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26 books and the booklord challenge. Feels like a low number, but I only read 12 books this year which is extremely shameful to me because I used to read a couple of books a week, so hoping this inspires me to both read more and branch out into new territory.
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Dec 31, 2015 20:25
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 16:25 |
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gimme a wildcard. I reserve right of refusal and will be ironic at anyone that recs grimdark fantasy
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Jan 10, 2016 03:17
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
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Jan 10, 2016 16:30
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Read three books this month. Kind of disappointed because I was hoping to get four in, but The Secret History is like 650 pages long so there's that, and I'm still ahead of schedule. This month's theme is mildly disappointing books that were nonetheless pretty good overall. I have read: 5) Something History Related - Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes I was a bit disappointed in Look Who's Back. I didn't go into it expecting high literature, but from some of the praise I've seen, I was expecting some sharp satire. Instead, it comes across as terminally unfocused. Hitler seems more like a lovable, angry old grandpa than, well, Hitler - much of his time is spent complaining about instant coffee, teens looking at their phones while walking, and, for some reason, people picking up their dog's poo. Though Angela Merkel is referenced, it's only so Hitler can laugh at her for being fat, in a way that honestly comes across more like he's become the author's mouthpiece than anything else. Despite my criticisms, I liked it overall. It's a quick, light read, is very funny in parts and occasionally manages to make some sharp insights, possibly by accident. Overall, it's not a bad book, but I get the impression it was perhaps far edgier and more refreshing in its native Germany, where the subject is obviously still very taboo - for the British reader, there's not much here that wasn't done with more wit and humour in Monty Python's Mr Hilter sketch back in 1970. 3/5 10) A long book, something over 500 pages - The Secret History by Donna Tartt Difficult to say how I felt about The Secret History, really. On one hand, I found it flawed and often interminably boring. Side stories that start up and go nowhere and lend nothing to the characterisation, about twice as long as it needed to be, chapters and chapters of attempted tension about whether a thing we know (from the first line of prologue) is going to happen will actually happen. A desperation to make you think the book and its author are cool and smart and Literary as Hell and writing Real Literature that I can only compare, in its enthusiasm and off-puttingness, to a puppy trying to please you with its paw shaking while not realising it's smearing poo on the carpet. Still, I really enjoyed it. The characterisation is great - all of the characters are both clear archetypes and fleshed-out, believable human beings (with some of them faltering near the climax, unfortunately). The setting is lovely and memorable, the wistful reminiscing about the characters' loss of innocence and childhood wrapped up in a typical university setting - specific enough to feel like a real place and general enough to feel like you went there, to see it as your own old school - that will have any graduate remembering their time there with more fondness than it possibly deserves. The time period is intentionally vague and incongruous, giving the whole book a dreamlike, timeless air that effortlessly straddles the stupid, tiny minutiae of day-to-day life with the "sublime" world that the characters are always just-about touching and striving for. Ultimately, The Secret History is one of those books that I'm more glad to have read than I was glad to be reading it. A lot of infuriating problems drag it down, but it's a testament to it that many of them would have put me off a lot of novels entirely. I can't say it's a great book objectively, but I find myself fonder about it the more I think about it. 4/5 16) That one book you've wanted to read for a while now - No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy This one has been on my plate for a while, as someone who loved Blood Meridian, liked The Road and had mixed feelings on the film. And it was... eh. I knew going into it that it wasn't one of McCarthy's most well-regarded works. That's fine. I was not expecting it to be quite as... thin as it turned out to be. It really is ultimately just a thriller, a not particularly believable one with a larger-than-life evil dude who tracks down and kills people, occasionally mumbling something half-baked about karma and coins and how it's not really his fault, while an old sheriff bumbles around shaking his fist at the sky and grumbling about liberals and kids these days and their anime and their abortions and how the world's going to hell in a handbasket, I tell you where are the parents. It's still a good book. McCarthy's ear for dialogue is great, the pace is good and the prose is evocative, though not up to his usual standard. He can just write so much better. Nothing really stood out to or impressed me about the whole thing. I don't regret reading it, but I don't feel like I got anything out of it that I didn't get from watching the film, and that's disappointing from an author of this level of talent. 3/5
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Feb 1, 2016 14:46
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I was really bad about updating in that I haven't done it all. I am a bad boy. 23/26 books down which is pretty good going for me (only managed like 12 last year). Would've done much better but had a few relapses into not reading anything for a few weeks. Definitely getting better!! Some of these challenge books are probably stretching a bit but eh. I'm not reading 70 books over here. 1) Vanilla Number - 23/26 2) Something written by a woman - Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg (I used my other women for other questions ok) 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - The Vegetarian by Han Kang 4) Something written in the 1800s - Three Men in a Goat by Jerome K Jerome 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Firmin by Sam Savage 7) A collection of essays 8) A work of Science Fiction - The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter 9) Something written by a musician - Daft Wee Stories by Limmy (Limmy makes music sometimes) 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 11) Read something about or set in NYC - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson (dunno if it really counts but it's light reading, fast-paced and has a thriller-ish comedy plot so w/e) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! - Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) - Buttageddon by Chuck Tingle 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. - Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse 17) The First book in a series - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book - Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 21) A Short Story collection - Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville 22) It’s a Mystery - The Secret History by Donna Tartt
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Dec 5, 2016 20:39
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a book by a goon author
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Dec 7, 2016 18:31
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It's not
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Dec 7, 2016 21:55
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the mother fuckin literature excluder......
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Dec 8, 2016 01:55
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At least one superhero comic "deconstructing" the Superman archetype
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Dec 8, 2016 06:18
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It's the remix to ignition Written by Henrik Ibsen Makes you think about morals And the human condition
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Dec 9, 2016 17:59
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The Dictionary of the Khazars isn't. It's about eggs
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Dec 12, 2016 05:31
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that's kind of bad. I mean I fully get + support that they want to get people reading more diverse fiction (and, uh, Wonder Woman comics I guess) but fully half of those are "read stuff by minorities" in increasingly bizarrely specific ways
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Dec 15, 2016 15:32
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 16:25 |
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I have 9 1/2 hours to read 120 pages of my last book to meet my target and I'm busy because it's NYE in Scotland where we're obsessed with it 
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Dec 31, 2016 15:33
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