I have a few. Only problem is that the Sherlock stories are Americanized, so some minor English terms are swapped out for American equivalents. Absolutely unreadable.

Bottom row aren't Barnes and Noble but rather two Oxford World Classics editions (Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James, Crime and Punishment) followed by three Folio Society editions (Steppenwolf, Clockwork Orange, Anne Frank's diary)

Not a fan of hardcovers? what the h*ck

Good picks, love me some Tom Sowell.

Settting a goal to tackle a solid 10 books, hoping to read more as the months go by.

Last year a comedian named Sam Tallent who I've had the pleasure of working with released a book about an old road comic entitled "Running The Light" that I was able to read last year and it truly ignited my passion for reading. Please support this independent book release by purchasing it directly from his website. The man is not only a beast in stand up comedy but an EXCELLENT author.

So with this newfound lease on reading I've bought some new books (Tiny Fey's "Bossypants", Simon Rich's "Free Range Chickens", "Spoiled Brats", and "Hits and Misses") and hoping to finish these within the month or two.

also I want to ask to this thread of readers, what happens when you get a book and for one reason or another, it doesn't hook you or keeps you engaged. Do you still finish it? Do you toss it? Keep it on the shelf because who knows one day? I've learned in the past that if I am not really into the book I'm reading it'll end up just sitting in my pile.

At 1/4/21 02:57 PM, Jackho wrote:

I have the Sherlock stories published by Penguin Books, which is HQ'd in the UK. I'd be curious if they are Americanized or not (though I probably wouldn't know the difference).

Let's go for 20 books this year.

I find the Barnes and Noble hardcovers to generally be a bit "busy" for my tastes, most of the covers are very overdesigned. Not all of them, I own their Jurassic Park and by virtue of sticking to pretty much just the original hardcover design I like it more than the recent Folio Society one for example (which, incidentally, is one of their ugliest releases), but for the most part I feel like they just try to cram too much shit onto them. Ends up looking a bit gaudy, but I suppose when they're so cheap next to other premium editions you can't complain too much.

It's easy to kill your progress by sticking with a book that you actively want to put off reading. That said, I start probably twice as many books as I finish and even stuff I really like tends to get abandoned too, so I'll have no qualms dropping something that's not investing me.

Though I don't really consciously choose to drop a book, I just naturally drift to something else and don't go back.

They're definitely on the gaudy end, the H2G2 volume I have is particularly offensive because everything jammed on the front is really bright, shiny and reflective. They're really nice for the price though, as you say, and sometimes they pull it off. I like their Dune edition in particular.

I'll try reading 16 books this year. Wish me luck!

.... oh right I need to renew my library card.

Gonna get in on this and set a goal of 15 books this year. I read a lot of manga last year and got really into it, but now I think it may be time to start reading just words again.

Started the year off with the penultimate book in a series I started in 2020

1: Points of Impact by Marko Kloos

Felt very end-y but there's still one left. I'm taking a break because the 7th book is available for ebook but the audio is not yet released yet. So maybe there will be more now?

This one felt good. I liked the change in pace from tactics and battles to adjusting to times changing. Instead of building a space army to fight other humans they are adapting to fighting aliens. They have a new warship and new star trek like uniforms. they're serving with members of other countries who they used to fight against.... there are even some members from a coup a book or 2 back. I feel like the author could have spent a whole book exploring the human experience of just joining that crew and I'd probably still read it. But anyway we did get action and a pretty good, if not happy, ending to a few stories in the series.

next up some friends dared me to read a book based on the tabletop game Settlers of Catan. Lets see if it's awful.

Folio Society sale is on if anyone wants to blow some cash on fancy hardcovers.

Don't think it's as good as some of their recent ones, the only stuff in it I'd be tempted by is only very slightly discounted, so I think for once my wallet is safe.

i like looking at hardcovers but i don't like owning them. i'm turning into an old man where i don't like owning too many things and don't like things taking up space. and reading a hardcover in bed is a bit uncomfy

the best decision i've made (regarding reading) is buying a kindle (other e-readings are available) for basically the same reason. the convenience of not having to lug around a book and being able to have practically any book you want in a few seconds is underrated (or at least it was by me 2 years ago)

i used to buy books well in advance so i'd have a stack of them. the problem is that if i didn't like a book, i couldn't get over the sunk cost and let the book sit around gathering dust. i would just force myself to read it. i started to think of reading as a bit of a grind which kinda sucked.

now i just take a book out of my kindle library if i don't like it and never think about it again. reading something for a reason other than desire to read it seems like a bit of a waste of time

Hey sorry if I'm bothering you but I would like to change my goal from reading a dictionary to reading The Da Vinci Code while I still have time. Thanks :)

Best laid plans...

If the Lord be willing and gracious still with me, then I shall—though I wasted the 1st week of the year—be disciplined enough to concentrate sufficiently and be free from distraction, drama, or calamity long enough to do

— another deep dive of IAUA's Holy Scriptures, contained in the Old and New Testaments (w/ Apocrypha), going cover-to-cover hopefully by the end of the year

— 31 to 32 other books I've checked out/ renewed from the local circulation library or downloaded from public domain if I can't find a hard copy, all taking 11 to 12 days each, but 2 of the books below, which I also hope to get done by year-end. 

The key to all this of course is to activate my latent red hot passionate desire to make myself a better servant to my Lord, my brothers, and my sisters. This isn't necessary of course for all people (id est, people who simply fulfill the objectives they set), but I find that if I don't have the motivation, I'm apt to backslide into slothful dissipation.

May the challenge be successfully met by all who undertake it, may they be fruitful and enriching primarily for the readers of these books and texts as well as actual NG community members, not merely for the unseen but ever-present marketing affiliates with their lucrative datamining bot nets, and may the readers become more fully actualized people who love the truth and realize their inner potential to the greater glory of God, being more able to meet the challenging days ahead of us as the love of many waxes cold and iniquities abound.

Nah. You'll win. 

See?

Art comes from suffering, not college, per se. Only believe and fill up—you'll pour out.

This posthumanist world's old institutions aren't what they once were. College is optional—an overpriced social club—a credentialing and grant-grubbing racket. Though some may be vulnerable to potentially lethal fits of laughter hearing such a claim, NG's instructional and creative value alone is greater than a gaggle of art schools. STEMs are the only economic "should" for formal study, and even then there's Khan Academy, classic Encyclopaedia Britannica, etc., for structure.

I, for one, not only welcome and plot to collaborate with our civilisation-preserving Saurian overlord, and encourage others to do likewise, but also raise you

— one (1) work of John Thomas Looney, "Shakespeare" Identified (1918) [makes the case that Shakespeare is pen name for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth I Tudor's Lord Great Chamberlain]

https://sourcetext.com/shakespeare-identified/

— two (2) works of Dorothy and Carlton Ogborn, The Renaissance Man of England (~80 pages) (1949) and This Star of England—“William Shakes-speare”—Man of the Renaissance (~1,200 pages) (1952) [gets into nitty gritty of de Vere = Shakespeare]

https://archive.org/details/renaissancemanof0000ogbu/page/n1/mode/2up

https://sourcetext.com/this-star-of-england/

Heard a compelling case that de Vere is Shakespeare—that de Vere was on Team Lancaster [Romeo, "Montague"] and Elizabeth a Tudor [Juliet, "Capulet"] cinched it for me—so I intend to verify—and likewise invite you if you please—by reading these myself if God continues to be exceedingly gracious with this worm.

Lock me in for 12, Let's do this :D

Deliberately putting down a book after only a couple of chapters every night because it's ace and I don't want to burn through it faster than I have to. Haven't had that happen in a while.

If you guys are looking for something to read, like just can't figure out what book to grab----

This one is really, really good.

I'm planning to read 15 books this year.

I'm currently reading The Plutonium Blonde. I'm on Chapter 3 and it's pretty sweet so far. It's set in the year 2057 and it's about this guy who's the last PI on the planet. Also, I love the cover art on the front of the book. Check this out.

Pretty rad!

Done reading these books:

3. Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix (Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix), J. K. Rowling, 960 pages

4. Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), J. K. Rowling, 640 pages

5. Harry Potter und die Heiligtümer des Todes (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), J. K. Rowling, 752 pages

6. Die Märchen von Beedle dem Barden (The Tales of Beedle the Bard), J. K. Rowling, 128 pages

Decided to read the rest of the Harry Potter books in a row. Out of them, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix is by far my favorite and probably my favorite of the whole series. Rough to talk about the books without spoiling. The last one is good overall and the ending makes sense with the overall theme of the books. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince aside from some very important stuff almost reads like a filler episode, especially with all the direct callbacks to the first book.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of fairy tales, collected by Beedle the Bard. This book and one of its stories play a major role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Also has a few illustrations and comments by Dumbledore about each story. Pretty cool short book.

Number 3 stalled a bit due to me being ill as fuck most of this week, but was finally able to sit down and finish it tonight.

3. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Didn't know much about this one going in other than that it was a western and was reasonably well regarded. Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.

The prose took me off guard for a start. Big "christ, is it all going to be like this?" feeling after struggling through first couple of chapters, before something clicked and it all started to flow. Not really sure how to describe it, nearest expeirence would be when the dialect starts feeling totally natural in an Irvine Welsh novel, but rather than just being something I stopped noticing like in Welsh's work there was a real "holy fuck" moment as it all came together.

I've not got the strongest minds eye when it comes to scenery. Characters or action, fine, but unless I sit and deliberately picture it, descriptions of the surroundings just glide right off me. No so here. It's the closest I've ever come to sympathising with famed professional wrestler and literary scholar Kota Ibushi and his incredible quote about hating books because they force images into his brain, because that's exactly what McCarthy was doing here. Ramming these apocalyptic visions into my head whether I wanted them there or not.

It's not perfect. There's one or two passages that had me going "aye, alright Cormac, calm down" after he spends half a page attaching some absurdly overblown analogy to a description of a dust cloud of whatever, but these ocassional lapses to self parody are rare. Without hyperbole I can honestly say it's unlike anything else I've ever read.

The other thing that jumps out is the violence. At times it's stark and mundane, dropping all pretense to show clearly just what absolute bastards our protagonists are. At others it's an otherworldly nightmare, real apocalyptic stuff. I've written this much and realised I've not even mentioned the plot yet, and honestly, it's because it never really mattered to me as I read it. We're following a series of increasingly horrific acts carried out for increasingly pointless reasons, but it's the conversations in between and the quiet treks through the desert where all the interesting stuff happens, the plot is just a frame to hang the good shit on.

So aye, pretty decent book I guess. Goes without saying this won't be the last of his work I read. Got the Border Trilogy on the shelf already.

2: The Settlers of Catan by Rebecca Gable

Friends of mine dared me to read the book based on the Catan boardgame.

Originally written in German the English translation comes in over 600 pages. TBH I wasn't expecting much but it turned out to be a strong story. They're vikings and fending off starvation after a raid left them with little to get through a long winter. They set out to find a mythical land one guy saw once after sailing into a hurricane so they do just that and end up in Catan. They settled in the new paradise but soon there's conflict in their little community.

The story can be violent and there are some difficult passages about rape and murder and blood sacrifice. The author did a good job fleshing out a number of characters. There is plot and conflict and development and motivation for what they become. It holds up pretty well on it's own.

Ok so I'm interested but 600 pages goddamn 😆

100 books. At least 200 pages each.

Happy 2021 everyone (hopefully it beats last year!)

Thanks @Jackho for organising this - I found this thread really useful last year for finding book recommendations and for motivation to keep reading!

I'm going to aim for 40 books again this year - I would up it but I'll have college to deal with on top of work so I don't want to be unrealistic.

I've already read two books this month:

On Writing by Stephen King

Even if you have no interest in writing fiction, this is a blast to read. King is a household name for a reason - the man knows how to tell a good story. He takes some of the key lessons from his life as a writer and weaves them into a great narrative. It's part biography, part instruction manual and part life advice.

I found everything in here great and have recommended this to anyone I know who is interested in writing.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

This was my choice for the book club I do with my friends. If I realised how out there this would be as a novel, I maybe would have picked something else!

Despite how... graphic some parts were, I found this really interesting. It's a novel that has a lot to say, I'm just not sure I understood all of it. It definitely has something to say about masculinity and alienation, but I might need to pick my friend's brains before I have a clear idea how I feel about it.

In terms of plot, the book follows two main characters. Ryuji, a sailor who starts a relationship with a beautiful, successful widow, Fusako, and her son, Noburo. Both the man and the boy have strong feelings about their place in the universe. However, their reactions to these feelings are quite different, and ultimately lead to a deadly conclusion.

Thats all from me so far this month! The only other thing to say is that I made a blog post comparing how I rated the books from last year to the Goodreads rating. If you're interested you can check it out here: https://gary-lynch.github.io/posts/2021-01-16-what-i-read-in-2020-my-ratings-versus-goodreads/

I didn't realize at first i was just trucking along and I felt like it was spending a lot of time not being in Catan. Like 300 pages spent in their homeland and at sea. That's a like the size of a book I normally read. It's separated into part 1, part 2, part 3 so there were easy points to stop and pick up again if you're not able to read it all at once.

Knocked most of another one out on Sunday and finished it off tonight.

4. The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett

I hadn't planned to dive back into Corbett's work so soon after finishing (and thoroughly enjoying) Man-Eaters of Kumaon, but here we are. It's a testament to how vivid the picture of India he paints is that I couldn't stay away for very long, as just the idea of spending time in that world was temptation enough to get me to pick up another of his books.

Unlike Man-Eaters, which was a collection of tales covering several different hunts, this book entirely consists of Corbett's account of the hunt for a single leopard. I was a little wary as that could mean some padding to get the material to fill a book when his previous tales already felt about the right length in their shorter forms, but once I was in those fears vanished. If anything, I'd have enjoyed a few more asides. As with Man-Eaters before it, Corbett's stories of fishing expeditions or glimpses into local customs are just as entertaining as those of the hunts themselves, and the book never drags for a second.

The story is one that certainly justifies its own book, too. The leopard comes across as a more intimidating foe than any of the tigers in his previous work, and there's some genuinely edge of your seat scenes. Corbett in the pitch dark during a storm, unable to see or hear anything around him, wrapping any clothing he can spare around his neck to perhaps buy precious seconds should it lunge for him and grasping only a knife for protection is a particular highlight.

Another fantastic memoir, and with The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon already on my shelf, I can't imagine it'll be long before I'm next heading into Corbett's India.

Still reading but here's what I have so far.

1) Random online and print materials

Read pieces on college tuition issue, useless degrees, suggestion posts for a video, lots of reddit posts, bests tablets on a budget, a few book reviews, TV guide on screen, ingredient labels, Unity game engine, Quest 2 headset issue, a newspaper paper about increased port traffic, an article about plans for school and a Dear Abby piece.

2) Gear Up For Growth in 2021 from fiverr

This will be the third edition of their yearly book created by fiverr sellers. Quick read, nothing highly innovative but it was nicely presently.

3) TBA

Still reading book three but will see what gets read by month's end.

Go on then, one more.

5. The Ruins by Scott Smith

First let down of the year for me. It's a pretty solid horror novel that, on the face of it, should have been right up my street, but which I came away relatively lukewarm on. Didn't dislike it, it passed the time well enough and on the whole I'd say I enjoyed it, but I was hoping for a bit more than that.

All the pieces are there. Initially I was into it. It starts off with my favourite horror set up. Here's a bunch of characters stuck in a dangerous situation, gradually uncovering information about what's happening, and coming up with ways to survive it. Slap on a some decent body horror and a cast of characters relatively free from the tropes and survival situation bickering these novels can get bogged down in, and I thought I might be onto a winner.

Unfortunately, that's not what the book turns into. The focus is less on reacting to the situation, finding a way around one obstacle only to be blindsided by another, than it is about an ever escalating sense of doom. It's clear to the reader and the characters pretty early on there's not much they can do about the mess they've found themselves. Instead there is a sense of inevitability to things, as the situation goes from bad to worse and the true nature of the threat becomes apparent.

That could be fine in theory, some of my favourite horror is all about not much happening while a sense of dread creeps in little by little, but it never clicked with me. I think, maybe, because the characters are so passive. This is a book in which people wait for things to happen to them, rather than doing things to drive the plot forward themselves.

Once characters are just doomed like this I often find a lot of the tension goes out of a work. The jump from "this could go either way" to "we're probably fucked" always hits harder than the one from "we are definitely fucked" to "we are still definitely fucked, and also I've shit my pants". Maybe the escalation just needed to be slower, I don't know, I just never felt fear for these people. They're a likeable enough group, it's not like some books where you don't care if the characters live or die because they're all arseholes, but once you've mentally written off someone hours earlier it's a bit harder to care when they do finally get bumped off.

I've danced around saying what the actual threat is, because they do keep the reveal back long enough I'd consider it a spoiler, but I will say the more they revealed about it the less I liked it. The book shines when it's at its most grounded, looking at the horror of being injured and isolated without hope of rescue, or dealing with hunger and thirst and the effect that has on the body, but the more we learn about the threat the goofier it becomes. There's a bit of a tonal clash, like the baddy has accidentally stumbled into this story on it's way to a Goosebumps novel.

Rereading what I've written, it sounds harsher than I mean to be. It's a fine book, and there's one or two really good sequences, but it falls into that frustrating zone of not being bad enough to write off altogether, but also having nothing to really get excited about. Truly great horror should stick with you after you've read it, and if I can remember anything at all of this book a year from now, I'll be very surprised.

I am enjoying Mozart's Women on my breaks. Probably won't finish it this month, but Im still enjoying it. Guess what it's about. I read some occult tarot book for a pallet refresh, but it's a slog. I have a few other books on the esoteric mysteries woven into the fabric of our reality but really standing on their side of reality and man, they are written poorly. Not written difficult so the reader has to figure it out. More written in a way that sounds like chisels against a literal writers block. Incredibly descriptive without actually describing things. The mysteries are beyond me.

3: A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

nekomika showed me a haul of books she recently purchased and this one caught my eye so I decided to pick it up myself. It was interesting reading something made 400 years ago and how much of the principles could be applied today. It was not exactly what I expected. I suppose I was expecting more technical discussion of sword fighting. The translation I picked up included commentary putting parts of the text into context which helped because some passages were only a few words.