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Downsizing to 60 this year. Schedule has really picked up and I don't think I'll be able to read as much as the last couple of years. Last year, I also found that I was avoiding longer books to keep up with my goal and I really want to avoid doing that. I'd also like to put a secondary goal of reading at least 3 non fiction books. I'll up my total if I find that I'm going too quickly. Edited to add in goodreads profile. Poutling fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 03:59
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 01:22 |
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Tulalip Tulips posted:2. Tampa by Alissa Nutting. Interesting, I read this book too and had the complete opposite reaction - I think it's the nature of this type of book to be extremely polarizing. Not sure if you're familiar with the author's other works but she's a bizarro fiction writer with feminist leanings. I read Tampa as a reaction to the weird double standard that society has of romanticizing older woman, young boy relationships, removing as much of the 'glamor' associated with the act, and showing it in the most repugnant light possible.
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Jan 13, 2014 03:44
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I'm glad I lowered my target from last year because I am definitely not keeping up my reading pace - priorities have shifted to other things unfortunately. 1) Adam Nevill - The House of Small Shadows (just ok) 2) Ben H. Winters - The Last Policeman (pretty good) 3) Charlotte Rogan - The Lifeboat (good) 4) No Doors, No Windows - (ok, better than House of Small Shadows). Last year end of January I'd read 9 books, I've got too much on my plate right now unfortunately to keep up that pace.  I have a long vacation planned in November so I'm hoping that I can bump my 60 book target to at least 80 at that point.
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Feb 2, 2014 21:16
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Stravinsky posted:This is mostly what my problem is to be honest. Its just seeing how much poo poo you can get through and really doesn't do much to make you a better reader and leads to putting dumb poo poo on your list because its a bunch of words you read so you can feel good about yourself at the end of the day. Dude, why do you even care? I mean it's great that you love to read heavy stuff to 'enrich' yourself but if someone else just wants to read a comic book about ninjas why not just let them enjoy it? When I was in my twenties I had the same mentality as you and judged people heavily and read only high level classics and the best of world fiction. Now that I'm in my thirties, I honestly couldn't give a poo poo if I'm reading a 'schlocky fantasy' over Auto-da-fe. In fact, my reading these days leans towards the former rather than the latter simply because my job is intellectually taxing and takes up most of my mental capacity and between that and the gym by the time I get home, I'd rather read something lighter, and I figure reading is still better than watching TV. There are a lot of people here that I think are just trying to get back into the habit of reading and keep up that habit because let's face it in this day and age, there's so much other stimulation that attention spans really aren't geared to sitting down and reading an entire book. Good for you for pursuing your intellectual development but stop harshing on other peoples' buzz. I bet you're an English Literature/Philosophy double major. Guy A. Person posted:He is trying to genuinely help people by openly scorning their reading choices and berating them until they choose to read better things. Even better, he doesn't even have a reading challenge, he just came in here because he wanted to lord his massive intellect and literary diversity over his inferiors.
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Feb 9, 2014 07:15
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Stravinsky posted:Awesome good for you. Read what you want. I am literally some internet wierdo you do not know and so you don't actually have to care what about a single thing I say. No, no I don't. Here's the thing, *you* obviously care enough about it that you walked into a thread and started throwing around statements like: Stravinsky posted:A) I like it when people better themselves/enrich thier lives. I'm not going to encourage people who say they are going to do fifty pull ups and then for a number of them just kinda stand on their toes like they actually pulled themselves over the bar. Should I really say wow good job your so strong? Trying to make people feel bad for wanting to read comics about ninjas. It's great that you don't like comics about ninjas. Good for you. Isn't it great that you don't know any of these people in this thread that like reading comics about ninjas? That means you don't have to care about how they choose to enrich their lives. Stravinsky posted:If you can watch a tv show/movie or read a comic you can read a book. Fun fact you don't need to race through it all at once and can read it a piece at a time. And also I'm none of those things. Hey, thanks for that fun fact! If you had deigned to look at my post history you would have noticed that I somehow managed to read 106 books last year, only 1 of which was a graphic novel, and of which at least a few were actual novels with literary awards to back them up. Huh, kind of shocking isn't it? But, I don't look down on people that might not read as fast or absorb as well as I do, and do take longer or want to ease into reading with something a little easier. Every step towards reading, regardless of the material or length, is a step in the right direction. Stravinsky posted:Here is my challenge: Good for you. Start with Derek Walcott. He's my favorite.
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Feb 9, 2014 07:42
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Zebco posted:I can't tell if anyone is serious about reading He-Man books or Adventure Time comics or furry post-apocalyptic fiction or whatever. No, you gotta be an english/philosophy major because you like making fun of people who like to read comic books and novelizations of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Seriously, at least they're reading. I'd say minimum 60% of the population these days don't even read comic books, they're too busy playing flappy birds on their phone, which is why I think it's so counter productive to make fun of people just because they're not reading Nabokov. Reading *anything* regardless of subject matter is going to teach you how to spell better and string a sentence together, so why give them a hard time about it? I'm not saying it isn't more beneficial to be reading high level fiction but not everyone chooses to enrich themselves through the written word and not everyone can appreciate Dostoyevsky (I myself am not a fan of most of the Russians) so why give a poo poo about what they read as long as they're reading? I've hit a bit of a wall in my reading challenge, still hoping to pick up speed when work/life slows down a bit. I've picked up 4 or 5 different books and then put them down again because nothing is catching my interest. I'm currently 2 books behind on my challenge, and alternating between The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders and The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli. I'm hoping the mix of fiction/non-fiction will jar me out of my burn-out. AllanGordon posted:I too read first drafts that are scanned over by an editor once and then proclaimed good enough and then sent out to make money from the wallmart book shelf by the halloween candy to improve my grammar and spelling. If you want to check out my goodreads bookshelf go ahead, you'll find I read a lot of stuff and none of it happen to be d&d books. But then again, you're in a reading challenge thread and have yet to put any kind of challenge up, or even shown us what kind of books you actually *do* like to read? I'd love to see what kind of enlightened amazing material you're reading so that I can learn from your greatness. Poutling fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 07:23
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Guy A. Person posted:What I disagree with is a bunch of dudes coming in here to mock and belittle everyone as if that is the way to make the thread better. Like, now we have rhetorical arguments about the value of comics and a bunch of parody posts, yep things are certainly starting to look better now. Raise the level of discourse by posting and discussing what you're reading at least (Stravinsky at least has started doing this). This is a personal story that I hesitated to discuss because of the really negative atmosphere in here right now but it really illustrates why I get so upset when people belittle those that read only comics or 'd&d books'. When I was in college, I had a friend who had dropped out of high school and considered herself to be extremely dumb. She wasn't dumb but had very low self esteem, and had a hard time with concentration. She read mainly superhero comics and manga, and spent a lot of time online roleplaying on text based games. In the course of our friendship she slowly grew out of her shell and we talked about our common interests, which happened to include comics. I introduced her to some more 'highbrow' graphic novels like Sandman, and then from there, started talking about some of the novels that I had been reading. The turning point came when I was telling her about a book that I had really enjoyed which happened to be The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez Reverte. She picked up that book and absolutely *loved* it. She went out and picked up all of his other books. After that, we talked more about fiction and what other books I had been reading. She read Murakami, and Mishima, and realized she wasn't as 'stupid' as she thought, it was just no one had taken the time to talk to her and present her with options that she could enjoy, and so she had never really learned how to read and appreciate. She went on to get her GED and then joined the army and got a college degree. She's still in the army now but is doing fantastically well and I'm extremely proud of her. But whenever someone picks on someone for reading only X-men and Naruto I always think of this girl, and I think of the fact that it's easier to make someone a true reader if they had the propensity to read in the first place, regardless of the subject matter and content. Reading for pleasure is a skill like any other skill that has to be practiced and developed and can evolve but if you never like to read anything at all, you're probably never going to pick up any kind of fine literature. Everyone had to start somewhere, I'm sure that all these naysayers didn't start off by reading William Faulkner. My own 'call to literature' was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys when I was 19, I still remember the moment of revelation when I finished it. Guy A. Person posted:Reading short story collections/anthologies always helps me with this. You get full stories, often from a variety of different voices, in quick rapid succession. I hit a similar wall a few years ago reading through (ironically) How to Read a Book, and what got me out of my slump was starting my morning commute reading a short story and then finishing my main book when I was more awake later in the afternoon. I've been thinking about doing this and picked up She Nailed a Stake Through His Head which is a collection of biblical retellings but I'm afraid I'm too secular to really jump into this without being *into* reading at the moment, I think this was a case of a very bad choice. Maybe I'll give a different short story collection a try, something a bit lighter.
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Feb 11, 2014 17:44
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Stravinsky posted:Asking questions, having discussion and making jokes should not really be construed as negative atmosphere I think. Defend your opinions. For me at least when I see a bunch of star wars and comic books or whatever that puts up a bunch of red flags. I want people to expand their world and sometimes that means pointing out that you have a million comic books in your challenge list in the book barn. And everyone feels stupid sometimes (except me cause I'm super smart and strong and have sex with women) but there's this great resource of a sub forum where you can post about poo poo you don't understand and I'm sure someone can help out and at least point you to the right direction. I think copying someone's entire reading challenge list and replying with 'loving lol' counts as a negative atmosphere, no? Why would that person ever want to post again, just to allow you to judge them? To borrow from your gym analogy, if you see someone doing a bunch of horrible pull ups where they're not even pulling halfway up towards the bar, is it better to laugh at them and go "OH MY GOD LOOK AT YOU weirdo you can't even do one pull up HA HA HA" or is it better to show them how to do an *actual* pull up so that they can do it the right way? If you really wanted to steer someone towards positive choices why don't you suggest books to them that they might like based on the comics they are reading? Which is what I ended up doing for my friend and it worked. You may not have meant to do it but you started a trend of people coming in here and making mean spirited jokes and kicking sand around and being lovely to people who just want to read some freaking comics. Blind Sally posted:Hey, can we not trash on people who study English and Philosophy just cause there are a couple of people in the thread who are being rude? I get tired of reading Shakespeare, McCarthy, and Kierkegaard all the time, so I like breaking them up with DC comics and Star Wars. There's nothing wrong with including a comic on your No offense meant to you Blind Sally, I apologize it was a lovely thing to say. I'm actually an english lit major/classical studies minor so if anything, my degree is probably worth more derision in certain circles than yours 
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Feb 11, 2014 20:07
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PERSONAL READING CHALLENGE
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Stravinsky posted:
What exactly are you looking to get out of your poetry experience? I would argue that poetry is probably the most difficult of the literary arts to both create and appreciate, and it is by nature designed to create a visceral response within the reader, so if Walcott isn't resonating with you then you may have to think and refine your challenge a bit more to gain the most of your reading experience. Judging from your other posts in the forum you might enjoy something from the Modernists more, perhaps TS Eliot or Ezra Pound? Have you read The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock yet? That's where most admirers of the modernists start. Otherwise you might also check out some of Borges' poems if you like magic realism, or Pablo Neruda is another poetry fave. Another couple of popular translated poets (since you seem to like world literature so much) are CP Cavafy and Rainer Maria Rilke. I am also a big fan of Canadian Poet Alden Nowlan who is very much the opposite of the modernists and has a very simple and honest style that really speaks to me.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:31
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Spadoink posted:
I'm disappointed to hear about Asa Nonami. That book has been on my to-read list for a while, the only thing preventing me from doing so is the lack of availability in e-book format (I'm almost entirely digital these days, mostly to save space in my already too crowded living space). Would you still recommend it as worth a read, or would you say that it's Takashi Miike lite? Glad that you enjoyed Night Film. There's a lot of haters out there but I really liked it and I would say it was one of my best reads of 2013. It's also one of those rare mystery books with a satisfying conclusion that really pulled together all the major themes of the novel.
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Feb 28, 2014 07:23
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Haven't been posting so here's my half year update. It'll be a long one - I apologize ahead of time. I'll just talk about the books that are worth talking about. I'm one book ahead but I estimate that I'll actually have to increase my challenge because I have a long vacation in November and plan to do some marathon reading on the beach. As always, longer reviews can be found on my goodreads. 30/60 1. Adam Nevill - House of Small Shadows - I actually felt that this was a step back for Nevill. Last Days was really action packed and original, House of Small Shadows felt like a throwback to his earlier works which I did not like nearly as much. 2. Ben Winters - The Last Policeman - Great piece of pre-apocalyptic detective fiction where the two genres merged together really well and both tied in to the theme. Usually one just serves as a backdrop for the other. 3. Charlotte Rogan - The Lifeboat - Interesting piece of historical fiction with an unreliable narrator telling her story of a Titanic-esque boat sinking and then the dog eat dog madness of surviving on a too crowded lifeboat. 4. Joe Schreiber - No Doors, No Windows - Architectural Horror (aka Haunted House) - not bad for the genre, at least it tried something different. Not overly spooky though. 5. Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words - Piccirilli is known more for his horror stuff but this book is a great piece of crime fiction about a familial dynasty of thieves. Would strongly recommend. 6. Gemma Files - The Book of Tongues - Horror/Fantasy/Western. Interesting magic ideas in this one, great plots intertwined with Aztec and Mayan culture and gods. The only caveat is there is a *lot* of very graphic gay (m/m) sex in this book so if that turns you off I would not bother. I didn't mind it but actually thought the book would be stronger without it. 7. Joe R. Lansdale - The Complete Drive-In 8. Frank Thilliez - Syndrome E - This was really interesting. I'm very interested in the idea of 'transformative art' where if you look at a painting, read a book, or watch a movie, it ultimately alters you in some way and affects you in more than an emotional or intellectual level. Think The King in Yellow. In this book the detectives spend time searching after a mysterious canistered movie that ultimately has driven someone blind upon first watching. Also, this was recently optioned by Darren Aronofsky, which I think would be a great match and I'd love to watch that movie. 9. Ari Marmell - Thief's Covenant - Serviceable fantasy fiction. I've heard the second book gets better. 10. Rob Thomas - Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line 11. Kylie Scott - Play 12. Laura McHugh - The Weight of Blood - This book is getting a lot of buzz and it's a really great piece of Southern Gothic. The greatness of this novel doesn't lie in the revelation of the murderer - you know practically from the start - it's the reveal of the storyline and the interactions of the characters that make this one so great. 13. James Dashner - The Maze Runner - I don't get the praise for this book. I found it really dull. 14. Isabel Cooper - No Proper Lady 15. Cathy Lamb - Such a Pretty Face 16. Michael Olson - Strange Flesh - This was a big deal a couple of years ago. Now that I've finally gotten around to reading it I understand why the buzz died so quickly. Despite the evocative title it was a bit of a dud. I think it would appeal to Ready Player One fans though. 17. Gillian Flynn - Dark Places - As always, Ms. Flynn never disappoints! 18. Jake Bible - Anti-Bio - This was a fun bit of apocalyptic sci-fi conspiracy. 19. Judith Flanders - The Invention of Murder - This really wasn't so much about The Invention of Murder as someone's dissertation where they basically bring up some gruesome murder that took place a century ago and then talk about its impact on the day's popular media. Repeat ad nauseam for every chapter in the book. A total slog. 20. Michael Rowe - Wild Fell - Another architectural horror book, this one was very good and nominated for the Shirley Jackson award. I plan to read Rowe's other novel. 21. James St. James - Disco Bloodbath aka Party Monster - Finally got around to reading this since Michael Alig got released a month ago. I found it interesting despite having watched both the documentary and the movie with Seth Green. It was much more revealing about St. James than it was about Alig, which I think worked well. 22. Jim Butcher - Skin Game - What can I say. I love Harry Dresden. 23. Joyce Carol Oates - The Accursed - I've been pimping this book all over the forums. It's bizarre and wildly interesting. Gothic fiction with a basis in reality. I'd strongly recommend. 24. Marcus Sedgewick - My Swordhand is Singing - Very good vampire novella that really hearkens back to the old Grimm fairy tales before they were sanitized for younger audiences. 25. Tom Rob Smith - The Farm 26. Laurell K Hamilton - A Shiver of Light - Blech. 27. Adrianne Harun - A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain 28. Benjamin Percy - Red Moon - I liked this interesting high brow take on the werewolf mythos (werewolves have been getting a lot of high brow treatment lately) though ultimately I think the last third of the novel fizzled. 29. Molly Tanzer - A Pretty Mouth - A collection of Lovecraftian short stories and novellas about an Eldritch cursed family named Calipash. Really good, tongue in cheek and droll, plus, woman writing Lovecraft fiction! 30. Thomas Christopher Greene - The Headmaster's Wife- Brief, but strong. Reminded me of Ian McEwan's Amsterdam.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:16
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Whalley posted:
If it doesn't make it on book of the month you should just start a thread about it anyway. Enough people around here have read it lately that you'd probably get some good discussion. I'll pick it up again for a reread if you do this because I do love the book and it's been at least a decade since my first read through.
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Jul 31, 2014 23:26
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