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June. 31. Lucifer's Hammer Larry Niven. Starts bad, with lots of characters I couldn't care about, but it gets way better by the end. 32. Death by Black Hole Neal DeGrasse Tyson. Some of the essays were great, for some of the others I needed to check some references to fully understand. It was a good read. 33. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J.K. Rowling. Quite slow and nothing much happens until the last few chapters. Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 33/60 4) Something written in the 1800s 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 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
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Jul 2, 2016 17:07
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ulvir posted:you're in norway right, where did you get a hold of this book? through amazon? Yep. Also hi, fellow Scream forum user. I have a Kindle bought from Amazon.com and buy stuff from the Kindle store in US dollars. This book was readily available there.
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Jul 2, 2016 17:26
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Groke posted:Yep. Also hi, fellow Scream forum user. sweet. I've a Kindle myself, so might get this one soon then. also sup. I only lurk the lit thread cause almost everyone there hold absolutely terrible political opinions though
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Jul 2, 2016 20:20
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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 4. Shift, Hugh Howey. Couldn't finish this one. 0/5 5. The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin. 4/5 6. The Dark Forest, Liu Cixin. Wow. I'm in the camp of readers who wondered if this was even written by Liu or if the translation failed, or both. Either way, a horrendous letdown from the first book. I gave up halfway through. 0/5 7. Killing and Dying: Stories, Adrian Tomine. Wanna get super-massive depressed? Here's your ticket. Great stuff, but drat, what a bummer. 5/5 8. The Winged Histories, Sofia Samatar. My year of disappointing books continues, and what a let-down this was. This is a sequel of sorts to the fantastic A Stranger In Olondria that attempts to examine several different aspects of Samatar's fantasy world. One is the conflict between the empire and the land of Kestenya, and the other is the rise and fall of the Cult of the Stone, which suppressed the older religion of the goddess Avalei. Good ideas - terrible execution. There is very little cohesion to this story as Samatar decided to adopt a "dreamlike" narrative style through her characters that mixes memory and flashback with the present - often in the same drat paragraph. You won't know who half the people are that she refers to, or what the relationships are between different parts of the world, or why there is conflict in the first place. The most interesting story is about the priest who founds the Cult of the Stone, but the rest is extremely mediocre. I couldn't finish the final 100 pages because I was so bored, not invested in the characters, and had no real sense of what was going on. I think Samatar wanted this to be a character study about the effects of war and conflict on women, but she forgot that in order for those themes to connect, you have to also create compelling settings and have enough exposition so that the reader can connect with the characters. 0/5 9. Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton. Picked this up after reading a random recommendation for it online. Crichton devolved into a climate-denying right-wing fucktard in his later years - plus his books sucked - but this one, published posthumously, is a simple, straight-up Pirates In the Caribbean story. Basically a perfect beach read for anyone who likes pirates, and really, who doesn't? It's written in a very fast-paced, cinematic style. There's plenty of tropes, cliches, and deus ex machinas at every turn, but so what? Good stuff if you're looking for simple entertainment. 4/5 I tried five pages of Sanderson's The Way of Kings and was completely turned off by it. Sorry folks. On Neal Stephenson's Reamde right now, quite enjoying it.
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Jul 4, 2016 13:02
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quote:1. Modern Romance A. Ansari 19. The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clark Takes famous passages from the great works of twenty five writers and breaks down their writing style by word choice, punctuation, and syntax. A quick read that concentrates on the text and tries to give you ideas to think about critically. Felt like a brief refresher course on reading, but benefited from having a decent author selection. 20. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach A good coming-of-age story that explores the ennui that occurs from having life not bend around your plans. Also explores the ideas of masculinity in various contexts: love, athleticism, friendship, etc. Well-written, great characters. It's fun to live in a world for 500 where everyone is obsessed with Herman Melville and Moby-Dick is the greatest book of all time. 21. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson I went on a weekend trip to St. Kitts and didn't want to lug around a dense hardback, and this has been wasting away on my shelf. Thompson's one of those writers that lit. nerds talk poo poo about once they're past their 20's. I really don't mind the guy. This is his "first" novel, which went unpublished until he was in his twilight years, about a writer who goes to work on San Juan in the 1950's. It's a strange read: nothing really happens until the last act. The main character "Paul" gets drunk, goes on writing assignments, eats hamburgers, wants to gently caress a girl in an abusive relationship, deals with the weird writing staff of the newspaper that's hired him. The second act involves him getting arrested with two co-workers. The third act involves a party and then the destruction of the world that he's lived in for six months. It captures the rum-soaked island days and the never-in-a-hurry lifestyle. By the last act, it turns to ruminate on being stuck in a seductive lifestyle at a moment where your youth is behind you and the emptiness that follows that revelation. It feels like that should have been explored fully in the book instead of the last few chapters. Still, not a bad book for a vacation. 22. Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari "Drugs may be bad, but addiction is the problem, and our solutions aren't working." A very biased exploration of the drug war, and all it's implications. Instead of punishing addicts with ridiculously long sentences, why don't we have rehab centers? Does the drug war stop crime, or create new crime? If 90% of people can do drugs without forming addictive habits, what's happening with the 10%? If more animals than humans chase mind-altering states, why are we so obsessed with sobriety? The book has a lot of questions, but can only get through so many in 300 pages. It feels like a Jon Ronson book without a sense of humor. Not for the weak-of-heart, there is a lot of heartbreaking stories that often turn to violence, including murder, rape, and torture. While the book is very very biased, I appreciate that it sticks to its guns and raises a lot of questions that we need to be asking, because the ideas we've been chasing for more than 70 years are failing miserably, and we should know. BookRiot READ HARDER Challenge posted:Horror Non-Fiction: 6/10 Year Goal: 22/52 I have a few others that are about 50 pages from completion, so next month will be better, with a higher number of short books.
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Jul 4, 2016 13:13
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ulvir posted:also sup. I only lurk the lit thread cause almost everyone there hold absolutely terrible political opinions though Whole place is increasingly kinda dead anyway.
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Jul 5, 2016 16:42
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thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant People despairing of my trash-lit ways will I'm sure be gratified to know I enjoyed this. It took me about two weeks to get through, but that's partly because of battery problems and partly because my entire country decided to commit political suicide so I've been spending my lunchbreaks trying to keep up rather than reading. And partly because I really wasn't in the mood to read fiction about the dystopian collapse of society when I can just read the news and see it live. But having got over that (and the largely punctuation-less style which I found very distracting) I actually really enjoyed it. It was certainly unflinching and harrowing in places, but it had some moments of real beauty as well. As ever, I'm not really sure I GOT it, there's probably a lot of deeper meaning I'm missing, but I'm pleased to have read it. Of Noble Family was a really nice conclusion to the Glamourist Histories, which I've been very much enjoying. The Austen-era setting is surprisingly compelling and Kowal does an excellent job of blending that style and particularly the language used in that time period with a more modern style of storytelling and characters. I heartily enjoyed it (even though it was still £12 for an e-book which is obscene) and would recommend the series. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 14, 2016 22:41
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quote:1. Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko 42. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester 43. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway July Update Not a lot of progress, but took care of a few of the booklord challenges. The Stars My Destination was pretty good, but felt quite dated. Some interesting concepts though and I guess this was the first use of telepaths in a book. I almost quit A Farewell to Arms about 30% in. It was moving so slow and the conversations were a bit annoying to read. But I stuck with it and it picked up at about the half way point. The ending was just heartbreaking, though some of that may be because my wife is pregnant with our first child and the ending is not something I want to think about right now. Currently working on pounding out some of the other challenges as I’ve only got 9 books left in my overall challenge! Someone throw me a wildcard! quote:1) Vanilla Number 43/52
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Jul 29, 2016 01:53
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Remember that time a few months ago when I was going to finish all of the long books I was reading before starting anything new? Well, I have not finished any of those books. I have, however, read a bunch of trashy thrillers and started a reread of the entire Baby-Sitters Club series. On that note, here's where things are now (albeit out of order): 21-104. The Baby-Sitters Club #1-65, Super Specials #1-10, Mysteries #1-9 by Ann M. Martin (and assorted ghostwriters) 105. Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani (1/5) (This is possibly the worst book I have ever read in my entire life; I only suffered through it so I could try and get a less-terrible book picked for office book club next month.) 106. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2/5) 107. Misery by Stephen King (4/5) 108. True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa by Michael Finkel (3/5) 109-122. Pendergast Novels, #3-#15 by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (includes a book numbered 12.5) 123-125. A Series of Unfortunate Events, #5-#7 by Lemony Snicket (not sure why I stopped listening to these audiobooks at the office, but I did) Going forward I'm going to continue my BSC reread (obviously) and then actually dedicate some more effort to reading books that weren't written for twelve-year-olds in the 80s and 90s. I bought Michèle Audin's One Hundred Twenty-One Days about a week ago and will probably start it as my next book with substance after I finish Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor. This is also going to depend on library due dates and my ability to renew things, though. Onward and upward! Book Lord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 125/200 (I upped it due to the BSC books) 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 9) Over 500pp - The Cabinet of Curiosity 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 - 13/24 PopSugar Challenge - 18/40
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Jul 29, 2016 19:20
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ltr posted:
First one to catch my eye on the shelf: Victor Pelevin - Babylon
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Jul 29, 2016 22:32
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screenwritersblues posted:Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyonce Holy Three months and no update Batman. Life got in the way (Our main full time guy went out on for the work he had on his foot and we got a replacement and now he's out because he tore ligaments in his hand after he tapped a bag of potatoes), so I've had barely enough time for reading. So here's the past four months of stuff that I've read. April to July 13) Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of Pop Music From Bill Haley to Beyonce by Bob Stanley: This book, while three years old, was a wealth of information on the history of pop music. While a little dry at times, it was still an awesome read. There was so much information about pop music and how it came to be what it is. I hope Stanley does a sequel in a few years where he starts where he left off and keeps going forward. 3.5/5 14) Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian by Anthony Ervin: Ervin is basically the anti Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. Disillusioned by the sport, he left it and traveled the world trying to find himself. Along the way he got tattooed and then discovered the swimming was the one thing that was missing from his life, so he came back the the sport 4 years ago and made the Olympic Team. While the fame never went to his head, he does what he loves and that's all that matters. 5/5 15) Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin: I read this book in college and fell in love with it. I am now in the middle of trying the read the entire series, if the stand ever gets the third book in, I'll be happy. 5/5 16) More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin: The second book in the series had the same feel of the first, but it wasn't as magical. 3.6/5 17) Kanye West Owes Me $300: & Other True Stories from a White Rapper Who Almost Made It Big by Jensen Karp: If you've ever caught Mic Drop on The Late Late Show with James Cordin, you've head of the work of Jensen Karp. Karp's alterego, Hot Karl, was a battle champion for 45 days on LA's Power 106, which eventually led to him getting a record deal with interscope and eventually opening a gallery space with the money that he got from the deal. The book is pretty funny and the Kanye story will make you think differently about him. 5/5 18) Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me: What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life by Steve Hyden: I was a little let down by this book, mainly because of the fact that I was hope that it was going to give me a bit more insight into why all these feuds started, but instead he put different pop culture references. Still a good read though. 4/5 19) Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 by Michael Capuzzo: With the 100th anniversary of the Jersey Shore Shark attacks happening this year, I knew that I had to read this book that I never read in college. It gave great insight into what was happening during the Shark Attacks of 1916. 4.7/5 20) Jaws by Peter Benchley: Come on, you had to know that I was going to read this next. Not as good as the movie though. 3.7/5 21) On the Road by Jack Kerouac: This was the first time in a few years that I read this book and now I want to travel the world like Jack did. 4/5 1) Vanilla Number: 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: Jaws 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction: The Bone Clocks 9) Something written by a musician: Kanye Owes Me $300 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: Tales of the City 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: On the Road 20) Read a banned book: 21) A Short Story collection: 22) It’s a Mystery: The Girl on the Train Currently Reading: Bleeding Edge Vanilla: 21/30 Challenge: 11/22 Indiespensable: 1/15
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Jul 30, 2016 02:31
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When I said the June post was coming soon, that was a lie. This is the June post. The July post does not exist yet. Also, if one of you fuckers doesn't wildcard me this time I'm just going to ask people on IRC and read whatever they recommend. Booklord Challenge Update posted:Count: 60/96 books, 7 nonfiction (11%), 2 rereads (3%) 50. Ship of Fools by Richard Russo This is more like what I was looking for when I wanted a "big dumb object" story than Planetfall, although it still doesn't quite scratch the same itch as Rama. 51. Indexing by Seanan McGuire 52. Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire As I've mentioned before, I'm a complete sucker for "Men in Black vs. the ____" stories. In this case, the ___ is faerie tales trying to impose their patterns on the world, and the men in black are primarily people who have either had narrow escapes from, or become part of, the tales. It's a fixup -- a bunch of short stories edited together into a single book -- and as such it kind of resists coming together in a satisfying way; I'd recommend it only hesitantly if you're not as enamored of MiB as I am. 53. Stories from the Polycule ed. Elizabeth Sheff A collection of essays, poetry, and art from people in polyamorous relationships, organized by type (about relationships starting, or ending, or day to day life, or being parents, or being children, etc). Lots of heartwarming stuff; some cautionary tales. A nice slice-of-life thing to remind you that you're not alone. 54. Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire Ghost stories! Stories by ghosts, for ghosts. Like Indexing, this is a fixup, but focused on hitchiking ghosts rather than faerie tales. I like the setting but the overarching plot feels like it never really delivers closure. 55. Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire 56. Midnight Blue Light Special by Seanan McGuire It's Seanan McGuire writes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, basically. With hyper-religious mice. Good fun. There's more books in the series, but there's also a viewpoint jump between the second and third books that's a natural place to take a break, and I don't think I want to read the whole series in one go. 57. Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis 58. The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis 59. Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis This was sold to me as "British wizards vs the Nazi X-Men in an alternate WW2", which is one of those descriptions that's technically correct but also extremely misleading. Good, but extremely bleak. I am pretty pleased with myself for calling both the time travel shenanigans and the twist that the final timeline was our own well in advance, though. 60. Masked ed. Lou Anders I was in the mood for some more cheerful and traditional, for lack of a better word, superhero fiction after Tregellis, so I picked up this short story collection. I enjoyed it, but looking back on it a month later, nothing really stands out as exceptional.
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Jul 30, 2016 02:38
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nerdpony posted:I have, however, read a bunch of trashy thrillers and started a reread of the entire Baby-Sitters Club series. Why did you do that?
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Jul 30, 2016 05:22
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ToxicFrog posted:Also, if one of you fuckers doesn't wildcard me this time I'm just going to ask people on IRC and read whatever they recommend.
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Jul 30, 2016 08:20
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JUNE and JULY! Kind of fell behind a bit on posting here, but I did do a lot of reading over the summer! 47. The Last Picture Show - Larry McMurtry It turns out life in small-town Texas is sad. That’s about it. It’s well-written enough, but a pretty minor work compared to Lonesome Dove. 48. The Heroes - Joe Abercrombie I like Joe Abercrombie, and this is probably his best. Rather than taking a long view, this book spans only 3 days during which a great battle is fought. We see the carnage from both sides, from generals and grunts alike. I like the spin-off novels set in the First Law world more than the original trilogy - which is probably just a result of his becoming a better writer as he goes along. 49. Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Quantity isn’t always quality. This guy mass-produces fantasy books, some of which are really enjoyable. I liked the first Mistborn trilogy and am legitimately excited about upcoming Stormlight Archives… but this one was a miss. Like the one before it, it is enjoyable in PARTS - and his sense of humor has gotten a little better. I dunno. I like Wayne. But the plot is nothing to shout about and when I got to the end and saw that there’d be a fourth book in the series… I wasn’t one hundred percent thrilled. 50. The Sport of Kings - C.E. Morgan I enjoyed parts of this but felt it ended up overwritten. It’s about a rich family in Kentucky trying to breed the perfect horse and the young man who works there who’s descended from some of their ancestors’ slaves. There was a decent story in there and some good writing and I guess I learned some about horses. 51. VALIS - Philip K. Dick This was… well… interesting. Having read The Man in the High Castle and Ubik, I had enjoyed them as interesting sci-fi with some slightly kooky ideas. This was much more heavily on the kooky side, with about half of it dedicated to the main character’s strange philosophical treatises. Based on this, I can see where some of PKD’s reputation comes from. 52. Dune - Frank Herbert A classic for a reason. I’ve read this a few times back in the day, and I got decently far in the sequels in middle school. (I doubt I’ll finish the series to the extent I did back then.) But that first book… is really quite good. Space politics, giant worms, addictive substances that give you insight into the future - what’s not to like? 53. The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad #5) - Tana French One of my favorite of the Dublin Murder Squad series, this one investigates a murder of a young man on the grounds of a fancy all-girls’ school in Dublin. There’s the case as seen through the eyes of the investigator, and in a perspective not found in any of the other Murder Squad books, flashbacks to the girls who have become embroiled in this mess. It was good to see Frank Mackey from Broken Harbor/The Likeness come back, he was fun. Her sixth book is coming out in fall, and I’m a legit fan by now. 54. Dinner at Deviant’s Palace - Tim Powers One of Tim Powers’ first books, it deviates somewhat from the norm in that it’s fairly sci-fi. (Postapocalyptic, funny new names for places that used to be U.S. cities, ya know.) But as post-apocalyptic books go, it’s not bad. A musician heads into the depths of a cult to try to save his old love (echoes of the Orpheus myth mixed with some out-there science fiction - works pretty well if you ask me!) 55. The Red Magician - Lisa Goldstein This was… hm. It was short. It was on sale for like 2 bucks on the Kindle store. And it got a National Book Award. I figured I’d give it a shot. As far as magic realism set during the Holocaust goes? Not bad, I suppose. 56. Post Office - Charles Bukowski And the man’s work matches his reputation. It’s lurid, but strangely funny and readable at the same time. It just follows a deadbeat-ish fella as he works a great deal of his life in the somewhat intolerable workplace of the title. (I don’t know much about Bukowski beyond his reputation - I assume this might be autobiographical to an extent?) JULY 57. Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow An excellent biography. I’ll admit, I’m one of those folks who has listened to the Hamilton soundtrack a decent bit, and figured I’d get some info on the Founding Fathers that wasn’t as musical-theater-ey. While there were a few drab chapters - examining Hamilton’s stance on trade policy - it was an interesting story of a man who stood out in his time. It’s inspired me to get more into biographies - FDR, Napoleon, any other major historical figure, that would be interesting. 58. The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen I believe this won the Pulitzer this year? If so, it deserved it - it was smart and funny. It tells the story of a Southern Vietnam army lieutenant who comes to the U.S. with his general after the fall of Saigon. He is, also, a spy for the North Vietnam communists, and his allegiances to the two sides get tangled and mixed up in all sorts of events. 59. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling Finished my reread to my son. The last few chapters may have gotten me a bit verklempt. In any case, I’ll be reading The Cursed Child soon enough... 60. The Dark is Rising (Dark is Rising Cycle #2) - Susan Cooper I enjoy Susan Cooper’s books because they’re written for young people but don’t pander to them. I started this series a little out of order (see: book 1 finished at the end of this month) but the first two, at least, are somewhat interchangeable. Neat ideas, but hopefully some of them get fleshed out in the following books. 61. The Dead Zone - Stephen King An old King chestnut I hadn’t read since, say, middle school? Plenty of people are making the joke of comparing the candidate in this book to a current candidate, so its relevance convinced me to reread it. While I don’t see much of the connection, this probably has one of King’s best endings to date - a very simple twist that I didn’t remember from my first time through, but that worked quite well. 62. Gould’s Book of Fish - Richard Flanagan What a wild and joyously crazy book. Told from the point of view of a prisoner in Tasmania (before it was known as that), the Book of Fish is arranged around a sort of conceit that each chapter focuses on a fish and then makes thematic connections between the fish and some aspect of human nature/some character. It’s gritty and messy, but also beautifully written and probably the Best Book of Both Months. 63. A Hundred Thousand Worlds - Bob Proehl I know this may seem unlikely, but this is a book about nerddom/conventions that is not bad at all. It follows various characters (an actress who was once on an X-Files-like show, a comic artist, a lesbian comic writer) as they go to conventions from Chicago to L.A. It’s a pretty good look at nerd culture - and he gets a lot of the details right - but at the same time a well-written book with engaging characters and good writing. Don’t read this to celebrate the joy of nerd culture - as it does a pretty decent job skewering the bad parts of it. 64. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) - Pierce Brown This is no doubt going to be made into a movie. It fits all the requisites for a hot property (dystopia, young people killing each other, etc.) but is still pretty good. Or at least very readable. Brown tells the story at a breakneck pace and while there were cliches aplenty - and the story owes a great deal to the Hunger Games - I did find myself interested enough to get the second and third books of the trilogy from the library. 65. Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson I wanted to like this one more than I did - a 700 page book about Vietnam can be good (see Matterhorn by Marlantes) - but I found this to be a bit of a slog. It follows people in the intelligence community during the years of the Vietnam War - a colonel, his nephew, and two brothers who sign up for tours of duty - and is about as twisting and hard to follow as the war itself. Still, I couldn’t get into this and ended up taking about 6 weeks to finish it. 66. Golden Son (Red Rising #2) - Pierce Brown The second book in this tremendously violent YA dystopia sci-fi raises the stakes considerably, changing from a deadly competition on Mars to a full-on rebellion in space. Loyalties are tested, etc etc. As with the first book, the plot barrels along at a breakneck pace and it’s hard to tell who to trust because everyone’s out for themselves. Sure it is cliched, but if it works, it works. 67. Over Sea, Under Stone (Dark is Rising Cycle #1) - Susan Cooper And then something written for young readers that seems right in that sweet spot of Narnia and its ilk. There’s almost a cozy aspect to this story of three young children in search of an Arthurian artifact, even when there’s danger - you know good will win and evil will fall eventually, but it’s a fun story nonetheless. Looking forward to the rest of the series for sure. 1) Vanilla Number (67/52) 2) Something written by a woman (Cooper, Rowling, Morgan, French, Goldstein) 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author (Viet Thanh Nguyen) 4) 5) Something History Related: Alexander Hamilton 6) 7) 8) A work of Science Fiction: Dune, Dinner at Deviant's Palace, VALIS 9) 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages: Alexander Hamilton, Tree of Smoke, Deathly Hallows, The Sport of Kings, The Heroes 11) 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - The Dark Half (eh, I figure Stephen King is sold in airports) 13) Read Something YA : Harry Potter 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published: A Hundred Thousand Worlds 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now: Tree of Smoke 17) The First book in a series: Red Rising, Over Sea Under Stone 18) A biography or autobiography: Alexander Hamilton 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation 20) 21) 22) It’s a Mystery. - The Secret Place
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Jul 30, 2016 17:06
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Not posting a July update because on vacation with only an iPad and no real keyboard, so it's too much of a PITA to type a post longer than a couple of sentences (especially since the drat browser app keeps crashing). Good month for reading though, am up to 32 books out of my year-goal of 40, so that was arguably a bit pessimistic.
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Jul 30, 2016 20:15
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June and July: 30. How Language Works by David Crystal (Nonfiction) 31. The Accidental by Ali Smith (Literature) 32. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Literature) 33. The Cape: and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto by Kenji Nakagami (Literature) 34. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas 35. The Fun Parts by Sam Lipsyte (Literature) 36. The Awakening and other stories by Kate Chopin (Literature) 37. May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes (Literature) 38. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno: Stories by Yasutaka Tsutsui (Literature) 39. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby (Nonfiction) 40. Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith (Literature) 41. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Literature) 41/52, 24/41 Literature, 4 Nonfiction books. How Language Works is good for 500 pages, but not long enough in my opinion. As for the Accidental, I didn't like it as much as How to Be Both, but I think it's enough evidence that Ali Smith = good. The Song of Achilles was great. I really enjoyed reading this take on mythology (though I must admit, I'm a little tired of Greek, but even if I held that against the book, I would still give it five stars on GR). If you haven't read it, read it. The Cape was different than what I'm used to. Like a different kind of dark than I normally read. I think it's good for a different perspective than you normally get though. Not much to say on Heir of Fire. Part of the YA Throne of Glass series. I liked it, but nothing to say in particular. The Fun Parts was great because everything is crazy. The Awakening is worth reading, but I found the other stories included sort of hit or miss, personally. Also, Chopin's style is really subtle. Do not go in expecting things to be spelled out for you. (Disclaimer: I'm probably dense) May We Be Forgiven is sort of darkly fun. Things are terrible for the protagonist but I'd say he deserves quite a bit of it. But the book mostly rolls with it. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno was one I've wanted to read for years and I honestly don't remember why. The title maybe? Anyway, it's a story collection. It sort of straddles the line between SF/Fantasy and Literature, but I lean more towards including it in Literature if it can only be in one. It's a fun book, but some of the stories went on too long. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is beautiful, but I also find it to be a downer book unsurprisingly. I wish I could explain what I liked so much about Glaciers. I thought about it a while before marking it read on GR, but I don't know. It's been nearly two weeks and I still don't. Read it though. Fates and Furies is good, but I personally found it to be a bit of a slog (not enough to put down though) until almost halfway through the book. It picks up around 45%, and after the halfway point I couldn't put it down. It's a really nice idea though, a story told from two perspectives. I'm at a good ratio for literature to books read, and I completed my nonfiction goal. I've got a nonfiction book I'm currently reading though, so it's not like it will just be fiction from here on out.
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Aug 1, 2016 02:02
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quote:1 - Daft Wee Stories, by Limmy (Brian Limond) I read eight books in July! 31 - The Book Of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor. Picked this up on a whim (and because of the kickin' rad cover art), and am really glad I did. It's a short but dense SF novel that combines afrofuturism, cyberpunk, superpowers, West African spirituality and anti-colonial themes. It's full of rich prose and vivid imagery - especially if you like beautiful descriptions of fire and food. I found it very difficult to put down, too. The pacing rarely lets up, and while it can be a little jarring, it keeps things racing along at a good clip while also allowing for moments of downtime to feel more satisfying. By the final scenes I felt a great sense of catharsis, and I was really satisfied with the way Phoenix herself ended up. Definitely recommend this. 32 - Seconds, by Bryan Lee O'Malley. A colourful and fun story about a twenty-something chef trying to make her life perfect, involving the help of mysterious mushrooms and a ghostly apparition on her dresser. Given O'Malley is best known for his previous work, Scott Pilgrim, this was refreshingly different, while still retaining his voice and style pretty well. Luscious depictions of fancy food, probability-hopping shenanigans and messed-up romance abound, and while I didn't feel as connected to the characters as I'd have liked, I still had a really good time reading this. 33 - How The Marquis Got His Coat Back, by Neil Gaiman. A short, fun and quirky little epilogue to Neverwhere. Some neat ideas, but it has the rushed and self-aware tone of a fanfic - which I suppose it kind of is? Not much to say about it really. I liked it! 34 - Lud-In-The-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees. I wish I loved this more than I do. It's a classic piece of fantasy storytelling, and Mirrless builds a really rich little world. It's populated largely with stock characters, but the culture they inhabit is detailed enough that for the most part they're endearing enough. The worldbuilding does require enough attention and care that the story takes a l-o-n-g time to build momentum, which I found offputting for the first half of the book honestly. The rambling style of many scenes does mean the tension didn't hold for me. Once things pick up though, there are some really great scenes - at one point it turns into a kind of detective romp. 35 - Super Mario Bros. 3, by Alyse Knorr. The second I've read of the BossFight Books series on videogames, and one from the new run of titles. Knorr explores the level design, music, aesthetics, technology and cultural legacy, mixing it with vignettes from her own childhood and memories playing the game with her father and brother. The writing about the game itself is fairly interesting, though nothing I didn't already know about the game through osmosis. The stories of her own experiences growing up with the game were more interesting to me, and spoke to the power of media, and games in partcular, to shape people's worldview. 36 - The Marbled Swarm, by Dennis Cooper. A short and viscerally, fascinatingly horrible novel told from the perspective of a cannibal of teenage boys. After the horrors of his George Miles cycle, I was expecting some of the same themes and literary tricks to show up here, but the bluntness and Cooper's flare for combining the grotesque an the mundane always manages to throw me. His detached style is brought to the forefront in this: the titular 'marbled swarm' describes the narrator's deliberately roundabout and opaque manner of speaking, that helps blur the lines of reality, fantasy, subjectivity and intimacy. 37 - The Blindfold, by Siri Hustveldt. A novel made up of three longish short stories and a novella, combining to form stories from the life of a woman in NYC and the people who move through it. There are running themes of deceptive identities, flawed and incomplete romances, and a sense that nobody is entirely as they appear. Definitely not the sort of thing I normally read, and parts of it (like the first chapter/story, with the tape recordings) feel like they could have been standalone works, but I enjoyed this plenty! 38 - Filmish, by Edward Ross. A pleasant comic book crash course through film history and theory, touching on ideas of language, bodies, the cinematic gaze, power structures and technology. The sort of thing I would totally recommend to someone just getting into film as an art form. The artwork is clean and crisp, though a little bland - Ross has a serious case of same-face with most of the people he draws - but it's written passionately and excitedly. Fuller reviews up on my GoodReads, as always. 1) 52+ books - 38 2) At least 40% (23) by a woman - 20 - Supervillainz, AM/PM, New World, Bad Feminist, Dept. Of Speculation, Empire Of The Senseless, Oryx & Crake, I Love Dick, Ghost House, Pig Tales, How To Build A Girl, Memoirs of a Spacewoman, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, The Vegetarian, The Clumsiest People In Europe, The Book Of Phoenix, Lud-In-The-Mist, Super Mario Bros 3, The Blindfold 13) Read Something YA - 14) Wildcard! (City of Stairs) 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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Aug 1, 2016 02:22
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Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg July: 62) Crucible of Gold (Temeraire #7) - Naomi Novik: I wish she would just give up the fantasy that she has any intention of writing about the Napoleonic wars and just write about the way dragons are integrated into various 19th century societies. In this one we go to Brazil and the Incan empire. 63) Xtabentum: A Novel of Yucatan - Rosy Hugener: There is a really good book buried at the core of this novel, but unfortunately there is too much extraneous crap piled on top of it for it to emerge fully. 64) Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton: Beautifully written novel about a tragedy in apartheid-era South Africa. 65) Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) - Charlaine Harris: definitely should have wrapped this series up a couple of books ago. She is clearly rushing to set up her 'happy' ending. 66) The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard #3) - Scott Lynch: I thoroughly enjoyed this. I liked the alternating timepoint chapter format. A very fun series. 67) Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy #2) - Mira Grant: Meh. This was really tedious and repetitive. What plot there was was good, but in order to find it you had to read through page after page of tedious description of every time any character took a blood test, and tons of awful dialog between barely memorable characters. 68) Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13) - Charlaine Harris: This was basically just tying up loose ends and giving Sookie her happily ever after. Overall a fun series to read but it should have ended three books ago for sure. 69) The Fault in Our Stars - John Green: Despite being assured that I would cry multiple times while reading this book, I barely teared up once, and this despite reading it while pregnant and thus more susceptible to tears than usual. I think the characters were all just so annoying and unrealistic (the way they spoke!) that I wouldn't have cared if they had all succumbed to cancer. 70) All the Light we Cannot See - Anthony Doerr: I loved this. It was well written, well paced, and built to a fantastic climax. Sad and beautiful at the same time. 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 P: The Post Office Girl Q: The Quick and the Dead R: The Romanov Sisters S: Station Eleven T: Three Bags Full U: The Unknown Ajax V: Venetia W: The World According to Garp X: Xtabentum 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 History related: Fire From heaven About or narrated by an animal: Three Bags Full[ 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 Airplane Fiction: Career of Evil[ Young adult book: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Wildcard: The Confusions of Young Torless 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 Written by lost or beat generation author: Tender is the Night Banned Book: The World According to Garp Short stories: Three-Ten to Yuma and other Stories Mystery book: The Girl on the Train Overall: Total: 70/100 A-Z Challenge: 24/26 Booklord Challenge: 20/22 Presidential Biographies: 6/6
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Aug 1, 2016 14:48
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Bandiet posted:1. The Stranger by Albert Camus 19. Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov. As great as everyone says. I very much enjoyed the ride, but its overall brilliance didn't really click for me until I had finished it and I began thinking/reading about the endless interpretative possibilities. 20. The Book of Tobit, edited by Carey A. Moore. I've been on a quest for in-depth commentary/translations of biblical apocrypha. Tobit has always been my favorite extraneous tale, and this Anchor Bible edition has the whole kit and caboodle. 21. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. Actually, a lot like the Zola that I read last month, except with astounding prose and 3-dimensional characters. The ending (post-suicide) was a little unnecessary, but I imagine that kind of thing was expected of novels from that time. 22. The Hatred Of Poetry, by Ben Lerner. It's a little essay but I'm counting it anyway. This was a great read. Maybe a little too stream-of-consciousness, but all throughout it brought up excellent perspectives on poetry's place in society that I had not really considered. Vanilla Number: 22/75 Read a banned book: Madame Bovary Bandiet fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Sep 24, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 21:30
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I am bad at updating, probably because I am reading less than most others doing the challenge so don't have as many books read each month. Still, despite being a little behind in my challenge, I'm reading far more than I have in the last few years, so I am happy. This is for June and July. 14. The Shore - Sara Taylor I read this on a whim based off another goon's goodreads review, and I'm really glad that I did. A very sad but very beautiful book. I really did not predict the direction this was going to take, but it was a great if surprising read. Definitely didn't see the last chapters coming. It was masterful how all the stories weaved together across time and families, and how a single line in a previous chapter would help to complete part of a later story. 15. The Vegetarian - Han Kang June's BOTM, really glad I gave this a go. Great read but in many ways unsettling and disturbing. It exposes a woman's place and role in a suffocating society and how people are consumed and used to satisfy the desires and needs of others. It explores people's difficulty in forming meaningful connections with others and the drive to fill in a hole in your life by consuming someone else and discarding them when they can no longer satisfy that urge. It also examines the consequences of traditional female roles as nurturing caregivers who are not people in their own right with their own capacity but exist on in relation to the part they play in looking after the needs of another. Vivid but often haunting writing style. 16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey Really powerful book with surprisingly beautiful and tender passages in it amidst all the horror and despair. It took me awhile to get into the voice and style of the narration, but I loved it the more I read it and got into the story and characters. I would like to reread this again at some point. 17. Watership Down - Richard Adams I had never read this book or watched the movie, so this was a new experience for me. In many ways, I am surprised this is a children's book. It is very up-front and matter of fact about a lot of things usually glossed over for children, and it doesn't really hold back much on the realities of animal life. Good story. 18. Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees July's BOTM. It took me awhile to get into it, but I couldn't put it down once I got about halfway through it. It was many things - fantasy, horror, detective story, prosaic treatise, metaphysics. I have mixed feelings about this book, and I am not sure how to feel about the main "villain" of the story. His character definitely did some bad things, but for what seemed to be good intentions, and he did a lot of good as well. There were many beautiful descriptions in the book that I loved, especially of nature and the countryside. I enjoyed reading a "fantasy" book from before fantasy was a standard genre. 19. Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century - Sean Patrick What a piece of poo poo. Someone loaned this to me as I wanted to read a science biography, but I was tricked into reading someone's sophomoric self-help guide advertised as a biography. The marketing on this book is just a pack of lies. I was looking forward to reading a biography of Tesla, but I could have gotten about as much information on him from reading wikipedia. Most of the "book" is random self-help about "unlocking your potential", summaries of other people's ideas on genius, the 10,000 hour mastery, etc. I'm not really sure why the middle was a brief summary of Tesla's life, other than it was a blatant hook to draw people in to reading his self-help nonsense so he could then spend the last 15% of the book promoting his other self-help books. Tesla's brief bio had nothing to do with the rest of the book. Really weird and disappointing.
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Aug 1, 2016 21:50
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July 45.A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irvingl I like Irving a lot, this was a good read, maybe a bit long, and I didn’t like the present day part of the book, but overall really good. Owen Meany is this child who is abnormally small, has a weird face, and a terrible voice. Irving chooses to express his voice through the whole book in ALL CAPS. It’s funny and somehow doesn’t get annoying, like I thought it would. It’s a story of the person telling the story growing up with Owen Meany in a small town. It moves in to the vietnam era and uses the build of war as a backdrop of the story. 46.Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne Rich man on a whim and a bet goes around the world in eighty days. I am sure everyone knows of this and Verne. Easy read, funny and light. I liked 20,000 Leagues a lot better, but this was good. 47 Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton Everyone probably knows this one as well. I’ll just say it was an enjoyable read, more action that I expected, some weird dialogue that really detracted from the book. For example, and I am sure I am not the first person to point this out, but one of the characters, Ian I think, the math person goes on a several page rant about the end of the world. He thinks it’s funny that humans think they can end the world. His argument is that the world will be fine, it will just be populated by new organisms, humans aren’t necessary for the survival of the earth. It just seems obvious to me, that when people talk about the end of the earth, they are generally referring to humanity, not the earth like literally dying. Anyway, it was weird and it goes on for a long time. 48 Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami My second of his. I liked it, it was a lot less fantasy oriented and just about relationships. It has a very distinct writing style however that you can tell right away is very similar to the other of his I read. They are interesting, but I think I was burned out on the writing by the end. I still liked it, but it will probably be a while before I read another of his. 49. Grendel by John Gardner This book was amazing. It’s relatively short, but has so much great content and writing. It was one of the best books I read this year. This is the Beowulf poem told from the point of view of the Monster. The Monster speaks and understands language and kind of does a lot of killing and snooping around, listening to conversations, having philosophical musings, and humiliating people. He meets this dragon who can see the future and knows that Grendel will kill men and terrorize them and encourages him to do so. In face he encourages him to hoard gold as well which was funny. The dragon apparently casts some sort of spell on him that makes him invincible, so he just does whatever the hell he wants. Good read. 50.Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Classic story of pirates and treasure.First time reading it, it was fun. 51.Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley I’m not sure I understood I book, or at least the ending. It’s a dystopian novel about a partially functioning society in which education at one point was subsidized by the state. If you can’t find a job, or makes payments on your education however, they erase that education from your brain. The person telling the story is having this procedure done, and it also kind of in a group of rebels. The rebel part, and the ending were kind of abstract. Like I really didn’t understand what they were even doing most of the time. A collection of essays. A biography or autobiography Rusty fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 22:54
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35. The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz. Good poo poo, a book about how intellectuals become corrupted by totalitarian systems (particularly the USSR). it reminds me of both The True Believer by Hoffer and Crowds and Power by Canetti, and I think is a good mid-point between those 2 works, both by size and intellectual breadth. Everyone should read this, and also watch the move 'The Confession' by Costa-Gavras. 36. Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra. This is a sick rear end book framed like a standardized test. There's like definitions and finish the sentences and reading comprehension, but subversive. I can't believe an intellectual thinks standardized tests are bad. anyway its really funny and a breeze to reed. 37. The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I read this for 2 reasons: 1) It won the Booooker International 2) some guy was being insanely stupid about it in the BOTM thread, he hated the book and his opinions were so bad and stupid that I assumed that the book was good. It was good, maybe the translation is a little weak. There are some really bad people in this book! 38. Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin. poems about remembering things + nature, pretty cool.
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Aug 2, 2016 03:06
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Ben Nevis posted:1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. Another fairly big month. A lot of short or quick reads. I went on vacation though so tried to bring books that I could carry easily without overweighing my carry on. A lot of these turned out to be fairly interesting. 43. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon - A retired Sherlock Holmes helps the local contsabulary solve a murder. There's a refugee from Nazi Germany and a mysterious parrot. This is a short, quick read, that's a very Chabon reimagining of a Sherlock Holmes tale. 44. The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig - This short novel is made up of a number of autobiographically inspired short stories about growing up in East Germany. I would not have wanted to grow up in East Germany. Apparently Hilbig was quite the author in East Germany. I picked this up on a whim at the library, and I'm glad I did. It was a good read, really interesting. It took me a story or two to get into and get the feel of things, but once I did I really enjoyed it. 45. The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson - This was interesting. It's, on some level, a very simple swords and sorcery type novel. A group of mercenaries is hired to shepherd a caravan across through the wilds. That simple, even cliche, frame is used to explore relationships between black men and sort of the role of language and violence within them. The more I reflect on this the more I like it. This was as striking and different novel to slot into the fantasy genre. 46. The Night the Rich Men Burned by Malcolm Mackay - I grabbed this because of the title and the bright yellow cover. It follows the stories of 2 young men and their entrance into the shadowy world of quasilegal debt collection in Glasgow. I felt like this was sort of shooting to be Charlie Houston or a Guy Ritchie film, but it lacks the energy or humor of both. Not a bad book, but it could have been more, I think. 47. Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente - A retelling of Snow White as a Western. She's the half Native American daughter of a mine baron who finds herself under the heel of a aristocratic woman from Back East when her father remarries. This really focuses on her identity as someone not fitting into either white or Native American cultures, and also who is not content with the restricted role of women in the Wild West. This was a good book. 48. Target in the Night by Ricardo Piglia (translated by Sergio Waisman)- Following in the footsteps of Hilbig, Piglia is apparently huge in Argentina, but I'm not really familiar with him. Set in the early 70s, this starts as a simple detective story, and about 2/3 of the way the through takes a turn to meditate on corruption in Argentina, the possible return of Peron, and the clash between gaucho culture and modernism. I feel like I would have gotten more out of this if I was more familiar with Argentine culture, but there was something compelling about it nonetheless. For those who enjoy translation, the was an interesting foreward from the translator as to how he opted for Target in the Night given the Spanish title of Blanco Nocturno. 49. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer - A first person account of the 12th team to go and explore the mysterious Area X. The lush wilderness becomes more sinister they more they explore and things go wrong quickly as team members start to become compromised. This was a short, quick read that I thought was a good example of the type. 50. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch - The second book in the Peter Grant series. I enjoyed this, but was a little frustrated that it wasn't a self contained mystery. Well, part of it was, but there's a distinct villain carry over to the next book I'll still keep reading, they're quick, fun, and I find them to have a pretty good sense of humor. 51. The Insides by Jeremy P Bushnell - I grabbed this one on a whim, in part because it had a big pig face on the cover. You can see my rigorous selection criteria really coming to the fore this month. Ollie no longer practices magic, she works as a butcher in a high end restaurant, breaking down organic pigs and drinking herself to sleep like so many others in the service industry. Her weekend help is a bit faster than her though and she thinks it may be tied to his knife. As she tries to learn more, she finds herself and everyone around her threatened by other interested parties. I thought this was good. There's a very focus on Ollie's personal life that felt realistic to me. There's also a good hint of depth and malice to the world that's never fully explained, which I liked. The ending is rushed and overall, I think it lacked a little oomph, but a pretty good book. 52. Time and Tenacity by Hannah Vale - I checked this out because it was written by one of the librarians at my library. I saw her putting it on the new book shelf and she was super excited. It's time travelling Jane Austen. Regency characters find themselves in 2015 and caught up in a fight between time travelers. It's not a bad read. There are some fun parts and unexpected twists. That being said, it's clearly a first novel. It's a bit rough around the edges, and occasionally feels rushed or some scenes are incomplete. There are a few word choices that just driver me crazy. One does not hold out a palm for a fist bump, nor does one mouth entire sentences, complete with asides. Still, if Austen characters in 2015 sounds appealing, you could do worse, I'm sure. 1) Vanilla Number 52/45 2) Something written by a woman - 5, 7, 18, 17, 16, 21, 23, 26, 31, 32, 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 52 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - 5, 16, 19, 22, 24, 31, 33, 39, 45, 48 4) Something written in the 1800s - 14 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice)- 21, 31 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - 7, 12 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - 6, 16, 19, 52 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - 2, 16 11) Read something about or set in NYC - 1, 33, 34, 51 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 13) Read Something YA - 30 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published - 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,24,25, 29, 35, 39, 45, 52 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - 2, 6, 30 17) The First book in a series - 13, 17, 18, 21, 25, 38, 49 18) A biography or autobiography - 28 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 - 7, 11, 34, 41 22) It’s a Mystery - 15, 17, 24, 43, 48 Ben Nevis fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 16:32
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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 12. Legend by Marie Lu 13. Sabriel by Garth Nix 14. Three men on a boat by Jerome K Jerome 15. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche 16. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 17. Touched by an Angel by Jonathan Morris 18. River of Ink by Paul M M Cooper 19. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling 20. Mr Mercedes by Steven King 21. I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir 22. Unwanted by Kristina Ohlsson 23. Close Encounters of the Furred Kind by Tom Cox 24. I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki 25. The Girl You Lost by Kathryn Croft 26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling 27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling 28. The Infinite Wait and Other Stories by Julia Wertz 29. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann 30. Spectacles by Sue Perkins July update 31. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison: A collection of pretty disturbing science fiction short stories - I like a bit of sci fi and horror so these were definitely up my alley as it were. Very much tainted by his misogynistic portrayal of women though, it was very tiresome that every woman was portrayed as a whore who would endure any humiliation as long as she could get sex out of it. 32. Career of Evil by Robert Galbreith: The third of the Cormoran Strike detective series and as enjoyable as the first two. There was a bit too much 'will they won't they' about the main two characters going on, but very readable. 33. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly. Ugh. I was expecting a quick and dirty Jurassic Park style read but dear god, everything that happens is simultaneously unbelievable and predictable. I almost didn't finish but I hate abandoning a book, and at least it was over fast. 34 The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross. The third Laundry Files book (I'm all about the third in a series this month apparently, currently working on the third Harry Potter too...) about 'Bob', a civil servant who also happens to be a demonologist. As a civil servant myself as well as a fantasy/sci fi fan I enjoy the mix of occupational pedantry and red-tape alongside horrific entities from beyond. Occasionally gets a bit too caught up in technical language for me, but otherwise enjoyable. Almost at my vanilla number, will have to up the ante a bit next year! Booklord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 34/35 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) 7) A collection of essays. 9) Something written by a musician 14) Wildcard! 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 Robot Mil fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 4, 2016 09:40
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June - Fiction goal met 44. Earthbound, by Ken Baumann Ken wrote a fairly good entry into this series. He combines a recent play of the game with his memories of playing it as a child, and explores its ideas in a meandering, introspective way. He manages to pull off a personal and informative work. 45. The Immortal Game, by David Shenk This is a pop history of chess written with the framing device of a single game played in 1851. The main text is well done and entirely recommended (lots of great tidbits); the framing device feels off. It doesn’t tie into the text well enough and would have worked just as well as a stand alone chapter showing the dynamism and importance of position in chess. If you read it, I’d urge you to carefully consider what moves you might make in such a situation; it’s fun to spot the misplays and traps. 46. Thank you for the wildcard rec! I did not enjoy reading this collection of micro-fiction, written in the style of notes or letters. I’ll admit that the author’s sense of humor was not to my liking; it seemed like every other entry was little more than a setup for a punchline of “Ah! But I was talking about incest/pedophilia/necrophilia/bestiality!” The tone problems don’t help when the book tries to treat those same subjects moderately seriously. 47. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood I’m a huge fan of this book now; the writing style and the world building were completely spot on, and the framing device was very effective. Atwood included lots of things to wonder about, especially in her tensions, mysteries, and paradoxes. 48. Matter, by Iain M. Banks My need for a good romp through a Culture book was finally filled here; the strange and exciting Shell World Banks writes here is as good a setting as any of the other novels, with room for adventure and fascination. It’s right there below Use of Weapons in my scoring of these books. 49. The Earth: From Myths to Knowledge, by Hubert Krivine This is a relatively detailed examination of just a few things in our scientific knowledge: the Earth’s age, the Earth’s size, and the mechanisms of our solar system. Krivine does a meticulous job of showing how various ideas were combined, adapted and invented to take our understanding away from guesses and faith and towards truth. He includes a huge wealth of notes and sources; this detail and his focus help make a really effective book. 50. Black Resistance/White Law, by Mary Frances Berry This is a 1995 update of a book originally published in 1971. Berry fills the history of the US with the parts most surveys leave out: the various ways in which violence from whites against black people has been, in effect, legalized. It’s full of bone-chilling stories and rage inducing decisions, and has the decency to not end with false hope for the future. Great argument material here. 51. Masters of Doom, by David Kushner I’ve had this book on my Amazon wishlist for nearly a decade now so it was probably time to read it. Very good, engaging profile of John Romero and John Carmack and the glory days of id. A special point in its favor is the good treatment of specific problems in game-programming: the unfamiliar won’t be lost, and the experienced won’t find too many paragraphs to face-palm at. July - Fiction goal met 52. Bible Adventures, by Gabe Durham. Yet another book about games, I may have a problem. This one is a well done exploration of faith in a modern entertainment-based world, with plenty of humor. Watching Youtube videos of these awful awful games when they show up in the text is a must. 53. Neoreaction a Basilisk, by Phil Sandifer. This was a fairly strange book, if mostly because Sandifer goes off on long explorations of how his three subjects (Elizier Yudkowsky, Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land) relate to the T.V. show Hannibal and William Blake’s epic poems, neither of which I am experienced with. Other parts were funny and intriguing, and it was certainly worth my $3.34 pro-rated. Not recommended if you didn’t recognize any of the three neo-reactionaries mentioned earlier. 54. Working Stiff, by Judy Melinek Absolutely great book. The author describes autopsies as an NYC medical examiner from 2001 to 2002, always in graphic, precise, detail. I felt sick at several points, but couldn’t stop reading. It’s organized roughly by type of death instead of chronologically, both to keep a theme going in what could otherwise be disjointed recollections and to group all the 9/11 and anthrax stuff in one place. Each chapter is a precious gem of morbidity. Especially recommended for fiction writers looking to describe death. 55. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison The eponymous short story comes first in this collection of seven; they’re roughly equal in length and high quality, save perhaps the finale. Each one is strange in its own way, and the book is a very fun, quick, read. Robot Mil posted:31. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison: A collection of pretty disturbing science fiction short stories - I like a bit of sci fi and horror so these were definitely up my alley as it were. Very much tainted by his misogynistic portrayal of women though, it was very tiresome that every woman was portrayed as a whore who would endure any humiliation as long as she could get sex out of it. Wassup Ellison buddy. Yeah the women it seemed were written by someone in the mindset of "why does she want to screw everyone but ME?" I had chalked that up to an immature writer or something but looking it up the fucker was older than I am when he wrote some of this. Ah Well. 56. Prisoner of Trebekistan, by Bob Harris Harris is a stand up comic, five-time Jeopardy champion, and frequent tournament participant. This is his experiences preparing for and playing those games, with a touch of personal life cooked in. Just fine for that purpose. 57. Guided By the Beauty of Their Weapons, by Phil Sandifer I got this one for the long Vox Day focus at the beginning, and I’m glad that stuff was good because Sandifer goes into a lot of crap about Hannibal and William Blake that I couldn’t care less about (yes, again. or previously, since he wrote this before the other book). There are some other hidden gems here, and I’m glad I found out about Janelle Monae’s music. My advice is read the parts you think you’ll like most. 58. How to Build a Nuclear Bomb, by Frank Barnaby Barnaby writes best when he does what the title says: his info on what expertise, resources and infrastructure is needed to produce various types of WMDs is given straightforwardly and clearly. Well worth a read for that alone. The political analysis is over a decade old and a bit iffy so feel free to skip that. 1) Vanilla Number - 58/80 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 8) A work of Science Fiction - Nova 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - The Sea and Civilization 13) Read Something YA - A Wrinkle in Time 14) Wildcard! - Loath Letters 15) Something recently published - The Chimp and the River 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - Masters of Doom 17) The First book in a series - Ancillary Justice 18) A biography or autobiography - Even This I Get to Experience 20) Read a banned book - The Handmaid’s Tale 21) A Short Story collection - Dubliners thatdarnedbob fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Aug 4, 2016 |
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Aug 4, 2016 22:02
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July: Patti Smith - Just Kids (Not sure why I put off reading this for so long, but glad I finally got around to it. I just think Patti Smith is cool as hell.) Stephen King - End of Watch (Kind of a mediocre end to a decent trilogy. Got sillier than I expected, and not in a good way.) Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist (I chose this for the '1800s' challenge since I only know it through pop cultural osmosis and an elementary school play I was in when I was 12. It's a lot darker than I expected, and it was hard to look past the almost hilarious racism, but I still enjoyed it. I haven't read any Dickens since high school, maybe I'll read some more.) Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (Figured this would be suitable for the 'YA' challenge, turns out I really enjoyed it and read it in about 2 days, then immediately jumped into the rest of the series. Whoops.) Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire (Not as good as the first book in the series, parts of it felt rushed... it's rare for me to think this but I think the book could have used an extra 40 pages to help flesh some things out.) Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay (Another mediocre end to a decent trilogy, twice in one month. Oh well.) Booklord Challenge progress: 1) Vanilla Number (currently at 31 of 40) 2) 15 books written by women (currently at 12 of 15) 19) Read something from the lost or beat generation 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection Only a few challenges left. I have some Faulkner that I keep meaning to start, which will cover #19, and I'm about halfway through Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" for #20. I'll probably be done my overall challenges by October.
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Aug 5, 2016 16:32
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July. 34. When a King Loses France. Maurice Druon. It feels like the cardinal is telling the reader a story about intrigue and deception. All about a bad King called "the Good". 35. Words of Radiance. Brandon Sanderson. I didn't want to fall prey to the hype, but it was legit awesome. It started kind of slow and the interludes were mostly useless, but once the story gets on track, it doesn't let go. 36. Cetaganda. Louis McMaster Bujold. A very fun book. The story was kind of off at the beginning, but it got better. 37. The Forge of God. Greg Bear. The first half is kind of dull trying to bring the plausibility up the roof. The second part of the book is way better, but the characters are still in a the roller coaster of the story, which is pretty good. 38. Hell House. David Mateson. Scary book, but nothing special. The story fluctuates from mediocre to good and the characters were kind of walking clichés. 39. The Hydrogen Sonata. Iain M. Banks. Even if the book is like a collection of scenes interconnected and the stakes are not that high, I loved it. The characters are awesome and it's just so much fun. Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 39/60 4) Something written in the 1800s 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 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
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Aug 6, 2016 18:06
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anilEhilated posted:A quick glance at my bookshelf provides Viriconium by M. John Harrison. You don't seem to be averse to fantasy so it should do nicely. I've never read any of his stuff, but this looks up my alley. I've picked up the 2000 omnibus and will be reading it once I clear my "must read immediately" queue. Which is at 9 books.  I mean, that's a good problem to have, but a bunch of extremely strong recommendations and anticipated releases all landed on me at the same time my wife picked the InCryptid books back up, which means I need to read those too so we can talk about them without spoiling each other. And now, the July update. Booklord Challenge Update posted:Count: 72/96 books, 7 nonfiction (10%), 2 rereads (3%) 61. Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines 62. Ex-Patriots by Peter Clines 63. Ex-Communication by Peter Clines 64. Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines 65. Ex-Isle by Peter Clines After Masked I wanted more superheroes punching things. These books are basically the Avengers vs. the zombie apocalypse, with some (both zombie and non) supervillains to liven things up a little. They're fun for what they are but don't really aspire to be anything more than that; I've read much better on both the superhero side and the zombie side. 66. Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey 67. Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey These are, in gross structure, basically the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings. The names and geography are all different, but there's a pretty obvious correspondence between major characters, artifacts, locations, and plot points. What makes it interesting is that unlike the reams of lovely LOTR imitations out there, this is written from an unashamedly pro-!Morgoth perspective, with the protagonist one of the !Nazgul, although the actual viewpoint bounces around a fair bit. It also manages to do this without turning the "good guys" into irritating Lawful Stupid caricatures. The end result is a story in which most of the characters are legitimately decent people trying to do the right thing while treating their friends with loyalty and their enemies with respect -- and ending up with an extremely high body count despite that. The biggest problem is that, as soon as you realize what the books are doing, you know exactly where the plot is going. So you spend most of the books seeing the light in the tunnel and knowing beyond any doubt that it's an oncoming train even when the characters don't. This is not a sensation I particularly enjoy. 68. Claws of the Cat by Susan Spann 69. Blade of the Samurai by Susan Spann 70. Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann Father Mateo is a Jesuit priest! Hiro is a trained assassin! Together, they fight crime -- in 16th century Kyoto! It's been ages since I read a proper, traditional murder mystery, one where the author gives you everything you need to solve the mystery before the reveal if you are just attentive enough. (I'm not.) These aren't great, but I enjoyed them. 71. The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt 72. Deepsix by Jack McDevitt Xenoarchaeology aaaaadventures! Except it's less archaeology and puzzle-solving and mysteries and more Indiana Jones style close escapes, which is also good but not quite what I was in the mood for. Of the two, I liked Engines more; Deepsix felt like the least interesting parts of Engines (a desperate attempt to escape from a natural disaster in which not everyone will make it out alive) expanded to fill an entire book. August is shaping up to be mostly Seanan McGuire and C.J. Cherryh with a sprinkling of Melissa Scott and Helen Wright.
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Aug 7, 2016 02:57
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thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant The Raven etc is a decent little UF novel that I picked up in a women in fantasy storybundle I think. Decent enough, but unexceptional. Good enoguh to make me pick up the rest of the series though.
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Aug 8, 2016 21:46
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Haven't posted in a while, so a multi-month update: May 14) The Mythical Man-Month, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (BLC# 7, Essays) Most of the essays apply mainly to enormous projects, but there is a lot of good stuff about scope creep and time budgeting that might help even in the solo developer work I do. A little dated but mostly relatable. 15) A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny (BLC# 15, Animal) I had forgotten I'd ordered this, and could not understand why until I started reading it and realized it fit one of the Booklord Challenges. Really enjoyed the collision of so many fictional worlds. 16) The Old Man and The Sea, Ernest Hemingway (BLC# 19, Lost/Beat) First time reading this, and it has to be one of the most powerful books I've ever read. The old man is my father and grandfather, and the boy is the good son I wish I was. Still a little broken up over this book. I'm trying to spend more time with my dad since reading this but I haven't kept it up very well. 17) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick Douglass (BLC# 3, Nonwhite) I really don't understand the rationalizing that must have driven presumably otherwise moral people to accept the existence of slavery at any level in a culture that values freedom. I guess a belief that being a slave in Christendom is better than a free life as a heathen, combined with a prejudiced view of intelligence. I'd be very interested in a neutral account of that argument if one exists. 18) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward R. Tufte Great book for anyone that needs to create informational displays. I keep it on my desk and occasionally reread. 19) Dune, Frank Herbert (BLC# 17, Book 1) One of my favorites, I also reread this every few years. Still have yet to read the second book. 20) The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin (BLC# 8, SF) This was really good. I thought the Earthsea series at the end of last year was the first thing I'd read by Le Guin, but this seemed really familiar, I have a feeling I read it when I was a kid. June 21) Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson An argument that the most successful murderous war machines in history were made up of free (or relatively free), well-equipped heavy infantry, which is most ably fielded by western culture. Plenty of entertaining examples and some counter-examples. There seemed to be a lot of repetition, as if it were a series of articles sharing the same theme haphazardly edited together into a book. Better than most sweeping pop military histories. 22) Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks (BLC# 16, Wanted to read) 23) The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks 24) Fight Club, Check Palahniuk I was expecting Fight Club to be overrated, but it really is a great book. July 25) Use of Weapons, Iain M. Banks 26) Excession, Iain M. Banks 27) Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks 28) Matter, Iain M. Banks 29) Surface Detail, Iain M. Banks 30) The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks I really wanted to avoid reading so much science fiction this year, but I really got sucked into the Culture series and ended up reading everything but the short stories and Inversions, which I'll come back to eventually. 30/40 1 McClanahan fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 19:50
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Oh man, I almost forgot about this thread. Guess I should finally update: New Stuff: Our Story Begins - Tobias Wolff Wolff's story A Bullet in the Brain is one of the things that got me interested in writing, so I'll always have a huge soft spot for his writing. It's still my favorite story of his, but the rest of this collection is also pretty solid. His writing owes a huge debt to Carver, but there's always been sort of a weird Kafka streak in some of his writing that I like. At his worst he falls back into that stuffy minimal realist mode that can start to feel like self-parody after a while, but even then there's usually some little flash of insight or human moment that redeems it. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace I've been steadily chewing through DFW's stuff, and now I just have Broom of the System left to read. I think this is overall probably his weakest collection, though there are of course some really amazing gems in it. The book feels like it's a bit out of step with what he wanted his fiction to be, and because of that there's an unevenness to the collection that isn't really present in his other work. It's dealing with the masculine egoism that he criticized Updike and co. for, but then it wraps around and becomes preoccupied with the same things (and then of course Wallace points out that he is aware of this and how it bothers him, etc., which I sometimes feel he uses as a get-out-of-jail-free card). I'm still very glad I read it, and his weakest output is better than a hell of a lot of people's strongest. Varieties of Disturbance - Lydia Davis One of the undisputed masters of flash fiction. Her prose is gorgeous, even if it's often opaque, and there's a really graceful lyricism to it. Most of the stories in this collection are only a couple pages long - some much shorter than that. It's a difficult book to review because there isn't a lot of traditional structure / plot / characterization to speak of. Lots of little insights and beautiful moments, even in ugly places. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline - George Saunders This is a great collection. I don't know how Saunders is so good at creating satire that feels genuinely moving and not just triple-wrapped in irony. A lot of it probably has to do with just how funny he is, and how much of an ear for language and idiom he has. He writes prose that would probably get torn to shreds in most MFA programs, but it has an offbeat beauty that not many other authors can match. I will say that he probably does lean on the "menial worker in a theme park" setup a bit too often across the body of his work, but somehow I don't get tired of them. A couple mediocre stories in the collection, but the good stuff is so good that it doesn't matter. Death With Interruptions - Jose Saramago My third Saramago novel, and I haven't run into a bad one yet. I really like how restrained he can be with such an absurd premise - a weaker writer would go off the rails with it and turn the book into a spectacle with no heart, but Saramago maintains a focus that makes the story much more effective. The scenes with bureaucratic and religious figures are much funnier than they should be. Saramago's style can be an acquired taste, and I have to say that it strains against itself in places - especially scenes where there are whole rooms full of people talking - but he's still a very charming writer. It's pretty crazy how much pathos he is able to wring out of the book's ending, considering how quickly things converge and that one of the characters is literally death. Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart Wasn't a fan of this one at all. Lots of lazy, uninsightful satire, a near-future sci-fi setting that feels like an unnecessary prop, and a super gross narrator that happens to have the exact same age / appearance / background as the author and keeps talking about how the tiny (and very attractive, of course) Korean woman he is in a relationship with makes him feel "both paternal and aroused." Ugh. There's also a lot of painfully awful attempts at future teenspeak peppered throughout the book in the form of email correspondence. I seriously have no idea how this lovely book won so many awards. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story : A Life of David Foster Wallace - D.T. Max I was always going to be a little disappointed by any DFW biography, but this was an admirable effort. So much better than 99% of the people who write about Wallace and feel compelled to badly ape his style. Lots of interesting stuff that I never knew about him, though I think the most illuminating bits were his correspondences with other authors and friends. I wish there had been more input from his family (especially his mother), but I'm assuming Max reached out and they just didn't want to talk, which is totally understandable and not really a fault of the biography. Confessions of a Mask - Yukio Mishima A very introspective, often difficult-to-read novel. A lot has been made about autobiographical this book is / may be, but I've always felt pretty uncomfortable with the idea of trying to drag an author out of their fiction like that. Weatherby's translation seems to capture his language and style pretty well based on what else of his I've read, and the prose here is very sharp, almost clinically so. I'm not sure that this would be the best introduction to Mishima for a new reader, but it's undeniably an important book. It's interesting to me how similar this is to Sartre's Childhood of a Leader in many ways. The Fun Parts - Sam Lipsyte It was alright. He's got a talent for building bizarre situations and then going in unexpected directions with them, but the tone is often uneven and his prose varies from solid to trying way too hard. A few standout stories, and he's obviously having fun with the whole thing, but overall it feels a bit too cynical and mean-spirited and most of the pieces are completely forgettable after the novelty wears off. Turtle Face and Beyond - Arthur Bradford Picked this up just because of the title. A pretty fun collection. The stories themselves are narrated by the same person, but they are very loosely connected at best. This gives the book an episodic feel that actually ends up working pretty well. Lots of chaos and bad decisions being made by hosed-up but well-intentioned people. Kind of a Junot Diaz vibe, so if that's your thing, it's worth checking out. I Am an Executioner: Love Stories - Rajesh Parameswaran I liked this one quite a bit. Some very experimental stuff in the mix, with varying levels of success. An argument could reasonably be made that an editor should have stepped in and reigned things in a bit in places, but it's also kinda interesting to see the (relatively) raw creative process in full. There's a really restless energy to the collection that is hard not to admire. Parameswaran bounces around styles and genres - you can go from a story narrated by a tiger to a piece of paranoid allegory to a story about humans colonizing a planet of sentient insects. The stories are absurd and often unsettling - my biggest gripe is that some of the experimentation feels derivative and occasionally the stories suffer for it. Total So Far: 22/40 Swamplandia! - Karen Russell Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever - Justin Taylor Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo Palm-of-the-Hand Stories - Yasunari Kawabata Girl With Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart Vampires in the Lemon Grove - Karen Russell Redeployment - Phil Klay Revenge - Yoko Ogawa Tenth of December - George Saunders I am an Executioner - Rajesh Parameswaran Turtle Face and Beyond - Arthur Bradford Varieties of Disturbance - Lydia Davis The Fun Parts - Sam Lipsyte Confessions of a Mask - Yukio Mishima Every Love Story is a Ghost Story - D.T. Max Death With Interruptions - Jose Saramago In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders CivilWarLand in Bad Decline - George Saunders Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace Our Story Begins - Tobias Wolff Booklord Challenge Progress: 1) Vanilla Number (22/40) 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 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages 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) 17) The First book in a series 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 22) It’s a Mystery.
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Aug 14, 2016 22:09
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/2014/08/28/018-super-sad-true-love-story-w-poncho-martinez/
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Aug 15, 2016 05:29
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Didn't post a July update on account of being on vacation with only an iPad to type on (but it's been a pretty good summer for reading), so this is a two-month update through August: 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. 12. Red Rising by Pierce Brown. 13. Demon Dentist by David Walliams. 14. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. 16. Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling. 17. Doktor Proktors Prompepulver by Jo Nesbø. 18. Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. 19. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima. 20. Før jeg brenner ned by Gaute Heivoll. 21. Billionaire Boy by David Walliams. 22. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 23. The Quiet Game by Greg Iles. 24. The Vegetarian by Han Kang. 25. Maurtuemordene by Hans Olav Lahlum. 26. Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald. New: 27. Destroyermen: Blood in the Water by Taylor Anderson. #n+1 in an increasingly long alternate-Earth mil-sf series. Still enjoyable although it's arguably (like the multi-front war it depicts) turning into something of a slog. 28. Gangsta Granny by David Walliams. Read this aloud to #1 son, again. Heartwarming little tale about appreciating and loving one's older family members, and stealing the Crown Jewels. 29. The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross. Latest entry in the Laundry series, where geeks and spooks try to fend off Cthulhu. Lots of poo poo hitting the fan in this one, status quo upset, liked it. 30. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Very nice character-centered space-opera travelogue. Overall very positive and sweet, liked it a lot. 31. Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. BOTM for July. Somewhat obscure fantasy classic from 1929, from before all the genre clichés existed. Mundaneity vs. the fantastic; acceptance vs. denial. Beautiful prose. Great book. 32. Ratburger by David Walliams. Again, read aloud to #1 son. Pre-teen girl with alcoholic depressed unemployed dad and horrible evil chav stepmother fights murderous pest control/fast-food chef guy to save her pet rat. Grotesque and funny, and pretty heartwarming -- like all the other David Walliams books we've read. 33. Sønnen ("The Son") by Jon Nesbø. Nesbø is Norway's #1 best-selling author by some ridiculous margin -- he's got a double career going both as a writer of gritty crime thrillers for adults, and very funny children's books (see #17 above), several of which have been made into films, etc. (Dude is also a singer and musician and was in one of the more successful Norwegian groups in the 1990s.) This falls in the former category, and unlike most of his books it's a standalone (most of them are part of a long series starring a more or less alcoholic cop/ex-cop/re-cop). It's set in modern-day Norway and shows a gritty, violent picture of the criminal underworld and corrupted justice system which stops just short of parody. The action is pretty riveting (dude knows his craft) and the characters are cool and the plot is just a tiiiiiiny bit contrived. A good read. 34. Svein og rotta i syden by Marit Nicolaysen. Another children's book, read aloud to #1 son... this one is from a Norwegian series about a boy and his pet rat who have various semi-plausible adventures in a mostly realistic setting. In this one, the boy goes on a charter holiday with his family and smuggles the rat onto the plane, various hijinks ensue. Amusing but pretty lightweight fare compared to the Walliams books. 35. Døden ved vann ("Death by water") by Torkil Damhaug. Another Norwegian crime-thriller author, new to me although he's been doing it for a while and has a number of books out. Found this lying around in our vacation house. My first thought on picking this up was curiosity as to whether the title actually was a reference to The Waste Land, and this was confirmed about 20 pages in... very good stuff. Psychological twisty crime intrigue. In the 1990s, a boy is on the charter holiday from hell with his family (alcohol, emotional abuse, etc.) and is driven close to suicide but is talked out of it by a weird man who may have ulterior motives. A decade or so later, a completely unrelated young Norwegian woman is living a semi-debauched life in Amsterdam but then her sister disappears mysteriously. Transgressions and consequences. Author is originally a psychiatrist and draws on his professional and academic knowledge quite a bit. 36. Ildmannen ("The Man of Fire" would be a good translation) by Torkil Damhaug. Another decade-spanning psycho-crime-thriller. Damhaug is pretty good at keeping the reader guessing and showing just enough of various characters' internal workings to make the plot extra-interesting. In this one, a Norwegian high school student is having some complicated problems in that he's 1) involved with a girl from an immigrant community that frowns on outsiders getting involved with their girls, 2) also becoming involved with some kind of rather dubious anti-immigrant group, and 3) possibly suspected of a string of arsons. Then, some completely unexpected poo poo happens and that's about all I'm going to say about that. Bonus points for being mostly set around the area where I live so a bunch of familiar places show up (the author either lives or has lived around here as well). Some of the cops and other supporting characters are the same as in the previous book but these guys aren't really significant enough to make this a "series" as such. 37. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. BOTM for August. Ha, this ruled, Nabokov must have made a lot of people very confused when he published this in 1962. It's a modern epic poem about the life and sorrows of a fictional poet, written just before said poet's untimely death, and edited and published with lengthy commentary by his fictional neighbor and "best friend". Who uses most of the footnotes and commentary to talk about himself and/or making up a load of poo poo about a non-existent country and the daring escape of its monarch from revolutionary forces. There are levels and wheels within wheels. Classic. Currently about half-way through The Big Book of Science Fiction and also randomly reading Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay one essay at a time inbetween other things. Booklord challenge: 1) Vanilla Number - 37/40 2) Something written by a woman- I Don't, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, The Vegetarian, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Lud-in-the-Mist, Svein og rotta i syden 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Vegetarian 4) Something written in the 1800s - Three Men in a Boat, Plain Tales from the Hills 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Slåttekar i himmelen, Anabasis, The Name of the Rose 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, Half a War, Acceptance, Children of Time, Luna: New Moon, others 9) Something written by a musician - White Line Fever 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - The Name of the Rose, The Quiet Game 11) Read something about or set in NYC 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - Sønnen definitely qualifies for this 13) Read Something YA - Half the World, Red Rising, Half a War 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, Half a War, Children of Time, Luna: New Moon 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, The Quiet Game, Luna: New Moon 18) A biography or autobiography - White Line Fever, Før jeg brenner ned 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation - Sweet Thursday 20) Read a banned book 21) A Short Story collection - all volumes of The Apocalypse Triptych 22) It’s a Mystery.- The Name of the Rose, The Quiet Game, Maurtuemordene, Sønnen, Døden ved vann, Ildmannen Additional individual challenge: Norwegians: 8/10 Non-fiction: 3/5 Max re-reads: 2/5 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.) 8 for 8 on this. So far, looks like I'm going to overshoot the 40-book goal by quite a bit; only have left four of the booklord challenges... this is all going rather swimmingly. Groke fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 11:25
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Total: 30/52 Female authors: 10/24 Non-Fiction: 3/12 Arabian Nights: 3/10 I basically stopped reading for two months, so even with my recent attempt to catch up I'm not sure I'll make any of my goals, but I'll still give it a shot. Oh God Not Again! is a pretty good Harry Potter parody in which he accidentally rewinds time from after the defeat of Voldemort back to the start of the first book, then uses his knowledge of the future to make things work out better and gently caress with people. It's not something that's going to have much impact on you, but it's a fun read. Arabian Nights, Volume 3 is pretty mixed. I really liked some of the animal stories, but then it got into another one of those super-long stories about royalty and I got bored again. And like volume two, the book ends mid-story. What's up with that? I remember liking the first Modern Faerie Tales book when I read it, but not enough to bother getting the rest. But my sister also read and enjoyed it and she bought the other two, so I read them. I shouldn't have bothered. The second book is just bad (and weirdly disconnected from the ongoing story of books one and three - you could skip it and miss nothing) and the third is better but still pretty generic. TekWar is dumb, and if not for William Shatner's fame I doubt anyone would have read it. It didn't feel like a total waste of time to read it, but I'm certainly not recommending it. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was really good, for a play. I'd like to see it performed, or better yet, a TV adaptation. Wouldn't recommend reading it though, because it's a play. Hickory Dickory Dock was a pretty good Poirot. Whereas the last were pretty mediocre, this was a return to form. I read Prez because people on these forums keep going on about how great it is, but I didn't really see it. It wasn't terrible, but it felt really rushed and shallow, more like a proof of concept or a pilot than a finished product. I read The Natural Way of Things based on a recommendation, and I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't get past the implausibility of it all. The characters are well-written and the stuff that happens during the story all works fine, but everything about the situation just begs the reader to ask questions about how any of it came to be, and as far as I can see there are no good answers. The premise just doesn't hold up to any kind of scrutiny, but there are enough details given to make you want to scrutinise it. It really feels like the book keeps shining a spotlight on its own weaknesses. Blood of the Fold. Sword of Truth is bad. Don't read it. The Lost Princess of Oz is possibly the best Oz book so far - at least tied for first place. There's an actual plot, the more annoying characters aren't in it, the characters do things rather than things just happening while they stand there observing them, there's a bit of a mystery. It's good. As I started reading First Person Peculiar, I thought it was pretty mediocre. As I read a bit more, I realised it was pretty bad. By the end I'd decided that it was atrocious. And Mike Resnick himself comes across as a real wanker, too. See my Goodreads for full reviews.
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Aug 30, 2016 15:53
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Groke posted:28. Gangsta Granny by David Walliams. Read this aloud to #1 son, again. Heartwarming little tale about appreciating and loving one's older family members, and stealing the Crown Jewels. There's a TV/film adaptation of this that I watched on a long-haul flight earlier this year; it was a good way to spend an hour and had a surprising number of famous people in it.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:23
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I've taken up writing romance, so by god, I've read some romance. And forgotten a lot of it, but drat. Almost every novel-length work I've read this year was written by a woman.screenwritersblues posted:The 2016 Book Lord Challenge 1.) Tainted, by HC Cavall. A fellow goon writer! I think this might be the only non-romance title I've read in months, though it does have a romantic subplot. It's a dark fantasy in a contemporary setting - you could just as easily describe it as paranormal. Cavall eschews cosmic horror for jaunty humor, so it's more laughs and rear end-kicking than chills. A good, fast read that refreshed me after two stressful rear end launches. 2.) Knight of Flames, by Amelia Faulkner. This is some gay romance, and not in the pejorative sense. It's got the simplified style I've come to expect from romance novels -- it's accessible and easy to read in one straight sitting. (No pun intended.) The main character is described in some meta-content as asexual, but that doesn't really seem accurate; Quentin's horribly traumatized by past events that are only hinted at, but he still has and acts on desire. The author's from the UK and the occasional Britishism comes through from the American characters, which can be a little jarring. It's a sequel to Jack of Thorns, but I think it's fine as a stand alone. 5.) Think of England, by KJ Charles. This romance is set in England right around the end of the Boer War. The lead is a former soldier who was maimed by a faulty firearm, which he believes was a deliberate act of sabotage by a fellow countryman. While he investigates, he stumbles upon a suspicious, irritating, and super effeminate fop who... Turns out to be a spy, too. They initiate a romance, intrigue and action abounds, people die, etc. KJ Charles is really excellent at grounding her plots in historical contexts. This setting is more modern than most of her other works, which are generally set right after the defeat of Napoleon IIRC. 17.) The Magpie Lord, by KJ Charles. Another historic, gay romance, this time with a paranormal angle. Vaudrey returns to London after the death of his estranged father, Lord Crane. He finds himself gripped by the urge to kill himself, so his manservant finds a witch -- one Stephen Day. Day loathes the Crane family, as their late patriarch discredited his father and led to him being orphaned or something. I don't remember, I read this 4 months ago. Romance happens etc. etc. I really enjoy Charles' plotting, but her sex scenes give me the chills. Her style overall is more elaborate and the grade level is higher than Faulkner's - I'm guessing Charles does as well as she does because she has a traditional publisher behind her and loads of industry connections. Plus: A Case of Possession & Flight of Magpies. A Fashionable Indulgence, A Seditious Affair, and A Gentleman's Position, by KJ Charles. Each follows a different couple, though their stories are all interwoven. The external plots deal with class warfare, Radical vs. Tory politics, personal power dynamics when one half of the couple has a serious wealth and social advantage over the other, the risks of same-sex relationships in a period where they were criminal, censorship of publishers, and extortion. Heavy stuff.
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Aug 30, 2016 17:55
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May as well update. #31 - #35. 31) Fatherland - Nina Bunjevac: Graphic novel about the author's childhood and her Serbian nationalist dad. Worth a read if interested in: Serbia, Canada, the author. 4/5. 32) Incognegro - Mat Johnson: Graphic novel about a black man who passes for white investigating crimes. Inspired by the true story of a former head of the NAACP in the early 20th century, as well as the author's own experiences as a light-skinned African-American. Worth a read if interested in: the early 20th century, the South, investigative journalism. 4/5. 33) Lady Killer - Joëlle Jones: Can be summed up in two words: housewife assassin. A bit lightweight, but has great artwork. Worth a read if interested in: the early '60s, feminism, fashion. 4/5. 34) Legends of the Tour - Jan Cleijne: Non-fictional graphic novel about the history of the Tour de France. The art style changes as the story progresses through the decades. The story itself becomes slightly less interesting when it reaches the modern era, but the material dealing with the early days of the tour is great. Worth a read if interested in: the Tour de France, cycling, outdoorsmanship. 4/5. 35) Prison Island: A Graphic Memoir - Colleen Frakes: Graphic novel about the author's childhood growing up on the titular prison island of McNeil Island in Washington State. Mildly interesting if you're interested in: the American prison system, isolation, McNeil Island. 3/5.
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Aug 31, 2016 02:59
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Did not post in July, here is July and August together. July - 5: Dubliners (James Joyce) The Fall of the Stone City (Ismail Kadare) Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Alan Bullock) The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen) Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett) August - 6: The Gum Thief (Douglas Coupland) Eric (Terry Pratchett) Beauty is a Wound (Eka Kurniawan) A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn) Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe (Norman Davies) I liked everything I read in the last couple of months. Dubliners I bought while I was actually in Dublin and it's a great little collection. Joyce is the master, which I don't think anyone would dispute. I also really liked The Fall of the Stone City which was quite weird and dreamlike. Beauty is a Wound was great in that magical realism family saga niche, although god drat Kurniawan enough with the rape already. Hitler and Stalin was masterful and also inspired me to read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Vanished Kingdoms I just finished last night. It's an interesting look at European history, focusing on countries that no longer exist rather than ones which still do. In places it's a bit odd - there's only a very short piece on Byzantion, which seems like it either should have been expanded or left out altogether, and there's later chapters focusing on the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Eiré which seem like they'd be equally comfortable in a very different book. It's fascinating though and a great reminder that for most of history nations as they exist in the modern world weren't really a thing, particularly since so many countries were rag-tag affairs joined together only by personal unions of various aristocrats. Also a lot of the chapter subtitles are amazing. Although it wasn't specifically sold as one I'm counting Vanished Kingdoms as a collection of essays since functionally that's what it is. Dubliners is a short story collection so that's that box ticked as well. I also hit goal this month (50 so all that leaves me is my wildcard to read (Calf by Andrea Klein). Year to Date - 53: Booklord: 1-13, 15-22 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) 25. A God in Ruins (Kate Atkinson) 10 26. Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol) 27. Perdido Street Station (China Mieville) 17 28. A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara) 29. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 30. The Mark and the Void (Paul Murray) 31. The Iliad (Homer) 32. Girls of Riyadh (Rajaa Alsanea) 20 33. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Yukio Mishima) 34. Steampunk! (Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant) 13 35. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) 36. The Chimes (Anna Smaill) 9 37. The Art of Joy (Goliarda Sapienza) 38. Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby) 39. Fateless (Imre Kertesz) 40. Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (Sheppard Frere) 41. Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami) 22 42. Candide, or Optimism (Voltaire) 43. Dubliners (James Joyce) 21 44. The Fall of the Stone City (Ismail Kadare) 45. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Alan Bullock) 46. The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen) 47. Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett) 48. The Gum Thief (Douglas Coupland) 49. Eric (Terry Pratchett) 50. Beauty is a Wound (Eka Kurniawan) 51. A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami) 52. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn) 53. Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe (Norman Davies) 7
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Aug 31, 2016 17:14
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August Books 52.The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead About a father with I think seven children, five boys and their terrible lives and his abusive relationship with his wife. I really liked this book but it wasn't easy to read. The father was awful, the mother was awful, and they had no ability to actually care for their kids. Yet they kept having them, which is remarkable since the parents never spoke and when they did it was that she was going to murder him and all the children. The father is what the book is mainly about. He's an atheist who doesn't drink, won't cheat on his wife, and generally acts like he's morally superior to everyone. Going as far as contemplating the good of eugenics. That's the book, this terrible father, a poor family and his increasingly desperate wife as they slip in to complete poverty and misery. 53.Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco It's typical Eco from what I have read as far as writing. Really long, with some really difficult chapters, and detail that is probably completely unnecessary. I really liked this book, but when he goes in to detail, he doesn't hold back. This book is about a group of men who work in a book publishing house and end up being interested in the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, and every conspiracy related to it. They end up publishing completely ridiculous occult books, the more ridiculous the better. Then they take these books and form a comical grand conspiracy that covers all conspiracies called "the plan". I think this is pretty well defined early on in the book as it starts at the end and kind of flashes back, and then forward throughout the whole thing. I could talk about this for ages, but it is both brilliant, and monotonous. A great read and at the same time, a slog in some places. In one section he literally writes a list of every occult group in the world and it goes on for ten pages with no dialog, just this list. It was worth it though, I have wanted to read it for a long time. 54.East of Eden by John Steinbeck I think everyone knows this book. I thought it was great through the first two thirds and then okay in the last third. At any rate, a great story and great writing which I felt kind of went on a bit too long. Glad I finally read it, looking forward to more Steinbeck. 55.Stoner by John Williams I am thinking this might be the book of the year for me and yet it was a simple book, nothing spectacular, just the portrait of a life of professor in the early 20th century. It is set against the backdrop of two wars and the great depression. Something about the writing really amazed me and took this ordinary look at an ordinary life and turned it to an amazing read. 56.At the Mountains of madness by HP Lovecraft Something light to read after the first three of the month. Funny how exploration type books written in the early 20th century can get away with a lot more imagination. 57.Butcher's Crossing by John Williams Second John Williams book since I loved the first so much. Wasn't even as close to as good, and maybe a bit disappointing. I maybe should have waited before reading this, but I was excited to try another one of his books. I don't really have much to say about this, I wasn't interested in the story or the characters. Vanilla Number 57/50 A collection of essays. A biography or autobiography
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Aug 31, 2016 17:59
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