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Paul's Reading 2014


Paul

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Haven't been around here much to post, but here is what has been happening on the reading front, in 4 lists: 1) Books Read, 2) Best to date, 3) Worst to date, 4 Best of the Best.

It's a mixture.  Hope you have enjoyed some of the same books.

Meanwhile, best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season.

 

Books Read 2014

 

January

1/7 Washington Square by Henry James. Stubborn, dumb people. destroying their lives.

1/17 Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma finds and loses love, with a very sad end.

1/19 Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor Bill Stoner. Excellent.

1/30 Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett. Murder, corruption, love, prostitution in Thailand.

 

February

2/5 Poison Study by Mary Snyder. A chore to read.

2/7 To Kill a Mockingbird. Excellent 100pg summary version with analysis by Trisha Lively.

2/11 Faust pt1 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Still, the excruciating end.

2/16 The Intercept by Dick Wolf. Excellent Ah-wooo. /wolf baying/

2/18 Love and Math by Edward Frenkel.

2/19 The Answer to the Riddle is Me by David Stuart MacLean. Amnesiac recovering

2/22 The Martian by Andy Weir. An astronaut stranded on Mars.

 

March

3/31 If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. Mediocre the second time around.

 

April

4/5 On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Living, loving, dieing in the modern Post-Apocalypse

4/15 All Fools Day by Edmund Cooper. Apocalypse and after in England.

4/19 The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. Love, scrambled among two couples and others

 

May

5/5   Regeneration by Pat Barker. Hospitalized WWI war protester versus psychiatrist.

5/8   Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Two close families through thick and thin.

5/11 By Grand Central Station I sat Down and Cried by Elizabeth Smart. Love's agonys.

5/13 100 Selected Poems by e.e. Cummings.

5/14 100 Best-Beloved Poems

5/20 In The Land Of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist. Short stories, some good, many flat

5/26 The Mind Sifter, novella in Star Trek the New Voyages, ed b S Marshak, M Culbreath

5/30 Runner by Thomas Perry. V2. Private witness protection. Thriller. Excellent

 

June

6/1 Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry. V1 in Jane Whitehead series. Excellent, again.

6/4 The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Dreary, dreary, dreary.

6/9 Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Glorious, glorious, glorious! Plot, characters, prose.

6/15The Map Thief by Michael Blanding. Non-fiction story of E Forbes Smiley III.

6/20 A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

6/27 Counterfeit Lies by Oliver North and Bob Hamer. Undercover FBI in LAX

 

July

7/12 The Selected Poems of Stephen Spender. Bland.

7/18 Mistress by James Patterson and Dave Ellis (Large print)

7/21 The Dinner by Herman Koch.

7/25 The Time In Between by Maria Duenas. Tangier, Madrid, Lisbon, espionage.

7/28 The Country House and the Pool by Herman Koch. Vengeful physician and rape.

* * Break for eye surgery on July 30 (but reading OK)* * *

 

August

8/3 Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. (Too) Cleverly constructed psychopathic mystery.

8/11 Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. California essays et al.

8/13 An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell.

8/28 The Company We Keep by Robert Baer and Dayna Baer. Living the CIA life.

 

September

9/3 Drop By Drop by Keith Raffel. White House/terrorism thriller. Excellent.

9/9 Spring Water by John M. FitzGerald. Prose poem of serial killer.

9/9 No Time to Lose by Peter Piot. Leader's memoir from the war on global AIDS.

9/15 Legends by Robert Littel. Puzzle solution described in boring stodgy prose.

9/20 A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block. Zowie! Excellent.

9/24 Selected Poems: Bryusov, Mandelstam, Akhmatova. Three slim volumes. Famous.

9/27 The Way Inn by Will Wiles. Thriller in very large hotel.

9/28 Complexity – A Very Short Introduction by John H. Holland. Very high-level survey.

9/29 Blood Feud – Clintons vs Obamas by Eric Klein. Distilled hatred, both sides.

 

October

10/1 Lexicon by Max Barry. Thriller in alternate universe. Excellent.

10/6 A Different Alchemy by Chris Dietzel. Pilgrimage as dystopian civilization dies away.

10/11 I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Sensational cop/spy thriller.

10/17 Legacy by James Michener. Moments of American history,vastly oversimplified.Hokum

10/18 The Square, in Four Novels by Marguerite Duras. Long conversation. Novella

10/23 They Thought for Themselves by Sid Roth. Ten Jewish people who heard the Call.

 

November

11/6 The Go Game by Lucy Foster. Adolescent page-turner, in story and style. Suspenseful.

11/15 Naoko by Keigo Higashino. Complexities of wife surviving in daughter. Imaginative.

11/15 The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (John Banville). Tough guy, California noir

11/22 White Mischief– The Murder of Lord Errol by James Fox. High life, murder in Kenya

11/23 Alan Turing- Unlocking the Enigma by David Boyle. Short Non-Fiction. Summary.

11/25 Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno. Salinger seen through the eyes of many.

That makes fifty-nine in forty-seven weeks – three novella length. Maybe I can stay ahead.

 

 

Best to date:

Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor William Stoner. Excellent

The Intercept by Dick Simon. Finding a single terrorist in the millions of NYC. Excellent.

The Martian by Andy Weir. Lone astronaut, accidentally left behind, surviving on Mars.

On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Living, loving, dieing in the modern Post-Apocalypse

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Glorious, glorious, glorious! Plot, characters, prose.

The Time In Between by Maria Duenas. Tangier, Madrid, Lisbon, espionage between wars.

A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block. Excellent, tracking down kidnappers.

Lexicon by Max Barry. Thriller in alternative universe. Imaginative page turner. Excellent.

Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno. Salinger seen through the eyes of many.

 

Worst to date:

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Abysmally uninteresting hip poetry.

The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Dreary, dreary, dreary tech-sci-fi

Poison Study by Mary Snyder. Event driven romance. Meager characters, settings.

Bared to You by Sylvia Day. Too bold and utterly improbable, as well as trite.

 

Best of the Best

Fiction

Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor Bill Stoner. Excellent.

Non-fiction

Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno. Salinger seen through the eyes of many.

Classic

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Glorious, glorious, glorious! Plot, characters, prose.

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Pontalba, Athena,

Thank you both for your kind posts.  Looking back, I (too?) am somewhat surprised by the number of enjoyable books I have read this year.

It has been a very good year.

Very best to you for the coming year. :)

Edited by Paul
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I loved reading your list, Paul, and particularly the three on your Best of the Best list. I have Stoner and Salinger on my TBR pile. Daniel Deronda is a classic that I've heard of but never really looked into, so I didn't know anything about it. I just looked it up and it sounds interesting, so with that and your recommendation, it's going on my wish list, thanks! :) And I've also added The Martian to my wish list, thanks to you and Pont.

 

Speaking of wishes, I wish you would spend more time here with us. :) I may have to start nagging Pont when I don't see you around for a while. ;)

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Great to see you back!  Some great looking reading there, which has certainly reminded me of a number yet to read.  Moved up on my list:

 

Daniel Deronda (although must reread Middlemarch first!)

Stoner

The Good Soldier

Regeneration (which should really be read this year, shouldn't it?!)

 

Two of your list are definitely on my 'Worst to date' short list: Gone Girl and The Dinner.

 

Is that your first read of To Kill A Mockingbird?  If so, I recommend the full book - it's not long and is, IMO, absolutely glorious.  Very different, but I loved Madame Bovary too - hard to tell if you did; I hope so.

 

I'm very tempted by I Am Pilgrim.  It's outside my usual reading sphere, having been disappointed so often with thriller writing, but I've heard lots of good things about this one.  Seems you rated it!

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willoyd, on 01 Dec 2014 - 04:00 AM, said:

Great to see you back!  Some great looking reading there, which has certainly reminded me of a number yet to read.  Moved up on my list:

 

Daniel Deronda (although must reread Middlemarch first!)

Stoner

The Good Soldier

Regeneration (which should really be read this year, shouldn't it?!)

 

Two of your list are definitely on my 'Worst to date' short list: Gone Girl and The Dinner.

 

Is that your first read of To Kill A Mockingbird?  If so, I recommend the full book - it's not long and is, IMO, absolutely glorious.  Very different, but I loved Madame Bovary too - hard to tell if you did; I hope so.

 

I'm very tempted by I Am Pilgrim.  It's outside my usual reading sphere, having been disappointed so often with thriller writing, but I've heard lots of good things about this one.  Seems you rated it!

 

 Willoyd,

Thanks for your kind welcome back.

 

It really is difficult to pick "bests" isn't it?  More like excruciating, but I try to keep it to a single best in each category, and also try to keep from inventing too many new categories to fit them all in. :blush2:

 

Yes, I did enjoy Madame Bovary, but the theme made me squirm.  It was much too excruciating for we who use credit cards.  Too modern! :o

 

Gone Girl and Dinner?  Unfortunately I came across worse.  Morel was particularly disappointing, with such an intriguing title that I have seen so much of, and coming from such an author.  Or maybe it just went by me.

 

But, the complete To Kill a Mockingbird will be sometime in the future.

 

Just at the moment I am reading American Psycho.  What a book! What characters!  It may yet squeeze onto the Best list, somewhere, before 2014 is out.

 

Hope you enjoy Pilgrim.  It is timely, at least.

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Kylie, on 01 Dec 2014 - 03:01 AM, said:

I loved reading your list, Paul, and particularly the three on your Best of the Best list. I have Stoner and Salinger on my TBR pile. Daniel Deronda is a classic that I've heard of but never really looked into, so I didn't know anything about it. I just looked it up and it sounds interesting, so with that and your recommendation, it's going on my wish list, thanks! :) And I've also added The Martian to my wish list, thanks to you and Pont.

 

Speaking of wishes, I wish you would spend more time here with us. :) I may have to start nagging Pont when I don't see you around for a while. ;)

 

 

Athena, on 01 Dec 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:

I have to agree with Kylie, it's always fun to see you around here :).

 

Kylie and Athena,

I really do have to apologize for not spending more time here. I have pretty much dropped out of almost everything.  My current excuse Is that I am in the finishing stages of a complete first draft for the Memoir that I have been writing over the past several years from time to time.  This is my third start and now I am weaving together all three pieces, since I finally have an ending in mind and partly drafted.  I'm using Scrivener, incidentally, and it really is a pleasure to use.  Even if one still has to struggle to make the words come. :(

 

But I'll at least be back before the end of the year to complete the 2014 reading list with new reads during December.

 

Glad to hear from you both

 

Enjoy the Holidays!.

 

PS: Pontalba hounds me from time to time, and I'll try to do better. :)

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Kylie and Athena,

I really do have to apologize for not spending more time here. I have pretty much dropped out of almost everything.  My current excuse Is that I am in the finishing stages of a complete first draft for the Memoir that I have been writing over the past several years from time to time.  This is my third start and now I am weaving together all three pieces, since I finally have an ending in mind and partly drafted.  I'm using Scrivener, incidentally, and it really is a pleasure to use.  Even if one still has to struggle to make the words come. :(

 

But I'll at least be back before the end of the year to complete the 2014 reading list with new reads during December.

 

Glad to hear from you both

 

Enjoy the Holidays!.

 

PS: Pontalba hounds me from time to time, and I'll try to do better. :)

Good luck with your memoir! I love Scrivener. I hope you can finish your memoir succesfully. I've not written myself much lately in my autobiographical book about books. Good luck :)! Do you plan to let others read it when it's finished or is it just for yourself? I would like to read your memoir :).

 

I wish you great holidays too!

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Great to see you back!  Some great looking reading there, which has certainly reminded me of a number yet to read.  Moved up on my list:

 

Daniel Deronda (although must reread Middlemarch first!)

Stoner

The Good Soldier

Regeneration (which should really be read this year, shouldn't it?!)

 

Two of your list are definitely on my 'Worst to date' short list: Gone Girl and The Dinner.

 

Is that your first read of To Kill A Mockingbird?  If so, I recommend the full book - it's not long and is, IMO, absolutely glorious.  Very different, but I loved Madame Bovary too - hard to tell if you did; I hope so.

 

I'm very tempted by I Am Pilgrim.  It's outside my usual reading sphere, having been disappointed so often with thriller writing, but I've heard lots of good things about this one.  Seems you rated it!

 

I have to add, willoyd, that reading the whole Regeneration trilogy is well worth it!  They tie up beautifully. 

 

Re I Am Pilgrim, one of the things that really impressed me was the juxtaposition of the stories told.  First the detective story...crime committed and the back tracing to find the culprit.  Then the spy story told finding the culprit before the crime/terrorist act can be committed.  The way the author tied those very different, (yet to my mind, the same difference) it riveting.  And they do tie up.

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Kylie and Athena,

I really do have to apologize for not spending more time here. I have pretty much dropped out of almost everything.  My current excuse Is that I am in the finishing stages of a complete first draft for the Memoir that I have been writing over the past several years from time to time.  This is my third start and now I am weaving together all three pieces, since I finally have an ending in mind and partly drafted.  I'm using Scrivener, incidentally, and it really is a pleasure to use.  Even if one still has to struggle to make the words come. :(

 

But I'll at least be back before the end of the year to complete the 2014 reading list with new reads during December.

 

Glad to hear from you both

 

Enjoy the Holidays!.

 

PS: Pontalba hounds me from time to time, and I'll try to do better. :)

 

Aw, there's no need to apologise and offer excuses! Sorry if I made you feel bad. I just wanted to let you know that we love having you here and we welcome any time that you can spare.  :friends3: All the best with your memoir!

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Athena, on 03 Dec 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:Athena, on 03 Dec 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

Good luck with your memoir! I love Scrivener. I hope you can finish your memoir succesfully. I've not written myself much lately in my autobiographical book about books. Good luck :)! Do you plan to let others read it when it's finished or is it just for yourself? I would like to read your memoir :).

 

I wish you great holidays too!

 

Thanks for the encouragement on the memoir.  It is getting to be like a hippopotamus.   Last night I finally got all the three parts together, for maybe 80,000 words. It all began at NanoWriMo 2009 with 51,000 words, followed by two more starts.  Now for the merging into sequence, followed by a massive rereading/editing job, and then writing the conclusion. And then reading it once again, and editing, etc, etc. until I'm sick of it. :)

 

As for posting, maybe parts of it.  But mainly it is a highly personal story of the family intended for my children.  We shall see.  Thanks for your interest. The working title is Living and Learning, so maybe the parts about lessons learned might be of general interest. 

 

Anyway, have fun for the Holidays.

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Kylie, on 04 Dec 2014 - 05:40 AM, said:

Aw, there's no need to apologise and offer excuses! Sorry if I made you feel bad. I just wanted to let you know that we love having you here and we welcome any time that you can spare.  :friends3: All the best with your memoir!

 

Heh-heh.  No problem, but I might have been more diplomatic. :blush2:  :D

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As for posting, maybe parts of it.  But mainly it is a highly personal story of the family intended for my children.  We shall see.  Thanks for your interest. The working title is Living and Learning, so maybe the parts about lessons learned might be of general interest. 

 

Anyway, have fun for the Holidays.

Ah, that's pretty interesting, good luck :)!

 

Thanks, you too.

 

P.S. Is it weird that I sort of thought that you and Kate didn't have children, because I don't remember them being mentioned on this forum before :blush2:? It's okay if you and / or Kate don't want to talk about it though, I don't want to pry or anything! I'm sorry if my posts were to come across that way, I'm just surprised :).

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Athena, on 05 Dec 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

Ah, that's pretty interesting, good luck :)!

 

Thanks, you too.

 

P.S. Is it weird that I sort of thought that you and Kate didn't have children, because I don't remember them being mentioned on this forum before :blush2:? It's okay if you and / or Kate don't want to talk about it though, I don't want to pry or anything! I'm sorry if my posts were to come across that way, I'm just surprised :).

 

Umm, yes you are right, and you are not prying.  I have four children by a previous marriage, all grown, and Kate and I have none.  It's not a particular secret; just never thought to mention. 

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Umm, yes you are right, and you are not prying.  I have four children by a previous marriage, all grown, and Kate and I have none.  It's not a particular secret; just never thought to mention.

That makes sense :). My aunt is married to a man who also has some children from a previous marriage, but they themselves don't have children together. I guess it's not something that might come up much if one mainly talks about books. I hope you have happy holidays and a great Christmas and New Year :).

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Paul, on 03 Dec 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:Paul, on 03 Dec 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

 Willoyd,

Thanks for your kind welcome back.

 

It really is difficult to pick "bests" isn't it?  More like excruciating, but I try to keep it to a single best in each category, and also try to keep from inventing too many new categories to fit them all in. :blush2:

 

Yes, I did enjoy Madame Bovary, but the theme made me squirm.  It was much too excruciating for we who use credit cards.  Too modern! :o

 

Gone Girl and Dinner?  Unfortunately I came across worse.  Morel was particularly disappointing, with such an intriguing title that I have seen so much of, and coming from such an author.  Or maybe it just went by me.

 

But, the complete To Kill a Mockingbird will be sometime in the future.

 

Just at the moment I am reading American Psycho.  What a book! What characters!  It may yet squeeze onto the Best list, somewhere, before 2014 is out.

 

Hope you enjoy Pilgrim.  It is timely, at least.

 

Upthread, in an unguarded moment, I mentioned that I was reading American Psycho. I may yet be sorry for confessing that initial interest. :doh:

At first, and from whatever I have heard about it, I thought it was scathing parody of modern acquisitive American culture.  But too late I have found out that the protagonist is a misogynist serial killer. Sooo.... so far, at 30%, there has been a graphic bedroom scene, explicit to the point of bordering on porn -- depending on one's definition of porn.  And separately a mutilation that might turn one's stomach -- again depending on one's definition of stomach.  Plus a few murders 'way offstage.

Up for grabs right now is the question of whether I'll continue on.  In the post-modern vein, the idea of any plot is still rather sketchy, and the (lack of) continuity is quite bizarre.

At the moment I am leaning toward one of several decisions: Deferred, or Abandoned, and/or Worst of Year.

Not Recommended for general reading, although I'll probably hang in a little to see if anything like a coherent story develops.

I'll let you know.

yech!

 

PS Is the site a bit slow?

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I wouldn't continue reading if I wasn't enjoying it (it doesn't sound like a book I'd enjoy), but it can imagine though it's not nice to abandon a book. As for which 'award' it should get.. at least one of those! Have you read any other books this year that were as bad / nasty as this one?

 

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying it :( I hope your next read will be a lot better!

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I wouldn't continue reading if I wasn't enjoying it (it doesn't sound like a book I'd enjoy), but it can imagine though it's not nice to abandon a book. As for which 'award' it should get.. at least one of those! Have you read any other books this year that were as bad / nasty as this one?I'm sorry you aren't enjoying it :( I hope your next read will be a lot better!

Probably not, now that you ask. Most in the category are just not interesting. This one is absolutely repulsive. My next read will definitely be better! :D

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Two more pages and I was done.

 

* * *

Added in edit: I've shifted over to When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Pontalba knows interesting books when she sees them. :)

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