Goodreads Reading Challenge/General Bookery

[Liam]

https://scalingthetbrpile.home.blog/2019/01/02/the75/

I've started a new blog covering my attempts to read 75 books by authors I own books from but have never read.

Here's the list:

1-7. ‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust

8. ‘Look Who’s Back’ by Timur Vermes

9. ‘Red Rising’ by Pierce Brown

10. ‘A Death in the Family’ by Karl Ove Knausgaard
11. ‘Gravity's Rainbow’ by Thomas Pynchon
12. ‘Titus Groan’ by Mervyn Peake
13. ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan
14. ‘The Bone Clocks’ by David Mitchell
15. ‘Anno Dracula’ by Kim Newman
16. ‘Ship of Magic’ by Robin Hobb
17. ‘Papillion’ by Henri Charrière
18. ‘Ring’by Koji Suzuki
19. ‘The Song of Achilles’ by Madeline Miller
20. ‘Under the Volcano’ by Malcolm Lowry
21. ‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante
22. ‘Ancillary Justice’ by Ann Leckie
23. ‘The Sisters Brothers’ by Patrick deWitt
24. ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
25. ‘The English Patient’ by Michael Ondaatje
26. ‘Fates and Furies’ by Lauren Groff
27. ‘Wilt’ by Tom Sharpe
28. ‘End of the Affair’ by Graham Greene
29. ‘Olive Ketteridge’ by Elizabeth Strout
30. ‘Saville’ by David Storey
31. ‘The Famished Road’ by Ben Okri
32. ‘The Sellout’ by Paul Beatty
33. ‘The Axeman's Jazz’ by Ray Celestin
34. ‘Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk’ by Ben Fountain
35. ‘Of Human Bondage’ by W. Somerset Maugham
36. ‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson
37. ‘Children of Time’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky
38. ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers
39. ‘Temeraire’ by Naomi Novik
40. ‘The Forever War’ by Joe Haldeman
41. ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier
42. ‘The Prestige’ by Christopher Priest
43. ‘Hyperion’ by Dan Simmons
44. ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern
45. ‘The Black Dahlia’ by James Ellroy
46. ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ by John Irving
47. ‘Alone in Berlin’ by Hans Fallada
48. ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr
49. ‘Never Mind’ by Edward St Aubyn
50. ‘Different Class’ by Joanne Harris
51. ‘Purple Hibiscus’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
52. ‘Fight Club’ by Chuck Palahniuk
53. ‘The Gallows Pole’ by Benjamin Myers
54. ‘Red Mars’ by Kim Stanley Robinson
55. ‘Flights’ by Olga Tokarczuk
56. ‘Wizard of the Crow’ by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
57. ‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
58. ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison
59. ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ by Kevin Kwan
60. ‘The Golden Notebook’ by Dorris Lessing
61. ‘Milkman’ by Anna Byrns
62. ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton
63. ‘The Fifth Season’ by N.K. Jemisin
64. ‘The Third Policeman’ by Flann O’Brien
65. ‘Conversations with Friends’ by Sally Rooney
66. ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt
67. ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
68. ‘Runaway’ by Alice Munro
69. ‘Kavalier and Clay’ by Michael Chabon
70. ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen
71. ‘Offshore’ by Penelope Fitzgerald
72. ‘Wool’ by Hugh Howey
73. ‘Shadow of the Wind’ by Carlos Ruis Zafon
74. ‘Midnight's Children’ by Salman Rushdie
75. ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov

[Malenko]

I've only read 3 out of those 75. I really need to read more.

[Skummy]

Really curious to know your thoughts on Titus Groan. It's one of my favourite books, but Peake's style can be a little esoteric.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

What's a good Terry Prachett book to start with?

[Liam]

6 hours ago, Malenko said:

I've only read 3 out of those 75. I really need to read more.

Which ones?

4 hours ago, Skummy said:

Really curious to know your thoughts on Titus Groan. It's one of my favourite books, but Peake's style can be a little esoteric.

I tried to read it before but struggled to get into it. Thought that given time and focus, I feel I'd really enjoy it.

[Skummy]

On Pratchett, I'd recommend starting with either Guards! Guards! or Mort, his style is well established by then, but they're still early enough in the series that they'll feel introductory.

[Malenko]

2 hours ago, Liam said:

Which ones?

Since you asked, I actually had to count and it turns out I've read 4.

I read Gravity's Rainbow. I liked it but it's not Pynchon's best (for my tastes that is).

I liked Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook. Also not the one I would choose to read first, although I guess it's her most famous.

Nabokov's Lolita wasn't my favourite thing to read because of the story itself but I had started reading it, so...

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a good book. I feel it's one of those books where it takes a while until you really get into it so I can imagine a lot of people not reading the whole thing.

I read a lot of Chuck Pahlaniuk but not Fight Club because I feel/know it just won't be the same after having watched the movie.

[Liam]

For those who want to follow, I've basically used a random number generator to choose my first potential book (out of three).

Choices are:

‘Wilt’ by Tom Sharpe

‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen

‘Wizard of the Crow’ by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

https://scalingthetbrpile.home.blog/2019/01/03/the-rubric/

[Liam]

Book 1 done - 'Wilt' by Tom Sharpe

https://scalingthetbrpile.home.blog/2019/01/05/book-1-wilt-by-tom-sharpe/

TL;DR - unlikeable characters, likeable story, sex toy as main plot point.

[METALMAN]

I've finished three books this year (started them all last year save for the last one)

Moneyland by Oliver Bullough

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney.

I really liked all three.

Edited January 5, 2019 by metalman

[Liam]

3 hours ago, metalman said:

I've finished three books this year (started them all last year save for the last one)

Moneyland by Oliver Bullough

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney.

I really liked all three.

I've got Conversations With Friends on my list, so glad that you enjoyed it.

[GhostMachine]

Getting ready to read either this https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21412202-as-you-wish

or https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17619991-escaping-the-dead

Can't decide which.

[Liam]

http://scalingthetbrpile.home.blog/2019/01/13/book-2-snow-crash-by-neal-stephenson

Book 2: 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson

TL;DR good world building and exciting finish, but a lot of exposition that left me cold in the middle.

[Liam]

https://scalingthetbrpile.home.blog/2019/01/20/book-3-fates-and-furies-by-lauren-groff/

Book 3: 'Fates and Furies' by Lauren Groff.

TL;DR interesting story about a marriage told from two competing POVs. The second half does give way to some implausible stuff, but a worthwhile read otherwise.

[GhostMachine]

Liam, Snow Crash is probably Neal Stephenson's most well known book, but its not exactly his best. If you enjoyed it enough to give him another shot, try this:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age

[Liam]

2 hours ago, GhostMachine said:

Liam, Snow Crash is probably Neal Stephenson's most well known book, but its not exactly his best. If you enjoyed it enough to give him another shot, try this:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age

I had the choice of 'Snow Crash' and 'Cryptonomicon'.

I didn't mind it (I gave it ****), but the info dump in the middle really slowed it down for me. I might give him another go, but I also feel that a younger me might have appreciated it more perhaps.

[apsham]

I'm three books in this year and so I decided to jump into the first volume of the Stormlight Archive which would be my biggest undertaking aside from The Stand. I'm really into it right off the bat, but still felt like I couldn't read for all that long of a period of time - which is something that is really starting to annoy me. I just seem to get restless.

[METALMAN]

I read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on holiday over the weekend. It was really good. I like these things that show you different cultures from different points of view. Kind of interesting that some of the things the Nigerian protagonist found weird about America were things I found weird about America too.

[GhostMachine]

On 20/01/2019 at 14:49, Liam said:

I had the choice of 'Snow Crash' and 'Cryptonomicon'.

I didn't mind it (I gave it ****), but the info dump in the middle really slowed it down for me. I might give him another go, but I also feel that a younger me might have appreciated it more perhaps.

Fair enough. 

Haven't read Cryptonomicon, so I can't say anything about that book.

 

[Jimmy]

11 hours ago, metalman said:

I read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on holiday over the weekend. It was really good. I like these things that show you different cultures from different points of view. Kind of interesting that some of the things the Nigerian protagonist found weird about America were things I found weird about America too.

Really liked this book too. It only lost me a little in the section where it's just intellectuals discussing things a lot instead of the character experiencing things, but I also know that it served a purpose and allowed an insight into something that eventually effects her. I generally thought it was brilliantly done and quite eye-opening.