2018 50 Book Challenge

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Yeah, I also really like The Plague, but thought that The Stranger was better. Those are the only two that I've read by him. Have you read any of his other fiction or any of his non-fiction work?

I have also read The Fall about a French lawyer in Amsterdam - a long monologue describing the same lawyer's fall from grace. The Fall is, in comparison with the other two, quite demanding and philosophical. I have actually thought about re-reading it to see if I would now understand it better but there are too many other and easier targets out there....

 

[Steve B.]

7. 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968
OK- I take back all the nasty comments about Childhood's End. This was a fantastic book about space exploration and how an astronaut morphed into pure, incredibly powerful and enlightened energy. Thought it was awesome, ran through it in about a day. Another no longer on the 1001 list.

I just counted how many I've read- a paltry 66. Better step it up or I'll be trying to read w/Alzheimer's.

 

[FLMountainMan]



^Reacher is a BAMF.
Love those books.
edit: You should look into the John Rain series. Barry Eisler, author.
I always picture TokyoSlim when I read those.

Will do, thanks. Just finished Echo Burning, the last Reacher book I have. That was ******* awful, which is surprising because I loved the rest of the series. But that book had a ridiculously cliched look at Texans for a book set and written in 2010. Well, white Texans, specifically, who say the word "******" in every other sentence, hate Mexicans, and and have never seen vegetarians before. I thought we were past the "white Northern liberator" conceit in fiction, but I guess not. Other disappointments were ridiculous plotholes, a sideplot about the Border Patrol that just drags everything down, and a four page span where "Reacher said nothing" is written almost thirty times.

 

[Steve B.]

BTW what is a BAMF?

 

[Dakota rube]

^bad ass mother ******

 

[Steve B.]

<<<< learned a new word (s) today

 

[FLMountainMan]



<<<< learned a new word (s) today

YSFM

 

[Steve B.]



YSFM

???

 

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Clockwise counting 7/50: J.M. Coetzee - Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)

Very impressive and gripping allegorical masterpiece by Nobel prize winning South African Coetzee. 

The main character, called The Magistrate, is the elderly civil servant who has administered law and order in a remote province of the Empire. One day he discovers that the Empire has declared Emergency law and torture and paranoia replaces the old peaceful co-existence between poor oppressed native population and Empire settlers. The Magistrate himself embodies a mixture of human compassion, human weakness and moral strength and cannot avoid becoming a traitor to his own. 

This could be a thinly veiled description of apartheid-era South Africa or any other place and time where a system of oppression is prevalent. My 146th of the 1001. 

 

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Clockwise counting 8/50: Jo Nesbo - Nemesis (2002)

Norwegian crime novelist Nesbo writes Scandinavian Noir. The main character is a sober alcoholic police inspector in the Oslo police "serious crime division" - part Dirty Harry, part anti-hero with a big dose existential angst. This is reasonably clever entertainment. My second Nesbo and I am likely to read more.

 

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Clockwise counting 9/50: W. Somerset Maugham - Theatre (1937)

Maugham was a phenomenal story teller and Theatre is an entertaining and thought provoking tale of the narcissistic leading English actress of her times, the fictional Julia Lambert. Bored with her handsome but unexciting husband, middle aged Mrs Lambert has a fling with a young accountant and suddenly finds herself in the midst of a passionate but unsettling and maybe dangerous love affair. This is a great character study of a selfish and conceited but extremely intelligent and talented woman. It is also an interesting description of the English class system and snobbism of the 1930s. 

 

[Steve B.]

8. White Noise (1985) Don DeLillo.
It's hard to describe this book. Quirky. Wry. Occasionally deadpan. The tale of the ultimately blended family, neuroses of the first order. All elements of something that mean nothing. White Noise really does capture the book's meaning. Too many fits and starts for me. Not sure I'd recommend it.

 

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8. White Noise (1985) Don DeLillo.
It's hard to describe this book. Quirky. Wry. Occasionally deadpan. The tale of the ultimately blended family, neuroses of the first order. All elements of something that mean nothing. White Noise really does capture the book's meaning. Too many fits and starts for me. Not sure I'd recommend it.

I think I'll read it as part of my 50 '12. Was it your first DeLillo? He's a strange one but a hell of a good writer.

 

[Steve B.]



I think I'll read it as part of my 50 '12. Was it your first DeLillo? He's a strange one but a hell of a good writer.

Yes. I heard it was his best. But there was just no point. Even to having no point,.

You might like it however. We occasionally differ with regard to taste.

 

[Steve B.]

9. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold 1963 John le Carre
I haven't read many spy books, but I sure enjoyed this one. Lots of twists and turns and a surprise ending. I am now entering my mystery phase with a couple of interesting other books sandwiched between.