the grand 2015 reading challenge thread
- Thread starter Pickman's model
- Start date
Patteran
A nowadays excuse
I've not heard of this - I'm guessing from the '£120 print to order' tag that it's academic. Useful?
Yes - enjoyed the critical discourse parts that he rushed through more than the news examples that he dwelt on, but I learned some new words & good ideas, & that's always welcome. I'll read his 'Linguistic Criticism' at some point.
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wobbly
thankyou. i've been touching on trying to describe the form of some of the 19th century newspaper stuff i'm looking at. and i'm guessing that looking at comparisons to people working on more current journalism might be my best option
yes, it's one of the books I gratefully gathered off the shelves of my masters supervisor when he retired. He turned up to a meeting with boxes to pack and i offered to help. he suggested that helping myself to whatever I could carry would save him shifting it all. I didn't need asking twice and I took home 40-50 or so books cause I only needed to walk 300 yards or so with them.
it's a book put together out of a conference. during the mid 90s. and conference books can be quite variable in quality and coherency.
it's useful as a primer if you haven't read much else on the different forms of 20th century fascism, which I haven't and i now have a list of names to look up and references to go chase after. but the overall premise is that the forms of fascism in the UK have been self defeating. interesting enough for what it is, I'd have been well irritated if I'd paid anything like the current asking price of it though.
5. End of the Road, ed Jonathan Oliver.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
1. 'personal', lee child
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
same here. that's one of the reasons I enjoy this thread. I stumble across books I wouldn't have otherwise been aware of.
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
1. "A Colder War" - Charles Cumming. Very good spy thriller
Have you read Charlie Stross' short story of the same name:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
No, I've read some Charles Stross but not that. I'll give it a read
chainsawjob
Kipping in the dunes
I'll go for 20, no idea how many I usually read, and I've forgot to note the author/title of the best book I read last year, so I thought a record would also be handy.
6. A Natural History of Dragons, a Memoir by Lady Trent, Marie Brennan
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wobbly
5. Campagna and Campiglio - What are we fighting for?
7. Discount Armageddon, Seanan McGuire
spartacus mills
let's wee on each other
01 Nikola Mihov: Forget Your Past: Communist-Era Monuments in Bulgaria
02 Bohumil Hrabal: Closely Observed Trains
03 Joe R Lansdale: Mucho Mojo
02 Bohumil Hrabal: Closely Observed Trains
03 Joe R Lansdale: Mucho Mojo
chainsawjob
Kipping in the dunes
Hmm, I'm gonna need an also-ran list (not here obv), second book of the year rejected now. On to the third attempt. I start a lot more books than I finish. How do people choose books they know are going to be worth reading I wonder.
Manter
Lunch Mob
His prodigal spy is good too.
Manter
Lunch Mob
Why do you abandon them? I very rarely abandon books- some take a while to get into, some are a good story but badly written or vice versa...but most have something to recommend them. I have given up on Proust (put the fucking biscuit down man!) and watership down. And some shit my father in law self published. But other than that everything gets finished.... Some take a while- I hate Michel Houellebecq, so it took me about 6 months to plough through Atomised (and I suppose I should confess I gave up on the French version, so that makes three I have abandoned)
Lifes too short to waste on books that you're not happy with.
There are so many good ones out there.
Having said that I normally do return to books if I do put them down unfinished, and am often rewarded if in a different frame of mind - but there are more than a few that it's just not worth pursuing from a subjective point of view (Atomised being one of them).
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
I've gone low (11-20) because I've got a bedside table heaving with big, fat books. I've just finished my first, Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries.
East of Eden became possibly my favourite novel of all time last year. I will be buying In Dubious Battle very soon
East of Eden became possibly my favourite novel of all time last year. I will be buying In Dubious Battle very soon
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
1/30 Roger Hewitt - White Talk Black Talk: Inter-racial friendship and communication amongst adolescents
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wobbly
6. Dunleavy et al. - Voices of the people
chainsawjob
Kipping in the dunes
Just that really. If it's fiction and I can't find myself caring what happens to the characters, then I'd rather cut my losses and read something else. Or if it's too slow. Non-fiction I'm more likely to persevere with if it's a subject I want to know about, even if it's a bit dull and slow going.
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
1/52 The In Between Time by Alexander Baron
This 1971 novel is what some critics have suggested is Baron's thinly-veiled autobiographical account of being an active Communist and anti-fascist in pre-Second World War London. (It's not, btw.) This is the front cover that Panther Books went with in 1974 when they issued a paperback reprint of the book
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This 1971 novel is what some critics have suggested is Baron's thinly-veiled autobiographical account of being an active Communist and anti-fascist in pre-Second World War London. (It's not, btw.) This is the front cover that Panther Books went with in 1974 when they issued a paperback reprint of the book
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wobbly
7. Conan Doyle - A study in Scarlet
8. Stuart Bell - The conservative party and british politics
9. Robin Hobb - Dragon haven
something is going odd round here. my seasonal fuckedupness seemed to hit early and has disapeared up it's own arse already. I'm back to needing less sleep than average rather than wanting to kip 18 hours a day. hence gaining extra hours a day to read in. bonus!
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