|
Going for 30 books this year. Last year I read 56, but last year I also went on a "let's see why people like comics" bender and counted those. I estimate I read around 30 "regular" books last year, so I'll set that as my target and see where I end up. I'm in the middle of two of them, but they are going to take me a while to finish, especially the nonfiction one. Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5605419-rob
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2014 15:38
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
January update: Just the one book, which I started in December. Good book, but dense nonfiction. 1. Diane Ravitch - Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools - Good, combative attack on the so-called school reform movement. Writing-wise I have slightly mixed feelings. As always, full reviews on my Goodreads.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 03:36
|
|
|
Sadly I didn't have a chance to finish my short new book, so that'll have to wait for next month's update. February update: 2. John Irving - A Prayer For Owen Meany - I kind of loved this book. All about its characters, which are incredible. I actually picked up this book because it showed up on way too many favorite book lists on OKCupid profiles, and I thought I should read something that people loved so much. Now I see why they do. 3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun - Book club pick. A very good book I will probably never read again, because man is it depressing. A novel about the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s, which, shamefully, I did not even know had happened. It's fiction, but only in the sense that these individual people are not real. This writeup is better than any I could offer. Terribly sad, especially when you consider that it is only nominally fiction. I am a bit sad about my own slow progress; every book I've read so far this year has been long, dense, or both. Hopefully it won't be a problem. My current read is quite short, but I suspect the next one will take me a while again (thanks book club!). As always, full reviews on my Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5605419-rob
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2014 10:45
|
|
|
I don't know how I'm going to meet my goal this year  I started a small Facebook book club to broaden my horizons, and it's been good but people have picked some pretty heavy stuff that's taken me a while to get through, plus other distractions. This month is my pick, though, and I'm about half through it already. Goodreads says I'm 2 books behind, that's not so much to make up, right? Right?4. Kurt Vonnegut - Timequake - I enjoyed this quite a bit, but it's barely a novel. It's scraps of a novel Vonnegut started and didn't like, married to some disconnected musings. I find Vonnegut's thought processes fascinating and I'm glad I read it, but if you're after a tightly plotted novel or anything of the sort, this will not please you. 5. Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day - Book club pick. Quietly heartbreaking novel about an aging English butler in the 1950s, on a literal journey as he engages in a personal journey about the meaning of his life. I didn't like this much when I first started, but after I got into it I liked it more. As always, full reviews on my Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5605419-rob Be careful with the Ishiguro, I've marked it but it contains heavy plot spoilers. Hopefully this list will be longer at the end of this month. 30 seems far away just now.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2014 12:48
|
|
|
May update. Read a few comic trade paperbacks, which should help me make my goal, but that's not why I read them. Still behind, too. 6. Max Barry - Lexicon - My own book club pick for the month. Won't win a Nobel or anything but I enjoyed the premise a lot. Don't want to say too much lest I spoil it for potential readers, but it's a quasi-thriller based on language. 7. Bill Willingham, et al - Fables, Vol. 1 - Decided to read some of this after playing Telltale's excellent The Wolf Among Us episodic game, which is based on it. Fairy tale characters, New York City and environs, adult themed (in the dark-and-grimy sense, not the pornographic sense). Good introduction to the series, too short as all comic trades are. 8. Bill Willingham, et al - Fables, Vol. 2 - Really liked this. 9. Bill Willingham, et al - Fables, Vol. 3 - Everyone but me seems to think this was a step up in quality. I thought it was a step down. The first two are full, self-contained story arcs; this one feels like odds and ends thrown together. Fine, but not amazing. 9/30 As always, full reviews on my Goodreads. Really need to read more but between work and other pursuits, making time has been hard lately. In the midst of Fables, Vol. 4 and Haldeman's The Forever War now, with the new book club pick on the horizon.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2014 02:18
|
|
|
Lumius posted:Dubliners by James Joyce - I picked this up because of the AWFUL BOOK OF THE MONTH. I'm a huge fan of short story collections , this was great. Dubliners was actually covered in the How to Read like a professor blah blah book , hint : its about paralysis or something. I feel like all short story collections start strong , meander in the middle and end strong. The last short story was so good. I never really thought about it, but short stories in a collection obviously must be in some order, and someone has to pick them, and there are usually going to be some that are stronger than others. You might as well arrange them most advantageously -- strong early so you're drawn in, strong late so you look back fondly on the book, anything you don't like as much somewhere in between.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2014 13:06
|
|
|
DannyTanner posted:22. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Is there an ebook version that's acceptable, or do you pretty much have to buy a physical book to have a good experience?
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2014 03:34
|
|
|
10. Bill Willingham - Fables Vol. 4 - Probably the best of the series to date. 11. Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls - A middling-fun airships-and-piracy story, as written by a four year old with a box of crayons. Slogging through Haldeman's The Forever War right now, not hating it quite enough to quit but not liking it enough to read it regularly 11/30
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2014 04:29
|
|
|
Only one book last month, because I was reading two and didn't really like either of them all that much, but I'm on my second of the month for June already and Goodreads says I'm back on track for my challenge, finally. 12. Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls - Good lord did I hate this book. The story itself is passable if derivative, but the writing is abominable. 12/30 As always, more detailed reviews on my Goodreads.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2014 11:05
|
|
|
I'm literally a few pages away from finishing my current read, but didn't quite make it in time. So: 12. Joe Haldeman - The Forever War - I bet this was really incredible when written. I don't think it's aged all that well. I'm clearly supposed to experience culture shock along with the main character, and I just... don't. 13. James S.A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes - Slow for the first 50 pages, then really good after. 14. Jim Butcher - Skin Game - If you don't know what to expect from a Dresden Files book by now, I don't know what to say. I read these mostly out of habit and the Sunk Costs Fallacy. Fine for what it is. 15. Kurt Vonnegut - God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Not one of Vonnegut's more subtle books. I liked it, as someone already more or less in his corner. 15/30 As always, more complete reviews on my Goodreads.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 13:19
|
|
|
Hocus Pocus posted:34. Neuromancer by William Gibson Give Gibson's Burning Chrome a look. I am sad to say that it is only available in physical form at the moment, and it is technically out of print, but copies are readily available. It's a collection of short stories and I think it's terrific.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 5, 2014 13:47
|
|
|
16. Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous With Rama - Fascinating early hard sci-fi. It's a "what would happen if" book, and so it necessarily lives and does by its scientific rigor -- luckily Clarke is known for that -- and the intelligent, competent characters. Not that I would have any idea if the science were bad, I suppose. I really enjoyed this and I appreciated Clarke's attention to detail. Slowed down this month because Gilman's The Revolutions is over-long and starts to drag around the midway point. 16/30
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2014 23:28
|
|
|
There is a near-zero chance that I will make my goal, because it took me four months, to the day, to struggle through Styron's Lie Down In Darkness. I finally finished it today. 17. Felix Gilman - The Revolutions - Good story, flawed pacing. Imaginative ideas, drags too much, disappointing ending. 18. William Styron - Lie Down In Darkness - 1951 debut novel by the author of Sophie's Choice. Not... bad, exactly, but I hated virtually everyone in it and apparently that's common. The best part is the penultimate section, and by best I mean crushingly depressing. 18/30. Good and hosed on this goal.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2014 00:24
|
|
|
Several of those are on my to-read list, so the comments are very welcome. What did you think of Station Eleven?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2014 22:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
19. Diana Wynne Jones - Archer's Goon - I don't really read YA much these days, too old for it, but this was a beloved book from my childhood that was out of print for years, and when it came back into print I bought and re-read it to celebrate. RIP Diana Wynne Jones, the greatest YA author. 20. Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird - This ruled, I'm sorry I put it off so long. 21. Nick Harkaway - Tigerman - probably time to accept that his first book was a fluke and stop buying his new ones. More words on my Goodreads here. Final tally for 2014: 21/30. Bummed I didn't finish it this year; Lie Down In Darkness took me four months to push through and it really took a toll. I set the same goal for next year in that thread, plus took Stravinsky's challenge, and my goal overall is to read more (as in quantity) serious works.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2015 20:04
|
|