Goodreads Reading Challenge/General Bookery

[Liam]

On 13/07/2019 at 12:45, =BK= said:

Anybody know of any good super hero novels?  Every one I've ever run across that isnt a Marvel or DC adaptation  just seem like cash grabs by people who really wanna be writing spy novels instead. 

The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson might be for you. I only read the first book, but enjoyed it enough.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

The Whisper Man by Alex North is a brilliant read. It's a long time since I've read a book I'd genuinely call a page turner, but it fits the bill perfectly.

[Jimmy]

Recently finished All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, which was my first of his books that I'd read. I obviously know his stuff quite well from film adaptations, but I got a lot out of this, it's really beautifully written, and to an extent, falls into a sort-of similar territory as a lot of John Steinbeck's stuff that I absolutely love. Gonna crack on the The Border Trilogy over the next 6 months. 

Also read The Power, a little while after all the hype had died down. Really dug it - it's not life-changing, but had some really cool ideas in it and it read so quick. 

Also, in the last few months, finished Convenience Woman, My Sister's A Serial Killer, Bastard Out of Carolina and Year of the Flood. Absolutely loved the last last two. The first two were easy, breezy reads, but not 100% for me. 

Now moved onto Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which I've been wanting to get round to for a while. 

Target for the year was 24 books. Including Graphic Novels, I'm currently at 21. Without, I'm on 15. Hoping to hit 24 novels by the end of the year. 

[Liam]

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Recently finished All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, which was my first of his books that I'd read. I obviously know his stuff quite well from film adaptations, but I got a lot out of this, it's really beautifully written, and to an extent, falls into a sort-of similar territory as a lot of John Steinbeck's stuff that I absolutely love. Gonna crack on the The Border Trilogy over the next 6 months.

Also, in the last few months, finished Convenience Woman, My Sister's A Serial Killer, Bastard Out of Carolina and Year of the Flood. Absolutely loved the last last two. The first two were easy, breezy reads, but not 100% for me. 

Now moved onto Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which I've been wanting to get round to for a while. 

I own more Cormac McCarthy than I've actually read. Should really go back to his stuff - The Road was amazing.

I really enjoyed My Sister's A Serial Killer when I read it earlier this year.

Snow Crash is...interesting. Good, but didn't leave me wanting to read more Stephenson going forward. Will be interested to see what you think.

[GhostMachine]

What I want to know if @=BK=  checked out any of my super hero book recommendations upthread?

Also, I call Heidi a `book anaconda' instead of `book worm' because of the enormous amount of books she reads each year. I believe her Goodreads challenge last year was somewhere in the 75 to 100 book range, and she actually went a few books over it. I'm usually lucky if I finish 25. This year she's been too busy to read and will be lucky to clear 30. Meanwhile, I'm on pace to read at least 40 this year. 

We've both won a lot of books from the giveaways this year. Including several Kindle books. What we don't keep (once we've read them) we either donate to the library or take to a used bookstore and exchange for store credit. We've won quite a bit of autographed books since joining Goodreads, including some that were personalized. If you're not entering the giveaways, you're missing out bigtime.

Currently reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40640521-the-castle-on-sunset - First couple of chapters were boring as sin, but its actually pretty interesting once I got past those. 

 

 

[=BK=]

Haven't had time yet.

[Jimmy]

10 hours ago, Liam said:

I own more Cormac McCarthy than I've actually read. Should really go back to his stuff - The Road was amazing.

I really enjoyed My Sister's A Serial Killer when I read it earlier this year.

Snow Crash is...interesting. Good, but didn't leave me wanting to read more Stephenson going forward. Will be interested to see what you think.

Yeah I've got that sitting on my shelf courtesy of you. I've seen the film, so I think that's the reason I've stupidly put it off, but I'm gonna get to it! 

Yeah it was a really fun read. I would say it's not a book I think about often, but sometimes love to have something like that to break up reading longer books. 

Yeah, I'm only about 75 pages in so far and there's something about it so far I'm really enjoying. But there's a lot of detail that doesn't always feel absolutely necessary. I'll make sure to let you know where I settle on it.  

[apsham]

On 22/08/2019 at 14:58, Jimmy said:

Recently finished All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, which was my first of his books that I'd read. I obviously know his stuff quite well from film adaptations, but I got a lot out of this, it's really beautifully written, and to an extent, falls into a sort-of similar territory as a lot of John Steinbeck's stuff that I absolutely love. Gonna crack on the The Border Trilogy over the next 6 months.

Let me tell you I read Child of God in almost one sitting and I couldn't it it down I always meant to read another so I have Blood Meridian that I picked up around the time that Red Dead 2 came out but I ever got around to reading it because I started to read an anthology of Elmore Leonard stories instead and recently I tried to start up Blood Meridian but McCarthy's specific writing style is something I have to be in the right mood for I think that I have written in a run-on sentence enough to get this bit across

[GhostMachine]

I am planning on reading Sutree eventually.

 

[Jimmy]

On 22/08/2019 at 22:11, Liam said:

I own more Cormac McCarthy than I've actually read. Should really go back to his stuff - The Road was amazing.

I really enjoyed My Sister's A Serial Killer when I read it earlier this year.

Snow Crash is...interesting. Good, but didn't leave me wanting to read more Stephenson going forward. Will be interested to see what you think.

Oh man, the long passages of Hiro talking to the Librarian about the origins of language are...uh...a bit of a slog aren't they? 

[Liam]

7 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Oh man, the long passages of Hiro talking to the Librarian about the origins of language are...uh...a bit of a slog aren't they? 

Yep. Bits of the book are really good. It just isn't uniform in quality in any way, shape or form.

[GhostMachine]

Its not exactly Stephenson's finest book....but it is sort of a sequel (same setting, later time period) to The Diamond Age, which is really good.

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by GhostMachine

[Liam]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

Probably not worth its own thread unlike the others, but worth a read.

I've read:

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Fifth Season

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Gone Girl

On Writing

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Persepolis

Levels of Life

Moneyball

The Year of Magical Thinking

The Emperor of All Maladies

Normal People

A Visit from the Goon Squad

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Road

The Sixth Extinction

My Brilliant Friend

Never Let Me Go

Books such as My Brilliant Friend and A Visit from the Goon Squad are amazing. Oddly though, the highest placed one for me, Never Let Me Go, is a book I don't particularly care for. However, everyone else I know loves it, so maybe I missed something.

For non-fiction fans, The Sixth Extinction, The Emperor of All Maladies and The Immortal Life... are all really worthwhile reads.

[=BK=]

Just to let people know...

My favorite book, "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl" is free on Kindle Unlimited.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/257445.The_Astonishing_Adventures_of_Fanboy_and_Goth_Girl

When I read the book the first time in High School I picked it up for reading time in first period English and got hooked to the point that when I made it home I just laid in a pile of blankets in our shitty, empty,cold house we were moving into and finished it right there. I've read it so many times since then. The School librarian would get annoyed at me always having a copy out because it was a book club book.

[VerbalPuke]

I started and finished Midnight Express yesterday while in the hospital. Some of you may be familiar with the movie, it's about Billy Hayes, a fellow that was locked in a Turkish prison in 1970 for smuggling hash. It was a very good read, easy and quick to get through,  but kept my interest throughout. I recommend for those interested in stories of prison/crime etc.

[=BK=]

https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/Why-Can-I-No-Longer-Auto-Share-My-Goodreads-Updates-to-Facebook-1550590077008

Holy fuck this is annoying. Stupid as fuck to bin it instead of making it opt-in. I liked it to start a convo on Facebook. Now instead of it posting that I just finished a book or started one I have to go do it myself.

[=BK=]

Yeeeeees. I found a plugin that lets me compile Web Serials into ebooks so now I have the entirety of Worm on my Kindle to read.

[=BK=]

A neat thing about a writer writing their own superhero universe is that they can create a bloodbath when it's called for because they don't have to keep title heroes alive. 

Worm spoilers

Spoiler

When the first Endbringer comes there are capes slaughtered left and right. Not just nameless fodder either. Characters that have been seen and given time in the book. It feels like more major capes died than survived. 

 

[Tyrone]

I finished Charles Burns's Black Hole in two sittings, and would highly recommend it. The graphic novel's a decent length, and the plot is about a mutation passed through an STD.

Stephen King's newest book The Institute has been collecting dust on my shelf, so I figure I'll read that next.

[Jimmy]

On 03/11/2019 at 09:09, Tyrone said:

I finished Charles Burns's Black Hole in two sittings, and would highly recommend it. The graphic novel's a decent length, and the plot is about a mutation passed through an STD.

Stephen King's newest book The Institute has been collecting dust on my shelf, so I figure I'll read that next.

I just finished The Institute and really dug it. I haven't read much Stephen King, so I was really approaching it off the back of enjoying movie adaptations, his reputation, and having read the first two of The Dark Tower trilogy. I would say it was just wildly refreshing to read something so outright entertaining. It's been a while since I've read a good old-fashioned thriller and it was just exciting to get caught up in a storyline, investing in those characters and burning through pages once the story kicks into gear. I would definitely recommend it, although I have no idea how it holds up against his previous work or if it retreads any similar territory. 

Next up for me is The Testaments. 

Speaking of Margaret Atwood, I read MaddAddam this month, completing the trilogy. It was another satisfying and thought-provoking read, but fell into the trap of retreading some similar ground of the previous novels, and wasn't as illuminating or engaging at Year of The Flood, my personal favourite. It takes my total of Atwood books I've read to 9, The Testaments will be my 10th. I love the way she writes, I find her books very inspiring. 

I also finished Snow Crash...which yo-yo'ed between being exhilarating and an absolute slog. It just wasn't quite for me. A lot of invention and detail, but found the flow of the story difficult and couldn't shake the feeling of being uncomfortable with the way Stephenson describes and sexualises Y.T..