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I aimed to read 35 books last year but actually managed to read 43. I'll try to round it out to 45 for 2014. I guess I should throw out my goodreads as well. Feel free to add me! I usually review what I read, although nothing terribly in-depth. Shelve your poo poo, goons 
Aphra Bane fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 06:59
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January Books: 1) The Bone People, by Keri Hulme. A classic from New Zealand. Fascinating book. I kinda love it, but kind of hate it at the same time. It deals with themes such as abuse in a way that left me cold, but there were lots of smaller elements that made up for it, including surprise magical realism that really shouldn't have been that surprising if I'd stopped pouting and paid more attention. 2) The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. Loved it! Great atmosphere, characters (oh Eleanor  ), setting, and a perfect degree of subjectivity regarding the supernatural activity. I loved the part where Eleanor seems to become one with the house. There was something so wonderfully visceral about her running around all ecstatic after spending most of the book clutching her pearls. After We Have Always Lived in the Castle and now this, I'm sort of in awe of Shirley Jackson  3) Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, by Geraldine Brooks. A pretty decent book overall, although dated. Fairly balanced between the different, often contradictory viewpoints of the women Brooks encountered as a journalist, and she manages not to insert herself too much into the narrative, not that her own experiences living and working in the Middle East aren't interesting either. A really easy read, and good for dispelling a few myths (as well as raising a lot of questions. The book is a bit limited in scope and depth). Would've liked to have squeezed one more book in, but The Bone People took ages to finish 
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Jan 28, 2014 11:14
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Aphra Bane posted:January Books: Yay, February was much more productive! 4) Stargazing: Astronomy Without a Telescope by Patrick Moore. GR review 5) Great Australian Ghost Stories by Richard Davis GR review 6) Tamsin by Peter S Beagle GR review 7) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam plus the Fitzgerald translation of Bird Parliament. GR review 8) The Breakwater House by Pascale Quiviger GR review 9) The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby GR "review" Tamsin was definitely my favourite of the lot. Not quite as good as The Last Unicorn, but still great.
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Feb 28, 2014 08:52
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Aphra Bane posted:Yay, February was much more productive! 10) The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissel. Goodreads. 11) Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God by Karl E. Peters. Goodreads. The Disaster Artist was everything I'd hoped it'd be and more. Very funny, but also surprisingly dark at times. Despite Tommy's creepiness it was still hard not to feel sorry for him as Greg succeeded (however modestly) in all the ways Tommy couldn't. It'll be interesting to see what the movie does with this material, unless that whole Franco thing was just a hoax. Dancing with the Sacred was kinda disappointing. It was too short to get into any in-depth discussion and so the result was something brief yet waffley. Still, it had some interesting things to say about ... well, I would describe it as religious naturalism, but the book almost seems to go out of its way to avoid calling it that, so I don't know. It was an okay book. Nothing special.
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Mar 31, 2014 15:39
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Aphra Bane posted:10) The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissel. 12) Seven Little Australians - Ethel Turner 13) My Place - Sally Morgan 14) Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon 15) Ritual: Power, Healing & Community - Malidoma Some 16) The Golem - Gustav Meyrink I've fallen behind by 4 books thanks to school and Star Maker, but oh well. Seven Little Australians was basically a darker version of an Enid Blyton story, but just as boring. My Place on the other hand was really good. And not nearly as depressing as I thought it would be, given that it partly deals with the Stolen Generations. I really felt attached to Morgan's family by the end. They were a pretty endearing bunch  Star Maker was an odd duck. Some parts were brilliant, some parts literally put me to sleep. Looking back on it, I still like it a lot. I appreciate the ambition of writing a book about the history of the universe, I just wish I hadn't needed 2 months to get through it. Ritual: Power, Healing & Community was very short but still a fascinating look at the way communities can be built around ritual. The author uses his traditional, Dagaaba village as his reference point, and it was a nice glimpse into that way of life. The Golem was like a bad dream. Very disorientating and creepy at times, and the story didn't seem to go anywhere or have much significance. It's possible there was a Master and Margarita thing going on, i.e lots of subtext that went way over my head, especially since this was published in 1915. And since it's written in 1915 there was also some jarring stuff going on regarding women and race, Jewish people specifically. It made a weird, seedy and uncomfortable book even weirder and seedier and more uncomfortable. The Golem was basically like a David Lynch film, so if you enjoy him, you'd probably get a kick out of The Golem.
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Jul 3, 2014 08:38
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1) The Bone People - Keri Hulme. 2) The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson. 3) Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women - Geraldine Brooks. 4) Stargazing: Astronomy Without a Telescope - Patrick Moore 5) Great Australian Ghost Stories - Richard Davis 6) Tamsin - Peter S Beagle 7) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam plus the Fitzgerald translation of Bird Parliament. 8) The Breakwater House - Pascale Quiviger 9) The Cosmic Serpent - Jeremy Narby 10) The Disaster Artist - Greg Sestero and Tom Bissel. 11) Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God - Karl E. Peters. 12) Seven Little Australians - Ethel Turner 13) The Planets - Dava Sobel 14) My Place - Sally Morgan 15) Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon 16) Ritual: Power, Healing & Community - Malidoma Some 17) The Golem - Gustav Meyrink 18) Community Development in an Uncertain World - Jim Ife Textbook, but a good read for idealistic students heading into the human services field. 19) Animate Earth - Stephan Harding Interesting look at a not so common perspective of the world (from a western point of view, anyway). 20) Iwenhe Tyerrtye - Margaret Kemarre Turner An excellent introduction to the basics of Turner's traditional Arrernte culture. Highly recommended if you're interested in that kind of thing. 21) Ariel - Sylvia Plath It was okay. I'd like to re-read it at some point though, since I wasn't very patient with it this time around. 22) Welcome to My Country - Laklak Burarrwanga Another excellent book about a particular Aboriginal Australian culture. This one was slightly more geared towards kids, so less in-depth than Iwenhe Tyerrtye. 23) The Misogyny Factor - Anne Summers This was two speeches worked into a small book, put together around the time Julia Gillard made that famous misogyny speech. The book was decent, but the vibe was pretty second-wave feminist. 24) Green Heart - Alice Hoffman Really enjoyed it. It was two novellas in one book, and while the first was great, the second kind of dragged the whole thing down a bit. Still, the book has a neat, post-apocalyptic fairy-tale thing going on, and it's a quick read. (Goodreads review) Bolded my favourites so far. I'm still behind schedule by a few books, but I'm doing okay with my mini goals (3/5 books written by Indigenous Australians, an even spread of male and female authors). I'm surprised about half have been non-fic too. Should've made it another mini goal 
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Aug 15, 2014 13:29
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Aphra Bane posted:18) Community Development in an Uncertain World - Jim Ife 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 5 books behind The Princess Bride was a re-read. Still as funny and charming as the first time I read it. The Bloody Chamber was fun. I read about half of the stories a year prior and just now got to finishing it. The writing is fantastic at times, but few of the stories were very memorable, unfortunately. The Plains was brilliant. It was the first time I've ever read a book that gave me an almost tangible sense that it was a classic. Probably the most well-written book I'll read all year. It even managed to make reading the word "plains" over a hundred times somehow not torturous. And Practice Skills was a textbook. It was pretty good, I guess.
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Oct 11, 2014 07:19
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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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