2019 50 Book Challenge

[Fueco]

6. Where We Go From Here - Bernie Sanders

You can probably guess what this one covers.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

6. Where We Go From Here - Bernie Sanders

You can probably guess what this one covers.

A love song to the Trump adminisration?

 

[Fueco]

A love song to the Trump adminisration?

 

[Fueco]

7. The Eye Of Heaven - Clive Cussler

Toltec, Mayan, Incan and Viking treasure abound. Who says archaeology is boring?

6th book in the Fargo Adventure series.

 

[Fueco]

8. Thirst -Poems by Mary Oliver

I’d never heard of Mary Oliver until I read her obituary in the New York Times a few weeks ago. She died inJanuary at age 83, and was wildly popular according to the NYT, and won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. I saw this book on the shelf at the library a few days later and picked it up.

Her poetry is vivid although in plain language. It’s easy to put yourself in her mind as you read.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

5.Last Winter We Parted by Fuminori Nakamura

Perversely malevolent psychosexual Japanese Noir. A twisted tale of revenge, sex, artistic intent and dolls. A page turning and engrossing read that shocks and confronts with its devious intent.

If your looking for something different then I would definitely recommend this.

 

[California Dreamer]

Spoiler: Previously Read

1. Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally, by Bob Zmuda and Lynne Margulies
2. Illustrado, by Miguel Syjuco
3. Kill 'Em All, by John Niven[
4. The Black Monday Murders, volume 1: All Hail God Mammon, by Jonathon Hickman
5. Bad News, by Edward St. Aubyn
6. Education, by Tara Westover
7. Europe: A Natural History, by Tim Flannery
8. No Tomorrow, by Luke Jennings8. Scrublands, by Chris Hammer

Looks like you and I are on the same wavelength @Geoffrey Firmin

9. The Kingdom, by Fuminori Nakamura

The Kingdom is a companion novel to Nakamura's The Thief, which I read and enjoyed a few years ago. While I don't really see the connections the author is claiming, it works perfectly well as a stand-alone novel.

Yurika is a prostitute who has got caught up in a blackmailing operation where she seduces powerful clients, drugs them and hands incriminating photos to her criminal bosses. She has no idea what happens with the photos. As she gets drawn deeper into this shadowy operation she encounters a man who went to the same orphanage as her and this, in turn, sees her entangled with a sadistic killer.

Yurika's attempts to extricate herself make for a taut story that still allows the author to paint in a backstory on how she got to be in her position. Nakamura writes economical prose and doesn't beat around the bush, and this novel moves at a rattling pace.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

6.The Boy In The Earth by Fuminori Nakamura

Psychological self inflicted S&M, child abuse, despair and maybe a glimmer of hope? Oh and bit of crime thrown in for good measure. Another foray into the dark recess of the human psyche.

 

[California Dreamer]

6.The Boy In The Earth by Fuminori Nakamura

I need to find that one.

 

[California Dreamer]

Spoiler: Previously Read

1. Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally, by Bob Zmuda and Lynne Margulies
2. Illustrado, by Miguel Syjuco
3. Kill 'Em All, by John Niven[
4. The Black Monday Murders, volume 1: All Hail God Mammon, by Jonathon Hickman
5. Bad News, by Edward St. Aubyn
6. Education, by Tara Westover
7. Europe: A Natural History, by Tim Flannery
8. No Tomorrow, by Luke Jennings
9. Scrublands, by Chris Hammer
10. The Kingdom, by Fuminori Nakamura

11. The White Darkness, by David Grann

David Grann has written a tense and eloquent account of the adventures of polar explorer Henry Worsley. A lifelong admirer of Earnest Shackleton, Worsley teamed up with two other descendants from Shackleton's crew to re-enact his failed trek from the Ross Ice Shelf to the South Pole.

Grann's prose evokes Antarctica's forbidding beauty and conveys the miseries confronted by these explorers convincingly. There are abundant photographs from Worsley's expeditions as well as those of Shackleton and Scott. All-in-all, a riveting and beautiful book.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. The Broken Kingdoms
2. The Kingdom of Gods
3. Semiosis
4. Bridge of Clay
5. Blackwater City
6. Bullshit Jobs: a Theory
7. Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire
8. The People vs Tech

6. Bullshit Jobs: a Theory

This is a pop anthropological book that's essentially about the stupidity of many jobs which have been invented in order to fulfill no objective or subjective purpose and are so pointless even those who are paid to do them find them a waste of time.

The key to this book is in the word 'theory' - the author dutifully and, in detail, lays out a theory about what these are, why they exist, and what we can learn from these types of jobs. Probably belabored the point a bit much IMO.

7. Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire

We all know this one. Came across it in a hostel at the end of the world and it went down easily while waiting out the bad weather in the Outer Hebrides.

8. The People vs Tech

This book is a disection of why technological change doesn't seem to be increasing democratic powers at all and, instead, seems to be foisting authoritarian changes and governments. Unlike most of these sort of books, the author ends with 20 recommendations about how to evolve democratic principles and functions in the 21st century world.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

7.The Other Woman by Daniel Silva

An intricate cpmplex web which uses at its base an historical 20th century story about the world of espionage. Then add a familiar paranoid trope from the world of espionage. Give it some spin based on paranoia, current geopolitics and the obsession of the current Tzar to establish Russia as a global superpower.

Voila! You have the ingredients for another well paced episode in the life of Gabriel Allon art restorer and spy and his band of merry pranksters.

And no he does not drink martinis, tends more to glass of robust red wine.

Both MI6 and Mossad thinks the Tzar assisted he who shall not be named in 2016.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. The Broken Kingdoms
2. The Kingdom of Gods
3. Semiosis
4. Bridge of Clay
5. Blackwater City
6. Bullshit Jobs: a Theory
7. Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire
8. The People vs Tech
9. The Outrun

9. The Outrun

This is a autobiography of a woman who suffers from alcohol addiction after leaving her home in the Orkney islands for the fast paced London life. After burning all her bridges and almost dying several times she begins a recovery program and eventually ends up back in the Orkneys where she slowly comes to grip with a return to an old, and changed, life being an older and much changed person.

While maybe 40-50 pages too long, this was generally a really well written and clearly voiced first book. Descriptions of addiction and the playing with timelines were certainly strong points. Descriptions of nature weren't quite as strong.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

8.On Hate by Tim Soutphommasane

Former Race Discrimination Commissioner provides an insightful essay and addition to the market place of ideas. The essay dissects white supremacy, white fear and neofacist politics and its goons and its manipulation by certain political parties. Best exemplified by former Attorney General George Brandis with his quote in the Senate, ‘People do have a right to be bigots’. Also clearly articulates the damage done by the Parrot, numerous shock jocks and Intellectuals (not)of the Moloch press and Foxtel Sky news.

Covers some interesting ground with an examination of hate politics and where, how and why they gain oxygen in a multicultural nation. As this is a malady that is affecting the democratic west his observations have a globalist perspective and application.

As for the Melbourne University board member who as a practicing Catholic and Knight of Malta recently destroyed MU Press after they published a expose on the perfidious Cardinal Pell.....

Tragic loss to the circulation and currency of ideas in this country.

 

[California Dreamer]

As for the Melbourne University board member who as a practicing Catholic and Knight of Malta recently destroyed MU Press after they published a expose on the perfidious Cardinal Pell....

Not to mention that he was Pell's lawyer.