I aimed to read 52 and I don't think I finished a single book. I probably bought 100 though.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 1 January 2018 14:33 (six years ago) link
quick, unchallenging reads for the most part:
Harlan Ellison ® - Angry CandyJack Vance - Cugel's SagaStanislaw Lem - The InvincibleStanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a BathtubStanislaw Lem - The Futurological CongressSamuel Delany - Tales of NeveryonUrsula Le Guin - The Beginning PlacePenelope Lively - A Stitch In TimePenelope Lively - The House in Norham GardensPenelope Lively - The Wild Hunt of HagworthyJoan Robinson - When Marnie Was ThereMary Downing Hahn - Mister Death's Blue-Eyed GirlsUrsula Dubosarsky - The Golden DayRobert Marasco - Burnt OfferingsFritz Leiber - Our Lady of DarknessFritz Leiber - The Green MillenniumFritz Leiber - Night MonstersMargaret St. Clair - The Best of Margaret St. ClairAmanda Petrusich - Do Not Sell At Any Price
― jesus and figs and science and the foo fighters (unregistered), Monday, 1 January 2018 18:09 (six years ago) link
How was The Best of Margaret St. Clair? Always refreshingly different in old anthologies---when there were *maybe* six or seven female writers permitted to be semi-regulars in fantasy and science fiction mags---but I've never come across a whole book of hers. A Wiccan of the 50s, right? But attutude more subtle than such a tag implies.
― dow, Monday, 1 January 2018 19:16 (six years ago) link
xxp - I aimed to read 52 as well and managed to read 49.
― ArchCarrier, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 13:41 (six years ago) link
Books I read in 2017 that I can remember upon returning to work after a week off with a brain that not work so good no more:James Baldwin - Collected Essays (Library of America)Susan Wise Bauer - The History of the Ancient World: : From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of RomeTaylor Branch - Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63Taylor Branch - Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65Robert W. Chambers - The King in YellowJack Handey - What I'd Say to the Martians: And Other Veiled ThreatsWilliam Hope Hodgson - The House on the BorderlandSean Howe - Marvel Comics: The Untold StoryStephen King - RevivalSteven Mithen - After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BCRick Perlstein - Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American ConsensusJohn Semley - This is a Book About the Kids in the HallReed Tucker - Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle Between Marvel and DCIsabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Books I started reading in 2017 and am still reading in 2018:Robert Bellah - Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial AgeWm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan - Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600Mircea Eliade - The History of Religious Ideas Vol. 1
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 14:20 (six years ago) link
Oh, I somehow missed that people were including comics in their lists. I'll just say that I also read approximately four times my body weight in comics and leave it at that.
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 14:30 (six years ago) link
only read 30 books last year, kinda slacked in the middle of the summer and never really hit a stride again. didn't have one big book like i did in 2016 (infinite jest), i'd like to do at least one this year but not sure which. have anna karenina sitting on my shelf but idk, haven't even read notes from the underground yet...
On Bowie — Rob Sheffield Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? — Thomas Frank The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory — Brian FishmanHomesick for Another World — Ottessa MoshfeghUniversal Harvester — John Darnielle Collected Poems & Stories — Mallory WhittenThe Broom of the System — David Foster Wallace American Pastoral — Philip RothFirestarter — Stephen KingGod Box — Mallory WhittenBlitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany — Norman OhlerA Colony in a Nation — Chris Hayes literally show me a healthy person — Darcie Wilder It — Stephen King How the Hell Did This Happen?: The Election of 2016 — P.J. O’RourkeShattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign — Jonathan Allen & Amie ParnesCujo — Stephen King The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret AtwoodMeet Me in the Bathroom — Lizzy GoodmanPrivate Citizens — Tony TulathimutteTouch — Courtney Maum The Sarah Book — Scott McClanahanEileen — Ottessa MoshfeghKill All Normies — Angela Nagle Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? — Mark FisherAll the Dirty Parts — Daniel HandlerNo Is Not Enough — Naomi Klein Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip K. Dick The Original Face — Guillaume Morissette Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine — Joe Hagan Hit So Hard — Patty Schemel
favorites were both books by Ottessa Moshfegh, It, Meet Me in the Bathroom, Universal Harvester, and Shattered.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
lol sorry im mixing up my dour russians
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:44 (six years ago) link
oh American Pastoral was absolutely amazing but I read the majority of that on a trip in September 2016 but didn't finish until February
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:45 (six years ago) link
think i'll try to read 365 short stories this year.
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 23:38 (six years ago) link
gotta set yourself a microfiction rule
― j., Wednesday, 3 January 2018 01:03 (six years ago) link
yeah i was thinking that reading stuff from flash fiction: very short stories would not satisfy. my first rule is that anything in a collection of short stories not devoted to flash fiction counts.
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Wednesday, 3 January 2018 01:48 (six years ago) link
Maybe a Chekhov a day? Wouldn't keep the doctor away, since he wss one, but prob good for what ails you (if nothing ails you, even better I say)
― dow, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 02:37 (six years ago) link
won't keep the typos away, nothing will.
― dow, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 02:38 (six years ago) link
ooh i should do that too
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 04:25 (six years ago) link
in a chaotic and confusing world, programmatic reading can remove the heavy burden of too much choice
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 3 January 2018 04:28 (six years ago) link
Old Lunch, what is the Mircea Eliade like? I have enjoyed his fiction a lot.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 6 January 2018 00:03 (six years ago) link
Fairly dense but elucidating if (like me) you're relatively ignorant of where/how various religious ideas originated. Reading now about the variety of theological constructs from across Europe and India that sprang from the same proto-Indo-European origins. I had no idea.
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Saturday, 6 January 2018 00:14 (six years ago) link
Took me a little while to write this lot up but:
Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime & PunishmentMuriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieKevin MacNeil – The Brilliant and ForeverAngela Carter – The Magic ToyshopRay Celestin – The Axeman’s JazzPaul Beatty – The SelloutYaa Gyasi - HomegoingJohn Cheever – The Complete StoriesJoan Didion – Slouching Towards BethlehemJohn Dos Passos – USAMichaelangelo Matos - The Underground Is MassiveAnita Brookner – Hotel du LacGabriel Garcia Marquez – Love In The Time of CholeraElmore Leonard – Freaky DeakyEimear McBride – The Lesser BohemiansBarney Norris – Five Rivers Met On A Wooded PlaneSana Krasikov – The PatriotsJulian Barnes – The Noise of TimeRob Duncan – Psychedelia and Other ColoursAlan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday MorningGeorge Saunders – Lincoln In The BardoJohn Darnielle – Universal HarvesterNaomi Aldermann – The PowerZadie Smith – On BeautyDon DeLillo – Mao IIJohn Le Carre – Smiley’s PeopleDavid Stubbs – Future DaysMariana Enriquez – Things We Lost In The FireStephen King – The StandDanilo Kis – HourglassEmile Zola – La Bete HumaineTom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities
Good year!
― Matt DC, Sunday, 21 January 2018 20:13 (six years ago) link
Some of you people are machines. The poster 'one way street' reading 129 books in 2017 is both awesome and insane. I think one year I read 52 books (one a week), but I was unemployed for half of the year. Now I barely average two books a month.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:44 (six years ago) link
A chunk of those 129 appear to be graphic novels, if that makes any difference.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:47 (six years ago) link
i only read 30 books last year & i feel like i was slacking
reading the Michael Wolff book now, v good fan fic
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:48 (six years ago) link
No more than 40. That's counting honest books only. Would have been more but July was lost.
― alimosina, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:31 (six years ago) link
(This month looks to be unimpressive too.)
― alimosina, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:32 (six years ago) link
By participating these "What did you read" threads for the past five years or so, I now know I recently average about 45 books a year.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:34 (six years ago) link
I read >cough< about 250 books, no way am I typing all those up
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 24 January 2018 00:51 (six years ago) link
How much time do you read per day, James?
― jmm, Wednesday, 24 January 2018 00:55 (six years ago) link
Maybe 3-4 hours if it's a work day (public transport, lunch break, insomnia)
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 24 January 2018 05:34 (six years ago) link
I believe I read much slower than the average person, which is depressing. There's no chance I'm reading a whole book in one sitting, no matter how light or easy it is.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Saturday, 3 February 2018 00:46 (six years ago) link
I fear I might be incapable of reading as fast as the people I hope to catch up with.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 3 February 2018 01:02 (six years ago) link
I will read no more for ever
― Some Dusty in Here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2018 01:53 (six years ago) link
There's no chance I'm reading a whole book in one sitting, no matter how light or easy it is.
I seldom finish a book in one sitting. Its fine, this is not a competition.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:50 (six years ago) link
read Hard to be a God this week, the translation was iffy and the conversion to ebook was shoddy but it's a fine piece of work
― drugs don't kill people, poppers do (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:53 (six years ago) link
put it in your 2018 list :)
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:54 (six years ago) link
haha wasn't even checking thread titles :)
― drugs don't kill people, poppers do (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:55 (six years ago) link
how tf can you finish a book in one sitting unless it's like <150 pages i read Universal Harvester in two sittings in one dayread Noah Cicero's new (excellent) poetry collection in two sittings over two days, but that's one I could've easily read in one sittingDarcie Wilder's book last year, I think that was three sittings?idk
what have y'all read in one sitting? genuinely curious. and impressed. my bum would go numb
― flappy bird, Saturday, 3 February 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
This one, as orig. posted on an ILM Eagles thread, think it's A Good Day In Hell:
Also I picked up Felder's hefty Between Heaven and Hell in the library, and read the whole thing that afternoon, which never happens. Gist: his father comes off as a self-made, self-righteous, self-torturing workaholic and skinflint, and Don follows suit during his Eagles years, with infinitely more bucks and perks than blue collar Dad ever had, of course. Furthermore, Dr. Phil, he somewhat recreates his own defiant-dependent teen relationship with Dad, now played by Henley and Frey.When he finally gets his ass fired, after having papers served in the studio, he actually calls back, all crying---"Try to seek some higher ground in this, Fingers," Frey counsels, and the ex-Mrs. Felder fervently seconds.So he does, with this book of excellent anecdotes (also careful references to ongoing litigation), from early years in Florida---girlfriend accuses him of stepping out with blondes, who turn out to be pre-facial hair, though tressed-for-success Gregg and Duane)[;"Tommy" Petty is his guitar student; Stephen Stills is "the funniest kid I ever met," passing through town while running away from military school, back to his parents (though every kid I knew back then who was sent to military school, was sent for a good reason); Bernie Leadon is his local connection to the budding El Lay country rock scene.Also lots of good stuff about "The Gods," as everybody who worked with and for the Eagles called Henley and Frey; supposedly many of these--even the Gods themselves, individually---called Felder up to trade the latest atrocity stories.But I also get, in terms of more perhaps unintended reveals, that the Gods were trying to keep their associates' and their own assholes-with-money tendencies somewhat in line, at least for the sake of making even more money (by keeping up the musical standards, for instance). Nevertheless, Felder and I are somewhat respectful of, for instance, Joe Walsh's working out his frustrations on whole floors of hotels (and he lasted longer than any non-God in the line-up, I think, so maybe the mayhem helped).
― dow, Sunday, 4 February 2018 02:30 (six years ago) link
When he finally gets his ass fired, after having papers served in the studio, he actually calls back, all crying That is, Felder had papers served on Frey (for the first time).
― dow, Sunday, 4 February 2018 02:32 (six years ago) link