|
Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg August: 71) Blood of Tyrants (Temeraire #8) - Naoni Novik: In this one we go to Japan and then Russia. Also, we return to fighting Napoleon at last. 72) Yes Please - Amy Poehler: This was not a bad little memoir but I could have lived without all the name dropping and in-jokes. 73) 1 Dead in attic: Post-Katrina Stories - Chris Rose: I went into this thinking it was a collection of various peoples' Katrina survival stories. It was not. It was a collection of newspaper columns written by one reporter about mainly his own post-Katrina life. There are a couple great chapters but mostly it was a disappointment. 74) The Miracles of Prato - Laurie Lico Albanese: A novelization of the relationship of Fra Lippi and his mistress in Medici Italy. It was ok but I probably won't be picking anything else up from this author. 75) The Weight of Water - Anita Shreve: The historical narrative was great. I couldn't have cared less about the contemporary narrative. 76) The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket - Trevor Corson: The subject matter was very interesting, unfortunately the presentation was lacking (we follow a bunch of students through their 5 week course at the California Sushi Academy). When the author talked about the actual history of sushi this was great. When he talked about whether Kate sharpened her knives it was not so good. Overall, I liked it despite the flaws. 77) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling: Very, very disappointing.  78) The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell: Hard to describe, except to say that I loved it. I will definitely be reading more of him. 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 Y: Yes Please Z: The Zen of Fish 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 Collection of essays: 1 Dead in attic 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: 78/100 A-Z Challenge: 26/26 Booklord Challenge: 22/22 Presidential Biographies: 6/6 Done with all my subchallenges!
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 21:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 15:50 |
|
|
I finally managed to catch up on my challenge this month! 20. Goat Mountain by David Vann Very uncomfortable but enthralling book about some of the darker parts of human nature and what it means to kill and commit acts of violence. The writing was beautiful and almost dreamlike in some ways to the point where the whole rest of the world seemed to fall away and leave only this mountain and these men. The book has a lot of Biblical themes and explores life and death and what meaning, if any, they have. The narrator often yearns for a better and more beautiful past that he feels has been denied him, a nostalgia for times he never experienced but believes he lost out on by being born at the wrong time. This ties into his musings on Cain being the first human born outside the garden of eden and how he coped with a god he couldn't please. Another idea explored is that man's dominion over Earth is not one of benevolent stewards but of violent killers - that we were put here to kill, and that the instinct to kill without thought or reason exists in all of us. There is little difference between him killing a man and killing a buck; both are acts of thoughtless violence that cannot be taken back. I really loved this book, as brutal as it was, and I want to read more Vann. 21. Battleaxe - Sara Douglass This is the first in a fantasy series I read when I was a lot younger. I had a somewhat nostalgic desire for comfort, mindlessness, and familiarity. I have spent most of the year reading outside my comfort zone, and this month I was a bit tired and wanted something easy and non-challenging. They are a lot worse than I remember, but I am enjoying the nostalgia factor if not the actual book content. Incredibly cliched fantasy full of all the dumb sexism, stereotypes and tropes common to the genre. Odd to see how much I have changed over the years since I first read this. 22. The Egyptian - Mika Waltari A goon in the Fiction thread said his posting career would be complete if he could get one non-Finn to read this book, so I decided to give it a go, and I'm really glad that I did. A long and heavy but also really engrossing book that brilliantly evoked the ancient world. The writing style reminded me of reading ancient historians or the travel writings of Pausanias. The story was at times incredibly funny and brutally depressing. Waltari drew parallels between the world of the Pharoahs and the fascism he witnessed in Europe in the 1930s and 40s, but sadly it also seemed pertinent in today's world. 23. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy This is an amazing and unflinching examination of death. It's a brilliant story about how a man confronts his own death, and how his friends and family deal with often annoying tedium of a drawn-out death and all the practical matters that must be considered, the discomfort of considering your own mortality as you watch someone else die, etc. This is one of those amazing stories that is going to stick with me for a very long time. 24. The Enchanter - Sara Douglass The second book of the series I'm reading for nostalgia. This one was much worse than the first book. 25. Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" - Philip Plait Pop science astronomy book that focuses on correcting the most common misconceptions people have along with analysing a lot of pseudoscience. I enjoyed the first 1/2 of the book more, which dealt with correcting misconceptions and had chapters with really good explanations on the phases of the moon, seasons, light, gravity, etc. The second half was mostly the pseudoscience part discussing things like people who believe the moon landing was a hoax. It was sort of interesting, but I'm not all that interested in in-depth analysis of crazy conspiracy theorists, astrologers etc and why they are wrong.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
quote:1 - Daft Wee Stories, by Limmy (Brian Limond) I read seven books in August: 39 - Report On Probability A, by Brian Aldiss. Great high-concept SF about observation and quantum uncertainty. Sadly it's interminably dull, even for a short book. 40 - Saga, vol. 6, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. Still really drat good. A lot of worldbuilding and tangled threads as characters reposition themselves over a few-year timeskip. Ghüs continues to be the Best. 41 - Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, by JK Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne. I preordered this like so many others did, and I managed to stay completely unspoiled as to the plot and contents. I heard a lot of anger and dismissal, and prepared myself to hate it. And...it's pretty okay? It's not bad. Not excellent, by any means, but not trash. I'm not disappointed or upset with what this ended up being, and I do rather want to see the show. 42 - Counterculture Through The Ages: From Abraham To Acid House, by Ken Goffman (aka R U Sirius) and Dan Joy. A pretty cool history book, summarising 2500 years of world history through the lens of exploring groups and ideologies that rejected the status quo of their times. Touching on movements such as Taoism, the Transcendentalists and Sufism - and making some effort to connect them with a common thread - means that Goffman and Joy offer some really nice pieces of social history. Goffman's breezy style means that at no point is the book boring or long-winded - he has the tone of a cool uncle. A book I'll be holding on to, and probably revisiting. 43 - Piss Cameron, by IlllllllllllllI. A short collection of stories, vignettes and poetry, concerning David Cameron and his urine. It's written with the poetic grotesquerie of Chris Morris, and the pseudonymous writer has an excellent knack for conjuring images that will stick with me for a long while. Toilet humour elevated to a satirical, cathartic art form. 44 - Vurt, by Jeff Noon. Vurt is a time capsule of early-90s SF, especially British SF. Fueled by equal parts cyberpunk and rave culture, it's kind of like Snow Crash meets Trainspotting, set in an ambiguous future Manchester where the streets are paved with broken glass and dogshit.. I imagine if this had been an introduction to "grown-up" SF for a teenage me, I'd be all over this. But reading it now, at 26, in 2016, I can see the seams too well I think. 45 - The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym for JK Rowling). Her first crime novel, and it's clear she wanted to do something substantially different. It's gritty without being grimdark, and there are no convoluted subplots or secret killer cabals - this is just a solid, entertaining detective story. It still has her literary style, with well-drawn characters and a good sense of setting - I recognised streets from when I used to live in London. The players themselves are all a little larger-than-life, which gives the book the feel of a fun ITV drama miniseries. I don't read a lot of detective fiction, but this was a good page-turner, and I'd be happy to read the rest. Fuller reviews up on my GoodReads, as always. 1) 52+ books - 45 2) At least 40% (23) by a woman - 21 - 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, The Cuckoo's Calling 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 -
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2016 14:55
|
|
|
Bandiet posted:1. The Stranger by Albert Camus 23. Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson. It was okay. I had a lot of fun with the short story cycle format at first, but was worn out by the end. Some of the character portraits felt meaningful or at least entertaining, while some felt dumb and pointless. 24. Guide To Kulchur, by Ezra Pound. Lol at this book. Ezra Pound is a kook with preposterously derivative poetry, so it's no surprise that his "flippant intellectual" prose is similar (e.g. He uses a lot of silly abbreviations for words that he seems to have snagged from John Adams' letters, just because he thought it was cool or something). Actually, he writes quite a bit like a goddamn goon. 25. Mr Cogito, by Zbigniew Herbert. Hadn't read any Herbert, and this was good. Free form poetry with a twist! 26. Amerika, by Franz Kafka. Absolutely brilliant, and by far Kafka's funniest work, although parts of The Castle are set up better (comedically; of course, all of The Castle is set up better as a novel). 27. Watt, by Samuel Beckett. Not like any other Beckett, really, although still very funny and puzzling. It's easy to forgive the incessant repetition when you know that Beckett probably wrote it mostly as a mind game to keep himself busy while he hid from the Gestapo. Also probably a much lighter read when you've read the Trilogy. Vanilla Number: 27/75 Read something from the lost generation: Winesburg, Ohio Bandiet fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Sep 1, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2016 16:55
|
|
|
August: Yevgeny Zamyatin - We (This covers my banned book challenge. You can certainly see how it influenced Huxley and others.) Jim Trombetta - The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read! (It could have been a collection of old horror comics, or it could have been a history of censorship in comics, but it tried to do both and wound up feeling halfassed.) Joe Hill - 20th Century Ghosts (Covers my collection of short stories challenge. Not bad, like one of the more mediocre King collections - hit and miss.) Patti Smith - M Train (Thought this would feel like a continuation of Just Kids, but it was really disjointed and kind of disappointing.) Stephen King - The Dead Zone (Haven't read this since I was a teenager. I really liked it. It doesn't have the 'epic' feeling of It or The Stand or whatever, but it's definitely one of his tighter books. Well paced despite the time jump.) Doug Stanhope - Digging Up Mother (I'm a bigger Stanhope fan now than I was before reading this book. He's hilarious and insane.) Tig Notaro - I'm Just a Person (This was fine. I already knew most of the story from interviews and her stand-up. I wish it had more about her actual comedy career but I guess that isn't why she wrote the book, and it would probably be similar to every other book by a comedian... but I still would have liked another 40 pages focusing on that.) Iain Reid - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (This was one of the best things I've read all year. Creeping dread throughout, and as soon as I finished I wanted to start all over again. No spoilers but definitely worth a read.) Booklord Challenge progress: 1) Vanilla Number (currently at 39 of 40) 2) 15 books written by women (currently at 14 of 15) 19) Read something from the lost or beat generation I thought I'd be done by October, but it's looking like I'll be done in September. I just need to stop putting off the Faulkner... but I started it and didn't really like it. Does anyone have a lost/beat generation book you'd recommend that isn't Faulkner?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 02:37
|
|
|
August - Fiction Goal Met 59. Missoula, by Jon Krakauer Krakauer’s writing is always direct, well-researched, and engaging; here it seems a perfect match for the topic of acquaintance rape and the various processes accused and accusers go through. Highly recommended. 60. Songs of a Dead Dreamer, by Thomas Ligotti I believe this is the first horror book I’ve read in a long time, at least since childhood and the famous Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. What a trip: this collection of short stories relies on the infirmities of the human mind and the mortal condition much more than on monsters, gore and mere death (those Ligotti proves himself skilled at using those too). The writing style is otherworldly, helping the plots immensely. The only time it seemed to drag was when my ebook had a misprint that repeated one of the stories word for word and I, like the loving idiot I am, thought it was intentional and read it again waiting for the part where it changed and made my endeavor worthwhile. I’m going to have to revisit this one day. 61. Cujo, by Stephen King This is a radically different kind of horror than Ligotti; set in an only slightly fictional part of backcountry Maine (at most a few dozen miles from where I was reading this book, from my reckoning), a rabid St. Bernard wreaks terror. The threat is absurdly simple, and it feels completely real. People waste time dicking around when they could be riding to the rescue, and others have their courage evaporate in an instant. Its frustrating and scary and an absolute thrill. I haven’t previously read any King, and this might make him a good fallback for me. 62. Saga (TPB Vol 1), by Brian Vaughn and Fiona Staples This was a supremely fun read. It’s the story of of woman (though only a baby in this book) living in the midst of a galactic war, born of a union of one from each side. I absolutely love the pace of the world-building, which always gives you enough to wonder about and latch onto. Characters, dialogue and art all get high marks as well, I can’t wait to grab the next one. 63. Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, by Moira Weigel The line that got me to read this book was “One familiar custom in Colonial America was ‘bundling’, sometimes called ‘tarrying’. Two young people were allowed to sleep side by side in a bed, partially clothed or enclosed in a sack that shut with a drawstring at the neck. Sometimes a piece of wood called a ‘bundling board’ was placed between them.” So you know it’s gotta be good. It covers dating, popular conceptions of dating, normals for young lovers, and how all these changed in America. I had no idea that the first daters were perceived as almost criminal. 64. ZZT, by Anna Anthropy Anna writes here a great entry in the Boss Fight Books line, about these weird ASCII art adventure games from the early 90s. She covers the mod scene (including user-made scenarios) at least as extensively as the originals, and delves into how creators would use the technology to tackle themes of identity, expectations, and art. Especially if you played these back in the day, this is a really fun book. 65. Continue? The Boss Fight Books Anthology I feel like the strength of BFB is taking video game writing into the extreme long form, past the point where any reasonable person would still be writing about any one video game. You get to some interesting places that way. None of the shorter pieces here were stellar, though many were absolutely worth reading, though perhaps not in book form. 66. How To Watch the Olympics, by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton So I wanted to be a little more informed about all the various sports I’d be seeing this summer. This book had nice descriptions of each of them, including what to watch for to judge competitors’ skill and histories of the events. Best was the extensive chapter on athletics from the ancient games to now; I knew about Leonidas of Rhodes before he was cool. Two main problems with the book: it was written looking forward to the 2012 Olympics, and not updated for this one so all the stuff on individual competitors was obsolete and it doesn’t seem likely to be any better in 2020. Also NBC only ever decided to show me water polo, volleyball and beach volleyball along with athletics and swimming so most of the crap I read about I never experienced. Oh well! 1) Vanilla Number - 66/80 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 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Cujo 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
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 04:50
|
|
|
August. 40. The Bane of the Black Sword. Michael Moorcock. The stories were pretty good, with some lackluster enemies and some weird decisions by the main characters. Elric is always awesome, so the book is fun. 41. Stories of Your Life and Others. Ted Chiang. A collection of short stories, some better than others, but all memorable. 42. American Psycho. Bret Easton Ellis. One of the most mentally disturbing books I have ever read. Not much of a story but so many images. 43. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera. It feels like the author is only using the story to justify his philosophy abut life. At least, some of the vignettes are interesting. Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 43/60 4) Something written in the 1800s 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 9) Something written by a musician 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
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 16:25
|
|
|
The Berzerker posted:I thought I'd be done by October, but it's looking like I'll be done in September. I just need to stop putting off the Faulkner... but I started it and didn't really like it. Does anyone have a lost/beat generation book you'd recommend that isn't Faulkner? I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey for this part of the challenge, and it was really good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 17:19
|
|
|
Oh yeah, good idea! I have that book and have never read it. I'll do that one. Thanks for the idea!
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:49
|
|
|
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 31. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison 32. Career of Evil by Robert Galbreith 33. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly 34. The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross August update I only read three books this month but hit my vanilla number goal at least and not too far away from completing the booklord challenge. 35. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling: This has always been one of my favourites of the series, good blend of humour, plot and likeable characters, and before Harry et al start getting into whiny teenage mode. 36. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: I wasn't sure what to expect with this book and it was a blend of mystery and historical fiction, exploring religion/superstition versus science and medicine in Victorian London. Very enjoyable read, I found myself getting drawn quickly to the characters and the setting. In fact the mystery part of the book was the least important to me, I was much more interested in the relationships. 37. The Apocolypse Files by Charles Stross The fourth in the Laundry Files series. It was OK (similar plot and set up to the previous books; a combination of computer science and demonology). I always get the feeling while reading this series that I should understand more references than I do, lots of weird case files referenced in capital letters which often mean nothing to me. Nothing majorly different or exciting from the previous books. I'm off on holiday for a week this month so should get a lot of reading done, can someone wildcard me please? Booklord Challenge Progress 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
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 10:37
|
|
|
Robot Mil posted:
I've already wildcarded someone iirc so feel free to ignore this, but try The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 17:14
|
|
|
screenwritersblues posted:Currently Reading: Bleeding Edge August: 22) City On Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg - Meh and I mean a big Meh. For a book that had a Million dollar advanced. it was actually very boring and confusing at times. Maybe if he tried to focus on one character instead of 10, then I would have been a lot more interested in it. I got it through Powell's Indiespensable 23) Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon - This is the second book by him that I've read and I actually liked it. It was a little weird, but it was the good kind of weird. 24) The Last Days of California by Mary Miller: From what I understand, Miller wrote this book as a grad student and while it has the feel to it, it it's not a bad story itself. It's about family heading to California for what they thing is the end of the world and what their two daughters are going through. 25) Room by Emma Donoghue: When I saw that the movie that was based on the book was on Amazon Prime Video, I knew that I had to watch it, but I had to read the book first. I read it in a day, so I'm labeling it as airplane fiction, a book you read in one day. 26) All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: Another Indiespencable book. It was kind of lackluster and hard to follow because of the fact that it was told in third person with no quotes. 27) Loitering by Charles D'Ambrose: A lackluster collection of essays. It was bland and boring and really did nothing for me. 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: Loitering 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: City on Fire 11) Read something about or set in NYC: Ten Thousand Saints 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect): Room 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 Vanilla: 27/30 Challenge: 13/22 Indiespensable: 3/15 Currently reading: Brooklyn Noir
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 21:06
|
|
|
Okay, my Baby-Sitters Club reread continues. 126-151. The Baby-Sitters Club #66-80, Super Specials #11-12, Mysteries #10-17 by Ann M. Martin (and assorted ghostwriters) 152. The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World's Most Coveted Fish by Emily Voigt 153. The Martian by Andy Weir 154. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne and J.K. Rowling Up for September is more BSC (I'll probably finish in October), The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn (September's Office Book Club pick), and Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, as well as whatever else I happen to read along the way. My October-December reading is going to be targeted largely on filling in the gaps in the reading challenges I've been doing that I've been neglecting. Also, I need to read a book written by a musician for Book Lord. Any recommendations? Book Lord Challenge Progress 1) Vanilla Number - 154/200 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 6) About or narrated by an animal - The Dragon Behind the Glass 7) A collection of essays- Letters from Samaria 8) Sci-Fi - The Martian 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 - 14/24 PopSugar Challenge - 19/40
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2016 03:09
|
|
|
Ben Nevis posted:1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. I completely forgot to update this last week, and the long weekend let me add 2 books. Some very strong books this month, including General Theory of Oblivion which is probably my favorite so far this year. 53. In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster - Set in the near (probably) future, this is a letter from a woman who has ventured into a failed city to find her brother. Nothing in the city works except for waste and corpse collection. The people who don't work for them work primarily as scavengers, finding and selling goods. Food and amenities are scarce and the city grinds down the will of everyone there until it's all you can do to put one foot in front of the other. This was an odd novel overall. In many respect pretty grim, but in the end I wound up liking it. 54. Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo - A generation ship exploring the stars comes across an alien vessel. The decision of what to do with it becomes another battleground between the Captain and the Church. The exploration of the ship is good and genuinely tense. The book maintains that tension throughout and it makes for a compelling read if you're going for space exploration. 55. A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa - Turns out this was also a Man Booker nominee, losing out to The Vegetarian. Like The Vegetarian this is both shorter than Malazan and contains far fewer unfortunate apostrophes, though a few tildes and cedillas and whatnot sneak in. Set in Luanda during the Angolan revolution, the story starts with Ludo an agoraphobic woman who barricades herself into her apartment for 30 years (true story, this happened). The story of the revolution and Angola's individuation as a nation is told through snippets observed outside her window. Agualusa takes little bits and references from each story she observes and spins them off and ties them together into a story encompassing the revolutionaries, the government, the occupying Portuguese, the traditional ranchers and eventually Ludo herself. This was wonderfully written and just a delight to see how it's all put together, especially when you start seeing pieces from before crop up again into a coherent whole. I would strongly recommend this, and as suggested before, this is probably the best book I've read all year. 56. A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar- Jevick was raised by his father to one day take over his trading empire. On his first trip to the neighboring country of Olondria, he sees a vision which puts him squarely in the middle of a local religious conflict. This is a beautifully written story that really conjures up the country of Olondria. The downside here is that it sometimes winds up overwritten and the prose overshadows the story. That being said, this was a fresh and interesting story, a somewhat different take on fantasy. 57. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter - After a man's wife dies, the trickster Crow moves in to help him and his sons deal with their grief. This short book takes a jumble of poetry, diary entries, and fairy tales and turns it into an essay on loss and mourning. I had no idea what I was getting into here. Taking turns switching between the Dad, the Crow and the boys, it's understandably a bit of a mess, though so are their lives after a loss. There are some comical moments and there are plenty of sad ones as well. Some bits are just heartbreaking. Even though this was not at all what I typically go for, I really enjoyed this. You can probably finish it in about an hour if you really wanted. 58. Mongrels by Stephen Jones - Our narrator is being raised by his aunt and uncle. They're poor, living in temporary housing and their circumstances often force them into shady work that has them leaving town with the law on their heels. It's a hard way to grow up. His aunt is always trying to keep him from become more like his rough uncle, she's hoping he can have a better life than they do. Also, they're werewolves. I enjoyed this one. It really kept me turning pages wondering what was going to happen next. This is a good addition to the werewolf canon. 59. Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone - The 5th book in Gladstone's Craft Sequence, this returns to Alt Coulomb, where Kos's devotion to Seril could be read as an off the books liability, proving dangerous to both. Join back up with Tara, Abelard, and the gang as they try an preserve the way of life in one of the last cities with a god. If you've liked the series to this point, you'll like this one. I'd strongly recommend the series as something completely unique within Fantasy. 60. A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar - In a world where Ernst Thalmann won the presidency in 1932, a refugee fascist works as a private detective under an assumed name. Herr Wolf is hired to track down the missing Judith Rubinstein. His old fascist friends may be involved. So may the Mosley, the rapidly rising British fascist. This is the story and world dreamt up by Shomer, a writer of pulp detective stories, as he suffers in Auschwitz. On the whole, this could have been better, but does have some Chandler-ness to it. Read this book if you want Hardboiled Hitler detective novel. Or if you've always wanted to see Hitler fingerbanged in a sex dungeon. 61. Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano - My second Modiano this year, and I'm no more impressed with this than the last. In this one, a man revisits a little resort town and relives a love from over a decade before. There were some great scenes, but when it was done I didn't really have a good sense of what I was supposed to get from any of this. Maybe just reliving that "I was a stupid young man and miss, shoulda gone after the girl" or whatever. It doesn't strongly enough tie to that foolishness of youth though for me to really get there. 62. Home is the Sailor by Jorge Amado - This is the first of the technically September books. Amado writes here the story of a sleep little town of gossips suddenly enamored of the mysterious newcomer, Captain Vasco Moscoso de Aragao. As his popularity increases, rumors circulate that his title was bought, not earned, and his stories are all invention. Surely this will be resolved when a vessel in dire need of a captain calls him out of retirement to captain their ship. Amado takes the opportunity here to look at the nature of truth and it's done well and humorously. I'd recommend this, and will probably be reading more from Amado. 63. The Gentleman by Forrest Leo - A mediocre Victorian poet inadvertently sells his wife to the Devil for inspiration. Soon he's mounting an expedition to Hell to recover her with his kid sister, his butler, his adventuresome brother-in-law and a young inventor. This is a light hearted romp. It was fast paced and funny. Not a deep book by any means, but very much the sort of thing I'd recommend for someone looking for a frivolous last bit of summer fun before we're into full blown fall. I enjoyed this a lot. 1) Vanilla Number 43/45 2) Something written by a woman - 5, 7, 18, 17, 16, 21, 23, 26, 31, 32, 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 52, 56 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - 5, 16, 19, 22, 24, 31, 33, 39, 45, 48, 56, 62 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, 54 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, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63 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
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 17:22
|
|
|
Ben Nevis posted:55. A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa - Turns out this was also a Man Booker nominee, losing out to The Vegetarian. Like The Vegetarian this is both shorter than Malazan and contains far fewer unfortunate apostrophes, though a few tildes and cedillas and whatnot sneak in. Set in Luanda during the Angolan revolution, the story starts with Ludo an agoraphobic woman who barricades herself into her apartment for 30 years (true story, this happened). The story of the revolution and Angola's individuation as a nation is told through snippets observed outside her window. Agualusa takes little bits and references from each story she observes and spins them off and ties them together into a story encompassing the revolutionaries, the government, the occupying Portuguese, the traditional ranchers and eventually Ludo herself. This was wonderfully written and just a delight to see how it's all put together, especially when you start seeing pieces from before crop up again into a coherent whole. I would strongly recommend this, and as suggested before, this is probably the best book I've read all year. This made me laugh and also add it to my to-read list.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 17:44
|
|
|
david crosby posted:I've already wildcarded someone iirc so feel free to ignore this, but try The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz. This looks really interesting thanks!
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2016 16:28
|
|
|
39. Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov. it sucks 40. 1984 by George Orwell. pretty good 41. Collected Poems by Thomas Transtromer. really good 42. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. really good
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2016 21:21
|
|
|
Haven't updated my list in a while, let's see what I can remember. At this stage the 52 book goal is unlikely to be reached. May 18. The Emperor of all Maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee) Non-fiction covering history of cancer and more specifically cancer treatments. This was pretty interesting, nice examples of why treatments not proven to be effective should be trialed properly regardless of how much sense it makes to people. 19. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (C.S. Forester) The adventures of a young naval officer during the Napoleonic era. Pretty average, just made me want to read Patrick O'Brien. 20. Post Captain (Patrick O'Brien) Book 2 of the Aubrey/Maturin series. Like night and day compared to the previous book in terms of writing style, plot and characters having a personalities beyond good and bad. June 21. The Smartest Guys in the Room (Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind) The rise and fall on Enron, I only vaguely remember the Enron scandal happening at the time and had no idea of the details. The book itself was pretty good, though I suppose if you don't understand mark-to-model accounting on a basic level the insanity of what was going on might be missed and I don't remember how well this was explained. The infighting and crazy decisions of the instigators would still be entertaining. 22. Secrets of the Sewing Bee (Kate Thompson) Nice feelgood dross. Women pulling together to contribute to the war effort in WWII. 23. Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell) George Orwell bums around and tries to survive at the bottom of society in 1920s Paris and London, living in lovely conditions and working in even worse jobs. Only negative is that there were no footnotes translating the French in the Paris section. 24. The Queen's Man (Sharon Penman) Historical fiction set in the medieval era. The characters felt very modern and the setting didn't feel like anything but a backdrop. The story itself was an interesting enough murder-mystery but I'm unlikely to continue with the series. July 25. Liar's Poker (Michael Lewis) An account of a graduates move into working in finance in the 1980s. I found it interesting at the time, but really can't remember much. 26. The Darkness That Comes Before (R. Scott Bakker) This was a reread, last read 4 or so years ago. My favourite thing about this book is the atmosphere. 27. Echo Boy (Matt Haig) Young adult dystopian fiction. In a future ravaged by climate change, robots are unfeeling slaves for the rich. Except when they aren't. After the brutal murder of her luddite parents by a robot, a teenage girl is whisked away to the home of her wealthy industrialist uncle, a major manufacturer of robots, where she meets a teenage boy appearing robot, who is more than he initially seems. 28. Child 44 (Tom Rob Smith) In Stalinist Russia, a KGB officer discovers that a serial killer is on the loose murdering children, but murder does not happen in the Soviet Union. He must defy his superiors to investigate and uncover the murderer. This was entertaining if a bit predictable. August 29. Maurice (E.M. Forster) A young man struggles to come to terms with his sexuality in the hostile environment of 1910s England. A really nice book, I should read more books by Forster. 30. His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet) Fiction written as though it is an investigation of a historical murder and trial in a remote Scottish village by the author. About half the book is essentially the killers own story written while in prison; naturally this puts the best possible face on his crimes. The next part of the book is a matter-of-fact report of the autopsies carried out on the victims, followed by an account of the trial pieced together from contemporary newspaper reports. The reader must decide who to believe about the murders and their motivations. 31. American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) Tedious descriptions of what people wear interspersed by unbelievably sadistic violence. September 32. Debunking Economics (Steve Keen) Why neoliberal economics is a load of bollocks. Some sections are necessarily a bit dull but once you can get past that this was eye-opening as someone who knows nothing about economics. 33. The Girl With No Name (Diney Costello) More WWII era historical fiction. This one was not good at all and just annoyed me. Booklord Challenge 1) Vanilla Number: 32/52 2) Something written by a woman: Humber Boy B (Ruth Dugdale) 4) Something written in the 1800s: Persuasion (Jane Austen) 8) A work of Science Fiction: Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) 9) Something written by a musician: Wonders of Life (Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen) 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages: The Lions of Al-Rassen (Guy Gavriel Kay) 11) Read something about or set in NYC: American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) 13) Read Something YA: Only Ever Yours (Louise O'Neill) 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge): His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet) 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now: At Swim Two Birds (Flann O'Brien) 17) The First book in a series: The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe) 21) A Short Story collection: Ward Six and Other Stories (Anton Chekhov) 22) It’s a Mystery. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) MonotoneKimi fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Sep 18, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2016 12:46
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:1: Chimera by Mira Grant The Leah Cutter trilogy was pretty OK urban fantasy. Nothing special, reasonably well written, reasonable plot, reasonably interesting worldbuilding and characters. The Outpost was a weird little short story collection masquerading as a longer novel, very much in the scifi b-movie style. It was fun, but nothing special. The Emperor's Agent I really enjoyed, a nice alt-history version of Napoleonic France with an interesting magic system. It probably helps that I don't know Napoleonic history for poo poo though. Trafalgar and Boone I had a good time with, a fun little Indiana Jones-style action-archaeology thing set in an alt-history 1920s (I think). Enjoyable. Terms of Enlistment was solid mils/f but a little shortsighted about the politics. Good enough that I want to pick up the rest of the series (particularly as wiki reckons it gets less short sighted about the political side of things later) but apparently it's not in the Kobo store. Meh. The Heart Readers continues my enjoyment of Kristine Katherine Rusch's work. She;s reliably entertaining in every genre I've read of her work. Good book, if a touch short. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Sep 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 17:29
|
|
|
quote:1. Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko August/September Update Not a lot of progress as teaching and pregnant wife are keeping me busy, but finished a few challenges. Learning to Swear in America was meh… Yeah, it’s YA, but it wasn’t particularly good YA. Enduring Armageddon was pretty good. Written by an ex-military guy and I went in expecting gunporn, surprisingly got a story about a husband and wife doing what then need to survive. Sometimes they end up being the bad guys, sometimes they end up being the good guys. A Collection of Essays included essays on Europe during the interwar period, colonial British experiences and critiques of other authors. My favorite essays were those dealing with interwar Europe, it’s not a time period I have read a lot about so it was interesting to hear views of the time about what was going on. I was struggling to find an animal book for the booklord challenge and I saw several others had read Watership Down, so I decided to pick it up. I had no idea going in what it was about, but was surprised that an adventure story about rabbits would be so good. While there were a few slow parts, it moved a long at a good pace and ended well. As I’m coming to the end of my challenge for the year, Im struggling to find books I would actually recommend to others, but Watership Down is one I would. Currently enjoying Children of Time a lot, and have my wildcard sitting on the table to pick up afterwards. quote:1) Vanilla Number 48/52
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 17:43
|
|
|
Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg September: 79) League of Dragons (Temeraire #9) - Naomi Novik: I appreciate that she tried to wrap everything up in this book but the series was beyond saving. 80) Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy #3) - Mira Grant: This series started with a really interesting premise and then went downhill fast. This final installment went from plain bad to bad and uncomfortably weird. 81) The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan : This I really enjoyed. She really nails the tone of a Victorian adventuress. 82) House of Cards - Michael Dobbs: Not a bad little political thriller. 83) Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park - Lee H. Whittlesey: This was a very well researched account of most of the accidental deaths that have occurred in Yellowstone since its inception. Chapters are organized into type of death (via hot spring, via bear, via drowning, etc). It was a bit morbid but I really liked it. 84) Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill: A little novella about a marriage. It could have teetered into overwhelming pretentiousness but she kept it just to this side of it. I liked it a lot. 85) Binti - Nnedi Okorafor: A little sci-fi novella about Binti, a Himba woman, the first of her tribe to attend the best university in the galaxy. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the authors future works. 86) Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset: This was good but overly lengthy. Overall: Total: 86/100 A-Z Challenge: 26/26 Booklord Challenge: 22/22 Presidential Biographies: 6/6 Done with all my subchallenges!
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 18:02
|
|
|
September - 8: 54. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (Kathryn Schulz) 55. Sword Song (Bernard Cornwell) 56. Inez (Carlos Fuentes) 57. Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty Eight Nights (Salman Rushdie) 58. The Burning Land (Bernard Cornwell) 59. Death of Kings (Bernard Cornwell) 60. Life After Life (Kate Atkinson) 61. Blindness (Jose Saramago) Strong month in September. The three Bernard Cornwells are #4, #5 and #6 in his Saxon Stories/Warlord Chronicles/whatever series about the formation of Saxon England initiated by Alfred of Wessex. They're super formulaic and very light reading, but good fun. 3 at once is probably one too many because they're very similar, but Cornwell is a very competent writer of his sort of straightforward historical hack'n'slash fiction. Being Wrong was a very interesting book about, as the title suggests, being wrong. It explores the relationship people have with being wrong - our desire not to be, the reasons we're afraid to admit we're wrong, why being wrong is in fact so useful, etc. It seemed like it would be a bit self-helpy and weird but there's some really interesting stories in there and explorations of various errors throughout history and what can be learnt from them. Inez was a weird little book. I'm not at all familiar with Carlos Fuentes and I don't think this was necessarily the best place to start. The language was beautiful though and I'd like to try more. Two Years was Rushdie's new one. I'm not sure what to think about it. It's the story of the return of djinnis to the earth after a long period where they've disappeared, and the war between religion and rationalism. It had this interesting fairy-tale feel to it and Rushdie clearly loves his material, but I'm not sure how much it succeeded as a novel. I did enjoy the joke early on about "the cursed name if Rushdi", though. Life After Life is the 2013 Costa Book winner. I managed to read the sequel first then came back to this. This did me no harm, since the whole point of LaL is to play with the whole concept of fiction - the main character, Ursula, relives her life repeatedly, so in the first chapter she dies at birth, then in the next she's saved and lives her life but drowns in the sea at age 4, etc. At first this is an unconscious thing, but gradually Ursula gains at least some understanding of how her life and rebirth works and acts accordingly. Personally I found the gimmick a bit wearing at times, and preferred A God in Ruins (the sequel), but Life After Life is still great and this pair of novels is excellent and deserves to be read. Finally this month I read Blindness. Another one I really liked. I only finished it this morning so I'm still unpacking what I think about it. I loved the dog of tears. Year to Date - 61: 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 54. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (Kathryn Schulz) 55. Sword Song (Bernard Cornwell) 56. Inez (Carlos Fuentes) 57. Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty Eight Nights (Salman Rushdie) 58. The Burning Land (Bernard Cornwell) 59. Death of Kings (Bernard Cornwell) 60. Life After Life (Kate Atkinson) 61. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 18:04
|
|
|
quote:1 - Daft Wee Stories, by Limmy (Brian Limond) I read eight(kinda) books in September. 46 - Queer And Trans Artists Of Color: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives, by Nia King, co-edited by Jessica Glennon-Zukoff and Terra Mikalson. A collection of interviews between Nia King and a range of different folks who fall under the QTPOC umbrella. There are discussions of art, of politics, childhoods both good and bad, abuse and recovery, creation and criticism. Each encounter feels like a snippet of a longer conversation - I'm not sure if that's accurate to how the interviews were transcribed or edited, but for a few interviewees I wasn't sure what exactly they did until it came up halfway through their segment. (Not that that's a bad thing necessarily.) As a project, and as a glimpse into the lives of people with such widely different life experiences, this book is really important, and I was engrossed. And I have a lot of names, books and artworks to look out for in future! 47 - License To Play: The Ludic In Japanese Culture, by Michal Daliot-Bul. A pretty dense sociological history of Japan with a focus on the role of 'play' (asobi) in its culture. Daliot-Bul tracks ideas of playfulness and subversion from the early women writers of the 11th and 12th centuries all the way up to the post-recession youth cultures that typify ideas of 'Cool Japan'. While some of her conclusions ring false to me, and she seems very reluctant to discuss Japan's online culture in a book published only a couple of years ago, this was an interesting exploration of ancient and modern Japanese cultural mores, with some food for thought. 48 - In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology, and the Culture of Riffing, by Robert G. Weiner, Shelley E. Barba (eds) and 49 - Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000: Critical Approaches, edited by Shelley S. Rees Forgot to log these when I read them earlier this year. I don't usually count texts I read as part of my research, but these two were really interesting and worth highlighting. Peanut Gallery feels more like an official work, with contributions by Kevin Murphy and Mary Jo Perl, as well as a wider range of topics covered. Reading MST3K is more focused, but lighter. There are some really excellent articles dotted through these collections, not just on MST3K itself but on humour, on "bad movie" culture, and even on the psycho-sociology of the Bots themselves. If you're academically-inclined and a MST3K fan, either of these are worth picking up and exploring! 50 - The Giant, O'Brien, by Hilary Mantel. A short novel that took me a long time to read. Set in he 1780s, it follows the titular Giant and a group of his companions as they travel from Ireland to London to seek their fortune, charging the public to come and gawp and ask questions of the enormous man. Meanwhile Hunter, a miserable "anatomy" from Scotland travels south in search of new and interesting bodies to dissect. Eventually, Hunter and the Giant find each other. The Giant's true talent is telling stories, and a few times the book is given over to these tellings - there is a running theme of escapism and faith. Loosely based on real events and people, the book is unremittingly bleak and miserable, wallowing in the violence and poverty of Georgian-era Britain. While well-crafted and evocative, it was a difficult read, and while I appreciate the skill and imagination Mantel poured into it, I don't think I'd read this again. 51 - We Stand On Guard, by Brian K. Vaughan, Steve Skroce, Matt Hollingsworth, Fonografiks. Graphic novel set 100 years in the future, telling of a US invasion of Canada in order to sieze Northern water reserves. Unabashedly, patriotically Canadian, the story is classic action-movie fare, with a ragtag team of insurgents up against the technological might of the US oppressors. With narratives of immigration, steailng natural resources and visceral torture scenes, the allegories to modern US warmongering are pretty blunt. The artwork is gorgeous and colourful, with a great future-tech aesthetic (and really cool-looking explosions). It reminds me most of Independence Day, but in a good way. 52 - Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security, by Robert Guffey. So this is nonfiction, and the blurb makes it sound like a cool "weird poo poo the US Government did/is doing" exposé. Like, a 'Men Who Stare At Goats' MK Ultra kinda thing with invisibility and a vulnerable guy out of his depth. Turns out it's about said vulnerable guy's deep paranoia and a whole lotta writing about "gang stalking". The book is a disappointing, rambling mess, delivered with the smug, ironic prose style of an Internet radio shock jock from the mid-00s. Guffey is either immensely credulous or exploiting his friend's severe mental issues: either way, he's kind of an arsehole. At least there are some funny bits. 53 - All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders. A trainee witch and a tech whizkid find each other in high school, where they are each other's only respite from the misery of bullying and parental neglect. Then, they lose each other, while the world succumbs further to catastrophic climate change, political turmoil and disease. Warring ideologies on the macro- and personal scales, some satisfying arcs, and an ending that got me more choked up than I could have predicted. If you like non-DnD-style magic, neat future tech, and stories about trying to save the world, it's worth checking this out. Fuller reviews up on my GoodReads, as always. 1) 52+ books - 53 2) At least 40% (23) by a woman - 25 - 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, The Cuckoo's Calling, Queer and Trans Artists of Color, License To Play, The Giant O'Brien, All The Birds In The Sky 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 -
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 18:27
|
|
|
September Books 58.Children of Timeby Adrian Tchaikovsky I thought this was pretty good sci-fi, not as good as a similar novel, Aurora, but still decent. After a month of reading other books though, this one hasn't really stuck much in my memory. Still a good read and better than a lot of sci-fi. 59.Aquarium by David Vann This was pretty amazing. I didn't really know what I was in for with this one, but it was beautifully written and at the same time was really hard to read. I don't want to give anything away, but this had such a huge impact on me while reading it, at times, I didn't want to go on. In the end, one of the best books I have ever read. I wanted to post a bit more, but I don't want to spoil anything in case someone was thinking about reading it. 60.The Seed Collectorsby Scarlett Thomas I am not sure how I felt about this book. Interesting in parts, boring in parts, good prose, not my favorite story. It's about a family and their close relatives and friends who have a bunch of secret relationships, secrets, and love of plants I guess. 61.Signs preceding the end of the world by Lisa Dillman This reminded me of Cormac McCarthy wrote Winter's Bone, but really short, too short I thought. It's like McCarthy in style in that it does the character quotes anywhere and doesn't delineate them. And not just that, the writing style in general really remided me of him. The story is set in Mexico, and across the US border and about a girl who sets off to look for her lost brother who went to America a coupe of years prior. Can be read fast and I thought it was great. 62.Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse Book of the month, so I reads it. I think it was a simple and good read, I really enjoyed the story itself. The message itself is also rather simple I think. I talked about this to other people that have read it and have liked it, or hated it, but my main issue with the book was him leaving his family and never returning to see his father, and him ditching his friend when it seemed like his friend followed him on his path at his request. I am not sure why this bothered me so much, Maybe because the path to enlightenment was paved with ditching everyone he knew and loved. 63.Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack This was a weird book. This is a dystopian novel about a young girl and her family forced to move from a life of relative safety in to a neighborhood at the front of violence and despair. It's told through the perspective of this young girl who slowly transforms from being sheltered and largely ignorant to the world around her, to being street smart and a survivor. 64.Death's End by Cixin Liu Third book in the Three Body Problem series translated from Chinese. I loved the first two books despite having many criticisms, but this one barely held my attention. It starts good, and kind of runs parallel to the second book and fills in a lot more of the world, but this book ends up being completely unable to focus and ends up all over the place. The time line of this book I also think is too broad. I think the author wanted to flesh out a number of theories and pet concepts of his to the point it's just too much. Vanilla Number 64/50 A collection of essays. A biography or autobiography Hopefully I can complete the challenge. I am reading a biography now, but have no idea what collection of essays I will read. Also going for 80 books now. Seems doable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 03:13
|
|
|
Total: 32/52 Female authors: 12/24 Non-Fiction: 3/12 Arabian Nights: 3/10 Only read two books in September, but it was a busy month. Summer of Love started well but falls apart at the end. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was a fun, easy read, but nothing special. See my Goodreads for full reviews.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 05:40
|
|
|
August and September 42. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (Literature) 43. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett 44. Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez (Literature) 45. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson (Literature) 46. The Children and the Wolves by Adam Rapp 47. Landline by Rainbow Rowell 48. In My Father's Country by Saima Wahab (Nonfiction) 49. Girl at War by by Sara Nović (Literature) 50. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Literature) 51. The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto (Literature) 52. The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff (Literature) 52/52, 31/52 Literature, 5 Nonfiction books. The Joy Luck Club was fun for interconnected vignettes. Wyrd Sisters was basically a comfort food. Of Love and Other Demons had nice prose as you'd expect, but honestly I didn't get into like One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Lottery and Other Stories was interesting. It's not my cup of tea, but it's not like it's bad or anything. The Children and the Wolves was basically  the novel.Landline was fun. I like Rainbow Rowell, but this was the first time I read something of hers directed at adults. In My Father's Country is something my Dad has been trying to get me to read for literally years. It's a biography of this Afghani immigrant that becomes an interpreter for the army. The story is interesting, the writing is really dry. Girl at War is great. It's PTSD the novel. Read it unless it would be bad for you. All the Light We Cannot See was a World War 2 book. I loved it, but I only liked one of the protagonists. The Lake was weird. I like Banana Yoshimoto but I could not get into this book. I couldn't identify anything wrong with it either. If you want to read Banana Yoshimoto, I'd recommend NP or Goodbye Tsugumi. The Danish Girl was great. I read it because one of my professors pointed out that this guy keeps editing things I was reading. But it's about an early trans woman in Denmark. It doesn't work the same as a modern trans work would work today (deliberately) but I would recommend that if you can keep that in mind. Well, my challenge is complete now, but I'm still going to keep reading of course, and I'm going to try to keep expanding my horizons with what I read. Once I finish my library books, I might dig into Don Quixote or Les Misérables. Any recommendations there one way or the other?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 15:31
|
|
|
Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Ministery of Fear by Graham Greene. Another thriller where the most interesting thing is the setting, this time London under the blitz. I considered including him as part of the lost generation (born 5 years after Hemmingway) but gently caress it. Ok, 3 months w/out an update, let's see how depressingly few books I've read in the meanwhile 47 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. Mel rec'd this, and seems to really like it, and I cannot understand what he sees in it. A painfully dutiful older sister of a no-goodnik is summoned back to flyover country after he's had a car crash, developing one of those interesting head injuries you hear about in Oliver Sacks books (namely, he thinks she's an impostor). Just as you're thinking that along comes an Oliver Sacks stand-in (I think one of his books is called "The Man Who Confused his Spouse for a Chapeau") to bitch about book reviewer and to show off Power's research. Now I don't know if the real Sacks family talk about Pair Bonding whenever they hug, but I pity them if they did. The author flies in and out, the brother recreates an uneasy detente with his now alien loved ones, and the sister picks up both old ex-boyfriends at once, while being bedevilled by a super sexy but mysterious nurse, one part of a ludicrous mystery of a scrawled note which I think was meant to upgrade this tome to a page turner. I didn't find the prose very good (the only thing that I remember now was Powers swerving to avoid saying the word Toblerone) and I didn't piece together what makes this a fable of our fragmented world. Sorry Mel. 14 48 A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava. I read this in parallel because apparently it's Gaddisean, which I reject. I might venture to label it as Wallacean but no further. Basically this book would be great if you find extreme verbosity, in and of itself, very funny. It's not a dog eat dog world, it's a kennel of canines of cannibalistic carnivorousness. Everybody talks like that, or maybe there's just one guy who never shuts up, I'm not sure. The book shines when de la Pava is discussing issues of law. As you'd expect from a professional public defender he's got a mastery of the subject and can spin a debate about whether a van can be labelled a building or not for pages and pages, and it's all fascinating in spite of the extremely grating tone. But the majority of the novel is much less gripping, sort of madcap antics you find in a bad Pyncheon book. 49 North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Took the opportunity of the last two books making this one seem short. Much better than Cranford in that you think that she had something to say. 50 Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow. I was sort of dreading this because it's a 50s american author's africa novel but it's pretty good! Self-loathing pig farmer and pig-man learns to be miserable with better grace. Or something like that. 51 Passions by Isaac Bashevis Singer as translated by various. I should read these again. 52 I, Claudius by Robert Graves. It's weird how the men in this are innocent fools and the source of all intrigue is feminine. I'd call it an unreliable narrator but I don't think Claudius' character is interesting enough for that. Still a fun book of intrigue. 53 Carpenter's Gothic by WIlliam Gaddis. I must admit I read this again just to tick off the airport fiction challenge, but it struck me much more favourably than the last time I read it. I mean, it's still got authors yelling about fundies but there's a lot of beautiful stuff here.12 54 Howard's End by E.M. Forster. Ya I can see why this is the most favoured Forster. Better than Where Angels Fear at least. 55 The Steal Flee by N. S. Leskov as translated by someone or other. Did the Penguin. Sure this is 40 pages in large font on small pages, but this came in a bound volume that cost someone 60p and was shoved in front of my nose to see if I got it or not. I didn't, really, I mean it was very funny but I couldn't tell you who Leskov was. I guess if someone pushed a larger volume of short stories in front of me I'd read those happily. 56 The Prime Minister volume 1 by Anthony Trollope. A book of two very vaguely connected stories: Lord Palliser, duke of Omnium, he of the tonne of Palliser books that came before, finally gets to assemble a cabinet and form a government and stuff it with every other walk-in and bit-part from those books, with Phineas Finn as the Irish secretary. Occasionally they chat about the corn laws or whatever. Meanwhile, a sinister speculator develops a galloping case of semitism as he tries to marry into a very old, rich family. He goes from having "perhaps a trace of hassidic heritage" to being the greasiest, most scheming jew-boy to ever sell a harp on the street (like they all do) as the news of his suite echoes down the members of this awful family of landowners. Claims that Trollope is poking fun at other's anti-semitism are only slightly hurt by him actually being a bit of a rotter. 57 The Prime Minister volume 2 by Trollope again. Now having married this fairhaired young rose of England, this swarthy swine proceeds to lose a fair bit of money speculating on guano and African liquer, embarrass the Prime Minister, before stepping in front of a train (really good bit to read in isolation, check the gutenberg for "Tenways"). Then the book goes on for another two-hundred pages. I must confess these two came bound in one volume but they restarted the page numbers and I'm juking the numbers. 58 Towards The Radical Centre: A Karel Čapek Reader as edited by Peter Truss, with translations by various. After being so sold on Newts I must say this was a bit of a disappointment. Two things this reader brought to the fore is how terribly domestic Čapek was and that he couldn't write women and shouldn't try. Now domesticity is all well and good but when there are numerous essays about what his cat might be thinking, or a gardener's relationship with the soil, I really must object. As for the women, though Russom's Universal Robots has some of that fun stuff that made Newts so good, its first act has a woman who comes to the factory hoping to proselytise to the robots about the common good, before meeting the factory board who explain she is a very silly woman after all. Having conceded the fact that she's ever so silly, the CEO or whatever of RUR explains that she simply has to marry him, or another of his board of directors, because they are all simply head over heels in love. The curtain falls as they all advance on her and, after the interval, we find her celebrating her ten year wedding anniversary. It's also... not that well structured a play? Neither's the Markropolous Affair (good liberetto though) but The Mother was an acceptable Ibsen-like, surprisingly. 59 The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. I still like this. 59/60 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 18:56
|
|
|
Rusty posted:
I put this on my to-read list after reading Goat Mountain and seeing a few goons talk about it in recent months. Definitely going to push this up my list to read once I get through the library books I have on loan.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 20:07
|
|
|
Bandiet posted:1. The Stranger by Albert Camus 28. The Marvels, by Brian Selznick. I read The Invention Of Hugo Cabret when I was younger and loved it. Selznick's illustrations are still lovely, but I didn't realize how terrible of a writer he was. Oh well. 29. The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot. Norton Critical Edition. I finally read this with contexts (obviously I knew less than half its references) and it's doubly awesome. 30. Elfin Rhymes, by 'Norman.' Funny children's poems with very impressive illustrations considering the age of the book (century+). The tales are about devious elves, and, wonderfully, less than half of them seem to contain morals. The mysterious poet just records the poor behavior of the elves, and then laments the fact that they received no retribution. 31. Death To The Pigs and Other Writings, by Benjamin Péret. His writing lacks a lot of the surrealist beauty found in his acquaintances' works (André Breton, Tristan Tzara), but he makes up for it in copious humor. He knows how to make surrealism really, really funny. 32. The Worst Boy In School, by Michael J. McCaffery. Some sort of long narrative poem for schoolboys. It starts off dark and amusing, but ends up crap, because "McCaffery" tried to be whimsical and failed. Vanilla Number: 32/75 Read Something YA: The Marvels
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2016 23:46
|
|
|
September. 44. Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Robert A. Heinlein. If I'm ever asked to recommend a space travel adventure, it would be this book. 45. The Dragon Reborn. Robert Jordan. Now this was fun, even with all the braid tugging and not seeing the protagonist for a while. Not many things happened but it doesn't matter because we learned a lot about the WoT universe. 46. Never Eat Alone. Keith Ferrazzi. Starts with some good common sense advice and then turns into an elitist bragging tale of the accomplishments of Keith Ferrazzi. 47. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. H.P. Lovecraft. I wish Lovecraft would have expanded this in other stories, but it was OK. 48. River of Gods. Ian McDonald. Complex but appealing, kind of weird coming when it reflects a culture so far away and so similar to mine. Still amazing. 49. The Strain. Guillermo del Toro. Starts OK and then devolves into a rambling mess, just to pick up right by the... some kind of end? Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 49/60 4) Something written in the 1800s 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 9) Something written by a musician 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2016 03:10
|
|
|
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 69. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling & co Well, of course I’d give it a shot, right? There were a few moments that sparked that old fire, but otherwise this seemed a little awkward and not really Harry Potter-esque. I hear it’s amazing to see performed, however. 70. Morning Star (Red Rising #3) - Pierce Brown As a conclusion to the Red Rising trilogy, it worked. I definitely enjoyed the whole series, despite its not-quite-YA tone and similarity to many other YA series. There were a few annoying quirks, but I can’t complain - it kept me reading up past my bedtime several nights, I had favorite characters I was rooting for, and I’m sure once the series gets made into movies (only a matter of time I’m sure) I’ll go see them. 71. Sharp Ends - Joe Abercrombie I’ve been rereading Joe’s books and finally got to this one, released this April, which has several stories set in his fantasy world. Some stories give background on already-established characters or describe what happens on the sidelines of other stories, while another (amusing) series of stories follow a thief and a warrior who find themselves in various scrapes. I get the idea that these stories might set things up for Joe’s upcoming trilogy, but we’ve got a while to wait until that shows up. 72. Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles #1) - Colin Meloy I’m a pretty big fan of the Decemberists, and I’ve been looking for more YA books to read aloud to my son. (Granted he’s not a year old yet, but the more you read to kids, the better, so I hear.) This was a fun story, if derivative of several other Narnia-esque series. Talking animals, strange kingdoms just outside the reach of modern life… you know the drill. 73. The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison I picked this up from the library as I’d heard a decent number of recommendations for this on Goodreads and in the fantasy thread. It was… it was pretty good! I enjoyed it. However, you’ve got to have a LOT of patience for world-building. Like, you’ll have to deal with names that have 8 syllables and a lot of apostrophes, and how a fictional court deals with matters of bureaucracy, to a somewhat ridiculous extent. That said, it does have a compelling plot about court intrigue, and the main character is pretty likeable. Your mileage may vary. 74. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri This won the Pulitzer years ago, and I was in the mood for some short stories, so I figured why not? I liked The Namesake years back, so I had nothing to lose. Turns out this was clearly the Best Book of the Month - just gorgeously written with real insight into brief moments of people’s lives. Mostly, there are stories of immigrants - from India to America, mostly - and the disconnect between the lives they expected to live and the lives they do live is exquisitely rendered. 75. Aquarium - David Vann This book really took me by surprise. Given the premise of the story - a young girl meets an old man in an aquarium and strikes up a friendship without telling her mother - I figured I knew the way this story was going. I was dead wrong, and this book led me into the most disturbing and harrowing 50ish pages I’ve read all year. Also, there are lots of pretty pictures of fish. 76. The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn #1) - Tad Williams As a continuation of the series is arriving in 2017, I went back to my Absolute Favorite Fantasy Series Of All Time. The first book is a bit of a slow starter (it takes, according to my paperback copy, about 170 pages for the interesting stuff to start) but once it gets going it tells a fantasy story par excellence, with dragons and knights and trolls and magic swords. I feel like this series bridges the gap between Tolkien and Martin - it’s an epic quest like LotR but plays with the intrigue and politics that would become Martin’s strength. Plus, the world feels immersive and realistic - with kingdoms and civilizations that are clever references to civilizations from the real world (one is clearly based on Rome, one on Scotland, one on the Vikings…) I do very much love this series. 77. Greenwitch (The Dark is Rising #3) - Susan Cooper The third book in the Dark is Rising sequence, this book brings together the two stories from the two previous books - Will Stanton on one hand, and the Drew children on the other - and has a little trouble balancing the serious tone of one and the lighter tone of the other. That said, I liked it, and the series does get better. 78. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead Whitehead is one of those authors I’ve always meant to check out, so when this came in at the library I got a copy. Overall, it’s a strongly written story of escape from slavery, including a great deal of ghastly detail and strong characters. Strange, then, that Whitehead (for some reason) made the Underground Railroad literal - an actual series of tracks that travel underground. If you’re going to go magic-realism-ish on me, shouldn’t it contribute to the story? SEPTEMBER 79. The Indifferent Stars Above - Daniel James Brown I’m a sucker for a good historical narrative, and this was a doozy. It tells the story of Sarah Graves, a young pioneer in the 1800s, and the group of families that accompanied her to tragedy. (One of the leaders of the party is named George Donner.) As they met with misfortune after misfortune, bad turns to worse, and the last stretch of the book rivals some horror movies I’ve seen. A fantastic read. 80. Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow & Thorn #2) - Tad Williams THe middle book of my favorite fantasy trilogy does suffer from middle-book syndrome, but (at least to me) it doesn’t sag much. Quite a few chapters from this book would count among my favorite moments of the series. 81. Baudolino - Umberto Eco Upon Umberto Eco’s death earlier this year, I picked up another one of his books. (I had read, and loved, The Name of the Rose.) This one, set in the 1100s, tells the story of Baudolino - a liar who rode with the Emperor Barbossa and went in search of the mysterious Prester John. 82. The Grey King (The Dark is Rising #4) - Susan Cooper Now this one was great. While the other books in this series have been pretty light fare, The Grey King ups the stakes and has some of the most dramatic moments of the entire series. I’m excited to read the last book in the series after finishing this one; although these books are fairly old-fashioned, they’re up there with Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia in terms of brilliant fantasy for young minds. 83. The Nix - Nathan Hill I recommend this with some reservations. I think it is a legitimately good and enjoyable book, with an excellent plot and writing. It reminds me a great deal of Jonathan Franzen when he’s good. THAT SAID, like Franzen, he can seem a little on-the-nose when he talks about ‘big issues today’ or more contemporary topics. The sections about the MMORPG player and the spoiled, entitled student who wants a “safe space” made me wince and soured me on the book some. I still thought this was a very good book, regardless. 84. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster Forster is an interesting card, and as I love to read books about India, I checked this one out at the library in conjunction with Arctic Summer (two books below). This was… alright? Its main theme is that the British are condescending dicks and India is a place they’ll never understand; when a question of a British woman’s honor goes to court, all hell breaks loose and friendships and relationships are strained. Overall, a solid read and pretty advanced view for its time… though not at all perfect by today’s standards. 85. The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides A reread. Eugenides is a pretty dang good author, and while I may not have appreciated this book the first time through, I enjoyed it a great deal more this time. In essence, it’s about a love triangle - Madeleine, a privileged Brown English lit grad searching for meaning; Leonard, her boyfriend who has manic depression and a red bandanna; and Mitchell, a religious studies grad who’s in love with Madeleine. Leonard seems awfully similar to David Foster Wallace (and I think he and Eugenides were friends) and the chapter from his perspective seems among some of the best stuff Eugenides has written. 86. Arctic Summer - Damon Galgut This was a sort of biography/novel about E.M. Forster and how he came to write his most famous book, A Passage to India. It explores Forster’s homosexuality and his discomfort with society, whether it’s British, Egyptian, or Indian society. Overall very well-written, though your enjoyment of it may vary with the amount of Forster you’ve read. 87. To Green Angel Tower (Memory, Sorrow & Thorn #3) - Tad Williams The last and longest of Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is a masterful closing to my favorite fantasy trilogy. It ties together dozens of characters’ fates in a dramatic and exciting climax. The length may be offputting - it’s so long that it had to be put into 2 800-page books when it was published in paperback - but if you’re at this book already you’re pretty committed. Now begins the wait for January, when Williams returns to this world… I can’t wait. 88. Watership Down - Richard Adams An outright classic, this was the next book I chose to read to my son after we finished the Harry Potter series. Rabbits leave their warren to find a new home, and go on an adventure that is more gripping than most human adventures. I like it, and will go on reading it for a long time. 89. The Map of Chaos - Felix J. Palma This is the conclusion to the “Trilogie Victoriana”, or as it’s called in America, the Map of Time Trilogy. It’s a very fun sci-fi series starring, among others, H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle, and it has aliens, multiverses, and time travel. I especially enjoyed the writing style, which was eloquent without being florid. 90. The Round House - Louise Erdrich A story about a tragedy that befalls a Native American family and how it upends the reservation they live on. Overall, a pretty good book, and a pretty incisive attack on the incredibly poorly run justice system for Native Americans. 1) Vanilla Number (90/52) 2) Something written by a woman: Rowling, Erdrich, Cooper, Lahiri, Addison 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author: Lahiri, Whitehead, Erdrich 4) 5) Something History Related: The Indifferent Stars Above 6) A book about or narrated by an animal: Watership Down 7) 8) A work of Science Fiction: Morning Star, The Map of Chaos 9) Something written by a musician: Wildwood 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages: The Nix, The Map of Chaos, Wildwood, all 3 Memory Sorrow and Thorn books 11) 12) 13) Read Something YA: Wildwood, Greenwitch/The Grey King, 14) Wildcard! 15) Something recently published: The Underground Railroad, The Nix 16) 17) The First book in a series: The Dragonbone Chair 18) 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation 20) 21) A Short Story collection: Interpreter of Maladies 22)
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 17:19
|
|
|
Ben Nevis posted:1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. I purposely delayed this a day so that I could finish up Night of the Animals. I was thinking I fell somewhat short of my pace this month, but forgot my counting shenanigans last month. It was not the best month, though there were some good books. 64. Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older - In the near future, the world is governed in small microdemocracies of 100k people each. The world as a whole is guided primarily by whichever party controls a supermajority. This is third election and the powers that be are concerned that the reigning supermajority will win again, establishing an incumbency problem. There are rumors fluttering around that one party is stoking old nationalistic tendencies. Everyone is scrambling as the election approaches, until a disruption raises concerns of fraud. On the whole, this works. I found it to be a pretty enjoyable election/cyberpunk novel. It has some aspects that reminded me of Blue Ant Gibson. I'd recommend this as a pre-election read for anyone looking for some escapism. 65. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan - The Koh i Noor was stolen from the Crown Jewels and it's up to Chopra and his elephant to solve the crime! Apparently the second book in the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series. I did not read the first, though I don't feel this particularly suffers for that deficiency. This was not a bad book, but for something that bills itself as a detective novel with an elephant, I thought it fell short on the mystery elements and I wanted more elephant. Or at least a more active role for the elephant in solving the crime. As a crime or mystery novel, I felt it got a little bogged down in details of Inspector Chopra's home life. In the end, I feel like this was less of a mystery and more of a way to spend time with Chopra and his elephant and oh yeah, there's crime to be solved. Read with that in mind, it could well be appealing to some readers. I'm certainly below the Goodreads ranking on this, so maybe what I wanted out of this just isn't what most people do. You may enjoy this even though it wasn't what I was hoping. 66. Confessions of the Lioness by Mia Couto - Another Man Booker nominee and again from last year. Interesting that both I've read were by Portuguese authors in post-colonial Africa. A small village in Mozambique is being terrorized by lions and sends for a hunter to come and hunt them down. The hunter gets out there and finds that maybe it's not lions that are the problem. Maybe it's black magic. Maybe it's a repressive traditional hierarchy. Maybe it's a country still reeling from a revolution and civil war. Also it may actually be lions. Even in translation, this book had some really striking turns of phrase and imagery. I enjoyed it and it stuck with me for awhile thinking about what all was going on. It also gets bonus points for the best protagonist name so far this year with the hunter Archangel Bullseye. Would strongly recommend. 67. Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch - Third in the Peter Grant series. When an American politician's son is murdered in the Underground it falls to Peter and his team to get to the bottom of things, and it looks like they go pretty deep. Literally. If you've read and liked the previous entries in the series, I think you'll like this one. 68. Let's Play Make Believe by James Patterson - So I feel I cheated a bit on the Airport Novel requirement. This is by Patterson, an exemplar of the genre, however it's one of his (new?) Bookshots! which are basically novellas intended to be read in a short period of time. Makes sense for an airport book, I guess, I could have purchased this in an airport bookshop and been finished when I landed for any but the shortest flights. The main character gets divorced, meets another recent divorcee, crime ensues. It was, I thought fairly predictable. It was a page turner, I'll give it that. It actually suffered for the short length. It all seemed somewhat rushed. Like it was a surprisingly short time from meeting the guy to the first drug fueled orgy. A little bit of fleshing out and you could have added some emotional depth and had what was still basically an airport novel, would have clocked in at a still brief 200 pages, but would have been a lot more interesting. Would not recommend. 69. Night of the Animals by Bill Broun - In 2052 Britain has been a police state ruled by paranoid monarch Henry IX or Harry9 as he's colloquially known. Among his loyal followers is an indigent named Cuthbert Handley. A long time hallucinogen addict with not a few mental issues, Cuthbert believes he can speak with animals. This ability is of limited usefulness, as habitat loss has drastically reduced the number of wild animals, leaving the London Zoo as one of the most diverse areas left in the world. With the dastardly Heaven's Gate cult gaining prominence around the world, suicides and the murder of animals increases drastically with the appearance of a comet in the night sky. Cuthbert believes he must release the animals from the zoo to save them, and possibly even humanity. He especially needs to free that most English of all animals, the Otter. This was quite a ride. It's a long book, clocking in at 560 pages, and I felt like it lost some momentum when it flashed back to Cuthbert's childhood when he acquired the gift to speak with animals. I could have done without the spelled out dialect, as it added distracting and often unnecessary footnotes for explanation. That being said this is a good read and an overall well done ode to the wilderness, especially the old English wilderness. While there are a lot of animals talking (with a particular shout out to the Suffi sandcat, Muezza) I'm not sure it makes the cut for about or by an animal. I'd recommend this. I need to buckle down and finish out the Essay, Lost Generation and Musician books, which I have picked out, just not read yet. I may well revisit Patterson since I skimped a bit there. I might pick up his book Zoo as a potential companion piece to Night of the Animals. What I do need, if anyone read this far, is a wild card. Anyone wanna Wildcard me? 1) Vanilla Number 43/45 2) Something written by a woman - 5, 7, 18, 17, 16, 21, 23, 26, 31, 32, 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 52, 56, 64 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - 5, 16, 19, 22, 24, 31, 33, 39, 45, 48, 56, 62, 64, 65 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, 54, 64, 69 9) Something written by a musician 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - 2, 16, 69 11) Read something about or set in NYC - 1, 33, 34, 51 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - 68 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, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69 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, 65
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 20:08
|
|
|
screenwritersblues posted:Currently reading: Brooklyn Noir September 28) Brooklyn Noir by various: The first book in the city Noir series. It's a great read if you're into stuff like this. 29) Brooklyn Noir 3: The Classics by Various: Lots of good classics in here. All of them set in Brooklyn of course. 30) Los Angeles Noir by Various: Lots of good stories set in LA. 31) If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I would Have Never Let You Go by Judy Chicurel: Another first novel that felt like a MFA work, but still good. 32) A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James: This is probably my favorite book of the year. A lot of people, but very easy to follow and also a quick read dispite it's size. 33) Slice Harvester: A Memoir in Pizza by Colin Atrophy Hagendorf: I now know where to go get good Pizza in NYC because of this book 1) Vanilla Number: 30 2) Something written by a woman: A Matter of Heart 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author: A Brief History of Seven Killings 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: Loitering 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: City on Fire 11) Read something about or set in NYC: Ten Thousand Saints 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect): Room 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: Slice Harvester 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 Vanilla: 30/30 Challenge: 17/22 Indiespensable: 3/15 Currently reading: Born to Run
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2016 23:18
|
|
|
oh hi I almost forgot about this here thing 1) Vanilla Number - 22/30 6) A book about or narrated by an animal 8) A work of Science Fiction 9) Something written by a musician 11) Read something about or set in NYC 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! 17) The First book in a series 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book 1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy 2. The Silent Cry, Kenzaburo Oe 3. Aurora det niende mørke, hymne og myte, Stein Mehren 4. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath 5. Mourning Diary, Roland Barthes 6. Death in Venice and Other Stories, Thomas Mann 7. Is-slottet, Tarjei Vesaas 8. En dag i oktober, Sigurd Hoel 9. No One Writes to the Colonel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 10. Voices From Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich 11. Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima 12. The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 13. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, José Saramago 14. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges 15. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 16. Skylark, Dezso Kosztolanyi 17. Women Without Men, Shahrnush Parsipur 18. Aske i munnen, sand i skoen, Per Petterson 19. Aquarium, David Vann 20. Never Any End to Paris, Enrique Vila-matas 21. If On a Winter's Night a Traveller, Italo Calvino 22. Concrete, Thomas Bernhard Some of these I read in june, others I read in july and so on. Currently reading A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk. ulvir fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Oct 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 14:05
|
|
|
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 31. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison 32. Career of Evil by Robert Galbreith 33. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly 34. The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross 35. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling 36. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 37. The Apocolypse Files by Charles Stross September update 38. The World Walker by Ian W. Sainsbury: I loved this - it took a little while as I initially was put off by the jumping around from character to character, but by the end I was pretty hooked. Will definitely read the next one. 39/40. Rat Queens Vol 2 & 3 by Kurtis J Weibe: I'm always on the lookout for rear end kicking ladies in graphic novels/comics so I enjoyed these. The third one perhaps a little less so than the first two I read, it seemed a bit confused and meandering. 41: Esio Trot by Roald Dahl: September was the celebration of Roal Dahl's birthday so I picked this up in honour of my childhood spent reading and re-reading his books. Such a cute, weird little story, although probably not my favourite of his. 42: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire : I rather like the slow start to the story taking in the Quidditch World Cup, even if it was skipped over pretty quickly in the film. I definitely enjoy the re-reads to remind myself what the films were missing, so many complementing plot points and asides. On reflection the plot of GoF makes very little sense, perhaps most out of all the books. Still, as always I enjoy absorbing myself in the wizarding world! 43. Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari: Oof what a book. It covers well, the history of mankind, at rapid speed. I think I was expecting and perhaps would have liked more about the early origins of mankind than more recent history, but I take the author's point that actually we know very little and guess quite a lot. I wasn't too sure about some of his conclusions and emphasis, but a very absorbing and thought provoking read. 44. Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran: A collection of her articles and essays, with the theme of 'upgrading' UK politics. A good combination of serious and humorous, although a bit too many time-specific articles that date quickly. Booklord Challenge Progress 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
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 19:55
|
|
|
September was my month for books about China and books by Chinese authors. I had a great deal of fun doing this, since I was fairly ignorant about the country before starting off this month. Reading all these different books (non fiction in tandem, fiction sequentially) allowed all sorts of fascinating connections to form and greatly enhanced my experience. I didn't finish all that I wanted to, so there will be more China material in October, and also some books (like travel guides) won't hit this list at all. September: Fiction Goal Met 67. Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in America, by Andrew Coe This is a book that’s missing a last chapter. It ends in the middle of the 1970s, which completely misses exciting topics like gentrification of ethnic neighborhoods, foodie crazes, and food trucks. The rest is a great read: Coe covers all sorts of perspectives on Chinese food. American journeys to China, Chinese immigration, discrimination, earlier food adventurism, food journalism and more are all discussed. And when he gets around to describing what’s actually eaten, he writes sufficiently mouthwateringly. And about the book’s title: in one chapter, Coe shows fairly convincingly that Chop Suey is an authentically Chinese dish, it’s just that the educated, literate, influential travelers from the norther imperial capital wouldn’t really know what the peasant immigrants from the southern rear end-end of China ate or not. Hence the confusion. 68. ODY-C (TPB 1), by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward So take the Odyssey, make it into a space opera, make all the characters women, color it in psychedelics, and give it some innovative panel layouts. Unfortunately the way that the book tries to balance the borrowed with the invented doesn’t appeal to me for longer than this trade lasted; I won’t be following it in the future, most likely. While the garish colors are appealing at first, after a few minutes many of the pages just hurt my eyes. And the solely female cast is undermined by a side-plot that I disliked in Y: The Last Man and find no better here: turns out there can be more men! Isn’t that interesting? The use of phrasing that calls epic poetry to mind is undermined by the lack of coherent meter in most of it, not to mention the other problems of simply sticking this style of writing where narration boxes would traditionally be. I keep wanting this book to be weirder or less weird; it feels very close to great but can’t find it. 69. The Invisibles (Deluxe 1), by Grant Morrison If you read this book, try to keep in mind that The Matrix was made years after this came out. Otherwise you might be put off by the two characters who take different aspects of Morpheus for themselves, the foes who call to mind Agents, the equivalent of ‘plugging in’, a main character who seems to combine Neo and Luke Skywalker by way of A Clockwork Orange, etc. The writing is spot-on, with philosophy and allusions that don’t hit you on the head but add to the narrative. The art is clear and well done, though it feels like the colors are too often muted. If I knew a graphic novel reader who wanted to make a jump from action and plot to more literary concerns, this would be a good recommendation for their next read. 70. For All the Tea in China, by Sarah Rose This is a rather tightly-focused book on Robert Fortune’s early-middle life and adventure career, infiltrating famed Chinese tea production regions to acquire plants, knowledge and labor for Britain’s efforts to break into the tea business. Rose touches informatively on botany, farming, specimen preservation and trans-ocean travel. The book fails to be comprehensive, though; it abruptly rushes to finish in the middle of one of Fortune’s expeditions after a rain-soaked setback. This was odd since the book is rather short, barely more than 200 pages. Perhaps an editor’s advice could have made it feel more whole. 71. A People’s History of the Supreme Court, by Peter Irons Very engaging book, especially if you make parallels between the people and cases it discusses and our current society. For example, I read its treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses not participating in the Pledge of Allegiance, back in the 30s, just before Colin Kaepernick started his anthem protests, so I was able to shut down conservative family members “Un-American!” cries rather effectively. For a book choosing the “People’s History” mantle it spends too much time on power struggles between two corporations and certainly shouldn’t be giving mini-bios on every justice whether or not they had particular influence on the non-elite. But these flaws start to drift away once Irons hits the post-Civil War era, which is the strongest section (aside from the Dred Scott treatment). 72. Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, by Xialou Guo A fun, short, novel. It is presented as twenty out-of-order fragments in a young misanthropic woman’s (Fenfang) life. Fenfang is highly dissatisfied with simple constant life in her small village, and then with her marginal life in Beijing. She ends up writing screenplays, and it seems like her cynicism and bluntness would do well in that line of work. I liked the portrayals of modernity, and Fenfang’s personality. This book was a good way to spend an afternoon. 73. Sandalwood Death, by Mo Yan This excellent historical (though close to The Good Lord Bird in exactness of historicity) novel is set around the events of the Boxer Rebellion, with five narrating characters. An opera master, magistrate, executioner, butcher, and dog meat restauranteur have complex relationships with each other, pairing off in various operatic ways and spinning towards an excruciating finale. Each chapter narrated by one of them comes alive with their unique voice, showcasing each one as a fantastic character. Historical figures come into the scene as well, notably Yuan Shikai (the later tyrant of China), and details of life and art fill the book. I’m very glad to have read this. 74. Vertical Motion, by Can Xue Maybe I’m too dumb to read this book. Can Xue’s short stories dwell completely in the world of the dreaming: the narrators have a dream-knowledge kind of omniscience, events follow one another not via plot but by random synapse firings, and all the other strange peccadilloes of the dreaming mind are revealed in their turn. It’s a nice effect, but that’s all it is. After finishing each one, all I have gained is the confusion, wonderment and vague unease that follow an actual half-nightmare. If you really enjoy talking about questions like “What is art?” and “Is it art?” you could enjoy this book very much. Otherwise, I’d suggest reading the first, title, story; I preferred it to the rest. If you love it, dive on in. 75. Soul Mountain, by Gao Xingjian I’ll begin by saying that many opinions on this book (and Gao in general) are heavily colored by Nobel Prize politics, which I personally don’t take into consideration, despite the political content in it. I really enjoyed reading this; it’s adventurous, perverted, enlightening, instructive, funny, pensive, stark, and all sorts of other great evocations. If you see a critique that looks kind of like “You’ve slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk songs, added some legend-like nonsense of your own invention, and are calling it fiction!” just know that it is exaggerated. The book is much more like a traditional disjointed wandering narrative than many reviews suggest. Right now it’s my pick for the best fiction I’ve read this year. 76. Boy’s Club, by Matt Furie If you want to see Pepe the frog without thinking of SS troopers and Donald Trump this is pretty much what you should read. It is absolutely filthy in a dumbass college humor kind of way, has no point, and is completely hilarious. 77. Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II 1937-1945, by Rana Mitter Very well-researched, very informative. This book has a heavy, heavy focus on the Nationalist China perspective, with about 10% of its material dealing with Mao’s areas and even less about occupied China, even including the Rape of Nanking. The material is varied; it’s certainly no dry narrative of battles after battles. We have domestic and international political maneuverings, popular experiences underneath Japanese assault, economic questions, propaganda discussions, and more. Within Nationalist China, this is a great overview of what mattered in the war. Also, Mitter gives a good deal of discussion to erasure (and current revival) of Nationalist war contribution by the subsequent Communist governments. I found the whole thing valuable, and I would especially recommend this book to anyone who touches WW2 buff status but does not know about, for example, Japan’s devastatingly successful 1944 assault across all of China. 1) Vanilla Number - 77/80 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 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II 1937-1945 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Cujo 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 21:53 on Oct 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 04:36
|
|
|
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. Couldn't finish. 0/5 7. Killing and Dying: Stories, Adrian Tomine. 5/5 8. The Winged Histories, Sofia Samatar. Couldn't finish. 0/5 9. Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton. 4/5 10. This Census-Taker, China Mieville. Why look, the first non-Bas Lag Mieville book that didn't drive me crazy! A great read, though I wonder if he would have wrecked it somehow if it was longer than a novella. Either way, it's a mix of Woman In the Dunes] and Child of God, so if that floats your boat, you'll dig this. 4/5 11. Ubik, Philip K. Dick. A very enjoyable mind-bender. My only complaint is that this feels like it could have been a much longer book; that the plot could have delved deeply into the struggle going on in the half-life. Still, not a completely unsatisfying ending as far as endings go. It was striking to realize how much this short book influenced - David Mitchell's Bone Clocks/Slade House immediately sprang to mind once I finished the book. Also, I guess this is where Tool got the "Negative Ions" song title. 4/5 12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, David Grann. This was interesting, but felt like a padded magazine article (which it basically is). For me, the subject of the book, Percy Fawcett, is an entirely unsympathetic figure; a man who is a lovely husband and father and who leads one of his sons to his death due to his obsession with wandering about in the Amazon rain forest. I've always found the British strain of colonialism to be particularly vile, and Fawcett is like a caricature of a Victorian "gentleman" who, unable to elevate his class in British society through the typical means, opted to rise to fame via exploration. Frankly, the guy was a dipshit who was "lucky" enough to not have been killed by malaria or a dozen other diseases the first time he stepped into the jungle. He becomes obsessed with the idea of something that isn't really there, and - perhaps fittingly - marches right into the environs of "dangerous" Indians who no doubt killed him, as many who were still around by the time of Fawcett's arrival had learned not to trust Europeans. Torture, enslavement and death by epidemic disease will do that to a people. Still, my own issues aside, the book was entertaining overall. The ending is abrupt but fascinating...I feel like I could read an entire book on the idea of pre-Colombian civilization in the Amazon, but that's still in the process of being unraveled. 3/5 13. Berserk, Vol. 1, Kentaro Miura. Outstanding art. Rather vague story at this point, and the "elf" gets annoying. 3/5 14. Hyperion, Dan Simmons. I see now why this book is considered such a classic. 5/5
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2016 14:27
|
|
|
Previously: 1. The End is Nigh (Apocalypse Triptych #1) - John Joseph Adams et al 2. The Bogside Boys - Eoin Dempsy 3. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying up - Marie Kondo 4. To Glory We Steer - Alexander Kent 5. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome 6. The Martian - Andy Weir 7. The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych #2) - John Joseph Adams et al 8. Instructions for Living Someone Else's Life - Mil Millington 9. Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser 10. The Business - Martina Cole 11. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy 12. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter Thompson 13. The Shore - Sara Taylor 14. The Vegetarian - Han Kang 15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey 16. Watership Down - Richard Adams 17. Lud in the Mist - Hope Mirrlees 18. Nikola Tesla - Imagination and the Man that Invented the 20th Century - Sean Patrick 19. Goat Mountain - David Vann 20. Battleaxe (Wayfarer Trilogy #3) - Sara Douglass 21. The Egyptian - Mika Waltari 22. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy 23.Enchanter (Wayfarer Trilogy #2) - Sara Douglass 24. Bad Astronomy - Philip Plait October - I'm really getting into a reading groove now and have more than caught up on my challenge after being behind for months  25. A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen A play that critically looks at traditional Victorian marriages and society. I didn't know what to expect with this but thoroughly enjoyed it. It encouraged me to seek out more information on the background and reception of the play, and it was interesting to discover Ibsen's thoughts on its reception and the reasons he wrote it. I really loved the third act in particular. 26. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote I have never seen the film, so I didn't know what to expect with this, and at first I really didn't like it much. I don't really like reading stories by men about a girl who was just so incredibly amazing and fascinating and beautiful that everyone was in love with her while she just uses them. However, as it went on, I found myself enjoying the story a lot more and pleasantly surprised by some of the character depth. 27. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky A coming of age story about a really awkward 15 year old who begins the story with no friends (his best friend having killed himself). One of the most touching, endearing and unashamedly heartfelt books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. This book covers a lot of serious content and themes while managing to remain warm and optimistic (but not trite or saccharine). One of my favourites for the year. 28. The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton A satellite looking for life in space comes back with a mystery killer plague. It is very much a book of its time, and it managed to be both really interesting and really boring at the same time. The end was a bit disappointing and rushed feeling - that was it? 29. Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin A fascinating non-fiction book from the late 1950s when Griffin, a journalist who wrote often about race relations, decided that to truly understand the struggles of black people in a segregated society, he needed to live as a black person. He used medication to darken his skin and traveled around the American south as a black man. This book covers the shock of how differently he was treated, the alienation he felt, the very real dangers he faced, the daily prejudices and how they affected him, etc. It also contained an epilogue from 1974, written after the Civil Rights Movement (of which he was an active participant). I'm glad this included the epilogue, as he covers how a lot of civil rights movement started out as an effort of white people (with the best of intentions) trying to get black people to live more comfortably as white people, and how concerned citizens would call meetings to discuss the problem without asking any local black community leaders to attend. He discusses how some formerly prominent white men reacted to eventually having to take a back seat after leading the fight for so long. A very powerful book. 30. The Call of the Wild - Jack London A beautiful and exceptionally evocative story. A book of its time certainly with its view of women and Indians, but a compelling and enjoyable story regardless. I was very sorry when it was finished. 31. The Earth Moved: on the remarkable achievements of earthworms - Amy Stewart A fascinating book all about earthworms and the impact they have on the world around us. It has a lot of scientific discussion and begins with Charles Darwin's last work before he died (about earthworms). This was a really enjoyable, pleasant book. I learned so much about earthworms, and it made me think about the ground below me in entirely new ways. I never realised just how big of an impact they have on our lives and the world around us. It's a mix of science and musings on a philosophy of life, and I definitely want to spend more time learning about worms now, which is something I never really thought I would say. Her love of the subject shines through.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2016 18:44
|
|
|
Posting a bit early because I already finished 20 books this month (10 were graphic novels, so easier) and I want to get this out of the way. 78. The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester This is the story of a British journalist venturing up the Yangtze from Shanghai to Tibet. It sounds like the kind of book that would need to tread carefully in order to avoid colonial overtones; Winchester treats those overtones with a cry of “Tally ho!” He’s an entertaining, informative, tour guide, but don’t expect more than that. This is a travelog with bits of anthropology and history thrown in, and succeeds at that. 79. A Lawyer’s Life, by Johnnie Cochran with David Fisher Read this book and let Johnnie Cochran tell you why he’s a goddamn hero. The entire thing feels like Cochran has just sat you down at his desk and started telling old war stories; authentic, charming, a great book. 80. Supergods, by Grant Morrison Grant Morrison has written a superhero book that’s half cultural history and half memoir, with a heavy dose of drugs, lit crit, and esoteric philosophies. Come for the examination of how the character of the superhero changed over the various ages, stay for his treatment of fictional beings as actually extant forces, and get kinda weirded out when he describes a trans-dimensional journey and his own acquisition of superpowers. I have no reason to thing that he was joking when he wrote that chapter, by the way. By far the best opinion in this entire book is that Unbreakable is the current pinnacle of superhero movies. It doesn't get enough respect. 81. In Other Worlds, by Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood combines in this book her memoir of science fiction as reader and writer, a collection of previous writings on others’ works of SF, and a few short stories in the genera. Each part is excellent; her analysis of SF, with special focus on utopias and dystopias, is sublime and worth reading for every fan of the genre. My only complaint is that more of her short fiction wasn’t in this; she writes some pretty perfect 2-3 page SF. 82. Philosophy for Militants, by Alain Badiou Badiou, in this very short book, lays out some thoughts on philosophy for the politically active (militants is a malapropism here, I feel). In the first half, he describes the tense anti-cycle of philosophy and democracy: philosophy needs a conversation between free individuals to thrive, but a successful normative philosophy implies lack of freedom of a society to democratically determine its action, at least if it desires to follow those norms. Later, he tries to find a successor for the mantle of heroic figure (supplanting the ancient warrior and the industrial soldier) and grapples with the lack of usable words for various types of subsets. It’s an interesting and fun little book though not, I think, a life-changer for anyone. 83. And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks, by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac So this book is literary proof that “This is the balls” has a long and noble history in our language. Written in 1944 as a collaboration between Burroughs and Kerouac and only published after their deaths, this novel is the Beats before they were big. Someone who already knows the literary biography of that scene will see a lot of familiar things in this book. One who does not will see a bunch of loser assholes getting drunk on others’ dime and crashing apartments at three in the morning. Oh and there’s also a middle-aged dude who’s been grooming this one kid for a sexual since he was 14. I enjoyed it for the fun details and materialistic writing style, though someone who’s not into basically college humor may not. 84. The Making of Donald Trump, by David Cay Johnston Want to read probably the last great book about why Donald Trump is a piece of poo poo that won’t mention the numerous sexual assault allegations made this month? This is it! Find the story about how Donald hired hundreds of illegal immigrants from Poland to bust down a history building with sledgehammers and no hardhats in the dead of night for $5 an hour and then stiffed them for tens of thousands of hours of pay! Learn about how Donald takes huge bullshit write-offs for not developing non-developable land and how the value of his properties changes 40-fold when talking the investors versus talking to the IRS! You may even find out about his mob connections! Very much worth it to read if you have time this month. 85. Why Planes Crash: An Accident Investigator’s Fight for Safe Skies, by David Soucie David Soucie uses the sirens’ call of lurid plane-crash stories to get you to read his mini-memoir and policy recommendations for improving air safety. His basic point is that if we only attempt to fix the cause of the last bad accident we will continue to be exposed to the next bad accident because the causes can be so multifarious. Instead knowledge sharing without needless barriers is the key. An intriguing idea, though my favorite part was the poor sap who survived a heart attack and a medical flight crash impact only to perish while crawling away because he was on fire. 86. The Devil’s Defender, by John Henry Browne. Another defense lawyer memoir, Browne’s is a more linear narrative than Cochran’s. He’s represented Ted Bundy (though not to completion), Seattle alleged mass murderer Benjamin Ng, and Robert Bales, who was convicted of massacring 16 Afghan civilians in his fourth tour of duty. Browne is deeply empathetic and passionate about resisting the death penalty, and he tells the stories of his various defenses very well. I am a tad concerned about how freely he reveals his conversations with Ted Bundy; if there was a discussion about how attorney-client privilege did or did not apply here I missed it. 87. Words for Pictures: the Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels, by Brian Michael Bendis I didn’t read this from the perspective of an aspiring comics writer so can’t comment on its usefulness there. What I did gain was an inside look at the creative process: some of the information was inconsistent and almost cargo-cultish, but overall it was very illuminating. Most of the book is done in interview-style conversations rather than in an instructional fashion, which made it a nicer read. 88. Bitch Planet (TPB Vol 1), by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro This features an intense dystopian prison planet for “bitchy” women, and wreathes it with perfect gallows humor and an engaging sports redemption/revolution storyline. Very into this. 89. The Invisibles (Deluxe Vol 2), by Grant Morrison This installment is even better than the first, save a couple of wobbly bits that could be cut off. It’s claustrophobic, wide-ranging, and deeply human. Moving right on to the third because my library kicks rear end. 90. March: Book 1, by John Lewis, Andrew Ayden and Nate Powell This is the graphic memoir of Representative John Lewis’s civil rights struggle. It’s absolutely great; the storytelling is spot on, using comic conventions expertly to enhance the narrative. The greyscale art is evocative; light and shadow play on human skin just right, shaming all the comics that treat skin color cartoonishly. Subtleties like the way squiggles gradually replace lines as memories are less distinct shine through. My favorite moment of all the funny, poignant, inspiring and troubling stories is when Lewis hides from farm work to sprint for the school bus. Full of character. I’ll be completing this trilogy with my next burst of book-buying. 91. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel This is the graphic novel that most recently blew up the internet because some Duke freshmen didn’t want to hate God by looking at a picture in which a woman gives another woman oral sex (but which didn’t show either genitals or a mouth). It’s a memoir of Bechdel’s complicated relationship with her father, and especially the uncertain nature of his death. Very intensely written and carefully drawn, with a beautiful ending. 92. Ex Machina (Deluxe Vol 1), by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris Fun book about a guy who has machine-based superpowers, and ends up becoming the mayor of NYC. Competent, not extraordinary. Don’t know how soon I’ll end up reading the rest. 93. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol 1), by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill This book feels like it was written to be an artifact of the late 19th century milieu its characters arise from. How else to explain the Yellow Peril idea permeating it? The concept is interesting; who would say no to a classic fictional hero team-up? Unfortunately to me it felt like the source material was just referenced instead of really engaged with. 94. Sex Criminals (TPB Vol 1), by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky So two people have the ability to move about in a suspended world after they orgasm; the loneliest thing in the world at first, but they find each other. And have sex and commit crime. This book made me laugh harder than any other printed material ever has. Full on chortling. Maybe it’s because of my prurient mind, or maybe it just is that good. The art is filled with little jokes, sometimes dozens to a panel. This is getting completed as soon as possible as well. 95 & 96. Saga (TPB Vols 2 & 3), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Two more great installments of this space opera down. It’s still fresh and surprising. 97. Rat Queens (TPB Vol 1), by Kurtis J Wiebe and Roc Upchurch If you want a book that reads like a not-at-all serious D&D campaign plays, this is your jam right here. It’s funny, gory, and has villains with ridiculous motivations. Very well drawn, as well. 1) Vanilla Number - 97/80 2) Something written by a woman - Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth 3) Something written by a nonwhite author - March 4) Something written in the 1800s - Dracula 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II 1937-1945 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Cujo 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 11) Read something about or set in NYC - Ex Machina 13) Read Something YA - A Wrinkle in Time 14) Wildcard! - Loath Letters 15) Something recently published - The Making of Donald Trump 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 - A Lawyer’s Life 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation - And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks 20) Read a banned book - The Handmaid’s Tale 21) A Short Story collection - Dubliners I switched up some of my assignments to things I preferred; I'm almost done with the challenge and have the remaining three books in hand. I'm really enjoying the directed nature of this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2016 06:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 15:50 |
|
|
August and September updates here.Booklord Challenge Update posted:Count: 88/96 books, 9 nonfiction (10%), 3 rereads (3%) August My wife was in a Seanan McGuire mood, so I went on an InCryptid binge early in the month so we could discuss the books without spoiling each other. After that I wrapped up the month with some Cherryh and recommended-as-Cherryh-like authors. 73. Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire 74. Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire More InCryptid books, these two dealing with Verity's brother Alex and his adventures managing a basilisk breeding program and visiting the most horrible place on earth Australia. This is a bit of a tonal shift from the Verity books, less Buffy and more I'm not sure what, but it's still fun. And we finally get to meet Grandma Angela!  I know the Prices are the main characters, but it's Angela, Sarah, and the mice who are the real stars.75. Healy Family History by Seanan McGuire 76. Price Family History by Seanan McGuire Not actually published books, these are compilations I made of all of the InCryptid short fiction for my own reading convenience. The first one contains all the Healy stories (The Flower of Arizona through The Way Home), set before the start of the novels; the second all of the stories about Antimony and Verity Price, Artie Harrington, and Istas, set between books 2 and 5. The stories stand on their own better than, say, the chapters of Indexing, but nonetheless each group of stories forms an overarching storyline. I think the most disappointing overall was "Survival Horror"; it's not one of the better ones in its own right, and on top of that it's disappointing because you aren't getting more of Antimony's roller-derby shenanigans. The quality is good overall, though, and is a nice mix between adventures, relaxing slice-of-life stories, and gut-wrenching tragedy. Conspicuously absent from the stories, however, is any mention of how they met Grandma Angela or what happened to the baby Cuckoo in \i{Oh Pretty Bird}. 77. The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh Is this Cherryh's only non-fantasy, non-SF work? It's set in what is clearly ancient China with the serial numbers filed off, and there's no magic or supernatural powers (although some people believe there are, and the protagonists are not above exploiting this). Despite this, it feels much more "Cherryh" than, say, Fortress in the Eye of Time does, and reminds me a little bit of Serpent's Reach. Not one of my favourites, but I enjoyed it. 78. Hammerfall by C.J. Cherryh I reread this to prepare for the sequel, The Forge of Heaven, only to find out that after finishing it and reading a few chapters into Forge, I had no interest in continuing. Forge is set so far in the future from Hammerfall that it might as well be a different setting, and the characters I was invested in in Hammerfall either play a minor role or are entirely (and, in at least one case, inexplicably) absent.79. The Kindly Ones by Melissa Scott I continue my slow wander through Melissa Scott's bibliography. This one has less talking and more gunfire than her other books I've read, but is enjoyable for all that. I'd put it above Mighty Good Road but below The Roads of Heaven or Trouble and her Friends. 80. Guided by the Beauty of their Weapons: Notes on Science Fiction and Culture in the Year of Angry Dogs by Philip Sandifer This started out interesting and got progressively less interesting as it moved further and further away from the subject of the starting essay (the 2014 Hugo awards and the Sad/Rabid puppies). The best parts, for me, were the title essay and the subsequent interview transcripts; the rest of the book moves away from modern SF/F writing and towards television I haven't watched (Strange & Norrel, the most recent few seasons of Doctor Who), comics I haven't read (V for Vendetta), and games I haven't played (the SNES was never a fixture of my childhood). All of this falls within the book's rather broad scope, but I was hoping for more focus on the parts of SF directly related to the Hugos, and also for more content written specifically for the book -- the latter half consists largely of reprints of content from Project SNES, Last War in Albion, and Recursive Occlusion. And RO doesn't even work properly on my e-reader! 81. Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton This was...ok? I didn't dislike it, but I think my greatest objection to it is that it doesn't really gain anything from being populated with dragons rather than humans. Mating Flight is not as tightly plotted or as cleanly wordsmithed (intentionally so, given the frame story), but the fact that the protagonists are dragons, with abilities, motivations, and mindsets alien to humanity, informs everything about the plot. In this you could have replaced the dragons with humans without significantly affecting the plot, I think. Indeed, while reading it it's very easy to forget that they're dragons at all at times. So, without the novelty value of "everyone is dragons", it's just a bit of comedy of manners/romance/legal drama all tossed together, which isn't particularly my jam. 82. A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright This was recommended to me as a "if you like C.J. Cherryh, you should read...", and that was a solid recommendation. It reminds me a lot of some of Cherryh's faster-paced work; you have the fish-out-of-water setup, the political machinations -- it even "ends with a bus ride to a gunfight". This is an excellent first novel and I would be tracking down everything else she'd written if not for the fact that she never wrote anything else. It is at least available for free on her website. September A combination of Viriconium going quite slowly and a whirlwind visit by intercontinental friends meant I didn't get much reading done this month. 83. The Pastel City by M. John Harrison 84. A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison Viriconium (which consists of three novels and one collection of short stories) is my Wildcard for this year, and I'm really not sure what I think of it. On the micro scale, his writing is an absolute delight; not a chapter goes by in which I don't learn at least one new word, and hardly a page without some new and delightful turn of phrase. He's a fantastic wordsmith. But on the macro scale, I find myself almost completely disinterested in either the plot or the characters. The end result is that I kind of had to force myself through it despite enjoying individual parts of the book quite consistently. I'm taking a break after the first two novels and a smattering of short stories, but plan to read the other novel later in the year, or perhaps early next year. 85. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin A neat pop-sci book looking at various elements of the human body and looking at how they evolved and what features in other species they developed from, or are analogues of, interspersed with anecdotes about the author's research and time as a paleontologist. Nothing mindblowing, but pretty cool. (Books 86-88 are a trilogy extending into October, so they'll get a writeup in the next post.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2016 15:19
|
|
