back by popular demand it's the 2017 reading challenge thread

[Fozzie Bear]

Formal subsumption is real. These people are now attacking the very idea of periodisation. I just want to smash shit up and that.

Ok that's helpful. Probably one for another thread.

 

[butchersapron]

Ok that's helpful. Probably one for another thread.

That's part of a wider discussion. Clover's book is the worst thing i've read in 20 years.

 

[kropotkin]

Butchers, can you recommend something you've read in the last few years that was good? Something that made you think but not want to stab anyone? And something not written in obscurantist language? Preferable all in one book!

 

[billy_bob]

Yeh but when you work in a library and see how many of these books are about e.g. management or accountancy or the duller aspects of law - you can rule out thousands of books as they will be of no interest to you, or select but one or two to represent those thousands. I know there's much I don't know, I know there's much I don't want to know, but if I want to find out about the things I do want to know, I know how libraries work so I can find it using e.g. subject headings as well as more obvious means.

I think it was meant more as a 'fleeting nature of human existence' comment than an anti-libraries one

 

[Pickman's model]

I think it was meant more as a 'fleeting nature of human existence' comment than an anti-libraries one

Didn't take it as an anti-libraries one, trying to say a huge number of books of no interest whatsoever

 

[D'wards]

1/26 - Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (reread)
2/26 - Dead Funny: Horror Stories by Comedians - Edited by Robin Ince and Johnny Mains
3/26 - Frank Skinner on the Road by Frank Skinner
4/26 - Karlology by Karl Pilkington
5/26 - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
6/26 - Pennine Walkies by Mark Wallington
7/26 - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole age 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend (reread)
8/26 - All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
9/26 - 2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (reread)
10/26 - Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
11/26 - The Girls on the Train by Paula Hawkins

 

[BoatieBird]

1/65 - Laurie Lee - Village Christmas and Other Notes on the English Year
2/65 - John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany (1/10*)
3/65 - Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho
4/65 - William Boyd - Any Human Heart (2/10)
5/65 - Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
6/65 - John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat
7/65 - Andrew Michael Hurley - The Loney
8/65 - Tana French - Into The Woods (Dublin Murder Squad 1) (3/10)
9/65 - Larry McMurty - Lonesome Dove (4/10)
10/65 - Denise Mina - The Dead Hour (Paddy Meehan 2)
11/65 - Ian Rankin - The Flood
12/65 - Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife (Paddy Meehan 3)
13/65 - Neil Gaiman - Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
14/65 - Bill Beverly - Dodgers
15/65 - Ruth Rendell - The Face of Trespass

16/65 - John Irving - The World According to Garp (5/10)

 

[butchersapron]

Butchers, can you recommend something you've read in the last few years that was good? Something that made you think but not want to stab anyone? And something not written in obscurantist language? Preferable all in one book!

Will come back to this this evening when have time.

 

[kropotkin]

Thanks butchers.

Aiming for 45.
1. Tom Rob Smith - child 44
2. Louisa Lim - People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited
3. Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami - Burning Country: Syrians in revolution and war
4. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow
5. John Courtenay Grinwood - Arabesk
6. Harsha walia - undoing border imperialism
7. Howard zinn - a people's history of the united states
8. Simon Mawer - the glass room
9. Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism - Cindy Milstein (Editor)
10. Platform Capitalism - Nick Srnicek
11. The Meaning of Race - kenan malik
12. The name of the wind- Patrick Rothfuss
13. Folding Beijing - Hao Jingfang
14. Stories of your life and others- Ted Chiang
15. House of God - Samuel Shem
16. The Sellout - Paul Beatty
17. Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher

 

[Dragnet]

5/25 Various - Anarchism Today
6/25 Whinger Press - Worst of the Whinger
7/25 Bob Darke - Poor Lenin: Extracts from 'The Communist Technique in Britain'

 

[ringo]

1/45 And The Ass Saw The Angel - Nick Cave
2/45 Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
3/45 Thank You, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
4/45 Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
5/45 Dodgers - Bill Beverly
6/45 Fup - Jim Dodge
7/45 Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutierrez
8/45 Silk - Alessandro Baricco
9/45 Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
10/45 The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
11/45 Rodigan: My Life In Reggae - David Rodigan
12/45 Empire Of The Sun - JG Ballard

 

[Threshers_Flail]

1/50 Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory
2/50 Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
3/50 Steve Reicher - Mad Mobs and Englishmen?: Myths and realities of the 2011 riots
4/50 Stuart Jeffries - Grand Hotel Abyss
5/50 Sean Birchall - Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-fascist Action
6/50 Alasdair Gray - Lanark
7/50 Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
8/50 Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
9/50 Justin McGruick - Radical Cities
10/50 Mark Fisher - Capitalist Realism
11/50 Hannah Arendt - Eichmann in Jerusalem
12/50 Martin Ford - Rise of the Robots
13/50 John Steinbeck - Cannery Row
14/50 Franz Kafka - The Trial (re-read)
15/50 Robert Baxell - Unlikely Warriors: The British in the Spanish Civil War and the Struggle Against Fascism
16/50 John Berger - Ways of Seeing
17/50 Bill Beverly - Dodgers
18/50 Susan Sontag - On Photography
19/50 James Baldwin - Another Country
20/50 Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye
21/50 Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
22/50 Gunter Grass- The Tin Drum
23/50 Cormac McCarthy - Child of God

 

[Pickman's model]

15/50 georges simenon, maigret at the coroner's (london: penguin, 2016)

16/50 joe abercrombie, sharp ends: stories from the world of the first law (london: orion, 2016)

 

[Manter]

1/29 Volker Kutscher Babylon Berlin
2/29 Philip Kerr The other side of silence
3/29 Bill Beverley Dodgers
4,5,6/29 Robert Wilson Charlie Boxer series. (Capital punishment, you will never find me, stealing people)
7/29 Jay Kristoff Stormdancer - lotus trilogy
8/29 Amid the ruins- Ausma Zehanat Khan
9/29 the language of secrets- Ausma Zehanat Khan
10/29 a conjouring of light- VE Schwab
11/29 strangers in their own land- Arlie Russell Hochschild.
12/29 A death in Sarajevo- Ausma Zehanat Khan
13/29 still midnight (Alex Morrow)- Denise Mina

 

[Voley]

1/30 Substance: Inside New Order - Peter Hook
2/30 The Illustrated A Brief History Of Time - Stephen Hawking
3/30 A Clash Of Kings - George R.R. Martin
4/30 Reelin' In The Years: The Soundtrack Of A Northern Life - Mark Radcliffe
5/30 Look Back In Hunger: The Autobiography - Jo Brand
6/30 Dodgers - Bill Beverly
7/30 Altamont: The Rolling Stones, The Hells Angels And The Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day - Joel Selvin
8/30 Live At The Brixton Academy: A Riotous Life In The Music Business - Simon Parkes
9/30 Travels With Charley: In Search Of America - John Steinbeck

Steinbeck heads off in a converted truck with a great big poodle to try and figure out what makes America tick. Enjoyed this. Some of it's obviously made up, the bit on racial conflict in the South is crude (he admits as much tbf to him) but there was enough fine writing in there to keep me happy. Opening chapter on why people travel was spot on, his descriptions of his dog's psychology were wry and there were a couple of lyrical passages that I really loved. There aren't many writers who'd find beauty in a drunken conversation that threatens to turn really ugly but he does and describes it beautifully. Thanks to stockwelljonny for reminding me about it.

 

[billy_bob]

1/25 Kevin Barry - Dark Lies the Island
2/25 Elvis Costello - Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink*
3/25 George Saunders - The Brain-Dead Megaphone
4/25 George Saunders - Tenth of December
5/25 Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge*
6/25 Kathleen Walker-Meikle - Medieval Dogs
7/25 Jon McGregor - This Isn't the Sort of Thing that Happens to Someone Like You
8/25 Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
9/25 Alison Moore - Death and the Seaside
10/25 Alison Moore - The Lighthouse
11/25 Ben & David Crystal - You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents

 

[kropotkin]

1. Tom Rob Smith - child 44
2. Louisa Lim - People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited
3. Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami - Burning Country: Syrians in revolution and war
4. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow
5. John Courtenay Grinwood - Arabesk
6. Harsha walia - undoing border imperialism
7. Howard zinn - a people's history of the united states
8. Simon Mawer - the glass room
9. Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism - Cindy Milstein (Editor)
10. Platform Capitalism - Nick Srnicek
11. The Meaning of Race - kenan malik
12. The name of the wind- Patrick Rothfuss
13. Folding Beijing - Hao Jingfang
14. Stories of your life and others- Ted Chiang
15. House of God - Samuel Shem
16. The Sellout - Paul Beatty
17. Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher
18/45. The Clockwork rocket- greg egan

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1/25 Malcolm X and Alex Haley - The Autobiography of Malcolm X
2/25 Alex de Jonge - Nightmare Culture: Lautremont & "Les Chants de Maldoror"
3/25 Viv Albertine - Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys
4/25 Endnotes 1: Preliminary Materials For A Balance Sheet Of The Twentieth Century
5/25 Susana Medina - The Bowie Neuro-Transmitter
6/25 Michael Muhammad Knight - The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop and the Gods of New York
7/25 Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
8/25 Endnotes 2: Misery And The Value Form
9/25 Kim Gordon: Girl In A Band
10/25 Tom Vague - King Mob Echo: From The Gordon Riots to Situationists and Sex Pistols

11/25 Paul Harrison - Inside The Inner City: Life Under The Cutting Edge

(Hackney in 1982)

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/25 Ken Follett - World Without End
2/25 Frances Hardinge - Fly By Night
3/25 Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
4/25 Roald Dahl - Madness (short stories)
5/25 Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
6/25 David Rodigan - My Life in Reggae
7/25 Alan Garner - The Owl Service
8/25 William Goldman - The Princess Bride

9/25 George Orwell - Burmese Days - oh, I liked that one.

 

[kropotkin]

1. Tom Rob Smith - child 44
2. Louisa Lim - People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited
3. Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami - Burning Country: Syrians in revolution and war
4. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow
5. John Courtenay Grinwood - Arabesk
6. Harsha walia - undoing border imperialism
7. Howard zinn - a people's history of the united states
8. Simon Mawer - the glass room
9. Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism - Cindy Milstein (Editor)
10. Platform Capitalism - Nick Srnicek
11. The Meaning of Race - kenan malik
12. The name of the wind- Patrick Rothfuss
13. Folding Beijing - Hao Jingfang
14. Stories of your life and others- Ted Chiang
15. House of God - Samuel Shem
16. The Sellout - Paul Beatty
17. Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher
18. The Clockwork rocket- greg egan
19/45. Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class - Immanuel Ness

The Sellout is an audiobook that is making me laugh out loud on my cycle commute.

 

[Me76]

1/50 Teenage Revolution, Alan Davies
2/50 The Third Woman, Jonathan Freedland
3/50 The Art of Peeling an Orange, Victoria Avilan
4/50 Courting Trouble, Lisa M Hawkins
5/50 Dr Vigilante, Alberto Hazan
6/50 the Husband's Secret, Liane Moriarty
7/50 Sleep Tight, Rachel Abbot
8/50 A Dark Adapted Eye, Barbara Vine
9/50 Patchwork Man, DB Martin
10/50 Gone Bad, JB Turner
11/50 The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger
12/50 The Cry, Helen Fitzgerald
13/50 While My Eyes Were Closed, Linda Green - accidentally the second book in a row about things happening to children. This is another good one.

 

[Voley]

1/30 Substance: Inside New Order - Peter Hook
2/30 The Illustrated A Brief History Of Time - Stephen Hawking
3/30 A Clash Of Kings - George R.R. Martin
4/30 Reelin' In The Years: The Soundtrack Of A Northern Life - Mark Radcliffe
5/30 Look Back In Hunger: The Autobiography - Jo Brand
6/30 Dodgers - Bill Beverly
7/30 Altamont: The Rolling Stones, The Hells Angels And The Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day - Joel Selvin
8/30 Live At The Brixton Academy: A Riotous Life In The Music Business - Simon Parkes
9/30 Travels With Charley: In Search Of America - John Steinbeck
10/30 A Storm Of Swords Book 1: Steel And Snow - George R.R. Martin

This is where 'A Song Of Ice And Fire' really gets good. Tyrion plots, Daenaerys kicks slaver arse, Jon Snow knows nothing but teaches Ygritte a thing or two, Bran starts to open his mystical third eye, Hodor says ''Hodor.'' Very enjoyable. Tempting to dive straight into 'Blood And Gold' straight away but I've been reading this on and off for a couple of months now so a break is due.

 

[ringo]

1/45 And The Ass Saw The Angel - Nick Cave
2/45 Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
3/45 Thank You, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
4/45 Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
5/45 Dodgers - Bill Beverly
6/45 Fup - Jim Dodge
7/45 Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutierrez
8/45 Silk - Alessandro Baricco
9/45 Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
10/45 The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
11/45 Rodigan: My Life In Reggae - David Rodigan
12/45 Empire Of The Sun - JG Ballard
13/45 Post Office - Charles Bukowski

 

[Sea Star]

1. American Gods ~ Neil Gaiman
2. Good Omens ~ Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
3. Bruce Springsteen ~ Born to Run
4. Self made man ~ Norah Vincent
5. Rage ~ Stephen King
6. Carrie ~ Stephen King

 

[ringo]

1/45 And The Ass Saw The Angel - Nick Cave
2/45 Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
3/45 Thank You, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
4/45 Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
5/45 Dodgers - Bill Beverly
6/45 Fup - Jim Dodge
7/45 Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutierrez
8/45 Silk - Alessandro Baricco
9/45 Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
10/45 The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
11/45 Rodigan: My Life In Reggae - David Rodigan
12/45 Empire Of The Sun - JG Ballard
13/45 Post Office - Charles Bukowski
14/45 Chronicle Of A Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Brilliant novella, the opposite of a whodunit - the murder is solved from the beginning. Instead the narrator examines the culpability of the rest of the village, who knew it was about to happen but didn't prevent it, and the secrets and morality surrounding the characters involved in the drama.

 

[inva]

1/60 The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America by Naomi Murakawa
2/60 The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones
3/60 The Lost Promise of Civil Rights by Risa L. Goluboff
4/60 Helen Macfarlane: Red Republican: Essays, articles and her translation of the Communist Manifesto edited by David Black
5/60 All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement by Carlotta R. Anderson
6/60 Behind the Crisis: Marx's Dialectics of Value and Knowledge by Guglielmo Carchedi

 

[BoatieBird]

1/65 - Laurie Lee - Village Christmas and Other Notes on the English Year
2/65 - John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany (1/10*)
3/65 - Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho
4/65 - William Boyd - Any Human Heart (2/10)
5/65 - Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
6/65 - John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat
7/65 - Andrew Michael Hurley - The Loney
8/65 - Tana French - Into The Woods (Dublin Murder Squad 1) (3/10)
9/65 - Larry McMurty - Lonesome Dove (4/10)
10/65 - Denise Mina - The Dead Hour (Paddy Meehan 2)
11/65 - Ian Rankin - The Flood
12/65 - Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife (Paddy Meehan 3)
13/65 - Neil Gaiman - Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
14/65 - Bill Beverly - Dodgers
15/65 - Ruth Rendell - The Face of Trespass
16/65 - John Irving - The World According to Garp (5/10)

17/65 - Val McDermid - Out of Bounds

 

[May Kasahara]

1/49 - Dave Eggers - The Circle
2/49 - John Masefield - The Box of Delights
3/49 - Jenny Nimmo - The Rinaldi Ring
4/49 - Sarah Helm - If This Is A Woman
5/49 - Art Spiegelman - Maus
6/49 - Will Ferguson - 419
7/49 - Bram Stoker - Dracula
8/49 - Paul Cornell - Witches of Lychford

9/49 - John Connolly - Night Music. Elegant, intelligent, darkly comic chillers. A fine wine of a story collection. I will be seeking out more of his books.

 

[Manter]

1/29 Volker Kutscher Babylon Berlin
2/29 Philip Kerr The other side of silence
3/29 Bill Beverley Dodgers
4,5,6/29 Robert Wilson Charlie Boxer series. (Capital punishment, you will never find me, stealing people)
7/29 Jay Kristoff Stormdancer - lotus trilogy
8/29 Amid the ruins- Ausma Zehanat Khan
9/29 the language of secrets- Ausma Zehanat Khan
10/29 a conjouring of light- VE Schwab
11/29 strangers in their own land- Arlie Russell Hochschild.
12/29 A death in Sarajevo- Ausma Zehanat Khan
13/29 still midnight (Alex Morrow)- Denise Mina
14/29 Sometimes I lie- Alice Feeney

Really creepy story of a woman in a coma. Pretty much everyone in it is horrible

 

[Voley]

14/45 Chronicle Of A Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Brilliant novella, the opposite of a whodunit - the murder is solved from the beginning. Instead the narrator examines the culpability of the rest of the village, who knew it was about to happen but didn't prevent it, and the secrets and morality surrounding the characters involved in the drama.

That's one of many books on my bookshelf that I've never got around to reading. I think I will now, ta.