the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989

 

[Biddlybee]

1/15 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

 

[Signal 11]

1/10 - Kindred - Octavia E. Butler

 

[surreybrowncap]

1/39 - All About Me! - Mel Brooks
2/39 - In The City: A Celebration of London Music - Paul Du Noyer
3/39 - Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir

This one was fun. Thankfully it is a very different type of story from the other two book. This is more of heist story.
Still hard sci-fi as it's set on a moon colony and the action centres around specific industries and economies that could arise in the circumstances.
It has some intense welding action.

 

[tim]

1/39 Iain Sinclair - The Gold Machine.
2/39 William Shakespeare - Henry V. Homework for a trip to see the current adaptation at the Globe.

 

[petee]

1/39 - All About Me! - Mel Brooks

was this great? I'd think it would have to be great.

 

[surreybrowncap]

was this great? I'd think it would have to be great.

Well - the title says it all!
He did warn us...
Gets a little tedious and repetitive as he recounts the making of the films/stage shows..
Everything and everybody is great...
It was interesting reading about his childhood growing up with his mother and elder brothers..
(Aged 2 when his father died..)
Then his life in the army...
Writing for Sid Caesar - I want to learn more about those days...
No name given for his first wife - mother of his three children...
Anne Bancroft's death gets a few lines - then back to his new production..
Then an account of all his awards and honours...
I was hoping for a little bit more depth and insight...
But whatever - I do love Mel Brooks..
Made me want to seek out his films again..
He recounts the staging of The Producers and Young Frankenstein in London
Both that I got to see...

 

[Fozzie Bear]

2/29 David King & Ernst Volland - John Heartfield: Laughter is a devastating weapon

Nice but bleak coffee table book about the German anti-Nazi photo montagist. David King did the striking artwork for the Anti Nazi League in the late 70s.

 

[hitmouse]

1/39 Iain Sinclair - The Gold Machine.
2/39 William Shakespeare - Henry V. Homework for a trip to see the current adaptation at the Globe.

Is that the one where they play tennis with the dolphin?

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)

3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

Normally I'm very disciplined about only reading one book at a time, but I've now bookinceptioned myself by taking a break from Thompson to read Atwood and then a break from Atwood to read this. Went into it knowing very little, which I think added to my enjoyment of it. Vaguely expected there to be a happy ending with the protagonist being found to be innocent, turns out the protagonist very much does not get found innocent and have a happy ending. Good, bleak, morally ambiguous stuff.
Now back to my re-read of Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride. Much as I appreciated Kent's total bleakness, and The Robber Bride is certainly not the cheeriest book ever or anything, but it is nice going back to a book where people make jokes sometimes. Also an unexpected connection there in terms of "books where characters kill their rivals' livestock". Natan's sheep in Burial Rites and Charis's chickens in Robber Bride both don't get a particularly easy time of it.

 

[tim]

Is that the one where they play tennis with the dolphin?

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)

3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

Normally I'm very disciplined about only reading one book at a time, but I've now bookinceptioned myself by taking a break from Thompson to read Atwood and then a break from Atwood to read this. Went into it knowing very little, which I think added to my enjoyment of it. Vaguely expected there to be a happy ending with the protagonist being found to be innocent, turns out the protagonist very much does not get found innocent and have a happy ending. Good, bleak, morally ambiguous stuff.
Now back to my re-read of Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride. Much as I appreciated Kent's total bleakness, and The Robber Bride is certainly not the cheeriest book ever or anything, but it is nice going back to a book where people make jokes sometimes. Also an unexpected connection there in terms of "books where characters kill their rivals' livestock". Natan's sheep in Burial Rites and Charis's chickens in Robber Bride both don't get a particularly easy time of it.

Yes, the wayward Prince Harry takes over and gets crosser than John Mackenroe over the aforementioned 's balls. The goes on to lose the Agincourt Open. Harry has lots of bad guys killed and one of his besties hanged. The dead 's sister is forced to marry Harry. In a side plot the Archbishop of Canterbury does some scheming. How different thing were in those days!


1/39 Iain Sinclair - The Gold Machine.
2/39 William Shakespeare - Henry V.
3/39 Andrea Camilleri - The Overnight Kidnapper.

In the latter, Inspector Montalbano is feeling his age. He still gets beaten you by randoms on the beach but doesn't go for long swims anymore.
Anyway some people get Kidnapped others get killed. The Mafia feel insulted because they don't like being blamed for other people's shoddy workmanship. And vast amounts of Sicilian food is eaten.

I picked this up cheap from the bookshop near work and it was an easy read. I could have read it in Italian, had the bookshop next to work stocked the Italian version. I could have read something by Sciascia in Italian, who has a more serious reputation for writing fiction about crime in Sicilly. I might buy something else by Camilleri tomorrow because they've got lots of his books and I trying to put off reading Tristram Shandy.

 

[belboid]

After failing miserably last year, I am going to go for 30 again - but get rather closer to it this time.

1 - Noviolet Bulawayo - Glory

Superb, Booker nominated, Animal Farm like parody of life in Zimbabwe after (and before) the 2017 coup. Hilarious and heartbreaking.

2 - Alan Garner - Treacle Wallker

Another Booker nominee from the acclaimed children's writer. It was clearly only so nominated because the judges enjoyed Weirdstone et all as kids. It's a book that might have appealed to children of the post-war generation and just after, but nothing beyond that.

3 - Joe Thomas - White Riot (Book 1 of the United Kingdom trilogy)

Politics, music, police corruption come together in an incredibly well researched novel about the murders of Altab Ali and Colin Roach and the corruption of Stoke Newington nick (in particular). Highly entertaining, Fozzie Bear - you had this, were you around at the time it was set? I am intrigued b y the portrayal of 'Godfrey' Heaven, who seems to be rather more generously treated than I would have expected.

 

[colbhoy]

1/9 - The Outsider, A History of the Goalkeeper by Jonathan Wilson

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir

A. GYARU AND CTHULH (97 chapters [1 to 3 pages each])​

4.The Greek World - Robert Garland (The Great Courses) audio book lectures

I'm keeping a second track of webnovels and manga I finish. They will have a letter index. As they are released serially I'll do them as chapter counts.

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos

2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir
A. GYARU AND CTHULH (97 chapters [1 to 3 pages each])
4.The Greek World - Robert Garland (The Great Courses) audio book lectures

5. I Robot - Isaac Asimov
Some great ideas but also some really odd bits. Worth reading.

 

[Biddlybee]

1/15 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
2/15 - The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yōko Ogawa

 

[seventh bullet]

2/29 David King & Ernst Volland - John Heartfield: Laughter is a devastating weapon

Nice but bleak coffee table book about the German anti-Nazi photo montagist. David King did the striking artwork for the Anti Nazi League in the late 70s.

Also good are King's The Commissar Vanishes (about and with examples of Stalinist censorship's erasure and doctoring of photographs to suit current political circumstances) and Ordinary Citizens (consisting of NKVD mugshots of those arrested during the mid to late 1930s state terror, or 'mass operations' in defence of the motherland).

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Also good are King's The Commissar Vanishes (about and with examples of Stalinist censorship's erasure and doctoring of photographs to suit current political circumstances) and Ordinary Citizens (consisting of NKVD mugshots of those arrested during the mid to late 1930s state terror, or 'mass operations' in defence of the motherland).

Ah OK good, I will have a look at those when I’ve had a breather. There was a good exhibition recently of his artwork. I hadn’t realised how much of his stuff I’d sen before.

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook

3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)

 

[Biddlybee]

1/15 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
2/15 - The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yōko Ogawa
3/15 - Slug - Hollie McNish

 

[Fozzie Bear]

3 - Joe Thomas - White Riot (Book 1 of the United Kingdom trilogy)

Politics, music, police corruption come together in an incredibly well researched novel about the murders of Altab Ali and Colin Roach and the corruption of Stoke Newington nick (in particular). Highly entertaining, Fozzie Bear - you had this, were you around at the time it was set? I am intrigued b y the portrayal of 'Godfrey' Heaven, who seems to be rather more generously treated than I would have expected.

Glad you liked it! Before my time but yes Brynley Heaven has a mixed legacy - he was pretty decent with policing issues early on I think. But is mainly remembered for his vendetta against squatters amongst people I know.

I met the author recently and he said that the spycop character becomes more complex in the later books. Book 2 already written apparently.

 

[Signal 11]

2/10 - Felicette: The Space Cat - Stuart Atkinson

 

[tim]

1/39 Iain Sinclair - The Gold Machine.
2/39 William Shakespeare - Henry V.
3/39 Andrea Camilleri - The Overnight Kidnapper.
4/39 Andrea Camilleri - A Blade of Light.

I went back to the bookshop and bought two more Camilleri. A sense of Déjà vu probably because I've seen the TV adaption if this one. They are also quite formulaic

 

[inva]

1/35 Middlemarch by George Eliot
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
Mostly very good, the chapters on money and crises both excellent and deal with both subjects with a lot of clarity, in other places the book becomes a bit muddled I thought and politically very state focused. They do try and introduce the theoretical framework in an accessible way, not sure how much they succeeded for anyone not already familiar with Marx though. The chapter on robots, knowledge and value goes off on an odd digression about quantum theory which seemed completely unecessary to prove what they were trying to prove (I assume that was mainly Carchedi as I think I remember some similar stuff in Behind the Crisis) as well as a brief discussion of video games which suggested neither of them are at all familiar with video games. Final chapter on socialism is a little hard to take seriously but that's probably unavoidable when you're talking about a hypothetical utopian society, fair play for giving it a go I suppose and it's not uninteresting. Overall definitely a worthwhile read.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway" - Ruth Ware
2. "The Paris Apartment" - Lucy Foley

3. "Force of Nature" - Jane Harper. Atmospheric thriller which makes you imagine the unease of being lost in the Australian bush. Recommended.

 

[seventh bullet]

Starting with the books I got for Christmas, so...

1. The Soviet Occupation of Germany: Hunger, Mass Violence and the Struggle for Peace, 1945-47- Filip Slaveski.

A fairly short monograph which gives a decent overview of the subject and how morality is not some solid, concrete thing, but the sense of it changes and becomes skewed perhaps most sharply in a time of war, with military authorities attempting to strike a balance between creating a stable occupation while keeping Red Army forces from outright disorder by tolerating behaviour that had terrible consequences for ordinary German citizens. Roving bands of liberated camp inmates, impossible in the early days for the Soviet military to control, were also bent on revenge, 'destroying anything and anyone German.'

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
2/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half the World
3/45 - George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London

4/45 Jack London - The Call of the Wild

 

[belboid]

Glad you liked it! Before my time but yes Brynley Heaven has a mixed legacy - he was pretty decent with policing issues early on I think. But is mainly remembered for his vendetta against squatters amongst people I know.

I met the author recently and he said that the spycop character becomes more complex in the later books. Book 2 already written apparently.

'scourge of the squatters' was what I'd vaguely heard as well. It will be intriguing to see how they all develop!

(by the by, another friend of mine, who is quoted slightly more than who I presume you are, not only didn't get sent a copy of the book, he didn't even know it existed)

 

[Fozzie Bear]

'scourge of the squatters' was what I'd vaguely heard as well. It will be intriguing to see how they all develop!

(by the by, another friend of mine, who is quoted slightly more than who I presume you are, not only didn't get sent a copy of the book, he didn't even know it existed)

Yes there were some... altercations... apparently.

That's a shame about your mate, I assume it isn't Paul Weller. ;-) I'd imagine blagging a copy of the book is pretty easy, I think they are a reasonably big publisher. (we can have a chat by PM if you like?)