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I'll go for the challenge. Rather than specifying a number of books, I'll specify that I want less than 50 books in my "unread" pile at the end of the year.
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Jan 8, 2018 12:24
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Guy A. Person posted:Got everyone who has posted so far. Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris. Could also use a wildcard.
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Jan 8, 2018 20:19
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January - 6: 1. The Man with the Compound Eyes (Wu Ming-yi) 2. Marie (Madeleine Bourdouxhe) 3. Small is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher) 4. Madonna in a Fur Coat (Sabahattin Ali) 5. Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (Peter Sarris) 6. The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton) A good month to start the year with. I'm currently halfway through Judith Herrin's Byzantium, which is super detailed and really interesting. I've claimed 19 for Madonna in a Fur Coat, since the author was allegedly murdered by the Turkish government, which always suggests that they're not fans of his work. Let me know if you feel that's not in spirit, booklord. Year to date - 6: Booklord: 8, 10-11, 15, 19 Wildcard: My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl 1. The Man with the Compound Eyes (Wu Ming-yi) 10 2. Marie (Madeleine Bourdouxhe) 8 3. Small is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher) 11 4. Madonna in a Fur Coat (Sabahattin Ali) 19 5. Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (Peter Sarris) 15 6. The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton)
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Jan 31, 2018 17:29
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Safety Biscuits posted:What did you think of this? Your post has reminded me that I never actually talked about the books I read  It's good. It's pretty lacking in traditional plot - very little "happens" which is an odd thing to say about a book which incorporates a tidal wave and a giant vortex of plastic garbage washing up on the coast of Taiwan, and of what story there is very little gets resolved. It's more about the combination of environmentalism, reactions to trauma, and I guess what you might call a focus on "return to the land" since most of the characters gain their greatest satisfaction from running away from Taipei and living in aboriginal villages out in the forests and mountains. In some ways it's a book whose moment has come with the current chatter around single-use plastics and the enormously wasteful lifestyles of Western and Western-influenced societies, and while it doesn't say anything especially revolutionary about those things, it's a coherent look at them through a slanted magical-realist lens. There's also some Taiwan-specific stuff with the prominence of aboriginal characters, since from some brief Googling I understand there's increasing prominence of aboriginal Taiwanese in the country and this book is very interested in their varied cultures and histories. Also tons of cool poo poo happens including the titular man with the compound eyes appearing in weird places, and a house which is overwhelmed by the sea, and magic sperm whale ghosts of dead Polynesians. And grief so strong that Alice invents a fictional version of her dead son which her husband buys into until he, the husband, falls off a cliff and dies and the man with the compound eyes shows him that he was alone the whole time, except the fictional boy is so fully realised that he's still a pov character for like three chapters. Living Image fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Feb 2, 2018 |
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Feb 2, 2018 10:30
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CestMoi posted:
I recommend reading The Man Who Was Thursday 4900 times to get you most of the way there
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Mar 1, 2018 09:56
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Guy A. Person posted:I read the Tempest last year and it rocked. As a bonus a few months later I read a Margaret Atwood book called Hag-Seed which was about a dude putting on the play at a prison, so it was cool knowing everything about it. I've also picked up more references from it here and there in shows/movies/books. I literally read The Tempest and then Hag-Seed this month, I have a big book of collected Shakespeare that I have barely touched and I wanted to fix that + my wife bought me Hag-Seed for my birthday so it seemed providential. I thought Hag-Seed was a great take on the play and managed to use the basic elements really creatively. My Feb update was pretty short, I only read 4 books since I had another professional exam to prepare for in early March: February - 4: 07. Byzantium: the Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Judith Herrin) 08. Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut) 09. 2084: The End of the World (Boualem Sansal) 10. The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin) 2084 was pretty disappointing. It's an Algerian take on 1984, with the basic premise being that a post-Islamic totalitarian state called Abistan has come into existence and taken over the world. It won a ton of French-language awards and I really can't see why - the characters are completely non-existent and there's huge sections of what are basically just exposition dumps, it sort of reads more like Sansal's notes on what Abistan is than a novel which takes place there. I can't think of a single notable thing about the protagonist or remember any character's name, they just move from place to place so you can be told more about the setting. My wife also bought me Slaughterhouse-Five which I'm counting as a recommendation, and Herrin's Byzantium is underpinned by examining Greek Orthodoxy so I'm counting that as "about religion" for 17. Left Hand of Darkness for 22, future. Year to date - 10: Booklord: 7-8, 10-11, 15, 17, 19, 22 Challenge 2 (women): 3/10 - 30% Challenge 3 (non-white): 3/10 - 30% Wildcard: My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl 01. The Man with the Compound Eyes (Wu Ming-yi) 10 02. Marie (Madeleine Bourdouxhe) 8 03. Small is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher) 11 04. Madonna in a Fur Coat (Sabahattin Ali) 19 05. Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (Peter Sarris) 15 06. The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton) 07. Byzantium: the Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Judith Herrin) 17 08. Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut) 7 09. 2084: The End of the World (Boualem Sansal) 10. The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin) 22 Living Image fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 13:03
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Ben Nevis posted:Franchescando, have you read Revenge by Yoko Ogawa? That seems like something you might enjoy. I love this book and I've given it to multiple people in this thread as a wildcard. The Diving Pool is also great.
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Apr 15, 2018 13:58
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Guy A. Person posted:Just finished this the other day and it was great. Particularly liked how the author was able to convey his characters insecurities particularly Sam and Alison, who both love someone and are afraid that this person doesn't really love them back -- even tho it is obvious to the reader that the girl is into Sam and that Alison's son is pretty desperate to impress her by acting grown up. The payoffs were a little on the nose with each situation being directly and openly resolved, but because the characters were so well realized it worked because this is what you were hoping for the whole time. Also really loved how these two characters' stories in particular intersected toward the end. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I really liked how fully realised the characters were - Rita in particular has stuck with me, because I've known exactly that kind of person who destroys themselves through their own runaway emotions and Norris nails it. The book has a special resonance for me because I was at the author's school (the one Sam attends, ill-disguised though not named) and I know him very very distantly, so when he's lovingly describing Salisbury and its surroundings I'm completely on board because it captures a lot of my own feelings about the area. That whole angle possibly doesn't come across if you didn't grow up there, but I think the strength of the book is that even if you aren't reading it as a love letter to where you grew up, it's still a really great book full of excellently written characters.
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May 17, 2018 10:50
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