2013 Reading Challenge Thread

[braindancer]

1/30 Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
2/30 More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
3/30 Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge
4/30 Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
5/30 Mister Johnson - Joyce Carey
6/30 The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave
7/30 The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy

 

[Me76]

1/50 Rachels Holiday, Marian Keyes
2/50 Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
3/50 Life, Death and Vanilla Slices, Jenny Eclair
4/50 Pushed Too Far, Ann Voss Peterson
5/50 Born Weird, Andrew Kaufman

6/50 The People of the Abyss, Jack London

So much still relevant over 100 years later

 

[marty21]

1/50 Rachels Holiday, Marian Keyes
2/50 Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
3/50 Life, Death and Vanilla Slices, Jenny Eclair
4/50 Pushed Too Far, Ann Voss Peterson
5/50 Born Weird, Andrew Kaufman

6/50 The People of the Abyss, Jack London

So much still relevant over 100 years later

I read the Jack London book, you can see how he influenced Orwell 20 or so years later

 

[BoatieBird]

1/50 - Grits, Niall Griffiths
2/50 - Suicide Hill, James Ellroy
3/50 - Children of Men, P D James
4/50 - Worlds of English, Module guide
5/50 - Whit, Iain Banks
6/50 - Paula Spencer, Roddy Doyle

7/50 - Harm Done, Ruth Rendell

 

[ilovebush&blair]

1/51-100 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (776 pages)
2/51-100 Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1) by Marcel Proust, Lydia Davis (Translator) (496 pages)
3/51-100 The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods (translator) (854 pages)
4/51-100 J R by William Gaddis (726 pages)

I've read two books by Gaddis. The Recognitions and J R. Both awesome books. He is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers.

I will definitely be reading Carpenter's Gothic.

 

[spartacus mills]

01. George Orwell – The Road to Wigan Pier
02. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row
03. Graham Greene – Brighton Rock
04. Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall

and just started Mikhail Bulgakov – A Country Doctor’s Notebook

 

[Firky]

Someone on this thread (firky?) really rated it.
I'll get round to it at some point

I really enjoyed. The kid (Oscar) is a wimp but there's a lot more going on in the book. Sexuality, androgyny, self-perception and tenacity. It does it without being right on either. Was nicely done/

 

[pennimania]

I just saw the (Swedish version) of the film.

Didn't like it either.

 

[Firky]

I just saw the (Swedish version) of the film.

Didn't like it either.

Have you read Twilight?

 

[pennimania]

Have you read Twilight?

Please don't insult me

I'm more of a Carmilla, Le Fanu, M R James type of girl.

 

[Firky]

I liked it precisely because it wasn't full on hardcore goth.

 

[el-ahrairah]

i do love that book. skimmed through it this time as i've read it so many times. stayed up way too late last night finishing it!

12. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. This is supposed to be a classic text that influenced political change. It's quite dense for a novel, but about standard for the time. I'm a chapter in and so far I think it's going to be very good, if a little hard work. Should slow the pace a bit!

That was ace. Since then I've read two Space Marines "novels", half a book that I'm not going to count as I didn't finish it (Pandaemonium, by Humphrey Jennings, a collection of gobbets covering the industrial revolution) and I'm now reading:

15. Purple Homicide; Fear And Loathing On Knutsford Heath, by John Sweeney. A rather amusing diary of Martin Bell's campaign for Tatton in 1997.

e2a the cover because it's quite good:

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1."Standing in Another Man's Grave" - Ian Rankin
2. "Child 44" - Tom Rob Smith
3. "The Leopard" - Jo Nesbo.
4. "Blood Money" - Chris Collett

5. The Siege - Simon Kernick. Mindless entertainment action thriller. Didn't have to think that much while reading it which was what I wanted

 

[Miss-Shelf]

8/51-100 The Penelopiad another Margaret Atwood
I am going through the books I have on my kindle as I've got loads of free books on there

9/51-100 The Camino Diaries by Jean Rawlings (tale of a walk as you might imagine from the title)
read 100% of this in 3 hours compared to 10% which I'm now at for Les Miserables started two weeks ago

 

[marty21]

1/50- City of Gold - Len Deighton
2/50- Outside- Shalini Bolan
3/50- Deep Black - Stephen Coonts and Jim Defelice
4/50- Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercombie
5/50 - Last Arguments of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
6/50 - The Horse At The Gates - DC Alden
7/50 - Shakespeare's Local - Pete Brown
8/50 - Ash - James Herbert
9/50 - Capital - John Lanchester
10/50 - Covert Reich - A K Alexander

 

[petee]

3/30 travels with a donkey (stevenson)

4/20 a review of the testimony against elias hicks (lewis)

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I read the Jack London book, you can see how he influenced Orwell 20 or so years later

i know. orwell seems original till you read that
obv orwell has his own originality

 

[belboid]

1: Peter May - The Blackhouse.
2: Kim Cooper - 33 1/3 Series: In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.
3: Ben Thompson (Ed.) - Ban This Filth! The Mary Whitehouse Letters.
4: Paul D Gilbert - The Annals of Sherlock Holmes.
5/30 - ?? - The Secret Footballer.
6/30 - Hilary Mantel - Bring Up The Bodies.

7/30: K Marx - The Civil War in France. A right rip snorter of a read
8/30 - Pat Long - The History of the NME Interesting, entertaining and sad. It was only ever actually any good for about two years it would seem.

 

[marty21]

1/50- City of Gold - Len Deighton
2/50- Outside- Shalini Bolan
3/50- Deep Black - Stephen Coonts and Jim Defelice
4/50- Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercombie
5/50 - Last Arguments of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
6/50 - The Horse At The Gates - DC Alden
7/50 - Shakespeare's Local - Pete Brown
8/50 - Ash - James Herbert
9/50 - Capital - John Lanchester
10/50 - Covert Reich - A K Alexander
11/50 - The American West - Dee Brown

 

[Pickman's model]

raylan
4-100

 

[ringo]

1/30 The Room Of Lost Things - Stella Duffy
2/30 At Hell's Gate: A Soldiers Journey From War To Peace - Claude Anshin Thomas
3/30 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
4/30 Altered Carbon - Richard K Morgan
5/30 The Chinese Potter: A practical history of Chinese ceramics - Margaret Medley

 

[imposs1904]

1/100 Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World by Graham Hunter
2/100 Ramones by Nicholas Rombes
3/100 The Train by Georges Simenon
4/100 Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran by Andy Taylor
5/100 Physical Resistance: A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism by Dave Hann
6/100 Walking With Ghosts by John Baker
7/100 Cupid's Dart by David Nobbs

8/100 The Pale Criminal by Phillip Kerr

 

[braindancer]

1/30 Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
2/30 More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
3/30 Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge
4/30 Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
5/30 Mister Johnson - Joyce Carey
6/30 The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave
7/30 The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy
8/30 The Hustler - Walter Tevis

 

[pennimania]

11/100 Let the Right One In John Ajvide Lindquist

God, I was soooooooooo disappointed by this. Struggled to finish it. Meandering plot, far too many inconsequential characters all called Benny, Genny or Lenny, far too many proper nouns altogether ( endless lists of place names that contributed nothing to plot).

If that is what Sweden is really like god preserve me from ever visiting it.

I could not sympathise with a single character. The setting was revolting, and I didn't care that s/he was a vampire, whether s/he got his dinner or indeed anything else in the book.

And Oskar was a wimp.

Edited because I spelled author's name incorrectly

13/100 A Glass of Blessings. Barbara Pym

 

[toggle]

wonders in and decides it might be an idea to start on this. read loads, i'm just very eratic about listing what i read. and ti's only when i don't have huge piles of other stuff on that i eever get to read a whole book. and it's rare i get time to read for fun anymore. if i'm lucky, i get readable texts to read. Sulks a bit.

1. Destined to be wives, Barbera Caine
2. The making of modern british politics, Martin Pugh
3. Speaking for the People, Gareth Steadman Jones
4. Gladstone, Eugenio Biagini
5. The Liberal Unionists, Ian Cawood
6. Prostitution in Victorian society, Judith Walkowitz
7. Imagined communities, Benedict Anderson
8. England's case against home rule. AV Dicey

 

[xenon]

01/30 Pimp - Iceberg Slim
02/30 I Can Make you Hate - Charlie Brooker
03/30 Back Story - David Mitchell
04/30 Century Rain - Alastair Reynolds
05/30 Debt the First 5000 Years - David Graeber

 

[braindancer]

1/30 Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
2/30 More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
3/30 Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge
4/30 Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
5/30 Mister Johnson - Joyce Carey
6/30 The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave
7/30 The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy
8/30 The Hustler - Walter Tevis
9/30 On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

 

[Me76]

1/50 Rachels Holiday, Marian Keyes
2/50 Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
3/50 Life, Death and Vanilla Slices, Jenny Eclair
4/50 Pushed Too Far, Ann Voss Peterson
5/50 Born Weird, Andrew Kaufman
6/50 The People of the Abyss, Jack London

7/50 Gray Justice, Alan McDermott
Free book. Not a bad thriller, first of a series but I won't exactly be looking for the next one.

 

[marty21]

1/50- City of Gold - Len Deighton
2/50- Outside- Shalini Bolan
3/50- Deep Black - Stephen Coonts and Jim Defelice
4/50- Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercombie
5/50 - Last Arguments of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
6/50 - The Horse At The Gates - DC Alden
7/50 - Shakespeare's Local - Pete Brown
8/50 - Ash - James Herbert
9/50 - Capital - John Lanchester
10/50 - Covert Reich - A K Alexander
11/50 - The American West - Dee Brown
12/50 - Light of the Western Stars - Zane Grey

 

[imposs1904]

1/100 Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World by Graham Hunter
2/100 Ramones by Nicholas Rombes
3/100 The Train by Georges Simenon
4/100 Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran by Andy Taylor
5/100 Physical Resistance: A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism by Dave Hann
6/100 Walking With Ghosts by John Baker
7/100 Cupid's Dart by David Nobbs
8/100 The Pale Criminal by Phillip Kerr

9/100 The Roar of the Butterflies by Reginald Hill

The last of the Joe Sixsmith's novels. I wish the late Reginald Hill had written ten more.