the great urban75 2016 reading challenge thread

[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 bit long and rambling and directionless, but interesting all the way through. Basically a woman's life's story, told through photos and flashbacks. Not one of his best but even at his worst he beats many authors into a cocked hat.

Edit- actually worth saying the most interesting thing about it is the photos. The protagonist is a photographer, and most chapters have a photo in them that Boyd found- he's kind of stitched together a life from those funny boxes of old photos you find in the back corners of junk shops. Which is pretty impressive - and intriguing

 

[chainsawjob]

I managed 27/20 last year, so I'll go for 35 this time. Took me a while to finish the book I started reading before New Year (Men at Arms, the first in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy), so off to a slow start with this year's books.

1/35 Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healy
2/35 Demetia Essentials – Jan Hall

Both excellent. Elizabeth is Missing is about a woman with dementia who holds the clues to an unsolved mystery but can't remember all the pieces, very warmly written, and quite a page-turner. Dementia Essentials, also warmly written, I found a very good guide to caring for someone with dementia, from early stages through to finding residential care, focusing a lot on the feelings and dilemmas for the carer, as well as practical information and advice.

Going to start using the library more to order books this year, our library is small and doesn't often have much that interests me on the shelves. Usually my books are all from charity shops, doctor's or community centre, so I read whatever I come across, so I'm aiming to seek out more books that I deliberately want to read this year. And I want to up the amount of non-fiction, which I find much slower to read and harder to persevere with. With the one I've just read I've deliberately not started the novel I've got waiting until I finished it, seems to have helped me read it quicker. I don't tend to keep books I've read unless they were so outstanding I think I'll read and re-read them, or if I want to lend them to a particular person. So most fiction goes straight back to the charity shop, non-fiction I'll keep if I think I might want to refer to it again. I like getting rid of books

 

[Voley]

1/10 My Story - Steven Gerrard
2/10 Ancient Sites In West Penwith -Cheryl Straffon
3/10 Execution Sites Of Devon And Cornwall - Richard Peirce
4/10 Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie

 

[Greebo]

1/31 Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten - Adam Fletcher
2/31 Goblin Fruit - Laini Taylor
3/31 Just Kids - Patti Smith
4/31 Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlask Against Natural Gas Drilling - Abrahm Lustgarten
5/31 The Cleaner - Mark Dawson
6/31 Saint Death - Mark Dawson

 

[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

 

[sparkybird]

1/35 Wanting - Richard Flanagan
2/35 Just Kids - Patti Smith
3/35 Granta issue 133 What have we done - Sigrid Rausing

 

[Greebo]

1/31 Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten - Adam Fletcher
2/31 Goblin Fruit - Laini Taylor
3/31 Just Kids - Patti Smith
4/31 Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlask Against Natural Gas Drilling - Abrahm Lustgarten
5/31 The Cleaner - Mark Dawson
6/31 Saint Death - Mark Dawson
7/31 The Warrior Princess Submissive - Michael Makai
8/31 Unfinished Business - The Politics of Class War - Class War

 

[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 - free crime one. Better than some.

 

[Me76]

And Persuasion is my classic for reading next after a conversation about Austen at work yesterday.

 

[BoatieBird]

I reached 70 books last year, but I a big chunk of them were finished while bored in hospital. I'm hoping for an optimistic 52 this year.

1/52 Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrell

Did you enjoy it?

 

[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

Almost gave up on this after the first chapter, but stuck with it and very glad I did.
For a book written in the 70s it felt very modern.

 

[Greebo]

1/31 Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten - Adam Fletcher
2/31 Goblin Fruit - Laini Taylor
3/31 Just Kids - Patti Smith
4/31 Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlask Against Natural Gas Drilling - Abrahm Lustgarten
5/31 The Cleaner - Mark Dawson
6/31 Saint Death - Mark Dawson
7/31 The Warrior Princess Submissive - Michael Makai
8/31 Unfinished Business - The Politics of Class War - Class War
9/31 A Pair of Jeans and other stories - Qaisra Shahraz and Qaisrta Shahrez

 

[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

 

[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)

 

[crossthebreeze]

Books read so far:
1/12 - The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
That was quite hard going because of the subject matter (rather than writing style). I'm going to read some non-fiction next.

 

[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

 

[chilango]

11/52: Knots and Crosses - Ian Rankin

 

[D'wards]

1/20 - Peter Straub - Ghost Story
2/20 - Duncan Falcolner - First Into Action

 

[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

 

[idumea]

1/52 Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrell
2/52 Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

 

[toggle]

5 books I've owned more than 3 years -8 - 9 - 10 -15 - 23 - 24-
5 books i buy during the year -17 -29 -
5 books that are 2 inch thick hardbacks that challenge me to look at them -
5 local history books -13 -
5 local fiction books -
5 fiction books not set within anglo/anglicised culture -
5 books that are about teaching myself new skills -
5 biogs/autobiogs - 25 -
5 translated fiction books -
5 of himself's books -12 -
10 pre 20th century fiction books -16 -20 - 28 -
10 books I'd need for the lit review when i get off my arse and pick the bloody project -21 -
5 books for the other thing I've got planned -14 - 26 - 27 -
10 books that i got the idea to read on this thread (or last years) -4 - 5- 18 -
5 non fiction books that aren't history - 1- 2
10 audio-books -3 - 11

1. Lynne Truss - eats shoots and leaves.
2. tansy Hoskins - stitched up
3. marie kondo- the magic art of tidying up
4. marie brennan - a natural history of dragons
5. joe abercrombie - half a war
6. octavia butler - parable of the sower
7. octavia butler - parable of the talents
8. cj cherryh - merchanters luck
9. cj cherryh - rimrunners
10. cj cherryh - cuckoo's egg
11. neal stevenson - cryptonomicon
12. paul wady - guerilla aspies
13. atkinson - mining sites in cornwall
14. margaret fuller - women in the 19th century
15. peter f hamilton - fallen dragon
16. harriet beecher stowe - uncle toms cabin
17. alice walker - the colour purple
18. marie brennan - the tropic of serpents
19. gail dines - pornland
20. jane austen - pride and prejudice
21. jeffrey klaehn - filtering the news
22. tyler stoddard smith - whore stories
23. robin hobb -sharman's crossing
24. robin hobb - forrest mage
25. amy poehlr - yes please
26. selma james - strangers and sisters
27. edmond and flemming - all work and no pay
28. nathaniel hawthorne - the scarlet letter
29. robin hobb - renegade's magic
30. helen rogers - green gone wrong
31.

 

[ringo]

2/52 Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

I keep looking at this, heard great things about her writing, but I get put off by too much theological discussion. Got a bit tired of it in Marlon James' John Crow Devil, didn't mind that it was integral to Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country.

What's it like?

 

[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

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "11.22.63" - Stephen King
2. "Blind Eye" - Stuart MacBride. Good, a bit far fetched but good

 

[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

 

[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

 

[Greebo]

1/31 Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten - Adam Fletcher
2/31 Goblin Fruit - Laini Taylor
3/31 Just Kids - Patti Smith
4/31 Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlask Against Natural Gas Drilling - Abrahm Lustgarten
5/31 The Cleaner - Mark Dawson
6/31 Saint Death - Mark Dawson
7/31 The Warrior Princess Submissive - Michael Makai
8/31 Unfinished Business - The Politics of Class War - Class War
9/31 How to Build the Perfect Rake - Kate Harper

 

[Fozzie Bear]

1/21 Scott A Wilson (ed) - Music At The Extremes: Essays on Sounds Outside the Mainstream

 

[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

Ta for the recommendation BoatieBird that's probably not something I would have chosen to read but I really enjoyed it.

 

[May Kasahara]

1/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
2/50 Justin Cronin - The Twelve
3/50 Neil Oliver - A History of Ancient Britain