Monkey's 2018 TBR Alcove

Here I am, I didn't get lost! ;P


(06) 01. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (2017) 24.01.2018
02. The first circle - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (2017)
03. The metamorphoses - Ovid (2017)
04. Journey to the west - Wu Cheng'en (2017)
(11) 05. A handful of dust - Evelyn Waugh 25.2.2018
(04) 06. The mysterious island - Jules Verne 12.01.2018
07. Che Guevara: A revolutionary life - Jon Lee Anderson
(08) 08. The idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky 8.2.2018
(14) 09. Mary - Vladimir Nabokov 20.7.2018
(15) 10. Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens 29.7.2018
(03) 11. The wind's twelve quarters - Ursula K Le Guin 10.01.2018
(12) 12. The man within - Graham Greene 26.2.2018

(17) 13. Revolution and war - Karl Marx 3.8.2018
(05) 14. A wind in the door - Madeleine L'Engle 13.01.2018
(16) 15. Through the looking glass - Lewis Carroll 3.8.2018
(18) 16. Where angels fear to tread - EM Forster 13.11.2018
17. Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov
(10) 18. Uncle Silas - Sheridan Le Fanu 20.2.2018
(09) 19. The city and the pillar - Gore Vidal 17.2.2018
(01) 20. The woman warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston 03.01.2018
(07) 21. The island of Doctor Moreau - HG Wells 31.01.2018
(13) 22. The feast of the goat - Mario Vargas Llosa 15.7.2018
(02) 23. The assault - Harry Mulisch 06.01.2018
24. Picture this - Joseph Heller

Progress: 18/24

Impressive list! I'm only familiar with Uncle Silas and look forward to comparing thoughts. Happy new year and happy reading!

I didn't wind up finishing MLK but I'm like 70% through it, so I just left it off and I'll be finishing it this week. But first I have to start out the year with something new, so I'm thinking of going with Kingston's; it's short (207p), seems interesting, ought to be a good kickoff. Hopefully. :P

The other 4 leftovers have, as usual, been bumped over to this year's list. The rest of the list is fairly random, lol. I have a handful of those B&N Seven Novels and such books (finished Austen's a couple weeks ago!) so I wanted to chip away at them more - Verne I had on my list at least once before, and now there's just one left from it and it's been sitting waiting for like 2 years now so I thought I'd take some extra motivation there ;P and Wells I started on in Dec 2016 but then neglected to read any last year so, onto the list with him! and Alice...I read that one back in 2015 and again, haven't done more with it yet so...! Wrinkle, that was my faaaavorite book when I was younger, and I got this collection, plus the single work in the special anniversary edition that came out at the same time too, and I read that several years ago but, as with the rest, never did get on with (re)reading the rest of the series and I want to do that, so why not! Onto the list with her! :P Then we have my staples, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Greene, Vidal. And then a few randomly selected titles. Lol.

Welcome to 2018! :D

>2 passion4reading: Thanks, same to you! I think I can manage to pull off most of it without breaking a sweat, so long as I don't take lots of months off again... *ahem* xD

I've read Anna Karenina and Nicholas Nickleby and enjoyed both. I'm hoping to read my first Graham Greene book this year though it's a different one than the one you have listed.

Good luck!

I'm curious about The mysterious island since reading Verne for the first time last year. I look forward to your thoughts on this.

>5 LittleTaiko: I've read lots of Greene, he's one of my staples, I have a nice chunk of his work, haha.

>6 Narilka: Which did you read? I probably just saw it but I went through so many of the threads in the past handful of days trying to catch back up I have no recollection of who read/listed what anymore LOL. I've read the other 6 of his from the book, and he's not my favorite, but I don't exactly dislike him either. My big issues are his crazy out of date "science" that always pulls me right out of the stories and the fact that most times he massively overwhelms the story with all kinds of (super dull!!) scientific info which again drags me right out of the stories. So usually I'll be fairly enjoying the plot itself but, I'm prevented from getting into them so it bugs me, lol. This one is really long though so I'm hoping that's because it's more in-depth story and not a ton of goofy "science" but, we shall see! :P

>7 .Monkey.: Journey to the Center of the Earth. You really have to put your modern brain on a shelf and ignore all the out of date or just bad science to enjoy the adventure story underneath.

Ah yeah, that one made me a bit bonkers lmao, like I wanted to just enjoy the crazy adventure thing but oh man it was just so absurd! Hahaha

Up top, it says "2017 alcove" .... oops? Happy New Year! ;D

Hopefully Verne isn't too painful. Other than Around the World in Eighty Days I haven't enjoyed him much so far. That is probably the creepiest H.G. Wells novel, and a nice pairing/contrast with Verne (although nothing beats War of the Worlds, something to note if you haven't gotten to that yet). I've a Wells collection with longstanding outliers like what you're describing that I might make myself read, we'll see.

Hurrah for Che Guevara! Maybe we'll turn converts and go join a rebellion somewhere, although I hear Castro doesn't need us anymore, or much of anything else. Did you add the Marx on your challenge as an intentional pairing with this?

I know you hate spoilers so I'll say nothing about Anna Karenina, despite the spoiler itself being rather famous, LOL. We'll talk later.

I liked that Dickens, but it's the one novel of his that I read several years before my recent campaign so I remember it the least well. A Wind in the Door was a great favourite of mine as a kid, and I know I liked it better than A Wrinkle in Time but I can scarcely remember why anymore. Alice is just as good on her second visit to Wonderland. Llosa and Heller I should try reading sometime.

Dammit, I think I clicked on the already typed thing from last year and must've neglected to change the date, grr. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with it! lol

Yeah Around the world... is definitely the best, then Five weeks in a balloon, which was fairly amusing and without much science jargon or too much absurd "science," though marred by the "savages" they encounter.
I have read that one of Wells, but not in this volume, I read it years ago, as well as listening to it back in jr high in lit class, lol. I like the Moreau movie with Val Kilmer so I've always been curious about the book but never got around to reading it, heh.

Hah, I didn't actually, my husband had bought me the Marx one for a birthday or holiday gift a handful of years ago and I took it out last year as an intended (though non-list) read, but then my reading was awful and I never got to it, so I figured this year I'd make it official. :P

I think I enjoyed the books as the series went on because the kids grew up and developed more. I loooved Wrinkle but it was really more about the fantasy (and religion, which I did not get at all as a (Jewish non-religious) child, lol) and the fantasy characters, the humans were really much less developed, but you tend not to notice that so much while enjoying the wild ride, haha. It was still enjoyable enough, but not nearly so great as I thought as a kid, but I still treasure it for what it was to me then. :) I'm curious to see how the rest hold up now, heh.

I've not read Llosa before, but I came across that one at one of the 2ndhand bookshops so snagged it.
And Heller, Catch-22 is pretty much my favorite book of all time. Sadly the sequel was not nearly so good, but it was written way later and I don't think he'd wanted to write it. I have faith that his other stuff that he chose to write will fare better than that one! xP

#1 The woman warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston
This was not at all what I was expecting from something calling itself a memoir. Initially I was a little put off, confused by what I was reading, though I didn't dislike the writing; but after settling back and adapting myself to the more original manner in which it was written, I enjoyed it for what it was. I think it provided an interesting glimpse into a life as an American-born Chinese. That weird zone of having parents from one culture, while growing up in a place completely different, the two not understanding each other at all, and the children therefore not really fitting into either one. There were some sad bits, some amusing bits, some ...different (to a westerner who knows next to nothing about Chinese culture) bits - there's hairy ghosts, ape-men, jealous gods... Overall a provocative engaging read.

I would recommend it, just with the warning to know going into it you're not getting some kind of straight-forward biography type thing. ;)

#2 The assault - Harry Mulisch
Really great novel about the murder of a collaborator in the war, and the resulting impact on the family whose doorstep he winds up on. In a way it's sort of a detective story, but it's so much deeper than that. Definitely recommended to all.

>13 .Monkey.:
I remember reading that one for a school assignment and feeling kinda meh about it. At the time I was more into space opera and gothic fantasy. Perhaps I should consider rereading it.

Glad you enjoyed it, though!

You should definitely consider it! :)

How'd you get your topic name fixed (from 2017 to 2018), I didn't think that was possible?

Haha, I pleaded idiocy at Loranne and she kindly fixed it for me. xP

I will do a proper write-up later but #3 (The wind's twelve quarters) is doooone, woo! Still trying to decide what to go with next.

>17 .Monkey.: - That's impressive and quite nice of her.

>18 .Monkey.: You are on a roll! 10 days into the new year and already 3 knocked out.

>19 LittleTaiko: Lol yeah, she's fixed them for various folks before. It's not a thing they advertise doing, or else they'd likely get inundated with requests for it, but it's a fairly simple thing so if asked nicely, staff are usually happy to help out. :)

>20 Narilka: Haha, yeah, plus finishing up the one from last year's list, and I also took an hour or so and read a Malcolm X graphic novel I'd also had on the shelves for years and wanted to knock out, so I'm quite pleased! XD

I'm thinking I may go for Verne next, get that huge thing off the shelf in here, hahaha.

Still need to finish my review of the 3rd but
#4 The mysterious island - Jules Verne ★★★★☆
It had its flaws, as Verne does, but this was by far the best of the 7. Not nearly so bogged down by scientific observations and such, an intriguing mystery at the heart of it, I forgot most of the negatives once I got past the halfway point and had trouble putting it down. :)

You're reading so fast, your reviews can't keep up? That's a nice-to-have problem!

Nemo is in that one, right? Does it sort of work as a 20,000 Leagues sequel?

>22 .Monkey.: Thanks for the review. I think I'll go ahead and add it to my wish list. Have you ever tried Around the World in 80 Days? That's the other Verne book I'm curious about.

>23 Cecrow: Hahaha, yeah, I initially thought, short stories, I'm not big on those, my "review" will totally just be a couple lines. But, no, it's Le Guin and she is effing amazing, so there is more to say. :P
I wouldn't really say that, more that they share a universe, lol; he's only in the end, but it does wrap up his own story.

>24 Narilka: Yeah I'd finished the other 6 already (the 1st 5 in 2013 when I first added one to my list, and the 6th in 2016), so that's Five weeks in a balloon, Journey to the center of the earth, From the earth to the moon, Round the moon, 20,000 leagues under the sea, Around the world in eighty days, and now The mysterious island means the book, and Verne, are fiiiiinally done. :P
I would strongly advise anyone away from the moon ones (eesh), and 20k is a decent enough story but waaay too bogged down with lists of things seen, with all their Latin names and such, it's not even interesting descriptions. 5 weeks, 80 days, and Journey are better - adventurey stories that still have too much scientific jargon/descriptions thrown around randomly, but they're much less obnoxious about it and have more solid story to them. Same for Island, but it's sooo much longer, it's a whole separate ballpark, lol. But it was really interesting, more than any of the rest. Maybe at least partially because you spend so long with the characters, not just that it's literally that much longer but the time within the pages is actually like 4 years, so you really get quite cozy with them! Lol. Anyway yeah, 80 days is the next best one after this one. :))

And now, I think I will go for L'Engle next, and since it was back in 2013 that I'd reread Wrinkle, I think I'll just start at the beginning again. It'll be a super fast read anyway. :P

#5 A wind in the door - Madeleine L'Engle ★★★★☆
I read through Wrinkle first and then went directly into this one. I'm actually really glad I read Wrinkle a few years ago and reacquainted myself with it, and then didn't get around to reading the rest again. So that this time I was less bothered about the religious stuff I was oblivious to as a child, and was able to just go with the story while only slightly noting those aspects. It made it a lot more enjoyable and I'm happy that now I can consider it in a high regard like I did back then (not the same, mind, but still). Anyway. So then onto Wind. It's quite a unique story I think, she had very creative ways of trying to get across the whole, brotherly love, hate begets hate, sort of thing. This one takes place very soon after Wrinkle, so it's basically like just hanging out more with Meg and Charles and Calvin, with some new ...others. :P Wrinkle felt like more angst, while Wind just feels more emotional, it's good.

Meanwhile I've already moved on to the 3rd one, and will continue reading straight through, haha. They're for a YA audience so they're super fast reads anyway, may as well just breeze through them all as one big thing. :P So it'll be a few more days before I start in on #6. Maybe Anna, maybe I'll start in on Journey again (still gotta finish those last 20pg of intro, heh), dunno yet. We shall see!

Well I'm 2/3 through the 4th now, and at page 855 (with another 100 to go) I'm feeling ready for a change, lol, plus I realized, while the last one is part of this quintet, it actually takes place with the next generation, who have their own series (which I also bought several years ago), and it's the last book in that series as well as this one, so I think I will hold off, and read it after reading those, too. Which means tomorrow I start on the next list book! :P

...still haven't figured out which one it should be. I want to go for one of the leftovers, though. I think not Journey, but I haven't decided between the other 3...probably one of the Russians...

>26 .Monkey.: I love the L'Engle canon (a small pun), especially the Austins.

My daughter tells me there is a new film production coming out this spring for A Wrinkle in Time.

>28 2wonderY: Yeah someone elsewhere mentioned that when I'd mentioned Wrinkle, which does sound vaguely familiar to me (like I heard it mentioned a year or more ago when it was just getting started), but I hadn't recalled that when I chose it now, haha. Having just looked it up on Wiki, though, I am... incredibly skeptical. Reese Witherspoon as Mrs. Whatsit?! And where are the twins, and are they not going to Ixchel because there's no cast list for any "beasts," and who is this Veronica?? bah. Don't mess with my damn childhood, Hollywood!! >_<

Dammit. I started reading the Solzhenitsyn, but then I was looking on Wiki for some reason, and found that he made a "lighter" version hoping to get it past the censors in the USSR (of course it didn't), but the full version has since been released and Harper did a translated version in 2009. So I just ordered that version from bookdepository (yuck, but there was no cheaper copies on Abe and I want it sooo), so now I am going to put it on hold until it arrives and read that one instead. Argh. I'm 82p in. >_<

Guess I will switch to Anna instead, since it'll probably be 10+ days before it arrives. They're always insanely slow.

#6 Anna Karenina - Tolstoy ★★★★☆
18-24 Jan; ©1877; 963p; fic - classic literature, Russian
It's an enjoyable read. It went a bit quicker than I anticipated given its length and age, but Tolstoy has written wonderful "real" characters, and while the nuances & laws may have changed somewhat over time, the experiences are still essentially the same. There's not really much plot, it's all about the people - the romances and heartbreaks, living life, contemplating life. I was slightly underwhelmed with the very end, I guess I was expecting something a bit more ...final, but after sleeping on it I'm a bit more content; it does make sense, given the nature of the entire book. It's good, easily recommended for those who like character-driven novels and/or Russian classics.

Did you use a time machine to read it that fast??

Now I can tell you: I was maybe a 100 pages into it when someone says to me, "Oh, is that the one where she throws herself in front of a train?" Well, let's see here, I don't know for sure, maybe because, THAT DOESNT HAPPEN UNTIL THE END!

But apparently how this ends is fairly widely known, so people tend to casually let that one drop on you. Apparently.

LOL oh man. I had definitely not heard that before! Although I guess their initial meeting is a bit of foreshadowing but still, not something you'd pick up until the end! Geez.

Bahaha, well the first day I read 80something pgs, so I "caught up" to the point I left the Solzhenitsyn, and then after that I tried to read around 150/day, once or twice I was a little under, but it worked pretty well. :P

How can you already be six books down, and it still being January? You're putting the rest of us to shame. Love reading your reviews.

Hahaha, don't worry, I'm just being proactive for when I hit my reading slump (which I always hit!) and wind up MIA for a couple mos, when I come back I'll be right on schedule. lmao.

I was going to ask what you plan to do with the rest of your year, after you're done in April :)

Lmao, if only! If nothing else, Journey to the west will totally take me the whole year, if not multiple years! XD

Pushing ahead like a steam train, you are.

As for Anna Karenina spoilers, I haven't read the book yet (maybe next year) but I'm afraid someone spoiled the very end for me, too. See the first sentence. Don't tell me if I'm right, though!

Well you can all rest easy...for a day or two XD I'm taking a break from the more literary with Joey the hitman for the moment. :P

#7 Island of Doctor Moreau is finished!
I liked it a good bit more than Time machine, though the bad science did pull me out at times. The general idea of it would've been a bit more horrifying (as I believe it was intended to be) if the science weren't so rotten as to make it laughable, lol. But overall enjoyable entertaining story, and I think the notion of ethics/cruelty were played out reasonably well (at least, if one weren't too busy sitting there shaking their head at the notion of a little surgery accomplishing magic).

You're right, April isn't soon enough. You should definitely try to finish by end of March!

I read that one young and found it creepy then, not sure what adult me would think.

>41 Cecrow: Lmao.
I just added this to my post on it over in CR (spoiler for being detailed, since I'm sure everyone knows the general plot of this one by now): I am rather astounded that the idea of a little surgery could result in completely humanoid bodies, upright walking, large lack of fur, and speech capacity, let alone the intelligence/rationality some prodding at their brain gives them! And, that over time the surgery's effects would simply be worn off! I know it's science fiction but it was not intended to be fantasy, this was supposed to be some sort of (relatively) viable thing, as in, if only science had the know-how (and the ability to push past the cruelty of doing it) this could be a reality. Except, good grief no! It would have worked far better if he'd actually melded them with humans in some way, hence the movie from the 90s making that change, for it to be plausibly realistic. Just. agh. That whole angle was just rather frustrating, trying to pretend like it worked, for the sake of the rest of the story. And that is why it was not able to be nearly so creepy as it otherwise would have been.

Still, the message works. Indiscriminately messing around with experiments in the name of science, in this case to harness the power of creation, can lead down some dark paths. That was probably running against the grain for the time of its publication, when science could do no wrong and was going to overcome anything it set its mind to. At least until the Titanic sunk, then folks weren't as sure.

Yeah, like I said, the ethics & morality angle was good, but, the method was so outlandish that it ruins the delivery and thus the effectiveness. I think in skimming the Wiki page I saw something about vivisection being a big thing at the time, so it made sense to make use of that, but surely he could've come up with something a little more realistic to kludge together the various things he was doing! Haha.

I recently picked up a copy of The Invention of Morel, another 501 list entry, which apparently takes this general idea in some other direction. Might bump that one up the TBR list a bit now.

Well now I'm intrigued! You'll have to read it and report back! :P

#8 The idiot, is done! Okay I still have the like 25p of Dostoevsky background after the story to read but, I'll get to that tonight. :P In the end, it didn't top Demons (it'd seemed to be heading there for the first half or so), but like always for Dostoevsky, a worthwhile read. I do wish it hadn't gone so gloomy in the later part, I was enjoying the light-heartedness of the first half or so, but then, it is Dostoevsky so I was surprised about that being the case at all, lol.

And, everyone can rest easy, this may wind up being the only list book I read this month, as I'm now switching gears to do some Black History Month-focused reading. ;P

That's a rude thing to call a bo... oh, I get it. Do you mean to say that Demons is your favourite Dostoevsky work?

Glad you have another gear to look after because fyi, I've started reading Che Guavara. After a day I'm on page 21, so I would think you can wait until I'm at least on page 650 or so (that gives you at least a month) if you're interested in finishing at about the same time to compare notes.

LOL! I will aim to start Che soon after my up-next titles then (I'll take a little break first with some genre fic or something I imagine, lots of nonfic in a row), I'm sure that one will wind up taking me a while, too; I may even end up reading some others in the midst of it, depending how slow it goes. :P

Oh and yes! Demons was really brilliant. Well they all are but, that one really stands out to me. Very poignant. :)

#9 complete! *hides* LOL. I was feeling not quite in the mood for more heavy stuff yet so I picked up The city and the pillar yesterday afternoon, and now it is done. xP It was, unsurprisingly, quite good. Vidal was great. Though I had hoped for a slightly happier ending, but I was pretty sure it would end up along the lines that it did, so it's not like I was surprised. Not much to say about it. I think everyone knows it's, as the cover proclaims, "the world-famous novel of unconventional love" (*snort* gotta love those big companies, trying to avoid the taboo!). I was rather surprised by the afterward (this was an edition from the 70s, which he apparently revised a bit) to learn he was only 21 when he wrote it, and already had two big titles under his belt then. Geez! Lol. He was a great writer, always feels very "real."

Anyway, I think I'm probably gonna read another novel before getting to the autobio, maybe the Le Fanu... XD

Just rub it in, will ya?!

Leaving us all in the dust, you are. Well done, you!

Hahaha, I'm just overcompensating for my slacker year last year. XD

The way you're going you'll finish your lists by June :)

Haha, even if I manage to finish 23 of them early, I can pretty much guarantee I will not get through Journey. XD

A couple weeks now, and I'm not at page 150 yet in Che Guavara. Take your time, lol

#10 Uncle Silas is finished! That was awesome. This was no Jane Austen — though there was a bold, nervous, naïve, sweet girl of a protagonist, with the standard variety of the sweet upstanding gentleman, the playboy, and the thug — hence no guarantees of the nice girl thwarting nefarious plans and winding up with the nice boy, and I was therefore at the edge of my seat practically the whole time, waiting to see what the final outcome would be, hahaha. It was a lot of fun, even though I often wanted to shake her and tell her to quit being such a fool, lol, but she was awfully sheltered so it really did fit that she'd be so easily manipulated. This one was way better than In a glass darkly, that's for sure!

>57 .Monkey.:, hadn't heard of that. Lately the gothic strain has been of interest to me, and it's good to note another Irish author among the classics.

>58 Cecrow: He's the one who wrote the novella Carmilla, one of the three key influences for Dracula. :) MR James called Uncle Silas his greatest work, though, and based on what I've read, I'm thinking I'd agree with that assessment. :)

Very interesting to read your review. I finished Uncle Silas just over a year ago and didn't get on with it at all, barely managing to finish it. Luckily we all like different books and genres, otherwise we'd all be reading the same titles!

>60 passion4reading: Have you read much Gothic literature? Because Uncle Silas was a pretty primo piece of it. It definitely ranks among the best I've read. :)

I might have to add Uncle Silas to mount TBR: it sounds like it'd be right up my street.

>62 Petroglyph: If you like Gothic lit you should definitely check it out! :D

>61 .Monkey.: I've read some, among them Edgar A. Poe, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Richard Marsh, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce and Henry James, and have to admit that I didn't always get on with them. I think I prefer the short stories over the novellas and novels. I'll keep looking, though, maybe I'll find one I can be as enthusiastic about as you are about Uncle Silas.

>64 passion4reading: Eh, I mean Poe was, but he was also kind of in a world of his own. Dickens and Collins I would not call Gothic; Dickens had read Gothic books so he was familiar, but he really just used the atmosphere a bit. Stoker is but he's like, light Gothic, lol. I have not yet read Bierce or James (though I have James' ghost stories pulled out to read sometime in the not-distant future, and I think Turn of the screw may be, but he's not known for being a Gothic writer so I don't know that any of the other ghost stories will be) so I couldn't say there. But Gothic, I mean, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, GWM Reynolds, James Malcolm Rymer... Honestly though if you hated Uncle Silas it seems unlikely you'd be fond of any of the "real" Gothic novels, because that's what they all are. But maybe Wuthering Heights? It doesn't follow the general formula so strictly, and it's great, so that might be where you'd want to go, lol.

I wasn't thinking of Wuthering Heights as Gothic, but it is pretty darn over-the-top, dark and depressing so far (I'm at the halfway point) so, I'm not inclined to argue.

>66 Cecrow: Haha yeah, over the top, dark, claustrophobic feeling, confinement usually in some sort of old mansion/castle but can be any place, often some sort of supernaturalish/ghostly element(s), damsel in distress, evil overbearing male figure... Wuthering Heights meets just about all the Gothic requirements, it's just the formula that differs from the standard. :P

>66 Cecrow: Ah, I'm afraid I haven't read any of the "real" Gothic authors and from what I've seen from the "Gothic lite" crowd mentioned above I don't think I will. I tried Wuthering Heights once but gave up a quarter of a way in, I seem to remember, for the reasons Cecrow mentions above. Ah well, I've realised long ago that I can't read all the books in the world, as much as I'd like to, so I have to prioritise. I love reading others' reviews though about books I know I'll never read.

Hah yeah, good reviews when you know you're not interested are fun, 'cause you don't need to worry about spoilers or whatever impression you might take away from it or whatnot, since the review itself is your whole look at the book, and the person's experience with it. :)

#11 A handful of dust is done. Well-written, of course, but eh, I wasn't very fond of this one. It's a satiric spin on upperclass life, but I found much of it more depressing than amusing. Ah well.

>70 .Monkey.: Annoying when that happens, as you must have been looking forward to reading it - even going to the trouble of listing it in your challenge. At least now you know and won't have to keep wondering. (And the space on the bookshelf makes room for another volume :-)

>71 passion4reading: Haha, well, it's unlikely to be going anywhere, just shifting from the unread bookshelves to the read :P but yeah, it's one more of his ticked off the list. I've plenty more waiting. ;P

#12 The man within is finished! Greene's writing is seriously excellent; there were so many phrases and metaphors and things that I was just drooling over, I would never have thought to put things that way and it's just so perfect and visual. E.g. "Over a toppling pile of green vegetables two old women were twittering. They pecked at their words like sparrows for crumbs."

The ending I saw coming a mile off, just because I know how he writes, lol. I didn't figure a specific aspect of it but the general culmination of things, yeah, it was pretty guaranteed, haha. Easily recommended, especially for Greene fans.

I may come to you at some point with a general inquiry about "what's the next Greene I should definitely read?" It'll be awhile though, I've still got a couple.

Haha, I really ought to read more per year, I have a lot still to go. Maybe I'll pick another in a few mos. :P

So, two months in and you've technically completed the challenge and are halfway through the full sweep. Truly impressive!!!

I'm doing good at making up for last year, haha. I've actually now finished 23 books (+1 graphic novel) this year, and I'm sure there will be a slump because there always is, lol, but man, if I could keep up a similar rate for most of the year, I'd wind up reading more than I have in the past 15+ years. I'm gonna try really hard to keep up with it as much as possible. :D

I'm currently working on Marx and have started Che, hoping at least these two will be done this month. The Marx one is very short, but very dry articles on economy/politics, can't read many pages before totally zoning out, lol. I've only just begun Che, but the writing seems engaging, so I'm hopeful it won't take me all that long to get through the 775 pages.

But, I have a question for you guys! Does anyone use Discord? I have for a while, and it bothers me that it is severely lacking in book servers. I only know of one, and the people in it were wretched (plus almost all of them pretty much read exclusively YA, and mainly fantasy/scifi, which is...ridiculously limited). I really want a server to chat books in! Would anyone be interested? I'm sure I could get a few of my fellow Discord pen geeks who are readers to join in, and maybe a couple folks on another site I'm often on... So, anyone wanna hang out and talk books? And anything else, after all there's always a "general" channel for random chatter. :P

I've used Discord before, but mostly to chat while playing an online game. People do that? Make channels to talk about books?

>79 Narilka: There's servers for nearly everything, lol. I used to be in 3 fountain pen servers, but I left one because the owner was a jackass, haha, and me and a good friend from that one started our own little "lounge" instead, with just about a dozen of us who hang out there often. I'm also in several art servers, a Linux server, and a classical music server, though the last two I don't really ever go in.

ETA - Just to clarify, there's little/no voice chat in most, it's just real-time type-chatting.

>78 .Monkey.:, gah, how could you, I'm only on page 290!

I guess you couldn't wait "forever". Which at your reading speed translates to, umm, 3.75 days.

Hahaha! I've only just barely started! I'd guess it'll be at least two weeks, but it's hard to say yet, I haven't had a chance to get into it and see what sort of pace it'll go. Also I've been playing SteamWorld Heist (which is awesome btw) and actually just finished but that gave a black hole that took me back to the start with all the characters already unlocked sooo I've started playing again, hahaha, so I'm also still being distracted by that. :P

See, I told y'all you didn't have to worry about my early lead! XD I basically took most of March and May off reading much of anything (basically 2 books each), but the rest of the time I've been pretty active (I'm at 43 books, not too bad) but not with anything on my list. xP I'm about to try diving back into it now, maybe with Llosa? We shall see. ;P

PS -
For anyone who uses Discord/might be interested, I did wind up just recently making a book server, this is the invite, all are welcome! https://discord.gg/ef3T6xM

I'm just relieved I got to the end of Guevara while you were out, lol. And not much else. And unlike you I was trying, dangit.

Hahahaha, hey, that one's a massive doorstop, that's an accomplishment on its own!

At long last, #13, The feast of the goat, is done! That was really good. It was a bit slow, it wasn't until about halfway when things really started happening that I got truly sucked in, but yeah, good stuff. I now need to investigate Trujillo and see how close to the truth this story really is. I'm also sad, once more, about the failure of American schools to teach proper history, that I didn't even know the man's name before now.

>87 .Monkey.:, you'll see he gets a few mentions in the Che Guevara book, too. I didn't pay much attention to him, but you obviously will.

Hah, yeah not surprising, since he attempted to murder some other Latin American leaders and stuff. He was... not a nice man. He did do some good for the country, but the price they paid for it... not sure most of them would consider it worth the cost.

#14 Mary has been read! It was not what one would call a happy book, but then Nabokov doesn't really do happy. It ended on a more positive note than I was fearing, though, hahaha.

And as always, a taste of the master:
"He was in the kind of mood that he called 'dispersion of will.' He sat motionless at his table unable to decide what to do: to shift the position of his body, to get up and wash his hands, or to open the window, outside which the bleak day was fading into twilight. It was a dreadful, agonizing state rather like that dull sense of unease when we wake up but at first cannot open our eyelids, as though they were stuck together for good. Ganin felt that the murky twilight which was gradually seeping into the room was also slowly penetrating his body, transforming his blood into fog, and that he was powerless to stop the spell that was being cast on him by the twilight."

#15 Nicholas Nickleby all done! This is #2 of my top Dickens (as yet). Pickwick being #1, naturally. xP I really loved this (though I really really wanted to throttle the crap out of a few characters), so many excellent characters to adore, and so many hilarious scenes, just fabulous! :D

>91 .Monkey.:, long after I'd read it, I was told its theme is about people acting other than themselves, putting on an act. I missed that, wonder if it stood out for you?

It definitely did (and then the intro also discusses it, which I just read this morning, heh). Basically everyone who features, is acting a part, at least sometimes. Some play them literally, on the stage, but then also continue to stage-act offstage, but in an entertaining and not bad-deceptive way (Mr Crummles does a whole role at the wedding, playing as the bride's father, as well as making a big scene when Nicholas is leaving them, with his over-acting and stage-hugging and all, for the onlookers). Ralph has an inner monologue maybe 70% or so in? where he actually goes explaining how he plays different roles for all the people that he visits to get his money from, plus practically any time he interacts with anyone we see him putting on displays of some attitude or other, depending who it is and what he hopes to gain with the encounter. Squeers, of course, pretends to actually be a human being when he's outside the school walls, aside of his acting near the end to trick the old housekeeper and recover the secret will, while nasty ol' Gride plays the role of a young lover when he's really just scheming for Madeline's secret money no one else knows of, though that's not really discovered till near the end. Mrs Nickleby, also, is one of the biggest actors, with all her absurdities, and playing up the higher class role, even continuously scorning the ever-friendly, sweet, and helpful Miss La Creevy. Then there's Miss Knag, deceiving herself that she's still a girl, dressing young and being shocked/appalled when some customers call her an old thing and want her gone, and Mantalini, pretending and half-fooling his wife that he's a devoted lovestruck fool for her and not merely after her money and every pretty young thing who happens to walk by, even playing at suicide constantly to mess with her emotions when she's too angry with him. And Noggs, of course, pretends for Ralph (and himself) that he's just a disinterested servant, initially because he's too ashamed of his past to want to seek employment (or life at all) with anyone else, and later to keep spying in order to help the good characters. So yeah, pretty much everyone has their roles to play. ;)

>93 .Monkey.:, Apparently Dickens' mother chided him on the character of Mrs. Nickleby, declaring nobody would ever believe such a person could actually exist. He didn't tell her he based that character on her. lol

I do remember I thought Mr. Mantalini was hilarious.

Hahaha yeah, the intro mentioned that she was the "alleged real-life Mrs Nickleby" and mentioned some incident where they were on holiday and he was "sulky as a bear" when she danced in public, lol.

16 & 17 Through the looking glass and Revolution and war are donnne! Just the other day I decided I'd held off on finishing with Marx for too long, and I was expecting to take like a week to finish, but I charged through, haha. Some of what he wrote (this is a series of his articles from newspapers?) was interesting, some of it was absolute gibberish to me, and nearly all of it was rather dull reading, frankly. But I did learn a few things, so there's that? Haha. And Alice, man I don't even know, very odd story, but kind of interesting/cute, I suppose? I think I'd give both of these 3 stars.

>96 .Monkey.:, I'm reading the first Alice book to my daughter for bedtimes now, and I'm surprised it's keeping her engaged since she usually prefers easier stuff. Must be the weird factor.

Hahaha, I wouldn't be surprised. I read the first one... last year? or the year before. They are certainly, erm, interesting, lol.

Finally knocked out another, #18 Where angels fear to tread is done! I had no clue what to expect with it, but I rather enjoyed it. Put me a bit in mind of a Brontë, something along those lines, but shorter, heh. Still hoping I may get through a couple more, we shall see.

I’ll finish at 18, if I cross my fingers hard enough.

I will cross my fingers for you, too! XD

>99 .Monkey.:
Still soldiering on, I see. Good job, hang in there!

>100 Cecrow:
18 is pretty good. You can do it!

I have been reading a fair bit lately, just off-list, haha. I figured it was about time I knocked another out. xP

Happy to see you back! I'm sure you'll knock out a few more before the year is over.

We shall see! I'm sure I'll read a few more books, but whether they are list books remains to be seen, hahaha. I've been spending lots of time recently watching Skillshare & youtube vids on watercolors and am hoping to try to acquire some skills there, so I haven't been reading anything at all the past week (which does kind of balance the book-a-day of the week before, when I had no internet, lmao). But I might manage to sneak in another one or two, who knows! ;P