSE exam literally 10 years ago which I then failed to study for at all and got an E in. A decade on I figured I may as well read one of the books so here we are. This was a pretty cut-and-dry timeline of Sparta from 950-192. The author does as much as he can with a pop history book from the 60s which is only like 140 pages, but I think you'd need to look elsewhere for real depth. The Kite Runner I doubt I need to say anything about. For the first 100 pages I hated it then after that it grew on me. I'm not exactly rushing to read more Hosseini again but I've managed to pick up two others of his books from charity shops because for 99p why not, so I guess I'll revisit him eventually. The Guest Cat was barely a novel. It's a quiet, meditative little book with the barest of plots to carry it along. It's very sweet. Like Farewell, Cowboy The Book of Memory was Gappah's first novel. A Zimbabwean woman this time instead of Croatian. This time the narrator is Memory, or Mnemosyne, a Zimbabwean woman on death row for the murder of the white man who adopted her/bought her from her parents for unspecified reasons. It carried me along at pace and paints a picture of the Zimbabwean culture and people which I think was very humanising when mostly what you hear about is Mugabe spouting off about the white devil and gay aid money. A very worthwhile read and like Savicevic an author I'll be watching for more. The Old Man and the Sea again I don't imagine I have much to say that hasn't already been said a million times. I found the style quite jarring at first but then settled into it. Santiago was a wonderful character and Hemingway is really skillful in portraying this character who has so much built up experience and knowledge in his field, and yet whose powers are fading as age claims him. I haven't really been bothered by Hemingway before but I want to read more now. Fury was a cracking little novel. There's a million things happening and for the first half of it I had no idea how any of it was meant to resolve, and then Rushdie steers it all together deftly while using some fantastic language. My girlfriend bought our copy in this little second hand English bookshop in Munich because she wanted me to read it, which added to the experience, but I think even without that I would have loved this book. Ninja is some great pop-history and worthwhile for the line about the poo poo-covered dwarf alone. There's some weird tonal shifts where the author sidetracks about things and goes off on a tangent about himself in school or some other business, but overall this is an interesting subject treated well. Definitely worth a go. Concrete Island is interesting thematically. The main character is stranded on a traffic island which is difficult to escape because of the motorways surrounding it. Despite being in the middle of this huge rush of human activity, he is (almost) totally isolated and trapped there, at least to begin with, though after a while you wonder how trapped he really is. A fantastic exploration of loneliness and neglect in modern cities and how people can slip through the cracks even in the midst of millions. That wraps up for March - my next read is A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. I'm really looking forward to this. Booklord wise I hit history (5) this month and Lost/Beat generation (19). Year to Date - 24: Booklord: 2-6, 8, 11-12, 15-16, 18-19 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) 8 11. The Vegetarian (Han Kang) 15 12. Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coetzee) 13. John Crow's Devil (Marlon James) 14. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) 4 15. The Dream Life of Sukhanov (Olga Grushin) 16. Farewell, Cowboy (Olja Savicevic) 17. A History of Sparta 950-192BC (W.G. Forrest) 5 18. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) 19. The Guest Cat (Takashi Hiraida) 20. The Book of Memory (Petina Gappah) 21. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) 19 22. Fury (Salman Rushdie) 23. Ninja (John Man) 24. Concrete Island (JG Ballard)
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Mar 30, 2016 08:47
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March 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. 5. I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire. 6. Anabasis by Xenophon. 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. 10. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck. 11. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold. New: 12. Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Supposedly YA and the first of a series, it's set in a dystopian future where human civilization is interplanetary and stratified into social classes which are colour-coded. The ruthless Golds rule everything, the Reds are basically slaves, in between are a bunch of other specialized classes. Plot follows a young man of the Red class who is infiltrated into the Gold ranks in order to try to gently caress everything up. Liked this a lot; I guess it's not really groundbreaking or anything but it moves along very nicely and the author's voice is... I guess "kinetic" is a good word. Will read the rest. 13. Demon Dentist by David Walliams. Okay, so it's a children's book and I read this aloud to my seven-year-old but I'm drat well counting it, it's over 400 pages. First encounter with this author (and in fact the first time we've succeeded at keeping the kid's attention for longer than a Horrid Henry book), it was funny as poo poo and both a bit spooky and sad (not to mention full of gross and disgusting imagery). The main character is an impoverished young boy living with his disabled (and slowly dying from lung disease) father, and suffering from horrible dental hygiene; the town's dentist is mysteriously killed and a new lady dentist takes over, and there's something not entirely right about her... I gather Walliams is sometimes compared to a modern-day Roald Dahl and I can see the point. March has been a much slower month for reading; started on Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose as that is the BOTM for March, but am very unlikely to complete it until a few days into April. Booklord challenge: 1) Vanilla Number - 13/40 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, Red Rising 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, Red Rising 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 - Red Rising 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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Mar 30, 2016 10:22
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Unlikely to finish anything else, so March's update! 10. The Claw of the Concilator (Gene Wolfe) Book 2 In The Book of the New Sun series. A sudden jump between the end the previous book and start of this one. Still not quite sure what is going on but continues to be intriguing. 11. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) A murder mystery set among medieval monks set against the backdrop of religious discord. Really enjoyable, definitely intend to read more Eco in the future. 12. Solaris (Stanislaw Lem) Strange. Contact is made with an alien lifeform which appears to manipulate those sent to investigate and communicate with it. 13. The Unknown Ajax (Georgette Heyer) Historical fiction. The heir to a country estate dies and the new heir is an unknown son of the family’s second son, who is thought to be a bumpkin. Surprisingly funny book. Booklord Challenge 1) Vanilla Number: 13/52 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) 22) It’s a Mystery. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
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Mar 30, 2016 19:03
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March 13. The Rook- Daniel O'Malley. Fun urban fantasy with a neat premise. The main character wakes up with no memory of who she is and soon discovers she's the administrator of the government's supernatural poo poo branch. 14. The Traitor Baru Cormorant- Seth Dickinson. I LOVED this. I went in expecting normal generic fantasy but instead got a queer WOC main character fighting the forces of colonialism with a plot full of as much political machination as Game of Thrones. Plus the author has a read-along on his website which goes over each chapter in depth to tell you more about his thought process and background for the story, which is something I haven't seen before but was really interesting. 15. The Wild Blue: the Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-1945- Stephen E. Ambrose. By "men and boys" it actually means "George McGovern specifically" but it had some nice insight on what daily life was like regardless. 16. Wild Seed- Octavia Butler. 17. Anno Dracula- Kim Newman.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:53
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In March, I read a little less: Kiese Laymon - How to Slowly Kill Yourselves and Others in America (A great, honest collection of essays. This covers the challenge of reading something by somebody who isn't white.) Jon Ronson - The Psychopath Test (More interesting than I expected, but I still liked his book on public shaming more.) Tana French - Faithful Place (3rd book in the Dublin Murder Squad series. I can't get enough of this series, I think this was actually my favorite so far but the 2nd book was also excellent. I have the 4th and 5th on my shelf and will be reading them before summer hits I'm sure. I'm using this one as my mystery challenge although they're all mysteries.) David Hughes - The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made (Basically a list of movies that didn't get made ever, or were in development hell for a long time and changed a lot by the time they eventually got made. It's fine, some stories are better than others. He has another book of movies with similar stories that isn't specifically sci-fi, if you wind up reading this and enjoying it and want more.) Thomas King - The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (An excellent, accessible overview of the history of aboriginal people in North America and their treatment. The author makes a lot of jokes throughout and maintains a wry sense of humor even when talking about some pretty harrowing poo poo. It was a great gateway into something I've wanted to learn about for some time. This crosses off the history challenge.) Booklord Challenge progress: 1) Vanilla Number (currently at 16 of 40) 2) 15 books written by women (currently at 6 of 15) 4) Something written in the 1800s 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 Never did get to that Faulkner in March. Right now I am reading some fun 'brain McDonalds' (Stephen King and John Sandford) but I'll try to get to Faulkner in April. I've also been doing really well with my separate challenge, buying fewer books and making a dent in the books already on my shelves.
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Mar 31, 2016 02:35
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Total: 9/52 Female authors: 3/24 Non-Fiction: 1/12 Arabian Nights: 2/10(16) I did better this month but I'm still behind on everything. House of Leaves was a bit of a disappointment. The main thing I took from it is that I wish the (non-existent) film the book is (sort of) about had been made instead of the book, because it sounded like it would have been really good. The Monarch of the Glen was OK, but not particularly noteworthy or memorable. Alternitech had a neat premise but didn't do much with it, so it was a disappointment as well. At least After the Funeral was good. See my Goodreads for full reviews.
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Mar 31, 2016 02:54
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March To Kill A Mockingbird by Lee Harper This was a great book. Easy to read, great characters, and good story with a simple message. Something I have been meaning to read for a long time but just didn’t interest me all that much. Glad I finally read it. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson I really enjoyed most of this book, and liked the writing, but it wasn’t my favorite. I’m not that in to haunted house stories, but I bought this last year and decided to finally read it. The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco Book of the month, fantastic mystery intimidating at the beginning because of all the factions you hear about and all the people you meet, but it really does a great job of making sure you understand who everyone is and their role. There is this one speech that is just amazing toward the end of the book that really captivated me and the chapter right before that was amazing as well. It involves an inquisitor and a guy who may or may not be guilty, it doesn’t really matter to the inquisitor. Anyway, Will read more of this author, it was a great ride. Wolf In White Van by John Darniell This was really short, pretty good, and pretty dark. About a guy who was severally disfigured in his face when he was a teenager. He is involved in a court case involving something about a game he makes. The game is a mail in choose your own adventure type fantasy and he seems to make some decent money from it. The book kind of travels back in time as it goes end slowly revealing parts of the story of his face and his life. How to Be Both by Ali Smith Best book I have read this year so far by a long shot. It was my wildcard, so thanks wildcard giver. It’s told in kind of s stream of conciseness but how a person would think. It kind of jumps around in time in the same page or even the same paragraph. The writing really grew on me, and made me appreciate how she was able to tell a story in such a disjointed way. It has two stories, which can be read in any order (which I did not know before I started reading) so the default was the renaissance story because I didn’t notice my kindle edition hide hyperlinks to enter either story. The second story is in modern times, and is told through a young girl, and through some neat surprising ways, they have links to each other. The writing again is just amazing and the second (my second) half was far easier to read, and maybe not as rewarding, but still great. The first drifts in and out of thoughts and narrative of the story that it takes a bit to get used to it. I could probably go on about this book for a long time, but I am bad at writing my feelings about books. So just read this one. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley This was an interesting read. It’s told first through letters from an explorer I guess, and then him narrating what a guy who he picked up off of Antartica and has a strange tale to tell, something that ruined him as a person. So much drama in this book, and the way it plays out I guess is not at all what I expected. I mean the guy somehow stumbles on the thing that reanimates life, but in this book, he creates like a superhero, but really terribly grotesque. I like that he puts this awful thing together and can barely stand the work, it makes him ill and upset, and he hates it. And then is surprised that when he animates it, he thinks it’s the most terrible thing he has every seen. At some point this thing talks, for a long time, tells its tale in clear and rather articulate words what it has been through. You can’t help but think this is written with something else in mind. He talks a lot of being imprisoned, and a lot about being enslaved. He’s enslaved to this creature he created it, and so on. Pretty good read, I liked it, but the scientist was not really a sympathetic character in this. Death Comes for the ArchBishop by Willa Cather A Spanish Vicar goes to the wild lands of New Mexico (he was previously in Ohio I think) which the US has just annexed and takes over the territory there as the chief Catholic I guess. The people that live there are mostly Spanish and Indian with some Americans here and there. No one really likes each other all that much. The Spanish don’t like the Americans, the Indians don’t like the American’s (obviously in this time period) and even some tribes of the Indians don’t get along with each other. For him though, as a Spanish Bishop, he gets along with pretty much everyone. He travels the southwest, with the purpose of spreading his religion, and he meets his fellow Priests and their Parishes and visits some amazing sounding locations. I liked it, it was an easy relaxing read that told a story of a Bishop and his companion, his best and really only friend and covers about 40 years. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante This is a story about two young girls who become friends, live and go to school in the same poor neighborhood in 1950s Italy, a decade after Mussolini and Fascism. It’s about a lot of things, but basically them growing up, the way they compete with each other in school and in life, their friends and families and pastimes. It gets in to the past a bit as Lila, the friend of the person narrating the book, one night learns of her country’s past and more important, she thinks everyone she knows who was alive then is a coward. She says their crimes aloud though I am not sure if they are all true, but needless to say, people that live here won’t talk about the past, so it kind of sits in the background and comes up now and then. A lot of people with money, made it under Mussolini and maybe not through most noble of ways. A lot goes on in this neighborhood. Violence is the most prominent thing, people fight a lot, throw a lot of things, and beat their kids. The writing is to the point, easy to read, reads more like an autobiography. Also, I guess we don’t really know who wrote those books. I am really looking forward to reading the next book in the series. Vanilla Number 22/50 Something Written by a nonwhite author A collection of essays. [ Read Airplane fiction Read Something YA A biography or autobiography Rusty fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 03:04
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quote:1. Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko 10. Drysine Legacy by Joel Shepard 11. Morning Star by Pierce Brown 12. Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon 13. CTRL ALT Revolt! by Nick Cole 14. Ethan of Athos by Lois Bujold McMaster 15. The Purge of Babylon by Sam Sisavath 16. The Tomb of Hercules by Andy McDermott 17. The Gates of Byzantium(Purge of Babylon #2) by Sam Sisavath 18. Yes Please by Amy Poehler February/March Update! I have been bad with updates but my reading progress has been solid and am still ahead of my overall goal and keeping steady with the booklord challenge. I liked The 5th Wave. Yeah it’s YA dystopian future, but no Hunger Games, aliens have devastated the planet with 4 waves of different attacks(EMP, disease, mass driver type attack, etc…) and it is time for the 5th wave. Sure, some of it is predictable but I’ve read a lot worse in the past few years. Drysine Legacy is the second book of the Spiral Wars series. It’s really pretty decent MilSciFi/Space Opera. A bit more talky than the first book but plenty of action both space battle and infantry combat. Looking forward to the next in the series. Morning Star finishes off the Red Rising Trilogy. The whole trilogy was solid throughout, yeah Book 1 was a little Hunger Games but book 2 and 3 went straight into Space Opera and had plenty of twists(no one was ever safe from death) and was a good read. I read the blurb about Gentlemen of the Road in the TBB Book of the Month thread and it seemed interesting. Did not manage to read it during the month it was chosen for but added it to my list to read. It was a short book, but it took a while to read, I think the overly elaborate sentences tok away from the story of the book. I understand he was trying to emulate others writing, but it was just tedious to read. I love reading Nick Cole’s books, whenever he puts out a new book, I add it to my reading list. CTRL ALT Revolt! is his newest. I guess it’s the backstory to how the world in Soda Pop Soldier could come to be. AI becomes sentient and decides humans are the biggest threat to them(we’re actually the biggest threat to everything!) and one of the AIs decides it’s time to take care of us. The rest of the book is a mix of The Terminator(complete with a T-800) and robot conquest mixed with MMOs dominating entertainment. It’s a strange mix but kinda works. Ethan of Athos was just okay. I get the reversal on a planet of amazons, but thought it was weaker than others in the series I’ve read. I’m reading the Vorkosigan Saga in the recommended reading order and this felt a little out of place. Maybe it’s because it introduces all new characters, or that it seems to skip ahead of Miles story of running the mercenary group but it was a bit off. It may fall in place why this was placed here in the reading order one I get a book or two further in. Will have to see. I needed to find another long apocalyptic book series and The Purge of Babylon scratched that itch very well. Instead of zombies, we have ghouls, but still decently written. I have one big problem with the books so far(I have read 2 as of this review) For two former Rangers, now SWAT guys, they are a pretty passive bunch. They only react to the ghouls rather than going on the offensive and trying to make their space any safer. Sure once they are out of the city there are still a few thousand ghouls around, but taking them from a big threat to a smaller threat sounds like a better idea than just letting them rule the night while the humans hide. At $2.99 for the first book and nearly 500 pages, it was a good deal. Supporting a goon writer, The Tomb of Hercules was an okay followup to the Hunt for Atlantis. Several gaming/pop culture references and I did laugh at the Half Life reference. I’m not really into airport fiction, but met the requirements for the booklord challenge. I have only read a few comedian’s autobiography books, but Yes Please was the best I have read. Much funnier than others. It is a bit scatterbrained where she jumps from topic to topic then revisits a topic in the middle of another topic, but I’m kind of scatterbrained myself so it worked out. quote:1) Vanilla Number 18/52
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Mar 31, 2016 04:28
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quote:1) The Writer's Notebook - Tin House /// 2) Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh /// 3) Animal Farm - George Orwell /// 4) Sin & Syntax - Constance Hale /// 5) Inferno (A Poet's Novel) - Eileen Myles /// 6) Binary Star - Sarah Gerard /// 7) Nine Stories - J. D. Salinger I forgot to update at the end of February so here are my Feb and March updates! Feb: 8) Reasons to Live - Amy Hempel - A nice little collection of short stories from one of the greats. Contains a good one who's subject is secretly Steve Martin.  5/59) Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood - This is the first Atwood I've read. A really interesting vision of the apocalypse. Curious to read the others in the trilogy. 5/5 10) This Is Water - David Foster Wallace - I read the book version of this in 5 or 10 minutes at Barnes and Noble and I'm counting it. You can't stop me. Good lecture on perspective and thinking, 5/5 11) The Vegetarian - Han Kang - A beautifully creepy low key slow burn triptych about people dealing with a... Vegetarian. 5/5 March: 12) How to Get Into the Twin Palms - Karolina Waclawiak - A great polish-immigrant-sort-of-trying-to-assimilate-into-her-russian-american-immigrant-neighborhood book. Some cool weird-LA vibes going on. 5/5 13) The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing - Nicholas Rombes - Loved it. It's about a film archivist who's burned a little collection of films that were too... something. He recounts the films to a journalist. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler meets House of Leaves. 5/5 14) Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story - John Yorke - I'm trying to get into screenwriting and this was a pretty good guide. Much less structurally-dogmatic than poo poo like Snyder, gives a basic idea of why some story traditions are the way they are, rather than just "this is how it is, now copy it." 5/5 15) Citizen - Claudia Rankine - A very powerful lyrical essay/book of poetry thing dealing with racism. Should be required reading for every american human in 2016. 5/5 16) The Glacier - Jeff Wood - A screenplay-novel thing. A very cool pre-apocalyptic (??) story. The back describes it as tarkovsky meets jodorowsky but I haven't seen any jodorowsky so idk. 5/5 17) The Piano - Jane Campion (screenplay with notes book edition.) - Haven't seen the movie but the screenplay was dope. A great little clinic in developing a character who doesn't speak. 5/5 Relevant Booklord Categories: 1) Vanilla Number: 17/52 2) Book by a Woman - Eileen 3) Nonwhite Author - Eileen / Han Kang, Claudia Rankine 6) Animal Subject or Narrator - Animal Farm 7) Collection of Essays - The Writer's Notebook 8) Science Fiction - Oryx and Crake 11) About or Set in NYC - Inferno (A Poet's Novel) 15) Recently Published - Eileen (August 2015) 17) First book in a Series - Oryx and Crake 21) Short Story Collection - Nine Stories And on my personal challenge: 10/26 female authors 3/13 authors of color
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Mar 31, 2016 07:38
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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. 18 A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley. I shelved this a while ago as I didn't really think the prose was interesting enough to get me to care. I still think that, to be honest. 19 The Hireling by L.P. Hartley. I bought this because I had the chance to buy The Go Between and didn't so I was feeling guilty. The guy read's fast but is entirely about forelock tugging and so I can see why he was popular in his day and is not at all now. 20 Anne of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennet. Mostly a description of the pottery industry in the early 19th Centuary with a little romance written around it. Some good stuff. 21 Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. I was going to read Sylvia's Lovers but a first google spat out that she called it her most depressing book so I went with this one instead. OK, variable, 22 Persuasion by Jane Austen. You bet I'm trying to read a bunch of women this year. It's good stuff, hurt a bit by my inability to learn character's names, they all seem to be called Frederick or Charles. 23 The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. This was pressed into my hands with the adjective "Jamesian" which I guess means it's about vicious rich people and nothing really happens. Has all the sex James left out and then some. 24 The Letters of John Cheever edited by Benjamin Cheever. Apparently he only wrote regularly to about 5 people, and Ben went and cut out the catty segments to spare some blushes. The extensive notes are really good though, especially giving background to John's love letters to men. 25 Lois the Witch and other stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. I think this is from a penguin grouping of horror stories, so this collection is all about idiot's misunderstanding of supernatural forces going out and hurting someone. S'good. 26 Correction by Thomas Bernhard as translated by Sophie WIlkins. I found myself thinking of The Cone so I gave this one a re-read. 26/60 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 31, 2016 13:22
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March 13. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov. This is the second book in the series, which I'd put off for a while because sci fi book series are stupid crap. I bought the book tho, so I felt compelled 2 read it, even though tthats the sunk cost fallacy or whatever. It's worse than the first. 14. Summa Technologiae by Stanislaw Lem. Lem is basically the only serious and artistic sci fi writer that I know of. This book is a speculative futorological version of the Summa Theologica by Aquinas, I guess. Lem develops kool ideas, like a computer that develops its own scientific theories so that it can develop further science theories way beyond the grasp & ability of humans. the ideas are cool, but like pretty smart, so this book was hard to read. 15. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The classic novel that everyone loves. It's good. The book is split into 2 parts, which were written 10 years apart, and are really different in style. I liked the first part better, as it was funnier + more mean spirited about how stupid Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are. Anyway, Its a classic, all you fuckers who list ten novels from different young adult series each month should do yourselves a favor and read this, as it will help you to become slightly less stupid. 16. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin. Larkin is some good poo poo. A depressed old British dude who hated women, and was sad all the time, and published a book of poems every 10 years??? yes please. 17. The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati. Recommended by someone on this here forum, finally making the  i spent like a decade ago worth it. A story about a young officer posted to a fort on the outskirts of the empire, overlooking the Tartar Steppe. he thinks he'll just stay there for four months, but ends up staying 30 years, hoping something will happen that will validate his life & decisions... very powerful.
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Mar 31, 2016 14:42
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Radio! posted:March I read this one this month too. It's my second book by Newman and I'm just not quite sure how to take him. I sorta find the premise interesting, and there are good moments, but the whole seems a bit flat. What'd you think?
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Mar 31, 2016 18:35
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Here's a bit from February and all my March. Goal: 52 books, 1/4 literature, 4 books nonfiction. 12. Little Sister by Kara Dalkey 13. The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun by Lux Xun (Literature) 14. Dune by Frank Herbert 15. The Heavenward Path by Kara Dalkey 16. How to Be Both by Ali Smith (Literature) 17. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (Nonfiction) 18. Fire Study by Maria V Snyder 19. Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum (Literature) 19/52, 8/19 Literature, 2 Nonfiction books. Little Sister was nice. It's fantasy (whether you'd qualify it as young adult or instead middle grade I'm not sure) but it's also historical and takes place in Japan. It's nice and light. I'd recommend it. The Lu Xun story collection was interesting. I haven't read much Chinese fiction period, though I'd like to fix that. Even with the footnotes I had a hard time at times, because of expected cultural context (or I could be an idiot. This is certainly possible). My favorites in it were "Diary of a Madman," "New Year's Sacrifice," and "Brothers." I don't think I need to talk about Dune. I had some gripes with characterization but I'm told it's less of a problem in the next book. The Heavenward Path is the sequel to Little Sister. I do not recommend it. Maybe there's something essential I'm missing here but I feel like it took everything I loved about the first book and threw it out. Read Little Sister, but pretend there was no sequel. How to Be Both is Excellent and I want to read more by Ali Smith. Mine started in the opposite order than the other poster's did, and I can't imagine reading it the other way personally. But maybe that's what makes it interesting, it creates a different experience. The idea of two narratives in different print orders seemed gimmicky to me when I first heard about it, but I seriously think it worked well. Women's Work is sort of weird. The work in it is solid concerning weaving in parts of the world (it does not cover the new world or really talks about Asia much) but it hinges on this thesis that women do work that is compatible with child-rearing. It sort of removes any agency you know? But thesis aside, it's a good book, though I really really wish it had covered the entire world. Fire Study was the third book in this series by Snyder. The gripes I had were still there, and I had to force myself through a fourth of the book because I didn't get invested until then. It was interesting after that point though. Hausfrau was amazing. Read it. Read it. Read it. It's about a woman who is miserable in Switzerland and her life spinning out of control. Read it. I'm a little low on literature, so I need to make up for that. Any recommendations? I've been trying a few things but nothing's grabbed me. I think maybe something not inspiring depression or a feeling of emptiness would be ideal.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:53
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Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg March: 23) In the Night Garden - Catherynne M. Valente: I loved this. I loved the world she created and the 1001 nights vibe, with the stories within stories within stories. I will definitely be reading the sequel. 24) Julie and Julia - Julie Powell: Despite all the terrible reviews, I thought I would read this anyway because I love Julia Child. Mistake. It was awful. When she managed to talk about the actual cooking process, it was interesting, but most of the book was her ranting about the terrible republicans at her job, complaining about having to console 9/11 survivors and families on the 1st anniversary of the attack, bitching about her squalid apartment, and gossiping about her friends sex lives. She is annoying and obnoxious (calling her blog readers 'bleaders') and thinks it's cute that she fails wildly at achieving everyday tasks. The movie was definitely better. 25) Keeping the House - Ellen Baker: I apparently gave this four stars but I can barely remember anything about it now. 26) Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up - Marie Kondo: The companion book to The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I am totally caught up in this craze. It actually works. 27) The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin: A goon favorite. I found it difficult to get into it, but once I was about a third of the way through I really enjoyed it. 28) My Man Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse: A collection of short stories. Very funny. I liked the ones with the titular Jeeves much more than the ones without him, but they were all fun reads. 29) No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy: Brutal but fantastically written. 30) The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins: This is one of those things that everyone is reading at the moment so I figured I'd join in. Ugh, it was terrible. What starts as an interesting premise quickly devolves into an annoying mess of unlikable characters behaving inexplicably. There are a couple of well written scenes with a lot of tension but unfortunately they can't save this book. 31) President Reagan - The Role of a Lifetime - Lou Cannon: This was long but overall very good. It does a great job allowing the reader to see Reagan the man, and at least tries to be unbiased. My only real criticisms are that it was difficult to figure out what was going on chronologically with the way it was written, and that there could have been about 100 pages less about Iran-Contra. You can tell it was written by a journalist. 32) Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse #9) - Charlaine Harris: Not much to say here except that I am still enjoying the series, which is impressive 9 books in. 33) 41: A Portrait of My Father - George W. Bush: A profile of George H.W. Bush by his son. I wasn't expecting much from this and it was not bad except for the fact that he was incapable of addressing anything his dad did as president without comparing it to something he did during his own presidency. This starts out with occasional references but by the end of the book happens every paragraph. I would recommend anyone else doing a presidential reading challenge to pick something else. 34) One of Us: Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway - Asne Seierstad: This was really good despite some glaring flaws (not the best translation, clearly written by a journalist, tons of unnecessary background info such as where the parents of one of the shooting victims met). It's a little long but the profile of Anders Breivik is very thorough and intensely disturbing. 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 I: In the Night Garden J: Julie and Julia K: Keeping the House L: The Left Hand of Darkness M: My Man Jeeves N: No Country for Old Men O: One of Us 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 over 500 pages: Keeping the House Book about/set in NYC: The Angel of Darkness Young adult book: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Published in the last year: Hope Book you've wanted to read for a while: The Left Hand of Darkness First book in a series: Outlander Biography or autobiography: Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter Short stories: Three-Ten to Yuma and other Stories Mystery book: The Girl on the Train Overall: Total: 34/100 A-Z Challenge: 15/26 Booklord Challenge: 14/22 Presidential Biographies: 3/6 Will someone give me a wildcard (preferably under 500 pages)?
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Mar 31, 2016 19:09
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Roydrowsy posted:
25. Robert B Parker - Early Autumn 26. Louis L'Amour - How the West was Won 27. Robert B. Parker - Stardust 28. Robert B. Parker - The Godwulf Manuscript 29. Robert B. Parker - God Save the Child 30. Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep 31. Robert B. Parker - A Savage Place 32. Robert B. Parker - Ceremony 33. Bill Pronzini - The Snatch 34. Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons 35. Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird 36. Robert B. Parker - Playmates 37. Robert B. Parker - Pasttime 38. Ed McBain - The Pusher 39. Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest 40. Robert B. Parker - Double Deuce 41. Robert B. Parker - Paper Doll 42. Michael Connelly - The Black Box 43. Robert B. Parker - Mortal Stakes 44. George Bernard Shaw - Major Barbara 45. Robert B. Parker - Valediction Having read the first 20 Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker - I am starting to realize how silly a challenge this was. I'm also surprised how easy it was for me to make it this far. They are simple books, really easy to read and enjoyable. My goal is to get into some more "respectable" reading in the summer. I have to figure out which 5 books I want to teach my 7th and 8th graders next year. I think my plan is to have two sets and then alternate back and forth between the two.
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Mar 31, 2016 22:22
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Ben Nevis posted:I read this one this month too. It's my second book by Newman and I'm just not quite sure how to take him. I sorta find the premise interesting, and there are good moments, but the whole seems a bit flat. What'd you think? Same, really. Like you said, there were some cool ideas and moments, but a lot of it felt like the author being real smug about the amount of obscure references he could make and it kind of fell apart at the end, I thought. The ending felt really rushed and nonsensical. Like, he spends the whole book building up Dracula as a threat and then they escape him trying to murder them by just running away? And he lets them go? Really? A solid "eh". I don't regret reading it but I have no real desire to pick up another of Newman's books.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:08
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March 1. Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Empires of Eve Online - Andrew Groen A chronicle of the major power groups of the game Eve Online from the beginning of the game to the near present. I enjoyed this a lot, although the writer's style was super distracting at times. 2. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie Enjoyable, I haven't read a mystery novel in a long time. 3.Look Evelyn, Duck Dynasty Wiper Blades. We Should Get Them.: A Collection of New Essays - David Thorne These essays made me laugh a lot, I'll probably look into his other collections. 4. Tom Clancy's The Division: New York Collapse - Alex Irvine A faux survival guide owned by someone during a pandemic in New York City that ties in with the video game. The margins and text have been scribbled in by the fictional author and details about the origin of the virus are hidden within the text. I wasn't expecting much from this but it was actually well done. 5. Proper Gauge - Hugh Howey The second book in the Wool series, just as good as the first. 6. Robot Visions - Isaac Asimov A collection of sci-fi short stories and essays. The essays were hard to get through, but the stories were mostly entertaining. 7. The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein A book about a good dog. 8. Spelunky - Derek Yu An autobiographical look at the development of the game Spelunky. I greatly enjoyed this, as it's one of my favorite games. It was incredibly interesting to hear the creator's thought processes and influences that contributed to it. Booklord Challenge 1) 21/60 2) Something written by a woman - Go Set A Watchman 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Spelunky 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 - The Art of Racing in the Rain 7) A collection of essays. - Look Evelyn, Duck Dynasty Wiper Blades. We Should Get Them.: A Collection of New 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 - Tom Clancy's The Division: New York Collapse 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) - Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Empires of Eve Online 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. - Murder on the Orient Express  I'd like to start off April with a wildcard if anyone has a suggestion.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:59
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Chekans 3 16 posted:
Angels in America by Tony Kushner
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Apr 1, 2016 01:29
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I'm upping my goal for the year from 30 to 60, because I'm already 19 books in. At this rate my goal would be finished by May so that seems silly. This month I read 2863 pages, for an average of 92 pages/day during the month and 81 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) - Stress Test 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 Generation 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection 22) It’s a Mystery. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English - 4/5 - An interesting story about the development of English from Proto-Indo-European language to Proto-Germanic to Old English to the Modern English we know today, looking at how the changes in language came about. Overall, a pretty interesting story that made me think a lot about English and language in general that I hadn't ever considered. I wouldn't recommend this for someone who knows a lot about linguistics as it's clearly intended for the novice, but as that novice it was an interesting read. My major complaint with the book is the way he gets antagonistic towards the 'establishment linguists'. It feels like every chapter he devotes a third of it to arguing about why is he right, and everyone else is wrong which is unnecessary and annoying. Regardless though, a good entertaining informative read that I'd recommend to anyone interesting in linguistics. How Asia Works - 5/5 - Not for everyone, but fascinating. The book tracks (most) Asian economies post-WW2 and discusses why some economies (Korea, Japan, etc) have been extremely successful, while others (Malaysia, Thailand, etc) haven't done well. It breaks the economic down into a few steps that are vital to follow, and then discusses what each country did right and wrong relative to those steps. It was fascinating. I learned a lot about international finance, and learned a lot about each of the countries in question as well. Not a quick read at all, but it is one you learn something new on every page. Should We Eat Meat? - 2/5 - This book seemed right up my alley, but was very disappointing. The book looks at all the pro's and con's of meat eating, from both a modern and historical viewpoint. The book is exhaustively researching and extremely quantitative, which is good, but also is the problem. I don't expect a narrative in my history or policy books, but at some point you need something more than just numbers thrown at you for page after page. I feel like I just read a reference book on meat eating, and learned a lot, but it was generally uninteresting. The author also seems to have trouble coming to conclusions, instead laying out lots of underlying data that would be best left for citations, and then just stopping. The answer to the titular question is left to a few pages at the end of the novel, where the answer is "Yes, in moderation." A good book if you want to impress your friends with lots of numbers, but not one I'd recommend except in the most academic of settings. Hunger Games Trilogy - 3/5 - A nice fun palate cleanser after reading a few more complicated books in a row. Despite reading all three books, it was pretty quick as none of them are very long and all are quick reads. It started out pretty strong with the first book, but definitely descended throughout the series until by the end it was kind of bad but still readable. Definitely catered towards the YA crowd, but still fun and I can see why people would want to watch the movies! Stress Test - 4/5 - Written by Tim Geithner, the secretary of the Treasury from 2009-2013, discusses in great detail the actions that both caused and healed the financial recession in 2008. I wanted to read this because I didn't have a great depth of knowledge about the recession, and found that it was fascinating. Geithner writes in a relatively engaging style (though at moments he does get bogged down in financial details that don't mean a lot to me due to my lack of background) that kept me entertained. I definitely have a much better understanding of why the hated bailouts were necessary. It's interesting to compare the US to Europe - despite widespread comments about the failure of our government to handle the crisis, the US is in significantly better shape than Europe so something must have been done right. An important thing here to consider is bias, though; obviously Geither is going to be biased towards his own viewpoint which is pro-treasury, so while his ideas made sense to me I want to read something anti-Geithner to balance it out. Overall, I'd recommend this if you're interested in learning more about finance and the recession, but be warned that it's a bit dense at points and is a long haul.\ Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street - 2/5 - The complete opposite of the last book. Written by the head of the anti-fraud team for the bailout, named SIGTARP, this book is a scathing tear down of the actions of the treasury during the crisis. The weird thing is that it's really not critical of the bailout at all, so much as the execution. A lot of the criticisms that Barovsky has are valid, but in the grand scheme of things you need to make priorities. Losing 10 million in fraud is bad, but it's a necessary consequence of preventing a financial meltdown. Unlike Geither, Barovsky comes across as wholly unlikable. Everyone he meets is evil or corrupt or incompetent, and while I don't doubt that people like that are involved, at some point you need to look inwardly. Barovsky constantly plays the white knight - the only good man in Washington and it comes across both grating and unrealistic. Not a good book.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:53
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3) Ignition!, John D Clark (BLC# 5, History) A history of rocket propellants. Some of the chemistry was beyond me, but in general it's not a super technical book. Lots of fun anecdotes about blowing up test rockets and labs with scary chemicals. Should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of rocketry. PDF freely available online. 4) American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis (BLC# 11, NYC) The most violent and explicit thing I think I've ever read. The most disturbing is the uncertainty of everything though. Will read again. 5) The TeXbook, Donald E. Knuth Most people use the LaTeX variant of the TeX typesetting language now, but I like using plain TeX for simple documents. A lot of the book applies equally to both, so it's worth reading for users of either. 6) See a Grown Man Cry, Now Watch Him Die, Henry Rollins (BLC# 9, Musician) First half was poetry that I didn't really get into. I sort of skimmed through them looking for the longer diary like entries. Second half is a tour diary, life on the road while dealing with the murder of a close friend. Rollins really lives his emotions, he is so angry and sorrowful and guilt-ridden, all at the same time and more strongly than I ever have about anything. 7) King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild (BLC# 14, Wildcard) Perfect wildcard, thanks! Had never read Heart of Darkness and was largely ignorant of the scale of the atrocities in the Belgian Congo.
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Apr 1, 2016 06:47
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High Warlord Zog posted:Angels in America by Tony Kushner Done. Thanks!
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Apr 1, 2016 06:52
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quote:1. Modern Romance A. Ansari 7. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott Casual, practical, relatable. Full of great advice about aiming for personal satisfaction. (non-fiction) 8. Punk Rock Jesus by Sean Gordon Murphy Intense, creative, dark, kick-rear end. Beautiful art. Highly recommended. 9. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving A classic, one of my favorites. My book club wanted to re-read it and I get to revisit it after seven years. Less emotional impact, but I am impressed by the technical skill at hand. Very fun to read, although, at over 600 pages, it could be trimmed down. Highly recommended, though it's not for everyone. Non-Fiction: 2/10 Year Goal: 9/52 quote:Book Riot READ HARDER CHALLENGE
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Apr 1, 2016 07:47
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Bandiet posted:1. The Stranger by Albert Camus 7. The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka. This month was another dud for reading time, but I had a lot of fun with this. The best poo poo out there tbh. Mixing a masterful sense of horror and a preposterous sense of comedy from page to page, basically, and it totally worked. Even in the longer stories, when the quality control of the prose got a little questionable, it seemed more like an attribute to the atmosphere than anything else. Yeah I'm saying Kafka is immune to human error. Vanilla Number: 7/75 A Short Story collection: ^
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Apr 1, 2016 08:16
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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 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 March update 12. Legend by Marie Lu. This was my YA read for the book lord challenge. It was pretty typical for a YA novel - set in a dystopian future in the former US after some kind of plague thing. Fairly enjoyable for that kind of novel if very predictable. 13. Sabriel by Garth Nix I'm a sucker for fantasy and well written female characters so I really enjoyed this. 14. Three men on a boat by Jerome K Jerome I'm a bit late on this one but grabbed it on my kindle after seeing it was the BotM for January. It was free so why not. Thoroughly enjoyed the snarky moaning and piss taking of three pretty much useless men setting off on their little adventure, very British. I admit I skimmed over some of the lengthier descriptions of the river and neighbouring countryside though. 15. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche Well at least I can say I've read Nietzsche now? Had to really struggle on with this, not helped by initially picking up the free Kaufmann (I think) translation which was filled with 'thous' and '-eths' that made me want to hurl the book across the room. I found an alternative translation that wasn't, which helped. I can't say I enjoyed it or evevn really understood it, but then I'm not sure I was supposed to. I quite liked that the book spent a lot of time criticizing religion while at the same time reading like a religious text and involving a great deal of sermonising and parables in very religious style, probably a deliberate parody. Nietzsche has some not very great ideas about women though which grated quite a lot. One of the introductions I read suggested that this wasn't exactly Nietzsche's personal view, but it seemed like trying to excuse him after the fact rather than the truth. Anyway, I got to be smug for a month about reading a famous philosophical text. 16. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel I loved this. As may be obvious by my reading history I do love a bit of dystopian apocalyptic type stuff and this was a great example that I devoured over a couple of days. It isn't the obvious, over dramatic sort of dystopia that often appears in the YA world which was very refreshing. Booklord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 16/35 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) 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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Apr 1, 2016 08:51
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quote:1. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez) Combined February and March update, because I haven't read a lot this year so far. 4. Der Turm (Uwe Tellkamp) This is a novel about a (formerly) upper middle class family in Dresden trying to hold on to their ideas of status and class in the later years of the GDR. I love multi-generational family stories in general, and this one was very well written and the unusual perspective of having the sort of high social status that the regime is desperately trying to suppress made it much more interesting than I though it would be. I think it's available in english as "The Tower" but I don't know whether the translation is good. 5. 1000 Peitschenhiebe (Raid Badawi) The title means "1000 lashes", which is the punishment Badawi is receiving for "insulting Islam through electronic channels". This is just a selection of his blog posts translated into german from arabic and it's honestly not that great. Obviously it's interesting to see what exactly he did "wrong", but for someone living in a western country his ideas are neither new nor exciting, so there's not much to gain from reading them. 6. Elsewhere, Perhaps (Amos Oz) Just finished reading this, so I'm not sure what to think of it yet, but I was disappointed as it was rather boring. I do plan to read some more of his work though. 6/40 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author: 1000 Peitschenhiebe 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages: Der Turm 17) The First book in a series: Eye of the Red Tsar
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Apr 1, 2016 15:11
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Ben Nevis posted:Previously Read: It was another big reading month, helped out a bit at the start by a sick child, so I blew through 12 and 13. 11. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain - A book of short stories, all set sort of around revolutions. You're never really dealing with revolutionaries too directly here, it's more the grad student kidnapped by them in Colombia, the washed up golfer who becomes the pro for the military junta in Myanmar, an NGO worker caught up in diamond smuggling in Sierra Leone, things of that nature. There are some here that are pretty humorous, others somewhat grim, and many that ride the line between the two. I enjoyed this. This was recently published 12. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny - A collection of Victorian characters and their animals gather for a great game. The nature of the game is slowly revealed as the month leading up to Halloween is chronicled by Snuff, the faithful canine companion of Jack the Ripper. This was great. I checked it out from the library, but I intend to buy it so I can re-read. 13. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman - Van Helsing and his crew fail to kill Dracula. When they are regrouping in the aftermath, Dracula worms his way into the favor of the Queen, becoming Prince Consort. Suddenly vampirism is the popular new way to socially advance. Discussed a bit upthread. An interesting idea with some good scenes, overall just flat though. It also suffered being read right against Lonesome October, since that was a really well done book set in same era with the everyone and the kitchen sink mentality. If you read the complete set of addendums, it'd make the 500 page requirement. I didn't, and I wouldn't recommend doing so. Also the first in a series, though I don't intend to read the rest. 14. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome - Saw this pop up for BotM back in January, but I was already immersed in Lonesome Dove, so I put it off. Already a lot written about it, but I enjoyed this. The comedy was good, and reminded me some of Wodehouse. The more somber reflections on the Magna Carta and whatnot didn't do much for me. A book written in the 1800s 15. Carter and Lovecraft by Jonathan L Howard - A detective story in which the private detective descendent of Randolph Carter and the bookstore owning descendent of HP Lovecraft solve mysterious murders. There were some definite callbacks to classic Lovecraft, and some well done portions. Despite the cover, there aren't tentacles. This is more the Innsmouth end of Lovecraft. Howard has said this may be the first of a series. I'll most likely pick up any future books in the series. This was published in the last year. 16. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Really a novella, this clocked in at around 90 pages. Binti is the first of her tribe (the Himba of Namibia) selected to attend the prestigious galactic university. She must grow up fast when her transport is attacked by aliens. The blurb on the back said it was a tense intimate coming of age story in space. That's about right. This is the second book I've ready by Okorafor, and enjoyed this. It sounds a bit trite, but I like the way the story hung together. It felt like there was more going on than just kids in space. Written by a woman, non-white author and recently published. 17. Claws of the Cat by Susan Spann - I grabbed this because I saw the third book in the series, The Flask of the Drunken Master, in the new book section and wanted to start at the beginning. This is a series of mysteries set in 16th century Japan. The detectives are a ninja and a Jesuit priest. Together they navigate the difficult social structure to solve crime. Despite being a bit cheesy, this was a fairly solid mystery. Some red herrings and unexpected twists and turns. This is the sort of series where if there's not much else at the library striking my fancy I'll grab one to fill some time. The first of a series of mysteries, and written by a woman. Three-fer! 18. Stray Souls by Kate Griffin - A followup or companion series to her Matthew Swift urban fantay series. It focuses on Magicals Anonymous, a support group for the magically inclined. Our Lady of 4am has gone missing, as have a number of smaller spirits. The Midnight Mayor is tied up in politics, and it falls to Sharon, a would-be shaman, and her ragtag bunch to figure out what's going on. On the whole, I find Griffin's urban fantasy stuff to be fast paced, imaginative, and fun. This did not disappoint. I'll definitely be reading the other book in the series. 19. Version Control by Dexter Palmer - A sci-fi story set in the near future in a world seemingly run by Big Data. Stores use cameras to anticipate your size and which clothes will fit well, social networks ubiquitously track every aspect of your life, and even the President may but into your Skype calls with a personalized message relating to what you're talking about. It's about our public performance of our private selves, and the way tragedy can shape your life. Also, there's a time machine. Had I not read A Night in the Lonesome October, this would be the best book of the month. Sci-fi, recently published, nonwhite author, over 500 pages (at least some versions). 1) Vanilla Number 19/45 2) Something written by a woman - Ru, Only the Animals, Stray Souls, Claws of the Cat, Binti 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Ru, Binti, Version Control 4) Something written in the 1800s - Three Men in a Boat 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Only the Animals, A Night in the Lonesome October 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - The Stars my Destination, Binti, Version Control 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Lonesome Dove, Version Control 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, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, Lovecraft & Carter, Binti, Version Control 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 - Claws of the Cat, Anno Dracula, Stray Souls 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, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara 22) It’s a Mystery - Claws of the Cat, Lovecraft & Carter Ben Nevis fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 16:26
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Gertrude Perkins posted:
I read five books in March: 12 - The Great Zoo of China, by MATTHEW REILLY!!!!!!!. Reilly is a thirteen-year-old boy encased in the body of a middle-aged man. He writes with the clumsy excitement and breathless enthusiasm of a child who just learned about a new type of plane or gun or crocodile and is aching to tell everyone about it. I'm pretty sure he also aims his books at that age bracket - he has a tendency to explain big words or obscure terms like "herpetologist" or "FUBAR". I first started reading his books when I was an impressionable, excited preteen, and I'm happy to say that this latest adventure put me right back in that headspace. I can't count the number of times I guffawed out loud at a new preposterous escalation, or an agonisingly cheesy action beat. But most of all, it was fun - fun I've not had reading a Reilly book in some time. 13 - Empire of the Senseless, by Kathy Acker. This book was difficult, for a number of reasons. It's a "post-punk" feminist postmodern novel, detached from regular structures and tropes, and genre-wise it's very hard to pin down. The dreamlike stream-of-consciousness prose and the blends of inner and outer monologue didn't take me long to get used to. It's packed full of sex, violence, racism, and sexual violence, vivid and ugly. It's also peppered with really sweet or beautiful moments, or thoughts. The book is nakedly political, set in a then-present "1988 but even worse", mid-apocalyptic, and she doesn't shy away from depicting the violence of patriarchy and class warfare under Reagan's boot. Paris and London are destroyed, New York is a warzone, the main characters are terrorists/pirates/bikers, or at least want to be. One of them is half-woman, half-robot. As I said, it's not an easy book, and I'm still digesting a lot of it, but it's one I'm very glad I've read. 14 - Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, by Stuart Ashen. Another book I helped crowdfund, by a YouTube guy who mostly reviews bootleg toys and weird electronics. This is a collection of short pieces about weird, obscure and bad olf home computer games. The book itself is really slickly produced, and has the aesthetics of an old games mag, right down to the busy background colours and snarky tone. It's an easy read, with some cool guest writers (like Violet Berlin!), and I chuckled a fair bit as much as I was consumed with "before my time" nostalgia. The layout does work against it sometimes, and I think I've become so conditioned to videos about games that I was distracted by the fact that all the book is is words and screenshots. But at the same time it's nice to enjoy this kind of thing with my own rhythm. 15 - Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. After-the-end near-future SF. I'm generally not too fond of apocalyptic writing, and this did little to change my tastes, though the dispassionate way Atwood portrays societal collapse - in glimpses, in subtle changes in the way people live - was effectively unsettling. I'm curious to read the other two books in the trilogy, mostly because I'm not sure where things might go from here. 16 - High-Rise, by JG Ballard. This took a while to grow on me, as it'd been a while since the last time I read anything by him, but once I was on board I barely put it down. Ballard has this amazing sense of momentum, of things getting drawn inexorably forward - or backward, as is often the case. This is a book about a fancy block of flats and the affluent tenants who slowly but surely succumb to the psychological turmoil of isolation and manufactured society. It's grim, it's fun, and it's immensely satisfying, and I'm so glad I finally read this, especially before seeing the film adaption that's come out. Also it made me seriously wonder how dog actually tastes. Fuller reviews up on my GoodReads as always. BOOKLORD progress: 1) 52+ books - 16 2) At least 40% (21) by a woman - 7 - Supervillainz; AM/PM; New World; Bad Feminist, Dept. Of Speculation, Empire Of The Senseless; Oryx & Crake 4) Something written in the 1800s - 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - 13) Read Something YA - 14) Wildcard! (City of Stairs) 18) A biography or autobiography - 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, etc.) or from the Beat Generation - 20) Read a banned book - 22) It’s a Mystery. -
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Apr 1, 2016 19:51
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Prolonged Shame posted:Will someone give me a wildcard (preferably under 500 pages)? Anyone?
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Apr 2, 2016 01:37
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Prolonged Shame posted:Anyone? read The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
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Apr 2, 2016 05:22
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March. 11. La otra historia de México: Juárez y Maximiliano I. Armando Fuentes Aguirre. It was interesting to see a recount of mexican history from the perspective of the losing side. Not that I agree with some of it, but as usual, the truth lies in the middle. 12. La otra historia de México: Juárez y Maximiliano II. Armando Fuentes Aguirre. The same 13. Bad Arguments. Ali Almossawi. Too short, but a pretty good reference. The examples were clear and the art was quite cool. 14. Writing Information Security Policies. Scott Barman. Regular, the examples were useful but nothing special. 15. Steering the Craft. Ursula K. Le Guin. Awesome reference. What I liked the most was the feeling of being in a workshop and learning with every page. 16. Harry Potter and the Globet of Fire. J.K. Rowling. Better than the first books in the series. We can finally see some of the epic it supposedly happens... even if some of the social commentary is quite badly used. 17. Fledgling. Octavia E. Butler. It really easy to see how this was the start of a series, too bad it didn't happened. The story is good but the characters get lost in their introductions. 18. The Long Earth. Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter. Great setting, interesting story, mediocre characters and horrible ending. Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 18/60 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) 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published 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
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Apr 2, 2016 06:04
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