2018 50 Book Challenge



Steve B. said:

Jesus- how long is this book? Or is it the complexity of the subject matter?

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Both! The version I have is ~760 pages (I left my copy at work, so I can't check right now). The plot is quite complex, moving between multiple time periods, many things are never fully explained, and there's a cast of a few hundred characters. If I had to pick two adjectives to describe the prose they would be "dense" and "cryptic."

Just went through "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" and ticked off 144 including a few that were added in 2011. In addition I have easily started on 20-30 without finishing or read some kind of abbreviated / simplified versions (of classics) as a kid. I only counted those I am sure I have finished.

I was actually surprised that the number was so low but at the same time it is a relief to know that I have another 857 books to go before I might as well die.

If there is no separate thread for the 1001, I may start one.

Under 300 pgs to go.

I was thinking we should make it a requirement for a book to count in 2012 that it be from the 1001, but I want to read Jobs', Donovan's, and Malcom X's biography.

Clockwise counting 50/50: J.M. Coetzee - Summertime (2009)

So there, with 20 days to spare I have reached the targeted 50 books within a year. I have previously read a few of Nobel Prize winner Coetzee's books and they tend to be brilliant, so was this one. The third in a series of "fictionalized memoirs" or auto-biographical novels, Summertime tells the story of a socially inept, relatively asexual, intellectual but unexciting budding author in 1970s Cape Town South Africa called JM Coetzee. Is this really how the author sees himself? Brilliant writing, very gloomy!



clockwise said:

Clockwise counting 50/50: J.M. Coetzee - Summertime (2009)
So there, with 20 days to spare I have reached the targeted 50 books within a year. I have previously read a few of Nobel Prize winner Coetzee's books and they tend to be brilliant, so was this one. The third in a series of "fictionalized memoirs" or auto-biographical novels, Summertime tells the story of a socially inept, relatively asexual, intellectual but unexciting budding author in 1970s Cape Town South Africa called JM Coetzee. Is this really how the author sees himself? Brilliant writing, very gloomy!

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Bravo!

138 pages to go.

To have included War and Peace among the 50 is better than bravo.

Hope we get a bigger following in the 2012 thread. Did anyone do all the 50 in earlier years? I know 2010 was a miserable failure but what about ancient history?



clockwise said:

To have included War and Peace among the 50 is better than bravo.
Hope we get a bigger following in the 2012 thread. Did anyone do all the 50 in earlier years? I know 2010 was a miserable failure but what about ancient history?

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IT is finished. And so am I. With 2 weeks to spare. The story of 4 Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic Wars and shortly thereafter (1805-1820). I had a hard time keeping up with who belonged to which family, but everyone pretty much got the girl or the guy in the end.. Except for 2 or 3 major deaths in the younger generation. My favorite character was Pierre Bezuhov- supposedly the simple minded one of the bunch, but in truth anyhing but. His wife was Natasha Bezuhov (nee Rostov). Second favorite favorite.

I could have done without Tostoy's philosophical blather at the end. He really didn't say much that I hadn't read or heard before.

I'd recommend the book, but read it in parallel at 20-30 pgs a day.


Are we doing it again next yer?



Steve B. said:

Are we doing it again next yer?

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I'm down, if you guys are down. Don't quit on me.



dwyhajlo said:

I'm down, if you guys are down. Don't quit on me.

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I think it will be harder on me. I just started a job that promises to be pretty challenging. But then I worked 3 for 4 months last year...



dwyhajlo said:

Both! The version I have is ~760 pages (I left my copy at work, so I can't check right now). The plot is quite complex, moving between multiple time periods, many things are never fully explained, and there's a cast of a few hundred characters. If I had to pick two adjectives to describe the prose they would be "dense" and "cryptic."

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What's the name of this book again?



Steve B. said:

What's the name of this book again?

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I'll do it 2012. Also may consider making it the year of my own War and Peace since I have already read Tolstoy's other masterpiece, Anna Karenina, and thought it was absolutely magnificent.
I'll probably save Gravity's Rainbow for 2013.



clockwise said:

I'll do it 2012. Also may consider making it the year of my own War and Peace since I have already read Tolstoy's other masterpiece, Anna Karenina, and thought it was absolutely magnificent.
I'll probably save Gravity's Rainbow for 2013.

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Think I'll read Gravity's Rainbow and possibly Anna Karenina. I like Tolstoy's style as well.

2012. who's down beside Clockwise and I?

I'm in.

EDIT: But I'll probably mostly be doing shorter novels, at least until I can get "back into" reading. It's been hard, since I haven't read for pleasure much since starting university, and now that I'm finishing up - about 6 years later - I really want to start again.