Apparently I didn't do much in 2020 except read.
FICTION
Arlen, Hell! Said the Duchess Asimov, The Caves of SteelBachman (King), The Long WalkBanville, SnowBeckford, VathekBeddoes, Death’s Jest-BookBester, The Demolished ManBlackburn, A Beastly BusinessBuchan, Witch Wood Campbell, Born to the Dark Campbell, The Searching DeadCampbell, The Way of the WormCarr, Poison in JestCarr, The Lost GallowsCather, My AntoniaChandler, The Long GoodbyeChase, Black Wings Has My Angel Clement, Mission of GravityCollins, The Moonstone Davidson, The Chelsea MurdersDickson (Carr), Death in 5 BoxesDickson (Carr), The Reader Is Warned Dinesen, Seven Gothic TalesDumas, The Fencing MasterGardner, 14 Perry Mason novelsHand, Wylding HallKnight, The FungusLermontov, A Hero of Our Time Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Machen, The Great God Pan, and The Inmost LightMachen, The Red HandMachen, The Three ImpostersMachen, The White People Manchette, Fatale Manchette, The Prone GunmanManchette, Three to KillMerritt, Burn Witch Burn!Merritt, Creep, Shadow!Merritt, Dwellers in the MiragePeacock, Nightmare Abbey Pushkin (tr. Nabokov), Eugene Onegin Rogers, The Red Right HandRuiz Zafón, The Shadow of the WindSimenon, 17 Maigret novelsStone, Dog SoldiersStraub, Ghost StorySturgeon, More Than HumanThomas, BriarpatchTolkien, The SilmarillionTurgenev, Sketches from a Hunter’s Album Wallace, The Fellowship of the FrogYurick, The Warriors
NON-FICTION
Adamic, Dynamite!Anderson, The Realness of Things PastBaldwin, The Evidence of Things Not SeenBorges, Selected Non-FictionChambers, The Campaigns of Napoleon Clute, The Darkening GardenDregni, Rockabilly Ducrot and Todorov (eds.), Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Sciences of LanguageEdwards, The Golden Age of MurderFaivre, Western Esotericism: A Concise History Gleeson, Judo Inside OutHale, Cool TownHobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848Horning, Chasing Sound Juniper, Wabi SabiKing, Danse MacabreLively, Oleander, JacarandaMiyazato, Okinawa Den Gojuryu Karate-doMonleon, A Specter Is Haunting Europe: A Sociohistorical Approach to the FantasticMotobu, My Art and Skill of KarateNigten, Recorded ReflectionsSinker (ed.), A Hidden Landscape Once a WeekStandage, The Victorian Internet Tosches, King of the Jews
― Brad C., Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:25 (three years ago) link
having one thing you love semi-ruined by the need to eke out a living through it
one big reason why I never sought to work in a bookstore or library. i avoided academia, too, for somewhat similar reasons (but the enormous USA glut of advanced degree holders all looking for the same jobs was an even bigger deterrent).
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:30 (three years ago) link
You'll never know for sure, and neither will I, but it sounds like you made the right call from where I'm standing!
― pomenitul, Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:41 (three years ago) link
had no idea there was a dril book, thats going to straight the top of the list
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:42 (three years ago) link
There are two!
― Cheese flavoured Momus (wins), Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:47 (three years ago) link
The first one is just a compilation of the tweets aiui, this is a bit more like a conventional tie-in humour book but the dril voice is v consistent in it
― Cheese flavoured Momus (wins), Thursday, 31 December 2020 20:49 (three years ago) link
I found that working in a bookstore didn't dampen my love of reading, despite what Orwell says; it actually helped because I had to go through bins of donated books and I could take home any that were too beat up or obscure to sell. And there was at least one regular customer who had similar tastes in books and would lend me things he thought I'd like.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 31 December 2020 21:05 (three years ago) link
Hit the magic 52! That's with reading for about half an hour almost every night. Did not finish two or three including Ducks, Newburyport - good, but too much. Thanks to Daniel_Rf for his polls without which I may never have discovered the memorable Lud-in-the-Mist and The Black Spider, my pick of the year.
The Testaments - Margaret AtwoodGirl, Woman, Other - Bernardine EvaristoKudos - Rachel CuskDrive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead - Olga TokarczukMrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth TaylorInferior: How Science Got Women Wrong - Angela SainiParable of the Sower - Octavia ButlerHalf of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThe Big Jump - Leigh BrackettFree Falling - Lois Mcmaster BujoldHowl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne JonesAgent of Change - Shannon Lee & Steve MillerAncestral Night - Elizabeth BearThe Giant's House - Elizabeth McCrackenThe Black Spider - Jeremias GotthelfInfinite Powers - Steven Strogatz2312 - Kim Stanley RobinsonOlive Kitteridge - Elizabeth StroutExcellent Women - Barbara PymSuperior: The Return of Race Science - Angela SainiThe Liars Club - Mary KarrThe Outside - Ada HoffmanNudibranch - Irenosen OkojieBeneath the World, a Sea - Chris BeckettLess than Angels - Barbara PymThe Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas TalebMiddlemarch - George EliotPeople in Trouble - Sarah SchulmanBeasts - John CrowleyHamnet - Maggie O'FarrellA Memory Called Empire - Arkady MartineExciting Times - Naoise DolanReasons to be Cheerful - Nina StibbeThe Deep - John CrowleyThe Witchfinder's Sister - Beth UnderdownOlive, Again - Elizabeth StroutThat Thing around your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieOur Spoons Came from Woolworths - Barbara ComynsOn Immunity - Eula BlissLove, Again - Doris LessingElizabeth is Missing - Emma HealeyPrimeval and Other Times - Olga TokarczukThe Lesson - Cadwell TurnbullKa - John CrowleyCranford - Elizabeth GaskellThe Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories vol 2 - VariousEducated - Tara WestoverPiranesi - Susanna Clarke400 Billion Stars - Paul J McAuleyVirtuoso - Yelena MoskvichTranscendent Kingdom - Yaa GyasiLud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
― ledge, Thursday, 31 December 2020 21:38 (three years ago) link
> The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories vol 2
shit me, 17 volumes of these.
― koogs, Thursday, 31 December 2020 22:12 (three years ago) link
How was the Lee & Miller, Chris Beckett and McAuley?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 31 December 2020 22:16 (three years ago) link
shit, people read these lists! Lee & miller: rather facile space adventure romance; Beckett: better, shades of roadside picnic and annihilation but with a few more human characters than either of those; Mcauley: a bit planetbound given the title and handwavey in places but not bad for a debut, will try his latest next.shit me, 17 volumes of these.ikr, just trying to find some good non mr james ghost stories. only one in this volume.
― ledge, Thursday, 31 December 2020 22:51 (three years ago) link
Fiction:Kurt Tucholsky - Castle GripsholmElizabeth Bowen - The House In Paris *Homer - The Odyssey (tr. Fagles)Sally Rooney - Normal PeopleGeorge Saunders - Civilwarland in Bad DeclineMultatuli - Max HavelaarDriss Chraibi - The Simple PastDaniel Defoe - Journal of the Plague YearAlbert Camus - The Plague ^Michel Houellebecq - SubmissionThomas Mann - Dr Faustus +Samuel Beckett - Malone Dies ^Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles ^*Jenny Offill - WeatherWilla Cather - Song of the LarkNatalia Ginzburg - Valentino and Sagittarius *Natalia Ginzburg - Happiness, As SuchCharles Portis - True GritWalter Kempowski - Marrow and BoneWilliam Faulkner - Selected Short Stories (Modern Library ed.)Nell Zink - DoxologyEric Vuillard - The Order of the DayNikolai Leskov - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories *Guido Morselli - Dissipatio H.G.
Nonfiction:James and Kay Salter - Life is MealsMara Leveritt - Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis ThreeJ. Huizinga - The Waning of the Middle AgesMax Weber - Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation LecturesBen Sonnenberg - Lost Property: Memoirs and Confessions of a Bad BoyThomas Nagel - The View from Nowhere *Daisy Dunn - The Shadow of Vesuvius: a Life of Pliny
Poetry:Michael Hofmann - One Lark, One Horse *Michael Hofmann - Approximately NowhereRabindranath Tagore - Collected Poems and Plays +
* highly recommended+ didn't finish^ a re-read
― o. nate, Thursday, 31 December 2020 23:04 (three years ago) link
> Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
Any good? Was the only thing that jumped out at me from this month's Kindle monthly deal, probably because you're the second person to mention it this week (and also, y'know, Piranesi)
― koogs, Friday, 1 January 2021 10:54 (three years ago) link
I mentioned it in the sf thread: ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread - in short, meh, but others have raved about it.
― ledge, Friday, 1 January 2021 11:01 (three years ago) link
Still full price on the kobo site at the mo, will see if that changes. It's not like I don't have 2 years of reading in my to-do list anyway.
― koogs, Friday, 1 January 2021 11:52 (three years ago) link
Without a daily commute, I lost a lot of my reading time this year. I also got bogged down for quite a while in Antony Beevor's mammoth history of the Second World War, something way outside my normal areas of interest; I got about half way through but eventually gave up out of sheer boredom. At least I discovered that military history - descriptions of troop formations, weaponry, manoeuvres etc etc - is really not my thing.
Nobody's Looking at You: Essays - Janet Malcolm 3/5Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie 3/5 (Poirot)Rusty Brown - Chris Ware 5/5The Embedding - Ian Watson 3/5The Palace of Eternity - Bob Shaw 2/5Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss 4/5David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 4/5Tau Zero - Poul Anderson 2/5The Drowned World - J G Ballard 4/5Inverted World - Christopher Priest 4/5Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 2/5Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harrison 4/5The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham 4/5 (this was surprisingly grim for a 'cosy catastrophe', but maybe it just seemed that way because it was what I was reading when we went into lockdown)The Final Programme - Michael Moorcock 4/5 (Jerry Cornelius)Venus Plus X - Theodore Sturgeon 3/5The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie 4/5 (Poirot)A Mirror for Observers - Edgar Pangborn 3/5Diary of a Man in Despair - Reck-Malleczewen 4/5The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham 4/5The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: 14th series - Lionel Davidson (ed) 3/5Groo: Fray of the Gods - Aragones & Evanier 2/5Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess 3/5What Bloody Man is That? - Simon Brett 3/5 (Charles Paris)A Series of Murders - Simon Brett 3/5 (Charles Paris)The Dark Descent 1: The Color of Evil - David G Hartwell (ed) 4/5The Dark Descent 2: The Medusa in the Shield - David G Hartwell (ed) 4/5The Dark Descent 3: A Fabulous, Formless Darkness - David G Hartwell (ed) 4/5Essential Avengers Vol 6 - Steve Englehart et al 4/5Paul Goes Fishing - Michel Rabagliati 4/5Orbitsville - Bob Shaw 3/5Essential Avengers Vol 7 - Englehart et al 3/5A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald - Errol Morris 3/5Dubliners - James Joyce 5/5The Year of the Quiet Sun - Wilson Tucker 4/5The Night Fire - Michael Connelly 3/5 (Bosch/Ballard)The Queen's Gambit - Walter Tevis 5/5
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 1 January 2021 13:41 (three years ago) link
I have Stalingrad on my to-do list. (And also Stalingrad)
― koogs, Friday, 1 January 2021 14:06 (three years ago) link
(Beevor's and Grossman's)
― koogs, Friday, 1 January 2021 14:07 (three years ago) link
The Wyndham books that as well known as those two are also worth reading. Kraken was one of my faves of 2019.
― koogs, Friday, 1 January 2021 14:09 (three years ago) link
Susan Cooper - The Dark is RisingCormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian (re-read)Bob Dylan - ChroniclesElizabeth Taylor - Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont *William Cobbett - Rural RidesPaul Muldoon - The End of the PoemKathleen Jamie - SurfacingWilliam Styron - Darkness VisibleWH Auden - About the HouseSeamus Heaney - Death of a NaturalistColm Toibin - The Blackwater LightshipElizabeth Bishop - North & SouthSally Rooney - Normal PeopleElizabeth Bishop - A Cold SpringHilary Mantel - The Mirror and the Light *Susan Cain - QuietIris Murdoch - The Bell *Janet Frame - To the IslandGideon Haigh - On WarneRay Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451Magda Szabo - The DoorMick Herron - Slow HorsesCarol Shields - The Stone DiariesHera Lindsay Bird - S/TMax Porter - LannyJohn Berger - Ways of Seeing *Willa Cather - O Pioneers! *Dan Simmons - HyperionSusan Hill - The Woman in Black (re-read)Ben Lerner - Leaving the Atocha StationSeamus Heaney - Finders KeepersBen Macintyre - The Spy and the TraitorAnthony Powell - A Question of UpbringingTa-Nehisi Coates - Between the World and Me *Michel Houellebecq - Platform (awful pish)Michael Chabon - Kavalier and ClayAlberto Manguel - A History of ReadingPeter Biskind - Easy Riders, Raging BullsDavid Toop - Ocean of Sound (re-read) *Kay Redfield Jamison - An Unquiet MindDhanveer Singh Brar - Beefy's Tune: Dean Blunt EditArkady Strugatsky - Roadside PicnicRafia Zakaria - VeilJohn le Carre - Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyBarry Lopez - Arctic Dreams *
Not a bad year. I got 'stuck' around July/August time and couldn't read anything. I'm slowly making my way back from there. I'd like to read more poetry in 2021 (and avoid canonical texts, if I can).
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 1 January 2021 15:48 (three years ago) link
* = the ones that really stood out.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 1 January 2021 15:49 (three years ago) link
Every year I swear I'll keep a better list, and every year I end up going back into my camera, journals, and library receipts to construct my list. So, more later.
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Friday, 1 January 2021 16:10 (three years ago) link
Unsurprisingly, most of the books on this list are poetry books— some of them are very long, some are only fifty pages or so. There are 99 books in all. A '*' means that I've previously read the book and this occasion was a re-read, a '%' means that I only read sections of the book. Much of this reading comes on top of other reading necessary for work, though there is some overlap.
Mark Johnson, Sham RefugiaMark Johnson, 800 JKSKen Belford, Internodes*Erica Hunt, Veronica: A Suite in X PartsTyrone Williams, As iZLinton Kwesi Johnson, Dread Beat and Blood*Fred Moten, All That BeautySimone Browne, Dark MattersDambudzo Marechera, Black SunlightDambudzo Marechera, The House of Hunger*Dambudzo Marechera, Scrapiron BluesDionne Brand, The Blue ClerkLawrence Giffin, Christian NameLawrence Giffin, Untitled, 2004Lawrence Giffin, Plato's ClosetJ.H. Prynne, The White Stones*Rebecca Kosick, Labor DayKit Schluter, Pierrot's FingernailsAndy Sterling, Who Own's Primo's?Emma Brown Sanders, Fallow ChannelClara B. Jones, /masculine nature/J. Gordon Faylor, WantJ. Gordon Faylor, The Antoecians %Brandon Shimoda, The Grave on the WallEd Steck, An Interface for a Fractal LandscapeJulia Bloch, The Sacramento of DesireSesshu Foster, City of the Future*Sesshu Foster, City Terrace Field ManualJules Boykoff, Once Upon a Neoliberal Rocket BadgeSara Larsen, The Riot Grrrl ThingNorma Cole, Spinoza in Her YouthNorma Cole, MarsNorma Cole, MoiraNorma Cole, Do The MonkeyNorma Cole, Scout Norma Cole, Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes InsideNorma Cole, To Be At Music: Essays & TalksJean Day, The Triumph of LifeJean Day, DaydreamJean Day, Enthusiasm: Odes & Otium*Jean Day, The Literal WorldJean Day, A Young RecruitJean Day, The I and the YouLyn Hejinian, Positions of the SunLyn Hejinian, Writing is an Aid to MemoryLyn Hejnian, A Border ComedyLyn Hejinian, HappinessLyn Hejinian, SlowlyLyn Hejinian and Carla Harryman, The Wide RoadLawrence Brathwaite, Wigger*Rob Budde, Declining AmericaDorothy Trujillo Lusk, Redactive*Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Ogress Oblige*Anna Gurton-Wachter, Utopia Pipe Dream MemoryDenise Riley, Selected PoemsDenise Riley, Say Something Back/Time Lived, Without its FlowJarett Kobek, I Hate the InternetCamille Roy, SwarmTom Raworth, Collected Poems %Barbara Guest, Selected PoemsBarbara Guest, The Türler LossesGail Scott, HeroineNicole Brossard, Fences in BreathingNicole Brossard, Picture TheoryNicole Brossard, Mauve Desert*Nicole Brossard, Notebook of Roses and CivilizationNicole Brossard, French KissBrossard, Scott, et al, Theory, a SundayP. Inman, Per SeMichel Foucault, Discipline & Punish*Robert Majzels, Kharlamov's AnkleNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday BlackCharles Yu, Sorry Please Thank You: StoriesToni Cade Bambara, The Sea Birds Are Still AliveZZ Packer, Drinking Coffee ElsewhereLeanne Betasamosake Simpson, Islands of Decolonial Love*Steve Orth, The Life and Times of Steve OrthTerry Bisson, Fire on the MountainVincent Bevins, The Jakarta MethodFrantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth*Grégoire Chamayou, Drone TheoryGrégoire Chamayou, ManhuntsSayak Valencia, Gore CapitalismAchille Mbembe, NecropoliticsAchille Mbembe, On the Post-ColonyMike Davis, Late Victorian HolocaustsWilliam T. Vollman, Rising Up and Rising Down %Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus %Spinoza, Ethics %*Sophia Dahlin, NatchCarlos Lara, Like Bismuth When I EnterAsiya Wadud, Syncope*Gina Myers, Some of the TimesSaidiya Hartman, Lose Your MotherJeff Vandermeer, AnnihilationJeff Vandermeer, AuthorityJennifer Soong, Near, AtJoyelle McSweeney, Toxicon & ArachneChris Nealon, The Shore
and chapbooks or pamphlets by Zan de Parry, Caleb Beckwith, Claudia La Rocco, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Buffy Cain, Bruce Andrews, Amandine André, Blanche Brown, and probably a few that I am forgetting.
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Friday, 1 January 2021 23:17 (three years ago) link
And of course, I forgot one, S*an D. Henry-Smith, Wild Peach. So, an even 100!
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Friday, 1 January 2021 23:22 (three years ago) link
pvmic but I read 314 books: these were the best oneshttps://i.ibb.co/0DVWGYm/Eqh825x-UUAM3-VEH.jpg
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Saturday, 2 January 2021 01:50 (three years ago) link
Do you...read them all, or are you including audiobooks?
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Saturday, 2 January 2021 02:13 (three years ago) link
I think there were maybe 4 audiobooks in that lot? But it's a lot faster to read a real book than listen to it as an audiobook.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Saturday, 2 January 2021 07:31 (three years ago) link
314 - I have so many questions!
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Saturday, 2 January 2021 11:29 (three years ago) link
I...just don't understand how anyone can read that much without it being their job. Even if I counted the manuscripts and parts of books I read this past year, it would add up to maaaaybe 150.
So how do you do it?
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Saturday, 2 January 2021 12:27 (three years ago) link
Plotinus - The Enneads Stephen Mackenna translationFrancis Yates - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic TraditionPetronius - The Satyricon and Seneca The ApocolocyntosisRonald Hutton - The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700Greek Lyric Poetry trans M.L. WestBoccaccio - The Decameron G.H. McWilliam translationComte de Lautréamont - Maldoror and Poems (well I didnt finish the poems as they were so dispiriting and conservative)Thomas Browne - Pseudodoxia epidemica ed by Kevin KilleenA Man Very Well Studyed: New Contexts for Thomas BrowneSir Thomas Browne: The World ProposedFrancis Bacon - The Major Works OUPItalo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a TravellerJohn Guy - Tudor EnglandLawrence Manley - Literature and Culture in Early Modern LondonArthur Kinney ed - Rogues Vagabonds Sturdy BeggarsLucian - Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic SketchesEamon Duffy - The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580Virgil - The Eclogues and The GeorgicsThomas Nashe - The Unfortunate Traveller and Other WorksPaul Griffiths ed - Londinopolis, c.1500 - c.1750: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern LondonBen Jonson - Complete Poems OUPJohn Stubbs - John Donne: The Reformed SoulDekker, Jonson etc - The Roaring Girl and Other City ComediesJuvenal - The Satires OUPRoger Chartier - The Order of BooksBrian Ogilvie - The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance EuropeEdward Topsell - The History Of Four-footed Beasts And Serpents And InsectsIan Donaldson - Ben Jonson A Life Pico Della Mirandola: Oration on the Dignity of ManMichael Hulse ed - The New PoetryGail Kern Paster - The Idea of the City in the Age of Shakespeare
― glumdalclitch, Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:00 (three years ago) link
Plotinus - The Enneads Stephen Mackenna translation
Admirable! No matter how I approach the Enneads of Plotinus, I can't seem to find a friendly entry. I've consigned it, sadly, to the group of universally acknowledged classics I just can't seem to scale.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:07 (three years ago) link
Insomnia, laziness, working part time, don't watch much telly, a magic monkey's paw
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:20 (three years ago) link
If you could locate the remainder of the monkey, I bet there'd be hot bidding for the other three, plus any other parts you could subdivide it into.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:38 (three years ago) link
Lucian I only know for a very early Sci fi precursor which I always meant to read but never did. I think it was a from the earth to the moon type thing from the time of Greece or Rome.
Glumdalclitch was the name of a witch's familiar in a story in House Of Mystery when I was a preteen. May have been borrowed from somewhere though of course.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:44 (three years ago) link
James - you must be one of the few who reads books when lazy.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:45 (three years ago) link
Glumdalclitch was the name of the girl who owned Gulliver as a pet when he was among the Brobdingnagians.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:48 (three years ago) link
Oh right. Yeah that rings a bell.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 3 January 2021 01:56 (three years ago) link
James, we don't own a television, so I also have that advantage. Still boggles my mind.
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Sunday, 3 January 2021 12:57 (three years ago) link
I read about 150 - these are my favourite 25 or so:
Simone de Beauvoir - Memoirs of a Dutiful DaughterGraham Swift - WaterlandJack London - John BarleycornAlbert Camus - The First ManGitta Sereny - Into That DarknessAlberto Moravia - Conjugal LoveHjalmar Soderberg - Doctor GlasPaul Bailey - Chapman's OdysseyErnesto Sabato - The TunnelSven Lindqvist - The Dead Do Not DieHaruki Murakami - Norwegian WoodIris Murdoch - The Black PrinceNaguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk: Cairo Trilogy 1Robin Maugham - Escape from the ShadowsBeverley Nichols - A Case of Human BondageElias Canetti - The Tongue Set FreeJosé Saramago - BlindnessLeon Goldensohn - The Nuremberg InterviewsCharles Jackson - The Lost WeekendWashington Irving - The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.Gregor von Rezzori - Memoirs Of An Anti-SemiteEmmanuel Bove - My FriendsStephen Vizinczey - In Praise of Older WomenDavid Kidd - Peking StoryRussell Baker - Growing UpFrank Tallis - The Incurable Romantic
― Aiden, Sunday, 3 January 2021 18:02 (three years ago) link
John Farris - When Michael CallsCarsten Jensen - We, The DrownedR.W. Spryszak - EdjuWilliam Morris - The Water of the Wondrous IslesAndrew Michael Hurley - The LoneyBernard Taylor - The Moorstone SicknessColin Wilson - The Mind ParasitesColin Wilson - Super Consciousness: The Quest for the Peak ExperienceBrian Aldiss - HothouseH. G. Wells - The War of the WorldsMarta Randall - IslandsE.F. Benson - The Horror Horn And Other StoriesJ. P. Martin - UncleDaphne du Maurier - Jamaica InnDaphne du Maurier - RebeccaKurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of TitanJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key (Vols. 1-3)Mark Helprin - Winter's Tale(dnf yet - I'm setting it aside for a while because I can only tolerate so much wide-eyed wonder in one calendar year. currently reading Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique tales)
― ridingstarbassxd (unregistered), Sunday, 3 January 2021 19:18 (three years ago) link
+ Michelle Paver - Wakenhyrst
― ridingstarbassxd (unregistered), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 02:35 (three years ago) link
terrible year for reading, in what i thought would be a good year. factors:
XX - Angela Chadwick (won an award, useful in that it made me realise I *really* don't like this sort of fiction)All the Agatha Christie PoirotsAll the Agatha Christie Miss MarplesTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - JLC (reread)A Perfect Spy - JLC (reread)The Honourable Schoolboy - JLC (bad not good)Mordew - Alex Pheby (a complicated indifference and mild dislike, also combined with the fact that the last book i really disliked was also galley beggar press made me wonder whether they've got a house style that i don't like. of this sort of book, reading Gormenghast for the world building and Mason and Dixon for the style. Oddly like reading a computer game at times. Not entirely without interest).Reinhardt's Garden - Mark Haber (did not like)Infinite Detail - Tim Maughan (liked mildly)An Indifference of Birds - Richard Smyth (sort of liked i guess)Theory of Bastards - Audrey Schulman (enjoyed but then ran out of interest)The Four Books - Yan Lianke (struggled with but it's an interesting perspective on chinese history, and an interesting set of aesthetic and storytelling choices)We Are Made of Diamond Stuff - Isabel Waidner (enjoyed, it was better than better books, fluid, interested in the scutty side of UK, sexually mutable)The Black Swan - Nicholas Nassim Taleb (a weird brittle, bombastic man, this book provides a lot of sensible thinking around downside risk and not being stupidly scientistic about stuff. Taleb insistent, not without a certain amount of charm for an essentially charmless man, on 'Levantine Philosophy' as a thing.The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi (after a reading a load of business type books this organic science fiction was like taking acid, and though that initial feeling wore off, and i got a bit bored, it remains an interesting portrayal of a city under siege and no characters really being able to fulfil their aims - agency is an interesting question in it. interesting that Bacigalupi regularly struggled writing this. It shows.)Dune 1-3 - Frank Herbert (re-read)The War of the Poor - Eric Vuillard (epistemically weird in the same vein, but much less good imo than Order of the Day. annoyingly thought provoking though with some good sentences and thoughts).Anthony Price Stuff from Our Man in Camelot up to War Game. (all re-reads, didn't quite get to the '44 Vintage, a very weird somewhat pointless book. price's characters are all terrifically Tory, and like agatha christie's all go on about fucking tax the whole time).Hag's Nook - John Dickson Carr (reread for about the 1000th time, total comfort reading)Continued reading Jen Calleja, I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For (really enjoyed these short stories and looking forward to seeing more - believe there's a novel out this year)The Liar's Dictionary - Eley Williams (oddly disappointing. lightweight, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. clearly a love letter to her partner, also nnabt. didn't enjoy it half as much as her short stories, but wondered if this is because i approached with the wrong expectations. still fun enough if you're looking for a light bagatelle. also wonder - see engagement point above - whether i missed some depths).Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (really good book on creating syllabuses, and how to learn and teach from them)Exhalation - Ted Chiang (enjoyed these. right up my wheelhouse, so to speak. initially thought they might be a bit techbro, but have genuine emotional content and insight. very good).How to Write an Autobiographical Novel - Alexander Chee (also enjoyed these essays - still interested to know why the table is not the table doesn't like him).Because Internet: Understanding How Language Is Changing - Gretchen McCulloch (a relatively vanilla but interesting analysis of language usage on the internet and over the history of the internet. could have been terrible but is a good, clear set of thoughts about how our communications adapt to digital platforms and capabilities).The Art and Craft of Feature Writing - William Blundell (almost as enjoyable reading the excerpts from pieces that are examples here as Blundell's thinking) Casino Royale - Ian Fleming Covering McKellen: An Understudy's Tale - David Weston (an entertaining enough luvvie account of a disastrous world tour under Trevor Nunn of Lear, with Ian McKellen. Written by his understudy.)The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam - Barbara Tuchman (terrible theory behind it, but the general accounts of history are ok enough).Like - AE Stallings (Curates egg of a poetry collection. some stuff very good indeed, some stuff seemed facile, but i'm terribly unpracticed at reading poetry and i may be approaching it a bit clumsily)Against the Gods: The remarkable story of risk - Peter Bernstein (good)The Story of the Stone vol 1 - Cao Xueqin (introduction, plus first book, currently a dnf but will be picking up later this year i hope)Managing Britannia: Culture and Management in Modern Britain - Robert Protherough (dnf, part of my 'faster u fuckaz' obsession. this guy is v anti management bullshit and bullshit jobs, and tbh i'm not sure i agree and some of the tone these days is quite tedious imo, may write up further in thread)The Accursed Share vol 1 - Georges Bataille (dnf, but keen to pick this up again, very enjoyable slightly ludicrous introduction, French theory at its finest - wild and boundary shifting assertions totally free of evidence. pure music to my ears)How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking About Numbers - Tim Harford (a boring boring bastard imo, but sometimes right, and it's just about worth reading these things for #epistemic_health reasons)Doctor Who: Day of the Doctor - Steven Moffat (almost unreadable in points of style, almost hysterical, immensely jarring, and totally incomprehensible to the extent that it replicated the experience of reading when seriously drunk. explained a lot about the tone of the TV programmes - tho i think moffat and indeed this episode is good not bad. dnf)Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (terrible awful garbage, maybe useful tips)Clean: A Story of Addiction, Recovery and the Removal of Stubborn Stains - Michele Kirsch (really very good - funny and moving)The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes - Janet Malcolm (really excellent, nuanced approach of biography, death, testimony and memory)
sure there was more bits, stray fragments etc, but this covers it more or less i think
oh, the introduction and general content of Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food is wonderful.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:12 (three years ago) link
oh and
Small Lives - Pierre Michon electrified me after a period of very tedious reading, reminding me the extraordinary perception and depths imaginative writing can have, really one of the most masterly writers there is at the moment. but i was so overcome with the intensity and richness of it, liking fotheringham-thomas, i had to put it down. it was like i was on acid, i was just going 'wow, this is just wow, man, you can see *everything*, and each word and sentence was mind-blowing with the consequence i just had to put it down because it was so full. last had this experience with Leskov. will definitely return this year for a less precious reading.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:14 (three years ago) link
ledge! love that you liked lud-in-the-mist. what did you think of mrs palfrey at the Claremont? maybe you have already covered these things in the what are you reading thread. i've only been an intermittent visitor this year.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:18 (three years ago) link
similarly if you posted on jocelyn brooke, no lime tangier, be interested to see what you thought.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:20 (three years ago) link
Fizzles, tbh, it's just not my thing, but I also tend to have an issue with most mainstream queer stuff. It's just too middle class and polite for me.
(I also think he's a grifter).
― Pere Legume (the table is the table), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 21:22 (three years ago) link
on that subject, bit surprised to see no mention of real life by brandon taylor on anyone's list. i read it and thought it was very good on lab-based graduate school, with which i am tragically familiar, but was less sure about the relationship stuff.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 21:26 (three years ago) link
Mrs Palfrey was fine, I have nothing to say against it and it had its moments but I couldn't really get on the same wavelength - I wonder if I have something of a blind spot for mid/mid-late female british lit fic given similar experiences with Pym, Lessing, Murdoch, even (gasp) Spark.
I bumped the 1926 poll thread hoping for your thoughts on lud-in-the-mist: Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1926
― ledge, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 21:33 (three years ago) link
ah, so you did. will respond - agree on the 'fairy fruit as hard drug' bit though.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 21:52 (three years ago) link
Similar to other weird preferences, I tend to shy away from "blistering coming of age story" hyperbole and stuff that's approved by the NY Times, at least as regards fiction. I find what passes for "mainstream" literary fiction these days to just bore me.
Non-fiction and memoirs? Different story, for some reason. I love and teach Kiese Laymon's "Heavy" all the time, for example.
― Pere Legume (the table is the table), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 21:54 (three years ago) link
Fizzles, tbh, it's just not my thing, but I also tend to have an issue with most mainstream queer stuff. It's just too middle class and polite for me.(I also think he's a grifter).
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 23:54 (three years ago) link
for some reason i wanted to use the phrase “performative touchstones” wrt the grifter point - something about v neatly doing things that will earn gold stars. not fully formed.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 23:56 (three years ago) link
I mean, Glück is nowhere near as well-known as he should be. Chee provides a blurb here: https://www.nyrb.com/products/margery-kempe?variant=29087445024820
That's the kind of thing I really love, Bob is an all-time hero and lovely person.
I think one of the things I dislike about Chee is that he basically learned everything from New Narrative and packaged it in a more marketable way, and there are some New Narrative people who should be much better known.
― Pere Legume (the table is the table), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 00:21 (three years ago) link