I read pretty widely and diffusely, too, but I think that with poetry— especially more innovative or experimental work— there's more of a reason to stay with a writer for a string of books. With a novel or book of short stories, a reader can usually get a reasonable idea of a writer's style, preoccupations, etc. With many poets, one book doesn't get the reader as far. But maybe that's just my experience.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:06 (two years ago) link
with poetry I don't even count the volumes among the books I've read; I often read a dozen or so before deciding to continue.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
I should say, too, that one of the reasons why my numbers are so high is that there are entries that are chapbooks— 10-20 page little things. I include them because sometimes, those little books add up to more than much longer books, in terms of impact and time spent reading.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
Two small kids don't leave much time in the evening for any media but I read for on average maybe 45 minutes every night almost every night. I used to sometimes take a break between books, this is the first year I've pretty much read non stop.
― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:11 (two years ago) link
I don't speed read but I am a quick reader. I might have sped read a couple of books that were rubbish but I to find out how they ended.
― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:30 (two years ago) link
i often wake up to find i managed only a page and a half the night before.
mornings are more useful for me, and those 2-3am between sleeps times.
― koogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:35 (two years ago) link
Mornings are my best, too— I can often read 30-50 pages of a novel during my breakfast and coffee time.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:38 (two years ago) link
Poetry depends on the poems, really.
― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:44 (two years ago) link
Most of my reading this year was rereads, which I don’t include in my total. Also read a lot of short stories (not included) and so basically my actual list of new reads is pretty short at this point, but I hope to read more next year.The Blue Ticket - Sophie MackintoshThere Are Little Kingdoms - Kevin BarryTomie- Junji ItoAbandon The Old In Tokyo - Yoshihiro TastsumiTokyo Girls Bravo - Kyoko OkazakiThe Water Cure - Sophie MackintoshVox - Christina DalcherNormal Sheeple - Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (this run of reads and rereads inspired by this essay, which was one of the best things I read this year)Operation Trumpsformation - Ross O’Carroll-KellyBraywatch - Ross O’Carroll-KellySchmidt Happens - Ross O’Carroll-KellyThe Midwich Cuckoos - John WyndhamThe Silent Woman - Janet Malcolm
― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
I thought chapbooks were 25-75 pages. All the ones I've seen were.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:57 (two years ago) link
Christine, they can be quite long, or quite short.
gyac, I don't really care what you think.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 17:59 (two years ago) link
Seeing as how a 30 page chapbook could take my three days to get through and a whole novel could take me an afternoon, and with the same amount of time spent reading, idea that my list is "cheating" is bollocks.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 18:01 (two years ago) link
Sorry, not clear in that post, but whatever.
Yes, your post offended me, because it's wrong.
another year of retirement, another ridiculous assortment
3 Nicholas Blake novels6 Andrea Camilleri novels4 John Dickson Carr novels4 Donna Leon novels18 Ross Macdonald novels (a reread of the Lew Archer series)2 Giorgio Scerbanenco novels3 Simenon novels (completing a reread of the Maigret series)3 Manuel Vázquez Montalbán novels2 Seishi Yokomizo novels
Bosco, Death Going Down Boucher, Rocket to the MorgueBude, Death Makes a ProphetBurton, The Secret of High EldershamClarke, Childhood’s EndCrispin, The Moving ToyshopGoethe (tr. Luke), Faust Part 2Green, The Circular StudyHendrix, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying VampiresJodorowsky & Moebius, The IncalJoshi (ed.), American Supernatural TalesKing, FirestarterLe Guin, The Lathe of Heaven Lodwick, Brother DeathMatsumoto, A Quiet PlaceMetcalfe, The Feasting DeadMeyrink, The GolemMillar, Fire Will FreezeMillar, The Devil Loves MePriestley, Salt Is LeavingPriestley, Saturn Over the WaterShimada, Murder in the Crooked HouseStevens (Bennett), The Heads of Cerberus
Alter & Cosman, A Lion for Love: A Critical Biography of StendhalBarthes, MythologiesBenshoff (ed.), A Companion to the Horror FilmBrotherstone & Lawrence, Scarred for Life: Volume One, The 1970sCohen, Pathways of Karate DevelopmentGarth, Tolkien and the Great WarGreen & Svith (eds.), Martial Arts in the Modern WorldHanegraaff (ed.), Dictionary of Gnosis & Western EsotericismHutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British IslesHutton, The Triumph of the MoonJoshi, Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, vols. 1 and 2Marcuse, One-Dimensional ManMol, Classical Fighting Arts of JapanNakasone & Mabuni, An Introduction to Karate-doPopoff, Who Invented Heavy Metal?Rée & Urmson (eds.), The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy, 3rd ed.Said, OrientalismStendhal, LoveStendhal, Memoirs of Egotism Stendhal, Rome, Naples and FlorenceSullivan, Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to BlackwoodYoung & Schmidt, All Gates Open: The Story of Can
― Brad C., Thursday, 23 December 2021 18:15 (two years ago) link
no lime Tangier - I love those books by Strindberg. Very underrated writer of prose.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 23 December 2021 18:43 (two years ago) link
I can't believe Table cheated with his list. Stand in the corner and think about what you've done.Fwiw, I wish I *could* be less dissolute and more systematic in my reading (and listening) but I ping and bounce all over the bloody place and that seems to be that.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 23 December 2021 19:26 (two years ago) link
I'm currently at 30 or 31, but will wait until year-end to post my list. I'm hoping I can read maybe one more.
― o. nate, Thursday, 23 December 2021 19:34 (two years ago) link
Arlie Russell Hochschild - Strangers In Their Own LandMark Yarm - Everbody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of GrungeJames Ellroy - The Big NowhereYanis Varoufakis - Another NowMohsin Hamid - The Reluctant FundamentalistRoisin Kiberd - The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through The InternetGarth Ennis - Preacher: Book 5Mark Harris - Pictures At A Revolution:Five Movies and The Birth of New HollywoodThomas Ligotti - My Work Is Not Yet DoneAnne Rice - The Vampire Lestat
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Thursday, 23 December 2021 20:08 (two years ago) link
Patrick Wyman - The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years That Shook The World 1490-1530
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Thursday, 23 December 2021 20:10 (two years ago) link
Lolly Willowes (O052) - Sylvia Townsend WarnerPattern Recognition - William Gibson (R)The Card - Arnold BennettShift - Hugh HoweyThe Owl Service - Alan GarnerDark Entries - Robert Aickman (+)Seeds Of Time - John WyndhamSlade House - David Mitchell (+)The Last Day of a Condemned Man - Victor HugoThe Man Who Was Thursday - G K ChestertonAutumn - Ali SmithBleak House - Charles Dickens (R)Ramble Book - Adam BuxtonXX - Ryan HughesThe Old Man And The Sea - Earnest Hemingway (+)The Sea, The Sea - Iris MurdochThe Sea Wolf - Jack LondonInverted World - Christopher PriestThe Story Of Your Life and Others - Ted ChiangOne Thousand Ships - Natalie HaynesAmber Fury - Natalie HaynesAlcestis - EuripidesAgamemnon - AeschylusDeath’s End - Cixin LiuChildren Of Ruin - Adrian TchaikovskyElla Minnow Pea - Mark DunnDriftglass - Sam DelanyThe Road - Cormac McCarthyThings Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe24 Jigsaw - Ed McBainThe Monarch Of The Glen - Neil GaimanBlack Dog - Neil GaimanBody In The Library - Agatha ChristieAn Event In Autumn - MankellUnder the Greenwood Tree (1872) - Thomas Hardy (+)The Castle Of Otranto - Horace WalpoleO009 Nightmare Abbey - Thomas Love Peacock1848 Mary Barton - Elizabeth GaskellSmall Island - Andrea LevyAccidental Tourist - Anne Tyler (R) (+)The Honjin Murders - Seishi YokomizoAnna Of The Five Towns - Arnold Bennett (+)Slaughterhouse V - Kurt Vonnegut (R)Sketches By Boz - Charles Dickens
(R) = reread(+) = favourites, probably
― koogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 22:35 (two years ago) link
<3 thomas love peacock, though i seem to recall he doesn't come out particularly well from the portrait meredith painted of him in the egoist.
xposts: the strindbergs are a revisit in light of reading the very good lagercrantz biography. i should really read more of his plays than i have done, but it is his fiction/quasi-fiction that i find myself most drawn towards.
re the runs of similar authors mentioned above: i guess that's always been my method? whether genre, epoch, theme, whathaveyou... never really given it much consideration ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
― no lime tangier, Thursday, 23 December 2021 23:45 (two years ago) link
like the Otranto i had nightmare abbey down as early horror and like the Otranto it was nothing of the sort so was mostly disappointed.
i do notice i had a few duplicate authors myself including 2 where i read them back to back.
― koogs, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:02 (two years ago) link
ha, yeah: apart from some of his settings there is very little gothic/horror about tlp!
― no lime tangier, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:23 (two years ago) link
Remain in Love by Chris Frantz
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
A History of Bones by John Lurie
Please tell us about these!
― dow, Friday, 24 December 2021 04:15 (two years ago) link
Also, koogs meant to post about ed mcbain on here---my local library shop suddenly has a ton of him; how is he?
― dow, Friday, 24 December 2021 04:16 (two years ago) link
he pretty much invented the ensemble cast police thing like homicide and NYPD blue and each book reads like an episode of one of those (and i would love to see the TV adaptations they did in the 50s). they are of their time though, so sexist and racist language ahoy. I've been reading them mostly in order and this was about the 20th and i don't plan on stopping. nice quick reads too.
(the Martin Beck books that were posted, Roseanne etc, are the cool Swedish cousin of these)
― koogs, Friday, 24 December 2021 07:56 (two years ago) link
Books:
Fatal Subtraction: How Hollywood Really Does Business - Pierce O'Donnell & Dennis McDougal 2/5The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov (Pevear & Volokhonsky translation) 4/5The Wine Dark Sea - Robert Aickman 4/5The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.- Arthur Conan Doyle 4/5The Forever War - Joe Haldeman 4/5Thirteen - Steve Cavanagh 2/5The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler 4/5Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director - Patrick McGilligan 3/5Cotters' England - Christina Stead 3/5A Man Lay Dead - Ngaio Marsh 2/5The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology - Gordon Van Gelder (editor) 4/5The Woman in the Window - A J Finn 1/5The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood - Sam Wasson 3/5Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 4/5Guardians of Time - Poul Anderson 3/5Fair Warning - Michael Connelly 2/5More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon 3/5England's Hidden Reverse - David Keenan 4/5Elric - Michael Moorcock (Fantasy Masterpieces collection) 4/5Red Harvest - Dashiel Hammett 4/5Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties - Tom O'Neill 4/5Rosemary's Baby - Michael Newton (BFI Film Classics) 3/5Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin 4/5Groovy Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Fraser - Harriet Vyner 4/5At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror - H P Lovecraft 3/5Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell - John Preston 3/5The Law of Innocence - Michael Connelly 3/5The Unlimited Dream Company - J G Ballard 4/5The Hollow Man - John Dickson Carr 3/5An English Murder - Cyril Hare 4/5
Graphic Novels:
Izngoud the Relentless - Goscinny & Tabary 3/5izngoud Rockets to Stardom - Goscinny & Tabary 3/5Essential Avengers 8 - Shooter, Byrne, Perez et al 3/5Age of Ultron - Bendis & Hitch 3/5Amazing Spider-Man: Election Day - Guggenheim, Romita Jr et al 2/5Captain America: Reborn - Brubaker et al 3/5Captain America Vol 2 - Brubaker & Davis 3/5Iznogoud and the Jigsaw Turk - Goscinny & Tabary 3/5Izngoud's Fairy Tale - Goscinny & Tabary 3/5Iznogoud's Nightmares - Goscinny & Tabary 3/5Iznogoud I Want to be Caliph Instead of the Caliph - Goscinny & Tabary 1/5Daredevil: The Devil, Inside and Out - Brubaker & Lark 4/5Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules - Sturm, Davis & Sikoryak 3/5The Invaders: The Eve of Destruction -Stern, Manley et al 2/5The Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares - Fraction & Larocca 2/5Ultimate Spider-man 14: Warriors - Bendis & Bagley 3/5The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire 1 - Butterworth and Lawrence 4/5Catwoman: Trail of the Catwoman - Brubaker & Cooke 4/5Catwoman: Relentless - Brubaker, Stewart & Pulido 3/5Morbius Epic Collection 1: The Living Vampire - Gerber, McGregor, Thomas, Conway, Kane et al 3/5Ultimate X-Men 7: Blockbuster - Bendis & Finch 3/5Ultimate x-Men 8: New Mutants - Bendis & Finch 3/5Ultimate Spider-man 20: And His Amazing Friends - Bendis & Immonen 3/5Ultimate Spider-man: Ultimatum - Bendis & Immonen 3/5The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire 2 - Butterworth, Lawrence & Embleton 4/5Ultimate Spider-man: Death of Spider-man - Bendis & Bagley 3/5Ultimate Spider-man: United We Stand, Divided We Fall - Bendis, Marquez, Larraz 3/5Spider-Men - Bendis & Pichelli 3/5Uncanny X-Men: The Extremists - Brubaker, Larocca, Keith 2/5Pulp - Brubaker & Phillips 3/5Immortal Hulk 1: Or is he Both? - Ewing, Bennett et al 4/5 (UK collection)Manhunter Deluxe Edition - Goodwin & Simonson 4/5
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 24 December 2021 08:02 (two years ago) link
The Old Man And The Sea - Earnest Hemingway (+)The Sea, The Sea - Iris MurdochThe Sea Wolf - Jack LondonYou should've added The Sea by John Banville in the middle here.
― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Friday, 24 December 2021 08:34 (two years ago) link
(xp to koogs)
ha, yeah, i said as much at the time. but a) it was too expensive and too unknown to do that for the small amount of lols and b) i tend do blocks of a month and the 3 filled the month as it was, the middle one being an especially slow read.
― koogs, Friday, 24 December 2021 08:50 (two years ago) link
ira Levin has a good hit rate i think. his trick of putting the twist ending in the middle has served him well, it lets him write about the fallout of that for another 100 pages. i remember being amazed by the twist in A Kiss Before Dying.
the thing i remember of Rosemary's Baby is all the potential names they keep using for the unborn baby - andyordebbie
― koogs, Friday, 24 December 2021 08:57 (two years ago) link
I read Michael Newton's new BFI monograph on Rosemary's Baby (slightly disappointing after his brilliant entry on Kind Hearts and Coronets) and then went back to the film, and then read the novel for the first time. The film really is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, ever - nothing is added, and almost nothing taken away (just a tiny amount of non-essential backstory, really). The masterstroke of Rosemary's Baby the novel (and by extension the film) is the modern-day, even 'modish' setting, and the way that the Satanists are old and uncool - and lethal.
Agree that Levin's hit rate is pretty astonishing, and that the big twist in A Kiss Before Dying is all-time, although I can't find a good word to be said for his very late sequel to Rosemary's Baby.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 24 December 2021 11:08 (two years ago) link
I did a double-take for a moment there, thinking it said “Michael Nesmith’s new BFI monograph.” #onethread
― Santa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 December 2021 13:18 (two years ago) link
I have a running list, I’ll post it in a few days.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 24 December 2021 13:35 (two years ago) link
My full list of 75 (including business/software books I read for work that are presumably of no interest) is on goodreads. Quite a lot fewer books than last year, mostly due to my reading two volumes of Caro on LBJ and the 1000+ pp Gotham.
Here's my favorites (in order read)
FICTION
Assembly by Natasha BrownA Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho DaviesThe King at the Edge of the World by Arthur PhilipsKudos by Rachel CuskStubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues FowlerA Thousand Ships by Natalie HaynesThe Mezzanine by Nicholson BakerThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le CarrePiranesi by Susanna ClarkeThe Fisherman by John LanganNorth and South by Elizabeth GaskellContact by Carl SaganButcher's Crossing by John WilliamsThe Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley RobinsonSmiley's People by John le CarreHamnet by Maggie O'FarrellTransit by Rachel CuskThe Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
NON-FICTION
Means of Ascent by Robert CaroThe Path to Power by Robert CaroThe Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World by Vincent BevinsNotes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'ConnellHow the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer AckermanMinor Feelings by Cathy Park HongGotham by Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 24 December 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
my goodreads list https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2021/80167070
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 24 December 2021 17:56 (two years ago) link
of those, the really good things that i didn't see anyone else here mention that i would pretty much unconditionally recommend are:
Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Assembly by Natasha Brown (caveat that i haven't lived in the UK for 12 years and haven't visited since 2018, both seemed very good on post brexit post colonial (?) britain)
Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'Connell (soothing?)
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies (highly recommended for parents).
mookieproof is right that Piranesi by Susanna Clarke doesn't quite spot the landing, but the first 5/6 are magical, wonderful narrator, and it would be a great christmas read imo.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 24 December 2021 18:06 (two years ago) link
Fiction
Autumn - Ali SmithThe Man with the Getaway Face - Richard StarkBreakout - Richard StarkAsk the Parrot - Richard StarkNobody Runs Forever - Richard StarkPiranesi - Susanna ClarkeThe Road Back to Paris - A.J. LieblingThe Catcher in the Rye - J.D. SalingerNo One is Talking About This - Patricia LockwoodNada - Jean-Patrick ManchetteThe Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell (worst book I read this year)The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora CarringtonUnity - Elly BangsGet Rich Quick - Peter DoyleThe Burnt Orange Heresy - Charles WillefordLA Confidential - James EllroyTemptation - Janos SzekelyLibra - Don DelilloThe Sibyl - Per LagerkvistThe Ax - Donald WestlakeKusamakura/The Three-Cornered World - Natsume SosekiThe Thin Red Line - James JonesWolf Among Wolves - Hans FalladaMiss Pym Disposes - Josephine TeyThe Fourth Island - Sarah TolmieThe Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)
Non-Fiction
George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door - Graeme ThomsonBeeswing - Richard ThompsonThe Jakarta Method - Vincent BevinsThe Road Back to Paris - A.J. LieblingThis is Your Mind on Plants - Michael PollanEverybody Loves Our Town - Mark YarmDreamland - Sam QuinonesEasy Riders, Raging Bulls - Peter Biskind
With any luck/concentration should be able to finish The Tree With No Name by Drago Jančar and finish rereading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
Books I need to finish that I set asideStalingrad - Vasily Grossman (after like 600 pages, i don't know what's wrong with me)Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
― JoeStork, Friday, 24 December 2021 20:33 (two years ago) link
and yeah, agree on Piranesi, I wanted a little bit more from it but once I got about 10 pages in it hooked me, kept a really nice balance where there was enough tension and suggestion of horror to be unsettling, but never so unpleasant that I needed a break from it.
― JoeStork, Friday, 24 December 2021 20:37 (two years ago) link
Is that 2 different people read Everybody loves This Town this year. Was there a republishing of it or something?I'm thinking I read it about 10 years ago but not thinking what else was on around the same time I read it.Good book though.
― Stevolende, Friday, 24 December 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
actually did a better job this year than i assumed, though spring, summer, and fall were filled with gaps of not-reading. counting every volume of the george miles cycle because i can, only closer and period truly felt short
heavenly breakfast by samuel delanylolita by vladimir nabokovcloser by dennis cooper frisk by dennis coopertry by dennis cooperguide by dennis cooperperiod by dennis cooperwomen and other monsters by jess zimmermanluster by raven leilanisentimental education by gustave flaubertthe driver’s seat by muriel sparkmalina by ingeborg bachmannin a lonely place by dorothy b. hughes
will likely, finally be finishing in a lonely place today, giving me time to reread harriet the spy before the end of the year
first book of 2022: the hearing trumpet
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Saturday, 25 December 2021 18:30 (two years ago) link
gonna be in the upper 40s for new books -- the most in a long time -- plus maybe a dozen re-reads
of course they were mostly science fiction or something similarly escapist because that's all i can handle lately
― mookieproof, Saturday, 25 December 2021 19:29 (two years ago) link
The 52 books I read in 2021 (in the order that I finished them):
Chronicles, Jean Froissart (medieval history)Massacred for Gold, R. Gregory Nokes (shameful Oregon history)The Confidence Man: His Masquerade, Herman MelvilleHindoo Holiday, J. R. AckerlyTrails of a Wilderness Wanderer, Andy Russell (re-read)Crampton Hodnet, Barbara PymMaigret and the Wine Merchant, Georges SimenonSong of the Lark, Willa CatherA Journey Round My Skull, Frigyes KarinthyFive T'ang Poets, selected and translated by David YoungChess Story, Stefan ZweigPsmith in the City, P.G. WodehouseMy Dog Tulip, J.R. Ackerly I Capture the Castle, Dodie SmithGringos, Charles PortisOur Spoons Came from Woolworth's, Barbara Comyns The Monkey's Voyage, Alan de Queiroz (evolutionary biology)Chinese Rhyme-Prose, translated by Burton WatsonThe Catherine Wheel, Jean Stafford The Means of Escape, Penelope Fitzgerald (short stories)Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend WarnerStrange Beauty, George Johnson (bio of Murray Gell-Mann)Notes From an Apocalypse, Mark O'Connell World Light, Halldor Laxness World of Wonders, Robertson DaviesThe 39 Steps, John Buchan The Cretan Runner, George Psychoundakis (WWII memoir)The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson (essays)Rocannon's World, Ursula K. Le GuinMaigret in Montmartre, Georges SimenonA Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz (US pop history)Desolation Island, Patrick O'Brian (re-read) A Coffin for King Charles, C.V. Wedgewood Open Doors & Three Novellas, Leonardo SciasciaThe True Deceiver, Tove Jansson Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (Penguin Classics compilation)The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914, Béla Zombory-MoldovánThe Hearing Trumpet, Leonora CarringtonHons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford (re-read)Quicksand, Nella Larsen Highland Fling, Nancy MitfordKindred, Octavia Butler Which Lie Did I Tell?, William Goldman (Hollywood insider memoir)The Plague, Albert Camus (re-read)The Madman of Bergerac, Georges Simenon Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, Richard WranghamMy Home is Far Away, Dawn Powell The Ten Thousand Things, Maria DermoûtA Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric NewbyRogue Male, Geoffrey Household Treason by the Book, Jonathan D. Spence (Chinese history)The High Window, Raymond Chandler
Currently in progress:
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
Misc Odds and Sods:
Misc short stories by Arthur Conan DoyleMisc short stories by Muriel SparkMisc short stories by PG WodehouseMisc short sketches by Mark TwainI also dabbled about in The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
Notable Fails/Rejections:
Lincoln in the Bardo, Geo. SaundersHeaven's Breath: A Natural History of the Wind, Lyall WatsonThe Hot Gates, William Golding (assorted occasional pieces)Love's Work, Gillian RoseReign of Terror, Spencer Ackerman (recap of decades-long political horror show)
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 25 December 2021 19:36 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I don't know if I could make it through Saunders' novel either; I wasn't that into most of the stories in Tenth of December/. May try some of the nonfiction.if you liked that Horwitz book, which I haven't read, maybe try Confederates in The Attic, based on his research, as a reader and traveler, into Civil War subcultures: it's entertaining, but also, he tries to come to grips, as much as anyone can, with the enduring weirdness of the CW era (part of its appeal, natch). Ta-nehisi Coates: "Don't say you know what you would have done then."
― dow, Saturday, 25 December 2021 22:41 (two years ago) link
I read Confederates in the Attic many years back and liked it rather better than the 'Voyage' book I read this year, which wasn't a bad book but was awfully loose knit and lacked a center of gravity.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 25 December 2021 22:55 (two years ago) link
I got Lincoln in the Bardo the year it came out and never finished it. Every chapter feels like I've read it before. All of his short story collections are essential though.
― adam t. (abanana), Sunday, 26 December 2021 00:07 (two years ago) link
I was looking at a copy in a charity shop a couple of weeks back. Thought I knew the name. Thought it was supposed to be good but don't think I grabbed it.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 26 December 2021 00:14 (two years ago) link
Most recently finished first:
Raymond Carver - CathedralJoshua Cohen - The NetanyahusJonathan Franzen - CrossroadsAnnie Ernaux - A Girl’s StoryMiles Franklin - My Brilliant CareerMichel Houellebecq - LanzaroteEvelyn Waugh - ScoopPeter Biskind - My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson WellesKarl Ove Knausgård - The Morning StarEula Biss - On ImmunityCharles Dickens - David CopperfieldMichel Houellebecq - PlatformEvelyn Waugh - Decline and FallKurt Vonnegut - Armageddon In RetrospectRaymond Carver - FiresJulian Barnes - MetrolandKazuo Ishiguro - A Pale View of HillsKarl Ove Knausgård - SpringBri Lee - Who Gets To Be SmartJohn Bell - Some Achieve Greatness: Lessons on Leadership and Character from ShakespeareMeghan Daum - The Unspeakable, and Other Subjects of DiscussionLoudon Wainwright III - Liner NotesRoisin Kiberd - The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the InternetRachel Cusk - Second PlaceTina Fey - BossypantsThomas Mann - The Magic MountainPamela Paul - My Life with BobLeo Tolstoy - Anna KareninaKarl Ove Knausgård - In the Land of the CyclopsMichel Houellebecq - The Map and The TerritoryKazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the SunPatricia Lockwood - No One Is Talking About ThisGeorge Saunders - A Swim in a Pond in the RainNikolai Gogol - Dead Souls: Part OneSteven Hyden - This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's Kid A...John Steinbeck - East of EdenL.P. Hartley - The Go-BetweenKarl Ove Knausgård, Fredrik Ekelund - Home and AwayJenny Erpenbeck - Not A Novel: Collected Writings and ReflectionsAnne Helen Petersen - Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout GenerationLauren Oyler - Fake AccountsMartin Amis - Inside Story: A NovelTobias Wolff - This Boy's LifeHari Kunzru - Red PillBill Bryson - The BodyKerry Egan - On LivingCharles Dickens - Great Expectations
Started and didn’t finish:
Michael Mohammed Ahmad - The Other Half of YouLydia Davis - Can’t and Won’tHunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las VegasKarl Ove Knausgård - So Much Longing In So Little SpaceMarilynne Robinson - What Are We Doing Here? EssaysGustave Flaubert - Sentimental EducationThomas Pynchon - Mason & DixonWoody Allen - Apropos of Nothing
The most enjoyable experiences I had this year were in finally getting around to some classics: The Magic Mountain, Anna Karenina, East of Eden, and the Dickens and Waugh novels. Most of the 2021 releases I was looking forward to didn’t disappoint: Franzen, Knausgaard, Cusk, Cohen and Ishiguro were all satisfying. Lockwood’s novel was solid, but maybe not quite as good as I was expecting due to the high expectations I had from Priestdaddy and her essays. Oyler’s novel was a little disappointing, but I found enough in there to get me through to the end.
There were many other books I abandoned in addition to the list I’ve got here, but those are the ones I got a decent way into before giving up on for various reasons, sometimes because the book got boring, but mostly because of my waning attention span when work or life got particularly stressful.
― triggercut, Sunday, 26 December 2021 12:08 (two years ago) link
so, David Copperfield or Great Expectations?
― koogs, Sunday, 26 December 2021 12:45 (two years ago) link
No One Is Talking About This, Patricia LockwoodWar, So Much War, Merce RodoredaTrue Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, Abraham RiesmanHow Much of Thee Hills Is Gold, C. Pam ZhangThe Seven Veils of Seth, Ibrahim al-KoniConversations in Sicily, Elio VittoriniFever Dream, Samantha SchweblinEleven Sooty Dreams, Manuela DraegerCompass, Mathias ÉnardA House and Its Head, Ivy Compton-BurnettThe Invisibility Cloak, Ge FeiKin, Miljenko JergovicIn Memory of Memory, Maria StepanovaGold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, Slobodan NovakA Girl's Story, Annie ErnauxA Castle in Romagna, Igor StiksGötz and Meyer, David AlbahariHammers on Bone, Cassandra KhawA Private Venus, Giorgio ScerbanancoThe Cyclist Conspiracy, Svetislav BasaraCroatian War Nocturnal, Spomenka StimekWhere There's Love, There's Hate, Adolfo Bioy Casares & Silvina OcampoEEG, Dasa DrndicVoices in the Evening, Natalila GinsburgL'Amante Anglaise, Marguerite DurasNothing But Blackened Teeth, Cassandra KhawBetween Life and Death, Yoram KaniukThe Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuinI Belong to Vienna, Anna GoldenbergA Woman's Story, Annie ErnauxFires on the Plain, Shohei OokaNazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño My Heart, Semezdin MehmedinovicPhone Bells Keep Ringing for Me, Choi SeungaA Heritage and Its History, Ivy Compton-BurnettVanish in an Instant, Margaret Millar
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 13:43 (two years ago) link
Don't know most of those authors, but!---Ivy Compton-Burnett (twice), Adolfo Bioy Casares & Silvina Ocampo, Ursula K. LeGuin (and one of her stone cold classics at that), Roberto Bolaño, and Margaret Millar to boot (even Patricia Lockwood, whom I don't think I've ever read, but whose name somehow attached itself to a startling woman of authoritah in a recent dream)---that's my kind of list already---better check the other items on it---
― dow, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:35 (two years ago) link
I need to read more Duras too.
― dow, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 17:44 (two years ago) link
I almost bought the Ocampo last week! NYRB rock.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 17:49 (two years ago) link
dow, I strongly recommend Annie Ernaux. She's a memoirist. I avoid memoirs! But she is genuinely special -- there is something unrelenting in her self-examination. And addictive. I expect to read a bunch more of hers.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 6 January 2022 00:43 (two years ago) link
Intriguing---will def. check her out, thanks.
― dow, Thursday, 6 January 2022 01:51 (two years ago) link
The Jakarta Method - Vincent BevinsThe Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes Nimona - Noelle Stevenson 1974 - David Peace The Pear Field - Nana Ekvtimishvili No One Is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood Lying For Money - Dan Davies Nordic Fauna - Andrea Lundgren Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stewart Summer Lightning - PG Wodehouse The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter Age of Anger - Pankaj Mishra Yesterday - Juan Emar Sea of Ink - Richard Weihe Love's Work - Gillian RoseDarryl - Jackie EssThe Hothouse by the East River - Muriel SparkTyll - Daniel KehlmannNovels in Three Lines - Félix Fénéon
Of this the best were No One Is Talking About This, Darryl and the Jakarta Method. The worst by some distance was Shuggie Bain, a however many hundred page book about a boy who loves his mammy where we learn nothing about the boy other than that he loves his mammy.
― calumerio, Thursday, 6 January 2022 21:42 (two years ago) link
I don’t know how I manage to do this every year but I was weighing out some brewer’s yeast & suddenly remembered that last year I read & forgot to log:Merlin Sheldrake - Entangled Life& my brain would not let me let this go uncorrected
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:11 (two years ago) link
A week into 22 and I have not read a page so far, hopefully I get some sweet covid isolation time at some point
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:13 (two years ago) link
i didn't think shuggie bain was *that* bad but it wasn't great
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:17 (two years ago) link
I love both Marguerite Duras and Paul Celan! Joan Crawford Loves Chachi that's an impressive list with many writers I've been meaning to read, especially In Memory of Memory, Maria Stepanova.
― JacobSanders, Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:57 (two years ago) link
calumerio, nice to see someone else read Rose. Glad you liked Jackie's book and the Jakarta Method, too.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 7 January 2022 15:32 (two years ago) link
The Mabinogion (tr. Sioned Davies)Arthur Machen - The Great God PanClark Ashton Smith - ZothiqueClark Ashton Smith - PoseidonisArkady and Boris Strugatsky - Roadside PicnicKir Bulychev - Alice: The Girl From EarthKir Bulychev - Half a Life and Other StoriesKir Bulychev - Gusliar WondersYevgeny Zamyatin - WeGeorge Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-FourAldous Huxley - Brave New WorldKobo Abe - Inter Ice Age 4Kate Wilhelm - Where Late the Sweet Birds SangRuth Park - Playing Beatie BowRuth Park - The Harp in the SouthRuth Park - Poor Man's OrangeBertrand Russell - What I BelieveBertrand Russell - Why I Am Not a ChristianJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: Keys to the KingdomJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: ClockworksJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: Alpha & OmegaBenjamin Myers - Under the Rock (put down halfway through, will finish at some point)
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 00:56 (two years ago) link
I remember L&J being really solid and wishing there were more good, long, discrete contained stories like that (ignoring the rubbish spin offs)
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:39 (two years ago) link
Locke and key I mean.
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:40 (two years ago) link
I watched teh tv series last month, has been a while since I ead the comics which I enjoyed at teh time and was one reason I watched teh tv show. Think I continued cos I started. Don't think I enjoyed as much as the comic anyway. Might give tehm another look if I can find the fiels sinced i read it on cbr.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:54 (two years ago) link
Love's Work was good, but demanded more of me than I was able to give, intellectually and emotionally. I will go back to it.
Shuggie Bain was super bad, a relentless honking airhorn of "we were poor... but dammit we were unhappy too", in sore need of two more drafts and an editor. I did do an actual lol at a very minor character being called "Kier Weir", though, a welcome absurdity.
I don't think I have ever actually *liked* a protagonist in a book as much as I liked Darryl.
Anyway, I will continue lurking here, pinching ideas from youse all, though this year's resolution is read the books that I bought in 2021, rather than buy any new ones.
― calumerio, Saturday, 8 January 2022 13:57 (two years ago) link
this year's resolution is read the books that I bought in 2021, rather than buy any new ones.
I tried that a couple of years ago and, of course, failed. It was helpful, though. It did encourage me to cut back on purchases and clear some of the backlog of unread books, so on the whole I'm glad I made the resolution and consider it a success.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 8 January 2022 17:01 (two years ago) link
unregistered- how are the Kir Bulychev books?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 January 2022 18:50 (two years ago) link
great! I'm not too well-versed in Soviet SFF, but I'd recommend all three of those Bulychev collections. the biggest highlight for me was the title story of Half a Life. at heart it's a narrative of a woman's acts of self-sacrifice as she comes to empathize with the weird sentient beings who are imprisoned with her on an alien research vessel. a little mawkish, maybe, but there's a compelling interplay between the sentimental and the cynical as a group of emotionally stunted astronauts struggle to make sense of the woman's story and the now abandoned vessel
I also really like the cycle of short stories that makes up the second half of Gusliar Wonders, in which a Russian village becomes an unlikely point of first contact with various aliens and wizards and time travelers. it's similar in premise to Simak's Way Station, only funnier and with less faith in human nature. overall Bulychev seems fixated on the way unimaginative egotists react when confronted with the alien or the supernatural, and he has an acute ear for irony
Alice's Travels (the first novel in that Alice collection) is a fun children's interplanetary mystery, concluding with a slightly hokey, Scooby Doo-ish confrontation with space pirates. the cartoon adaptation is apparently regarded as a classic, and Bulychev is best known in Russia for his Alice books/films. afaik few of his other works have been translated into English aside from the post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Survive and the novella "Another's Memory" (collected in Earth and Elsewhere. Half a Life and Gusliar Wonders are both available at the Open Library
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 23:23 (two years ago) link
I'm kinda tempted to start working my way through the non-Strugatsky entries in Ted Sturgeon's Best of Soviet Science Fiction series:
https://i.imgur.com/O5HLz7d.jpg
(full list here)
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 23:28 (two years ago) link