the great urban75 2016 reading challenge thread

[billy_bob]

yeah, it's enjoyable, but Bryson is a pompous arse. He doesn't think much of lower-class oiks.

I read my first Bryson book (Notes from a Small Island) last year and came to the same two conclusions. I thought he'd be good company but I found him quite unpleasant.

 

[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

6/32 - Peter May - Coffin Road
7/32 - Tom Rob Smith - Child 44

 

[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
7/35 In the Winter Dark - Tim Winton

8/35 Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton

 

[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
10/51 - What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
11/51 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
12/51 - Maigret Gets Angry by Georges Simenon

 

[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
13/20 Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense Of The Twentieth Century - John Higgs

 

[ffsear]

More ww2 book recommendations please.

 

[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
17/60 Naoki Higoshida - The Reason I Jump
18/60 Bill Bryson - The Road To Little Dribbling
19/60 Shaun Tan - Tales From Outer Suburbia
20/60 William Grill - Shackleton's Journey
21/60 John Agard - Book
22/60 Kester Aspden - The Hounding Of David Oluwale
23/60 Chris Beckett - The Holy Machine
24/60 Neil Gaiman - Coraline
25/60 Francis Hardinge - The Lie Tree

 

[Pickman's model]

15/50 marco pasi, 'aleister crowley and the temptation of politics'

16/50 sax rohmer, 'the trail of fu-manchu'

 

[marty21]

More ww2 book recommendations please.

Eastern Approaches - Fitzroy Maclean.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

1/50 The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence -- Martin Gayford
2/50 The Boxcar Children -- Gertrude Warner
3/50 The Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and their Food -- John Dickie
4/50 Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X -- Deborah Davis.
5/50 White Trash Zombie Gone Wild - Diana Rowland
6/50 Dead to Me - Anton Strout
7/50 Deader Still- Anton Strout
8/50 Dead matter - Anton Strout
9/50 American Gothic: The Life of America's Most Famous Painting - Steven Biel
10/50 Impulse - Steven Gould
11/50 My life as a White Trash Zombie - Diana Rowland
12/50 Silent Spring - Rachael Carson

13/50 Koko Takes a Holiday - Kieran Shea Think: Tank Girl runs a brothel in outer space. Only the most high class literature for me.

 

[Pickman's model]

16/50 sax rohmer, 'the trail of fu-manchu'

17/50 frances yates, 'the occult philosophy in the elizabethan age'

 

[Pickman's model]

1/50 The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence -- Martin Gayford
2/50 The Boxcar Children -- Gertrude Warner
3/50 The Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and their Food -- John Dickie
4/50 Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X -- Deborah Davis.
5/50 White Trash Zombie Gone Wild - Diana Rowland
6/50 Dead to Me - Anton Strout
7/50 Deader Still- Anton Strout
8/50 Dead matter - Anton Strout
9/50 American Gothic: The Life of America's Most Famous Painting - Steven Biel
10/50 Impulse - Steven Gould
11/50 My life as a White Trash Zombie - Diana Rowland
12/50 Silent Spring - Rachael Carson

13/50 Koko Takes a Holiday - Kieran Shea Think: tank girl runs a brothel in outter space. Only the most high class literature for me.

you might like luckhurst's book on zombies

 

[crossthebreeze]

1/12 - The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
2/12 - Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross
3/12 - Eric by Shaun Tan
4/12 - Orange is the new Black by Piper Kerman
5/12 - The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
6/12 - The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution by Patrick Cockburn

7/12 - Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
Great fun, poetic, and brilliant.

 

[chainsawjob]

7/12 - Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
Great fun, poetic, and brilliant.

Loved that book, my favourite for years and years

 

[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
13/20 Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense Of The Twentieth Century - John Higgs
14/20 So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson

 

[Orang Utan]

14/20 So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson

what did you think of that?

 

[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
16/15 Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan

 

[Voley]

what did you think of that?

Enjoyed it. I googled it after you mentioned it so thanks for that. First book of his that I've read and I like his style, particularly the way he's happy to change his position in the face of decent argument. I found the first few descriptions of how the Internet turns on people really genuinely disturbing. I've only ever seen it happen on a much smaller scale (here, basically). If I've a criticism I didn't find the chapter on Max Moseley that convincing - I'm not sure he's really ever put his scandal to bed in the way that Jon Ronson seemed to think he had. And it didn't really seem to conclude very well. More questions than answers at the end I thought, although that's not necessarily a bad thing. A good investigation into a really weird topic that we're probably all guilty of to some degree. Certainly got me thinking. The batshit course he went on where everyone was brutally frank to the point of outright aggression made me laugh. Just started "The Psychopath Test" now and am enjoying that, too. "Them," his one about extremism/conspiracy theorists looks interesting too.

 

[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
14/50 New Year Island, Paul Draker - graphic and bloody account of 10 people left on an island to compete against each other for a reality show. A bit too long and some slight continuity problems, but very good if you like that sort of thing.

 

[ringo]

1/45 An American Outlaw - John Stonehouse
2/45 George's Marvellous Medicine - Roald Dahl
3/45 Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton
4/45 Killer In The Rain - Raymond Chandler
5/45 Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
6/45 Woken Furies - Richard K Morgan
7/45 The Wall Jumper - Peter Schneider
8/45 Care of the Soul - Thomas Moore
9/45 The Mosquito Coast - Paul Theroux

 

[chainsawjob]

8/35 Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton

This was an awesome book. The writing is so skilled, the storytelling, the dialogue, the way he says so much by what he leaves out, it really made an impact on me. Deeply thought-provoking, getting across a 'political' message by telling a story, full of humanity and even-handedness. What a writer.

 

[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
16/15 Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan
17/15 The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You - S. Bear Bergman

 

[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
17/60 Naoki Higoshida - The Reason I Jump
18/60 Bill Bryson - The Road To Little Dribbling
19/60 Shaun Tan - Tales From Outer Suburbia
20/60 William Grill - Shackleton's Journey
21/60 John Agard - Book
22/60 Kester Aspden - The Hounding Of David Oluwale
23/60 Chris Beckett - The Holy Machine
24/60 Neil Gaiman - Coraline
25/60 Francis Hardinge - The Lie Tree
26/60 Dan Rhodes - The Professor Who Got Stuck In The Snow

 

[chainsawjob]

17/15 The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You - S. Bear Bergman

That's an intriguing title, was it good?

 

[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
10/51 - What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
11/51 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
12/51 - Maigret Gets Angry by Georges Simenon
13/51 - Deer Hunting With Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America by Joe Bageant
14/51 - The Retreat from Class: A New 'True' Socialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood

 

[ringo]

This was an awesome book. The writing is so skilled, the storytelling, the dialogue, the way he says so much by what he leaves out, it really made an impact on me. Deeply thought-provoking, getting across a 'political' message by telling a story, full of humanity and even-handedness. What a writer.

Yes, very moving, brilliantly written, if I'd read it as a teenager I might have finally woken up to why my mates cared about such things a little earlier. I loved this line:

“because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.”

 

[ringo]

Should have been in what you reading...

 

[chainsawjob]

That's a good line. I thought I may have read it as a teenager, but it didn't ring any bells, and I'm entirely capable of forgetting books not long after I've read them. I did read Biko by Donald Woods around age twenty, and saw the film Cry Freedom, similarly moving.

 

[iona]

That's an intriguing title, was it good?

I enjoyed reading it. It's a collection of essays on gender and identity - title is a reference to the safety announcement at the beginning of a flight, and a time the author heard it just after a homophobe had refused to sit next to hir on a plane and that got hir thinking about being visibly queer and how it affects a life ("Once I finished chewing on the phrase, I recognized that I nearly always know where the nearest exit is, metaphorical or actual, when I am interacting with new people. I am nervous if I feel I don't.")

 

[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
16/60 Bryant & May : The Burning Man - Christopher Fowler.
17/60 Red Bones - Ann Cleeves