Add to my tally:Jane Austen - Pride and PrejudiceJerome Jerome - Three Men in a BoatP. G. Wodehouse - Uncle Fred in the Springtime
And I picked up the second Folio classique volume of Comte of Monte-Cristo and that's what I'm reading.
I expected to really love Jerome but had trouble keeping my eyes on the page. Maybe I was just tired.
― jmm, Monday, 31 December 2018 16:15 (five years ago) link
I read about 105 books in 2018, including a few second or third reads (The Waves), but these five new ones were best.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 31 December 2018 16:37 (five years ago) link
― jmm, Monday, 31 December 2018 16:15 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i love my reading, i could watch it all day etc
― imago, Monday, 31 December 2018 18:31 (five years ago) link
Christopher Barzak - The Love We Share Without KnowingPhilippa Pearce - Tom's Midnight GardenJaroslav Kalfar - Spaceman of BohemiaDavid Zindell - NevernessThomas Tryon - Harvest HomePaul Theroux - The Great Railway BazaarPaul Park - Soldiers of ParadisePaul Park - Sugar RainPaul Park - The Cult of Loving KindnessPenelope Lively - Going BackM. John Harrison - Viriconium NightsM. John Harrison - In ViriconiumH. P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Out of TimeH.M. Hoover (RIP) - The Shepherd Moon
I gave up on Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia (stodgy/sexy Thoreauvean utopia) after 467 pages, but I might force myself to finish it in 2019. the sunk cost fallacy is a powerful motivator
― v. s. rupaul (unregistered), Tuesday, 1 January 2019 02:52 (five years ago) link
This is all the fiction I read in 2018. Bolded titles are especially recommended. Some of the Dutch and German books haven't been translated in English, but I translated their titles for easier reading:
Gerard Reve, Werther NielandDavid Mitchell, Cloud AtlasMartha Batalha, The Invisible Life of Euridice GusmaoGeorges Perec, A Man AsleepVerna B. Carleton, Back to Berlin: An Exile ReturnsJenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, GoneMaarten van der Graaff, Worms and AngelsNikos Kazantzakis, Christ RecrucifiedJason Matthews, Red SparrowJane Harper, The DryMaurits Mok, The UndergroundJason Matthews, Palace of TreasonFrank Martinus Arion, Double PlayDennis Lehane, Since We FellGraeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody ProjectStefan Brijs, The Angel MakerDan Simmons, Song of KaliPhilip Roth, The Plot Against AmericaRobert Franquinet, QuicksandSadeq Hedayat, The Blind OwlJuli Zeh, UnterleutenShirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill HouseJames Herbert, The FogT.E.D. Klein, The CeremoniesFrans Coenen, Sunday RestSimon Vestdijk, Mr. Visser's Trip to HellMaylis de Kerangal, The HeartJoost Zwagerman, Gimmick!Peter Terrin, Post mortemStuart Turton, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn HardcastleA.J. Finn, The Woman in the WindowGerard Reve, The Evenings
― ArchCarrier, Tuesday, 1 January 2019 15:05 (five years ago) link
only 1 more than last year...
As I Lay Dying — William Faulkner Julia and the Bazooka — Anna KavanFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House — Michael WolffNature Documentary: Poems — Noah Cicero Solaris — Stanislaw Lem McGlue — Ottessa Moshfegh Steps — Jerzy Kosinski The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin Twelve — Nick McDonell An Expensive Education — Nick McDonell Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change — Tao LinAll About Love: New Visions — bell hooks Natural Causes — Barbara Ehrenreich The Breast — Philip Roth The Seagull — Anton Chekhov I Married a Communist — Philip Roth My Year of Rest and Relaxation — Ottessa MoshfeghRoom to Dream — David Lynch and Kristine McKenna The Chapo Guide to Revolution — Chapo Trap HouseF*cked — Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson The Ghost Writer — Philip Roth Fear: Trump in the White House — Bob WoodwardJane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë The Zap Gun — Philip K. DickIn the Blink of an Eye — Walter MurchIf Beale Street Could Talk — James Baldwin That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound — Daryl SandersI Might Regret This — Abbi Jacobson Notes on the Cinematograph — Robert Bresson The Red and the Blue — Steve Kornacki The Elementary Particles — Michel Houellebecq
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 03:42 (five years ago) link
I can remember reading, for the first time:
Paul Beatty, THE SELLOUTJonathan Lethem, MORE ALIVE AND LESS LONELYJonathan Lethem, THE FERAL DETECTIVEJonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak (writers), OMEGA: THE UNKNOWNHenry Roth, CALL IT SLEEPTerry Eagleton, RADICAL SACRIFICEColm Toibin, MAD, BAD, DANGEROUS TO KNOW
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 13:24 (five years ago) link
All the above were good in their ways. Toibin the shallowest as a book, I suppose. Beatty a challenging blast. JL's occasional essays terrific. His new novel a return to form. His comic book thoughtful, artful, poignant. Roth the longest read but worthwhile. TE maybe coasting but can still make every other sentence an aphorism.
I might manage to read more books for the first time in 2019.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 13:27 (five years ago) link
Books I started, read about a third, but did not finish:
Stoner, John Williams
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, December 24, 2018 1:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
noooooo
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, December 25, 2018 9:39 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Mr. Jaq finished reading Stoner aloud to me on New Year's Eve. It felt a fitting end to a brutal year.
― Jaq, Thursday, 3 January 2019 00:33 (five years ago) link
Here's wot I read, with * for favourites and ** for super bingo classics.
No real disappointments, but The Hobbit was a bit of a letdown (classic first half, mostly tedious second).
Amber SpyglassFive Little PigsOffshore Exit West Faithful Place *The Jewish JokeMy Brilliant Friend * The Examined LifeThe Big Sleep **A Little History of PhilosophyWhy I'm No Longer Talking to White People About RaceLords and Ladies *The Pursuit of Love *A Sting in the Tale *Zuckerman UnboundLeviathan WakesThe SwitchLa Belle SauvageThe Three Musketeers **The Day of the Doctor *The Hot Rock Thunderball Asymmetry *Uncle Fred in the Springtime In a Lonely Place Manhattan Beach * The HobbitTraitorous Purse The Story of a New Name **How to Stop Brexit Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession Right Ho JeevesBetween Therapist and Client
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 3 January 2019 19:52 (five years ago) link
Wins - did you like any of the Ketchum books especially?
Unregistered - I'm very much looking forward to Zindell, Park and MJ Harrison, any thoughts?
here's mine
Isis & Corrick (editors) Drowning In BeautySebastian Wolfe (editor) - Little Book Of HorrorsRobert Aickman (editor) - Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories vol.1Clark Ashton Smith - Collected Fantasies vol.1William Hope Hodgson - Collected Fiction vol.1Farah Rose Smith - The VisitorFarah Rose Smith - The Almanac Of DustFarah Rose Smith - EvisceratorJayaprakash Satyamurthy - Weird Tales Of A BangaloreanJayaprakash Satyamurthy - A Volume Of SleepKarin Tidbeck - JagannathAliette De Bodard - The Citadel Of Weeping PearlsAliya Whiteley - The BeautyTanith Lee - Tempting The GodsMR James - Collected Ghost StoriesHP Lovecraft - Call Of Cthulhu (embarrassed how late I'm coming to some of these, I've had a lot of this stuff for well over a decade)
((nonfiction))Broderick & Di Filippo - Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010
((comics))Ibrahim R Ineke - Eloise
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 January 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
Also read about eight books I haven't finished yet.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 January 2019 20:01 (five years ago) link
I had much reduced year I think, probably down to a reduced commute and more other distractions. Most of these seem to have been read out in the park, during the very long, very hot British summer. I seem to have read virtually nothing from Jan-Mar and Oct-Dec.
George Eliot – MiddlemarchFilip Springer – History of a DisappearanceElif Batuman – The IdiotRobert Musil – The Confusions of Young TorlessDenis Johnson – Tree of SmokeEimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed ThingDan Hancox – Inner City PressureRoss Raisin – A NaturalJon McGregor – Reservoir 13William Gass – Omensetter’s LuckIris Murdoch – The Sea, The SeaAnn Quin – ThreeNicole Krauss – Forest DarkThomas Pynchon – VinelandOlivia Sudjic - SympathyJohn Updike – Rabbit ReduxRosie Snajdr – The Hypocritical ReaderGuy Gunaratne – In Our Mad And Furious CityWill Eaves – MurmurAlvaro Enrique – Sudden DeathTim Weiner – Legacy of AshesRichard Ford – The SportswriterMike McCormack – Solar Bones
― Matt DC, Saturday, 5 January 2019 17:05 (five years ago) link
how was Omensetter's Luck?
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 January 2019 05:23 (five years ago) link
it's been a loooong time but I remember omensetter's luck being an odd one in that he hasn't yet gone full pomo as he would in his later two novels, it's strange/"difficult" but in a way that's more in line with something like Faulkner - iirc the thing that felt the most gassian to me was the character names (that and the fact that he chose to set it in 1890s Ohio because it was a place & time he knew nothing about, and wrote it without doing any research lol)
Robert, I'd hesitate to use the word "like"; you realise pretty quickly that ketchum isn't really trying to scare you so much as make you feel sick in your soul from relentless hopelessness and ugliness. This is most effective in the extremely fucked up and sad the girl next door, apparently based on a true case; but even with something like off season, which from its schlocky urban-legend cannibal hillbilly premise (not to mention a bunch of hilariously gratuitous sex scenes at the start) seems like it'll be this fun gory survival horror but is just grim and stomach-turning in its unpleasantness. Or the lost, a very tight thriller of JDs run amok in the 60s that ends with a really disgusting and racist prison rape fantasy - I have a feeling JK's politics were probably quite reactionary from reading these.
Those three are all pretty good tho, but after a while I was like ok I pretty much know what to expect from this guy now: extreme violence committed against (or perpetrated by) children, a parallel narrative of a world-weary ineffectual cop who arrives too late to save the day, birching (this is just a weirdly specific thing to keep showing up again and again, it's a bit yikes) - and the writing quality gets worse in the later books I read. Stranglehold is atrocious, manipulative tripe.
His short story "the box" is really good imo.
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 14:38 (five years ago) link
Also, as usual I missed a couple of books off my list: I also read out are the lights by Richard Laymon and our house by louise candlish. I found the Laymon on the "take a book, leave a book" shelf in our launderette and got excited because it has the half-remembered story I posted about here and later tried to look up but couldn't find any evidence that any such story existed. Laymon's an "extreme" horror merchant but much sillier than ketchum, all action and dialogue, one-sentence paragraphs and massive type, you can read a book of his in a couple of hours. The Candlish was me getting suckered by marketing, it was promoted with the hashtag #THATlastline & I was curious. It was ok, ymmv depending on how much you care about the anxieties of homeowners, the last line was completely unremarkable.
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:11 (five years ago) link
I've never been in a hurry to read Laymon as he's particularly known for gratuitous rape scenes but I feel obligated to try a few.
Girl Next Door and Off Season are the Ketchum fan favorites (haven't read any myself). I really don't know much about Ketchum's politics but he isn't one of those writers whose fans swing right or left. There's a decent summary and biographical info in these links.
https://thebedlamfiles.com/commentary/jack-ketchum-1946-2018/https://thebedlamfiles.com/nonfiction/book-of-souls/
The first piece is “Henry Miller and The Push,” a memoir of Ketchum’s mercifully brief 1970s-era tenure as a New York literary agent, with clients that included his longtime hero Henry Miller. After pushing an old woman to the ground in a rush to catch a taxi, an act that shocked him as much as it did the woman he pushed, Ketchum became determined to quit his job immediately—but not until after meeting his idol face to face. The tale’s final pages lovingly detail that meeting, with Henry Miller registering as “a living fucking saint.” I’ve read other recollections of Miller that paint a far less rosy picture, but Ketchum’s claims are persuasive. Certainly his account demonstrates the enormous influence Henry Miller had on Ketchum’s life and writing, starting with the title of the book under discussion, which was evidently inspired by that of Miller’s BOOK OF FRIENDS.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:34 (five years ago) link
I never even heard of Ketchum until early last year when I went to this annual recital/birthday party given by a flamenco guitarist and he mentioned various friends who had recently passed including Jack Ketchum and Billy Joel's piano teacher Morton Estrin.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:45 (five years ago) link
I loved Omensetter's Luck, but yes it did remind me more of Faulkner than anything by Barth or Gaddis or Pynchon, which was what I'd been expecting.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:57 (five years ago) link
I’ve told the “what fun do monks have?” joke irlXp I shouldn’t make assumptions about politics really as I know horror is often about pushing those kinds of buttons. Re ketchum’s career as an agent, didn’t he use that to get an author signed who turned out to be himself under a pseudonym or something?
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 16:05 (five years ago) link