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I reached my goal of 52 books somewhere in November  . January 1. De Helaasheid der Dingen Dimitri Verhulst 2. Worm, Pt 1 J. McCrae 3. Worm, Pt 2 J. McCrae 4. Worm, Pt 3 J. McCrae 5. Promise of Blood Brian McClellan 6. The Red Knight Miles Cameron 7. The Fell Sword Miles Cameron 8. Deathless Catherynne M. Valente February 9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowling 10. Harry Potter and the HalfBlood Prince J. K. Rowling 11. Dress Your Family in Curduroy and Denim David Sedaris 12. The Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson (reread) 13. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling 14. Catch-22 Joseph Heller (reread) March 15. Words of Radiance Brandon Sanderson 16. A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 17. The Sword-Edged Blonde Alex Bledsoe 18. De Grote Kattenslachting & Andere Episoden uit de Culturele Geschiedenis van Frankrijk Robert Darnton (The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History.) 19. The Family Fang Kevin Wilson April 20. De Naam van de Roos Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) 21. Retribution Falls Chris Wooding 22. The Luminaries Eleanor Catton 23. Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History Ben Mezrich May 24. Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 25. Siddhartha Herman Hesse 26. The Golem and the Jinni Helene Wecker 27. Pedro Paramo Juan Rulfo 28. Bloodchild and Other Stories Octavia E. Butler 29. Skin Game Jim Butcher June 30. Het goud van Thomas Vargas, verhalen van Eva Luna Isabel Allende (Stories of Eva Luna) 31. Shogun James Clavell July 32. Pact Pt 1 J. McCrae 33. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare G. K. Chesterton August 34. The King Must Die Mary Renault 35. When You Are Engulfed In Flames David Sedaris September 36. The Habitation of the Blessed Catherynne M. Valente 37. Little Green Men Christopher Buckley 38. The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pyncheon 39. The Scar China Miéville 40. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales Oliver Sacks 41. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 42. The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 43. Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel Milorad Pavic October 44. Het verborgen leven van bomen Alejandro Zambra (The Private Lives of Trees) 45. Fantastische verhalen Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones) 46. De ridder die niet bestond Italo Calvino (The Nonexistent Knight) 47. De Aleph Jorge Luis Borges (The Aleph) 48. Candide Voltaire 49. Moordende Hoeren Roberto Bolano (Putas Asesinas, collection of short stories) 50. The View From Castle Rock Alice Munro November 51. Eva Luna Isabel Allende 52. 6 verhalen Emile Zola (6 stories) 53. De baron in de bomen Italo Calvino (The Baron in the Trees) 54. L’étranger Albert Camus (The Stranger) 55. Stories to Get You Through the Night Vintage Classics, anthology 56. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain December 57. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 58. Onzichtbare Steden Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities) 59. New Selected Stories Alice Munro I bolded my favourite books of the year. The best book was certainly Ficciones which i incredible.
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Dec 24, 2014 19:03
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Loten posted:1. House of Chains, Steven Erikson 6. Vurt, Jeff noon 7. Bonehunters, Steven Erikson 8. Reaper's Gale, Steven Erikson 9. Toll the Hounds, Steven Erikson 10. Dust of Dreams, Steven Erikson 11. The Crippled God, Steven Erikson 12. Half a King, Joe Abercrombie 13. Miami Blues, Charles Willeford 14. Meta, Tom Reynolds 15.New Hope for the Dead, Charles Willeford 16. Dangerous Women, Assorted. 17. The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim I'm not going to hit anywhere near my goal of 30 this year. I got bogged down in The Malazan Book of the Fallen series (Erikson) which took me way too long to get through. The series as a whole is amazing, but they switch main characters quite often which made it hard for me to get into each new book. Highly recommend it to fantasy fans, but maybe don't try and power through the entire series in a row. Charles Willeford was recommended by one of the thread in this forum and quite enjoyed his 2 books and will probably check out more. It was a nice palate cleanser after a heavy run of fantasy novels. Dangerous Women was a good compilation of short stories. Some were amazing, some were just average. The Joe Abercrombie short story: “Some Desperado” was great. “The Princess and the Queen” by GRRM was pretty good, but it was also suffered from having too many name drops, similar to the first ASOIAF novel. The Phoenix Project is a novel about IT DevOps and describes the journey one company went from having a completely dysfunctional IT department into a smooth running operation. It was recommended to me in one of the IT threads in SH/SC here and I highly recommend to people in the IT field.
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Dec 25, 2014 13:04
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quote:1. Worm wildbow (J McCrae) 26 of 75 Completed I only ended up getting a third of what I wanted to this year. I started out really well, then I just couldn't finish any books for a long time. I have probably started reading about 30 books this year that I stopped reading in the middle. I am probably going to try staying with shorter books next year that I can finish in one or two sittings. Books I haven't talked about here: Jhereg, Yendi, Taltos, and Teckla Steven Brust - The first four books in the Vlad Taltos series. These books are all really good. They're short enough to finish in a couple sittings, and each one can pretty much stand on its own. The books are not written in chronological order, so you can see some call-backs as well as him setting up things in books that have happened in the future. This series is also really good at switching genre. Each book is different from the previous.
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Dec 25, 2014 20:18
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Strong Mouse posted:Jhereg, Yendi, Taltos, and Teckla Steven Brust - The first four books in the Vlad Taltos series. These books are all really good. They're short enough to finish in a couple sittings, and each one can pretty much stand on its own. The books are not written in chronological order, so you can see some call-backs as well as him setting up things in books that have happened in the future. This series is also really good at switching genre. Each book is different from the previous. If you liked those, definitely check out the prequels, The Khaavren Romances -- he goes Full Dumas for a while and it's great. I'm rereading them right now and I'd forgotten how funny they were.
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Dec 25, 2014 21:42
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Those own so hard they made me read the original musketeers series (all of it), which also owned in all its glorious longwindedness.
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Dec 25, 2014 22:22
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oliven posted:36. Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson: This one started off unbelievably good, then lost a bit of steam as it progressed. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read. I'm excited about the rest of the series! 38. The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson: The final book in the series. This was unbelievably good, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The whole series is thought out and every question gets answered, which I thought was refreshing. Sometimes series like these give me the impression that the author is just making stuff up as they go, but that really wasn't the case here. 39. Yes Please by Amy Poehler: I'm a huge fan of Amy Poehler, which probably helped me enjoy this book more than I would have otherwise. 40. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: The main character was a little inconsistent and some events were less than likely, but it didn't really matter. Pretty good overall, I enjoyed it. Goal: 40/40 
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Dec 26, 2014 10:28
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Here's my end of the year report. My goal was 66 and I ended up reading 73, which will probably be 74 by January 1st. I think next year I will have to cut back slightly. 66. The Stolen Throne by David Gaider- 67. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer- Would have enjoyed this more if it had more practical advice about how to improve your memory instead of focusing on the author entering a memory contest. 68. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman- Haunting, I loved it. 69. The Calling by David Gaider- This was surprisingly good for a video game book, but I love the world of Dragon Age, so that really helps. The author is really overly wordy. The book could probably be 150 pages less. 70. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon- This book has a lot of issues with consent. Yes, I realize it is medieval fantasy, but when the main character's love interest is the one raping her, it's problematic. 71. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell- Pretty interesting. I had already heard the first chapter on the Freakonomics podcast 72. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 73. The Magicians by Lev Grossman- I enjoyed this, but I think that the author could really use some pacing help. There is pretty much no plot until the book is 3/4 over.
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Dec 26, 2014 16:00
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thespaceinvader posted:85: Against the Tide by John Ringo. 85/86: Against the Tide & East of the Sun, West of the Moon by John Ringo. I was debating whether to actually bother reading these, but what can I say, I'm an obsessive completionist. They were... not awful. The action scenes were well written, and occupied most of the books, but... the rest was just a bit strange. At least we missed out on the stupid Sluggy Freelance references this time. The books made me realise that when I've previously enjoyed Ringo's work, it's been either inspired by someone else (Troy Rising) or outright collaborations with someone else (Prince Roger series) and even those (especially the former) had some strange sexual politics in places. I'm not going to pick up any more of his work, I don't think. It's a shame to end the year on a disappointing note, though, so moving on to something a bit more reliable, with Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, but given the time left this year I doubt very much that I'll finish it before then, so that's probably for next thread.. I've also got a couple of books I got for Christmas to read - all non-fiction, which will be a nice change. I'm not going through my full list of reading for this year, I have to say, because 86 books is quite a lot to transcribe. I exceeded my goal of 52 back in August, so I think next year needs to be a bit higher, I'll probably go for 70. Highlights were: The Glamourist Histories. I very much enjoyed this series and was impressed as someone not remotely educated in in Regency writing, with how different these books felt from my usual fare. They're very well done. Skin Game. As noted upthread, I'm really impressed with how well Jim Butcher's series has developed over the years. I had great fun with this. The Folly series. I'm pleased with this one. I've tried a number of British urban fantasy series and not been terribly impressed - but this one I got on with really well, and it scratched an itch I've had for a long time for an urban fantasy police procedural. The Polity books by Neal Asher. In short, I feel like Asher might be a worth modern successor to the sadly departed Iain M Banks, in writing a long-form set of shared-world science fiction series. Empress/The Riven Kingdom by Karen Miller. I really enjoyed these books, and felt really concerned for both the characters and their countries. The magic could have been a little better described, but otherwise it was very enjoyable. Stardust - I really, really should have read this book a lot earlier. It felt like a different story set in the world the movie created for me, but definitely a good story and a hearty recommendation. Bring on 2015.
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Dec 28, 2014 11:21
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Roydrowsy posted:I've been busy with work so my pace has slowed down, but I've been doing my best 122 Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence" Dark and edgy and fun. I devoured this book, appreciating how different it was from other things i've read. 123 The Bear: Claire Cameron - the story of two kids in the wilderness after their parents are killed by a bear. An interesting concept and well executed, but the audiobook version was a bit obnoxious. 124 King of Thorns - Mark Lawrence: Another satisfying read, but not as good as Prince. All the time skippy stuff allowed for some surprise endings, but it slows the narrative down. 125 Gone South - Robert R McCammon - This guy is totally underrated. He's on equal footing with a Dean Koontz or Stephen King(okay, old Koontz) but with heart. 126 Bad monkey - Carl Hiaasen : An entertaining story, an enjoyable audiobook, but sometimes i think Hiaasen tries a bit too hard to be wacky. 127 Not That Kind of Girl - Lena Dunham : I suppose it was interesting. I enjoy the show GIRLS, but overall the book was kind of dumb and people's complaints about her as a sex pervert and child molester didnt read the book or understand context. 128 Pagan Babies - Elmore Leonard : A short, clelver little book about a swindle. I enjoyed it and will probably spend more time with Leonard over the next year. 129 Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch: This one started really slow for me, but by the end I was totallypulled in. LOVED IT! I really need to pick up the next book soon. 130 A Better World - Marcus Sakey - Brilliance was a better book. This one totally falls vicitim to the idea of being the middle of a series or trilogy. It spends more time putting the pieces into place that things like character development fall to the wayside. 131 Revival - Stephen King: I really loved this book. The horror aspect was pretty weak, but I could read King just writing about people living their lives all day long. 132 The Forest of Hands and Teeth - Carrie Ryan: If you have read "The Passage" and "The Twelve" then you have seen all this book has too offer. A zombie novel pregnant with whiney teenage emotions. 133 Skin - Kathe Koja - pretentious and dull. 134 MINE- Robert McCammon: Not his greatest work, but hippies kidnapping babies and going on the run does plenty to inspire anxiety and dread in the reader. 135 Kindred - Octavia Butler: This is one of those books that a lot of people should read, and then talk about it, having read it. Fascinating book, that in my opinion tries to discuss the fact that the things that happened during slavery are not just history, but bare relevance today. 136 Gateways - F. Paul Wilson: Perhaps one of the weaker Repairman Jack books, but it was still a pretty fun read. If you're this deep into the series, you like the characters enough to enjoy it. 137 Emperor of Thorns: Mark Lawrence: In retrospect, this book was pretty powerful. The ending and conclusion of the series was really enjoyable, but the lead up was work. 138 The Way of The Shadows: Brent Weeks - I blew through this in about three or so days. I loved it. I really enjoy what Brent Weeks is doing and can't wait to read more!. With four days to go, I want to make sure I get to 140, so I'm currently working on... Mr. Majestky - Elmore Leonard - evidently this was made into a Charles Bronson movie in the 1970s, about a man who is pushed too far and stands up for himself violently. About 1/3 of the way though it. Cop Hater - Ed McBain: The first McBain book. It's like reading Law and Order. It is very straight to the point and all about the procedure, but I enjoy it. I haven't crunched the final numbers, but I think by the time I get to 140, 20% of the books I read this year will have been non-fiction. 20% of the books I read this year will have been written or edited by women.
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Dec 28, 2014 17:35
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I think that I'm officially calling it a year. I just started a book, but I don't think that I'll be finishing it by the end of the year. So here's the run down of the all the books that I've read. 1) This Song Will Save Your Life 2) The Best Film You've Never Seen 3) I Wear the Black Hat 4) Difficult Men 5) Fresh Off the Boat 6) The Sports Gene 7) On Booze 8) S. 9) The Flamethrowers 10) A Game of Thrones 11) Of Dice and Men 12) Goodbye to All That 13) Jim Henson: The Biography 14) Mo Metta Blues 15) Orfeo 16) The Goldfinch 17) Freedom 18) In Cold Blood 19) This Side of Paradise 20) Rules of Civility 21) The Brooklyn Follies 22) Elanor & Park 23) Winger 24) Curveball 25) Will Grayson, Will Grayson 26) MFA vs NYC 27) The Best American Sports Writing 2013 28) The Best American Sports Writing 2008 29) Lost and Found: Stories from New York 30) Going Clear 31) The Bobby Gold Stories 32) The Rules of Attraction 33) Paper Towns 34) What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding 35) The Blazing World 36) We Are Not Ourselves 37) All the Light We Cannot See 38) The Empathy Exams 39) Insatiable: A Porn Love Story 40) The Possibilities 41) Delancey 42) Annihilation 43) Authority 44) Gone Girl 45) Acceptance 46) Naked Lunch 47) Sou Chef 48) Something Wicked This Way Comes 49) The Tao of the Wu 50) The Wolf of Wall Street 51) Wild 52) Redeployment 53) I Don't Know Where You Know Me From 54) 10:04 55) Bambi vs Godzilla 56) Into the Wild 57) The Museum of Extraordinary Things 58) Creepers 59) Badass Ultimate Deathmatch 60) Shotgun Lovesongs 61) Never Can Say Goodbye 62) I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp 63) The Best American Sports Writing 2014 Goal: 30/30 Year:63/63 Page Average: 340 Day Average: 6 Looks like I'll be upping my goal next year.
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Dec 28, 2014 18:09
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Groke posted:Those own so hard they made me read the original musketeers series (all of it), which also owned in all its glorious longwindedness. Those are actually next on the list after I finish rereading the Khaavren books, for the same reason. I've read The Count of Monte Cristo, but never any other Dumas.
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Dec 28, 2014 18:57
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So how should I chastise all those who have failed their challenge this past year?
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Dec 29, 2014 04:51
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Hey hey hold up I got two days.
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Dec 29, 2014 05:39
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I passed my challenge but writing it all up in the thread sounds like a chore (100+ books)
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Dec 29, 2014 05:44
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I never really numbered my finished books in here but I finished the challenge, I hit 67/40 which is sort of surprising. Number 67 was the Polish Complex by Tadeusz Konwicki. It's set on Christmas Eve in cold war poland, specifically a line up for a jewelry store. It's pretty free with time, sometimes jumping back to the rebellion of 1863 and other times in history. I guess it feels like an author confronting what it meant to be, and what it means to be polish. It's pretty good and cool if you can pick it up from a library or something.
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Dec 29, 2014 05:46
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bowmore posted:I passed my challenge but writing it all up in the thread sounds like a chore (100+ books) Maybe just post all the titles but just give little reviews of your favorites for content?
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Dec 29, 2014 06:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So how should I chastise all those who have failed their challenge this past year? Chastise me, I aimed for 30 and if I work fast I'll make it to 6. -______ My year to date: 1. Jerry Spinelli - Stargirl - cute little book, good message, easy read (took me like...5 hours one sitting, maybe?) 2. Patrick Rothfuss - The Name Of The Wind - I enjoyed this, but I know it's super divisive so I won't say much about it beyond that. 3. Louis Sachar - Holes - engaging, classic, excellent. 4. Markus Zusak - The Book Thief - also a very engaging and moving story. I read a large chunk of this, took a 6 month break, read another chunk, took another 2-3 break, then finished it. I wish I had not read it that way. 5. Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon - another classic which I read the short story of as a child. Some of the middle drags but overall it's excellent. Currently working on finishing Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding. Basically I am the worst and I need to read more  edit: also to read more books that aren't YA Quidthulhu fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 06:36
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:Maybe just post all the titles but just give little reviews of your favorites for content?
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Dec 29, 2014 07:28
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elbow posted:October and November - 75/70 December was a total bust, and I doubt I'll finish anything before Thursday because we're doing some DIY projects at home that are taking far too long. December - 78/70 76. Feed, by MT Anderson. Got this through my post-apocalyptic/dystopian book club's secret Santa, an it was a great gift. It's a dystopian book set in the near future, when 73% of the US population has what's basically a computer in their brains, allowing them to constantly be connected to everyone and everything. This computer shows you a feed of ads and news curated for you, 24/7. It doesn't sound like a groundbreaking novel, until you realize that it was published in 2002 and is eerily close to how we live now. 4/5 77. Het Behouden Huis, by WF Hermans. A great look at how people behave in war time. 4/5 78. You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld. A handful of his comics just had me shrugging, but a lot of them had me laughing out loud. I love how he combines science, religion, literature, sci-fi and history. 4/5 Final list for the year: 1. More Than This, by Patrick Ness. 4/5. 2. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Store, by Robin Sloan. 3/5 3. Butcher's Crossing, by John Williams. 4.5/5 4. Anthropology of an American Girl, by Hillary Thayer Hamann. 2/5 5. Look at the Birdie, by Kurt Vonnegut. 4/5 6 - 10. Sweet Tooth vols 2-6, by Jeff Lemire. 4.5/5 11. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. 4/5 12. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. 4/5 13. Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein. 3/5 14. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. 4/5 15. Pines, by Blake Crouch. 3/5 16. A Special Providence, by Richard Yates. 3.5/5 17. Winter's Bone, by Daniel Woodrell. 4/5 18. De Donkere Kamer van Damocles, by Willem Frederik Hermans. 4/5 19. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K Dick. 4/5 20. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. 4/5 21. The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt. 3.5/5 22. Shovel Ready, by Adam Sternbergh. 3/5 23. A Country Doctor's Notebook, by Mikhail Bulgakov. 4/5 24. I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, by William Gay. 4/5 25. Wool, by Hugh Howey. 3.5/5 26. The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K Dick. 3/5 27-29. The Walking Dead, Vols 18-20, by Robert Kirkman. 5/5 30. Blindness, by Jose Saramago. 4.5/5 31. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver. 4.5/5 32. Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde. 3/5 33. The Complete Horowitz Horror, by Anthony Horowitz. 4/5 34. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. 5/5 35. How to Archer. 3/5 36. A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness. 4/5 37. Twilight Zone, anthology edited by Carol Serling. 3/5 38. Fables: Legends in Exile, by Bill Willingham. 4/5 39. The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham. 3/5 40. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams. 4/5. 41. Young Hearts Crying, by Richard Yates. 4/5 42. Fables: Animal Farm, by Bill Willingham. 4/5 43. Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky. 4/5 44. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. 45. The Postman, by David Brin. 3/5 46. Ubik, by Philip K Dick. 4/5 47. The Underwater Welder, by Jeff Lemire. 5/5 48. Horns, by Joe Hill. 3/5 49. Wild Fell, by Michael Rowe. 3/5 50. Schrodinger's Telephone, by Marion Stein. 3/5 51. The Walking Dead Vol 21, by Robert Kirkman. 4/5 52. The Anatomy of Motive, by John Douglas. 4/5 53 and 54. Y: The Last Man volumes 1 and 2, by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra. 4/5 55. The Giver, by Lois Lowry. 3/5 56 - 60. Y: The Last Man volumes 3 - 7, by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra. 4/5 61. Shift, by Hugh Howey. 3/5 62. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer. 4/5 63 - 65. Y: The Last Man volumes 8 - 10, by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra. 4/5 66. Kingdom Come, by JG Ballard. 3/5 67. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer. 3/5 68. The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. 3/5 69. Acceptance, by Jeff VanderMeer. 3/5 70. Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman. 3/5 71. Rat Queens, vol 1, by Kurtis J Wiebe. 5/5 72. The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith. 3/5 73. Yes Please, by Amy Poehler. 4/5 74. The Walking Dead, vol 22, by Robert Kirkman. 5/5 75. The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. 4/5 76. Feed, by MT Anderson. 4/5 77. Het Behouden Huis, by WF Hermans. 4/5 78. You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld. 4/5
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Dec 29, 2014 08:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So how should I chastise all those who have failed their challenge this past year? Turn this into a shameatar: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GO0Q9VKVbM8/StG859jqDKI/AAAAAAAAE4o/DSwZvfeXwRw/s1600-h/PICT0029.JPG
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Dec 29, 2014 10:08
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12. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It was pretty good. Kids with cancer could have easily been so incredibly cheesy, but I think it managed to avoid this for the most part. Given how many drat similes and metaphors are packed in, I find this accomplishment doubly impressive. 13. Fragrant Days by Ekuni Kaori. This was the Japanese book I read this year. It started out strong. I really like Ekuni Kaori's books, and this one showcases a lot of her strengths. The prose is gentle but very evocative of the senses. Meanwhile, plot and character motivations are much more oblique. I really liked the first 80% of this book about kid's lives and young love, but then it goes creepy. Goddammit Japan. 14. The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. YA popcorn fic, to be sure, but it was entertaining popcorn fic. 15. The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss. This was really excellent. There's no plot or dialog. Just honey sweet words carefully constructing a portrait of broken young woman's word. I enjoyed it a lot, but if you're thinking about picking it up, here's fair warning. Some people really hate it. Like, loathe it. I don't know how far the sample goes, but if you read the sample and don't like, it won't change at some point. It is what it is the whole way through.
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Dec 29, 2014 12:49
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Corrode posted:Turn this into a shameatar: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GO0Q9VKVbM8/StG859jqDKI/AAAAAAAAE4o/DSwZvfeXwRw/s1600-h/PICT0029.JPG Feverishly reading my last book now.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:58
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January 1. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente February 2. The Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne M. Valente 3. Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy #1) by Jeff VanderMeer March 4. Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts 5. Red Dragon (Hannibal Lecter #1) by Thomas Harris 6. The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter #2) by Thomas Harris 7. The Martian by Andy Weir 8. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach May 9. Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball 10. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North 11. Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards 12. The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher 13. Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy #2) by Jeff VanderMeer 14. Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh 15. Bonk by Mary Roach 16. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 17. Masters of Doom by David Kushner June 18. The Severed Streets (Shadow Police #2) by Paul Cornell August 19. Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem 20. The Magician's Land (The Magicians #3) by Lev Grossman 21. Echopraxia by Peter Watts October 22. Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux 23. Acceptance (Southern Reach Trilogy #3) by Jeff VanderMeer November 24. The Steel Remains (A Land Fit for Heroes #1) by Richard Morgan 25. Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant #5) by Ben Aaronovitch December 26. The Palace Job (Rogues of the Republic #1) by Patrick Weekes GOAL : 26/25 Anyways my favourite non-2014 book of the year was Deathless, just a beautiful, haunting story that has stuck with me for the entire year. My favourite book of 2014 was Echopraxia, Watts isn't the most technically proficient but his ideas always hit home with me. Though I have to give honourable mentions to Acceptance and The First Fifteen Live of Harry August, both of which are gorgeous novels. I'm not very happy with the amount I managed to read this year, I'll have to actively try and work on that in 2015.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So how should I chastise all those who have failed their challenge this past year? Ban anyone that posted anything in this thread regardless of whether they met their goal or not. Don't ban me though please.
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Dec 29, 2014 19:26
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Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky as translated by David Magarshack. Let's see 103 Lost in the Funhouse by Roland Barth. Pretty fun, pretty irritating. 104 The Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo as translated by Beryl de Zote. This was pretty fun too. 105 The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stohl. Just a poorly-written thriller of a system's manager in the 1980s tracking a hacker. It was a quick read, and it's pretty cute having email explained to me. ♀ 16/20 Σ 105/60
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Dec 29, 2014 19:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So how should I chastise all those who have failed their challenge this past year? You don't have to chastise me, because I'm finished! 90 books (previously 52), over 50% women authors. Last 4 books: #87: As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann. #88: Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb. #89: Tyrant's Daughter - J.C. Carleson. #90: Runemarks - Joanne Harris. As Meat Loves Salt is a book set during the English Civil War (so mid-17th century) about an English man and his boyfriend. The writing was very good, but I found the protagonist to be rather unlikeable. Runemarks is Joanne Harris' YA book based on Norse mythology, which came out before The Gospel of Loki. There is a sequel, Runelight, which I will probably read later next year. At present, I am reading Ship of Magic, the next book in the next trilogy in Robin Hobb's Farseer universe. It is in the same setting and chronology as the previous trilogy but in a different part of the world. I also have a book about Cab Calloway and Peter Heller's The Dog Stars from the library. The latter book is similar to Station Eleven in that they both take place in the post-apocalypse.
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Dec 29, 2014 23:50
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Done:code:4/4 by authors from outside Europe and North America, 10/10 written originally in Finnish. I read some amazing non-fiction this year, like 1776, Master of the Senate and Nixonland. The Finnish stuff was, unfortunately, pretty terrible. My favourite in fiction was Declare with Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy coming in second.
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Dec 30, 2014 00:30
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I stopped posting because  but I did beat my goal! 56/52 total, 10 nonfiction and 17 female authors. 34. The Secret Garden- Frances Hodgson Burnett 35. Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell Holy god Scarlett is insufferable 36. The Innocence of Father Brown- GK Chesterton 37. The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades- Piers Paul Read Not great. More of a list of historical events the Templars were at rather than an in-depth look at the organization itself. 38. Tales of Neveryon- Samuel R Delany 39. Thirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed- Henry SF Cooper Jr 40. The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made- Greg Sestero Have you seen The Room? Then you should read this. 41. Dawn- Octavia E Butler 42. The Complete Blood, Sweat, and Tea- Tom Reynolds A book about a London EMT's various experiences on the job. Elise the Great's posts in the Healthcare Megathread are both more interesting and better written. 43. Adulthood Rites- Octavia E Butler 44. Imago- Octavia E Butler 45. First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong- James R Hansen Very good, and one of the few books that Armstrong himself actually contributed to/helped on. 46. The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne Somehow I never read this in high school. 47. Child of Fire- Harry Connolly 48. Raising Steam- Terry Pratchett 49. Blood Song- Anthony Ryan Fairly generic fantasy well-written enough to still be interesting and a good read. 50. Evgeniy Onegin- Alexander Pushkin 51. Who Fears Death- Nnedi Okorafor drat this was good.From my goodreads right after I finished it: The author doesn't pull any punches when it comes to depicting oppression (be in racial or sexual), so parts of it are hard to read just because of how violent and disturbing it is. But those parts are also based entirely on real events so it's not the grimdark "look how edgy I am" flavor of a lot of western fantasy/sci-fi. From wikipedia- "The novel was inspired in part by Emily Wax's 2004 Washington Post article "We Want to Make a Light Baby," which discussed the use of weaponized rape by Arab militiamen against Black African women in the Darfur conflict." 52. The Thousand Names- Django Wexler 53. The Crimson Petal and the White- Michel Faber 54. Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission- Andrew Kessler 55. The Fellowship of the Ring- JRR Tolkien Annual reread because they're my favorite books. I'll probably finish Two Towers before the end of the year.
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Dec 30, 2014 01:42
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So I kind of forget about this thread, hence the lack of updating my total. In any case, I failed to finish my small goal of 20 books, but I hit 12 (+2 texts that after all was said and done, I'm not counting towards my total since they were such insanely light/small reads). I'm still counting this as a good start, because that's way more books than I read in the past five years prior to trying this. In any case, I'd previously read Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh, which I'm not counting towards my total because it's a rather short graphic novel, and The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, which I loved. The rest of the year was 2. The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett A book I quite enjoyed in spite of the ridiculous plotting. It was a pretty easy read, and I loved the dated depiction of masculinity with the protagonist. I'll have to look for more Hammett. 3. Excluded by Julia Serano Read this for a class I was taking on Queer theories and politics, and mostly enjoyed it. Some good ideas in the book, but a lot of what was largely fueled by anecdotal evidence. Reading it more like an academically-minded editorial made the ideas resonate more, however I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't interested in gender studies. 4. The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter Easily my favourite book of the year, it was absolutely ridiculous and batshit insane in the best possible ways. A look at how the civil rights movements might have ended up if the fears of the conservative naysayers of the day ended up true. It was a bit scattered at times, and I felt a bit hard to really get into at the start, but when things got rolling, it was hard to put down. 5. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot After an entire summer of not reading a single thing, I started a course on "The English Novel," which, while not terrible, I realize is not really my thing. First up was Daniel Deronda, which I can't say I really enjoyed too much. There were a lot of interesting ideas in this, but the huge plot shifts made the whole book feel a bit disjointed to me. It seemed to switch focus in who the book was about, as well as what it was about, about halfway through, and as a result I stopped caring about certain characters that the book continued to include but de-emphasize. 6. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence Enjoyed this one more, as I found the prose more engaging, however, I had a hard time with the characters in that their character shifts felt more like it was to aid the plot, and as such I felt some of the character's actions to be rather unbelievable. 7. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Another book I'm unsure how I feel about it. I liked the way Tess was portrayed as sympathetic in bad circumstances, but at the same time, no one else was depicted as such, so she felt 'too good' when constantly surrounded by bad things happening to her. It was a nice counter-view to the dominant society of the time, but it felt almost too defeatist without using that aspect of it as a comment. Of course, late-semester fatigue was starting to hit at this point, so I'm sure I missed a lot that was going on in this novel. 8. Maurice by E.M. Forster I don't have much to say about this book as I was reading it during final projects/papers. It was fairly dry, but pretty easy to read. 9. Nevada by Imogen Binnie This book really could've used some editing. Lots of grammar and syntax issues. That said, I found it interesting, and a refreshing change from the usual queer-lit I've read so far. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the subject area who isn't looking for anything particularly artful in its prose. It was an easy read, but would really have benefited from more revising. 10. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty I love reading about the funerary/death industry, as well as funeral practices, so I really enjoyed this sort-of memoir about a crematory operator who is disillusioned with current Western funerary practices. 11. Necrophilia Variations by Supervert Having wanted to read this since hearing about it in the Hysterical Literature series, I have to say it wasn't as shocking as I expected, at least, considering it's a book about necrophilia. Parts of it were well written, parts of it were really flat, but it was shockingly minimal in its discussions of Necrophilia, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more focused on the necrophiliac than on the act of necrophilia (thankfully). I found the misogyny in it more disturbing than any of the corpse-loving. Overall, I wouldn't really recommend it, as there's way better transgressive fiction out there, but it was interesting for its introspection into the mind of a sexual deviant, and some of the short stories were well written. BONUS - SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas Counting this as bonus because it was only 35 pages. This was ridiculous. Further proof that toxic viewpoints can exist in any ideology. It was the most psychotically batshit idea of feminism I've read, but at the same time, there were some great lines in here, in that I could see a character in John Waters movie yelling them. Unintentional satire? 12. Wetlands by Charlotte Roche After having read the first paragraph earlier, I knew this book would be up my alley. It was a total gross-out, but I still read it all in one sitting. I'd like to say I really enjoyed the book for its brazen depiction of outsider sexuality, and it's blasé attitude towards the taboos it was tackling, but I felt like the direction the plot went did not have enough emphasis to really be meaningful. Too much time was spent on the gross-out stuff at the expense of exploring the deeper meanings. I did read a translation of it from the original German, so it is hard to say how much that altered it, but I was expecting more from it. And that was my year. I might finish more before it is over, but this might be it. Failed my goal, but I made a good start considering I'd maybe read one book a year prior to starting this. Anne Frankenstein fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 02:17
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Sorry I didn't update, well, ever. 1. Dad is Fat - Awful and unfunny. Why did I read this? 2. The Wolf Gift - There was not a single moment in which the main character was not rich, surrounded by friends, correct about everything, and had a line of people hankering for wolfman cock. No good. 3. Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character - Hilarious! 4. Dangerous Women - Best short was Bombshells by Butcher. The rest, including the SoIaF short, were really forgettable. 5. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief - This was really creepy and I couldn't put it down. I don't know how half the stuff in here is legal, or the stuff that is illegal, how they get away with it. 6. Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays - Militant internet atheists write their barely edited treatises on the Bible. Its just as good as it sounds. 7. Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? and Other Reflections on Being Human - I feel like this was outshone by Sex at Dawn. Little too much  and outdated information.8. Why Evolution Is True - Interesting bits I hadn't known about biology before, worth a look. 9. The Knife of Never Letting Go - YA dystopia novel. Written at a much lower reading level than Hunger Games but compelling. 10. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Hitchens is not as smart as he thinks he is. Drivel. 11. The Ask and the Answer - Felt like it was ripping off Hunger Games with its terrorism/counter-terrorism, propoganda, brainwashing plots. 12. Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Absolutely fascinating. 13. Divergent - I read this trilogy because I promised my sister I'd read it with her. 14. Insurgent - 15. Allegiant - I haven't forgiven her for that 16. Monsters of Men - Last book of the trilogy for Knife of Never Letting Go. Went completely off the rails with aliens and superbombs and more terrorism and telepathy 17. The Willpower Instinct - Solid science, although more mentalistic than it needed to be. 18. The Maze Runner - Creepy, fast-paced. 19. The Power of Habit - A bit repetitive with its examples, hammers home points well after they've been made. 20. Cat Sense - Really good, if you like cats. 21. The Magic of Reality - Boring 22. Heir to the Empire - Felt like I had to read this since it pissed off so many people when it was made non-canonical. 23. The Year of Living Biblically - Hilarious, but still managed to be vaguely respectful. 24. Dark Force Rising - Meh 25. The Character of Cats - Meh 26. The Walking Dead, Vol. 20: All Out War Part 1 - I feel like the series is just spinning its wheels at this point. 27. The Last Command 28. Skin Game - Pulpy, but excellent. I can't believe how far the series and the author have come in characterization, pacing, action, subplots... 29. Food Rules: An Eater's Manual - Food Babe-esque nonsense and fearmongering. 30. 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology - I liked this book mainly because it felt like I could nod along with the author the whole time. 31. Shattered - It really wants to be Dresden Files, but it isn't. 32. Why People Believe Weird Things 33. The Science of Consequences: How They Affect Genes, Change the Brain, and Impact Our World - One of the best books I read all year. Ties together fields of psychology, biology, neurology, and behavior analysis in a nice little bow. Towards ABA goal. 34. Aluminum Sky: Journals of the Malatora Project 35. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body 36. The World Without Us - Dry, but interesting. I think I may like the TV series a little better. 37. Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution - This and Inner Fish taught me a lot about biology, fun reads. 38. Ready Player One - Highly over-rated. It was Family Guy for nerds. 39. Horns - Absolutely loved it. It had some issues with tone but was a quick, creepy, poignant book. The movie did NOT do it justice. 40. A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent - Distressingly little dragons in this. 41. The Walking Dead, Vol. 21: All Out War Part 2 - Still spinning wheels. 42. Good and Cheap: A Snap Cookbook 43. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design 44. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin 45. Magic Breaks - The heroine has gotten less and less independent and active in the past few books in the series, and I'm worried she is going to be neutered. The big showdown was anti-climatic and I hope it is just setup for the next book. 46. Debt: The First 5,000 Years - Way too dry and slow. 47. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change - I think I missed the boat when this actually would have made an impact on me. I just rolled my eyes at this. 48. The Magician's Land - Better than book 2 but I don't know if it was as good as The Magicians. Main character was the most likeable and proactive in this book, though. 49. Prince of Thorns - I hate the main character and the series is super dark and edgy just for the sake of being dark and edgy, but I enjoy the setting and secondary characters a lot. 50. The Darwin Elevator 51. The Language of Food - Surprisingly fun read, there's a method to the madness of menus. 52. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Working in TBI and dementia I see this stuff a lot. Author does a great job of evoking realistic issues with gravity. However, he also comes off as a completely unethical clinician. 53. Gambling: Behavior Theory, Research, and Application - I really liked it but I don't think anyone here would. For my TBI/ASD goal 54. Rogues 55. King of Thorns - Now all the people I like are dead so I guess I don't need to keep reading this series. 56. Warm Bodies - Meh 57. The Slow Regard of Silent Things - I'm not one of those people that HATE the story. I'm just one that didn't like it. Its the still life painting of literature, and I don't particularly think a vase and an orange are interesting to read about. 58. Mr. Mercedes - This should have been called Old People Don't Like Computers. Probably one of the best endings King's written. Drags in the middle, wraps up nicely, but there's a lot of cliches in it. 59. Day by Day Armageddon - A hypercompetent survivalist navy pilot is prepared for everything, understands everything, can do everything, and refers to women as 'females.' Females have no dialogue and are incapable of contributing to the story in any way. This is not a book, it is a goon's zompocalypse fantasy. 60. Safe by Accident? - ABA goal 61. Teaching Language to Children with Autism - For my ASD/TBI book goal, good resource for students 62. The Verbal Behavior Approach - For my ASD-TBI goal. I knew all the information in here and then some, but would probably be good book for parents. Currently Reading: Worm - Halfway through and can't put it down. The Marshmallow Test - Just started it, Worm kind of got in the way. I didn't hit the classics---in all honesty I forgot about that halfway through the year---but I nailed the work-related books. I'm pleased with the amount of non-fiction I read overall compared to last year, although looking back I had a real atheist bent when I was shooting for evolutionary biology.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:37
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Passed my goal of 52, which I am happy with. I think my favorite books of the year were Infinite Jest, Flannery O'Connor's Complete Stories and Invisible Cities by Calvino.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:08
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adhuin posted:1. God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens I finished mine during summer, but didn't bother to update. .50 The Winter Long: October daye #8, by Seanan Mcguire a Series that I should have stopped reading few books earlier when the series peaked. Pretty standard issue Female Urban Fantasy (FuF for short  )51-57. Witcher #1-5+2, by Andrzej Sapkowski 2 Short Story collections about Witcher Geralt, which are an excellent introduction to the world or just to expand the knowledge for gamers (like me). If you've played either of games or are anxiously waiting for the 3rd game, these books are made for you. The 5-part main series is more a story of his adopted daughter Ciri, which start promisingly, but either the fan-translations are poor (which they probably are) or the story just falls little flat at the last 2 book. Still very good books, but the short stories are essential reading. After I read those books (during summer), I had a serious book burnout and didn't read anything for about 5 months. I Had nothing to read and didn't really look for it. Then came notification from Harry Connollys kickstarter, that the books were finished. Originally they ought have been out in summer, but like many others, they were delayed. 58-60 The Great Way #1-3, by Harry Connolly The Main product, that I kickstarted for based on his 20th palace books. Frankly they're pretty average fantasy. Premise of Predator-prey relations and how humans do, when they aren't top predator is a good concept, but Connolly can't handle it properly. First 2 books are interesting survival books, but 3rd book feels like 2 books worth of development is crammed in single book, with end twist that literally comes out of nowhere. Still pretty readable entertainment, that left bad taste from ending. 61 A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate remark, by Harry Connolly This one-off book from same kickstarter is the actually good book. An Urban Fantasy Conspiracy/murder story with an actual pacifist lead. And it works splendidly.
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Dec 30, 2014 08:35
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Female authors: 27/24 Non-fiction: 12/12 Goodreads. There's a lot of interesting and amusing stuff about English culture and behaviour in Watching the English, and I mostly enjoyed it, but the way it's written is frequently irritating. For one thing, the author's use of language is very, very repetitive, and she uses some words and phrases that I found quite irritating, such as "Eeyoreishness", "oh, come off it", "social dis-ease" repeatedly throughout. There's also the false pretence that the author is just some idiot with no special knowledge and that she's coming upon this information in the same order the reader is and formulating her conclusions as she goes, and obviously that's not the case; Fox is an accomplished anthropologist and books aren't written like that. She collected the information first and put it together in a specific and intentional order, and pretending that that's not the case seems pointless and dumb. The Fey series slows down a bit in The Resistance, but things still move forward in a satisfactory manner and I still really like the way both sides of things are shown, so we hear one character's plans and expectations and then the plans and expectations of an opposing character and then we see the confrontation play out in a way that is totally consistent with the setup. Everything the series has built up comes together in Victory and focuses in on the final act. It's a bit of a deus ex machina, but it's not too bad as it has been set up to some extent in the previous books. It doesn't really feel that the characters earn their final victory and I would have preferred if it had gone differently, but I'm still looking forward to reading the remaining three books though. Don't Pay Bad for Bad is a book of fables. I don't like fables.  The Honey Month is twee as gently caress. The impression I get of the author is that she's the sort of person who likes those god-awful cafés where the furniture is old crates and the drinks are served in jars instead of glasses. The poetry in this book is entirely forgettable, while the short stories range from forgettable to mediocre. The honey reviews are infuriatingly affected and seem completely pointless. They're apparently central to the book as a whole (just look at the title) but I can't see any value to them at all. In fact, the book would be better without them. All they did was put me off, with their pretentious nonsense. I probably still wouldn't have enjoyed the book much, but at least it would have been less irritating. With less than two days to go, I doubt I'll finish anything else this year, so whatever I start next will count for next year's challenge. And finally, here's my top five books for the year:
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Dec 30, 2014 08:50
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beer_war posted:5/20: Hugo Chávez sin Uniforme by Alberto Barrera Tyszka: Remarkably evenhanded biography of a highly divisive man. 11/20: Breaking News by Frank Schätzing: Schätzing was never one for short books, and I didn't mind it at all in Der Schwarm and Limit, but this one just dragged. You don't even find out what the book is about until the midway point, and the payoff isn't really worth it. 12/20: Fear and Loathing in La Liga by Sid Lowe: Sid something gets carried away a bit with his own cleverness, but he's still far and away my favorite football write and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. 13/20: American Gods by Neil Gaiman: Picked this up because it was on NPR's Top 100 Fantasy / Sci-Fi books and had no idea what to expect. Boy, this book was not for me. Barely any plot, loads of weird poo poo a totally nondescript main character. 14/20: The Martian by Andy Weir. This book about an astronaut stuck on Mars was one of the best books I read all year. There's no extraneous side-plots or tacked-on romances, just this astronaut trying to survive with methods grounded in real science. The protagonists' dry sense of humor makes it surprisingly funny as well. 15-17/20: Heir To The Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command by Timothy Zahn: I remember having read this cycle as a teenager, but I didn't remember anything else about it and wanted to revisit it. It's enjoyable enough, but I can also see why it's forgettable.
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Dec 30, 2014 17:03
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It doesn't look like I'm going to finish anything else this year, so here is my 2014 reading list:Prolonged Shame posted:1) Winters Heart - Robert Jordan December: 100) Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare: I wasn't a big fan of this one. I guess there's a reason it's not commonly assigned to high schoolers. 101) Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris: Awesome. This was the third volume in a Teddy Roosevelt biography, focusing on his post-presidential years. He really was the most interesting person ever to live, and the biography is great as well. 102) Choke - Chuck Palanhuik: I found this incredibly boring. It felt like he was trying too hard to be edgy. I liked Fight Club but this one just didn't do it for me. 103) Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett: The third and final volume in Folletts century trilogy. I really enjoyed the first two, but he really dropped the ball with this one. When he wasn't contriving to have his characters present at important historical events (MLK's assassination, RFK's assassination) he was busy telling us why all Republican politicians were unequivocally terrible while all Democratic ones are great. He also had a terrible habit of having characters explain circumstances to other characters who logically would know them (ie having Washington insiders explain the basics of the Cuban missile crisis to one another). 104) The Haunting of Hill house - Shirley Jackson: Loved this. It was so creepy even though very few supernatural events actually occur. Beautifully written as well. 105) The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco: I liked this one a lot as well. It's a murder mystery set in a Medieval monastery, but is much more than that. It's the kind of book that I had to put down to go look things up on Wikipedia, which I always like. Highly recommended. Done! Overall goal:105/100 - Reached it! Sub-goals: Presidential biographies: 11/12 - didn't quite make this one. After 2000+ pages about Teddy Roosevelt I needed a break. Books over 600 pages: 15/15 - done! Non-fiction books (not counting prez bios): 20/20 - done! I'll be back with a similar goal next year, no doubt.
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Dec 31, 2014 02:36
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1) The Laugh of Medusa - Helene Cisoux 2) The Bone People - Keri Hulme 3) The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson 4) Nine Parts of Desire - Geraldine Brooks 5) Stargazing - Patrick Moore 6) Great Australian Ghost Stories - Richard Davis 7) Tamsin - Peter S Beagle 8) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 9) The Breakwater House - Pascale Quiviger 10) The Cosmic Serpent - Jeremy Narby 11) The Disaster Artist - Greg Sestero and Tom Bissel 12) Dancing with the Sacred - Karl E. Peters 13) Seven Little Australians - Ethel Turner 14) My Place - Sally Morgan 15) Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon 16) Ritual: Power, Healing & Community - Malidoma Some 17) The Golem - Gustav Meyrink 18) The Planets - Dava Sobel 19) Community Development in an Uncertain World - Jim Ife 20) Animate Earth - Stephan Harding 21) Iwenhe Tyerrtye - Margaret Kemarre Turner 22) Ariel - Sylvia Plath 23) Welcome to My Country - Laklak Burarrwanga 24) The Misogyny Factor - Anne Summers 25) The Princess Bride - William Goldman 26) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories - Angela Carter 27) The Plains - Gerald Murnane 28) Practice Skills in Social Work - Jane Maidment 29) GreenSpirit - Marian McCain 30) Green Heart - Alice Hoffman 31) Nine Lives - Katharine Mary Briggs 32) The Secret River - Kate Grenville 33) Castle in the Air - Diana Wynne Jones 34) My People - Oodgeroo 35) The Inferno - Dante Alighieri 36) Big Fish - Daniel Wallace 37) Milk and Honey - Elizabeth Jolley 38) Searching for the Secret River - Kate Grenville 39) A Place Called Home - Jason Grant 40) The Fifties in Pictures - James Lescott 41) Legend of the Hero - Kari Fry 42) Cosi - Louis Nowra 43) The Sixties in Pictures - James Lescott 44) Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut 45) The Bhagavad-Gita Just squeezed the last one in today. I forget what my sub-goals were but I'm impressed with the amount of non-fiction I managed to read this year. Bolded are my favourites for the year. I think of the favourites, it's probably a three-way tie between The Plains, The Haunting of Hill House and Tamsin for best of the best. Biggest disappointment was undoubtedly The Secret River. So dull, and probably suffered from over-hype as well. Thinking of how much I loved The Haunting of Hill House makes me want to set a goal for next year to read more horror. And more mystery novels. This challenge looks like it could be fun too.
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Dec 31, 2014 05:20
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Real life got in the way and I haven't been around this thread much. I think someone else should make the thread for next year. I did finish my edited goal of 52. I lowered it after Worm took me like 3 months, but I highly recommend it if you have the time.
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Dec 31, 2014 06:15
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Just finished my 70 book goal for this year... Had to stay up last night to finish the last one, but made it, even have enough time for a drink or two tonight. The full list of my books is on my Goodreads page if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/8416512 This year I read a few books by Murakami for the first time, and really enjoyed them, particularly 1Q84.
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Dec 31, 2014 07:04
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December! 144. The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein 145. The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan 146. The Cuckoo’s Calling - Robert Galbraith 147. March - Geraldine Brooks 148. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke 149. The River Why - David James Duncan 150. The Yacoubian Building - Alaa al Aswany 151. Revival - Stephen King 152. Number9Dream - David Mitchell And I finish my year of reading way more than expected - in my first post in this topic I decided on 52 books, but ended up with 100 more. I usually get through about 100 books in a year, but this year I kinda outdid myself. First off: the Art of Racing in the Rain is some seriously lovely reading. A dying dog thinks back on his life with his racecar driving owner. There's a false rape accusation and a whole lot of metaphors comparing life to driving fast cars. As Enzo would put it: woof. Luckily, I read some great stuff this month, too. The River Why was a weird and funny book about a fly-fisher with a little philosophy mixed in. The Yacoubian Building was an Egyptian bestseller that follows the lives of several inhabitants of an old hotel - it shows a broad variety of life, from the fundamentalist youths who are swayed by persuasive priests to aging lotharios to the underground gay culture of Egypt. Number9Dream was a pretty entertaining David Mitchell book about a young man in Tokyo trying to find his father and running into a variety of characters, including some brutal Yakuza enforcers. Out of the entire year, I'd have to say these were the best reads: -The Brothers K by David James Duncan -Station Eleven by Emily St. James Mandel -The Martian by Andy Weir -Skippy Dies by Paul Murray -The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck -The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear/Rumo and his Miraculous Adventures - Walter Moers -The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles -Life & Fate by Vasily Grossman -Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin -The Good Lord Bird by James McBride -Stoner by John Williams -any goddamn thing Ursula K. LeGuin's written - The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, and the first 3 Earthsea books were all absolutely wonderful My goal next year is not to surpass the book count of this year, but to read books that have intimidated me for a while - such as Ulysses and Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror." Maybe that Worm thing, too. Huzzah for books! Chamberk fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 31, 2014 |
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Dec 31, 2014 16:42
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I don't remember if I ever signed up for this year but I managed to do my goal of 52 -The Silence and the Roar by Nihad Sirees -Death of the Black-Haired Girl by Robert Stone -& Sons by David Gilbert -The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt -Enon by Paul Harding -The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner -Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang -Life After Life by Kate Atkinson -The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri -Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin -Someone by Alice McDermott -A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki -The Good Lord Bird by James McBride -Family Life by Akhil Sharma -Falling Out of Time by David Grossman -This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash -The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis -Andrew's Brain by EL Doctorow -Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter -The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver -Far North by Marcel Theroux -The Dog Stars by Peter Heller -The Kept by James Scott -Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy -Land of Love and Drowning byTiphanie Yanique -Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys -Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole -An Untamed State by Roxane Gay -10:04 by Ben Lerner -A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride -In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen -Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle -All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld -Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore -Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi -Out of the Dark by Patrick Modiano -Gilead by Marilynne Robinson -Home by Marilynne Robinson -Lila by Marilynne Robinson -Redeployment by Phil Klay -Missing Person by Patrick Modiano -A Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolaño -An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine -Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill -Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout -The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields -A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines -Netherland by Joseph O'Neill -Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel -Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng -The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann
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Dec 31, 2014 17:30
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