the great urban75 2016 reading challenge thread

[Orang Utan]

1/60: Misha Glenny - McMafia
2/60: Chris Hadfield - An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
3/60 Peter Goes - Timeline
4/60 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
5/60 Ben Crystal - Shakespeare On Toast
6/60 Claire North - The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August
7/60 Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publically Shamed
8/60 Martin Jenkins & Satoshi Kitamura - The Story Of Money
9/60 Kristjana S Williams & Jenny Broom - The Wonder Garden
10/60 Gary Crew & Shaun Tan - The Viewer
11/60 Viv Albertine - Clothes Music Boys
12/60 Shaun Tan - The Lost Thing
13/60 Shaun Tan - The Red Tree
14/60 Shaun Tan and John Marsden - The Rabbits (brilliant!)

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1/21 Scott A Wilson (ed) - Music At The Extremes: Essays on Sounds Outside the Mainstream
2/21 Dawn Foster - Lean Out
3/21 Albert Meltzer - The Anarchists In London 1935-55
4/21 Simon Morris - Consumer Guide
5/21 David Keenan - Furfur: Sideways Into England's Hidden Reverse
6/21 Pete Coward - Vessel Without A Soul

7/21 Selma James - Sex, Race and Class - the Perspective of Winning: A Selection of Writings 1952–2011

 

[billy_bob]

16/50: Alison Moore - He Wants
17/50: David Crystal - A Little Book of Language
18/50: Owen Jones - The Establishment

Jones has had some stick (often deservedly) on here, but as the commentariat goes he's still one of the few with anything sensible to say, and I thought Chavs was mostly on the money. This one was a bit disappointing - maybe I'm much more clued up on this stuff already than the average person (though I'm sure not more so than the average person on the Urban politics forums) but it all seemed a bit statement-of-the-obvious. And it could have done with a more comprehensive manifesto for what he'd suggest we do about it - the concluding recommendations were a bit scattershot.

 

[imposs1904]

1/52 Autobiography by Mother Jones
2/52 Maigret and the Loner by Georges Simenon
3/52 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (Reread)
4/52 Do I Love You? by Paul McDonald

5/52 Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds

 

[colbhoy]

1/20 - The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
2/20 - The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
3/20 - The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson
4/20 - Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane
5/20 - Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh
6/20 - The Last Detective by Robert Crais

 

[Me76]

1/50 A Heat of the Moment Thing, Maggie Le Page
2/50 How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
3/50 The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide
4/50 The Fire, John A Heldt
5/50 The Worst Day of my Life, So Far, MA Harper
6/50 Alive and Killing, Jeff Carson
7/50 Persuasion, Jane Austen
8/50 The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
9/50 The Rowan Tree, Robert W Fuller
10/50 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
11/50 Love Handles, Gretchen Galway
12/50 The Sisters, Claire Douglas - Really enjoyed this. Psychological type thing where someone is manipulating someone else to make them think they are crazy, but then it isn't the person you think!!

 

[inva]

1/51 - Multiculturalism and Its Discontents by Kenan Malik
2/51 - Slade House by David Mitchell
3/51 - The True History of Merlin the Magician by Anne Lawrence-Mathers
4/51 - SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
5/51 - Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights by Meredith Tax
6/51 - The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
7/51 - The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette
8/51 - Félicie by Georges Simenon
9/51 - Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė by Julija Šukys

 

[May Kasahara]

1/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
2/50 Justin Cronin - The Twelve
3/50 Neil Oliver - A History of Ancient Britain
4/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Authority
5/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Acceptance
6/50 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere.
7/50 Svetlana Alexievich - Zinky Boys.
8/50 Lisa Tuttle - The Mysteries.

9/50 A M Homes - This Book Could Save Your Life

 

[marty21]

1/60 The Lost Starship - Vaughn Heppner.
2/60 The Lost Command - Vaughn Heppner
3/60 The Lost Destroyer - Vaughn Heppner
4/60 The Lost Colony - Vaughan Heppner
5/60 Why it is still Kicking Off Everywhere - Paul Mason
6/60 The Lady From Zagreb - Philip Kerr
7/60 Anzio - Wynford Vaughan Thomas
8/60 Extinction Point : Genesis - Paul Antony Jones
9/60 Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
10/60 Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
11/60 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain
12/60 Blood on Snow - Jo Nesbo
13/60 Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
14/60 White Nights - Ann Cleeves

 

[Pickman's model]

11/50 ira levin, 'the boys from brazil'

12/50 john le carré, 'the night manager'

 

[Manter]

1. The shadows of self- Brendan Sanderson
2. Angel of storms- Trudi Canavan
3. The innocent Mage- Karen Miller
4. The awakened Mage- Karen Miller
5. A blight of mages- Karen Miller
6. Sweet Caress- William Boyd
7. The taming of the queen- Philipa Gregory
8. A dance of cloaks- David Dalglish
9, 10, 11, 12, 13- rest of shadow dance series, David Dalglish
14. The kindness of enemies- Leila Aboulela.
15. The good liar-Nicholas Searle. About a confidence trickster who cons women out of money and his last 'trick'- who turns out to have secrets of her own. Can't say much without giving it away.... First third I was a bit and then it suddenly got very good.

 

[Orang Utan]

1/60: Misha Glenny - McMafia
2/60: Chris Hadfield - An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
3/60 Peter Goes - Timeline
4/60 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
5/60 Ben Crystal - Shakespeare On Toast
6/60 Claire North - The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August
7/60 Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publically Shamed
8/60 Martin Jenkins & Satoshi Kitamura - The Story Of Money
9/60 Kristjana S Williams & Jenny Broom - The Wonder Garden
10/60 Gary Crew & Shaun Tan - The Viewer
11/60 Viv Albertine - Clothes Music Boys
12/60 Shaun Tan - The Lost Thing
13/60 Shaun Tan - The Red Tree
14/60 Shaun Tan and John Marsden - The Rabbits (brilliant!)
15/60 Shaun Tan - The Arrival (also brilliant)
16/60 Louise O'Neill - Only Ever Yours

 

[iona]

1/15 Foundation - Isaac Asimov
2/15 Edge of Infinity - ed. Jonathan Strahan
3/15 The Suicide Club - Robert Louis Stevenson
4/15 The Lurking Fear - H. P. Lovecraft
5/15 The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack - various
6/15 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
7/15 Midnight Sun - Jo Nesbo
8/15 20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill
9/15 The First Science Fiction Megapack - various
10/15 The Death of Grass - John Christopher
11/15 Descent - Ken MacLeod
12/15 Butch is a Noun - S. Bear Bergman
13/15 Wolf - Mo Hayder
14/15 The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz
15/15 Becoming a Visible Man - Jamison Green

 

[chainsawjob]

1/35 Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healy
2/35 Demetia Essentials – Jan Hall
3/35 The Moonlit Garden – Corina Bomann
4/35 The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring - Hugh Marriot
5/35 Underground London: Travels beneath the city streets - Stephen Smith

6/35 The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

Fun, clever, very enjoyable.

 

[belboid]

]1/32 - Arnaldur Indriðason - Tainted Blood (aka Jar City)
2/32 - Timur Vermes - Look Who's Back
3/32 - Kevin Barry - Beatlebone


4/32 - Tim Tate - Girls With Balls, the Secret History of Women's Football
5/32 - Paul Auster - The Book of Illusions

The Tate is interesting, but not especially well researched, and poorly written. The Auster is fucking brilliant, about loss, grief, redemption, and silent comedy and obscure French treatises. Magnificent.

 

[spartacus mills]

01 Deidre Holding – Armenia with Nagorno Karabagh
02 Laszlo Krasznahorkai – Seiobo There Below
03 Michelle Higgs – Christmas Cards from the 1840s to 1940s
04 Peter Hames (editor) – The Cinema of Central Europe
05 Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – Hard To Be a God

 

[Signal 11]

1/15 - Strong Men Keep Coming: The Book of African American Men - Tonya Bolden
2/15 - Teach Yourself Geology - David Rothery

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "11.22.63" - Stephen King
2. "Blind Eye" - Stuart MacBride
3. "The Inspector and Silence" - Hakan Nesser
4. "Dark Blood" - Stuart MacBride
5. "Old Man's War" - John Scalzi

6. "Night Music (Nocturnes 2)" - John Connolly. Very good compilation of short stories by one of my favourite authors

 

[Voley]

1/20 My Story - Steven Gerrard
2/20 Ancient Sites In West Penwith -Cheryl Straffon
3/20 Execution Sites Of Devon And Cornwall - Richard Peirce
4/20 Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie
5/20 Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke
6/20 The Story Of Kullervo - J.R.R. Tolkein
7/20 Walking The Himalayas - Levison Wood
8/20 Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil
9/20 The Doors Of Perception - Aldous Huxley
10/20 Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
11/20 Autobiography - Morrissey

 

[boohoo]

1/30 Hard Work by Polly Toynbee
2/30 Growing Up In Hollywood - Robert Parrish
3/30 How England made the English - Harry Mount ( lots of interesting facts but not going anywhere - best left in the charity shop)
4/30 Beyond the City - Arthur Conan Doyle (slightly dull story about the suburbs of Norwood - where I live - interesting as one of the characters is an advocate of women's rights - I like this line that she says " What is this mission which is reserved for woman? All that is humble, that is mean, that is soul-killing, that is so contemptible and so ill-paid that none other will touch it. All that is woman's mission. And who imposed these limitations upon her? Who cooped her up within this narrow sphere? Was it Providence? Was it nature? No, it was the arch enemy. It was man.")

 

[marty21]

1/60 The Lost Starship - Vaughn Heppner.
2/60 The Lost Command - Vaughn Heppner
3/60 The Lost Destroyer - Vaughn Heppner
4/60 The Lost Colony - Vaughan Heppner
5/60 Why it is still Kicking Off Everywhere - Paul Mason
6/60 The Lady From Zagreb - Philip Kerr
7/60 Anzio - Wynford Vaughan Thomas
8/60 Extinction Point : Genesis - Paul Antony Jones
9/60 Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
10/60 Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
11/60 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain
12/60 Blood on Snow - Jo Nesbo
13/60 Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
14/60 White Nights - Ann Cleeves
15/60 Even Dogs In The Wild - Ian Rankin

 

[BoatieBird]

1/75 - Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death
2/75 - Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin
3/75 - David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
4/75 - Daniel Woodrell - Winter's Bone
5/75 - Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
6/75 - Margaret Atwood - Lady Oracle
7/75 - Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
8/75 - Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn
9/75 - Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
10/75 - Iain Banks - Espedair Street
11/75 - John Steinbeck - East of Eden
12/75 - Ruth Rendell - Make Death Love Me
13/75 - Stephen King - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
14/75 - Keith Waterhouse - Billy Liar
15/75 - Kate Atkinson - When Will There be Good News?
16/75 - Stephen King - Finders Keeper

17/75 - Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

 

[billy_bob]

19/50: Emma Healy - Elizabeth is Missing
20/50: Aimee Bender - The Color Master

For short story fans: no. 20 is fantastic (as was no. 12, George Saunders). I don't think there's any form of writing I like more than a really good short story.

 

[May Kasahara]

1/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
2/50 Justin Cronin - The Twelve
3/50 Neil Oliver - A History of Ancient Britain
4/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Authority
5/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Acceptance
6/50 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
7/50 Svetlana Alexievich - Zinky Boys
8/50 Lisa Tuttle - The Mysteries
9/50 A M Homes - This Book Could Save Your Life

10/50 Allan Ahlberg - My Brother's Ghost

 

[Voley]

1/20 My Story - Steven Gerrard
2/20 Ancient Sites In West Penwith - Cheryl Straffon
3/20 Execution Sites Of Devon And Cornwall - Richard Peirce
4/20 Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie
5/20 Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke
6/20 The Story Of Kullervo - J.R.R. Tolkein
7/20 Walking The Himalayas - Levison Wood
8/20 Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil
9/20 The Doors Of Perception - Aldous Huxley
10/20 Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
11/20 Autobiography - Morrissey
12/20 I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World - David Nolan

 

[Signal 11]

3/15 - Poseidon's Wake - Alastair Reynolds

 

[BoatieBird]

1/75 - Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death
2/75 - Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin
3/75 - David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
4/75 - Daniel Woodrell - Winter's Bone
5/75 - Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
6/75 - Margaret Atwood - Lady Oracle
7/75 - Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
8/75 - Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn
9/75 - Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
10/75 - Iain Banks - Espedair Street
11/75 - John Steinbeck - East of Eden
12/75 - Ruth Rendell - Make Death Love Me
13/75 - Stephen King - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
14/75 - Keith Waterhouse - Billy Liar
15/75 - Kate Atkinson - When Will There be Good News?
16/75 - Stephen King - Finders Keeper
17/75 - Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

18/75 - Wendy Cope - Family Values

 

[Pickman's model]

12/50 john le carré, 'the night manager'

13/50 lee child, 'make me'

 

[Me76]

1/50 A Heat of the Moment Thing, Maggie Le Page
2/50 How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
3/50 The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide
4/50 The Fire, John A Heldt
5/50 The Worst Day of my Life, So Far, MA Harper
6/50 Alive and Killing, Jeff Carson
7/50 Persuasion, Jane Austen
8/50 The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
9/50 The Rowan Tree, Robert W Fuller
10/50 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
11/50 Love Handles, Gretchen Galway
12/50 The Sisters, Claire Douglas
13/50 Fire Country, David Estes - a really good YA dystopian book. I want my Nieces to get old enough so I can get them to read it. It's the first of a series too, so you might see more from him on my list.

 

[Manter]

1. The shadows of self- Brendan Sanderson
2. Angel of storms- Trudi Canavan
3. The innocent Mage- Karen Miller
4. The awakened Mage- Karen Miller
5. A blight of mages- Karen Miller
6. Sweet Caress- William Boyd
7. The taming of the queen- Philipa Gregory
8. A dance of cloaks- David Dalglish
9, 10, 11, 12, 13- rest of shadow dance series, David Dalglish
14. The kindness of enemies- Leila Aboulela.
15. The good liar-Nicholas Searle.
16. A gathering of shadows- VE Schwab. Bloody brilliant