it's the all-singing all-dancing 2018 reading challenge thread

[ringo]

1/40 Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
2/40 The High Window - Raymond Chandler
3/40 An Artist Of The Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
4/40 The Steel Remains - Richard K Morgan
5/40 Simulacrum - Ken Liu
6/40 Here Comes The Sun - Nicole Dennis-Benn

 

[billy_bob]

1/50 Christopher Moore - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
2/50 László Krasznahorkai - Satantango
3/50 Dennis Baron - A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers and the Digital Revolution
4/50 Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
5/50 Mark Twain - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
6/50 Matt Sewell - A Charm of Goldfinches
7/50 Melissa Mohr - Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing
8/50 George Sanders - Pastoralia
9/50 George Sanders - The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1/30 Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Idiot
2/30 Cyrus Bozorgmehr - Once Upon a Time in Shaolin: The Untold Story of Wu-Tang Clan's Million Dollar Secret Album, the Devaluation of Music, and America's New Public Enemy No. 1
3/30 Gary Budden - Hollow Shores
4/30 Chris Kraus - After Kathy Acker: A Biography
5/30 Victor Pelevin - Omon Ra
6/30 Stefan Szczelkun - Improvisation Rites: From John Cage's Songbooks to The Scratch Orchestra's Nature Study Notes - collective practises 2011-2017

7/30 Sol Yurick - Metatron

 

[Voley]

7/50 Melissa Mohr - Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing

Like the sound of that and my library has it, thanks for that.

 

[billy_bob]

Like the sound of that and my library has it, thanks for that.

I thought it looked like it'd be fun - but there's far more too it than that. Highly recommended.

 

[Voley]

I thought it looked like it'd be fun - but there's far more too it than that. Highly recommended.

Yeah I had a look at the first few chapters on the Goodreads site and it looks like its a pretty thorough investigation into a humorous topic. I love those ancient curses, too. Really inventive. The Romans were good value. Shakespeare has some incredible ones.

 

[Pickman's model]

3/50 john burningham, "cannonball simp"

4/50 harold lamb, "warriors of the steppes"

 

[kropotkin]

1. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
2. The Fifth Season - N. K. Jemisin
3. The Brothers Ashkenazi - I. J. Singer
4. Chronicle of a Death Foretold- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View- Ellen Meiksins Wood
6. ‎ Burial Rights- Hannah Kent
7. ‎ Strike! - Jeremy Brecher
8. ‎ With the End in Mind- Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial - Kathryn Mannix
9. ‎Hillbilly Eligy - J. D. Vance
10. ‎ The Golden Age- John C. Wright
11. ‎ American Pastoral- Philip Roth
12. ‎ Why We Sleep: the New Science of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker

 

[Ptolemy]

1/25. L'Assommoir - Émile Zola.
2/25. La Bête humaine - Émile Zola.
3/25. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert.
4/25. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë.
5/25. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë.

 

[billy_bob]

12. ‎ Why We Sleep: the New Science of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker

That's in my in-pile. How was it?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

1/39 High/Perchard (Eds) - The Deindustrialized World
2/39 Jameson, Fredric - Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism
3/39 Gest, Justin - The new minority: White working class poliics in an age of immigration and inequality
4/39 Hall, David - Working Lives: the forgotten voices of Britain's post war working class
5/39 Katznelson, Ira - City Trenches: Urban politics and the patterning of class in the US
6/39 Goodhart, David - The Road to Somewhere: the New Tribes Shaping British Politics
7/39 Dudley, Kathryn - The End of the Line: Lost Jobs, New Lives in Postindustrial America

 

[kropotkin]

That's in my in-pile. How was it?

Good- very readable and educative. Not overly technical but seems to discuss lots of important research in the topic area. I'm spending more time in bed now.

 

[braindancer]

1/25 This Perfect Day - Ira Levin
2/25 Southern Cross The Dog - Bill Cheng
3/25 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Ron Hansen

 

[iona]

1/25 A Clash of Kings - George R. R. Martin
2/25 A Life for the Stars - James Blish
3/25 The Triumph of Time - James Blish
4/25 A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow - George R. R. Martin
5/25 A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold - George R. R. Martin
6/25 A Feast for Crows - George R. R. Martin
7/25 The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
8/25 The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths
9/25 The House at Sea's End - Elly Griffiths
10/25 King Rat - China Miéville
11/25 A Dance with Dragons: Dreams and Dust - George R. R. Martin
12/25 A Dance with Dragons: After the Feast - George R. R. Martin
13/25 Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
14/25 Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
15/25 MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood
16/25 The Woman in Blue - Elly Griffiths

 

[ringo]

1/40 Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
2/40 The High Window - Raymond Chandler
3/40 An Artist Of The Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
4/40 The Steel Remains - Richard K Morgan
5/40 Simulacrum - Ken Liu
6/40 Here Comes The Sun - Nicole Dennis-Benn
7/40 Train Dreams - Denis Johnson

 

[nogojones]

1/40 - Catherynne Valente - Deathless
2/40 - Robert Louis Wilken - The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity
3/40 - Chester Himes - Cotton Comes to Harlem
4/40 - Zadie Smith - White Teeth
5/40 - Geronimo - Fire & Flames: A History of the German Autonomist Movement

6/40 - Barbara Bloomfield, Raphael Samuel - The Enemy Within: Pit villages & the miners strike of 84/5
7/40 - Jonathan Crary - 24/7: Late capitalism & the end of sleep

 

[BoatieBird]

1/65 - Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
2/65 - Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
3/65 - Ruth Rendell - An Unkindness of Ravens
4/65 - Stephen King - Firestarter (1/10)
5/65 - Ruth Rendell - The Veiled One
6/65 - Joanna Cannon - The Trouble With Goats and Sheep
7/65 - Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men in a Boat
8/65 - Ruth Rendell - Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
9/65 - Donna Tartt - The Secret History (2/10)
10/65 - Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13
11/65 - Ruth Rendell - Simisola
12/65 - Jonathan Franzen - Purity (3/10)
13/65 - Judy Blume - Forever

14/65 - Ruth Rendell - Road Rage

 

[SpookyFrank]

1/40 Mark Greif - Against Everything
2/40 Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
3/40 Michele Wallace - Invisibility Blues
4/40 Connie Willis - Blackout
5/40 Kathleen Taylor - Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
6/40 Margaret Atwood - Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
7/40 Usrula K le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea

8/40 Naomi Alderman - The Power
9/40 R. D. Laing - The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise

 

[Nanker Phelge]

1/19 - Mark Kermode - The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex
2/19 - Mark Kermode - It's Only a Movie
3/19 - Mark Kermode - Hatchet Job
4/19 - William Goldman - The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood and Other Essays
5/19 - Jah Wobble - Memoirs of a Geezer

 

[gawkrodger]

Good- very readable and educative. Not overly technical but seems to discuss lots of important research in the topic area. I'm spending more time in bed now.

So I've read a couple of interviews and articles re: this - will I get much more from reading the book?

 

[marty21]

1/76 The Thirst - Jo Nesbo
2/76 Alt-America : The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. David Neiwert
3/76 Pursuit of Honour - Vince Flynn
4/76 American Assassin - Vince Flynn
5/76 Ardennes 1944 - Anthony Beevor
6/76 The Last Nazi - Andrew Turpin
7/76 The Old Bridge - Andrew Turpin
8/76 Surviving the Evacuation : Book 12 Britain's End . - Frank Tayell.
9/76 The Late Show - Michael Connelly
10/76 Kill Shot- Vince Flynn

****************************************
11/76 The Last Man - Vince Flynn

 

[Beats & Pieces]

41. Stung With Love: Poems & Fragments Of Sappho - Sappho
42. Selected Poems - John Clare
43. The Age Of Revolution 1789-1848 - Eric Hobsbawm

Hobsbawm's political position is clear and unapologetic, but is hampered by his writing style - too often dull and repetitive.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/30 Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
2/30 China Miéville - October: The Story of the Russian Revolution
3/30 Michael Wolff - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
4/30 Philip Reeve - Mortal Engines
5/30 David Peace - Red Riding 1974
6/30 William Wordsworth - Selected Poems (ed. Stephen Logan)

7/30 Brandon Sanderson - Oathbringer

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1/30 Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Idiot
2/30 Cyrus Bozorgmehr - Once Upon a Time in Shaolin: The Untold Story of Wu-Tang Clan's Million Dollar Secret Album, the Devaluation of Music, and America's New Public Enemy No. 1
3/30 Gary Budden - Hollow Shores
4/30 Chris Kraus - After Kathy Acker: A Biography
5/30 Victor Pelevin - Omon Ra
6/30 Stefan Szczelkun - Improvisation Rites: From John Cage's Songbooks to The Scratch Orchestra's Nature Study Notes - collective practises 2011-2017
7/30 Sol Yurick - Metatron

8/30 p.m. - bolo'bolo

 

[Voley]

1/30 The Bottom Corner - Nige Tassell
2/30 Long Road From Jarrow - Stuart Maconie
3/30 Withnail And I - Bruce Robinson
4/30 Tschick - Wolfgang Herndorff

5/30 Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol – Steve Jones
6/30 Ruth And Martin's Album Club - Martin Fitzgerald​

7/30 Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To British Birds.

Read this for a few reasons. 1. One of my challenges this year is to read about a topic I know nothing about. 2. When I’m walking I often find myself looking at something winged and wondering what it is. 3. Bill Bailey is ace. I really enjoyed it – he writes about wrens with the sort of enthusiasm most people reserve for their children, his drawings are suitably daft and there are asides where motorway services are described as “cathedrals of despair.” If that sounds like your sort of thing, you’ll like this. I might actually know what I’m looking at next time I see something large, white and diving at the sea when I’m in the The Isles Of Scilly.

 

[ringo]

1/40 Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
2/40 The High Window - Raymond Chandler
3/40 An Artist Of The Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
4/40 The Steel Remains - Richard K Morgan
5/40 Simulacrum - Ken Liu
6/40 Here Comes The Sun - Nicole Dennis-Benn
7/40 Train Dreams - Denis Johnson
8/40 Voyage In The Dark - Jean Rhys

 

[BoatieBird]

1/65 - Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
2/65 - Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
3/65 - Ruth Rendell - An Unkindness of Ravens
4/65 - Stephen King - Firestarter (1/10)
5/65 - Ruth Rendell - The Veiled One
6/65 - Joanna Cannon - The Trouble With Goats and Sheep
7/65 - Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men in a Boat
8/65 - Ruth Rendell - Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
9/65 - Donna Tartt - The Secret History (2/10)
10/65 - Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13
11/65 - Ruth Rendell - Simisola
12/65 - Jonathan Franzen - Purity (3/10)
13/65 - Judy Blume - Forever
14/65 - Ruth Rendell - Road Rage

15/65 - William Boyd - Armadillo

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Tim Ecott - Neutral Buoyancy
2. Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising
3. Naoki Higashida - The Reason I Jump
4. Jon Ronson - The Men Who Stare At Goats

5. Sarah Perry - After Me Comes The Flood. A novel so shockingly teenage in its attempt to be literary that it made me cross. Unconvincing people, doing not very much, in an unconvincing setting, all leading to a tired and unconvincing denouement.

 

[May Kasahara]

BoatieBird I missed your post about Reservoir 13 - really glad you enjoyed it too, and interesting to think of it in light of the above - how a book with a mystery and a reservoir can be amazing rather than infuriating!

 

[BoatieBird]

I was also bemused by After Me Comes the Flood May Kasahara, especially after reading The Essex Serpent, which I loved.
Teenage is a good way to describe it.