Cecrow - 2016 TBR Challenge

Primary List:
1 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (finished 2016/01)
2 Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi (finished 2016/02)
3 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky (finished 2016/02)
4 Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner (finished 2016/03)
5 Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens (finished 2016/04)
6 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (finished 2016/05)
7 The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James (finished 2016/06)
8 Staying On - Paul Scott (finished 2016/06)
9 The Odyssey - Homer (finished 2016/08)
10 Ulysses - James Joyce (finished 2016/10)
11 The Voyage of the Beagle - Charles Darwin (finished 2016/12)
12 The Collected Stories of Katherine Ann Porter - K. A. Porter (finished 2016/04)

COMPLETED 2016/12

Alternate List:
1 Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (finished 2016/01)
2 Boy: Tales of Childhood - Roald Dahl (finished 2016/03)
3 The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (finished 2016/06)
4 Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier (finished 2016/08)
5 The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (finished 2016/04)
6 The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (finished 2016/07)
7 The Children of Men - P.D. James (finished 2016/05)
8 The Trial - Franz Kafka (finished 2016/07)
9 Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson (finished 2016/07)
10 Shadowmarch - Tad Williams (finished 2016/11)
11 The Land of Painted Caves - Jean Auel (finished 2016/11)
12 Millennium - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (finished 2016/12)

COMPLETED 2016/12

Year Six of the TBR Challenge for me. Yeah, I'm not going to make it through all twenty-four this time.

Proceeding apace with Dickens, Joyce, James, Homer and Scott. I have a short story collection, some non-fiction and an e-reader title. Saluting the passing of Terry Pratchett and P.D. James, and the 100th anniversary of Dahl's birth. Finally get to read Fforde after all the pre-requisites, and sample some other intriguing new-to-me authors. After a couple of bad fantasy picks, I've listed only the first books of Red Mars and Shadowmarch. The rest are just-for-fun titles that I've been denied long enough, which might be the best credentials of all.

Mr. Joyce is intimidating me a bit. So is Jean Auel, for a completely different reason: I know that one's going to be TERRIBLE but I just can't help myself, lol.

Nice list! Nabokov & Dostoevsky, excellent. Darwin's is one on my shelves as well, maybe I'll tackle that for 2017, haha. I have a few others of those waiting as well. :P

Nabokov is a hold-over for me from all the way back in 2011, very much time I finally got to it so there it is at #1.

>1 Cecrow:

Those are good, eclectic lists; you've certainly included your fair share of literary giants there. I have tried and failed to complete both Crime and Punishment and Ulysses; hopefully you're more successful than I have been.

Wait a second... Lolita paired with Reading Lolita in Tehran? The Odyssey paired with Ulysses? I see what you did there! :D

Nice list. Good luck with all of them.

I tried to read Red Mars . I really wanted to like it. Eh. Hope you enjoy it better than I did.

I did love Ready Player One.

>5 artturnerjr:, you missed one! I've purposely paired Rebecca and The Eyre Affair (preceded by Martin Chuzzlewit). It's all part of my evil master plan to conquer the world, muahaha.

So, basically we're looking at Crime and Punishment, Ulysses and Red Mars all leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Oh goody.

Wait what connection does Rebecca have to The Eyre Affair?

Critical analysis (I will verify in 2016) suggests Rebecca is said to closely echo the story of Jane Eyre; and the Eyre Affair is further based upon Jane too, so there's common theme there. I've been trying to get to these before Jane is too lost to memory for me to appreciate the comparisons and references - although it's been holding up pretty well so far. Definitely liked Jane Eyre more than I anticipated.

Character(s) from Martin Chuzzlewit apparently figure in The Eyre Affair also, so I need to read that first.

Kind of along these lines, I've found this discussion topic really interesting where people chat about what should be read before what else.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/160641

Mind, I have no idea what books are on the 1001 book list, but it's still good general reading. Not always essential though; for example I didn't find Ficciones did much to inform House of Leaves (but if you're only going to read one, read Borges).

Ah interesting, I (obviously) did not know that about Rebecca.

I do read from the 1001 list, though there are some I will skip and obviously it does not comprise my reading, it's just one part of it. But, a handful of the ones on my soon-to-be-posted list are actually 1001 titles. :)

I'm partial to the smaller 501 Must-Read Books list myself, as this lonely little group will attest:
https://www.librarything.com/groups/501mustreadbooks

Yeah, I like lists in general, at some point I was planning to add that one to my spreadsheets but I've never gotten around to it, effort and all that. xP

I like to use the 1001 list as a starting point.

Great list! I stopped after the third book in Jean Auel's series, with no desire to proceed any further. I can understand why that particular book might be intimidating. :-)

One day, I will go back to Fforde's Thursday Next series, after I read some of the books referenced that I have not yet read (Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, Martin Chuzzlewit).

>11 Cecrow: Oh, and I see Pinocchio is at the top of the Children's Fiction section of your 501 Must Read list. I read this last year with my daughter, before our trip to Italy. I have an edition that is beautifully illustrated by Roberto Innocenti. Gorgeous book, and I truly enjoyed the story, much more than I thought I would.

Where do I start with your list? So many titles have me excited as I either have read them or really want to. Lolita was a book that I was very glad to have finally read and didn't find as disturbing as I thought I might. Reading Lolita in Tehran is on my wishlist and one I hope to get to in 2016.

Interesting to read the comments above about how Rebecca and Jane Eyre have similarities. It isn't something that jumped out at me after readin both, so I'll have to ponder that some more and see if I get the connections.

Ready Player One is a nice change of pace for your list and one that I really enjoyed having grown up in the 80's.

If you can finish Martin Chuzzlewit you are a better person than I - just kept losing interest.

Okay, I could probably go on and on, but will show some restraint until you start posting your results in 2016.

Interesting list -- seems like it skews towards the Great And Heavy.

Crime and Punishment and Ulysses I both gave up on (the former about a third in, the latter after twenty pages or so). But I was a teenager at the time, and I've always assumed I'd be revisiting them at some point. Perhaps I ought to bung one of them on my list for 2016...

The wind-up bird chronicle is the only one out of my three Murakami books I haven't read yet, but I read the other two back to back last year, and they were very samey so I don't think I'll be getting back to Murakami any time soon. If this is your first Murakami, though, I think you'll like it.

The Odyssey is one of my favourite books. I've read it in so many retellings and translations.

The Colour of Magic I remember as a very uneven book -- the world doesn't really start to gel until the fourth book in the series (Mort). But it does a good job of setting the stage and poking good-natured fun at sword and sorcery tropes. I remember liking it (though the series gets much better!). As I recall, TCoM is not a standalone: the story concludes in The Light Fantastic.

Rebecca is good. Brooding, a slow cooker. I never really considered the connection to Jane Eyre, though the two do share a setting and some of the plot. Have you

The Eyre affair was heaps of fun. (I never read Martin Chuzzlewit, but that didn't prove much of a hindrance.)

The trial I thought was good, one of those books where tedium is the point, and one of those that don't drag.

>13 abergsman:, you stopped at exactly the right place with Auel. It feels very much as though after the third book she ran out of ideas and started dumping filler into the plot. But when you're five books down and one to go, it leaves a very unfinished feeling that I need to resolve. Sigh.

>14 abergsman:, there's a lot of classics on the children's fiction list, some of which don't play quite as well with our kids today, but a few still stand out. I didn't think that would be one of them, based on reviews I've read, but I'm glad it worked for you! My son enjoyed Five Children and It, Peter Pan, and especially Swallows and Amazons (so did I!), as well as several of the others.

>15 LittleTaiko:, I'm concerned about Reading Lolita in Tehran in the sense that it's getting a bit dated now, so I'm trying to read up on how society has evolved in Iran since its publication. I'm reading Ready Player One because it was on TBR and Speilberg is doing a movie, so I'm getting ahead of him. Martin Chuzzlewit is next on my program of reading a Dickens every year in publication order. All I know is there's some American bashing in it, lol, and that it's a good read before The Eyre Affair.

>16 Petroglyph:, several of these titles rate as "almost got on to previous year lists, but not quite"; that's practically its theme (although there's a few more frequent contenders in the wings that still didn't make it). I think the result of deferring them is a building up of this weight.

I've read Brothers Karamazov and always meant to get to C&P eventually. I've been creeping up on Ulysses for a while now, with the previous Joyce books and Homer - plus I just read The Sound and the Fury with its opening chapter that's sort of a preview of what Joyce has in store. Hope I'm prepared!

After a lot of reading up about Murakami, this seems to be the one generally agreed upon as his best so I'm starting there. I've heard the early Discworld novels are not the best, but this will be the third I've tackled so I'm not really starting here, and I'm very familiar with the tropes it targets. The Kafka was a near miss for my 2015 list, but it was going to sit alongside A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Camus' The Stranger so I thought, yeah, that's too much, lol.

That is an intimidating list! I gave The Odyssey a shot a few years ago and just couldn't finish it even with it's short page count. I'm not sure if epic poetry is my thing. Perhaps I should have started with The Iliad? I'll have to give it another try at some point. Loved Rebecca when I read it.

My Homer strategy is simple: the E.V. Rieu prose translations, so never mind all that head-spinning poetry. I'm tone-deaf to poetry anyway. Not a lot of fantasy on my list this year, but I highly recommend Tad Williams if you haven't tried him, especially his "Memory Sorrow and Thorn" trilogy starting with The Dragonbone Chair. It's maybe a bit of a throwback by today's standards but raised the bar and inspired George Martin to throw his hat in the ring. Best of all Williams is returning to that series soon.

You have a really great list! I read Ulysses with another LT member to keep me going. I look forward to seeing what you think of The Voyage of the Beagle, a book from an old list that I have never gotten around to reading. I am going to try to read On the Origin of Species this year, although I think VotB came first, right?

>20 billiejean:
The Voyage of the Beagle was published in the 1830s; On the origin of species in 1859. I haven't read the former, but the latter is aimed at a general audience and very readable. Lovely Victorian prose and wonderful descriptions.

It sounds like more my kind of book than the one I chose for this year. But I'm going to try to make it through, and then I will read the Beagle next time.

I love to see that Darwin has popped up on a few lists this year. I might be biased (Undergrad anthro major here), but I find him immensely readable.

>23 abergsman:, unfortunately I'm struggling. I'm on the third chapter and it's definitely the last thing I want to pick up and read among the titles I'm moving between. Biology is the science I avoided in school - whoops. Not sure if that 'whoops' should refer to having skipped it, or to placing this title on my list.

>24 Cecrow: Just looked at your list and can't believe I hadn't commented in here already! Starred, good luck with your challenge.

I also avoided Biology until my last year at high school - I was fine on the human/animal stuff, but less enthused about plants.

#1 Ready Player One

First book of the challenge and it earns five stars - nice! I was intending to read this on the side but it took over my life. Fantastic story that punches hard on the 1980s nostalgia button, at least if you're a fan of science fiction, fantasy and especially video games of that era. The characters were nattering away about the history of the Swordquest series and I was like, yeah yeah I know all that, lol. It's a first novel and it's in a hurry (except when it lags), borderline cheese at times, but the premise is great and so are the characters. Spielberg is going to have a blast making the movie version, although he'll need to pay a small fortune to secure various rights, and I'm going to have a blast watching it in Dec 2017. (Edit: now it's going to be March 2018)

Because that refused to be "on the side", I went elsewhere. Katherine Porter's stories are great, and the Millenium book is really grabbing me, but Mr. Darwin ... that's a hard slog, y'all. All three of those are going to remain ongoing projects this year. Meanwhile I'm off to meet Mr. Nabokov.

>26 Cecrow:

Fantastic! I just moved that one up to the highest priority setting on my Amazon wish list. As a fellow Gen Xer and SF/fantasy geek, I'm sure I'll love it (one of my oldest friends (we went to grade school together), told me about it this way: "Art, this is the book for us"). Actually, my daughter (a self-described video game geek, and one who is particularly fascinated with their history) would probably get a kick out of it, too. :)

If your daughter is teen-and-up I think it would be fine, and appreciable even if you're not our age (there's enough description/background to clue in anyone who isn't already familiar with what's referenced and important to the story). Just a bit too colourful for my 11-year-old, but I'll share it in a couple of years.

>27 artturnerjr: If she likes gaming history, has she ever watched the Gaming Historian? He's got some pretty good vids. :)

>28 Cecrow:

Mine's ten, so, like you, I'll probably wait a little while before I pass it along.

>29 .Monkey.:

No, she has not. She says "thank you" for the recommendation. :)

Haha she is very welcome. There's also Devs Play, made by Double Fine (Tim Schaffer), where they sit down with the developer of a game and play it and discuss it, how they made it, how choices were made, inspiration, a bit of their work history, etc etc, but those are long and probably for a bit older crowd, detail oriented kind of thing. You could check it out yourself and see if you think it'd be something for her, or a bit much for her age, though. :)

>31 .Monkey.:

Haha she is very welcome.

She's actually checking it out right now. I think you might have started a thing here. ;)

There's also Devs Play, made by Double Fine (Tim Schaffer), where they sit down with the developer of a game and play it and discuss it, how they made it, how choices were made, inspiration, a bit of their work history, etc etc, but those are long and probably for a bit older crowd, detail oriented kind of thing. You could check it out yourself and see if you think it'd be something for her, or a bit much for her age, though. :)

I'll definitely have a look at it - thanks! And you might be surprised - she's an awfully precocious kid - more so than I was at that age, and I used to get some... interesting comments from adults at the time (Did I ever tell you guys the story about bringing one of those Thomas Covenant books* that Cecrow was reading a year or two ago into drafting class when I was in middle school? If not, I'll have to share it with you sometime. I suspect it's something that's relatable to most (or all) of the members of this group.).

* https://www.librarything.com/series/The+Complete+Chronicles+of+Thomas+Covenant

All my life I've generally failed to be surrounded by anyone else who reads. It's been lonely, but always left me free to read anything I liked unless the cover or title gave me away. I could read Thomas Covenant, the Dune series, Shogun, Aztec, etc. right out in the open and nobody knew a thing about the maturity level therein. I didn't get tripped up until Clan of the Cave Bear, but escaped my mom's inquiry by saying the character is only eleven years old. Which is true. At the beginning.

Ready Player One is 99.9% tame, practically YA fiction. There's only one small borderline part about the character's experience with virtual reality using a full body suit that gets imaginative. I would have overlooked it if I hadn't already had my son in mind. Seems like in my teen years I could recall racy scenes more clearly than anything else in the book. Now I can barely tell you if there were any. Damn, I'm old.

My dad has never been a reader, I get my love of books from mom. So dad never gave a hoot what I was reading. Like, he's proud to tell people how quickly I can whiz through books or whatnot, but books don't interest him at all so he's just like, meh whatever. Plus, he's the one who let me watch Predator with him when I was like 8 (he covered my eyes at the part where the one guy's arm is cut off, though it was on cable so they'd actually cut the "bad" moment anyhow lol), so I doubt he'd have given a thought to censoring what I read, lmao. Mom always just let me do my own thing, and knew I would simply not read something if I felt it was "too old" for me in some way. But she pretty much reads only stupid romance crud and like dime-a-dozen spy thriller kind of things, so it's not like I ever raided her shelves. I like spy thriller stuff but I'm a bit more choosy about them. I'd choose books from the library or bookstore, no questions asked from her. I think the only things I read at an age people would probably question was like Stephen King and Dean Koontz (though I only read a couple Koontz, I didn't really care for him much then, not the titles I read anyhow), lol.

Art, I don't recall if you told the story, but even if you did you ought to tell it again! Even if a couple of us read it and go "Oh yeah, that!," there's bunches more folks here than there used to be! :P

I also grew up in a household in which I was the only voracious reader. My father voraciously collected random books, but never actually read them. My mom only read the Bible. Looking back, I can't believe some of the titles I read at a young age.

My 8 year old is also a voracious reader, but...hehehe....she has a mom that is wise to the ways of her kind.

My mom reads romance and religion, my dad just about strictly non-fiction, so I don't know where I get it from. I think if someone in the next generation picks up my reading habit they can only benefit from having that in common with me. I'd hate to become a police state, especially considering how hypocritical that would be.

Yeah, Art, I want to hear that story too! Got myself a bad habit of somebody's comment triggering a memory of my own and then I start rambling blah blah blah, all done with that now so the stage is yours. :)

My kid regularly picks up books from my bookshelves to browse through. The only thing I censor is the reading with a flashlight at 10pm on a school night trick. :-) That was mainly what I was referring to above, since I had just found her staying up late with a book under the blankets!

Well, that and trying to walk down the stairs with a book in her hand...that has ended badly on more than one occasion, since there is often a sleeping cat on one of the steps! But actual books...she pretty much has free reign. I do like being familiar with the content of most things she picks up, which as a parent, can be very helpful. And I know what she doesn't like to read about (death of a parent or pet in a book is a touchy topic for her right now), so I try to give her a heads up if she starts to read something that contains that as part of the storyline.

I am highly amused on the days she walks home from school while reading a book. I have never been able to master the reading and walking at the same time trick.

I hope she doesn't have to cross too many intersections on that walk home, lol.

I almost wish my kid was doing the book-and-flashlight trick. All I ever catch him doing is Minecraft on the iPad with midnight looming. Although if I'd had all the electronic gizmos of today back in the 1980s, I might have developed different habits too. I've practically encouraged snooping in my library but that hasn't happened. One of his friends borrowed Watership Down and I was so thrilled that I haven't asked for it back; let him keep it if he'll show it some love.

I'm familiar with the death scene reaction in kids. Until my son judged himself too old for it, I was reading to him every bedtime. There was a pretty intense reaction at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows.

>34 .Monkey.:
>36 Cecrow:

Okay, glad to see there is some interest! I need to take a nap right now (looong day at work), but when I get up, I'll post it. :)

Okay, so, let me set the scene. I'm in eighth grade, so it's either 1980 or 1981. Flinn Middle School - a typical Midwestern United States junior high. Drafting class. Mr. Zammuto, the cool regular teacher who lets us listen to the local rock station while we work on our assignments, is off that day, and a substitute has taken his place. I am a typical nerdy eighth-grader, though not quite as shrimpy as the year before, having had my big growth spurt the previous summer. I've discovered fantasy fiction the year before, with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and am currently working on Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books (see above) (Robert E. Howard was my other big guy that year, iirc; Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock are still a couple of years in the future). On my desk are various drafting tools, pencils, my folder for the class, and a paperback copy of Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, which, at 480 pages, isn't exactly War and Peace, but it isn't tiny, either. Substitute Teacher Guy walks up to me.

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER GUY (pointing to book): Whatcha got there?

ME (stunned by his obliviousness): A book.

STG: Whatcha doin' with it?

ME: Readin' it.

STG: No you're not.

ME: Hey?

STG: You're not. This book is obviously too grown up for you. You're just walkin' around with it 'cause you think it makes you look smart.

ME: (stunned silence)

The kicker being, of course, that I was reading it and I was comprehending it, and, I'll venture, I was comprehending it better than STG would have.

As an adult, I've always hated condescension, more than just about anything. I think I just realized one of the main reasons why.

>40 artturnerjr:
He sounds like an arsehole.
I was reading the Covenant books at a similar age, but since I was not surrounded by other readers, most of the comments I got were of the type "whoa, that's a lot of pages. You really read that for fun?". No-one ever was that condescending to me...

>40 artturnerjr:, that's rough. I got nothing but admiration from people who saw the books I was reading, a few compliments even, from teachers, librarians. I miss those days. Now I can read the most complex thing imaginable and nobody looks, cares, asks questions, nothing. It's no fun at all.

Not sure how I would have reacted at that age to something like that; I might have been stunned into silence. Now of course I'd immediately strike up a conversation about it - "Oh! so you've read it! I like how the author has set himself against the typical fantasy cliché by having his protagonist question the experiential reality of the fantastical world he finds himself in. What was your take on it as a metaphor, and how do you think the leprosy ties in?"

Actually I'm not that quick on my verbal feet, but that's what I'd like to say, lol.

*groans* At that age, and with my social anxiety, I'd definitely have also been in the stunned silence camp. Ugh. I mean what kid just walks around with a doorstop of a book "to look smart"?! If anything reading was/is "nerdy" and therefore something kids would be more prone to hide than flaunt! Not that I, or most of us who are avid readers enough to hang out on a book site, hahaha, would ever have hidden the love of reading, but still, come on! Man. I'd probably have gone home and told my mom, who would have then called the school and reamed them out about that wretched sub! xP

I would have been in the stunned silence camp as well. Fortunately I went to a very small school where all the teachers knew how much I loved to read and occasionally turned a blind eye to the fact that I would be reading a non-school book during class.

Both of my parents loved reading and definitely encouraged it. Their tastes leaned more towards mysteries which is a love I still have today. They also had some Jackie Collins around the house that they would have been horrified to know that I read - a bit racy for a teenage girl in hindsight. Though my mom did let me read her Harlequin romances which also not a great idea. Though it pretty much turned me off of all romance novels so maybe it was a good thing.

Now both parents are retired and my dad has become a reading machine. It's been fun to give him some books that I've read and talk about them later.

>40 artturnerjr: Wow. Glad he was a substitute teacher! I share your hatred for condescension and patronizing people. I encountered it quite often at work meetings when I was younger.

I was fortunate to have a wonderful 8th grade English teacher, and a few close friends in my class that were also avid readers. Our teacher brought extra books in just for us. I also remember that being the year we discovered Stephen King. Three of us had a Stephen King marathon, tackling It, Carrie, Pet Cemetery, and a few others almost back to back. It gave me nightmares for weeks, and I don't think I have ever quite looked at clowns the same way again.

My daughter taught herself to read the summer she was 4. For her last year of PreK, and K, whenever she was out and about with a book (shopping, restaurant, etc), strangers would also make a remark of some sort, thinking she was just flipping through the pages, or pretending to read. Books like Charlotte's Web, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, etc. Then they would stop and actually listen to her---at that age, she refused to read silently--and realize she was reading....at an incredibly fast pace. I loved to watch the look on their faces when they realized they were practically making fun of a little kid who was actually reading.

These days, she gets googly eyes from people because she is often carrying around a kid's encyclopedia of one sort or another.

>41 Petroglyph:

He sounds like an arsehole.

Yeah, that sums him up pretty well, actually. :)

I gotta say - the vast majority of my experiences with the adults and other kids in my life were not like that; I definitely met with much more praise than scorn. Probably why that incident sticks out in my memory the way it does.

>42 Cecrow:

Actually I'm not that quick on my verbal feet, but that's what I'd like to say, lol.

Yeah, me neither, unfortunately. L'esprit de l'escalier, eh?

>43 .Monkey.:

For whatever reason, I've always had a kind of a "fuck you" attitude about my geekiness and/or intellectual/aesthetic proclivities. I recall deciding at a very early age that normality was not something I was gonna aspire toward, and, well... here I am! :D

>44 LittleTaiko:

Neither my mom or my dad were big readers, but they were both indulgent parents who encouraged my love of reading and curiosity, bless 'em. I remember we had a big encyclopedia set (a big deal to me in those pre-Internet days, and something they took the trouble to purchase in spite of the fact (I now realize) that they probably couldn't really afford it) that they would happily redirect me to when I had one of my innumerable questions. If my kid, when she's my age, has half the gratitude toward me that I have toward my folks, well, I'll reckon I did all right. :)

>45 abergsman:

My daughter taught herself to read the summer she was 4. For her last year of PreK, and K, whenever she was out and about with a book (shopping, restaurant, etc), strangers would also make a remark of some sort, thinking she was just flipping through the pages, or pretending to read. Books like Charlotte's Web, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, etc. Then they would stop and actually listen to her---at that age, she refused to read silently--and realize she was reading....at an incredibly fast pace. I loved to watch the look on their faces when they realized they were practically making fun of a little kid who was actually reading.

These days, she gets googly eyes from people because she is often carrying around a kid's encyclopedia of one sort or another.

Wow, that's great. It's so much fun to see the way their minds develop. Human beings are basically learning machines, and I don't think there's a way to get a better sense of that than to be a parent.

I just want to pop in and say that I'm glad that Ready Player One was such a great read. I got that for my brother for his birthday. I had hoped to read my copy first, but I didn't get around to it. Now is the time!

#2 Lolita

A first-person narrative about a pedophile's lusting after a 12-year-old girl; what could be more pleasant reading than that?? I can't say this is a novel I would ever have picked up without its status as a modern classic. Apparently it got off to a very rocky start in terms of appreciation in 1955, until enough critical reviews arose in the wake of enough people deciding to read its first chapter or two and discover it's actually a marvel of storytelling. In fact it is written in a manner that will likely bore anyone who anticipates something lewd, but there was still something decidedly uncomfortable about being seen reading it. I've begun Reading Lolita in Tehran, which offered me some helpful critical insight. While this novel hasn't landed Nabokov among my favourite writers (sorry Monkey, lol), it did earn my respect for his skill at wordplay, description and foreshadowing.

Some of the jacket blurbs are kind of strange to me:

"Intensely lyrical and wildly funny." - Time magazine. Funny?

"The only convincing love story of our century." - Vanity Fair magazine. Really?

Wow, those are definitely....interesting...jacket blurbs for Lolita! One would have to wonder if the writer of those blurbs actually read the book?

I hesitatingly read Lolita when I was in college (not for a class, during a summer break), on a friend's recommendation. I was surprised to find myself really enjoying the storytelling. And then feeling guilty for liking the book. However, it still remains the only Nabokov I have ever read.

Actually I think those blurbs are pretty good. It's not a "love story" in the "aww isn't that just so sweet" sense, it's a completely effed up situation, but convincing? Hell yes. And yes, funny! Obviously not the premise of the story, but it certainly has its moments. His wit is not to be rivaled! :P

>49 Cecrow:

Congratulations on knocking off one of the biggies. Definitely need to read that myself someday (so I can finally watch Stanley Kubrick's film adaption of it, if for no other reason).

>51 .Monkey.:, he does have some fun wordplay going on, and some of his disparaging of other people can be funny in an "oooooh, burn!" kind of way. But I was always viewing him an untrustworthy narrator, so I suspect very few of those people were actually deserving.

There's no questioning his attraction and lust for Lolita, but I'm hardly ready to call it love since he never considered her as the actual person she was. He was in love with his image of her, at most.

I can see why it's a classic though, it's not for the content but for the amazing way it's written.

Indeed, I think any sane person would see it that way, but he was convinced he loved her truly madly deeply.

He says that in the end, but all through the story he was knowingly creating and worshiping a false image of her with not a care in the world about who she really was, so I don't find it very credible. Humbert does a great job of making himself sound so intellectual and imaginative, even sympathetic, that surely he's telling the truth. Yeah, not so much, I think.

>55 Cecrow: I completely agree with your take on Humbert.

>26 Cecrow: I downloaded the audio book of Ready Player One to get me through a long road trip this week. I'm absolutely loving it! I probably wouldn't have tried it if it wasn't for your review. Now that I'm done traveling I need to carve out a few hours this weekend to finish listening :)

>57 Narilka:, it's remained heavily on my mind since reading it. Glad you're liking it.

>57 Narilka: and >58 Cecrow: I really enjoyed Ready Player One as well. Brought back lots of good memories.

#3 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

It took me a while to get to this book published in 2003, so I was worried it might no longer stand up, given the passage of time. I needn't have been concerned. While Iran may have become moderately more free in the intervening years, this book still lands solid points in metaphorically drawing helpful thematic lines between Western literature and a culture and society that I was barely familiar with. Not just a book club story, it also covers the decade and a half the author lived under the revolutionary regime.

Literary study is a substantial portion of this book, and I was anticipating that as much as the insight into Iran. Quotes like the following hit home: "A novel is not an allegory ... it is the sensory experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience."

Milestone achieved: I've now read every title listed in my TBR challenges from 2011 to 2015, so I'm all caught up! Henry James was one of the often-mentioned authors in this one, so I'm fired up to read him again. First though, after three five-star books in a row I think I can handle a little punishment. And some crime.

>60 Cecrow: I've also had this on my shelves for a while so I'm really glad to hear it still stands up. I'm waiting until I've actually read Lolita (I know ... for shame ... I really should get to it!)

>61 klarusu:, did the same thing, as you can see above, lol. I also recommend The Great Gatsby, Daisy Miller, Washington Square, Pride and Prejudice .... also Invitation to a Beheading if that was one you ever considered. Cover all those and you'll get insight into each of them instead of just spoilers.

There's passing reference to many other works, but less in depth. One of these was the mention of a short story by Katherine Ann Porter that I just happened to read about a month ago, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". That was a fun coincidence, but it's hardly required pre-reading.

Congratulations on your milestone! That is a dream of mine. Sadly, I am far from it. Just chipping away a little at a time. :)

>63 billiejean:, in this case it turned out to be a lucky deferral. Of the five novels best read in advance I'd only read one when I first listed it in 2011, but by this year I'd read all of them. So, sometimes a delay (for any reason) can pay a dividend.

That's good to know regarding what to read before hand to avoid spoilers.

Congrats on being all caught up! I hadn't thought of looking at it that way. Now, I need to go back and see which ones I might still need to get to even if they aren't on the official list.

Several titles I had to keep putting back on the list to get them read, so there's a lot of repeated ones over the five years (total was less than 100, not 5x24). I'm probably going to have some new stragglers this year, most likely Darwin and Auel, we'll see.

Congrats on achieving your milestone!

Candidate titles for my 2017 challenge are like an unruly, milling crowd I have to keep making speeches in front of: "Hey now, we only just began 2016 and have a long road ahead of us we may not even get to the end of. Why harass me already? Do I have to keep wading amongst you and knocking heads together to get you to settle down? The last thing I want is to have a locked-in list of 24 titles for next year while I'm still in the first sixth of this one, so just mind yourselves!"

>62 Cecrow: That's a great reading list! I've read a couple but that gives mean incentive to pick up the rest.

>68 Cecrow: Glad it's not just me doing that then ;-)

>60 Cecrow:

Milestone achieved: I've now read every title listed in my TBR challenges from 2011 to 2015, so I'm all caught up!

Fantastic! I'm planning on organizing my 2017 Challenge with an eye toward a similar goal; more on this as it develops. :)

#4 Crime and Punishment

Another LT's review described how he can't stand depressing books about stupid people making idiots of themselves. While I can see that in this novel, I still found it weirdly compelling. There's a thematic link between this novel and Lolita where the reader is encouraged to find sympathy with the perpetrator. I found him guilty and his crime despicable, but he does seem a better person at heart than Humbert was, and certainly more subject to pangs of guilty conscience. There's a highbrow "Tell-Tale Heart" thing going on with Rodian after he commits his crime that requires no supernatural explanation for how the guilt and fear eat away at him. When it seems like no one suspects him, he's doing ridiculous things liable to give him away. When anyone clearly does then he is very alert, keeps largely silent or teases them in ways that throw them off the scent or frustrate them. You never know from one chapter to the next when someone will finally accuse him, and whether it will be his recklessness or their sleuthing that does the trick. This creates quite a bit of tension, even if you've written off Rodian and just want to see him caught and justice served. I haven't read any Russian novels since high school and this was a long overdue missing title for me. Glad I finally got to it.

I'll take some repose now to catch my breath. By bizarre coincidence, today was Wallace Stegner's birthday in 1909! And ... it was also Jean Auel's in 1936, but um, well ... yeah, no rush.

Okay now I'm curious, what translation did you read where they wrote his name as "Rodia"? But yay, glad you read & enjoyed it! :D

>72 Cecrow:

Two major canonical novels in two months! Impressive stuff, my friend. :)

>73 .Monkey.:, I think it's only his mom who called him that a couple of times (or, maybe she did say Rodian? I'll change it to that.) I grabbed it as the shortest way to write his name, lol. The translator isn't named, which led someone in another thread to speculate it was done by someone-or-other who's now considered to have done the worst job of it. Oh well, the story still came across and it was powerful.

I'd forgotten that aspect of Russian novels, it seems like everybody has three names and gets called by a different one depending on who is talking to them/about them, it can be pretty annoying. At least this one didn't have too huge a cast, and there was a list of names at the front of my edition that helped sometimes. I'm sure I got some of the police officers confused. Some names seem like titles rather than surnames, like "Ivanova".

>74 artturnerjr:, thanks. And I'm feeling it, too, lol, so no Henry James just yet please. But these two were actually good to read so close to one another, given the loose similarity as a compare/contrast kind of thing.

>75 Cecrow:

And I'm feeling it, too, lol, so no Henry James just yet please. But these two were actually good to read so close to one another, given the loose similarity as a compare/contrast kind of thing.

Glad it worked out for you. I enjoy dipping into the canon every now and again, but a steady diet of it can get tiresome (with the exception of those rarest of rare birds, Canonical Works That Are Fun To Read :)).

>72 Cecrow: I so very nearly put this on my list this year. It's on next year's instead (yes ... I may be thinking about next year ... move along ... nothing to see here). You've definitely encouraged me to make an effort to read it!

>75 Cecrow: Yeah it'd normally be written Rodya in that case. The patronymics never give me a hard time, but occasionally the diminutives are so wildly different from the name (which is no different in English, e.g. "Betty" from Elizabeth or "Missy" from Melissa, but utterly unfamiliar, so...) that it'll throw me for a while. "Kolya" for Nikolai is one it took me forever to get familiar with, as in English we normally go with "Nick" (and the 1st syllable in general), so choosing the 2nd syllable to make the name from was quite confusing, lol. And then there's things like "Sasha" for Alexander, "Lyosha" for Aleksey, "Pasha" for Pavel... xD
Patronymics though (which are not last names, don't get confused! xP), I've been familiar with for many years, so the -ovna/-evna/-ovich/-evich don't faze me a bit. ;P

Oh and unmentioned means you've probably got the Constance Garnett version; she gets a lot of flack but really her translations were quite good, it was just the fact that she went quickly as she did so many, that if she didn't understand something she would simply omit it rather than taking the time to research it and find a good way to translate it. Which overall wouldn't do much harm, though she is of course not my first choice due to that sole reason. But I'd choose her over P&V any day.

>78 .Monkey.:

...which is no different in English, e.g. "Betty" from Elizabeth or "Missy" from Melissa...

...or "Peggy" from Margaret. Hey?

Haha yes exactly. It does happen in, well probably all languages. But when it's your own, even if you're puzzled by the evolution of it, you're still familiar with the pairing just by exposure. When it's an entirely different language and culture, it can wind up awfully confusing. And then add in that many of the names themselves can be very unfamiliar, and the different styles of naming someone (first name for friend, first+patronymic to show formal respect, diminutives for good friends, whole names with authority figures, and possibly even nicknames of patronymic/first+patronymic for best friends/bosses/teachers... LOL), well then the unexplainable diminutives get understandably even more confusing, lmao.

Ah, that's too bad, just read that Umberto Eco died on Friday, one of my Favourite Authors. I've read three of his and still have The Island of the Day Before on the TBR pile, this might kick it up a bit in the order. The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum are especially good.

He's somebody I keep meaning to read but haven't done so yet. Sounds like there are plenty of good options to choose from.

>81 Cecrow: It was certainly depressing to hear that Umberto Eco and Harper Lee died on the same day. Although Eco's death was barely a blip on the news here. I love Foucault's Pendulum, one of the rare books that I see myself reading more than once. The Name of the Rose is another good one. I have spent hours studying his allusions, references, and playful use of language, and I wish his work was more well-known and admired here in the US.

Chiming in late here to say that I'm glad that you enjoyed Crime and Punishment. I have been meaning to read that for years. My copy has the tiniest print, however, so I just tend to move onto something else. Maybe next year?

>84 billiejean:, I've a bad tendency to gauge how long a book will take to read based on its page count. Font size practically never occurs to me to evaluate until I actually start reading it, lol. My copy was just over 400 pages, I've seen others that clock closer to 600 so there can be a lot of variance for sure.

I even get frustrated by long page count on thin paper. A book that looks at a glance like 300 pages but is actually 800 pages annoys me. If I'm reading a big book, I want people to know it! :)

Ah, Crime and Punishment. I abandoned that book when I was 18 after making it about a third of the way through, thinking it too boring. But it's been on my to-be-retried list. Maybe next year?

#5 Boy: Tales of Childhood

I pulled this out of the TBR pile because 2016 happens to be the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl's birth. In his introduction he states he would never write an autobiography and spells out exactly what that is, immediately indicating the young age he aimed this memoir at. It's a series of especially memorable things that happened to him, with the bare minimum of links between them - mostly childhood pranks, accidents, some horrid adults he encountered and injustices he endured. Direct lines can be drawn from some of these episodes to the stories he later wrote, so the more of those you are familiar with the more there is here to appreciate.* I'm curious what the 9-12 set makes of this book when it's filed alongside his fiction, but I thought it was great fun.

* I've only read James and the Giant Peach, Matilda and of course Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but there were a few hints here that I caught.

>87 Cecrow:

In spite of seeing both of the film adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder one and the Johnny Depp one) about half a million times times between them, I've never actually read the book, nor anything else by Dahl. I'll have to rectify that soon, I suspect.

>88 artturnerjr:

Oh, do! His children's books are brilliant! I loved them as a kid, and they do warrant a reread as an adult. (They firmly take the side of the children in the Generation Wars, though, and from a grown-up's perspective, that may read as a tad maudlin. YMMV)

As a teen I randomly picked up one of his short story collections aimed at adults, Kiss kiss, and fell in fascination with how gleefully dark and twisted they were. That book is still one of my favourites today. I can also recommend the collection The wonderful story of Henry Sugar and six more, written for a ya audience.

Dahl is generally great all-round.

>88 artturnerjr: Dahl was amazing, definitely read them! The BFG was among my most favorites, along with Matilda. And as >89 Petroglyph: says, he also wrote a few dark adult short story collections, enjoyable as well.

#6 Angle of Repose

I guess they can't all be five-star reads, but four stars isn't bad. I've come upon this one too soon, it will probably read entirely differently in twenty years, but the premise of a man researching his grandparents' history intrigued me (and its Pulitzer Prize didn't hurt, plus Modern Library listing it in their Top 100). One of my grandfathers left a substantial memoir of his life which I've done a lot of work to edit and preserve, so I thought I'd relate. Research and discovery is not really present in this story, though. The narrator is working from a large collection of his grandmother's letters which he only needs to quote from and imagine details around. It turns out the author used the actual letters and life of Mary Hallock Foote (1847–1938), so really this amounts to a fictionalized account of her biography and not the genealogical fun I was looking for. Serious matters arise and must be dealt with, but for the most part you can sit back and enjoy. The author is fantastic in his descriptive passages, and apparently western Americans praise him for capturing the atmosphere of their landscape and history so well. If it took place in my neck of the woods I would have been more caught up. I recommend it, but save it for your sixties at least.

On the side I'm more than halfway through Katherine Porter's collection and I'm loving Millennium, but Darwin is still winning our staring contest. Next up is the longest page-count book in my challenge, but at least it's Dickens so that's promising. And it starts with more genealogy on page one than AoR had in its entire 570 pages, so there's that too.

And it starts with more genealogy on page one than AoR had in its entire 570 pages, so there's that too. LOL. Yeah it seems like a potentially interesting premise but not one with much interest for me.

Les Mis is still winning my own staring contest. I haven't picked it up since late Jan, when I set it aside because it was just getting so melancholy, though the story is interesting. I'm hoping eventually I can get back into it and knock it off the list for once! xP
Have fun with Dickens! I have him slotted for later in the year, but I keep eying it in the stack, lmao, I may wind up switching it around with Musketeers, but we'll see. :P

Les Mis ... you see, reading the abridged version wasn't so crazy, was it? lol Although I'm giving serious consideration to reading the complete version of Clarissa next year, just so I can say I did. There's value in bragging rights.

Pickwick is a bit of a slog in parts since it doesn't all hang together with much of a plot, more like episodes. If it's something you ever do then you might consider reading it piecemeal between other books rather than all in one go, I found that easier. Still really good though, I thought.

Haha well, it's not about the number of pages though, I'm sure they didn't knock out all the hits that just keep on coming to those two, only trimmed the excess. Unless it was a super abridged version, but even then I think it'd still have the same issue, just with less detail. I think if it were like 800pgs instead of the 1500 it is, I'd just have stalled around 200-300 instead of 460 lmao. Meanwhile I'm at least finally making progress on them which I'd initially picked up to read in place of the depressing Les Mis, only to find it's also about broke people living the rough life and wound up also setting aside for the past month hahahaha. xD

Eeesh, yeah, I like having multiple books on-the-go too and I try hard not to overlap storylines or subject matter. Learned that lesson in grade school when I tried alternating between two Hardy Boys mysteries and became totally bewildered. More to your point, you can't relieve yourself from the mood of one if the other's dishing out the same thing. Safest bet is to read fiction / non-fiction alongside each other.

I read a lot less nonfic than fic, so that tends not to happen much, heh. I mean the two are very different, one is a couple hundred years later than the other, lol, but yeah neither is a mood lifter, that's for sure! xD I wound up reading a handful of mystery/thriller/horror ones after a short break from anything, lol, and then was more out of the funk and moved on to S&S, then Dune, and now back to them (which is obnoxious to type without a touchstone as it's stylized w/o a capital therefore just looks like a regular word xP). Normally if something is dragging and I pick up something else for a time, it's entirely different, but I had no idea what this one was about when I chose it as the "well I'll turn to something else for a bit" pick, haha. For instance, I was feeling a bit tired today, so I took out Son of Rosemary in case I wanted a more frivolous diversion, lol. Didn't wind up needing the switch though. :P

>93 Cecrow: I'm excited that you are thinking of reading Clarissa next year. I started it with a group read quite a while ago, but I only made it 100 pages in. I've been thinking of revisiting it, though. That is the longest book. Anyway, you might inspire me to read it also.

>97 billiejean:, when I'm doing that thing I should never do (i.e. mess with next year's potential list), I get stuck on how best to work it in. I might surround it with a lot of unusually short titles to compensate, else I don't see how I'll manage. I do also have an abridged version, but I think I really want to tackle the big one. I might just check the abridged version now and then to see what was chopped out.

I agree completely about surrounding it with shorter titles. The question is whether one main book for an entire year would get old. However, I loved reading Les Mis. But that was shorter!

>91 Cecrow: - That's one I know I read and enjoyed but preferred Crossing to Safety by him. Have you read that one? How's Martin C coming along? That is one I abandoned a few years ago but hope to try again someday. Maybe after I've read every other Dickens...

>100 LittleTaiko:, this is the only Wallace Stegner I've read and doesn't strongly encourage me to read more. I've been reading Dickens in publication order: Chuzzlewit is Dickens at his funniest since Pickwick, and so far I'm liking it more than The Old Curiosity Shop or Barnaby Rudge.

#7 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

She's not a household name anymore, probably thanks to the diminished popularity of short fiction, but KAP was a three-time Nobel Prize nominee for literature and this short story collection was the Pulitzer Prize winner of 1966. Most of the stories take place in the southern United States or Mexico, locales she knew. On the strength of these Katherine Ann Porter "secured her place in American literature" as the saying goes. Probably her most well-known story is "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". My happy takeaway from that story was that death bed regrets aren't so frightening to contemplate, but a deeper reading shows that to the very end this granny avoids painful self-understanding that might destroy her. This plot is representative of the rest of the collection: all about familial, communications and interpersonal challenges that comprise the drama in moments we've all had or will have. I count a few misses (didn't get anything out of "Hacienda" especially) but a lot more hits. The author doesn't necessarily strive to make the reader empathize with every character, but you can feel her own empathy for them. I really like her gentle, understanding style, and I foresee adding her only novel Ship of Fools (the #1 bestseller of 1962) to my TBR pile.

>102 Cecrow:

Nice. I'm sure I read some of Porter's work when I was in my twenties but I don't recall much of anything about it. And I always, always advocate for more short story reading, the diminishing readership of which completely mystifies me, especially considering all the excellent work that's been coming out in that form in the last decade or so.

I like them for the easy change of pace on the side of reading something heavier. I'm feeling sorry I got through this already, I'll have to settle for my non-fiction reads or another novel on the side now, or go off-list.

>102 Cecrow: I gave short stories a try again this year, for the first time in more than a decade. I loved the vignettes in Jhumpa Lahiri's books that I read in January; KAP sounds like another great author.

#8 Martin Chuzzlewit

Martin Chuzzlewit Sr. is like Ebenezer Scrooge with a dozen relatives all trying to ingratiate themselves. Martin Chuzzlewit Jr. (his grandson) stands to be the best of the bunch, but is also held in the worst regard by his grandfather. There's the usual assortment of villains (Pecksniff, Jonas), innocents (Pinch, Mary), romance hits and misses, tragedies, and sometimes seeming digressions I cared less about (Mrs Gamp, Mr Maul, Bailey, etc) but that mostly went somewhere in the end.

For humour this was the most fun I've had with Dickens since Pickwick, but it's almost too much during the chapters taking place in America. Dickens argued that he took the same approach to critiquing American society as his own British, but he never painted London with so broad a brush let alone his whole country, or drew characters so thin. It wasn't a bad book but it's not his strongest. Apparently Dickens broke new ground and really got his plotting act together starting with the next one, Dombey and Son, so I have that to look forward to next year.

I'm picking up Fforde next before carrying on with my primaries, since apparently this novel figures in it somehow.

... and the manuscript for Martin Chuzzlewit is stolen in chapter two, ta-dah!

I love Fforde! If my TBR list wasn't so long, I would pick those books back up for a re-read.

Okay, you've convinced me to give it another try, but maybe after I've read some of his others. Dombey is up next for me it's encouraging that his plotting will be stronger this time around.

Love it when books make connections like that!

It's the digressions in Martin that make it tough, the chapters where you read the opening lines and think "wait, he's going to follow this character we hardly care about? Really?" But he still makes it fun provided that you aren't getting too hung up on tracking the big picture, and it all proves relevant eventually. Among his first six books this ranks somewhere in the middle.

#9 The Eyre Affair

First book of my challenge that proved less than expected. Hard-boiled crime fiction with a thick layer of surrealism slathered on top. Thursday Next (yes, that's her name) is trying to catch the bad guy who nabbed the Chuzzlewit manuscript. Jane Eyre (yes, THAT Jane Eyre) doesn't enter the story until much later, but the spoilers for her are the worst. It began as the most sheer fun reading since Ready Player One, but gradually the amusement factor wears thin. There is too much chaos in this story's universe for it to credibly function and you're required to turn off your brain, which I always find challenging to do. Ignoring that (somewhat successfully), it is practically custom-made for appealing to my interests and trivial knowledge. It engages fast, the pace is quick, and the literary references are the real icing on the cake. For the most enjoyment you should really read Jane Eyre first. A bit too silly I thought, and less than I expected from its reputation, but thousands of fans have disagreed enough to warrant several sequels.

Halfway through the P.D. James sci-fi, and now I'm reading about a man cooking spaghetti.

Yeah it kind of seemed a bit gimmicky to me, hence not having looked into it. I think I'd likely feel similarly - enjoying the those aspects to a degree but then getting annoyed. Maybe I'll read it some day as a bit of fluff, but maybe not. :P

>111 Cecrow: I like the silliness of the Thursday Next books, however half of the reason is probably due to the plethora of literary references!

The Eyre affair is the only book I've read in that series, and I enjoyed it for the fun romp that it was: not particularly deep, but entertaining enough for the what-if aspect. I keep meaning to return to the universe, expecting the silliness to tone down somewhat in later instalments. (Series like this tend to fall into "early installment weirdness")

>111 Cecrow: - That's a book I started and couldn't quite get into. One of my best friends loves it though so I've always meant to give it another try if for the literary references if nothing else.

#10 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I really, really liked this one, but it's quite a struggle trying to describe it. It's not clear for a long while what the story is about, but the narrator is so likeable and the sequence of events is so interesting, I went happily along. Toru Okada is between jobs, doing the housekeeping while his wife remains working. But their cat has gone missing, he's receiving strange phone calls, he meets some unusual women ... events keep spiralling, where oddities lead to mysteries lead to deeper mysteries, and eventually self-discovery. The fantastic creeps in gradually: psychics who are actually psychic, people who can manipulate dreams, an abandoned property that seems to be cursed, etc. It distantly put me in mind of the TV series "Lost" (watched every episode!) with its mixed-up realities and supernatural explanations.

Next up, I'm finishing one James and starting another (no relation).

You are doing so well on your challenge! I really do need to get to The Wind-Up Bird. But then I say that about a ton of books!

>116 Cecrow: I just finished my Murakami today as well. His books ARE a struggle to describe. I am also starting to wonder if missing cats show up in all of his books?

I hadn't thought of the similarities to Lost before, but you are exactly right. Excellent comparison. (watched every episode twice!) Slowly, slowly, the fantastic and magical sneak into the narrative, so subtly the reader almost takes it for granted.

I think I will be adding another Murakami to next year's challenge list, possibly Norwegian Wood. How about you?

I'm seeing his work categorized as "surrealism" or "magical realism" but I don't think I agree with either one. At least in this novel I've read, I think that would be taking the definition of "surreal" too literally, and when there's any strange activity it's noted by the narrator as being strange, at least when he first encounters it (thus, not magical realism). I think it could be termed as urban fantasy, but a very shallow form of that. From my LT library, that places it alongside works like American Gods and Ysabel.

#11 The Children of Men

P.D. James was renowned for her mysteries, but she also made this single foray into science fiction. To judge from LT copies it might be her bestselling title. This vision of the future doesn't play upon likely evolutions in science and technology but engages a purely what-if scenario: suppose suddenly the entire human race became sterile for no discernable reason? The fallout of this event is fascinating to explore, with widespread implications I didn't consider as fast as the author laid them out. It's a whole other brand of dystopia, one meant to highlight the importance of new generations, history and legacies rather than a political message (although she threw that in, too). It presents a decaying society of growing apathy and it really sucked me in, so long as I didn't dwell on the impossible, never explained premise. A movie version released about ten years ago apparently puts a different spin on the story and incorporates a better plot, so I'll have to check that out.

PS - if you want to freak your kids out, read a book with a broken doll depicted on its cover.

Nice reviews! I definitely want to read the P.D. James book. The part of WUBC that interested me the most was the well. It was definitely worth a read.

You certainly are going quite nicely with the challenge - very impressed with how many you've read so far. I vaguely remember enjoying the movie though it was a bit grim from what I recall.

I predicted up top that I'd not conquer all 24 this year, and although I'm ahead of pace at the moment I'm still thinking that's going to be the case. In the latter half I have Joyce staring me down, Darwin is proving to be a major sticking point, and I can imagine not picking up Auel at all. I'm already reserving slots in 2017 for whichever one or two I miss. Still possible I guess, but it feels like a longshot.

I read my first P.D. James book a few months ago, Death Comes to Pemberley. I heard that one was quite different from her other mysteries. I kind of liked it, but not enough to pick up another one of her books right away. Do you have any recommendations of a good starting point to give her another chance?

Completing all 24 on my list is starting to look like a long shot as well, but I'm hoping to catch up a little bit in June. I love Darwin...you may be surprised on that front. Or...maybe that's just me.

This was my first by her as well, and I'm not a big reader of mystery/thriller in any case (Agatha Christie excepted, for some reason). But 501 Must-Read Books recommends The Murder Room as her best, and it's on my TBR pile to get to eventually.

There's scattered bits of interesting information cropping up with Darwin that make me pause and take notes, but in between it's a whole lot of "do we really need to analyze this any further?", lol

Christie's are (mostly) very light, no frills, just the bare bones, and never gruesome or whatnot. I can see how someone who isn't so into the genre/s would still read her at times. I think her stories can be fun short little diversions, but for the most part I like my stuff more fleshed. I've never read any PD James though.

#12 The Colour of Magic (Discworld, vol.1)

In the 13th century the emperor of Mali on his travels through Egypt depressed its economy by spending gold like water. Terry Pratchett puts a fantasy novel spin on this idea in this first volume of his popular Discworld series - except this tourist is a mere accountant. It's seems to me every bit as funny, warm-hearted and smart as the later entries in the series that I've sampled on audio, so I can't see why Discworld fans are always citing it as weak (you want to see a series' first volume that fans should make apologies for, check out Gardens of the Moon). It's also not a "make fun of genre" kind of story (another misperception!) beyond a tone that keeps tongue planted firmly in cheek. Discworld operates with its own internal logic, a far cry from the chaos of Fforde's world. Intending this to be just a stopover, I'm rapidly warming to the idea of paying Discworld another visit. No worries I'll be spending any gold, though, more's the pity.

What, who? James? Oh yeah, got distracted, I'm on it.

>127 Cecrow: - I really need to get back to this one. I started to read it on a plane ride but found it didn't suit as a plane read as I need to concentrate too much to understand the world being described.

I'm glad you liked Colour of Magic! I also thought it was a great read, and I couldn't understand why so many people say it is not that great. I guess the series just keeps getting better and better! I'm putting the next book on my list for next year.

I liked Portrait of a Lady. But it's quite different from Discworld.

>129 billiejean:, yes very different. That made it perfect for alternating between them. Now I've found another good alternate read in The Night Circus.

Another book I really enjoyed!

#13 The Portrait of a Lady

Returning to his theme from Daisy Miller, James introduces an American heroine into English society and chaos ensues. Having been born American and then basically becoming British himself, James knew and understood both societies and enjoyed writing about the clash between them. The clash in this case arises from various marriage proposals - which rejected, which accepted, and the fallout. It's a whole lot better than it sounds. I spoiled myself silly by reading my edition's detailed introduction that basically tells the whole plot, and I feel my reading benefited in this case (similar to when I read Jane Austen's Emma). There were plenty of things I picked up on that I'm sure I would have missed or possibly been confused by. Madame Merle's photo belongs on a dartboard.

Every time I read Henry James I anticipate having a challenge on my hands, and every time I'm proven wrong by a really engaging story, even if he does slow down my usual reading speed. This clears him from my TBR pile for now. Next time I'd probably tackle The Ambassadors, which I've heard nothing but hard news about.

Recently finished watching the BBC miniseries "The Jewel and the Crown", which was brilliant and a great refresher of the Raj Quartet, so I'm eagerly returning to Mr. Scott. I have bookmarks in three other titles, including that stubborn Darwin that keeps troubling me.

I also enjoyed The Portrait of a Lady, but it is still the only book by him that I have read. I don't think I have any others in my house at the moment, but I would like to read some more.

I just read Darwin in small bits. That is all I can manage. There are some interesting tidbits here and there.

#14 Staying On (Book 5, so to speak, of the Raj Quartet)

The four books of the Raj Quartet concluded in 1947 with Indian independence. This story is set in 1972, about 25 years later, with the Smalleys who figured in the quartet as minor characters (but there's some awesome catch-up about the Laytons through exchanged letters). In a sense this is another sequel, but it does stand well alone as it reflects back on the first twenty-five years of modern India from a variety of perspectives. Its tone is different, lighter and easier to read, and so so good. It's not to be missed by anyone who read and enjoyed what came before. Sadly this was probably the last I'll read by this author for the first time (he'll bear re-reading), since I'm given to understand none of his earlier, unrelated work is much good.

My primary list is mostly going on pause now (Darwin albatross excepted), as I have appointments with a circus and a red planet.

I had no idea there was a followup to the Raj Quartet. I have those 4 books but not this one.

A Booker Prize winner, too! The only book Paul Scott wrote after completing the quartet, and the last thing he wrote before he died of colon cancer. Even if you haven't read the quartet in a long time, this is good look back and a good story in itself.

>134 Cecrow:

Here's a list that I just posted a link to on BJ's thread in which Stephen King names The Raj Quartet as one of his favorite books:

http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/stephen-kings-top-10-all-time-favorite-books....

I enjoyed seeing the list. I guess I should read the ones I haven't read.

>138 billiejean:

I've only ever read Lord of the Flies and 1984 of the titles on that list. I'd like to read all of them, especially the McCarthy (I've been meaning to read more of his stuff anyway).

#15 The Night Circus

I only distantly monitor current bestseller lists, but this one caught my eye a few years back and I found its description and opening pages intriguing. A mysterious circus that appears without warning, featuring spectacles of real magic, etc. I should have read a bit further past the initial hook because it almost immediately becomes a fairly bland and flat narrative, filled with magical events but lacking for magic in its telling. It's not a bad story, but it's not a strong one. This worked well as a book I could read on the side and not worry I was underserving it. If magicians practicing real magic in the real world during the Victorian era sounds like your thing, I'd recommend "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" as the better choice, if you don't mind twice the length. That novel too suffers from a slow pace, but at least it boasts a Dickensian tone and lurking danger.

That was one of those books EVERYONE was reading a few years ago. The kind of books I am always loathe to touch because 99 times of 100 anything that gets like that, is not at all worth it, lol. So I'm always glad when I see people not just raving along with everyone else. xP Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is one I bought 2ndhand though, to be read eventually, lol.

>141 .Monkey.:, often seems that way, doesn't it? It was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell that got me thinking/hoping this one might have some substance. J & Mr N. was popular too and is actually worth it, imo.

It was, but, from what I saw anyway, it wasn't near the same level as Night Circus was. Perhaps just the length of it kept it from getting there, hahaha. But I know like everyone in ...I think maybe it was the Category Challenge I was spending lots of time in that year? whichever group, I swear the entirety of the group read it but me! And then a little later as it trickled out to the less bookish places as well I was encountering other online friends reading it, lol.

>28 Cecrow:, so I couldn't help myself, my now 12-year-old son looked bored so I said here's this book, Ready Player One, maybe you'll like it, it's about videogames. He read it in a day, so I guess he liked it, lol. That kid reads waaaaay faster than his father.

>140 Cecrow:

Sounds quite a bit like Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury).

I haven't read that one - or nearly enough Bradbury in general - but it does sound like it has a lot of the same elements. I'm sure Bradbury did it better.

>134 Cecrow: I keep meaning to read that. Glad to hear it is as good as the Quartet, and even happier to hear it is lighter hearted.

>147 majkia:, I wouldn't want you to think it's all fluff, but I would say that it's never as dense or dark as the Quartet could sometimes be. The Towers of Silence is still my favourite.

>146 Cecrow:

I haven't either, although I've owned a copy for quite some time - just heard the plot described in some detail. I'll let you know what I think of it when I finally get to it.

#16 Red Mars (Mars Trilogy #1)

In 2026, a multinational group of 100 colonists lands on Mars with all the supplies they could possibly ask for, and sets to work on establishing a colony. Pretty quickly they're making efforts at terraforming, which is clearly where the two sequels are headed just by reading their titles (Green Mars, Blue Mars). Not everyone is happy about this, but it wouldn't be a story if everybody got along (see "The Night Circus", above). I thought this story would move at a slower pace and involve more of an initial struggle for survival. Apparently the author felt there was no time to waste on man-vs-nature because the work zooms ahead so quickly I think NASA's head would fly off. The science seems to be solid, Arthur C. Clarke gave it a positive blurb so I'll trust that. There's a good mix of likeable and unlikeable characters in shades of grey, so the ones I like might be the ones you don't. I only put this first book of the trilogy on my 2016 list as a sample, now I've gotta fit the sequels into 2017 to see what happens next.

Reading chapter eight of Darwin (of 21 ... sigh). Two thirds through Millenium. Started Kafka. My August reading includes Daphne du Maurier, then I'll return to my primary list.

I've only read one of Robinson's books before, long, complex, interesting, and kinda dragged a bit, lol. I've been curious about more (and this trilogy is pretty much his most popular) but not sure if I really wanted to dive in again, lol. Glad you enjoyed it!

21 chapters? Yikes! I was planning to read it next year.

I really did pick the wrong Darwin book to read. And I've come to accept that it's just never going to get any better. Nonetheless, tally ho.

#17 The Trial

I'd thought I could read this short novel on the side, but it demanded my concentration to appreciate its mood and how it develops. I was sure this would be dark and depressing, forgetting that absurdity is a mixture of fun and frustration. You know in advance that poor Joseph K. is going to be a victim of the system no matter what. He actually does a pretty able job of strategizing and presenting himself, which eases the reading even when he's being met with stonewalling. Without openly stating it, he seems able to focus on the things he can control and accept what he cannot. He gets taken by surprise, however, with how enormous a percentage the latter turns out to be. This was my 2nd Kafka, after The Metamorphosis. I'm not a big enough fan to visit this author again, but I get the idea.

Really nice review! You stated it exactly.

>150 Cecrow:
>154 Cecrow:

Those are both novels that I own and would like to get to in the next couple of years. I read Kim Stanley Robinson's short story "Sexual Dimorphism", which is set in KSR's Mars Trilogy universe (it's in The Martians, which LT says is a "companion volume" to the trilogy), recently; I liked it a lot, so that's that much more motivation to get to that one (that, and my undying fascination with the Red Planet, attested to by my reading of Edgar Rice Burroughs' entire Mars series for the Challenge last year).

I think you'll appreciate the contrast. It's a far cry from John Carter, and almost just as far from The Martian for actually not concentrating much on surviving - things get established very fast, it's more about what happens after that. I've read up on the companion volume and it sounds ok but unnecessary, I'll see how I feel after the trilogy is done but I usually don't pursue the add-ons to series anymore (e.g. there's a LOT more Malazan out there, but I'm not game for it.)

#18 Rebecca

Not the kind of novel I would have picked up even just a few years ago, but I work harder now at reading outside my comfort zone so I can find some winners like this. The opening captured me with some magically written scenes and insights that had me looking up other novels by Daphne du Maurier. This drops away as the narrator (an older, wiser version of herself, looking back) stops offering commentary on her younger, timid, clueless self. But a more earthy kind of attraction takes its place as the drama of Manderley begins to unfold, and the 2nd half really moves. I like the way Rebecca haunts the novel with her non-presence, constantly being remembered and referred to.

Connections are fun. After reading Jane Eyre (and its variant that is Turn of the Screw), I was prompted to read the back-story in Wide Sargasso Sea, then took a side-step into The Eyre Affair. I'd heard this novel had echoes of Jane (only vaguely, it turns out). I could keep going and read The Key to Rebecca, if I hadn't permanently gotten my fill of Ken Follett last year.

Instead, next is my man Homer. Then you-know-what.

>158 Cecrow: I really enjoyed Rebecca too. I haven't picked up any other novels by Daphne du Maurier so if you do give them a go please post your thoughts!

#19 The Odyssey

An easier read than the Iliad, the Odyssey is less epic and more adventure. Odysseus must overcome the obstacles thrown his way by malicious gods in his quest to return home after the Trojan war. Even if he does get back to Ithaca, he'll have to deal with the large number of suitors who are striving to make off with his wife and kill his son in his absence. At least he has the goddess Athena consistently on his side, and his reputation for a lot of smarts.

I wimped out and read a prose version of Homer again, but I felt less guilty this time. The Odyssey has a novel feel to it, so I didn't feel as much like I was missing out. I wasn't as familiar with this story as the Iliad. I did know the cyclops chapter, thanks to a comic book version my mom bought me when I was a kid that includes the epic scene where they stab a sharp stick through its eye. Maybe she didn't know about that part.

With Homer fresh in mind, it's Mr. Joyce's turn. School is in! I won't aim to understand every reference Ulysses throws at me, but I will use some reading on the side as a crutch. Whether I strike off every book on my challenge this year depends on how long it takes to tackle this one. I'll update this post to track my progress from here to the other side:

Part I: The Telemachiad
Episode 1, Telemachus - gets things off to an easy start, same voice as Portrait of an Artist.
Episode 2, Nestor - a little stickier, has some of the novel's most famous lines.
Episode 3, Proteus - stream of consciousness really kicking in, lots of references I'm missing out on.

Part II: The Odyssey
Episode 4, Calypso - Leopold Bloom's thoughts are easier to follow, but I still missed a plot point and had to go back.
Episode 5, Lotus Eaters - more Bloom. Short episodes so far (not even pg100 yet of 700), must be some monsters coming up?
Episode 6, Hades - lots of funeral and death stuff, as the title suggests. Another short one though; now at pg118.
Episode 7, Aeolus - Stephen and Leopold almost cross paths, interruptions by news headlines; pg150
Episode 8, Lestrygonians - Bloom daydreams, and is disgusted by diners at a restaurant; pg182
Episode 9, Scylla and Charybdis - Stephen holds forth on Shakespeare, navigating difficult waters; pg218
Episode 10, Wandering Rocks - nineteen short scenes scattered around Dublin, an interlude; pg254
Episode 11, Sirens - women and music; one of my favourite episodes so far for style; pg290
Episode 12, Cyclops - I'm increasingly leaning on other material to explain things to me; pg 343, halfway!
Episode 13, Nausicaa - chapter that landed this book on trial for obscenity; pg380
Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun - stream-of-consciousness + drunk = just wow; pg425
Episode 15, Circe - play format, hallucinations, and even more obscene; pg533

Part III: The Nostos
Episode 16, Eumaeus - Bloom and Stephen chatting it up; thankfully easier; pg586
Episode 17, Ithaca - question and answer format, interesting technique; pg658
Episode 18, Penelope - the Molly chapter; and we're done

>159 Narilka:

Her short novel Don't Look Now is very good (and very creepy!).

>161 Cecrow:

You're doing great! Good luck with Ulysses!

I like the side by side comparison. That had not occurred to me.

>163 billiejean:, it's not to my credit, I stole it from the Wikipedia entry for Ulysses. So far I can tell you, it's not proving to be informative at all. If nobody tells you there's an Odyssey parallel, I wouldn't say that it stands out.

Edit: although come to think of it ... it's right there in the title .... blush

Edit (again): more evident now, often metaphorically

A combination of the Wikipedia entry for this novel and Sparknotes are proving to be all the guidance required to derive a deep appreciation of this novel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/ulysses/

>158 Cecrow:

I finished Rebecca not long after you did, but I am just getting around to reviewing it right now. :-) It also made me want to check out more of her books, either Jamaica Inn or My Cousin Rachel.

>165 abergsman:, it was a real surprise, that one. I was expecting some pastiche of Jane Eyre and Harlequin romances, so what I got blew my socks off and had me gripped all the way through its second half.

#20 Ulysses

Well, that's done. This novel has loomed on my TBR pile for a while now, like it was daring me. Finally it arrived on my challenge list this year, and as I approached it I felt intimidation transforming to intrigue. I loved what Joyce did with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and I think that can serve as any reader's proving ground. If you read and enjoyed that one, you can read this one and at least be amazed by his technique. Portrait hit the nostalgia button pretty hard for me and I'd have to rate it as more of a personal favourite, but Ulysses does a fine job of capturing the interior mind and putting it on display, littering the page with every passing thought that goes through his characters' heads.

It's technically impressive, but not much fun. The first two hundred pages were sufficient to wow me, but then there were still 500 left to go. I enjoyed and appreciated some of his tricks (e.g. Sirens) more than others (e.g. Oxen of the Sun, and Circe, were especially tough). When it's clear how he took something to the next level, I shook my head in admiration. When it wasn't, I had to wonder whether it was really necessary to torture the reader like this. I think you can go to the grave in peace without reading it, but if you've any interest in tackling it at some point then I predict it's going to live up to the image you have of it.

Completely switching gears to pure fantasy with Shadowmarch, might knock off a bit more of Millennium first. Darwin is endlessly hiking around in Chile; maybe I can lure him back to the ship with something so we can please get on with it.

Glad you, essentially, enjoyed it! It's on my list, and shelves :P, and I will eventually get to it, but I think it'll be some years yet before I decide to go there, lol.

>167 Cecrow:

Congratulations on scaling what is perhaps the Everest of 20th-century fiction. 8)

It's technically impressive, but not much fun... When it's clear how he took something to the next level, I shook my head in admiration. When it wasn't, I had to wonder whether it was really necessary to torture the reader like this.

That's pretty much been my reaction when I've attempted it. I'd get about 100 pp. in and go, "Y'know, I could have completed five or six other books in the amount of time that I took me to get this far into this one". Life is short, and it's hard for me to justify putting that kind of time and energy into reading one book, even if it's something as esteemed as Ulysses.

I worried it would take me a horrific amount of time to read it, but found I progressed at close to my usual non-fiction reading pace. When it got really wacky my eyes sort of glazed over and I just tried to grasp it, read a secondary source summarizing the passage to confirm/correct my understanding, then moved on. You need to keep the faith that no matter how odd it gets, he's doing it for a reason and it's not just white noise, but I let someone else explain it to me. I'm not crazy about reading every line twenty times trying to parse it all, lol.

>170 Cecrow:

You need to keep the faith that no matter how odd it gets, he's doing it for a reason and it's not just white noise...

I've heard almost that exact thing said about Joyce before. Also, that when Ulysses is making you feel dumb, you have to remember his stated goal in writing it: "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant". We're coming up on its centennial, and I think it's fair to say that, so far, he's succeeded. :)

You are really doing great with your list. How is Darwin going? It's on my 2017 list.

I thought he was finally about to leave Chile, but no, there's a FOURTH chapter of him still tramping around the Andes, AND it's the longest one in the book. At least once I get through that he's finally going to the Galapagos (I peeked ahead because, seriously, enough Chile already).

So do you think the best way to read it is a couple of chapters a month?

That might be a good approach. I think I'd be bored to tears trying to read it straight through, but maybe that's just me. Nothing requires you to rush, it's not like there's any plot to follow, lol.

I don't recommend doing it on an e-reader like I'm trying. It mentions a diagram now and then, and - nope, no diagrams in my version. Footnotes are hard to use, too. I'm expecting I'd find it an easier, quicker read if I wasn't basically saving it for bedtime to put me to sleep, when my brain is already tired.

One thing I do like about the ereader is that I can highlight/bookmark the bits that are interesting without marking up an actual book, and it's easy to open and flip through a list of what I've noted.

I'm really enjoying my kindle, but I mostly just read fun, short stuff. I have had my copy of Beagle for quite a few years now. Just like On the Origin of Species. I don't want to mark it up, but I also don't really think I'm going to refer back to this. I have one more Darwin book after that one. But not The Descent of Man. Are you going to read that one? That is kind of a biggie, but I'm not sure right now if I want to invest in another Darwin book.

I read a lot of the classics on mine since I can get them for free. It's really only a problem for me when illustrations and footnotes come into play. As a matter of curiosity, can you tell me the total page count of your copy of Voyage of the Beagle? I don't trust any of the statistics my e-reader gives me, including the one that says I'm 73% done. It displays "page" numbers, but of course that changes according to resolution.

I'm seeing this one through to the end but then I've had my one and only fill of Darwin. I'm learning some intriguing things from him, granted, but he and I don't share many interests. On his expedition I'd be the guy sighing and constantly encouraging him to put down that rock, plant, animal, etc. so we can move on.

#21 Shadowmarch (Volume One)

My trust in Tad Williams has paid off again, and it was a long-term investment in this case. I've had this book on my shelf since 2005, so I'm a decade behind celebrating it with his biggest fans and sharing in their excitement. Shadowmarch provides everything I want from traditional epic fantasy: it establishes a world I like escaping to, characters I care about, and it presents mysteries I want to unravel. There's a peculiar number of parallels with his other fantasy trilogy (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn), so it took a few chapters to confidently establish its own identity. From that point on I was fully onboard the "what happens next???" train, all the way to the end. It's like a big lump of sugar that doesn't rot my teeth. My hands are tied: the rest of these have to go onto my 2017 list next to the remaining Mars novels, delivering me from SFF famine to gluttony. It also positions me well to clear these titles ahead of the new series he's about to publish.

After chipping at Millennium a bit more, I'm liable to get a sugar overdose with Auel but I won't feel guilty about it after reading this blog: http://www.annleckie.com/2016/10/23/on-guilty-pleasures/

I'm going to have to look into Shadowmarch. It sounds interesting.

You've almost finished your list too :)

If you've never tried Tad Williams then I'd recommend The Dragonbone Chair (first book of MS&T), it's like a stronger version of Shadowmarch. It's largely traditional (i.e. Tolkien-esque) but it has good atmosphere, good writing, and George Martin has cited it as an influence.

I wasn't too sure I'd get all 24 done this time, but I'm feeling more so at this point. Provided I can choke down the rest of the Darwin menace.

My only experience with Tad Williams so far is Tailchaser's Song. It's been a while though I remember enjoying it. I have no idea why I haven't checked out more of his books yet.

My copy of Beagle has 518 pages counting the index and 505 excluding the index. It's longer than On the Origin of Species. It will be hard for me to finish next year. But I'm going to try. Great job on your list, by the way.

500! It definitely feels at least that long, but I thought that was just me, wow. If I can't finish him, I think I can at least knock off the other two I have left.

#22 The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children, #6)

Jean Auel is tied up in highschool nostalgia for me, when I read the first four books of this series. I finally read the fifth in 2010 and it was as bad as everyone said, but I liked it anyway for the memories and catching up with the characters. This sixth-and-last book gets trashed even more harshly, but it felt like a loose end I needed to tie up. This author knows everything science can tell us about the stone age. She knows how to skin an animal and what every body part is good for, and the name and use of every plant in sight. Her research is amazing, but she's a researcher first, writer second. The plot of the first two thirds of the book can be summarized as "people talk pleasant nothings and catalogue cave paintings". She tours her characters through probably every painted cave in southern France and makes every one of them sound boring. And the author likes to tell you the same thing again and again and again. And again. And again and again and again. The author likes to tell you the same thing again and again.

Then the last third hits and wow, it's actually good. We have plot! Subplot! Events! Emotional moments! Where did that come from? A better question, where was it before? Auel claims she wrote the outline for the whole series when she wrote the first book and stuck to it ever since. I guess she realized she needed a lot of filler towards the end to make up the six books she promised. So, nope, it's not great literature. The first book was solid, then they went increasingly downhill. But to be honest I kinda liked even this one anyway, lol, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

= = =

Millenium is going down! As for Darwin, I'm ho-hum whether I finish by the 31st or not. Might happen, might not. At least he's very, very nearly on the way to seeing the Galapagos, and that's gotta be better than Chile.

Woo for 22! And LOL, at least the voyage is moving on now. xD

You're almost there!

I admit curiosity about Jean Auel's work. Some of my family members raved about Clan but I just couldn't bring myself to give it a try.

I'd still recommend The Clan of the Cave Bear, and even The Valley of Horses. You start seeing signs of wilt in The Mammoth Hunters, and after that you should really stop, lol.

I read The Clan of the Cave Bear many years ago, and I've always wanted to go back and read them all. But probably not yet. I have too many other books. You're really doing great with your list.

#23 Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years

Yeah, it took me all year, but I was enthused about this one all the way through. I love world history, enough that I read my university world history textbook cover to cover. This works as a sequel. The author returns us to the year 1000 AD and then discards all of the familiar signposts in favour of a truly global view, not just of western Europe. He finds all kinds of significance in other civilizations' activities and development (China, Islam, North America, Japan, Africa). His central thesis is that western dominance is ephemeral, far more brief and less powerful than we typically believe. Special attention is drawn to the lines of intersection and influence that civilizations had upon one another, where Europe is just one in the mix. It addresses questions like "why didn't the Chinese explore and expand like the Europeans did?", etc. It's absolutely brilliant and a satisfying answer to every complaint I ever voiced along the lines of "why aren't we covering the Aztecs, Mali, etc. in this class?", to which the usual answer was always "no time" or "not important". This book is a truly global overview of the last 1000 years, certainly the most inclusive I've ever read.

Way more fun than Darwin.

Note to self: spell "millennium" with double-n. The spine of the book is missing one (that really threw me off, lol), but it's correct inside and on the cover.

>189 Cecrow: I think I would have liked something like that back in my school days. If we wanted to learn about anything other than Western European or US history we were pretty much out of luck. Even my World History class didn't cover much extra though they did a little better.

Now you just have Darwin. Can't escape him :)

One bit of fun I'm having with Darwin, he'd get totally slapped down if he tried some of his stunts today. Spots a rare fox, so he sneaks up and clubs it on the head, killing it, to take it as a specimen (hurrah for preserving this rare species?). Throws a tortoise into the ocean over and over again to see if it'll keep taking the same return approach, rides on its back, etc. The guy's a nut.

One more to go!! Science can be so cruel, can't it?

He sounds like an odd duck lol Yeah, he'd have a million activist groups all over him if that happened now.

I hope that the Darwin book turns out to be a great read.

I already know what's going to happen here: I'm going to drone on and on about the torture, then you're going to breeze through it, lol. It's actually probably not as bad a time for most folks as I'm having, and it does have a lot of nifty bits here and there.

He's in Tahiti now, woo-hoo! London's calling, Darwin, let's go go go!

I don't think I will breeze through it. It took quite a while to read the other Darwin, and I had to make myself do it.

Oh no, I think I've been doing this all wrong. Today as part of a greater effort to finish, I'm reading Darwin by the light of day instead of at 11pm when I want to go to sleep. He's much better now, lol.

Hahaha!

:)

#24: The Voyage of the Beagle

I was trying to take an "I don't care if I get this done" attitude, but then Darwin finally started throwing in comments about how he was looking forward to returning to London and I thought, you and me Charles, you and me. Let's do this.

When I made my 2016 list I knew Ulysses would be tough, and The Land of Painted Caves could be a slog, but I did not foresee this guy's journal taking me by the throat and trying to choke the life out of me. Thirteen months of reading later, the Beagle has finally returned to port and I am kissing the ground until all I can taste is dirt. But really, in this Cecrow-Darwin break-up I can honestly say "it's me". There's actually quite a lot to get fascinated by if you've any interest in animals, biology, geology or the history of any of these. I don't have that. I just signed up thinking it would be a fun trip. My tour guide, however, could not look at rock, fish, fowl or other without examining it and speculating as to every aspect of its nature. Every quote along the lines of "These facts are highly interesting" made me grind my teeth. It was dead stop after dead stop until I thought I'd die. But I'm back, it's over, and we never have to speak again. No hard feelings.

To others considering travelling with Darwin, I recommend not reading him late at night. Also, don't read him on an e-reader. The electronic version I've read omitted all of the referenced diagrams/illustrations/tables, and the footnotes were harder to follow.

2016 Summary:

One of my favourite things about this challenge is looking back on the list of books crossed off and think, "Whew, that's done!"

With hindsight I could have skipped Angle of Repose and The Night Circus, otherwise I'm happy with what I chose - even Darwin's thick medicine, since it was good for me. Ready Player One was pure fun and Staying On was an awesome conclusion to the Raj Quartet, probably my two favourite reads. James Joyce is in my rearview mirror now. I'm also happy to have read everything I challenged myself to since I started this challenge in 2011, and to be starting 2017 entirely fresh. I've shrunk my TBR pile for the third year in a row (despite the inevitable new additions) to just over 120, which finally gets me back to my 2011 level. Maybe now I'll begin reducing in earnest, lol.

Woohooooo congrats!

Yeahh, you gottsh up frum tha table furst, but I's donn too!

Congrats, you made it!!

I'm only sorry it's so close to the end of the year this time, not a lot of days remaining to get anything else read (but I'm trying, of course!)

Way to go!! I'm so impressed that you made it through the entire list this year.

Very nice! And congrats on finishing every book from every list!

I'm a little worried about tackling this book now; however, it was on my second list, so I must read it. Plus I have one more Darwin (shorter, though) on my bookshelf.

>206 LittleTaiko:, it's the only challenge I do, so that makes it easier. ;)

>207 billiejean:, You've already gotten through his other book ("Origins") and while it was shorter, it sounds like it was very theory-heavy. This one has a lot of keen observations about the places and people mixed in with the biology, which I did like. It's all about where your interests lie, so if you're more closely aligned with him than I am then I think you'll be fine. My eyes were crossing when he launched into thirty pages of study and theory about coral formations, but somebody else might find that really fascinating.

Biology is not my strong suit, but I did read A Pirate of Exquisite Mind which was somewhat similar -- with pirate raids in the mix.

THAT's what Darwin's book needed. More pirates. Or more cow bell, one of the two.

Both? More pirates AND cowbell sounds like a winner :D

It was also shorter.

>201 Cecrow:, so I find it disconcerting to see The Night Circus making top ten of people's 2016 reads .... *shrug*
https://www.librarything.com/list/11172/all/Top-Five-Books-of-2016#

On the other hand, My Antonia isn't far behind.

I liked The Night Circus, but then I haven't read Kavalier and Clay yet.