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eyes down for a full house reading challenge thread 2021

How many books do you anticipate reading in 2021?

  • Total voters
    74
I've never counted before, but I read a fair bit so going for 50. Already read so far.

1. Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart. Bloody depressing! But very good, I can't stop thinking about it.
2. A Spot of Folly, Ruth Rendell
 
1/50: Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture - Pierre Bourdieu

I probably read this last year too. But I've read it again. I suspect not for the last time either. It's quite dense.
 
Rattling through them at the moment, combination of lockdown and having some that are background reading to work but worth reading the whole, hence my next two:

3. The Shaman and the Heresiarch: A New Interpretation of the Li sao - Gopal Sukhu
4. The Five "Confucian" Classics - Michael Nylan
 
I think I probably got pretty close to my target last year of 100 books.
I read very fast, but don't always keep a note of what I've been reading, which will be a mixture of work-related topics and relaxation / escapism.
If I included serious periodicals & less substantial magazines I could get to a really silly total of things read.

What I've got on the go at the moment : from 01 January 2021. (and excluding a couple of books hanging over from last year)

1) Isle of Man Railways by JIC Boyd (1967) - historical research (taken with a pinch of salt, at times) - still underway & hard work
2) Things Fall Apart by Ward & Dilmore [pt1 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
3) Vale of Rheidol Railway by P Johnson - just started ...
4) The Centre Cannot Hold by MW Barr [pt2 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
5) Shadows of the Indignant by D Galanter [pt3 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway

----
tbc
 
1/30 Jackie Wang - Carceral Capitalism

Barely counts cos I read most of it in 2020, but finally finished it today. Interesting book, very clever but maybe I didn't like it quite as much as I was expecting. Some strange switches between a fairly academic style and poetry, and I was a bit taken aback by some of the positive references to Frank Wilderson and afro-pessmism, which I tend to write off as being pure clown shit. Also the last full book I read in 2020 was the Cafiero Compendium of Capital, so now I feel like it's definitely time to read something that's not a deep analysis of capitalism.
Next up: Jerold J Kreisman & Hal Straub - I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality. If this book about BPD starts going on about Luxemburg's critique of Marx's views on primitive accumulation then I'm gonna kick off.
 
1/29: Illness as Metaphor & Aids and its Metaphors - Susan Sontag
 
StoneRoad said:
I think I probably got pretty close to my target last year of 100 books.
I read very fast, but don't always keep a note of what I've been reading, which will be a mixture of work-related topics and relaxation / escapism.
If I included serious periodicals & less substantial magazines I could get to a really silly total of things read.

What I've got on the go at the moment : from 01 January 2021. (and excluding a couple of books hanging over from last year)
Click to expand...
1) Isle of Man Railways by JIC Boyd (1967) - historical research (taken with a pinch of salt, at times) - still underway & hard work
2) Things Fall Apart by Ward & Dilmore [pt1 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
3) Vale of Rheidol Railway by P Johnson - just started ...
4) The Centre Cannot Hold by MW Barr [pt2 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
5) Shadows of the Indignant by D Galanter [pt3 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 4/1/21 finished 6/1/21
6) The Darkness Drops Again by CL Bennett [pt4 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 6/1/21
 
1/30 Rebecca Binns (ed.) - They've Taken Our Ghettos: A Punk History of Woodberry Down Estate

Woodberry Down is a big estate in the extreme North West corner of Hackney by Manor House tube station. This is a real mixed bag of photots, cartoons and memoirs that went along with an exhibition a few years ago that I didn't make it to. A couple of very good accounts of drunken punk squat parties and an especially funny account of a couple of squatters getting arrested at the big confrontation with Blood & Honour at Hyde Park in 1989. But also things are probably too general like going to Stonehenge etc. Focus is very late 80s and very early 90s. Doesn't really do what the title says but entertaining nevertheless. Available from Active Distribution, of course.
 
Last edited:
1/35 Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky

2/35 Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan (ReRead)
 
1/50: Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture - Pierre Bourdieu

2/50: 84k - Claire North
Fantastic, best fiction I've read for ages, for the first few hundred pages, but started to drag a little towards the end.
 
I'm so proud of reading a target busting FIVE books last year!

So I'm going to challenge myself this year and aim for 15 (not inc audiobooks)

First one was half read last year but I believe it counts:

1/15 The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews
 
StoneRoad said:
1) Isle of Man Railways by JIC Boyd (1967) - historical research (taken with a pinch of salt, at times) - still underway & hard work
2) Things Fall Apart by Ward & Dilmore [pt1 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
3) Vale of Rheidol Railway by P Johnson - just started ...
4) The Centre Cannot Hold by MW Barr [pt2 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] finished
5) Shadows of the Indignant by D Galanter [pt3 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 4/1/21 finished 6/1/21
6) The Darkness Drops Again by CL Bennett [pt4 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 6/1/21 finished 8/1/21
Click to expand...
7) The Blood-dimmed Tide by H Weinstein [pt5 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 9/1/21 finished 10/1/21
8) Its Hour Come Round by MW Bonanno [pt6 of 6 - Mere Anarchy] underway 10/1/21
 
1/45 Ippolita - In the Facebook Aquarium: The Resistible Rise of Anarcho-Capitalism

2/45 Peter F. Hamilton - Salvation Lost
3/45 Alfred Jarry - The Ubu Plays: Ubu Rex; Ubu Cuckolded and Ubu Unchained

I guess I could count the Ubu plays as three books, but they're all in one volume and only short so I'd just be lying to myself
 
1/35 Dancing in the Dark by Stuart M. Kaminsky
2/35 Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan (ReRead)

3/35 Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump
 
1/52 - Susan Hill - The Vows of Silence
2/52 - Kiley Reid - Such a Fun Age

3/52 - Susan Hill - The Shadows in The Street
 
1/30 Jackie Wang - Carceral Capitalism
2/30 Jerold J Kreisman & Hal Straub - I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality.

Probably worth a read if you want to know more about BPD? I was a bit wary of reading a book about psychology from 1989 because I imagine understandings have improved or at least changed in the past 30 years, but it seemed fairly sound to my non-expert eye, although you'd probably want to phrase some of the bits about sexuality differently now. Has a chapter on "The Borderline Society" which is interesting if you want to speculate about whether/how far it's neoliberalism what dunnit. Now having a short break from books to read the Stormy Petrel next, which isn't actually a book but feels not far off book length.
 
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