TrainFan73
Frothy
Oooooh, Love Lemire.
2022 Reading Challenge
- Thread starter sarcasticfairyprincess
- Start date
TrainFan73
Frothy
Ugh, I'm reading Gumption now. I did awful on that pile (I also think there are a few more books in that pile now). good reads says I've read 21 of 22 for the year. I don't see me finishing any of the books I am currently reading before the end of the year.
mgp
Well-Known Member
Well, looks like it's going to be 28 this year. I think I was aiming for 24, so I should be ok with that, but I really fell off at the end. I think next year I'll go for 30.
28. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Holy shit. Obviously you don't win the pulitzer by accident, but wow. The only Cormac McCarthy I'd ever read before was Blood Meridian, which is incredible but this hit me in a different way. Maybe the father/son relationship. Maybe the pure simplicity of the story line? I don't know, but this might have been my favorite that I read all year. Highly highly recommended if you haven't read it yet. Next up is The Passenger (also by McCarthy)... but do you ever finish a really really good book and then have trouble motivating to pick up the next one? That's where I'm at rightnow.
28. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Holy shit. Obviously you don't win the pulitzer by accident, but wow. The only Cormac McCarthy I'd ever read before was Blood Meridian, which is incredible but this hit me in a different way. Maybe the father/son relationship. Maybe the pure simplicity of the story line? I don't know, but this might have been my favorite that I read all year. Highly highly recommended if you haven't read it yet. Next up is The Passenger (also by McCarthy)... but do you ever finish a really really good book and then have trouble motivating to pick up the next one? That's where I'm at rightnow.
Ericj32
Well-Known Member
Not sure where to post this but if anyone is looking for a 2023 challenge already, there’s a group of like 500+ (mostly) instagrammers from around the world that are going to try to read War and Peace next year. There are 361 chapters so the plan is to do one chapter per day and take a day off after each of the four “Books” that the chapters are organized into. There’s a discord server set up already to discuss translations and how to organize the discussion [they are going to have a separate thread for each 7 chapters/week, so it’s easier to find discussion about specific parts of the book without encountering any spoilers or having to scroll through everything] and all that stuff. The hashtag they’re using on instagram is #whiskeyandperseverance. It’s being hosted by Simon Haisell (@footnotes.and.tangents on ig) and it sounds like there is a small team of mods to help keep things organized. Reach out to Simon for the discord link (or I can try to send you one too). I’ve never read war and peace so this seemed like a fun and easy way to tackle it (the chapters are only about 5 pages long, so you’re only reading 30-40 pages per week).
WhiteDahlias
Active Member
I finally hit my goal for the year! I read a lot more last year but I've been a lot busier than I expected to be and had a lot of life stuff going on recently... Still, hitting 52 is way better than I was doing a few years ago.
48. Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk - Kathleen Rooney - 4.5/5 I enjoyed this quite a bit. Just following an old woman taking a walk around NYC on New Years Eve and reminiscing about her life.
49. The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Marra - 4/5. I liked this one too, a bunch of interconnected short stories about a town in Siberia. I really liked the writing style and how certain elements of each story show up again later.
50. Milk and Honey - Rupi Kaur - 3.5/5. I know people criticize Rupi Kaur's poetry for being kind of basic, but I enjoy her work. I think this is her best collection.
51. The Guineveres - Sarah Domet - 2/5. This one bored me. It's a historical fiction novel about 4 girls with the same name growing up in a convent during (I think) WWII. I listened to this one on audio at around 2x speed and it took me 3 renewals from the library to finish it.
52. The Lesser Bohemians - Eimar McBride - 3/5. I have mixed opinions on this one. I was interested in this because I tend to think books about people in art schools are interesting. The writing style is weird but I found it pretty easy to get into, but then I was not expecting the story to go in certain directions. I didn't know anything about this one beforehand but if you are sensitive to certain topics I would probably not go into this one blind.
I've also since started
The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu
Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa
Maybe I'll manage to finish one more next week before New Years!
48. Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk - Kathleen Rooney - 4.5/5 I enjoyed this quite a bit. Just following an old woman taking a walk around NYC on New Years Eve and reminiscing about her life.
49. The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Marra - 4/5. I liked this one too, a bunch of interconnected short stories about a town in Siberia. I really liked the writing style and how certain elements of each story show up again later.
50. Milk and Honey - Rupi Kaur - 3.5/5. I know people criticize Rupi Kaur's poetry for being kind of basic, but I enjoy her work. I think this is her best collection.
51. The Guineveres - Sarah Domet - 2/5. This one bored me. It's a historical fiction novel about 4 girls with the same name growing up in a convent during (I think) WWII. I listened to this one on audio at around 2x speed and it took me 3 renewals from the library to finish it.
52. The Lesser Bohemians - Eimar McBride - 3/5. I have mixed opinions on this one. I was interested in this because I tend to think books about people in art schools are interesting. The writing style is weird but I found it pretty easy to get into, but then I was not expecting the story to go in certain directions. I didn't know anything about this one beforehand but if you are sensitive to certain topics I would probably not go into this one blind.
I've also since started
The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu
Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa
Maybe I'll manage to finish one more next week before New Years!
Turbo
Well-Known Member
Books #25 and #26
The Dan Brown has been sitting around on my shelf for years. A gift at some point. Finally decided to give it a go. First time reading one of his books. It was... interesting. The information about Dante, Florence, Venice and Turkey was superb. Reads really easily. Also had a vague recollection of knowing this story so I must have seen the film... the fact that it wasn't any more memorable than that kinds of checks out with my feeling about the novel's storyline. It was meh. Too much running around and escaping shit rather than concentrating on the more interesting historical puzzles.
The Stephen King was pretty neat though. King doing a a novel for Hard Case Crime takes him out of his usual elements and you can tell he enjoys the genre a lot. The story feels more like an extended short story than a novel and makes for an interesting commentary on the notion of mystery in general.
Let's see if I can squeak in #27 before the end of the week. Goal of 2/month was met though.
The Dan Brown has been sitting around on my shelf for years. A gift at some point. Finally decided to give it a go. First time reading one of his books. It was... interesting. The information about Dante, Florence, Venice and Turkey was superb. Reads really easily. Also had a vague recollection of knowing this story so I must have seen the film... the fact that it wasn't any more memorable than that kinds of checks out with my feeling about the novel's storyline. It was meh. Too much running around and escaping shit rather than concentrating on the more interesting historical puzzles.
The Stephen King was pretty neat though. King doing a a novel for Hard Case Crime takes him out of his usual elements and you can tell he enjoys the genre a lot. The story feels more like an extended short story than a novel and makes for an interesting commentary on the notion of mystery in general.
Let's see if I can squeak in #27 before the end of the week. Goal of 2/month was met though.
Selaws
Well-Known Member
Book 33: Bird Lives - The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker by Ross Russell (Quartet Books London, 1973)
Well, this was an absolutely fantastic read! I have had this book for a couple of years now but for reasons unknown, I had not yet given it a chance. It's truly brilliant. Ross Russell was the founder of Dial Records (where Parker recorded some of his best tracks) and had a close relationship with Parker, but this wasn't actually revealed until that chapter of his story (about halfway through the book) and came as quite a nice surprise. The book has clearly been written using a lot of anecdotal info from those closest to Parker, so some of it will have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but in a way, this just adds to the intrigue and legend around him.
Well, this was an absolutely fantastic read! I have had this book for a couple of years now but for reasons unknown, I had not yet given it a chance. It's truly brilliant. Ross Russell was the founder of Dial Records (where Parker recorded some of his best tracks) and had a close relationship with Parker, but this wasn't actually revealed until that chapter of his story (about halfway through the book) and came as quite a nice surprise. The book has clearly been written using a lot of anecdotal info from those closest to Parker, so some of it will have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but in a way, this just adds to the intrigue and legend around him.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Book 36: Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
What a charmer, this one. I've been seeing praise for this all year (could've sworn someone in this thread read it but search says otherwise), and despite my contrarian tendencies it didn't disappoint.
The story concerns two kids in the 80s who meet in the game room of a children's hospital and subsequently grow up to develop video games of their own. As far as fictional accounts of creative partnerships/work and video games go, Zevin does a great job of threading the needle of giving enough detail to convey their ideas and their follow-through, while also leaving enough space for the reader's imagination. Often in fictionalized games/gaming I think to myself "wait how do they actually think that would work as a game?", but that happened rarely here.
The story's heartfelt but not too saccharine, and any time I feared things would stray into melodrama, the characters behaved with an emotional depth that pulled the rug out from under me. The characters are about ten years older than myself, but it still was odd reading a coming-of-age story that spans decades I distinctly remember.
Book 37: The Universal Baseball Association, inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
This was a pretty great pairing with Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, as it also concerns the builder of a game and the meaning of play. Coover apparently was a favorite author of Gene Wolfe's, so of course here I am.
This one's about a middle-aged accountant who spends his evenings (and an increasing amount of other spare time) playing a dice-run baseball game. He's formulated this expansive baseball league of eight teams, full lineups with names and backstories, with rules and charts and scenarios with sub-scenarios. The narrative flows seamlessly between Henry Waugh (the accountant) and the fictional happenings of the Universal Baseball Association.
As the story progresses, Henry loses control of the league after the in-game bean-ball murder of a rising star, and Henry's growing investment in "correcting" the league has dire ramifications on his real-world life. Some of the descriptions are difficult to wrap one's head around as more and more players are introduced (it's the fiftieth year of the league) and arcane happenings with the political parties surrounding the UBA seem to creep into the game itself.
Mainly I took it as a story about control, as Henry seems to find comfort in gamifying everything (at one point we learn he keeps a dice-run horseracing game in his work desk, and basically rolls dice between accounting to satiate his at-home baseball habit), and being driven increasingly frantic by the chaos that invades his controlled universe. It's wacky and weird; I recommend it.
Book 38: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Hey, I actually listened to an audiobook this year! This one also got a lot of praise through the year, and doesn't disappoint. I was too old to have noticed iCarly, so McCurdy was not on my radar. Still, her experiences as a child star sound pretty standard for the industry, unfortunately. Mostly the focus is on her relationship with her mother, who pressured her to act and was an overall heinous stage mom. A lot of discussion around troubled parent-child relationships revolves around some sort of eventual forgiveness or reconciliation, and it was nice to see someone speaking contrary to that. Sometimes grownups don't have your best interests in mind, and it's okay to reject that.
What a charmer, this one. I've been seeing praise for this all year (could've sworn someone in this thread read it but search says otherwise), and despite my contrarian tendencies it didn't disappoint.
The story concerns two kids in the 80s who meet in the game room of a children's hospital and subsequently grow up to develop video games of their own. As far as fictional accounts of creative partnerships/work and video games go, Zevin does a great job of threading the needle of giving enough detail to convey their ideas and their follow-through, while also leaving enough space for the reader's imagination. Often in fictionalized games/gaming I think to myself "wait how do they actually think that would work as a game?", but that happened rarely here.
The story's heartfelt but not too saccharine, and any time I feared things would stray into melodrama, the characters behaved with an emotional depth that pulled the rug out from under me. The characters are about ten years older than myself, but it still was odd reading a coming-of-age story that spans decades I distinctly remember.
Book 37: The Universal Baseball Association, inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
This was a pretty great pairing with Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, as it also concerns the builder of a game and the meaning of play. Coover apparently was a favorite author of Gene Wolfe's, so of course here I am.
This one's about a middle-aged accountant who spends his evenings (and an increasing amount of other spare time) playing a dice-run baseball game. He's formulated this expansive baseball league of eight teams, full lineups with names and backstories, with rules and charts and scenarios with sub-scenarios. The narrative flows seamlessly between Henry Waugh (the accountant) and the fictional happenings of the Universal Baseball Association.
As the story progresses, Henry loses control of the league after the in-game bean-ball murder of a rising star, and Henry's growing investment in "correcting" the league has dire ramifications on his real-world life. Some of the descriptions are difficult to wrap one's head around as more and more players are introduced (it's the fiftieth year of the league) and arcane happenings with the political parties surrounding the UBA seem to creep into the game itself.
Mainly I took it as a story about control, as Henry seems to find comfort in gamifying everything (at one point we learn he keeps a dice-run horseracing game in his work desk, and basically rolls dice between accounting to satiate his at-home baseball habit), and being driven increasingly frantic by the chaos that invades his controlled universe. It's wacky and weird; I recommend it.
Book 38: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Hey, I actually listened to an audiobook this year! This one also got a lot of praise through the year, and doesn't disappoint. I was too old to have noticed iCarly, so McCurdy was not on my radar. Still, her experiences as a child star sound pretty standard for the industry, unfortunately. Mostly the focus is on her relationship with her mother, who pressured her to act and was an overall heinous stage mom. A lot of discussion around troubled parent-child relationships revolves around some sort of eventual forgiveness or reconciliation, and it was nice to see someone speaking contrary to that. Sometimes grownups don't have your best interests in mind, and it's okay to reject that.
TrainFan73
Frothy
Photo finish to 22 in 22. Decided to read this while in the emergency department yesterday when I saw an article about it being the most banned book in America. It’s a quite interesting autobiographical graphic novel about a non-binary person coming to terms with their gender identity.
TrainFan73
Frothy
I’m actually listening to an audiobook for the first time in years,… Declassiified by Arianna Warsaw-Fan Rauch which is a quite fun break down of classical music for laymen.
ayayrawn
Well-Known Member
Got a couple more in!
25. I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy - I'm also lowkey glad her mom died. She deserves a medal for all she put up with. Compelling memoir.
26. The Complete peanuts Vol. 1 - cozy and easy. Nice to end year with.
On to Ulysses!
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Finnegans Wake 2024?
ayayrawn
Well-Known Member
Uuuuhhh maybe... I get a kick out of reading hard books, but I have to have at least some degree of comprehension while reading lol.
Maybe if I read it in a book club or a class.
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
ayayrawn
Well-Known Member
Kind of want to just for the challenge! That's the reason I took on Gravity's Rainbow, and actually ended up enjoying that so who knows! FW feels like the final boss of literature lmaoSuper legit. I was mostly joking, but would be impressed if you went for it!
WhiteDahlias
Active Member
I managed to squeeze 2 more in before the end of the year:
53. Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa (3/5) - I kinda figured this one wouldn't be for me due to the subject matter but I really liked the writing style. This was my second Ogawa, but I preferred The Memory Police.
54. I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston (4/5) - This was a cute f/f YA that would have made a fun teen drama. As someone who grew up spending a lot of time around religious people, there were parts of this that were very relatable.
I have 2 poetry books out from the library right now but I didn't have time to get into them this year so I will get a good head start on 2023 tomorrow.
53. Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa (3/5) - I kinda figured this one wouldn't be for me due to the subject matter but I really liked the writing style. This was my second Ogawa, but I preferred The Memory Police.
54. I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston (4/5) - This was a cute f/f YA that would have made a fun teen drama. As someone who grew up spending a lot of time around religious people, there were parts of this that were very relatable.
I have 2 poetry books out from the library right now but I didn't have time to get into them this year so I will get a good head start on 2023 tomorrow.
Mr Moore
Well-Known Member
2022 Wrap-Up
Book 59: I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
I liked this a whole lot. Sci-fi isn't one of my go to styles but this series of short stories that were threaded together to make this classic of the genre was really entertaining with engaging characters and a wonderfully accurate eye towards the then future.
Book 60: Americana - Don DeLillo
My '90s published paperback spine suggests I've read this before but I honestly couldn't remember doing so. What a ride it is. David Bell, a TV executive with the occasional sociopathic tendency goes rogue on his way to a TV shoot taking a small group of friends along for the journey. They settle in a mid-western town to film an experimental autobiographical film that consumes Bell as his professional life dissolves around him. DeLillo's debut shines with interesting characters and a keen ear for witty and very American dialogue that any Hollywood screenwriter would kill for.
Book 61: A Passage North - Anuk Arudpragasam
This 2021 Booker shortlister did nothing for me unfortunately. The story of a young man crossing country to go to the funeral of his Grandmother's former carer who he suspects may have died in mysterious circumstances sounded like a solid enough premise. The setting of post civil war Sri Lanka sounded like something that would interest me. Unfortunately, the introspective nature of the lead character who mopes from his girlfriend taking a break and frequently resorts to paraphrasing books he's read or documentary's he seen to fill the void of his first-hand experience with the past conflict failed to hold my attention.
The most interesting character turns out to be the now dead former carer who suffered huge personal familial losses during the conflict and consequently dealt with serious bouts of depression and archaic sounding therapy. While this highlighted some of the human costs of the conflict, it wasn't enough for me to consider this a particularly good read.
Book 62: I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
This was an enjoyable enough take on the vampire genre and has clearly been an influence on the modern vampire and zombie movie styles.
A seemingly lone survivor of a global pandemic which has either killed the rest of humanity or turned everybody into vampires rolls along at a decent pace. The protagonist turns to both violent means to kill the vampires while they sleep and science and learning to try and understand the virus and aid his continued survival.
The novel philosophises the nature of shifting societies when after 3 years it becomes apparent that the infected people have formed their own cultures and are now the new majority leaving our hero to become merely a legend.
Book 63: Treacle Walker - Alan Garner
A short fantasy novel about a boy and his visits from a mystical rag-and-bone man. I admit to having understood very little of what goes on in this strange world but it was short enough for the interesting dialogue and use of fun, old British language to have kept me entertained.
Book 64: Speedboat - Renata Adler
I rounded off my year with this, one of the most unique novels I think I've ever read. A section of life told through moments, thoughts, happenings, instances, most of which seem random and unconnected. The traditionalist in me yearned for a bit more cohesion between these moments but it's hard to deny that the quality of Adler's prose is just unbelievably good and simply accept it for what it is. Each segmented piece of writing left me wanting a continuation to see what happened next but Adler constantly breaks momentum and shifts to her next topic. Equal parts wonderful and frustrating but ultimately, very memorable for it.
I also squeezed these in. I bought them for my youngest boy who wanted the included codes that get him stuff in the Fortnite videogame. He liked the comics and I promised him I'd read them about a year ago so I finally got around to it. I like Fortnite well enough but I've never really been a superhero fan so I'm probably the wrong audience for this crossover but they were fun enough to kill a few hours.
So here's a snapshot of my 2022 reading. 64 titles although two came from the same Sherlock Holmes anthology so that only appears once. All told, not a bad bunch. If I was pushed to create a favourite five I'd plump for: The Secret History, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Milkman, Money and Middlesex but that honestly leaves me feeling bad about leaving out so many other great reads. Looking forward to 2023!
Book 59: I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
I liked this a whole lot. Sci-fi isn't one of my go to styles but this series of short stories that were threaded together to make this classic of the genre was really entertaining with engaging characters and a wonderfully accurate eye towards the then future.
Book 60: Americana - Don DeLillo
My '90s published paperback spine suggests I've read this before but I honestly couldn't remember doing so. What a ride it is. David Bell, a TV executive with the occasional sociopathic tendency goes rogue on his way to a TV shoot taking a small group of friends along for the journey. They settle in a mid-western town to film an experimental autobiographical film that consumes Bell as his professional life dissolves around him. DeLillo's debut shines with interesting characters and a keen ear for witty and very American dialogue that any Hollywood screenwriter would kill for.
Book 61: A Passage North - Anuk Arudpragasam
This 2021 Booker shortlister did nothing for me unfortunately. The story of a young man crossing country to go to the funeral of his Grandmother's former carer who he suspects may have died in mysterious circumstances sounded like a solid enough premise. The setting of post civil war Sri Lanka sounded like something that would interest me. Unfortunately, the introspective nature of the lead character who mopes from his girlfriend taking a break and frequently resorts to paraphrasing books he's read or documentary's he seen to fill the void of his first-hand experience with the past conflict failed to hold my attention.
The most interesting character turns out to be the now dead former carer who suffered huge personal familial losses during the conflict and consequently dealt with serious bouts of depression and archaic sounding therapy. While this highlighted some of the human costs of the conflict, it wasn't enough for me to consider this a particularly good read.
Book 62: I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
This was an enjoyable enough take on the vampire genre and has clearly been an influence on the modern vampire and zombie movie styles.
A seemingly lone survivor of a global pandemic which has either killed the rest of humanity or turned everybody into vampires rolls along at a decent pace. The protagonist turns to both violent means to kill the vampires while they sleep and science and learning to try and understand the virus and aid his continued survival.
The novel philosophises the nature of shifting societies when after 3 years it becomes apparent that the infected people have formed their own cultures and are now the new majority leaving our hero to become merely a legend.
Book 63: Treacle Walker - Alan Garner
A short fantasy novel about a boy and his visits from a mystical rag-and-bone man. I admit to having understood very little of what goes on in this strange world but it was short enough for the interesting dialogue and use of fun, old British language to have kept me entertained.
Book 64: Speedboat - Renata Adler
I rounded off my year with this, one of the most unique novels I think I've ever read. A section of life told through moments, thoughts, happenings, instances, most of which seem random and unconnected. The traditionalist in me yearned for a bit more cohesion between these moments but it's hard to deny that the quality of Adler's prose is just unbelievably good and simply accept it for what it is. Each segmented piece of writing left me wanting a continuation to see what happened next but Adler constantly breaks momentum and shifts to her next topic. Equal parts wonderful and frustrating but ultimately, very memorable for it.
I also squeezed these in. I bought them for my youngest boy who wanted the included codes that get him stuff in the Fortnite videogame. He liked the comics and I promised him I'd read them about a year ago so I finally got around to it. I like Fortnite well enough but I've never really been a superhero fan so I'm probably the wrong audience for this crossover but they were fun enough to kill a few hours.
So here's a snapshot of my 2022 reading. 64 titles although two came from the same Sherlock Holmes anthology so that only appears once. All told, not a bad bunch. If I was pushed to create a favourite five I'd plump for: The Secret History, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Milkman, Money and Middlesex but that honestly leaves me feeling bad about leaving out so many other great reads. Looking forward to 2023!
Thackeraye
Well-Known Member
So, are we just renaming this thread, creating a new one for 2023, or using the general books thread? Renaming makes most sense?
TrainFan73
Frothy
I kind of feel like it should be a new thread, otherwise why not just post in the reading nook?