i guess i meant challenging to my sense of morality really.
i absolutely love auto-da-fe, but to each his own...
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 28 December 2015 11:46 (eight years ago) link
As an interesting aside, Bernice Rubens wrote about Canetti in her autobiography - the only person she'd ever truly hated, her father thought he was evil and she was once sorely tempted to kill him when the opportunity arose driving through Hampstead in her car. I felt a bit like that after half of Auto da Fe! Maybe I'll try it again sometime, maybe not...
― crimplebacker, Monday, 28 December 2015 12:00 (eight years ago) link
heh.. most people i know who've read it found it really great - i think there are some fans around here also.
will be interested to read more tournier as and when i have a chance.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 28 December 2015 12:02 (eight years ago) link
Highly recommend collection of fragments of his called Die Fliegenpein/The Agony of Flies.
― Die Angst des Elfmans beim Torschluss (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 28 December 2015 13:01 (eight years ago) link
jemisin - the fifth season, the inheritance trilogy
lamp, how was this?
i think that the inheritance trilogy had a lot of problems and ended up being not very enjoyable as a thing to read. i liked 'the fifth season' a lot more, there was more to distinguish itself than 'literature as social justice' which fwiw i think is an interesting thing in and of itself but wears very thin over 800 or so pages of nonsense.
― -san (Lamp), Monday, 28 December 2015 22:23 (eight years ago) link
dope booksquite a lot of them
― things that are jokes pretty much (nakhchivan), Monday, 28 December 2015 22:47 (eight years ago) link
crap booksfewer of those
― things that are jokes pretty much (nakhchivan), Monday, 28 December 2015 22:48 (eight years ago) link
Looking back there appears to be #trends - i) reading a lot of female writers (that run of Lispector, Duras, Ginzburg, Yourcenar, plus plenty of one-offs that screwed with my head - Rhys, Highsmith, Haushofer - and I revisited Woolf and Spark, carrying all the way to Walsh's Hotel, the first main writer I've checked solely from twitter), ii) I am steadily building on that personal 18th century canon (Melville (Loving Moby-Dick currently, haven't finished at the time of writing this), Nerval, Pushkin, Leskov and iii) lotsa Latin American fiction towards the end. In that respect Bolano's In Parenthesis was key to hardening my resolve to read more. Reissues are helping - Casares, Ocampo and Arlt from NYRB (only read Casares but the others will happen in 2016), Alvaro Mutis was great but also painful (this massive thing hanging around that took me such a long time to finish due to work getting heavy - and kept digging at me until I actually did so), and finally Sergio Pitol, who is the best thing I found that I had no idea was coming to me at the beginning of the year.
For poetry Cavafy was best. De Sade was the joker (i.e. great and no sorta about it)
Kurt Tucholsky - Castle Grispholm: A Summer StoryJean Rhys - Good Morning, MidnightElsa Morante - Arturo's IslandWolfgang Borchett - A Man Outside (Play)Josef Winkler - Natura MortaMichele Bernstein - The NightClarice Lispector - Agua VivaGerard de Nerval - Selected WritingsJoan Mellen - In the Realm of the sensesClarice Lispector - The Passion According to G.HAlexander Pushkin - The Captain's DaughterClarice Lispector - Breath of LifePaul Valery - Monsieur TesteMuriel Spark - Memento MoriRene Daumal - A Night of Serious Drinking
Margerite Duras - The Rapture of Lol V. SteinNatalia Ginzburg - Valentino and SagittariusMuriel Spark - Ballad of Peckham RyeNadine Gordimer - Burger's DaughterHerman Melville - The Confidence ManPatricia Highsmith - Little Tales of MisogynyMargerite Duras - Emily L.Natalia Ginzburg - Little VirtuesNatalia Ginzburg - Family SayingsFrank Wedekind - The Lulu PlaysNatalia Ginzburg - Voices in the EveningVirginia Woolf - Mrs DallowayMarlen Haushofer - The WallAssia Djebar - Seven Stories*
Marguerite Yourcenar - Memoirs of HadrianVictor Serge - Midnight in the CenturyVirginia Woolf - Street Haunting and Other EssaysMarguerite Yourcenar - Mishima: A Vision of the VoidRoberto Bolano - Between Parnthesis: Essays, Articles and Speeches 1998-2003Hilda Hilst - With my Dog's EyesJoseph Roth - PerlefterLouis-Ferdinand Celine - NormanceHalldor Laxness - Independent People*Enrique Villa-Matas - Bartleby & Co.Joseph Roth - Flight Without EndAlejandro Zambra - Ways of Going HomeCarl Jung - Flying SaucersNikolai Leskov - Selected TalesMarquis De Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Junichiro Tanizaki - The Reed Cutter and Captain Shigemoto's MotherVarious: The Existential Imagination - From de Sade to SartreIngeborg Bachmann - Three Paths to the LakeJuan Jose Saer - La GrandeRodrigo De Souza Leao - All Dogs are BlueJuan Jose Saer - ScarsDag Solstad - Shyness and DignityFyodor Dostoevsky - DemonsHan Kang - The VegetarianJosep Pla - Life EmbittersSergio Pitol - Art of FlightMiklos Szentkuthy - Towards the One and Only MetaphorAndei Platonov - The Portable PlatonovHjalmar Soderbergh - A Serious GameNadeszha Mandelstam - Hope Abandoned
Sergio Pitol - The JourneyDeszo Kosztolanyi - Kornel Esti: A NovelJoseph Roth - What I SawTarjei Vesaas - Spring NightJoseph Roth - JobVirginia Woolf - To the LighthouseRichard Weiner - Game for RealMarguerite Duras - L'AmourAlvaro Mutis - The Adventures and Misadventures of MaqrollAdolfo Bioy Casares - The Invention of MorelThomas Bernhard - The Voice ImitatorYves Bonnefoy - Rue TraversiereJoanna Walsh - Hotel
Poetry:
Wallace Stevens - SelectedNazim Hikmet - SelectedNicanor Parra - Poems and Anti-poemsYannis Ritsos - Diaries of ExileCavafy - CompleteBaudelaire - Flowers of EvilApollinaire - SelectedRovert Lowell - SelectedThe Penguin Book of Russian PoetryRoberto Bolano - Romantic DogsFrancois Villon - SelectedDante - Inferno (tr. Steve Ellis)Gunter Grass - SelectedRimbaud - CompleteZbiginew Herbert - SelectedSandor Weores and Ferenc Juhasz - SelectedHans Magnus Enzensberger - Moral Poems
* = didn't finish
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 20:45 (eight years ago) link
did the yourcenar get reprinted this year?
― -san (Lamp), Wednesday, 30 December 2015 20:48 (eight years ago) link
Picked up Hadrian 2nd hand - copies about everywhere here. Her Mishima book was from the library - think that's out of print
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 20:52 (eight years ago) link
One leopard, two birds, three wolves, a lot of Le Guin, and (at the end, just before the Ferrante which I should finish just under the wire) the reason my list may be shorter next year:
The Leopard - Guisepe Tomasi di LampedusaStoner - John WilliamsThe House of Doctor Dee - Peter AckryodThe Compass Rose - Ursula Le GuinGood Morning Midnight - Jean RhysThe Periodic Table - Primo LeviHere - Richard McGuireThe Oxford book of Modern Science Writing - VariousDear James - R O Blechmancolorless tsukuru tazaki and his years of pilgrimage - Haruki MurakamiThe Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-ExupéryThe Goldfinch - Donna TarttThe Bostonians - Henry JamesH is for Hawk - Helen MacDonaldPalestine - Joe SaccoThe Winds Twelve Quarters vol 2 - Ursula Le GuinThe Lathe of Heaven - Ursula Le GuinHer Smoke Rose up Forever - James Tiptree JrWolf Hall - Hilary MantellWolf in White Van - John DarnielleSteppenwolf - Herman HesseBring up the Bodies - Hilary MantellThe Vorrh - Brian CatlingThe Three Body Problem - Cixin LiuSettled Wanderers - VariousAnnihalation - Jeff VandermeerThreshold - Ursula Le GuinThe Rings of Saturn - WG SebaldA Haunted House - Virginia WoolfThe Winds Twelve Quarters vol 1 - Ursula Le GuinAmmonite - Nicola GriffithEngine Summer - John CrowleyThe Communist Manifesto - Marx and EngelsGulliver's Travels - Jonathan SwiftMy Mother She Killed Me My Father He Ate Me - VariousThe Story of Art - E H GombrichDawn (Lilith's Brood Book One) - Octavia ButlerA Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon JamesThe Influencing Machine - Mike JayHanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei - Barnaby MartinRebel Footprints - David RosenbergThe Worm forgives The Plough - John Stewart CollisThe Expectant Father - Armin Brott, Jennifer AshMy Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
― ledge, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 21:24 (eight years ago) link
includes a bunch of stuff from comixology and borrowed batman GNs, and the odd short story.
2014.61 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens2015.01 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley2015.02 Volume 05: The Wife and others - Anton Chekhov2015.03 The Red Inn - Honore de Balzac2015.04 Batman 1: Court Of Owls (GN) 2015.05 Snow Country - KAWABATA Yasunari 2015.06 Batman 2: City of Owls (GN) 2015.07 Batman 3: Death Of The Family (GN) 2015.08 All Star Superman (GN) 2015.09 The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury2015.10 A Desperate Character (Short) - Turgenev2015.11 The Peripheral - William Gibson2015.12 The Black Book - Ian Rankin2015.13 04 The Con Man (1957) - Ed McBain2015.14 Batman: Black Mirror (GN) 2015.15 Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy2015.16 Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens2015.17 The City and the Stars - Arthur C Clarke2015.18 Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson2015.19 A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle2015.20 Red Badge Of Courage - Stephen Crane2015.21 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain2015.22 Poseidon’s Wake - Alastair Reynolds2015.23 Batman 4: (GN) 2015.24 Batman 5: (GN) 2015.25 Mortal Causes - Ian Rankin2015.26 Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes2015.27 Thousand Cranes - KAWABATA Yasunari 2015.28 The Master And Margarita - Bulgakov2015.29 Final Crisis (GN) 2015.30 Superman: Doomed (GN) 2015.31 Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens2015.32 World Of Jeeves - P G Wodehouse (partial)2015.33 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - M R James2015.34 More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - M R James2015.35 The Great English Short-Story Writers, Volume 1 - Various (partial)2015.36 Volume 06: The Witch - Anton Chekhov2015.37 Age Of Ultron (GN) 2015.38 Joker: Death of the Family (GN) 2015.39 Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman2015.40 Old Man's War - John Scalsi2015.41 Time - Stephen Baxter2015.42 Station 11 - Emily St John Mandel2015.43 North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell2015.44 The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie2015.45 Hut Six Story - Gordon Welchman 2015.46 Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens (not yet finished)
shocking lack of female authors, must fix that in 2016.
― koogs, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 21:54 (eight years ago) link
Just as a note its something I noticed when compiling (and only the 2nd year I've done so) among a couple of other trends. I wouldn't force it - most of those female authors write and talk about things I am interested in.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 31 December 2015 10:17 (eight years ago) link
I tried to read 50% women a couple of years ago but found it too restricting in the end. I seem to manage about 30% without forcing it.
― ledge, Thursday, 31 December 2015 10:49 (eight years ago) link
Walsh's Hotel,
this arrived yesterday, really looking forward to it, I read an extract and thought it was great. may try read it in a hotel.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Thursday, 31 December 2015 10:56 (eight years ago) link
Try a year of reading only female authors. It seems an eye-opening exercise for people who actually do it.
I'm bad at writing down PDFs I read on my phone so this may be incomplete:
Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower *Roland Barthes Reader (the one edited by Susan Sontag)David J Haskins - Who Killed Mr MoonlightDonald Robertson - Stoicism and the Art of HappinessBret Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction ~Sara Maitland - How To Be AloneLloyd Bradley - Sounds Like LondonAndrea Dworkin - IntercourseMarianne Faithfull - Memories, Dreams and ReflectionsMichel Foucault - History of Sexuality Volume 1 (I did also read 2 & 3 at some point but didn't write them down)Sinclair MacKay - Ramble OnShiri Eisner - Notes For A Bisexual RevolutionJean Cocteau - The Difficulty of BeingA.S. Byatt - Portraits in FictionJohn Carey - What Good Are The Arts ~Ivan Bunin - The VillageViv Albertine - Clothes Music Boys *Poppy Z Brite - Courtney Love The Real StoryMary Midgley - Science and PoetryDebra Fine - The Fine Art of Small TalkDeborah Cameron - The Myth of Mars and VenusJill Dudley - Gods In Britain ~J. Jack Halberstam - Gaga FeminismRobert Dellar - Splitting In TwoFerdinand de Saussure - Course In General LInguistics (re-read)Robert Weiss & Jennifer Schneider - Closer Together; Further Apart ~David R Brake - Sharing Our Lives OnlineDavid Buckley - KraftwerkpublikationLynne Hume - The Religious Life of DressMelissa Harrison - Clay *Dan Gardner - Risk; The Politics and Science of FearRebecca Solnit - A Field Guide To Getting Lost *Catherine Arnold - Necropolis *Philip Marsden - Rising GroundDaphne du Maurier - My Cousin RachelWolfgang Flür - I Was A Robot (re-read)Tanith Lee - Silver Metal Lover *Judith (Jack) Halberstam - Female Masculinity *Leslie Feinberg - Stone Butch BluesBernard Sumner - Chapter and VerseSimon Reynolds - Retromania ~Steve Silberman - NeurotribesMary Midgley - Are You An Illusion?Melissa Harrison - At Hawthorn TimeGillian Flynn - Gone Girl ~Margaret Atwood - Lady Oracle
"*' for things I really loved; "~' for things I utterly hated but I thought was probably good for me to read something I disagreed with so thoroughly,
― Liebe ist kälter als der Todmorden (Branwell with an N), Thursday, 31 December 2015 11:24 (eight years ago) link
Joyce Carol Oates - The AccursedHilary Mantel - Bring Up The BodiesVladimir Nabokov - Lolita (reread)Donna Tartt - The Secret HistoryJohn Darnielle - Wolf In White VanRaymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About LoveEmma Healey - Elizabeth Is MissingMarshall Berman - All That Is Solid Melts Into AirThomas Mann - Dr FaustusAlan Warner - The Man Who WalksJunot Diaz - The Brief Wonderous Life Of Oscar WaoAlan Hollinghurst - The Line of BeautyAli Smith - How To Be BothLazslo Krasznahorkai - SatantangoRichard Flanagan - The Narrow Road To The Deep NorthSteve Erickson - The Sea Came In At MidnightAlbertine Sarrazin - AstragalPatrick Modiano - The Night WatchHaruki Murakami - Hear The Wind SingJohn Cheever - The Wapshot ScandalPhilip K Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer EldrichDavid Nicholls - UsKaren Joy Fowler - The Case of The Imaginary DetectiveJohn Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of DuncesElmore Leonard - KillshotEvelyn Waugh - Brideshead RevisitedToni Morrison - JazzMarcel Proust - Swann's WayMichael Chabon - Wonder BoysElena Ferrante - My Brilliant FriendPaul Mason - PostcapitalismMarlon James - A Brief History of Seven KillingsEL Doctorow - Billy BathgateGary Shteyngart - The Russian Debutante's Handbook
I'm pretty sure there are two or three I've forgotten in there as well. Feel like I read a lot of amazing stuff this year but also a reasonably large proportion of crap, of which the worst was unsurprisingly that David Nicholls thing I read on holiday. The Accursed was probably the biggest disappointment - Joyce Carol Oates does 19th Century gothic was one of those ideas much better in theory than practice. I also think I just outright dislike Ali Smith's writing.
If you filter out the obvious classics, Wolf In White Van probably represents my single most enjoyable reading experience of the year, in no small part because I read it in one sitting by a fire in a pub in Cumbria one afternoon. Albertine Sarrazin's Astragal is also astonishing (as was the Ferrante and the Marlon James, but everyone's raving about them).
― Matt DC, Thursday, 31 December 2015 14:12 (eight years ago) link
These lists are just reiterating my embarrassment at not having yet read Wolf in White Van.
― Bitch I'm in the 2112 (cryptosicko), Thursday, 31 December 2015 14:18 (eight years ago) link
Updating this for 2016 - had some bad indifferent patches of reading little because life got in the way (I think much of this was from the first four months of the year). On the other hand I am learning not to finish if I'm bored or even indifferent. I do need to finish less (looking at the list I see books I was indifferent that I just finished). Real sense of wants and needs. What will fulfill, add. Tell yourself to allow a few bits of the new but not too much.
New voices I hadn't come across before that wrote books 4 life: Raduan Nassar, Wolfgang Hilbig, Goncourt Bros. and Maggie Nelson. For poetry I will keep travelling alongside Arseny Tarkovsky and Arun Kolatkar.
Herman Melville - Moby-DickErnesto Sabato - The TunnelGeorges Simenon - Tropic MoonVasily Grossman - Armenian SketchVasily Grossman - The RoadMarcel Schwob - The King in the Golden Mask*Clarence Lispector - Hour of the StarRaduan Nassar - A Cup of RagePeter Stamm - All Days are NightElena Ferrante - Story of the Lost ChildSvetlana Alexievich - Voices from ChernobylJosef Winkler - When the Time ComesMargerite Duras - The Vice-ConsulHan Kang - Human ActsEdmond and Jules De Goncourt - Pages from the Goncourt Journals
Jean Rhys - Voyage in the DarkMargerite Duras - Summer RainCesare Pavese - Told in Confidence and Other StoriesAnn Quin - PassagesMairtin O Cadhain - The Dirty DustWolfgang Hilbig - Sleep of the RighteousCesare Pavese - Festivaal Night and Other StoriesMarguerite Duras - Outside (Selected Writings)Jean Rhys - After Leaving Mr. MackenzieJuan Jose Saer - The WitnessJunichiro Tanizaki - In Praise of ShadowsJean Rhys - Tigers are Better LookingJean Rhys - Sleep it Off LadyMarguerite Duras - DestroyMarguerite Duras - The Afternoon of Monsieur Andesmas
Clarice Lispector - The Complete Short StoriesRoberto Bolano - The ReturnJuan Carlos Onetti - The ShipyardRoberto Bolano - Secret EvilAlberto Moravia - AgostinoAdolfo Bioy Casares - Asleep in the SunOzamu Dazai - The Setting SunJoseph Roth - Complete Short FictionSvetlana Alexievich - Zinky BoysJames Baldwin - The Fire Next TimeAlvaro Enrigue - Sudden Death*Bertolt Brecht - Collected Short Stories*Pere Gimferrer - FortunyHrabal - Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in AgeJames Baldwin - Notes of a Native Son
Antonio Tabucchi - Time Ages in a HurryRainer Maria Rilke - Letters 1910-1926Heinrich Von Kleist - The Prince of HomburgSilvina Ocampo - Thus were their Faces*Dag Solstad - Professor Andersen's NightBohumil Hrabal: The Little Town where Time Stood Still/Cutting it ShortBKS Iyengar - Light on Yoga*Elsa Morante - ArcoeliAugust Strindberg - The Defence of a MadmanLászló Krasznahorkai - Seibo There BelowChris Kraus - I Love DickVincent Van Gogh - LettersYasunari Kawabata - The LakeErich Heller - KafkaThomas Bernhard - Yes
Joseph Roth - TarabasMarie Ndiaye - Self-Portrait in GreenFlann O'Brien - The Best of MylesMaggie Nelson - The ArgonautsW.H.Auden - Dyer's HandBoris & Arkady Strugatsky - Hard to be a GodMiroslav Holub - The Dimension of the Present Moment and Other Essays
Gerard de Nerval - ChimerasArun Kolatkar - CompleteMahmoud Darwish - A River Dies of ThirstHans Magnus Ensensberger - The Sinking of the TitanicMahmoud Darwish - Why did you Leave the Horse Alone?Friedrich Holderlin - SelectedFernando Pessoa - SelectedSilvina Ocampo - SeletedPetrarch - CanzionereSpeaking of SivaWilliam Empson - CompleteGottfried Benn - ImpromptusSakutaro Hagowara - Cat Town*Arseny Tarkovsky - I Burned at the Feast (Selected Poems)Cesare Pavese - Disaffections: Poems 1930-1950
* didn't finish
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 18 December 2016 12:00 (seven years ago) link
Pere Gimferrer was the oddest of books, kinda brilliant and unique. I'll re-read and talk about it on the poetry/prose thread sometime. With Seibo There Below it felt like I was reading Krasznahorkai for the first time. Baldwin was the one well known writer I hadn't got round to till this year and I'm glad I did.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 18 December 2016 12:07 (seven years ago) link
For simplicity's sake, I've started a new thread for 2016 here.
― one way street, Sunday, 18 December 2016 15:40 (seven years ago) link
I'm curious what you thought about Baldwin and Passages, xyzzzz__.
― one way street, Sunday, 18 December 2016 16:36 (seven years ago) link