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Ben's Books 2017.


Ben

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So after having two years, I believe, without posting a book thread, I thought I'd settle back into a (virtual) comfy chair on my favourite forum and get back to posting my thoughts and feelings about books that I'm currently reading. (I also like the idea of having a platform where I'm not constricted by having to use 140 characters or less.)

 

2016 was a solid year as I hit 100 (102 to be exact) for the second year running after never managing it before, so I think I'll just set myself the same target and go from there. I intend to keep it simple, not forcing myself to complete certain challenges or read specific books, and just, I guess, see where the reading takes me. Hopefully to different worlds, eras, and towards some new literary friends. I'd be quite content with that.

 

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TBR

Wishlist

 

Currently reading:

 

Books Read 2017: 10. :readingtwo:

 

January

Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. Thoughts.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly. Thoughts.

Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin. Thoughts.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.

Slade House by David Mitchell.

The Loney by Andrew Hurley.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King.

The Tenant of Wilfell Hall by Anne Brontë.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada.

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To Be Read: 339. :doh:

01/01/17: 349.

Read 2017.

 

Adiche, N. Chimamanda: Half of a Yellow Sun
Amis, Martin: Time’s Arrow
Amis, Martin: Money: A Suicide Note
Andrews, Virginia: Flowers in the Attic (#1)
Anonymous: The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1
Aristotle: Ethics
Atkinson, Kate: One Good Turn (#2)
Atkinson, Kate: Life After Life
Atkinson, Kate: A God in Ruins
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Auster, Paul: Invisible
Baldacci, David: The Last Mile (#2)
Bakewell, Sarah: How to Live
Ballard, J. G.: Cocaine Nights
Barclay, Linwood: No Time for Goodbye (#1)
Barrie, J. M.: Peter Pan
Barry, Sebastian: Days Without End
Bate, Jonathan: Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life
Bauer, Belinda: The Beautiful Dead
Beard, Mary: SQPR: A History of Ancient Rome
Beatty, Paul: The Sellout
Bellow, Saul: Herzog
Bellow, Saul: Humboldt’s Gift
Berlin, Lucia: A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
Bernieres, de Louis: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Bjork, Samuel: I’m Travelling Alone
Bowler, Tim: Starseeker
Bradbury, Megan: Everyone Is Watching
Brontë, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
Bukowski, Charles: Tales of Ordinary Madness
Burgess, Anthony: Earthly Powers
Burton, Jessie: The Miniaturist
Bussi, Michel: After the Crash
Calvino, Italo: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Camus, Albert: The Plague
Camus, Albert: The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
Carre, le John: The Night Manager
Carre, le John: The Pigeon Tunnel
Carre, le John: The Secret Pilgrim
Carrel, Lee Jennifer: The Shakespeare Secret (#1)
Cast, C. P & Kristin: Untamed (#4)
Cast, C. P & Kristin: Hunted (#5)
Cervantes, de Miguel: Don Quixote
Chabon, Michael: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Chandra, Vikram: Sacred Games
Clarke, Susanna: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Clarkson, Jeremy: I Know You Got Soul
Coates, Ta-Nehisi: Between the World and Me
Coben, Harlan: Promise Me (#8)
Coben, Harlan: One False Move
Coben, Harlan: Drop Shot (#2)
Coben, Harlan: Fade Away (#3)
Coben, Harlan: Back Spin (#4)
Connelly, Michael: Angels Flight (#6)
Connolly, John: Every Dead Thing (#1)
Cooper, Susan: Over Sea, Under Stone (#1)
Cooper, Susan: The Dark Is Rising (#2)
Cooper, Susan: Greenwitch (#3)
Cooper, Susan: The Grey King (#4)
Cooper, Susan: Silver on the Tree (#5)
Coupland, Douglas: All Families Are Psychotic
Cussler, Clive: The Golden Buddha (#1)
Cussler, Clive: Dark Watch (#3)
Dahl, Roald: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Dahlquist, Gordon: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
Danielewiski, Mark: House of Leaves
Darwin, Emma: The Mathematics of Love
Davidson, Andrew: The Gargoyle
Davidson, Lionel: Kolymsky Heights
Davies, Martin: The Conjuror’s Bird
Dawkins, Richard: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Dawkins, Richard: The God Delusion
Dawkins, Richard: The Selfish Gene
Deaver, Jeffery: The Stone Monkey (#4)
Deaver, Jeffery: The Devil’s Teardrop
Deaver, Jeffery: The Sleeping Doll (#1)
DeLillo, Don: Underworld
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
Dickens, Charles: Little Dorrit
Doerr, Anthony: All the Light We Cannot See
Donnelly, Jennifer: A Gathering Light
Donoghue, Emma: Room
Doyle, Conan Arthur: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers
Easterman, Daniel: Midnight Comes at Noon
Egan, Jennifer: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Eliot, George: Adam Bede
Eliot, George: 'Brother Jacob'
Eliot, George: Middlemarch
Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man
Ellroy, James: Perfidia
Enright, Anne: The Green Road
Eugenides, Jeffrey: Middlesex
Falconer, Duncan: The Protector
Fallada, Hans: Alone in Berlin
Farndale, Nigel: The Blasphemer
Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William: The Sound and the Fury
Faulks, Sebastian: Charlotte Gray
Faulks Sebastian: Human Traces
Feist, E. Raymond: Magician: Apprentice (#1)
Ferrante, Elena: My Brilliant Friend (#1)
Fforde, Jasper: The Eyre Affair (#1)
Fielding, Helen: Bridget Jones’s Diary: The First Columns (#1)
Fiennes, William: The Snow Geese
Fitzgerald, Scott F.: Beautiful and Damned
Fitzgerald, Scott F.: This Side of Paradise
Flanagan, Richard: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Fletcher, Charlie: Stoneheart (#1)
Foer, Safran Jonathan: Here I Am
Fountain, Ben: Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Forster, E. M.: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Fowles, John: A Maggot
Frank, Anne: The Diary of a Young Girl
Franzen, Jonathan: The Corrections
Franzen, Jonathan: Purity
Fullerton, Stuart George: An Introduction to Philosophy
Galbraith, Robert: The Cuckoo’s Calling (#1)
Gentle, Mary: 1610: A Sundial in a Grave
Gibbins, David: Atlantis (#1)
Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Goodkind, Terry: Debt of Bones (#0.5)
Gosse, Edmund: Father and Son
Grisham, John: A Time to Kill
Grisham, John: A Painted House
Grossman, Lev: Codex
Gundar-Goshen, Ayelet: Walking Lions
Hallberg, Risk Garth: City on Fire
Hamilton, K. Laurell: Guilty Pleasures (#1)
Hammett, Dashiell: The Thin Man
Hannah, Sophie: The Point of Rescue/The Wrong Mother (#3)
Harari, Noah Yuval: A Brief History of Humankind
Harari, Noah, Yuval: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Hardy, Thomas: Far from the Madding Crowd
Hardy, Thomas: The Woodlanders
Hardy, Thomas: Under the Greenwood Tree
Hardy, Thomas: Jude the Obscure
Hardy, Thomas: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Harris, Charlaine: Dead and Gone (#9)
Harris, Charlaine: Dead in the Family (#10)
Hawking, Stephen: The Grand Design
Hemingway, Ernest: The Complete Short Stories
Hemingway, Ernest: A Farwell to Arms
Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hemingway, Ernest: To Have and Have Not
Herr, Michael: Dispatches
Highsmith, Patricia: The Talented Mr Ripley (#1)
Hill, Joe: The Fireman
Hill, Nathan: The Nix
Hill, Stuart: Cry of the Icemark (#1)
Hislop, Victoria: The Island
Hobb, Robin: The Dragon Keeper (#1)
Hobb, Robin: Dragon Haven (#2)
Hobb, Robin: Assassin’s Apprentice (#1)
Hobb, Robin: Royal Assassin (#2)
Hobb, Robin: Ship of Magic (#1)
Hobb, Robin: Mad Ship (#2)
Homer: The Iliad
Hosseini, Khaled: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hughes, Richard: A High Wind in Jamaica
Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
Hurley, Andrew: The Loney
Hurwitz, Gregg: I See You/The Crime Writer
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Buried Giant
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Unconsoled
Ivey, Eowyn: The Snow Child
James, Marlon: A Brief History of Seven Killings
Jennings, Amanda: Sworn Secret
Johnson, Adam: The Orphan Master’s Son
Jones, Sadie: The Outcast
Joyce, James: The Dubliners
Joyce, James: Ulysses
Kadare, Ismail: The Siege
Kant, Immanuel: The Critique of Practical Reason
Kemp, Martin: An Autobiography: True
Kerouac, Jack: Big Sur
Kernick, Simon: The Crime Trade (#1)
Kernick, Simon: Siege
Kesey, Ken: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Kilworth, Garry: The Welkin Weasels: Thunder Oak (#1)
Kilworth, Garry: The Welkin Weasels: Castle Storm (#2)
King, Stephen: Revival
King, Stephen: Insomnia
King, Stephen: It
King, Stephen: Lisey’s Story
King, Stephen: Pet Sematary
King, Stephen: The Dark Half
King, Stephen: The Gunslinger (#1)
King, Stephen: The Eyes of the Dragon
King, Stephen: The Shining
King, Stephen: The Stand
King, Stephen: Salem’s Lot
King, Stephen: Under the Dome
King, Stephen: Finders Keepers (#2)
Kingsolver, Barbara: The Lacuna
Kipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book
Knowles, James Sir: The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights
Koontz, Dean: Intensity
Koontz, Dean: Life Expectancy
Koontz, Dean: Midnight
Koontz, Dean: The Taking
Koontz, Dean: Velocity
Kostova, Elizabeth: The Historian
Kundera, Milan: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lalami, Laila: The Moor’s Account
Lasdun, James: The Fall Guy
Lethem, Jonathan: A Gambler’s Anatomy: A Novel
Levi, Primo: If Not Now, When?
Levy, Andrea: The Long Song
Ligotti, Thomas: Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
Lindsey, Jeff: Darkly Dreaming Dexter (#1)
Lindquist, A. John: Let the Right One In
Lispector, Clarice: Complete Stories
Lodge, David: Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader
Lowry, Lois: The Giver (#1)
Ludlum, Robert: The Hade’s Factor (#1)
Ludlum, Robert: The Bourne Identity (#1)
Marshall, Ian: The Official Manchester United Book of Facts and Figures
MacBride, Stuart: Cold Granite (#1)
Mailer, Norman: The Naked and the Dead
Mailer, Norman: The Executioner’s Song
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Marquez, Garcia Gabriel: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Maugham, W. Somerset: Of Human Bondage
Maurier, du Daphne: My Cousin Rachel
Maurier, du Daphne: Jamaica Inn
Maurier, du Daphne: Frenchman’s Creek
McCarthy, Cormac: Suttree
McCarthy, Cormac: No Country for Old Men
McDermid, Val: The Mermaids Singing (#1)
McEwan, Ian: Atonement
Mill, S. John: Utilitarianism
Mitchell, David: Cloud Atlas
Mitchell, David: Ghostwritten
Mitchell, David: Slade House
Mitchell, Margaret: Gone With the Wind
Modiano, Patrick: Little Jewel
Modiano, Patrick: Villa Triste
Montaigne, de Michel: The Complete Essays
Morgan, C. E.: The Sport of Kings
Mosse, Kate: Labyrinth (#1)
Mowll, Joshua: Operation Typhoon Shore (#2)
Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Murakami, Haruki: Norwegian Wood
Murakami, Haruki: Kafka on the Shore
Nesbo, Jo: Nemesis
Nesbo, Jo: The Redeemer
Nesbo, Jo: The Leopard
Nguyen, Thanh Viet: The Sympathiser
Nimmo, Jenny: Charlie Bone and the Time Twister (#2)
Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch
O’Hagan, Andrew: The Illuminations
Obama, Barack: The Audacity of Hope
Orwell, George: The Complete Essays
Patchett, Ann: Commonwealth
Patterson, James: Max (#5)
Perry, Sarah: The Essex Serpent
Pinter, Jason: The Fury (#4)
Plato: The Laws of Plato
Poe, A. Edgar: Essential Tales and Poems
Pollen, Bella: The Summer of the Bear
Pratchett, Terry: Wyrd Sisters (#6)
Pratchett, Terry: Hogfather (#20)
Pratchett, Terry: Monstrous Regiment (#31)
Preston, Marcia: The Butterfly House
Proulx, Annie: Barkskins
Puzo, Mario: The Godfather
Pyle, Howard: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Pynchon, Thomas: V.
Pynchon, Thomas: Gravity’s Rainbow
Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged
Rand, Ayn: We the Living
Rand, Ayn: Anthem
Rankin, Ian: Knots and Crosses (#1)
Rankin, Ian: Hide and Seek (#2)
Rice, Anne: Interview with a Vampire
Robinson, Marilynne: Lila
Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2
Rushdie, Salman: Joseph Anton: A Memoir
Rushdie, Salman: Fury
Rushdie, Salman: Luka and the Fire of Life (#2)
Rushdie, Salman: The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Rushdie, Salman: Grimus
Rushdie, Salman: The Enchantress of Florence
Sansom, J. C.: Winter in Madrid
Sartre, Jean-Paul: The Wall
Sartre, Jean-Paul: Nausea
Schmidt, Sarah: See What I Have Done
Skelton, Matthew: Endymion Spring
Slouka, Mark: The Visible World
Smaill, Anna: The Chimes
Smith, Rob Tom: Child 44 (#1)
Smith, Rob Tom: The Farm
Smith, Zadie: NW
Smith, Zadie: On Beauty
Smith, Zadie: Swing Time
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Steinbeck, John: East of Eden
Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, L. Robert: Kidnapped
Suddain, M.: Hunters & Collectors
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels
Tartt, Donna: The Goldfinch
Temple, Peter: The Broken Shore
Thackeray, M. William: Vanity Fair
Thiem, Madeleine: Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Thompson, S. Hunter: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Thompson, Kate: The New Policeman (#1)
Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace
Towles, Amor: A Gentleman in Moscow
Tracy, J. P: Dead Run (#3)
Tracy, J. P: Live Bait (#2)
Tremayne, S. K.: The Ice Twins
Tuil, Karine: The Age of Reinvention
VanderMeer, Jeff: Acceptance (#3)
Various: Crimson Snow: Winter Stories (Edited by Martin Edwards)
Various: Killer Year (Edited by Lee Child)
Various: Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (Edited by Neil Astley)
Various: The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 (Edited by Philip Hensher)
Various: The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 2 (Edited by Philip Hensher)
Verne, Jules: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Vonnegut, Kurt: Mother Night
Vonnegut, Kurt: Welcome to the Monkey House
Wallace, Foster David: Infinite Jest
Wallace, Foster David: The Pale King
Walker, Alice: The Colour Purple
Walters, Minette: Acid Row
Wasserman, Robin: Girls on Fire
Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
Weinstein, Alexander: Children of the New World: Stories
Whitehead, Colson: The Underground Railroad
Wiesel, Elie: Day (#3)
Wiesel, Elie: All Rivers Run to the Sea
Wiesel, Elie: And the Sea is Never Full
Winslow, Don: The Cartel
Winthrop, H. Elizabeth: December
Winton, Tim: Cloudstreet
Womersley, Chris: Bereft
Woolf, Virginia: Orlando
Woolf, Virginia: The Waves
Zweig, Stefan: The Post-Office Girl

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Wishlist: 97. :huh:
Acquired and moved to TBR.

 

Adams, Richard: Watership Down
Adiga, Aravind: The White Tiger
Adler, Renata: Speedboat
Arango, Sascha: The Truth and Other Lies
Ashworth, Andrea: Once in A House on Fire
Ashworth, Jen: Fell
Atkinson, Kate: Case Histories (#1)
Atwood, Margaret: The Heart Goes Last
Barrett, Shirley: Rush, Oh!
Barry, Kevin: Beatlebone
Bassani, Giorgio: Within the Walls (#1)
Bassani, Giorgio: The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles (#2)
Bassani, Giorgio: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (#3)
Bassani, Giorgio: The Smell of Hay (#6)
Beauvoir, de Simone: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
Bennett, Arnold: The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns
Benz, Chanelle: The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead: Stories
Blunden, Edmund: Undertones of War
Burnet, Macrae Graeme: The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau
Carr, J. L.: A Month in the Country
Casares, Bioy Adolfo: The Invention of Morel
Charters, Ann: Kerouac: A Biography
Clegg, Bill: Did You Ever Have a Family
Connelly, Michael: The Black Echo (#1)
Cusk, Rachel: Transit
Donoghue, Emma: The Wonder
Doughty, Louise: Black Water
Enright, Anne: The Gathering
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Fallada, Hans: Wolf among Wolves
Faulks, Sebastian: The Girl at the Lion d’Or
Gadda, Emilio Carlo: That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana
Gardiner, Meg: China Lake (#1)
Gardiner, Meg: The Dirty Secrets Club (#1)
Graves, Robert: Goodbye to All That

Gyasi, Yaa: Homegoing
Hanff, Helene: Underfoot in Show Business
Harding, Paul: Tinkers
Hardinge, Frances: Fly by Night (#1)
Hardy, Thomas: The Complete Poems
Hertmans, Stefan: War and Turpentine
Houellebecq, Michel: Whatever
Houellebecq, Michel: Submission
Houellebecq, Michel: The Possibility of an Island
Houellebecq, Michel: The Elementary Particles
Houellebecq, Michel: Platform
Houellebecq, Michel: Lanzarote
Hughes, Ted: Birthday Letters
Hutchinson, Ishion: House of Lords and Commons: Poems
Johnson, Adam: Fortune Smiles
Jones, David: In Parenthesis
Kang, Han: Human Acts
Kanon, Joseph: Leaving Berlin
Kerouac, Jack: The Subterraneans 
Kerouac, Jack: Lonesome Traveler
Kerouac, Jack: The Town and The City
Kerouac, Jack: Doctor Sax
Kerouac, Jack: Desolation Angels
Larson, Erik: The Devil in the White City
Liptrot, Amy: The Outrun
Lovelace, Amanda: The Princess Saves Herself in this One
Mailer, Norman: The Fight
Mandel, John St. Emily: The Lola Quartet
Mandel, John St. Emily: The Singer’s Gun
Marias, Javier: Thus Bad Begins
Maugham, W. Somerset: The Razor’s Edge
McCarthy, Tom: Remainder
McCullers, Carson: The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories
McCullers, Carson: Collected Stories
Mezzrow, Mezz: Really the Blues
Montanari, Richard: Shutter Man (#9)
Norris, Barney: Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain
O’Brien, Edna: The Little Red Chairs
Pena, Gonzalez Veronica: The Sad Passions
Perenyi, Eleanor: More Was Lost
Pinter, Jason: The Mark (#1)
Rankine, Claudia: Citizen: An American Lyric
Rhys, Jean: Good Morning, Midnight
Rhys, Jean: Voyage in the Dark
Roper, Robert: Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita
Seay, Martin: The Mirror Thief
Sebastian, Mihail: For Two Thousand Years
Sheers, Owen: Pink Mist
Smith, Ali: How to Be Both
Spufford, Francis: Golden Hill
Stegner, Wallace: Angle of Repose
Stegner, Wallace: Collected Stories
Strout, Elizabeth: My Name is Lucy Barton
Szabo, Magda: Iza’s Ballad
Tisma, Aleksandr: The Book of Blam
Vasquez, Gabriel Juan: Reputations
Watson, Mark: The Place That Didn’t Exist
Wilcken, Hugo: Colony
Wilcken, Hugo: The Reflection
Williams, John: Butcher’s Crossing
Winslow, Don: The Power of the Dog (#1)
Zink, Nell: Mislaid

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Okay, I think that's about it... have a few possible challenges in mind that I'll have a think about, but don't really want to commit and leave myself picking books I'm not in the mood for. Anyway, THREAD IS NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS. :alc:

 

Hope you all have a good 2017 and read some marvellous books. I've been a bit absent around here in the last couple of years - more on-and-off than a frequent visitor - but I do fully intend to get around everyone's threads this year and get some good discussion going...

 

Here's to a wonderful 12 months of reading! ;)

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100 books two years in a row - that's great! Do you read a lot of different genres?

 

That TBR list is huge, looks like you've got your work carved out for you  :smile: Good luck with it!

 

Thank you! My reading definitely has picked up over the last 24 months. I'd say I read quite widely - I'll try anything once, but have been trying to read more classics/modern classics/books I *should* read (if that makes sense), recently. I'm a bit more serious with my reading than I used to be, I guess - but still tuck into those 'easy reads' now and again! :lol:

 

Yeah, it's probably insurmountable considering the rate I buy new books, but what can you do? I'll have fun trying to get it down I'm sure. :P

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I wish you a great reading year in 2017, Ben :):readingtwo:.

 

Thanks Gaia, right back at you. Hope you manage to read lots of wonderful books. :friends0:

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You have a lot of interesting books on your TBR pile, Ben.

 

Some that I have really enjoyed:

 

Dawkins, Richard: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Lindquist, A. John: Let the Right One In

Martel, Yann: Life of Pi

McEwan, Ian: Atonement

Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Rice, Anne: Interview with a Vampire

Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath

 

Plus pretty much all the Stephen King ones on your list.

 

Have a great reading year in 2017. :smile:

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I just had a look at your TBR list and here are my thoughts on some of the titles:

 

Stephen King's Under The Dome was the first book I read in 2016. I really enjoyed it!

 

I've read some of Harlan Coben's books on holiday in Santorini - the hotel had a free mini-library. Really liked those as well. I see there are two titles there by P.J. Tracy, from the Monkeewrench series. Really loved those! In the same hotel, they also had Dean Koontz' Velocity, which I enjoyed. My favourite Koontz novel, however, is Odd Thomas.

 

I read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising cycle when I was about 14 and loved it. These kids are kids in the 1970s and I like how uncomplicated their lives are before the story really kicks off. I re-read the books in 2012 (when I was 21) and didn't enjoy them as much, but I think over the years I had really built it up in my head too much. This has happened with over books I've read and loved as a teenager as well. I hope you'll enjoy reading Cooper's books as much as I did the first time around!

 

My best friend absolutely loves House of Leaves and I got it for him as a Christmas present (he'd read it as an e-book, I got him a paper copy). I haven't read it myself, though.

 

Emma Donoghue's Room was one of my favourite reads of 2012.

 

Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex is one of my all-time favourite novels, so when you get to it, I look forward to reading what you think about it. Same for the Cormoran Strike novels by J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith - crime books I want to re-read are rare and I absolutely love these. Also on my list of favourites: Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

 

I liked Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and hope you will too :)

 

I've read Zadie Smith's White Teeth, The Autograph ManNW and On Beauty. I bought Swing Time, but haven't read it yet. I liked White Teeth most, followed by NW, then The Autograph Man and then On Beauty. I had a bit of a hard time with the last one.

 

I will always, always recommend Virginia Woolf.

 

I also saw a lot of books I want to read myself :)

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You have a lot of interesting books on your TBR pile, Ben.

 

Some that I have really enjoyed:

 

Dawkins, Richard: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Lindquist, A. John: Let the Right One In

Martel, Yann: Life of Pi

McEwan, Ian: Atonement

Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Rice, Anne: Interview with a Vampire

Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath

 

Plus pretty much all the Stephen King ones on your list.

 

Have a great reading year in 2017. :smile:

 

Thanks bobbles, you've picked out a lot of books that I intend to read sooner rather than later, particularly The Grapes of Wrath and my Murakami (all of which I bought myself over Christmas). Good to know that you thought so highly of those picks, and 'more Stephen King' is a general goal I have any year anyway. ;)

 

Right back atcha'. Just commented on your thread but I'll say it here now: I hope you also have a good 2017 filled with some excellent books.

 

I just had a look at your TBR list and here are my thoughts on some of the titles:

 

Stephen King's Under The Dome was the first book I read in 2016. I really enjoyed it!

 

Well, as I just mentioned to bobbles more Stephen King is always on the agenda, but I'll keep a particular eye out for this one. I know some aren't impressed with his more recent stuff - or at least not so much - but good to know this has your seal of approval.

 

I've read some of Harlan Coben's books on holiday in Santorini - the hotel had a free mini-library. Really liked those as well. I see there are two titles there by P.J. Tracy, from the Monkeewrench series. Really loved those! In the same hotel, they also had Dean Koontz' Velocity, which I enjoyed. My favourite Koontz novel, however, is Odd Thomas.

 

I like Coben, one of those that I know I can just pick up when I need something a bit easier and guarantee myself a solid thriller. Those Tracy books, however, were given to me a lifetime ago now, but I should probably start with Monkeewrench before getting to those two I'd imagine? As for Koontz, I've always found him a bit hit-and-miss, but the Odd Thomas books are definitely on the radar!

 

I read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising cycle when I was about 14 and loved it. These kids are kids in the 1970s and I like how uncomplicated their lives are before the story really kicks off. I re-read the books in 2012 (when I was 21) and didn't enjoy them as much, but I think over the years I had really built it up in my head too much. This has happened with over books I've read and loved as a teenager as well. I hope you'll enjoy reading Cooper's books as much as I did the first time around!

 

I've a weird relationship with these. My aunt recommended them to my not long before she passed away, and I took them but they've merely sat on my shelves ever since. (Not to dwell, but I would imagine there's something to that reasoning...)

 

She died when I was fourteen, which probably would have been the perfect time to read them. Now, I'm 23 and it seems like the moment has maybe passed. Safe to say I'll probably never remove them though, so you never know...

 

My best friend absolutely loves House of Leaves and I got it for him as a Christmas present (he'd read it as an e-book, I got him a paper copy). I haven't read it myself, though.

 

I have heard this is possibly a bit of struggle on Kindle due to footnotes and whatnot. Mine is an e-book copy...

 

Emma Donoghue's Room was one of my favourite reads of 2012.

 

I'm so behind with Donoghue but have heard such great things about her new one The Wonder - and of course Room was immensely popular. Do intend to read both at some stage - they both sound great.

 

Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex is one of my all-time favourite novels, so when you get to it, I look forward to reading what you think about it. Same for the Cormoran Strike novels by J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith - crime books I want to re-read are rare and I absolutely love these. Also on my list of favourites: Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

 

So happy you loved all of these. I believe I got Middlesex after hearing a discussion about it on here (might have been on your book thread?) and the Cormoran Strike books I can't wait to get into. I too struggle to find crime thrillers that I love to re-read, so it's interesting that these prompt that reaction from you - they must have been really good. Kundera I will definitely read this year.

 

I liked Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and hope you will too [ :)]

 

Have been awfully torn by this for the obvious reasons - not an actual 'novel', my beloved HP being continued in this manner, etc. - but I'm not going to be a snob. I like the idea of what they've tried to do, bringing in a different era (and indeed the recent Fantastic Beasts stuff). Just hope that I love it.

 

I've read Zadie Smith's White Teeth, The Autograph Man, NW and On Beauty. I bought Swing Time, but haven't read it yet. I liked White Teeth most, followed by NW, then The Autograph Man and then On Beauty. I had a bit of a hard time with the last one.

 

Interesting order. I loved White Teeth when I did it for a module at university, but NW I started and abandoned. To this day I'm not sure if it was the book or the mood I was in...

 

I had On Beauty shortlisted as a January '17 read so if I do go ahead I hope I get on better with it than you did. :lol:

 

"I will always, always recommend Virginia Woolf."

 

WHERE DO I START SHE'S SO INTIMIDATING.

 

"I also saw a lot of books I want to read myself [:)"

 

Good to know, hope I can recommend some your way this year. ;)

Edited by Ben
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Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

 

So I finished my first read of 2017, Jack Kerouac's Big Sur. The first thing I should probably mention, if you're not already familiar with his work, is that Kerouac's writing style is definitely not for everyone, with long, meandering. stream-of-consciousness sentences - and a frequent ignoring of conventional grammar. Seriously: commas are routinely ignored and full stops are a rare sight indeed. It takes some getting used to.

 

Kerouac's writing is, however, in my humble opinion, beautiful. Clearly the product of a tortured, wild man, addicted to alcohol and the endless drive to live life to its fullest - but in this reader's eyes there is a genius to his descriptions; a way of seeing the world that wouldn't even occur to most others. He plays endlessly with words and language, manipulating it to his own will, producing crazy flights of linguistic fancy that have you guffawing and producing melancholic sighs - often both in the space of a single paragraph.

 

Big Sur is part of the Duluoz Legnd - Kerouac's vast array of travel writings that essentially chronicle his incredible life - but it is very much a different kettle of fish compared to Kerouac's better-known and oft-praised On the Road. That novel, which propelled him to such unwanted fame, basically tipped him over the edge. Big Sur chronicles Kerouac's descent into madness - his struggle to deal with the success and responsibility brought on by his earlier novel's success. “I’m just plumb sick and tired… of the whole nerve-wracking scene", he says - and he means it.

 

A friend offers Jack Duluoz - the pseudonym Kerouac uses throughout all his books - Big Sur cabin, a place to stay, hold up, write, and ultimately use to save himself. Sadly, this does not prove to be the case, as Jack goes on relentless drinking binges, starts a twisted love affair with his friend Cody Pomeray's (Neal Cassady in real life) mistress, and generally becomes increasingly more paranoid about the motives of his friends. He falls out of love with nature, argues and fights, struggles to make sense of anything, drinks himself into further stupors, and waits for the end.

 

Big Sur is not a book that is easy to 'enjoy', at least not in the traditional sense. It's too harrowing, too painful - perhaps, after all, too real. It isn't easy to sympathise with Duluoz (or, rather, Kerouac) who was obviously not the nicest of people. He was, however, a distinctly troubled man, and a very talented one. This book, one of his last before death finally caught up with him, is so far removed from the free-flowing, optimism and celebration of the Beat lifestyle that we got in On the Road. This is no great American dream, the romance of the road. Instead, it is the stark reality that death waits for us all. A tough read, but one worth exploring.

 

★★★★☆

Edited by Ben
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Hi Ben...just popped in for nosey and to wish you a happy 2017 of reading...looks like you have plenty to get through... :readingtwo: 

 

Inver, long time no speak! Hope you and the family are well. Thank you for the well wishes, the TBR is indeed quite a bit to get through. :lol:

 

In any case, hope you have a great 2017 - be it reading or other things, I hope they go well for you. :friends0:

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Just a little disclaimer on reviews this year: I'm not sure what format they're going to take, or how exhaustive they'll be. I intended to just write a couple of lines on Big Sur and it ended up a bit longer, so I think I'll just see how it goes book-by-book. I'm not making promises to write extensive reviews - or even bother with them at all this year - my priority is reading and enjoying... with the odd brief comments/review if I'm feeling that way inclined. :lol:

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Decided on Zadie Smith's On Beauty next, despite hearing mixed reviews. In the past I enjoyed White Teeth but actually abandoned NW so we'll see which side of the line this falls.

 

Synopsis

Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?

 

Set in New England mainly and London partly, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families—the Belseys and the Kippses—and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kippses, the confusions—both personal and political—of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.

 

I do really like the sound of this, so will hope to get properly stuck into before I start my new job tomorrow.

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That's some TBR! :lol: Happy reading in 2017 :)

 

Completely insurmountable, but never mind. :P Happy reading to you too, Noll, hope it's a great one!

 

Happy 2017 reading, Ben!  Lots of good looking books on that TBR, and I like that you have so many old King books!  Including my favorite, The Shining ;)

 

Thanks, Peacefield. I love King, my problem is I just never get around to those big door-stoppers! :lol: I will make The Shining a priority though. Hope you have a fabulous 2017 filled with wonderful books. :D

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