2013 Reading Challenge Thread

[petee]

6/30 tinker tailor soldier spy (le carre)

7/30 jesus in the talmud (schaefer)

 

[pennimania]

17/100 No Fond Return of Love - Barbara Pym.

I'm a bit sick of Barbara now, even though this last made me break out into helpless laughter.

Too many clergymen.

I'm thinking of attacking Les Miserables now in an attempt to emulate Miss-Shelf.

18/100 The Doctor's Husband - Elizabeth Seifert ( my excuse this time is that I am very stressed )

 

[Kidda]

1/15 - North by Northwestern (Deadliest Waters) by Sig Hansen.

Fantastic book, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Have been really slack with my reading so far this year

1/15- North by Northwestern (Deadliest Waters) by Sig Hansen
2/15- Narrowboat Dreams by Steve Haywood

 

[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
8/50 Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child
9/50 the Hundred year old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson

10/50 First Murder, Fred Limberg

 

[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
10/100 Pack Men by Alan Bissett
11/100 Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina
12/100 The Graduate by Charles Webb
13/100 Backhand by Liza Cody
14/100 Kill Your Friends by John Niven

15/100 Hazell and the Menacing Jester by P.B. Yuill

Terry Venables should have stuck to the crime fiction.

 

[october_lost]

1/30 Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart
2/30 John A. Rapp, Daoism and Anarchism...
3/30 Wang Hui, China's New Order...
4/30 Angela Y. Davies, Are prisons obsolete?

5/30 Cecilia Holland, Floating Worlds
6/30 Daniel Guerin, Anarchism

 

[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
10/30 The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood
11/30 Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
12/30 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

 

[ringo]

12/30 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Did you enjoy it? I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was, a revelation.

 

[braindancer]

Did you enjoy it? I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was, a revelation.

I completely agree. It's the kind of book that I have long thought I should read but anticipated that it would be a hard-going slog. But then my partner read it in two days flat, and she normally takes about two months to read half a book and then gives up, so this was a massive pointer that perhaps I'd been wrong. It was very moving, and it was of course very bleak at times but a surprisingly enjoyable read nonetheless.

 

[ringo]

I completely agree. It's the kind of book that I have long thought I should read but anticipated that it would be a hard-going slog. But then my partner read it in two days flat, and she normally takes about two months to read half a book and then gives up, so this was a massive pointer that perhaps I'd been wrong. It was very moving, and it was of course very bleak at times but a surprisingly enjoyable read nonetheless.

I was exactly the same, so glad I finally bothered.

 

[starfish]

1/2? The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
2/2? Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

At this pace i'll be lucky to read 10, although in my defence they are both quite big books.

 

[colbhoy]

1/20 -The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo
2/20 - At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

...unbelievably slow for me this year so far

 

[el-ahrairah]

that was alright i guess. to be honest, i don't think i'd recommend it. it's one of those books where you don't know if you liked it or not. i think it was all build up and the payoff was rushed.

Just started:

20. Arturs Barea, The Clash. Again, a book that has been on my To Read pile for years, i remember starting it in about 2005 but don't seem to recognise any of it. Like many anarchists I have a slight lob on for the Spanish Civil War, so I'm hoping it will be good. Two chapters in and I'm suspecting the contents will be better than the storytelling, IYSWIM.

That was pretty good, but took me a long time to get through.

Next up is

21. Ian Watson, The Inquisition War. A reread to ease my brain

 

[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.
8/30 - Pat Long - The History of the NME
9/30 - Iain Banks - Stonemouth.
10/30 - 30 Rock and Philosophy: We Want To Go There.

11/30 - Michael Powell & Ursula Le Guin - The Wizard of Earthsea (unfilmed screenplay)
12/30 - Mark Kermode - The Good, The Bad & The Multiplex
13/30 - Ismail Kadare - The Successor

 

[petee]

7/30 jesus in the talmud (schaefer)

8/30 agent zigzag (macintyre)

 

[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
10/100 Pack Men by Alan Bissett
11/100 Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina
12/100 The Graduate by Charles Webb
13/100 Backhand by Liza Cody
14/100 Kill Your Friends by John Niven
15/100 Hazell and the Menacing Jester by P.B. Yuill

16/100 Bucket Nut by Liza Cody

 

[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
6/30 Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
7/30 Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
8/30 The City & The City - China Mieville.........Incredibly good, one of the best books I've read in years. If they ever make a decent film of this it will be the next Blade Runner/Matrix.

Actually I've read more brilliant books this year already than I have in many years, cheers Urban book recommenders and the reading challenge thread.

It also helps that I've stopped reading 'books in the style I would normally like' and just started reading books which are known to be great pieces of writing and picking them up without any preconceptions of what style I like or more importantly, don't like. The availability of books that having a Kindle allows can't be underestimated in it's effect either - hearing about or thinking of a book you fancy and grabbing it in minutes is revelationary

 

[BoatieBird]

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
6/30 Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
7/30 Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
8/30 The City & The City - China Mieville.........Incredibly good, one of the best books I've read in years. If they ever make a decent film of this it will be the next Blade Runner/Matrix.

Actually I've read more brilliant books this year already than I have in many years, cheers Urban book recommenders and the reading challenge thread.

It also helps that I've stopped reading 'books in the style I would normally like' and just started reading books which are known to be great pieces of writing and picking them up without any preconceptions of what style I like or more importantly, don't like. The availability of books that having a Kindle allows can't be underestimated in it's effect either - hearing about or thinking of a book you fancy and grabbing it in minutes is revelationary

I made a point of doing this last year and read some brilliant books as a result.
After seeing what you and braindancer have said about The Bell Jar I'm going to give it a go

 

[ringo]

I made a point of doing this last year and read some brilliant books as a result.
After seeing what you and braindancer have said about The Bell Jar I'm going to give it a go

Great isn't it, I love it. All my preconceptions told me the Bell Jar would be dull, worthy and out of date feminist propaganda. It's absolutely the opposite of all of those things, and I'd never have found out if I hadn't picked it up

 

[BoatieBird]

One of the things I love most about urban is the way it makes me read stuff I would never have know about otherwise

 

[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 - Dark Winter - David Mark
13/50 - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown
14/50 - Light of the Western Stars- Zane Grey
15/50 -Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey

 

[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
05.Mikhail Bulgakov – A Country Doctor’s Notebook
06.Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker
07/08.Jean De Berg (Catherine Robbe-Grillet) – The Image & XXX (Diane Bataille) – The Whip Angels
09.Alain Robbe-Grillet – Repetition
10.Stewart Home – Mandy, Charlie and Mary Jane
11.Jonathan Meades – The Fowler Family Business

 

[Miss-Shelf]

17/100 No Fond Return of Love - Barbara Pym.

I'm a bit sick of Barbara now, even though this last made me break out into helpless laughter.

Too many clergymen.

I'm thinking of attacking Les Miserables now in an attempt to emulate Miss-Shelf.

I'm not sure it's worth it - 6 weeks later I'm 72% of the way through via digressions to the battle of waterloo a long discussion of the uses and abuses of slang with a ridiculously slippery main character who can escape from any trap set for him and reinvent himself. I'm only continuing because I said I would.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

Slower than most of you guys, but so far:

1/12 The Mammoth Book of Best New SF vol 25 - ed. Gardner Dozois
2/12 Shakespeare's Local - Pete Brown
3/12 Woman on the Edge of TIme - Marge Piercy

I love Woman on the Edge of Time especially the bit where you can order up a party frock and collect it from a machine for free
plus they're always eating really tasty food and having good sex when they're not tilling their eco gardens and reinventing society

 

[pennimania]

I'm not sure it's worth it - 6 weeks later I'm 72% of the way through via digressions to the battle of waterloo a long discussion of the uses and abuses of slang with a ridiculously slippery main character who can escape from any trap set for him and reinvent himself. I'm only continuing because I said I would.

I've already started

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I've already started

then you MUST finnish it

 

[TruXta]

1/50. Grass - Sheri Tepper
2/50. The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
3/50. Emphyrio - Jack Vance
4/50. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
5/50. Nightwatch - Terry Pratchett
6/50. Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely. Great introduction to behavioural economics and the new frontiers of decision-making sciences.

7/50. The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson. Quite funny and a very easy read.
8/50. Swords and Deviltry - Fritz Leiber. Classic swords and sorcery, much more adult than I had expected.

 

[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
6. The Hypnotist - Lars Kepler
7. "When We Are Married" - J.B. Priestley. Read and performed in!

 

[pennimania]

then you MUST finnish it

Oh I will, but not without a nice doctor novel or ten on the way

And indeed

19/100 Dr Jamie - Elizabeth Seifert

Absolutely agree about Woman on the Edge of Time. Love it.

Good old Marge

 

[magneze]

1. Noam Chomsky - Occupy
2. Ian Bone - Bash The Rich
3. Iain Sinclair - London Orbital

As Hollis mentioned on the other reading thread, this is very "densely written". I found it hard to get into at first, but once you get used to the writing style it does get easier and more enjoyable. The premise behind the book is that they walk around the M25 before Millenium, discovering what exists around the outer reaches of London and finding old stories about each place. It's written at the height of the foot and mouth crisis and the burning pyres of animals comes up a few times in the beginning and of course there are references to the Millenium dome. It's interesting to reflect back on that period.

Some fiction next I think ...