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I'm just going to do the challenge; numbers are irrelevant (to me). Looking for books that will challenge me - my choices for the first (#2, female author) are Atwood - Blind Assassin Butler - Gender Trouble Woolf - The Waves Lessing - Golden Notebook Oh Booklord, I beseech thee to speak to me and command which to read ... (all happen to be on the shelves at home!)
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Jan 2, 2015 21:36
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So my first book turned out not to be a female author, largely because I was already reading a book. Wind Up Bird Chronicle did not in the end challenge me, but I found it thoroughly entertaining. Its tendency to drop characters, almost without notice, was sufficient to take it out of the normal and pique my interest, but most of all was the snippets of character that were slipped into almost as a sideline. Ultimately this was a book about guilt and suffering, and just surviving until either you got through it or died. This applied to the human level (sleeping without someone other than your partner) to a national shame (Japanese suffering post WWII), and it touched me very much. Finishing off a couple of outstanding books before embarking on my first authentic challenge book.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:16
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OK, I'm a philistine. I have finished off Brothers Karamazov (been on a slow burn for quite a while, bit of a cheat to include it I suppose). Talk about torture. I know that the characters are all symbols representing theological points etc etc, but that middle 700 pages of interminable familial wrangle was unbearable. There were some beautiful treasures there (Zosima's story, the finger biting boy, the epilogue) but bugger it, I hated it. Having said that, now I've done the story and can put it aside, I'm interested in going back and exploring the characters, particularly Ivan. 1. 2 Books. Wind up bird chronicle Brothers Karamazov No challenges completed!
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Jan 28, 2015 00:29
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Carol Dweck has been pushing the idea of growth mindset for a while and it's pretty persuasive. Mindset gives a series of examples of how a growth mindset can lead to a long term positive outcome. It gets a bit tiring after a while hearing how a growth mindset creating a happy, productive, stimulated individual and there's a definite lack of scientific evidence presented, but she seems credible and the idea is appealing and it's certainly helped me face down challenges more easily. 1. 3 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck 2. Female author - Dweck
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Jan 30, 2015 23:48
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david crosby posted:The Torch In My Ear by Elias Canetti. Quality review. More david crosby, more I say! Wow, 4 books read. Michael Faber is pretty cool writer. Plain prose, but good ideas. Science fiction, or I guess speculative, but without all that boring world building poo poo that seems to infect most sci fi. Loved the increasingly desperate letters from Bea, the wife at home in basically a UKIP infected hinterland, to Peter a gloriously obsessive born again type banging on about some verse or another. Is there love without intimacy is what Faber asks. No I guess. 1. 4 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber 2. Female author - Dweck
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Feb 11, 2015 00:47
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Next up Owen Jones and Chavs, demonisation of the working class. It laid bare in a strident polemic all the fallacies around sponging welfare cheats whilst also hypothesising that the difficulties faced in the post industrialised regions of the UK can be attributed to a wilful neglect of jobs provision and destruction of working class communities. I suspect he is right, but the message was constrained by lack of access to interviewees with real political insight, e.g., Hazel Blears was hardly a powerful force in British politics. Atwood beckons. 1. 5 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones 2. Female author - Dweck knees of putty fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 14:32
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My 6th book was Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, by Treasure, Smith & Crane. It's essentially an instruction manual for anyone with a person with an eating disorder in the family and provides a basis for the return to good health. Recommended for anyone caring for someone with anorexia or bulemia - it will help you understand what to do in a tough time. 1. 6 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, Treasure, Smith, Crane 2. Female author - Dweck
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Mar 14, 2015 00:12
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As predicted, not really making much progress against X # of books, but oh well. Finished Margaret Atwood's Blind Assassin. The main story is kind of boring, but I suspect this is by design - the protagonist is just never anything other than a father or a wife or a mother or a sister. I quite liked the idea she was a pretty lovely author too - so many cliches, and characters cursorily drawn. The treasure is in the roman a clef, and in the little sci-fi allegory embedded within it, that together had just enough symbols of pathos and ethos to bring out the contrast with the rather pastel main storyline. Having looked at previous reviews, it was interesting to see that it was not that well received, even called badly written in places. Perhaps it was. I enjoyed most of all the gaps; what was unsaid went very loud. Woolf and her waves next. 1. 7 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, Treasure, Smith, Crane Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood 2. Female author - Dweck, Treasure et al., Atwood
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Apr 13, 2015 15:43
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Well I guess, but I'm not sure the Booker prize is all that much of a guide to its reception. https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/03/reviews/000903.03mallont.html http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/17/fiction.bookerprize2000 aren't really overwhelmingly appreciative reviews.
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Apr 13, 2015 17:46
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Lots of things got in the way of reading - I lost the book I was reading, I decided to read some really, really boring political books by some chap by the name of Milliband and life. Two books off the pile are Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing. Life as a woman, c. 1960, as well as documenting communism, practical psychoanalysis and colonialism. I loved this book so much. Count Zero, William Gibson. This was on my kindle and I fancied something a bit light. I vaguely remember liking Gibson 20 years ago. How did I not realise that he is terrible? lovely characterisation, cliche as brand, and weirdly nostalgic rather than futuristic. Inherent Vice next. 1. 9 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, Treasure, Smith, Crane Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing Count Zero, William Gibson 2. Female author - Dweck, Treasure et al., Atwood
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Oct 17, 2015 08:24
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Inherent Vice - a novelisation of Altman's The Long Goodbye, with slapstick thrown in. Quite fun. Socialism for a skeptical age - not quite so much fun! 1. 11 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, Treasure, Smith, Crane Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing Count Zero, William Gibson Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon Socialism for a skeptical age, Ralph Milliband 2. Female author - Dweck, Treasure et al., Atwood knees of putty fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Dec 25, 2015 |
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Dec 25, 2015 17:49
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Finished my 12th book - Thrive by Layard ad Clark, who use the book as a platform to educate on the ills of mental health problems and how many of these afflictions can be readily treated with scientifically proven therapeutic methods. This I suspect will be my last completed book. The stand out novel was the Golden Notebook, by a long way. One can only imagine how radical that must have seemed on publication, and it still resonates with a modern reading. I failed miserably at the challenge, but on the other hand apart from Count Zero, everything I read was rewarding. 1. 12 Books. Wind up bird chronicle, Murukami Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential, Carol Dweck Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber Chavs, Owen Jones Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method, Treasure, Smith, Crane Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing Count Zero, William Gibson Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon Socialism for a skeptical age, Ralph Milliband Thrive, Layard and Clark 2. Female author - Dweck, Treasure et al., Atwood
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Dec 30, 2015 12:50
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