Fifty book challenge 2008

[xph0ria]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

7. Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife

Forgot how bleak and macabre it gets towards the end.

I cried like a wee lassie when I read that book.

Anyway, I'm gonna give it another shot this year (that is, to keep count - I read a good seventy or eighty books in 2007, but went AWOL from AN so didn't keep a list of them past March).

I don't think this is a full list of everything I've read since the start of the year (it seems short, considering the amount of reading I do) but it could be the lot.


1. Philip Pullman - The Amber Spyglass
2. Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
3. Alice Sebold - The Almost Moon
4. Christopher Brookmyer - Quite Ugly One Morning
5. Christopher Brookmyer - Country of the Blind
6. Terry Pratchett - Going Postal
7. Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic
8. Stephen King - Duma Key


Currently reading King's Insomnia, and think I'm about to head to bed for a few pages of it now.

[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

Notable for a couple of things including how 'Tarzan' might have been if it had been written by William Borroughs and that Philip Jose Farmer's a dirty bastard.

My slow reading pace is getting rather embarrassing.


Will

[Rowsbette]

Originally Posted by xph0ria

I cried like a wee lassie when I read that book.

Yas! I felt really daft for shedding tears when Lee Scoresby died and again when Will's dad died, so I'm glad I'm not alone.

Originally Posted by Stew

7. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights.
8. Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo.
9. Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho.
10. William Shakespeare - Othello.

Take a swatch at your quoted post, Stew.

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

I know counting plays is a bit of a cop-out (especially the very short Play BUT I've now read it four times and seen the weirdly addictive film thrice) but I wanna record every full book I read this year, and it seems really lame to keep separate lists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdTjRumkT9k

[the.definitive]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

11. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment

Stevie bought me that for Christmas actually, I need to get tore into it, I put it off because I'd just read Dune which was a beast, and I wanted a few skinny books after that!


1. The God Of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
2. Dune - Frank Herbert
3.Marching Powder - Rusty Young
4. Mr Vertigo - Paul Auster
5. Brick Lane - Monica Ali
6. Night Train - Martin Amis

I love Martin Amis, but I don't think I quite "got" this one to be honest.

[Purplerose]

1. Dean Koontz - Demon Seed
2. Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
3. Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

[gazz]

1. Night Train: A Biography of Sonny Liston - Nick Tosches
2. Pound for Pound: A Biography of Sugar Ray Robinson - Percy Sutton
3. Atlas: From the Streets to the Ring: A Son's Struggle to Become a Man - Teddy Atlas
4. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden
5. The Innocent Man: John Grisham

6. Workouts from Boxing's Greatest Champs by Gary Todd
7. The Paddy and the Prince: Making of Naseem Hamed by Nick Pitt
8. Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell

[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

[Rowsbette]

Originally Posted by the.definitive

6. Night Train - Martin Amis

I love Martin Amis, but I don't think I quite "got" this one to be honest.

I've only read one of his books (Dead Babies)... I liked the style but the ending was a bit: "What the fuck...?" Wouldn't mind giving him another bash though, any you'd recommend?

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

[Stew]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

Take a swatch at your quoted post, Stew.

What'd I miss?

[Rowsbette]

I think you'd copied your list twice, or something.

[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

i'm so sure i've read more, or maybe it's the fact i have about 14 books set aside that i've bought but have yet to read. curse my shop getting a book department in, i managed to curb the fopp addiction.

[supernothing]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

I've only read one of his books (Dead Babies)... I liked the style but the ending was a bit: "What the fuck...?" Wouldn't mind giving him another bash though, any you'd recommend?

I was just about to cry Martin Amis a racist but then remembered I'm reading Celine's "journey to the end of the night", which is fucking amazing. Although Celine turned out to be a huge anti-semite and wrote propoganda for Vichy France

[Rowsbette]

Originally Posted by supernothing

I was just about to cry Martin Amis a racist but then remembered I'm reading Celine's "journey to the end of the night", which is fucking amazing. Although Celine turned out to be a huge anti-semite and wrote propoganda for Vichy France

Really? I'd never heard he was supposed to be a racist. I hate when people whose writing you admire turn out to have daft beliefs.

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

Pretty creepy, I really enjoyed it.

[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

A bit of a mixed bag, but mostly good.

Originally Posted by Fiona_B

4. Gary Gibson - Stealing Light

Gary's a good guy, but I haven't read any of his novels. How was this one?


Will

[supernothing]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

Really? I'd never heard he was supposed to be a racist. I hate when people whose writing you admire turn out to have daft beliefs.

I assume your talking about Amis rather than Celine.
There was a wee to do with Amis and Terry Eagleton over Amis's comments in various newspapers and interviews; for instance Amis said that the muslim community would need to "suffer untill it got it's house in order" and a lot of other stupid shit.
Here he is coming across as a total twat on Channel 4 news

YouTube - Martin Amis & Jon Snow/Part 1