LeSamourai
Well-Known Member
Who else is in the read-several-books-at-once club? I know a lot of people go one at a time, but I like having different things to choose from, pretty much always a short story collection among them.
The Reader’s Nook - The N&G Book Thread
- Thread starter Joe Mac
- Start date
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
I usually have a book of poetry, at least two non-fiction and a fiction on the go — with a liberal sprinkling of graphic novels and conic trades
Yeah I'll typically have
• One fiction
• One non-fiction
• One biography
• Poetry
All going at once, that way I never lose the momentum and get stuck if one book is slow going. Currently already on book # 8 of the year!
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
I try not to be, but I think right now I'm juggling:
- a readthrough of Don Quixote, of which I read part 1 then read ~5 books in the interim
- part 3 of 2666; I read two parts sporadically last year and want to finish at least one more part this year, if not the whole thing
- two poetry books
- two short story books which I read one piece from between books.
MsLoganHenney
Active Member
jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
I used to have 4-5 books going at once, but that just meant that I never finished anything. Now with the Kobo, I have 3 books that I have started but have read less than 10% (just to get a feel for what I want to read next) and the book I am reading.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Has anyone ever tried reading every year's winner for a particular award or superlative? Storygraph introduced the ability to create challenges or add to existing ones, like Nebula winners or Booker prize winners (and even pop culture lists like Patti Smith or Rory Gilmore reading lists). Thought it might be fun to make a run chipping at one occasionally over the course of a few years.
MattS
Well-Known Member
I try to do this for the Booker. I need to go back a few years but I think I’ve read every winner of the last 5-7 years and have been big fans of most of them. It’s fun to follow along with the award and have an additional reason to get a new book when it comes out
jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
I used to try to do this with the Giller and Gov General prizes here in Canada. I always read the winner of each and then try to work their their short lists (there was often some overlap). I have not tried to do that in years
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
I've already read ~10% of the winners; not a bad head start!
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Our national broadcaster does a thing every year called Canada Reads, where they have five different public figures each defend a book a through an elimination style showcase until there is ultimately one winner each year. I used to try and get through all fiv, but nowadays I'm a few years behind on even just the winners.
MattS
Well-Known Member
Need to read the newest winner. But Narrow Road and Shuggie Bain are both lights out for me
BjorgenFjorgen
Well-Known Member
I've got a shelf/tag on Goodreads for Booker and Giller winners that I use to track; so far only 8 and 4, but I would definitely like to read all of them before I die.
I didn't know about that new Storygraph feature. That's cool. I've been using that site a lot more than Goodreads recently. I like the actual user-sourced info on vibes, pacing, etc.
I didn't know about that new Storygraph feature. That's cool. I've been using that site a lot more than Goodreads recently. I like the actual user-sourced info on vibes, pacing, etc.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
I've made a commitment to using both in parallel; I like Storygraph's design, the structure of reviews, and the independence from Amazon. I'm still hanging onto Goodreads through the sheer momentum of everyone defaulting to it; the social aspect is truly a double-edged sword.
BjorgenFjorgen
Well-Known Member
Sometimes, you can find gold in a Little Free Library.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Honestly I won't be surprised to find many of these in LFLs in the future; the gulf between McCarthy's mainstream acceptance and these books' (at least The Passenger from my experience) difficulty is wide. Def keeping my eyes open for a Stella Maris; I want to finish the duology but found it dry, challenging, and disinterested in any sort of catharsis/plot.
Finished Empire of the Summer Moon. What a fantastic read. Brutal, breathtaking, tragic. I've driven through a good portion of the parts of the book that involved Quanah. Going to move next to Hymns of the Republic as I was wanting to dive more into Civil War history and it is written by the same author as Empire.
Mr Moore
Well-Known Member
February 2024
Despite the shorter month, I managed to get quite a few in due to a few sleepless nights and several of the books being quite concise.
Book 8: Michael Chabon - Kavalier & Clay
I enjoyed this one although probably not as much as I expected to given both the critical and general acclaim it has received. The first segment of the book I found mind-numbingly slow and frankly a little bit silly but, once that was done with and the story kicked off in earnest I really found myself drawn in to these characters and their combined history. Good stuff and very much worth the effort, even though it did sometimes feel like Chabon was getting paid by the word in his meandering sidelines that all too often did little to flesh out characters or events, rather detracting from the focus of the plot thread momentarily.
Book 9: Tracy Chevalier - Girl With a Pearl Earring
Another one of Mrs Moore’s long-time recommendations, this came up just before new year when we visited Bristol for a few days. As it was the first time visiting the city for all of us, we used Banksy’s scattered artworks as a way of walking around the city and taking it all in. When we came across his Girl With the Pierced Eardrum, I was reminded to add this book to my to-read collection for 2024. And I loved it. It’s a really smart way of using fiction to add flesh to an image so ubiquitous but with so little recorded information to fall back on. The writing is smashing, it’s really steadily paced, lending an almost gothic, tense atmosphere to the proceedings. Wonderful, worthy of all its popularity. And here's the Banksy that favours an in situ fire alarm over Vermeer's pearl:
Book 10: Paul Auster - In the Country of Last Things
This has definitely been my least favourite Auster read so far. The story of a young woman going to a dystopian city where her brother before her had travelled and never returned seems straightforward enough as a genre piece. But Auster weaves in not only the ever increasing absence of objects, physical things that no longer exist, but also the words to describe them and even the ability to remember and think about them. Whilst the story of Anna and the relatively small cast of characters around her develop, it seemed to me that Auster kept returning to how the mechanics of this dystopia operated - or often no longer operated - and for a small novel it felt remarkably bloated because of this.
Book 11: Jamaica Kincaid - Annie John
Really excellent book depicting the teen years of an Antiguan girl and how she slowly drifts apart from the mother who she idolises in her younger life. Annie John is a highly intelligent girl who like many under-stimulated children, finds herself getting into trouble both in and out of school. But, it's more than that: from her early descriptions of her obsession with death, living within eyeshot of a cemetery, to a bubbling depression that I found reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's Esther Greenwood. While Esther described feeling like she was trapped beneath a bell jar, Annie details the feeling of a black ball coated in cobwebs in her stomach. The book touches on the clash between modern medicine and traditional Afro/Caribbean Obeah beliefs when dealing with one of Annie's bouts of illness along with colonialism and migration. I got through this in a day and a half, it's really compelling and I'd happily recommend it.
Book 12: Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Watchmen
Very good, a bit silly I suppose but comics are aren't they. The cold war setting seems fairly relevant again now. We could all wish for a few heroes to bring the world together again although, whether you'd want to sacrifice New York is up for debate!
Book 13: Fran Ross - Oreo
Absolute stonker of a book full of brave comedy and satire that plays with black slang, Yiddish, a sprinkling of Latin - all wrapped up in a retelling of a Greek myth. For as much as I laughed at this book, I'm absolutely certain that there's tons of stuff that I didn't appreciate both culturally and intellectually - it really is smart as hell but not to the point of feeling condescending. Amazingly, it's the only book Ross every wrote in her short life and was largely ignored at the time until a rediscovery a few years back. Well worth your time if you like smart, challenging and funny storytelling.
Book 14: John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
I'm certain that I read this in secondary school when I was about 13 but I honestly couldn't remember much about it. I loved it this time around. It's short but fits so much of value into the limited text. The story of a friendship between two men is timeless. The way the book captures the hardships of the manual labourer is fleeting but stark. I've admittedly become quite sentimental in my later years and the conclusion brought me as close to tears as I think any book ever has but, that reaction seems intentional from Steinbeck I think and if you don't care for sentimentality then it possibly won't appeal.
Book 15: Curtis Sittenfeld - Rodham
Superb but very odd book. Reading like an autobiography, it tells the story of what would happen had Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton. The first third of the book very much leads you through their courtship and joint aspirations when abruptly, they call it a day! The rest of the book tells how Hillary goes on to seek out her own life in politics. It's a bold novel that I'm amazed quite frankly doesn't cross some legal boundaries but, I guess as it's clear in it's positioning as a work of fiction that just happens to blend in real life people, places and events, it skates on the safe side of libel.
Despite the shorter month, I managed to get quite a few in due to a few sleepless nights and several of the books being quite concise.
Book 8: Michael Chabon - Kavalier & Clay
I enjoyed this one although probably not as much as I expected to given both the critical and general acclaim it has received. The first segment of the book I found mind-numbingly slow and frankly a little bit silly but, once that was done with and the story kicked off in earnest I really found myself drawn in to these characters and their combined history. Good stuff and very much worth the effort, even though it did sometimes feel like Chabon was getting paid by the word in his meandering sidelines that all too often did little to flesh out characters or events, rather detracting from the focus of the plot thread momentarily.
Book 9: Tracy Chevalier - Girl With a Pearl Earring
Another one of Mrs Moore’s long-time recommendations, this came up just before new year when we visited Bristol for a few days. As it was the first time visiting the city for all of us, we used Banksy’s scattered artworks as a way of walking around the city and taking it all in. When we came across his Girl With the Pierced Eardrum, I was reminded to add this book to my to-read collection for 2024. And I loved it. It’s a really smart way of using fiction to add flesh to an image so ubiquitous but with so little recorded information to fall back on. The writing is smashing, it’s really steadily paced, lending an almost gothic, tense atmosphere to the proceedings. Wonderful, worthy of all its popularity. And here's the Banksy that favours an in situ fire alarm over Vermeer's pearl:
Book 10: Paul Auster - In the Country of Last Things
This has definitely been my least favourite Auster read so far. The story of a young woman going to a dystopian city where her brother before her had travelled and never returned seems straightforward enough as a genre piece. But Auster weaves in not only the ever increasing absence of objects, physical things that no longer exist, but also the words to describe them and even the ability to remember and think about them. Whilst the story of Anna and the relatively small cast of characters around her develop, it seemed to me that Auster kept returning to how the mechanics of this dystopia operated - or often no longer operated - and for a small novel it felt remarkably bloated because of this.
Book 11: Jamaica Kincaid - Annie John
Really excellent book depicting the teen years of an Antiguan girl and how she slowly drifts apart from the mother who she idolises in her younger life. Annie John is a highly intelligent girl who like many under-stimulated children, finds herself getting into trouble both in and out of school. But, it's more than that: from her early descriptions of her obsession with death, living within eyeshot of a cemetery, to a bubbling depression that I found reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's Esther Greenwood. While Esther described feeling like she was trapped beneath a bell jar, Annie details the feeling of a black ball coated in cobwebs in her stomach. The book touches on the clash between modern medicine and traditional Afro/Caribbean Obeah beliefs when dealing with one of Annie's bouts of illness along with colonialism and migration. I got through this in a day and a half, it's really compelling and I'd happily recommend it.
Book 12: Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Watchmen
Very good, a bit silly I suppose but comics are aren't they. The cold war setting seems fairly relevant again now. We could all wish for a few heroes to bring the world together again although, whether you'd want to sacrifice New York is up for debate!
Book 13: Fran Ross - Oreo
Absolute stonker of a book full of brave comedy and satire that plays with black slang, Yiddish, a sprinkling of Latin - all wrapped up in a retelling of a Greek myth. For as much as I laughed at this book, I'm absolutely certain that there's tons of stuff that I didn't appreciate both culturally and intellectually - it really is smart as hell but not to the point of feeling condescending. Amazingly, it's the only book Ross every wrote in her short life and was largely ignored at the time until a rediscovery a few years back. Well worth your time if you like smart, challenging and funny storytelling.
Book 14: John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
I'm certain that I read this in secondary school when I was about 13 but I honestly couldn't remember much about it. I loved it this time around. It's short but fits so much of value into the limited text. The story of a friendship between two men is timeless. The way the book captures the hardships of the manual labourer is fleeting but stark. I've admittedly become quite sentimental in my later years and the conclusion brought me as close to tears as I think any book ever has but, that reaction seems intentional from Steinbeck I think and if you don't care for sentimentality then it possibly won't appeal.
Book 15: Curtis Sittenfeld - Rodham
Superb but very odd book. Reading like an autobiography, it tells the story of what would happen had Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton. The first third of the book very much leads you through their courtship and joint aspirations when abruptly, they call it a day! The rest of the book tells how Hillary goes on to seek out her own life in politics. It's a bold novel that I'm amazed quite frankly doesn't cross some legal boundaries but, I guess as it's clear in it's positioning as a work of fiction that just happens to blend in real life people, places and events, it skates on the safe side of libel.
ayayrawn
Well-Known Member
I enjoyed the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, but a more appropriate title would probably be the semi-interesting adventures of Kavalier and sometimes Klay is there. If Chabon's prose wasn't so great, I probably would've found it pretty boring.
avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Pretty much everybody else in my high school English class hated Of Mice And Men, but it I loved. When I read Grapes of Wrath a few years later I decided Steinbeck was #1 for American Lit.