Fifty book challenge 2008

[Violet*Faerie]

1)Deborah Curtis - Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis And Joy Division.
2) Louise Welsh - The Bullet Trick.
3) Irvine Welsh - The Bedroom Secrets Of The Master Chefs.

4) Clare Alan - Poppy Shakespeare.

I watched this on Ch 4 and felt compelled to read the book. The TV version is pretty much word for word like the book. It was a worthwhile read though.

[CHUCK LIDELOL]

Is this actually just a list? What's the point?

Anyway, I finished Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis last night. It was very good, if a little confusing toward the end. I loved the concept though, book within a book. This was far better than any other Easton Ellis novel I've read, as there was a lack of snappy dialogue and much more room for the character (Bret) to grow... and deteriorate, sadly.

[Rowsbette]

Is this actually just a list? What's the point?

To keep track of what you've read. As a guide to if you're on track for hitting 50 by the end of the year. And I enjoy having a good nosey at what other folk are reading.

Stew started a thread for mini-reviews if you're looking for summat a bit more indepth.

1. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
2. D. H. Lawrence - The Rainbow
3. Evelyn Waugh - A Handful of Dust
4. James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
5. Evelyn Waugh - The Loved One
6. Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
7. Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
8. D. H. Lawrence - Women in Love
9. Ford Madox Ford - The Good Soldier
10. Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
11. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment
12. Joseph Conrad - Under Western Eyes
13. Laura Hird - Born Free
14. Harold Pinter - The Birthday Party
15. Samuel Beckett - Play
16. Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
17. Samuel Beckett - Happy Days
18. Samuel Beckett - Krapp's Last Tape
19. Muriel Spark - A Far Cry From Kensington
20. Hilary Mantel - Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
21. Harold Pinter - The Room / The Dumb Waiter
22. Harold Pinter - A Slight Ache
23. Harold Pinter - The Caretaker
24. Milan Kundera - Immortality
25. William Shakespeare - The Tempest
26. Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without a Country
27. Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden
28. William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice
29. Muriel Spark - Loitering with Intent
30. Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
31. William Shakespeare - Anthony and Cleopatra
32. Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle
33. William Shakespeare - Macbeth
34. William Shakespeare - Othello
35. William Shakespeare - King Lear
36. Philippe Dijan - Betty Blue
37. Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight
38. Kate Atkinson - Human Croquet
39. Ian McEwan - Atonement

40. Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn

Loved it, along with everything else she's written. It surprises me that a lot of the reviews classed it as "literary" though, it felt quite lightweight in comparison to some of her earlier books.

[johnnie walker]

1. Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
2. Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
3. Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One)
4. Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
5. Terry Pratchett - The Light Fantastic
6. China Miéville - The Iron Council
7. Ian Irvine - The Curse on the Chosen (Book Two of the Song of the Tears trilogy, part of the Three Worlds Cycle)
8. Richard Dawkins - Unweaving the Rainbow
9. Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged (The First Law: Book Two)
10. Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara (Book One of the Sword of Shannara trilogy)
11. Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash.
12. Richard Morgan - Broken Angels
13. Raymond E Fiest - Wrath of a Mad God (Book 3 of the Darkwar saga)
14. Stephen Donaldson - The Power that Preserves (The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Book 3)
15. Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver (Volume One of the Baroque Cycle)
16. Terry Brooks - The Elfstones of Shannara (Book Two of the Sword of Shannara trilogy)
17. Cory Doctorow - Little Brother (Released on Creative Commons Licence - download for free )
18. Allen Carr - The Easy Way To Stop Smoking
19. John Gribbin - Science: A History
20. Arthur C Clarke & Stephen Baxter - The Light of Other Days
21. Dan Abnett - The Horus Heresy book 1: Horus Rising (Warhammer 40k)
22. Ian C. Esselmount - Night of Knives (A Novel of the Malazan Empire)
23. William Gibson - Idoru
24. Stephen Fry - Hippopotamus
25. Neal Stephenson - Confusion (Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle)
26. Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air
27. Naomi Novik - Temeraire (AKA His Majesty's Dragon) - Temeraire Book 1

Really enjoyed this book. Simple way to describe it is the Napoleonic wars with dragons. The series is called Temeraire and the first book (this one) was released as Temeraire in the uk, but his majesty's dragon in the us.

Also, Peter Jackson has optioned the film rights. The book would work very well as a movie. The battle of Trafalgar happens in this book, but with around 30 dragons fighting as well.

[supernothing]

1.Goethe - Faust Part I
2.Slavoj Zizek - The Universal Exception
3.Sadegh Hedayat - The Blind Owl
4.Brian Turner - Here, Bullet.
5.John Burnside - The Devils Footprints
6. Jean Baudrillard - The Spirit of Terrorism or A Requiem for the Twin Towers
7. AL Kennedy - Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains
8. The Life of Rob Roy - Anonymous
9. Miranda July - No one belongs here more than you.
10. Edwin Morgan - A book of lives.
11. TS Eliot - The Waste Land and other poems
12. Antony Samson - Who Runs This Place? An Anatomy og Britain in the 21st Century
13. Greg Philo and David Miller - Market Killing: what the free market does and what social scientists can do about it
14. Robert Crawford - A Scottish Assembly
15. James Kelman - how late it was, how late
16. Noam Chomsky - Profit over people
17. Joseph Stiglitz - Globalization and it's Discontents
18.David Frisby - Fragments of Modernity
19.Catherine Belsey - A very short intro to Poststructuralism
20. Mikail Bulgacov - The Master and Margarita
21. Paul Strathern - Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes
22. Paul Childs - Modernism
23. Sammuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
24. Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
25. R.L. Trask - Introducing Linguistics
26. John Burnside - Glister
27. James Kelman - An Old Pub Near the Angel
28. Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
29. Dinaw Mengestu - Children of the Revolution Which is the booker nominated debut novel by ethiopian-american Mengestu looking at the experience of falling between the cracks of two cultures. Very good.
30. JD Salinger - To Esme, with Love and Squalor A collection of some of Salinger's short stories. Mostly very good, some ok, a couple outstanding.

[Purplerose]

1. Dean Koontz - Demon Seed
2. Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
3. Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You
4. Richard Matheson - I Am Legend
5. Julie Bertagna - Exodus
6. Ian McEwan - Atonement
7. Jean Plaidy - The Royal Road to Fotheringay
8. Philippa Gregory - The Queens Fool

[CHUCK LIDELOL]

*Brett Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero

Cold as fuck.

[Will_Couper]

1. The Rules of the Game - Neil Strauss
2. The Hungry Moon - Ramsey Campbell
3. Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
4. Still-Watch - Mary Higgins Clark
5. Riverworld and Other Stories - Philip Jose Farmer
6. The Book of Philip Jose Farmer - Philip Jose Farmer
7. Graham Masterton Omnibus: The Hymn and Night Plague - Graham Masterton
8. Crooked Little Vein - Warren Ellis
9. Me, Hood! - Mickey Spillane
10. The Body Lovers - Mickey Spillane
11. Out of Space and Time - Clark Ashton Smith
12. Tooth and Nail - Ian Rankin
13. Class Dis-Mythed - Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
14. Myth-Gotten Gains - Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
15. Against A Dark Background - Iain M Banks
16. Feersum Endjinn - Iain M Banks

17. Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks

I'm not sure how much I enjoyed this book. Lots of interesting ideas and things happening, but it just seemed to be a bit of a muddle.

18. The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett

One I've wanted to read for a while and it was a good, simple story.


Will

[Will_Couper]

1. The Rules of the Game - Neil Strauss
2. The Hungry Moon - Ramsey Campbell
3. Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
4. Still-Watch - Mary Higgins Clark
5. Riverworld and Other Stories - Philip Jose Farmer
6. The Book of Philip Jose Farmer - Philip Jose Farmer
7. Graham Masterton Omnibus: The Hymn and Night Plague - Graham Masterton
8. Crooked Little Vein - Warren Ellis
9. Me, Hood! - Mickey Spillane
10. The Body Lovers - Mickey Spillane
11. Out of Space and Time - Clark Ashton Smith
12. Tooth and Nail - Ian Rankin
13. Class Dis-Mythed - Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
14. Myth-Gotten Gains - Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
15. Against A Dark Background - Iain M Banks
16. Feersum Endjinn - Iain M Banks
17. Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks
18. The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett

19. Making Money - Terry Pratchett

A story that whirls around at breakneck pace and manages to tie itself up neatly at the end.


Will

[Rowsbette]

1. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
2. D. H. Lawrence - The Rainbow
3. Evelyn Waugh - A Handful of Dust
4. James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
5. Evelyn Waugh - The Loved One
6. Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
7. Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
8. D. H. Lawrence - Women in Love
9. Ford Madox Ford - The Good Soldier
10. Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
11. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment
12. Joseph Conrad - Under Western Eyes
13. Laura Hird - Born Free
14. Harold Pinter - The Birthday Party
15. Samuel Beckett - Play
16. Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
17. Samuel Beckett - Happy Days
18. Samuel Beckett - Krapp's Last Tape
19. Muriel Spark - A Far Cry From Kensington
20. Hilary Mantel - Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
21. Harold Pinter - The Room / The Dumb Waiter
22. Harold Pinter - A Slight Ache
23. Harold Pinter - The Caretaker
24. Milan Kundera - Immortality
25. William Shakespeare - The Tempest
26. Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without a Country
27. Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden
28. William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice
29. Muriel Spark - Loitering with Intent
30. Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
31. William Shakespeare - Anthony and Cleopatra
32. Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle
33. William Shakespeare - Macbeth
34. William Shakespeare - Othello
35. William Shakespeare - King Lear
36. Philippe Dijan - Betty Blue
37. Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight
38. Kate Atkinson - Human Croquet
39. Ian McEwan - Atonement
40. Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn

41. Angela Carter - The Magic Toyshop
42. Angela Carter - Love

[PrincessGarnet]

1. An introduction to African Politics - Alex Thompson
2 Other voices, other rooms - Truman Capote
3. The Kosovo Report - Independent commission on Kosovo
4 Selling Olga - Louisa Waugh

5 Veronika decides to die - Paulo Coelho

I loved this, although i regret not finishing it in one day. I started reading it yesterday and stopped reading it as it was making me really depressed... But what's depressing me now is that there is a film of this to be released next year with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Veronika. I've never read anything by Paulo Coelho before but I'm defintely going to read more.

[Fiona_B]

1. Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
2. Neil Gaiman - Stardust
3. Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
4. Gary Gibson - Stealing Light
5. Iain Banks - Steep Approach to Garbadale
6. Jed Rubenford - Interpretation of Murder
7. James Patterson - 7th Heaven
8. Tom Reynolds - Touch Me, Im Sick
9. Belle De Jour - Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl
10. Hunter S. Thompson - Hell's Angels
11. Nikki Sixx - Heroin Diaries
12. Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
13. James Patterson - The 6th Target
14. Duncan Staff - The Lost Boy
15. Kevin Smith - the Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith
16. James Patterson - You've Been Warned
17. Marian Keyes - Sushi For Beginners
18. Jane Moore - dot.homme
19. Kevin Smith - Tales from the Clerks
20. Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
21. Mark Oliver Everett - Things the Grandchildren Should Know
22. Philip Pullman - Once Upon a time in the North
23. Neil Gaiman - American Gods
24. Jodi Picoult - Nineteen Minutes
25. Michel Houellebecq - Atomised
26. Haruki Murakami - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

27. Dita Von Teese - Burlesque and the Art of the Teese

[CHUCK LIDELOL]

*Brett Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero

Cold as fuck.

~+1 The Dirt - Motley Crue
~+2 Ghostwritten - David Mitchell

[endless psych]

1. Discurrsive Research in practice - Hepburn and Wiggins Eds.
2. Obedience to authority - Stanley Milgram
3. The lucifer effect - Phillip Zimbardo
4. Developing a questionnaire - Bill graham
5. About Behaviourism - B.F. Skinner
6. Language and Gender: a reader Jennifer Coates (Ed)
7. Tricks of the Mind - Derren Brown
8. Virtual Ethnography - Christine Hine
9. Wild Minds - Marc Hauser
10. The collected writings of Jung - C. G. Jung (Anthony Storr ed.)
11. Learn to remember - Dominic O'Brian
12. No Country for old men - Cormac McCarthy
13. The memory palace of Matteo Ricci - Jonathan Spence
14. Look To Windward - Iain M Banks
15. Matter - Iain M Banks
16. The Step approach to Garabdale - Iain Banks
17. Mutants - Armand Marie Leroi
18. Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks - Christopher Brookmyer
19. Your memory - Kenneth Higby (PhD)
20. The Practice of Critical Discourse analysis - Bloor and Bloor (eds)
21. Methods of Crticial discourse analysis - Wodak and Meyer
22. Fugitives and Refugees - Chuck Palahniuk
23. Non Fiction - chuck Palahniuk
24. The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland
25. Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk

26. Tools for Critical discousr research - Theo Van Leewuen

[johnnie walker]

1. Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
2. Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
3. Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One)
4. Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
5. Terry Pratchett - The Light Fantastic
6. China Miéville - The Iron Council
7. Ian Irvine - The Curse on the Chosen (Book Two of the Song of the Tears trilogy, part of the Three Worlds Cycle)
8. Richard Dawkins - Unweaving the Rainbow
9. Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged (The First Law: Book Two)
10. Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara (Book One of the Sword of Shannara trilogy)
11. Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash.
12. Richard Morgan - Broken Angels
13. Raymond E Fiest - Wrath of a Mad God (Book 3 of the Darkwar saga)
14. Stephen Donaldson - The Power that Preserves (The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Book 3)
15. Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver (Volume One of the Baroque Cycle)
16. Terry Brooks - The Elfstones of Shannara (Book Two of the Sword of Shannara trilogy)
17. Cory Doctorow - Little Brother (Released on Creative Commons Licence - download for free )
18. Allen Carr - The Easy Way To Stop Smoking
19. John Gribbin - Science: A History
20. Arthur C Clarke & Stephen Baxter - The Light of Other Days
21. Dan Abnett - The Horus Heresy book 1: Horus Rising (Warhammer 40k)
22. Ian C. Esselmount - Night of Knives (A Novel of the Malazan Empire)
23. William Gibson - Idoru
24. Stephen Fry - Hippopotamus
25. Neal Stephenson - Confusion (Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle)
26. Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air
27. Naomi Novik - Temeraire (AKA His Majesty's Dragon) - Temeraire Book 1
28. Jack Vance - The Dying Earth
29. Naomi Novik - Throne of Jade - Temeraire Book 2

Really enjoyed this, less action focused as whole than the last book, but no less engaging for it. The plot follows on from the first book, with the main characters travelling over sea to china.