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First time trying to set a number, so I'll say So far... 1. Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes by Daniel Kehlmann I wanted something that dealt with modern celebrity and fame, I Googled and got this. A fun book, but didn't quite scratch the itch I was after. 2. Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough by Clive Hamilton, Richard Denniss Definitely entertaining, and it was nice to read a sociological book where my country was the case study. It did make some pretty flippant, unsubstantiated comments here and there, but I found the chapters on downshifting (in simplest terms to give up money for time; consume less, work less) to be interesting. I've repeated one anecdote from the book a few times, about a couple who both worked in finance decided to downshift. The wife told the writer, that the most difficult adjustment had been to change their attitude, to where they could sit down for a cup of coffee at 11:30, on a Tuesday morning and not feel guilty that they should be doing something more productive. 3. The Vital Illusion by Jean Baudrillard I think that cloning has been shoved out of the way by transhumanism, since the book was written, as the leading method for humanity's pursuit of immortality. That said, you can still apply many of the arguments made to various areas outside of specifically cloning. A bit wordy throughout and I found myself scanning a lot of the paragraphs for the meaty bits. I still want to read "Simulacra and Simulation". 4. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin created a strange little community to be drawn into here - claustrophobic compared to the openness of archipelago in the first book. I liked it! Detailed characters, some intrigue, solid writing - good holiday reading. 5. Pastoralia by George Saunders This here's my jam. Funny, poignant, weird. Its far from a perfect collection and I don't remember about half of the stories, but there is magic in there. One story of a young boy who is constantly told he is worthless has stuck with me for a few weeks. 6. Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami A book about an elderly, mentally handicapped man who can chat with cats and goes on a quest across Japan with the aid of helpful strangers to... well he's not really sure. Oh and I guess there are some chapters with some whiney kid who is trying to find and/or bang his mother or some poo poo? Did I tell you about the rad old dude who can talk to cats? 
Hocus Pocus fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 17, 2014 04:46
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 13:55 |
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Walh Hara posted:Since you read 6 books already I would really recommend a higher goal rather than one you will easily pass even if your reading rate drops to 1/3 of what it was so far. There's no shame when you don't meet your goal, so take one that challenges yourself and see if you can surprise yourself! Yeah good point, I think I'll up it to 72
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Jan 18, 2014 00:22
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Being unemployed, broke and depressed while watching all your friends get jobs and have lives sure gives you a lot of time for reading! 7. Liars In Love by Richard Yates Unfortunately left me wanting having already read Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (one of my favorite short story collections). Still worth the read, but be prepared for a strong current of desperation moving through the lost souls of Yate's stories. Maybe read it before the (IMO) superior Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. 8. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Difficult, but rewarding. A book that is read very actively. The names, relationships, and tragedies of the Compson family are all fairly cloudy, but each of the four parts offers different tools to help sharpen the image. Some parts of the book jump non chronologically paragraph to paragraph, which apparently Faulker intended to have colour coded - some publishers have done this, and I'm interested in reading one of these copies. 9. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami Best described by Haruki Murakami in the foreword: "...a kind of memoir centered on the act of running". Murakami is simply pleasant company as he talks through different aspects of how he trains as a runner, his life, and his career as a professional novelist. I think anyone with a particular passion will find this an affirming book and find Murakami charming in his modesty and small eccentricities. 10. Master and Man and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy Hocus Pocus fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 08:38
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Hocus Pocus posted:1. Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes by Daniel Kehlmann Well February was a bit slower because I started a new job, but I kept up momentum by reading shorter novels in the last two weeks. I also went through a couple of essay collections. 11. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut In my top five Vonnegut novels - I enjoyed it more than the last two I read (Galapagos, Deadeye Dick). Rabo Karabekian was a rich character, and his struggles as a man and as an artist were sympathetic. Oh and the climactic reveal of his secret art piece is satisfying. 12. Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor Many of the essays, by this acclaimed short story writer, were stitched together from speeches Flannery O'Connor had given at universities. This comes off with varying success: the essays on regional writing and the south work, but there is plenty of repetition. The essays on the idea of the 'Catholic novelist' are extremely repetitive, and dense. The opening piece is a gem though, about O'Connor's interest in raising peacocks. The books real value comes from her two essays on the aim of fiction and writing short stories. They make it worth the price of admission. 13. Rabbit, Run by John Updike At times fantastic prose, but there are some seriously OTT sentences going on. A young married man who goes by Rabbit (a high school nickname; he is painfully refusing to let go of his former glory as a star high school basketball player) bails on his family to take up with a prostitute. Rabbit is unpleasant company and I dragged my feet through the whole thing because I didn't care what he did next, and there wasn't any element of mystery. Not interested in reading the other books. 14. The Quiet American by Graham Greene I like when compact novels feel full. Set in Saigon during the first Indochina War, the book is narrated by Fowler a veteran British journalist. Fowler is having a relationship with a young Vietnamese woman, and a large part of the story is centered on his competition over her with a young, idealistic American aid worker named Pyle. It was great: nothing felt extraneous and Fowler's internal struggles and thought processes were visceral. 15. The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories by Nikolay Gogol Like how 'Master and Man' was my introduction to Tolstoy, this was my introduction to Gogol. It had the same big impact. Not at all difficult, or slow, like I expected. The prose flowed and the stories often surprised me with where they ended up. Gogol has some big characters in supporting roles, but he also has range: he mixes surrealism with realism and has stories that mix the absurd, with poignancy and darkness. 'Nevsky Prospekt' is a good example of this. 16. The Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch When I look up at night and see tiny distant suns, it makes me struggle to understand the desire to 'be remembered'. What does our species really matter? Or our planet? In the infinite span of time nobody is remembered. It’s a grounding idea, in many ways it is a leveller and equalizer – even if someone like Rupert Murdoch is motivated by the idea of legacy, it is an illusory motivation. All that's left is to carve out some small happiness for yourself, and to be kind; help everyone else along with their time on this rock. Finding the nightsky grounding is something Iris Murdoch echoes at one point (at least how I interpreted what she was saying). Nature and art are both means of supplanting the ego. Both make you look outside yourself and get a larger framing of existence. A fairly difficult book (I don't have much of an education in philosophy, and I haven't read much either), but definitely some ideas in there to mull over. 17. The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire by... Charles Baudelaire... I don't quite know how to read poetry, so any advice would be appreciated! I remember someone telling me years ago to read aloud and slowly, and after reading once, to look up any words I didn't know and then read the poem again. So that's how I went through this collection. I read slowly and let things wash over me and some lines struck some kind of chord, and some didn't. Overall I enjoyed it. Some of the short prose poems were strange, almost fable-like, and I was way into that. 18. Julius by Daphne du Maurier A difficult read, because Julius, like Rabbit, is not sympathetic. The book charts a young French Jew's life after the Prussian invasion of France in the 19th century and his rise to extraordinary wealth and power by the early 20th century. Julius is a sociopath. The problem this creates is he doesn't have much internal conflict. He doesn’t struggle with much you can relate to. His primary feeling towards other people is annoyance, and when he casts people aside, that's that. Loved ones die and once they’re gone you won’t see their name again. The book’s strength is how it creates a sense of place. The first act with a Paris under siege, and then Alger (a bustling melting pot of people and culture) is a highlight. 19. The 10% Solution by Ken Rand Recommended in one of Creative Convention’s resources threads. A solid, structured system for editing, doesn’t take much to learn and anyone writing fiction/essays could apply. Worth it. 20. The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark I bought this and some other books at a one of those antique warehouse markets? Where people rent out a little lot and then they can pack it full of whatever they want to sell. A lot of biscuit tins and bank calendars from 1974 that some hoarder reckons are valuable. I recognised the name Muriel Spark and the title was catchy, so I picked it up. A young, educated man enters a working class area in London and acts unusually and fucks with people. It never went far enough. Dougal Douglas is meant to be this manipulative trouble maker who is compared to a succubus and a devil, but I never got a sense of that. He just seemed to be this eccentric guy who seemed disinterested in other people, who would occasionally cause a scene. There was some lying and false empathy on his part, but it was more Manic Pixie Girl than Loki. No idea how he supposedly drove people to leave jobs, to kill, to want to kill, etc. I might reread it, I feel like I may have missed something. Fun characters and dialogue, I just didn’t buy what was going on. I'm starting The Pit and The Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe. I am going to order some Kobo Abe and Alberto Moravia soon, if anyone has any suggestions that'd be great. Same goes for poetry. The challenge has been great so far! 20/72
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Feb 28, 2014 05:50
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Hocus Pocus posted:
March! 21. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh Strongest in the second act when the journalists were actually in Africa. Slow start and uninteresting ending, but that middle section with the journalists sitting on their hands and summoning stories from nothing was pretty funny. 22. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Fascinating - I know a lot more about various kinds of porridge and the challenges of brick laying in Siberian temperatures than I did before. Very bleak. 23. Realms of Gold by John Keats A selection of letters from throughout John Keats life. It was a privileged existence but Keats shines through as a caring friend and good brother. A great poet, and man. 24. Father Brown by G.K Chesterton Father Brown makes for a compelling lead in this collection of mystery short stories. But I eventually lost steam because of how little was revealed about the man Father Brown, who was far more of a mystery than any of the murders or thefts. 25. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse Amazing prose. Hesse does so much with so little. So few pages but manages to tell the life story of a Buddha. 26. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck My introduction to Steinbeck. I had one of those daft moments where I said to someone "You know, John Steinbeck is actually pretty good!". I guess its just that kneejerk reaction you sometimes have to great writers, where you think all the hype is going to be all hot air. I definitely found the central group of friends to be sympathetic - they were tragic, but they loved one another in their way. And! It was very funny! 27. The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupery It went along. I know its a children's book, but I would have liked a little more exploration of the planets that the Prince lands on on his way to Earth. I liked that look at different facets of adult perspective and life boiled down to these caricatures. 28. The Farthest Shore by Ursula K Le Guin Always a pleasure. Le Guin writes so simply, so beautifully. I don't normally find the character arcs in bildungsroman stories are that convincing, but Le Guin does an incredible job of consistently depicting internal conflicts along with reflection and the implementation of change. Her visual descriptions and description of the ongoing thought processes of her characters are both exceptionally strong. 28/72
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Apr 2, 2014 12:37
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Hocus Pocus posted:March! April! My slowest month yet, I really need to get back into a good routine. 29. Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl A collection of Dahl short stories written for a young adult/adult audience. Funny and macabre, I really enjoyed it. One story in particular, 'Genesis and Catastrophe' has stayed in my head, mostly on account of it being a sympathetic story about Klara Hitler's difficult birthing of young Adolfus. 30. Attempting Normal by Marc Maron I like WTF, and so mostly picked this up on a whim. Its pretty weak to be honest, many of the chapters are just stories you've heard before, written in the exact same words. The irony of this book is that for a podcast that gets people to open up about their lives in a really short block of time, this book remains relatively superficial. Not really an autobiography, more a collection of anecdotes, many of which have been told (in the same words) in his stand up and on his podcast. 31. The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels Self help book I heard about on Marc Maron's podcast, sounded interesting, but just turned out to be a bunch of pseudoscience and anxiety managing exercises. 32. Buy Jupiter and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov Hits and misses. I think I enjoyed the portions between the short stories where Asimov talks about his process, life and the context of the story. Those sections are interesting. A lot of the stories are less structured like stories, and more like really descriptive jokes. 33. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White An invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in writing. Its also very funny and has a useful glossary. 33/72
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May 5, 2014 04:01
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Hocus Pocus posted:1. Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes by Daniel Kehlmann First update in a few months, its been slow going, but I've picked up the pace. 34. Neuromancer by William Gibson I heard somewhere that Neuromancer works best when you read the paragraphs of technobabble more as poetry than jargon, and I found that definitely made parts work where a straight reading would have been dull. Molly is a fantastic character, and the book opens really strong. I lost interest during the final 'heist' in Freeside, but I'm definitely interested in reading some more Gibson. Got Pattern Recognition sitting on the Kindle. 35. Fool by Christopher Moore I was looking for writers who write funny novels, and Moore’s name came up a few times. Fool is a comic retelling of King Lear from the perspective of the eponymous. I liked it for the most part, but Moore, as an American, trying to do Blackadder anachronistic humor with British slang, fell short a fair few times. Just way too heavy handed, and I don’t think the ending was well enough set up for it to be satisfying. 36. Hamlet by Shakey I included this because the copy had significant footnotes, and I reread it between watching a film version, and a recording of a stage version. Polonius is a dickbag, who got what was coming to him  I love a good tragedy, and the prince’s humour contrasts well with the darkness and gives it all more significance. It also makes him a lot more likable than Shakespeare’s other characters. 37. Elements of Writing Fiction: Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card 38. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury I knew vaguely what Farenheit 451 was about, just from osmosis, but it was totally different from what I expected. Captain Beatty provides the most interesting thematic dialogue, and a lot of what he says really resonates in a time where distraction and instant gratification are so potent and available. 39. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck One my favourite books of the year. Steinbeck is funny, he’s poignant, and writes characters who I find myself more invested in than just about anyone elses. Similar to Tortilla Flat, its about characters who live in near poverty, in a coastal town of California, during the American Great Depression. There are a number of reasons Cannery Row clicked more than Tortilla Flat. The biggest is probably the character Doc, the marine biologist. He’s the closest thing to middle class on the row, and I’m guessing most readers will find him their own biggest anchor into the drama. There are no bad people in Cannery Row, there are just people with flaws. I bought the rest of Steinbeck’s books and have them lined up on my Kindle ready to go. The scene where Doc punches Mack after the boys throw their party, and Mack just takes it and asks to be hit again is heartbreaking -- he just wants to make things right, but doesn’t know how. 40. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein Interesting world building, but it never really went anywhere. 41. If You'd Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One EP by Stewart Lee Stewart Lee is a British stand up comedian, who for many, is one of the most interesting acts in the world right now. This book is a transcript of his last special with extensive footnotes, explaining the origin, background, and context of various material. This is happens to be one of my favourite stand up specials ever, so it was really cool to get that extra insight. Quite short compared to his last book. This is just the one transcript, where the last had two or three with chapters between transcripts covering what had been happening with his other work and in his life. I’m really looking forward to his next book which talks about making his television series. 42. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Obviously a bit of a cult novel, so I’d heard of it, but no idea what it was about. I’m a big Gogol fan, so it instantly clicked. Highly recommend it -- I plan to read it again later in the year. The Pontius Pilate chapters are beautiful and tragic. Makes me want to read The Heart of a Dog. 42/72
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Jul 5, 2014 12:39
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Tiggum posted:I really liked the Pontius Pilate chapters of this, and if the whole book had been more of that I would have loved it, but the entire rest of the book basically did nothing for me at all. Did you feel differently once Margarita was introduced? I definitely found the first part more dragging -- with so many different threads with no one after any clear objective or motivation. Maybe for me the second half worked more for me because the Moscow story became more intertwined with the Pontius Pilate story...
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Jul 5, 2014 23:56
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 13:55 |
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Hocus Pocus posted:1. Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes by Daniel Kehlmann This year turned into a loving mess, and in the midst of it I haven't updated in the last few months. Haven't read all too much, will have to be more disciplined next year. 43. The Woman In The Dunes by Kobo Abe Strange, at times poignant. Moved well, and made me want to read more Kobo Abe. 44. Letters by Kurt Vonnegut edited by Dan Wakefield It was interesting to get more insight to Vonnegut the man, who I think I was happy to know was all but exactly as how he comes through in his books. Darker though - the last decade of his life was especially tragic. 44. Tietam Brown by Mick Foley The story of 'Andy' Brown, a 17-year old who has spent the first 16 years of his life in a combination of foster care, state homes, and prison. He has bounced from one traumatizing situation to another, but things look to improve with the reemergence of his father, Tietam Brown. So the first, maybe half, of the book is pretty good. You have the formerly absent father with a mysterious past and eccentric behavior, who seems to have some genuine love for his son. Andy is clumsily making his way through his first romantic relationship, and is getting to know his father. Yes, its violent, and yes Tietam has a dark streak -- but nothing seems so bad that he is irredeemable (at least for the first half or so). But then the mystery and eccentricities are explained and revealed in a really disappointing way. The final act of the book is unsatisfying. It doesn't earn its tragic turn. And I think the epilogue is garbage. It doesn't heighten anything, it doesn't explain anything. All it does is add insult to injury and depict more suffering for no real reason. There is some loose implication of the cycle of trauma, but that wasn't really explored throughout the rest of the book, so it seems hamfisted to put it in the epilogue. Hated this book by the end. 45. The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene Enjoyed it, real slow starter though. 46. Goya by Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen Not a great deal of information about the painter's later Black Paintings, which were the main reason I bought the book. However, reading about his career and the changing political climate gave some context and understanding as to where he might have been emotionally. 47. The Third Man by Graham Greene 48. Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene A vaccuum cleaner salesman in Havana is recruited to become a spy and start finding his own sources. Well, that's all a touch too difficult, so he just starts writing made up reports, that the brass seem to love. This was the most fun I've seen Greene be. A fun book. 49. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck Worth it just for the introduction. The Moon is Down was written as a propaganda piece for the US during WWII, however they were largely unimpressed by it. The book centers around an occupied town, and the occupiers are depicted with a degree of complexity. While the US thought this was a mistake, it resonated with people in Europe who had encountered the Nazis and knew that as individuals they were not caricatures. Some enormous amount of copies were distributed in Europe (especially Norway), and many were translated and distributed by resistance groups. It is very tense, and feels true to the nature of people. Good book. 50. The Last Showman by Fred Brophy In Australia our regional communities are incredibly isolated, and a big part of the entertainment calendar used to be travelling agricultural shows, and boxing tents. This is an autobiography of Fred Brophy, from a family of showmen, the book is the story of his early struggles and rise to personal and professional success. A boxing tent is where a showman has some house boxers, and the audience can volunteer to fight them, getting money for each round they make it through, and an additional pot if they win. Observations made about the character of the outback is what I most enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy so much was the constant harping on about "true blue" this and "real Aussie" that - at a certain point it felt really contrived. Oh, and I don't need to know about every time you got into a fist fight because someone called you a "poofter" in a pub - its less of a story than you think it is. 51. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan How this Tasmanian born in the 60's was about to publish the great Australian war novel in 2013 is beyond me. As I read it there were moments that shone and were special, but it was on completion that it suddenly came together and felt larger than the sum of its parts. It almost makes up for his involvement in Baz Luhrmann's 2008 war crime "Australia". 52. The 35mm Photographer's Handbook by Julian Calder and John Garrett Dated, but still had useful explanations of exposure, and usecases for different focal lengths etc. 53. Propaganda by Edward Bernays Written in 1928, Bernays makes a case for how important propaganda is in guiding popular opinion. This is pretty much a big ad for public relations, and his main defense for the negative use of propaganda seems to be "poo poo happens". As someone whose country's political dialogue is essentially ruled by mining interests and the conservative Murdoch press, I was a little frustrated by the 1928 perspective. 54. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien I really need to read this again, if only to carry forward the spirit of the book's ending. The made up philosopher, de Selby, was hit and miss, and I could have lived without the footnotes. 54/72 I don't think I'll make it, but it beats the 26 I originally marked as my goal.
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Dec 7, 2014 08:58
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