2018 50 Book Challenge

[Geoffrey Firmin]

@LonerMatt I haven’t followed the Bookers for years got pissed off when it moved its original focus. The Guardian has some interesting comments on this years contenders and the the fact that a graphic novel is not a novel.

 

[Foxhound]

Man, Lolita is fucked.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

Man, Lolita is fucked.

Literally?

 

[Journeyman]

Man, Lolita is fucked.

Amazing book, very dense with varied meanings and references. Are you reading the annotated version?

Clearly, Humbert Humbert is an obscene character - but he's meant to be.

If you feel like reading more Nabokov, have a go at "Pale Fire". One of my absolute favourite books.

 

[SandraVaged]

Literally?

nope

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

35 The Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

First rate Japanese noir with a cast of core characters who display diverse human foibles and weakness while going all in on the case against a fiendishly clever antagonist who potentially has committed the perfect crime or have they?

It was also an interesting observation of modern Japan in terms of the narrative dynamics which made strong use of traditional culture and its impact on behaviour dispalyed within the narrative.

 

[California Dreamer]

It would definitely make a good movie.

Any thoughts on the long list for the Booker? Anything worth getting from the library for sure?

I really want to read Sabrina, might have to buy a copy, though if I wait another month maybe the library will have ordered it.

I haven't read a single book on the longlist, so can't recommend anything. I'm going to get hold of Sabrina somehow; my library buys books on reader requests, so maybe you can do that.

A lot of buzz around Normal People from some people I know in the trade, so I'm going to look for that too.

 

[noob in 89]

Eh, this is going on year two of book frustrations for me, ditching many reads and losing track of what I’ve read. Genre books don’t have the language to captivate me, and *srs literature* is all the same — I fill up notebooks with exemplary sentences, but often don’t feel the need to finish a single book. (I’ve got to stop hitting the DeLillo).

I’m still reading the digital comics before bed. In addition to all the great things you guys have recommended, I’ve just started on all the amazing Batman comics. Started with Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One (a four-issue run that appeared around...1987?), The Man Who Laughs, Ed Brubaker’s fairly recent tale of how the Batman met the Joker, Arkham Asylum and The Killing Joke (80s classics), and the first few years of the Legends of the Dark Knight comic — all dealing with Batman’s early years, and pretty satisfying reads — Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Retuns, and Gotham by Gaslight, which transports Batman into Jack the Ripper-era London.

On the downside, this retread is exactly what pop-ups on the ‘best of’ lists, and I fear I might have exhausted all the truly great reading when I was a kid.

Next up: more Batman, hopefully good...

 

[wojt]

Amazing book, very dense with varied meanings and references. Are you reading the annotated version?

Clearly, Humbert Humbert is an obscene character - but he's meant to be.

If you feel like reading more Nabokov, have a go at "Pale Fire". One of my absolute favourite books.

same here, fantastic book

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

36. NEW DARK AGE:Technology and the End of the Future James Bridle

Bridle central thesis that with all the computational power and reach of the internet we are living in the age of the great delusion. He presents an interesting case to substantiate the claims he makes, that data and information is enslaving us and blinding us to the malaise or is it miasma that grips the world.

He covers a range of topics from the history of computing, the environmental impact of technology, the abuse of big data and social implications of computing, survailence secuirty and our current global society.

Aside from the fact that he thinks its game over, well only if we keep our heads glued to our screens that is. He makes some very intelligent comments upon our social plight. Its certainly a far cry from silicon snake oil and cyber utopianism of the 1990’s. This is more a cry of wake up pay attention or else in his words “the problem is not with our knowing, but with our doing.”

Recomended if you want some serious food for thought.

 

[LonerMatt]

Sounds like a good read, going to see if it's at the library!

Spoiler: List

1. Kangaroo
2. South of the Border, West of the Sun
3. 19Q4
4. An Elegant Young Man
5. Throne of the Crescent Moon
6. When Gravity Fails
7. The Choke
8. Heat and Light
9. Who Owns the Future
10 Waking Gods
11. Wimmera
12. Artemis
13. Fire in the Sun
14. Exile Kiss
15. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
16 Prisoners of Geography
17. Nevermoor
18 La Bell Sauvage
19. Red Sister
20. Jade City
21. We Are Who We Pretend To Be
22. First Person
23. Too Like Lightning
24. Sea of Rust
25. Don't Skip Out on Me
26. Autonomous
27. Grey Sister
28. The Free
29. Lean on Pete
30. Clade
31. The Shepard's Hut
32. The Soul of an Octopus
33. The Dog Stars
34. At the mouth of River Bees
35. Dragon's Teeth
36. Designing Your Life
37. Deep Work
38. So Good They Can't Ignore You
39. Low Town
40. The Girl with all the Gifts
41. The Dismissal Dossier

41. The Dismissal Dossier

Someone else reviewed this much better than I will. I didn't have a visceral reaction to the revelation that the dismissal of Gough Whitlam was dismissed unfairly through a circumvention of democratic and sovereign processes. I guess I was always told the dimissal was a conservative led fucked up shame full of bullshit so it wasn't surprising.

What was surprising is learning how much of a ******* clown Kerr was: drunk, vain, inept. Wow, one wonders why Whitlam gave him the job of GG at all.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

37. ON DISRUPTION by Katherine Murphy

I come not to bury the forth estate but to praise it in this hour of need. Interesting first hand discourse on the current state of professional journalism with firsthand insights into the problems facing journalism and the media in the 21st century.

 

[California Dreamer]

37. ON DISRUPTION by Katherine Murphy

I come not to bury the forth estate but to praise it in this hour of need. Interesting first hand discourse on the current state of professional journalism with firsthand insights into the problems facing journalism and the media in the 21st century.

Not a chance I'll read her book. She's one of the biggest parts of the problem with Australian politics, where journos can only talk about the leadership instead of policy. She's a major shill for Malcolm Turnbull and spreads the "Labor leadership" gossip every chance she gets, even though she knows damn well that the ALP's rules prevent it from happening. She has a past relationship with the Turnbulls and has ditched her integrity as a result.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

Not a chance I'll read her book. She's one of the biggest parts of the problem with Australian politics, where journos can only talk about the leadership instead of policy. She's a major shill for Malcolm Turnbull and spreads the "Labor leadership" gossip every chance she gets, even though she knows damn well that the ALP's rules prevent it from happening. She has a past relationship with the Turnbulls and has ditched her integrity as a result.

Never knew that, not that I read her columns I read a review somewhere that recommend it.
Of about a dozen journalists I was at UTS with only two are still in the game.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

38. The Kingdom by Fuminoir Nakamura

Politics. Prostitution. Lunacy.Power. Things are never what they seam to be at the beginning and through most of the narrative of this Japanese Noir. Interesting late night read that propels the hapless Yurika a syndicate prostitute or is she into a tangled web of emotions, lost hope and the power plays of two rival nameless organisations at each other throats in a high stake power game.

Not your average Japanese Noir but would recommend it for those looking for something different.