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I just found this thread, is it kosher for me to join the challenge, do the booklord, and mark off whatever booklordy challenges I've already done? I track everything I read on Goodreads, but I haven't gone through and determined if I've actually accomplished any of the booklord challenge.
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Mar 28, 2018 19:31
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Alright, let's do this! I'm shooting for 70 books and booklording! Maybe I'll bump that number up since I've already read like 25 so far... Done to date, with a blurb and what booklordian numbers they apply to: 1. Cthulhu Mythos Megapack - Various authors . . . lots of lovecraftian horror, not all of it very good 2. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky . . . really fantastic generations-spanning sci-fi with one of the most interesting "aliens" I've encountered 3. The Croning - Laird Barron . . . Not Barron's best work, but by no means his worst. Reads like a novel written by a short-story writer 4. Three Parts Dead - Max Gladstone . . . Magical lawyers! Gods are sort of investment vehicles! Gargoyles! 5. The Twilight Pariah - Jeffrey Ford . . . pretty traditional spooky haunted house story, but done very well. Does not overstay its welcome 6. The Mist - Stephen King . . . I love horror novellas, so just get used to it. Better than the show, but I liked the ending of the movie even better 7. The Wide Carnivorous Sky - John Langan . . . Weird fiction and horror story collection. It's the author's first collection and feels like it, though there are some definite highlights. 8. Universal Harvester - John Darnielle . . . an altogether eerie and touching book. Not what I expected to be. One moment about 40 pages in creeped me out more than just about anything I've ever read. Also unsettling because I drive by Nevada, IA pretty regularly (7) 9. The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor LaValle . . . a compelling retelling/reimagining of one of Lovecraft's more problematic stories (3) 10. The Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 1 - Ellen Datlow, ed. . . . Some really solid stuff in here. Very white-male-heavy, though the later collections seem to improve in that respect 11. Horrorstor - Grady Hendrix . . . pretty formulaic horror movie plot set in a not-IKEA. Cool conceit, fun read, mostly unique in the design and layout of the book 12. Black Mad Wheel - Josh Malerman . . . a rock & roll band hunts around in the desert for a mysterious sound. Kind of falls apart as it goes along. Read Bird Box instead. 13. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe - Kij Johnson . . . pseudo-sequel to Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, but does more interesting things with the setting than he did (2) 14. Hammers on Bone - Cassandra Khaw . . . Lovecraftian hard-boiled detective story with some really cool ideas. I think it's part of a series now? (2,3) 15. The Grip of It - Jac Jemc . . . Woweee.... probably one of the most compelling horror novels I've read in a long time. Definitely going to re-read soon. (2) 16. Roadside Picnic - Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, trans. Olena Bormashenko . . . surprisingly fun. Think Annihilation with a healthy dose of 70's era Russian irony and pessimism (10) 17. Wall of Storms - Ken Liu . . . overall had a weak middle compared to Grace of Kings, but it was fantastic to see some great female characters in the spotlight for a change. (3) 18. The Redbreast - Jo Nesbo . . . pretty good mystery novel, though I don't think it was as good as Snowman. Interesting historical aspect to it regarding Norway's troubled past in regards to Nazism (10) 19. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad . . . first time reading this, and it was way too late. It's a book I wish I had arrived at years ago. Still worth reading though (8) 20. Doctor Sleep - Stephen King . . . so I get that King fans usually hate this book, probably because it isn't The Shining. Personally I loved it, though it suffers from a perennial King problem of somewhat underpowered badguys 21. John Dies at the End - "David Wong" . . . another book I wish I'd read years ago. Still good, but definitely got overhyped for me. Also very much feels like it was originally a web serial 22. My Best Friend's Exorcism - Grady Hendrix . . . not a bad book, but retreads a lot of familiar ground, owes a lot to The Exorcist (unsurprisingly). If anything, I was disappointed that it wasn't a big improvement over Horrorstor 23. Agents of Dreamland - Caitlin Kiernan . . . Lovecraft meets espionage and government black ops. Very fun. (2) 24. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz . . . fantastic in so many ways. Hard to do it justice in a brief description. (3) 25. Steel Magnolias - Robert Harling . . . I really love this play, even though it's really not my style at all. Fantastic dialog. Never seen the movie, amazingly. (14) Challenges in progress: 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 25/70 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women.3/14 — bonus: Of these make sure half are by authors new to you 3/7 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white.4/14 — bonus: Of these make sure half are by authors new to you 3/7 7. Get a recommendation from a friend or loved one. Universal Harvester — bonus: Read literally the first in-person book recommendation you get in 2018 (solicited or not) Universal Harvester (I'm 99% sure at least, it was recommended to me on NYE) 8. Read something written before you were born. Heart of Darkness — bonus: Read a book written/published the exact year you were born 10. Read something translated from another language. Roadside Picnic, The Redbreast — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language (man I wish!) 13. Read a collection of short stories. Lots. — bonus: Read short stories by at least 10 different authors Easily. 14. Read a play. Steel Magnolias — bonus: Read a play first published in the last 10 years 22. Read something about the future. Children of Time — bonus: Read something about a future that takes place before the current year Roadside Picnic, I think?
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Mar 28, 2018 21:08
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Thread judgement: would The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao count for 15. Read something involving history? It has a lot to do with Trujillo's reign in the Dominican Republic, which was a part of history I knew pretty much nothing about before reading the book. Also I may as well get this going right away, someone wild card me!
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Mar 28, 2018 21:10
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Chamberk posted:Your wildcard should be The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. Whoops, missed this. I... will try. Historically I haven't really enjoyed James so I'm already kind of guarded about the idea, but hey that's the point of a reading challenge, right?! Esme posted:We Love You Charlie Freeman - I picked this up because the description of the book reminded me of Get Out. It did not disappoint. nerdpony posted:Wasn't this book so good? I read it basically in one sitting earlier this year, and I'm so glad I did. It was so much more than it could have been. I'm just gonna go on faith and add this book to my reading list right now.
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Apr 10, 2018 19:26
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I'm looking a bit ahead in my reading list, and I need some suggestions on: 11. Read something political. — bonus: Read something political from/about a country you aren't from and don't currently live in I don't ever really read any political fiction or non-fiction so I have no idea where to start. I'm not absolutely dedicated to doing the Bonus as well, but for reference I'm in the US, and I imagine there's tons of good books on non-US politics I've never heard of.
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Apr 23, 2018 19:28
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thatdarnedbob posted:Earlier in the year you read Heart of Darkness; you could read King Leopold's Ghost to get more perspective there. I've been considering King Leopold's Ghost, maybe I'll dive into that. I've also been meaning to read Things Fall Apart, and some of Achebe's critiques of Heart of Darkness afterwards, so I think that would tie in well too. I guess I never would have thought of Gladstone's stuff as "political," but yeah it totally is, in a fictional context. I'm actually reading Two Serpents Rise right now.
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Apr 25, 2018 18:40
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Sorry for the double-post, but I'm planning out the rest of my booklord challenge cuz it's fun, I need a couple of ideas/recs though. Any recommendations for: 21. Read something that involves Maslow's hierarchy of needs. — bonus: Read something about hunger And also, are there any resources out there for finding out what books are currently banned in their country of origin? I can find a ton of lists of books that are commonly challenged/banned but not a good accounting of what is currently banned on a large scale.
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Apr 25, 2018 21:44
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jagstag posted:hunger by hamsun Heh I know nothing about this book but saw it discussed in the lit thread once upon a time and was tempted to read it for that challenge just on the title alone.
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Apr 27, 2018 17:35
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My April was beyond busy, I'm kind of surprised how much I got through. I suppose it helps that some of them were pretty quick reads. 26. Embassytown - China Mieville: Wow, what a fantastic book. Probably my second favorite sci-fi novel I've read in the last couple of years. It avoids my pet peeve with sci-fi novels, which is when aliens turn out to be just funny looking humans who don't speak English or can fly but are otherwise pretty normal or whatever. It touches on some interesting discussions about language and consciousness too. Great book all around. 27. The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin: And on the back of Embassytown, I read probably my favorite fantasy novel in recent memory! I'm way late to the party on this one, but Fifth Season is great. Loved it. I started it a couple times back when it came out and never got very far, I wish I'd given it more of a chance then. I don't even want to say that much about it because I went in blind and a lot of what I loved was the sense of discovery I got as I read it. 28. Pet Sematary - Stephen King: I'm a King apologist, so I tend to be pretty generous when talking about his books, but I wasn't a huge fan of this one. Part of it was I knew the "twist" long before reading it, partially I just didn't find the story or characters that compelling. I'm glad I read it, and it's better than a lot of the horror I read, but just barely. 29. Mort - Terry Pratchett: I've been reading the Discworld novels in publication order, and they've been a lot of fun, but I think this is the first book where I started to get real inklings of what makes people love the series so much. Mort was a fun character, and it was a really enjoyable take on Death as a character too. 30. Twenty Days of Turin - Giorgio De Maria: Holy poo poo what an eerie book. I really enjoyed this one, it had some interesting allegory expressed in an unsettling way. One section still kind of gives me chills to think about. I kinda felt like the ending was a let-down, but it still felt very in keeping with the rest of the book. 31. All Systems Red - Martha Wells: Fun, quick, engaging read. It's just great popcorn sci-fi, told briskly and well. I'm looking forward to more. 32. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen: This is my first brush with Austen, and I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Her style, setting, and characters do very little for me, but it was still an enjoyable read. The BotM thread from years ago when this was covered was also a lot of help in parsing out the multiple layers of dialogue and I think I appreciated the book a lot more for having that. (So thanks Hieronymous Alloy!) 33. Obelisk Gate - NK Jemisin: Can you tell I really liked Fifth Season? This one wasn't as strong as the first book, but it did what the middle book of a fantasy trilogy kinda should: answer enough questions to satisfy your curiosity, and ask enough more to pull you into the third book. Thankfully, the third book is sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read, so I won't have to be in suspense for long! Challenges in progress: 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 33/70 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women.7/14 — bonus: Of these make sure half are by authors new to you 6/7 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 6/14 — bonus: Of these make sure half are by authors new to you 4/7 4. Read at least one book by an LGBT author. — bonus: Make sure 10% of the books you read this year are by LGBT authors 0/7 — bonus: Participate in the SHAMEFUL The Greatest Books You've Never Read thread 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Similarly, get a wildcard from another thread in this forum — bonus: Read literally the first in-person book recommendation you get in 2018 (solicited or not) Universal Harvester — bonus: Read a book written/published the exact year you were born 9. Read a book published in 2018 (or if you're eager to start early, the latter half of 2017). — bonus: Read something that wins an award in 2018, but only after it is announced (i.e. don't apply retroactively) — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language — bonus: Read something political from/about a country you aren't from and don't currently live in 12. Read a poetry collection. — bonus: Read poems by at least 10 different poets — bonus: Read a play first published in the last 10 years — bonus: Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. 16. Read something biographical. — bonus: Read something biographical about someone you've met/seen in person 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text 19. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. — bonus: Read something currently banned, censored, or challenged in its country of origin 20. Read something about music. — bonus: Read something about a genre of music you're explicitly not a fan of 21. Read something that involves Maslow's hierarchy of needs. — bonus: Read something about hunger
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Apr 30, 2018 22:33
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Guy A. Person posted:24. Borne by Jeff VanderMeer I absolutely love Foucault's Pendulum. I read it when I was 15 or 16 when I was a little obsessed with the occult and secret societies, and it was an eye-opening book in the way it treated those sorts of things in a simultaneously po-faced and wry way. What did you think of Borne and Broken Monsters? I got maybe twenty pages into the former and never really got grabbed by it so I didn't finish it, but I'd still like to go back to it. The latter intrigues me because I love horror and Zoo City, it seems like Beukes could write a pretty excellent horror novel.
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May 1, 2018 22:50
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Milt Thompson posted:Sadly only finished the two last month, but I've nearly finished White Is For Witching. Hey, I'm just about to start White is for Witching! We'll have to compare notes afterwards.
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May 11, 2018 18:41
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Can I request a new wildcard? I know the whole point of a wildcard is you don't get to choose it, but somebody gave me Portrait of a Lady by Henry James and I just do not really care much for James, and so far reading this book makes me think that opinion will not change. I really have zero interest in finishing it. Also if my wildcard could be something not written by a dead white european/american guy from 100+ years ago that would be awesome, I already have too many dead white guys on my reading list.
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May 15, 2018 01:39
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34. Two Serpents Rise - Max Gladstone - The second book in the Craft Sequence about magical lawyers doing crazy stuff. I enjoyed this, but not nearly as much as Three Parts Dead. I think overall it had a weaker conceit, plus it lacked the novelty of the first book to buoy it along. Still, not bad at all, and I plan to continue with the series in any case, it just didn't grab me as much as the first book. 35. Bone - Yrsa Daley-Ward - A very interesting poetry book, written from a perspective very different from my own. It focuses a lot on identity, physicality, sexuality, love, romance, and otherness. In particular it examines love and relationships and how they intertwine with our physical and emotional identity. Not my favorite poetry in the world, but I thought it was a compelling treatment of a lot of its themes. 36. Disgraced - Ayad Akhtar - Wow, what a great, brisk little play. A hell of a gut-punch too, it centers around a lapsed-Muslim Pakistani American who has worked hard to conceal his Islamic background due to how it would reflect on him professionally. Really digs down into the internal conflict this character feels about his heritage and religion and its place in the world. Some deeply uncomfortable and compelling scenes. I missed this one when it was at the local regional theater and I'm kicking myself for it now. 37. The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded - Molly McCully Brown - A haunting collection of poems set in the titular location over different years and time periods. This one resonated with me much more than Bone did. In part, I think the concept of the collection gave it a lot more cohesion, and the individual poems gave the whole book more of an impact when taken together. Plus, to be totally honest, I think McCully Brown has a better grasp of the lyricism of the language and is much more intentional about her structural choices. Overall my favorite book of poetry in years. 38. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite books ever, so it's kind of weird that I had never gotten around to reading this until now. It was excellent, and also very haunting and eerie, though for different reasons than Hill House. I guessed the "twist" well ahead of time, though it's not the sort of book that lives or dies on a twist, and honestly I think some of the dread that the book inspires could be derived from Jackson expecting you to at least guess at what's really happened, then watch as the story inevitably drives towards acknowledging the awful truth. Hill House is still my favorite of hers, but this was excellent in its own right. 39. A God in the Shed - J-F Dubeau - A thoroughly mediocre horror novel with some decent-to-interesting ideas marred by some amateurish writing. It feels under-edited, and some dumb structural choices rob the supernatural elements of a lot of their impact. It's a pity, because I think there was a pretty good (though still not amazing) book to be had in there somewhere. I'm curious enough to see what this author does next, though I sincerely hope his writing improves dramatically on future books. It was never unreadable, but a lot of the book's problems are the sorts of things that get hammered to death in even beginner level writing courses or every writing advice blog on the internet. There were a couple of grammatical issues, but it was mostly a lot of telling instead of showing, very little useful descriptive language, a lot of the chapters were characters sitting around and contemplating what was going on instead of events actually occurring in time in the book. Also a lot of the chapters felt weirdly disconnected, like they could be rearranged into a different order without really any issues, which means a lot of them didn't really create any sort of chain of cause-and-effect. 40. Revenge - Yoko Ogawa - Fantastic. This is an eerie, gothic collection of short stories set roughly in the present. Initially the first couple feel like morbid, dark(ly funny) tales that tie up rather neatly, but pretty quickly it becomes apparent that the stories are all connected in interesting, sometimes very subtle ways. It's a book I definitely plan to re-read a couple of times, since I think there were at least a few nuances and connections I missed out on during this read. Overall, it was a pretty good month. I'm actually contemplating quitting the reading challenge, because I have a bad tendency to rush through things so I can make numbers go up, so while I'm getting through a lot of books I'm kind of not giving them enough time individually. I do like that the challenge is encouraging me to read a wider range of authors from different backgrounds and styles that I'm not usually drawn to, but looking back at books from the last couple of months, I feel like I can barely remember some of them, and that's not good. We'll see how this month goes, maybe I can just take it slow and it won't bother me. Challenges Remaining: 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 40/70 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by women.11/14 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 9/14 — bonus: Make sure 10% of the books you read this year are by LGBT authors 1/7 — bonus: Participate in the SHAMEFUL The Greatest Books You've Never Read thread 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read a book written/published the exact year you were born 9. Read a book published in 2018 (or if you're eager to start early, the latter half of 2017). — bonus: Read something that wins an award in 2018, but only after it is announced (i.e. don't apply retroactively) — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language — bonus: Read something political from/about a country you aren't from and don't currently live in — bonus: Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. 16. Read something biographical. — bonus: Read something biographical about someone you've met/seen in person 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text 19. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. — bonus: Read something currently banned, censored, or challenged in its country of origin 20. Read something about music. — bonus: Read something about a genre of music you're explicitly not a fan of 21. Read something that involves Maslow's hierarchy of needs. — bonus: Read something about hunger.
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Jun 4, 2018 17:49
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I finished a small handful this month, in large part because I've had to jump around reading a bunch of crap for various freelance projects. 41. I’m Thinking of Ending Things - Iain Reid - drat, what a great book. I guess you'd call it horror? Some of the best atmospheric, creeping dread, never-have-your-finger-on-whats-actually-happening fiction I've read in a while. It's a book that does not bear much discussion without a lot of spoilers though so if you want a bit of a twisty-turny horror novel that's pretty tightly written, just go grab it. 42. Broken Monsters - Lauren Beukes - I've read Beukes before and while this book didn't really blow me away, she writes pretty solid, engaging books. I'd call this a supernatural mystery, though there were a lot of moments where I wish there'd either been more commitment to the supernatural element or a lot more ambiguity, as it was there were some weird moments where the supernatural elements felt a little unexplored, in a way that didn't add much to the book. Also maybe it was because I did it as an audiobook (which is great, btw) but it also felt like there was a viewpoint character whose story felt very suddenly abbreviated when he kinda faded out of the main narrative, then reappeared near the end of the book in a briefly jarring way. 43. The Stone Sky - NK Jemisin - This was a good culmination of the trilogy. Tied up a lot of the loose ends, explained a lot of what was still a mystery, etc etc. It felt a bit like the book expected a couple of bigger plot points to still be a surprise despite having been pretty obvious in previous books, but oh well. Still a very satisfying third book. 44. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara - I wanted to enjoy this one more than I did. That's not really a knock on the book-- it was very good, for what it is. The truly unfortunate thing is that it's basically a half-finished book. McNamara's completed sections were engaging and tense, and some of the best true crime writing I've ever encountered. But given she died before finishing the book, the rest was left to be completed by two other writers who were, unfortunately, neither as talented of writers nor as familiar with the subject matter. Still absolutely worth reading if you're into true crime. 45. Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado - this was a short story collection focusing on somewhat supernatural, somewhat gothic stories written from a perspective very different than most collections like it (which is to say, white hetero male perspectives). The style and tone reminded me a lot of some of the darker Bradbury stories, as well as Yoko Ogawa. Morbid, beautiful, chilling, and funny. I kind of felt like the best story was also the most traditional, stylistically speaking, but maybe that's just my taste. 46. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil DeGrasse Tyson - the intro to this bills it as a sort of "tasting platter" of concepts in astrophysics, basically just presenting enough to whet someone's appetite so they might dip into the subjects more fully elsewhere. And for that, it's great. It doesn't go into great depth in many instances, and pointedly avoids dry mathematical or theoretical discussions, which is both a blessing and a curse. It makes the book much more readable for a layman (like myself) but in exchange a lot of the concepts are put forth with a sort of unspoken "just trust me" disclaimer. Also, I agree with 95% of NDT's political and philosophical beliefs (boneheaded tweets about how humanities are totally unimportant notwithstanding), but like just about everything he has a hand in, there are a couple of heavy-handed preachy moments about how great science is and how terrible dumb people are. Overall it's pretty minor though, and it's a pretty good book otherwise. Challenges remaining: 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 46/70 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 20% of them are written by someone non-white. 12/14 — bonus: Make sure 10% of the books you read this year are by LGBT authors 2/7 — bonus: Participate in the SHAMEFUL The Greatest Books You've Never Read thread 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read a book written/published the exact year you were born 9. Read a book published in 2018 (or if you're eager to start early, the latter half of 2017). — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language — bonus: Read something political from/about a country you aren't from and don't currently live in — bonus: Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. — bonus: Read something biographical about someone you've met/seen in person 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text 19. Read something that has been banned, censored, or challenged. — bonus: Read something currently banned, censored, or challenged in its country of origin 20. Read something about music. — bonus: Read something about a genre of music you're explicitly not a fan of 21. Read something that involves Maslow's hierarchy of needs. — bonus: Read something about hunger
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Jul 2, 2018 06:39
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A Visit from the Goon Squad and Fargo Rock City spring to mind.
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Jul 11, 2018 05:01
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Stuporstar posted:^^Ugh, Goon Squad is more about middle-aged anglo angst more than anything. I'd even recommend How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran over that one, because it actually manages to protray the love there was for that same scene in a way Jennifer Egan totally failed to. Don't disagree on Goon Squad, but it's popular so I figured I was just overly picky about it or something. And drat, how did I forget David Byrne's book?? Good call.
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Jul 11, 2018 05:36
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July! I got lots of reading done due to downtime at work, and having some time off to raise newborn puppies. 47. Ring - Koji Suzuki - This is the basis for the Japanese film Ringu (which then got turned into The Ring) but it isn't a direct adaptation from the book, which is honestly... good. The book is pretty rough, and the justification for why spooky things are happening is a little more ridiculous, if kind of creative. The movies actually do a better job with the video conceit though, imo. Also the writing itself was kind of weak, though that could be chalked up to a so-so translator for all I know. 48. Kill Creek - Scott Thomas - I love horror, a lot. There's a lot of bad horror. There's a lot of trite horror. This, somehow, managed to be good, even while not really doing anything crazy or unique or really all that unexpected. It was just a well-written, pacey horror novel that sort of knew you could see the twists coming but still made you excited to get there. Overall one of the better horror novels I've read this year, though like I said it doesn't exactly do anything that new. 49. Hunger - Roxane Gay - I went into this one without many expectations, and found it to be just okay. I remember reading somewhere on the forums (Possibly in this thread) that the book is oddly disconnected and dispassionate for being such a personal subject and the fact that it's a memoir, and I couldn't agree more. It's hard to tear down a book that was clearly personally important to the author, but I felt like Gay kind of kept the book at arms length for the entirety. Still not sure what to make of this one. 50. The Devil Crept In - Ania Ahlborn - Auggh I feel like I complained about this with a previous book, but I. Hate. Crappy. Child. Protagonists. And this was one of the worst. Horror novels in particular seem to glom onto child protagonists when they really shouldn't, I think because it's easy to make a child feel vulnerable to a physical threat. This was a glacier of a book, without a very good central conceit, plagued by a not very believable child-that-thinks-like-an-adult protagonist. It also commits a common sin in horror novels where the writer got attached to an unrelatable main character, so to fix that they just surrounded him with even shittier, more unlikeable, more inconsistent characters. It wasn't godawful, as horror goes, but it was not one I'd recommend. 51. Night Film - Marisha Pessl - Ahh, and then at the other end of the spectrum, here's a (big) compelling, entertaining mystery/horror novel that does some really creative things. Imagine if David Lynch and Orson Welles were the same person, and also he was possibly a devil-worshipper who might actually be able to do black magic, and suddenly his daughter commits suicide. The book is the story of an investigative reporter trying to piece together what's truth and what's dream. This is a very strange and sometimes surreal mystery that I loved. 52. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - This is the first time I've read Jane Eyre, and it was fine. Sort of similar to my reaction to P&P, I can totally see why this is a classic, and I enjoyed reading it, but it's really not my cup of tea. I probably found it a little less engaging than P&P to be honest. There's only so much time I'm willing to give to descriptions of how this rich British aristocrat is slightly less rich than this other rich person and parsing out how that's important to the story. 53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey - Brilliant, better than the movie in a lot of ways. In fact it's kind of weird that the movie totally threw away the fact that the book is written from Chief Bromden's perspective, especially given it feels a lot more like it's his story, rather than McMurphy's. Side note, I did the audiobook, which was read by John C. Reilly and was absolutely fantastic. 54. House on the Borderland - William Hope Hodgson - Imagine if HP Lovecraft wrote down the worst of his fever dreams and refused to add a plot. This is definitely the blueprint that Lovecraft (and a lot of other horror/weird writers) was writing from. It's seriously incomprehensible at times, but that's the source of a lot of the wonder and horror. 55. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers - Beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating. It's a hard book to encapsulate in a description because it's so much about putting you in the lives of the protagonists and the process of understanding who they are as humans. Just great. 56. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis - If anything, this is more brutal than the movie, which is saying something. I think it also succeeds much better at the message it was trying to convey than the movie was. I'm glad I read it, I'll probably never re-read it. Also it's hard to tell how much was intentionally funny, and how much is now funny in retrospect but would have been relatively straight-faced at the time. 57. Black Helicopters - Caitlin Kiernan - So this was billed as a follow-up to Agents of Dreamlands, which I really liked, but actually isn't. It was released as a chapbook a few years before Agents, and Kiernan re-released it with some new chapters that supposedly tie it into the bigger mythology of Dreamland. In reality, I feel like this is a big mess of a book and a huge missed opportunity. There's a lot of dropped threads and incomprehensibility here. The incomprehensibility is very much intentional, but it feels a bit like Kiernan forgot to tell a story in the midst of it. There's also some nonsense to do with quantum mathematics in the mix. It's possible I'm too dumb to have "gotten" the book but it honestly feels like some of Kiernan's weakest work that I've read to date. I'm proceeding well on my challenges! Found a fun book for my birth year (Howl's Moving Castle), and I've started in on A Brief History of Seven Killings, which hopefully I'll finish before the end of the year. Challenges remaining 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 57/70 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read a book written/published the exact year you were born — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language — bonus: Read something political from/about a country you aren't from and don't currently live in — bonus: Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text 20. Read something about music. — bonus: Read something about a genre of music you're explicitly not a fan of
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Aug 2, 2018 22:16
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Ben Nevis posted:This is literally the next book in my queue, so I'm a little less excited now. Ehh don't let me dissuade you entirely, it was mostly very different from what I was expecting based on all the (kind of bad-faith) marketing that made it out to be a sequel to Black Helicopters. I think the kind of loose, stream-of-consciousness sort of existential conspiracy horror she does in this book may work for some, it just didn't do it for me at all. Some chapters were great, some I had significantly less patience for. Ironically the ones I had the least patience for were (I believe) the ones she added after she wrote Agents of Dreamland. Also there's an entire chapter where the characters only speak in French, for... reasons? I was never very clear, and I didn't have a great deal of patience at that point so I ended up skimming it and sort of getting the gist of the chapter with my college-freshman level French comprehension. It's weird, in a way Agents (and a lot of her other stuff) isn't, and I think that turned me off more than anything. I'd be very interested to hear what another goon and avid reader thinks of it, most of the reactions I've seen have been in half-baked Goodreads reviews which are their own brand of incomprehensible weirdness, generally speaking.
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Aug 3, 2018 06:31
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Guy A. Person posted:Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. I'm going to read either Xenophon's Anabasis or The Kite Runner for this. I started Anabasis but it's pretty dry (though no more so than anything of its age). The Afghan-Soviet war technically "involved" the US in peripheral ways, I guess, but it's hard to find a war post 1950 that didn't involve at least some American schmo in some way or another. Also For Whom the Bell Tolls is set in the Spanish Civil War, so it probably counts as well, though it's an American author.
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Aug 28, 2018 17:21
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August! Got a few read that I've been meaning to get to for a while now. Overall mostly good ones with a couple of duds. 58. The Immaculate Void - Brian Hodge - An excellent (quick) cosmic horror novel that really gets the “cosmic” part of the subgenre right. Most cosmic horror only gives a passing nod to how maybe something came from space or how the infinite dark is kind of spooky, but this one digs in deep and commits to a very interesting idea. 59. The Alienist - Caleb Carr - I was gonna barf up a bunch of words about this, but I’ll shorten it to say: flat, unbelievable characters, sort of boring mystery, historically rigorous but tedious. Overall one of my least favorite books this year. 60. Human Acts - Han Kang: Fascinating and wrenching book surrounding a historical event I somehow never heard of. This was a very good read, though I think I didn’t find it quite as emotional and impactful as the person who recommended it to me. Still excellent. 61. Rosemary’s Baby - Ira Levin: I can see why it’s a classic, and how it makes for a good movie, but this book is a bit of a dud if you already know the “twist”, though it’s alright once you catch up with the point where the book starts heavily implying the ending. It does have some cringeworthy elements that can only kind of be brushed off as issues of the time (calling all black people “Negroes”, one very minor Japanese character whose dialogue is written with r’s instead of l’s, the fact that Rosemary is effectively raped, but “it was by her husband so maybe she’s just overreacting and clearly she’s the one at fault “) 62. Howl’s Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones: This is the most charming, heartwarming, fun fantasy I've read in a long time, without feeling sappy or (too) twee. I enjoyed it a great deal. Can't remember the movie that well but very little felt familiar so I'm guessing the movie took some creative liberties. 63. A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James: An excellent book and some loving fantastic prose. I'm not sure I was quite as blown away by it as much as a lot of people I talked to--I felt like the late-middle part of the book spent a lot of time rehashing some of the same ideas and themes as a lot of what came before it, and overall the book felt a little longer than I wanted it to be--but this is still one of the best books I've read this year, hands-down. 64. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle: I can't recall for certain, but I think this may be the first Sherlock Holmes I've ever actually read. It was about what I expected. I'm a big mystery fan, when it's done well, and most of what I really enjoy in the genre owes a lot to Doyle, so this felt very homey, though if you know the story there's not really anything here that's going to surprise or impress. 65. The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion - Margaret Killjoy: This is a quick novella about a spirit-deer-god-thing that's killing people in a punk anarchist commune. The concept is cool and original, and the prose and story is just fine. Killjoy's political views are very transparently on display, which sometimes feels a little too ~*woke*~ and preachy, even if I agree with most of what she has to say. To be fair the book kind of makes it clear that's how things are going to be from the start, so if that doesn't put you off right away, there's only one or two moments where it really starts to feel more like a PSA than a book. Challenges remaining 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 65/70 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language — bonus: Read something about a (nonfictional) war that didn't involve the U.S. 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text
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Sep 1, 2018 06:22
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A significant portion of NK Jemisin's The Inheritance Trilogy (first book is The Fifth Season) is in second person too, if people want a fantasy book for that challenge. I feel like I read another one this year that fits this but I can't remember what it would have been.
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Sep 10, 2018 16:07
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September! Got lots of books in because everything is terrible and I don't want to leave the house. 66. The Troop - Nick Cutter - This was a horror-genre darling when it came out, but honestly I was pretty let down by it. The body horror/gore was early-80s level but felt so contrived that it was never that gross, just tiresome. Definitely weaker, IMO, than some of Cutter's other work. The Deep is equally silly but better executed. 67. Sourcery - Terry Pratchett - So I know everybody loved Discworld and they're everybody's favorite funny fantasy books, but this is the first book where I kind of get it. I've enjoyed other Discworld novels so far, but this one was fun. 68. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah - Funny, interesting, painful, and personal. I was expecting a fairly straightforward comedian memoir with little bits of Noah's past peppered in for color, but the book maybe mentions the fact that he's a comedian once. I'm sure I would have known that if I read a synopsis beforehand, but it doesn't really matter, this was infinitely better than a standard memoir, and still cutting and funny in a way you expect from the author. Highly recommended. 69. The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison - This comes up a lot in the SF/F thread when people ask for cozy fantasy novels and boy howdy is it 100% that. The biggest complaint I see about it is that the protagonist kind of manages to solve all the problems without a great deal of struggle, but honestly that's a lot of the charm of the book. The struggles aren't world-ending evil magicians, they're just one guy trying very hard to do what he thinks is right as often as he can, despite being thrown into a totally unfamiliar world. Yeah, some of the conflict is contrived and the whole nature of the book means you know everything will work out in the end, but it was still a very inviting read and had some genuinely emotional moments for me. One of my favorite books this year. (side note, I've heard people say the audiobook version is a bit tough to follow. Having read the text version, I can totally see why, some of the names would be murder to keep track of without seeing them in print, and there's a fairly useful "glossary" of characters that you'd want at hand.) 70. Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett - This is my favorite Discworld so far, in large part because I got a degree in classical theater and the whole book is a string of Shakespearean references and dad jokes, often both. 71. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - I was a bit surprised how "just okay" this book seemed to me. I wonder how much of its popularity was a matter of timing. Not to say it's bad or contrived or anything, but it's a fairly familiar story, only with occasional cultural references to Afghani culture. tbh I was expecting to get thrown a little more in the deep end. Still, I enjoyed it, but I doubt I'll read anything else by Hosseini. He's not mindblowing or anything, and dear god the guy could not leave a single theme or symbol un-explained for the entire course of the book. Apparently he did not trust you to figure out that this book that's supposedly about the Afghan-Russian war and cultural displacement is secretly a book about a boy trying very hard to gain his father's approval :shh: 72. North American Lake Monsters - Nathan Ballingrud - This book reminds me a lot of Her Body and Other Parties in how it's nominally a collection of horror short stories, but digs much deeper into genuine human fears and shortcomings than normal horror fare. It's basically Horror Short Stories: Modern American Social Tensions Edition. Goes some dark places and really takes the mask off some tough realities. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I was riveted by it, and I think that means it was successful. 73. Pyramids - Terry Pratchett - This may be my least favorite Discworld so far, tied with Equal Rites. While that one was kind of boring to me, this one felt very disconnected and unfocused. It's basically an extended joke on a particular bit of new-age weirdness that went mostly out of style in the mid 80's, so there's a lot of cultural connections that were really missing for me. Still had its moments, but if I ever re-read Discworld somewhere down the line, I'm almost certainly skipping this one. 74. The Devil in Silver - Victor LaValle - Another "horror" novel that is really poorly served by the label. There's very little about it that's scary or even intended to be. It feels very much like LaValle's stab at writing a modern-day Cuckoo's Nest with a little more pathos for the long-term committed patients. Overall it's an okay book, had some good moments, but it has an insufferably annoying literary equivalent of the omniscient third-person narrator turning to the camera and pulling faces in response to what's happening in the book. Beyond that quirk, it was fine, though reading it in the hellscape that is Trump America, it's already dated, sometimes in distressingly funny ways. 75. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn - Wow. I somehow managed to go into this one blind, and I'm so very glad I did. Blew me away. The book drags occasionally after the twist is revealed and the last, like, sixth or eighth of the book is kind of painful to read, with a very "hmm" ending, but it was still pretty good. If you think you're remotely interested in reading this, just jump in, because I'm apparently the only one in my group of bookfriends who has ever managed to not have the book spoiled for them. 76. Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan - Overall a pretty decent cyberpunk-noir book. I kind of wish it had explored the idea of identity and personality and how it relates to sleeves a little more, and spent a little less time sniffing its own farts about how great a detective story the author thought it was, but I guess you can't ask for much from a first novel published in 2002, and I enjoyed it well enough. Would be a significantly better book if the painfully badly written sex scenes were cut, probably entirely. I guess Morgan's kind of notorious for awful sex scenes and holy poo poo, he should be. I've been embarrassed by bad sex in books before, but I've never been embarrassed for the author before. Challenges remaining 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 76/70 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text
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Oct 1, 2018 19:33
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Ben Nevis posted:Looking back over this, I'm going to need a Wild Card. Anyone? How about A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller Jr., purely because I was talking about it with someone earlier today.
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Oct 5, 2018 15:40
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Gertrude Perkins posted:If I want to fulfil the challenges I haven't managed yet, I need to read at least nine more books this year, so I need to get my skates on. Also, I'm not sure what "get a wildcard from another thread in this forum" would entail? It means go to another thread in Book Barn (or well, I guess anywhere, but TBB is probably a safer bet) and ask the thread for a wildcard. So you could go ask the lit thread, or SF/F thread, or pagophiles thread or whatever, as your fancy suits you. As for wildcard... how about Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon?
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Oct 24, 2018 04:41
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Gertrude Perkins posted:Well heck, I've never actually read Pynchon so this is as good an excuse as any. Thanks! There's a lot of disagreement on what is the "best" Pynchon to read as your first, but Lot 49 is short and gives you probably the mildest taste of Pynchon's style. You still kind of need to just buckle in and let a lot of it wash over you, but at least imo it's less intimidating of a commitment than Gravity's Rainbow or V if you're unsure about Pynchon in general.
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Oct 24, 2018 15:49
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Whoops I don't think I posted my October. Also I'm pretty sure I won't complete a couple of challenges this year. "Read something that isn't in your primary language" is pretty much impossible, and I really don't think I'll read either of my wildcard offerings from this thread, sadly. One was Henry James, who I don't really care for, and the other is way too depressing for me right now. Though a lot of books are too depressing for me right now, as my November reads will probably reveal. 77. The Supernatural Enhancements - Edgar Cantero - This is a real oddball of a book, it starts out implying heavily it'll be one genre and then kind of takes a different tack than you might expect. Also devotes multiple pages more than once to discussions of cryptography, which was pretty fun and interesting but functionally not necessary to the book. Overall I really enjoyed it, though it's certainly unique. 78. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin - This was my first time reading this classic of sci-fi, and it was quite good. I admit I didn't expect the back half of the book to be so... travelogue-y, and I wish it had spent more time on the culture and politics of Gethen, but it was still a very good book. I'm curious about some of the choices LeGuin made (like referring to the people of Gethen as "he" even though they explicitly don't have binary gender) and I guess she wrote a paper on what she would have done differently later in her career, I might have to track that down. 79. Skeleton Crew - Stephen King - It's said a lot in various threads on SA that King is better short. I'd generally agree, and this is one of the better short story collections (Night Shift is also good, if I remember correctly). There are some really good stories in this collection, though of course I've already forgotten the names of most of them. 80. City of Blades - Robert Jackson Bennett - Pretty good middle book of the Divine Cities trilogy. I don't think I enjoyed it quite as much as the first, but it was cool to see more of this unique world. I've since read the third book, which I feel was a big improvement over this one. 81. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury - I love Bradbury. I love his writing, and this is one of his best, in my opinion. I sometimes just pull his books off the shelf and read through a few sentences because every once in a while you hit a really beautiful passage. Also it's a great read for right around Halloween. 82. Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers - This was a great, cozy, breezy sci-fi novel, and it's exactly what I wanted. Nothing about the book was that revolutionary or innovative, really, but it was still a fun, relaxing read (and boy did I need a few of those). 83. The Black Tides of Heaven - JY Yang - This one has been recommended a lot, in part due to it being a Hugo or Nebula nom for best novella (I think). I was a little disappointed in it-- it presents some really cool ideas, and had some engaging moments, but overall it was kind of an abrupt book that didn't have the strongest writing, IMO. I'm still curious enough to read the second one, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. Challenges remaining 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 83/70 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text
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Nov 14, 2018 20:58
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Welp, November was definitely a “cotton candy” book month, since it’s typically my busiest month at work. 84. Meddling Kids - Edgar Cantero: This book is by the same author as The Supernatural Enhancements, and is definitely not as good as that one. It’s intended to be Lovecraft meets Scooby Doo (very explicitly), but the book doesn’t ever decide whether it wants to be campy or out-and-out horror, and as a result doesn’t accomplish either end well. The story manages to be both kind of predictable, and have a twist that, while it doesn’t come out of left field, just isn’t that interesting or well motivated. Overall a real dud of a book. It had some fun moments, and Cantero writes pretty breezily, but it’s a book that’s consistently tripped up by it’s one clear conceit. 85. City of Miracles - Robert Jackson Bennett: The resolution of the Divine Cities trilogy. I feel like this one definitely picked up the slack of the second book and ended on a strong note. It still falls prey to some of the genre shortcomings of the other book (occasionally spending too much time on worldbuilding that doesn’t have any relevance to the overall plot or characters) but was a fun read otherwise. It also has the advantage that unlike the second book, which centered around an interesting but ultimately second-string character from the first book, this one has a well-established and familiar character as the main protagonist. My biggest complaint about the trilogy is that it didn’t really need to be a trilogy-- books 2 and 3 both felt like they kind of invented big plot points because the first book resolved itself too cleanly. Not much was foreshadowed from one book to another. 86-92. Walt Longmire books 1-7 - Craig Johnson: Got through a lot of these this month! They’re pretty self-contained mystery novels about a Wyoming sheriff living in a small town with a disproportionately high murder rate. I enjoy these a lot, in part because Longmire reminds me of my grandpa, who was also a cop in a small Great Plains town, and in part because they’re easy reads with fun characters. I blew through a lot of them mostly because I was doing a lot of driving this month, and my library had them on audiobook. I know people in Book Barn are iffy on whether they want to call audiobooks real books, but honestly George Guidall does a pretty good job with these, and I think they might be the best way to experience the books. 93. On Stranger Tides - Tim Powers: This book is ostensibly the source material for both the Monkey Island games and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and I can see why. It’s fun, and definitely established a lot of the modern pirate tropes that have appeared in almost everything that’s followed. The book is a little bland at times, and the characters feel a little lacking, though. Overall it was kind of surprisingly forgettable, though I had fun with it anyway. 94. Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee: This was raved about when it came out, and I can see why. It’s an interesting approach to a space opera: in short, there’s a space empire whose soldiers gain magic powers from fighting in geometric formations, powered by the populace’s faith in their calendar. If it sounds batshit insane, it is. This book revels in being straight-up science fantasy, which is kind of refreshing in a sea of sci-fi books that try to play at being scientifically rigorous and failing. The book also drops you right in the middle of things with little explanation, and doesn’t take any more time than necessary to exposit on the world, which I also appreciate, but could certainly be a turnoff for some genre readers. Overall pretty good, and I’m interested to see where the trilogy goes. 95. Artificial Condition - Martha Wells: More adventures of Murderbot! This one was much like the first novella: quick paced, surprisingly funny. The audiobook was bad, bad, bad though. The actor’s delivery was weirdly paced and everybody sounded kind of blase. I switched to just reading it pretty quickly and I’m glad I did. I don’t think I liked this as much as All Systems Red, though. Challenges remaining 1. Set a goal for number of books or another personal challenge: 95/70 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text
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Dec 5, 2018 17:50
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Ben Nevis posted:Totally with you on this. For something that was in theory right up my alley, this just didn't quite hit it. It's not bad just sort of lifeless. Yeah exactly. It doesn't help that the MI games and the early Pirates of the Caribbean stuff also managed to find some real charm in the setting, in ways that are unique to their media. It's a style that benefits a lot from some visual flair, which (as much as I liked his writing in other ways) Powers isn't great at in this book.
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Dec 5, 2018 19:35
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Recapping my list too so I can remember what the heck I read this year:quote:
And in December, I read: 96. The Rook - Daniel O’Malley - The tagline I kept seeing for this one was "X-Men meets MI5" and that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Some interesting twists and fun ideas, though I doubt it'll blow anybody away. If the elevator pitch interests you, you'll probably enjoy it just fine. 97. Raven Stratagem - Yoon Ha Lee - Apparently I'm in the deep minority for the fact that I liked this book much less than the first one. Lots of people seemed to dislike that Ninefox threw you deep in the middle of the setting without much exposition; I kind of liked it. This one was much weaker in my opinion, largely due to it being fairly focused on internal politics, but there wasn't much intrigue or compelling characters to keep me very enthused about the book. Still, I'm glad I read it, and it really improved at the end. I'm sure I'll read the third book at some point, but tbh I wasn't really blown away by this one. 98. Midnight Riot (aka Rivers of London) - Ben Aaronovitch - A fun, if by-the-numbers, urban fantasy that stands out mostly on the characters being reasonably interesting and not walking pillars of magical conquest, like so many of its peers. I tend to not judge UF series by the first book, since so many of them take a couple of books to hit a stride, so I'm curious to keep reading these and see where they go. 99-102. Four more Walt Longmire books - fun, quick, formulaic in a way that was easy on my very stressed brain, set in the midwest of my childhood (sort of). I would never say these are great books, and they most definitely qualify as a guilty pleasure. 103. Guards, Guards! - Terry Pratchett - Honestly, I feel like a genre bitch traitor in saying this, but I think my enthusiasm for Pratchett has waned the more I've read his books. I say that, but this was the first Discworld that felt like it was of a quality on par with most frequently-recommended fantasy novels. It's the first one that struck me as more than a string of connected jokes or vignettes with some sort of okay overarching plot. Overally, not as good as Discworld fans have led me to believe, but still good. 104. Ego is the Enemy - Ryan Holiday - This is a fairly recent, basically self-help book that's basically a baby's-first-stoicism-primer. I didn't get much revolutionary insight from it, but it was a good read for when I read it. It's sort of refreshing to read a book like this, which goes firmly against the kind of workaholic, type-A cult of personality that so many "life manuals" preach. Overall a good reminder to not tie your self-worth into your work more than is absolutely necessary. 105. Legend - David Gemmell - This was aggressively okay, for how often I've seen it show up on "best fantasy" lists. Nothing wrong with it, though it's a very by-the-numbers underdog story filled with a collection of heroes that all feel very familiar but kind of cheaply rendered. It was cozy in the sense that the story held really no surprising and the writing was fine, so I guess it was a good holiday read. I'd recommend a lot of other fantasy before it, though. 106. 14 - Peter Clines - This was a fun, unexpected mystery/horror/something book, basically centered around an apartment building that is weird. That's it, that's the whole initial hook for the book. I actually kind of appreciated a book where the main character's big motivation for getting involved in a bunch of bizarre poo poo is just "I wanna know what's going on". This took a lot of twists and turns I wasn't expecting. The ending felt rushed, and overall the book felt a little bit rigid, like the author had this idea for years and kind of had to force it into a shorter book than they'd like, but I enjoyed it enough to recommend it. Alright, that was a lot of books! More than I think I want to read in the future, honestly, as I lost the depth of some of the books, and in general I just want to take more time with books (that deserve time devoted to them). I'm gonna steal the idea from Ben Nevis and give out my own "awards": Best Genre Fiction because I doubt I could tell you my favorite book overall, is Night Film though I'm not certain what genre I'd even call it... probably a mystery? It just did such a good job of creating a compelling and unique setting, and left me guessing right up til the end. Totally came out of left field, too, as I didn't have any idea what I was getting into. I totally acknowledge that this book hit all the right notes for my personal taste, though, and I read it early enough in the year that I probably view it with at least slightly rose-tinted glasses. Runner up is probably Her Body and Other Parties, if only because I don't want to drat the book to the genre ghetto. Best Nonfiction even though I didn't care so much for the back quarter, was I'll Be Gone In The Dark. I think I said this when I first read it, but the biggest shortcoming to the book is that McNamara wasn't able to finish it. She tells such a compelling story, even beyond the tale of the GSK himself, and it's a pity that she never got to finish it. Admittedly, I didn't read a ton of non-fiction this year, but this stood out from the pack nonetheless. Biggest Disappointment is like a 20-way split between a bunch of bad horror novels and a couple of mediocre fantasy novels, though standouts include A God in the Shed for taking an interesting concept and bumbling it so badly, with such terrible writing, that I'm shocked the book got published, and Black Helicopters mostly because it's criminal that the publisher tied it so closely to the arguably superior Agents of Dreamland despite them not really having anything worthwhile in common beyond the author. If I learned one thing this year, it's that "Best (genre) Books" lists are just loving worthless, and also there's so little really good horror published in a year that it's a struggle to put together a genuinely worthwhile "Best 10 horror of 20XX" list, apparently. Biggest Surprise, aka The Book I Find Myself Thinking About A Whole Lot More Than Expected because like I said, I can't honestly pick out a favorite book, is Universal Harvester. It hit me in a very deep and unexpected way, and still resonates with me almost a year later. It's beautiful, and sorrowful, and it's a pity that it's been corralled as a "horror" novel, which is patently misrepresenting the book. Runner ups are definitely Twenty Days of Turin, which overall didn't astound me (though it's very good), but has some individual moments that I still think on and find haunting, and I'm Thinking of Ending Things, which is a book that is probably best approached blind. Best Book I Wouldn't Have Read If It Weren't For The Challenge is a three-way tie between Revenge, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Human Acts. All three of these were beautiful and engaging reads, and while I was peripherally aware of all three, I doubt I would have picked them up if it weren't for the challenge. I'd like to say something pithy about these books, but honestly, just go read them instead. And finally, The Dubious Award for the Book I Don't Really Remember Reading goes to The Alienist. I think I blocked it out. I remember Teddy Roosevelt being in it, but couldn't tell you anything else about it. Overall, I'm really glad I did the challenge after all, though I don't usually need more reason to read a bunch of books. I acknowledge, however, that I sometimes need some motivation to read books that aren't just fluffy genre fare, so I'm glad I did the challenge for that reason, at least. edit: As far as the challenge goes, these are the ones I didn't complete: 6. Ask another poster to issue you a wildcard, then read it. — bonus: Read something that isn't in your primary language 17. Read something about religion. — bonus: Read a major religious text Reading a book in another language was pretty much never going to happen. I'm actually reading Ursula K. LeGuin's "translation"/adaptation of the Tao Te Ching, and had planned on reading that for challenge 17, but I decided it's something I want to take some more time with. Unfortunately for my wildcards, I just never really got going on either of them. Portrait of a Lady didn't do it for me at all (I don't care much for Henry James or that period/style of prose), and Harriet was a little too depressing for me around the time I picked it up. I may still read one or both of them, but honestly there's so many books I want to read I'm not sure when it'll happen. MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 22:42
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