2019 50 Book Challenge

[Fueco]

53. Rich People Problems, by Kevin Kwan (third book in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy)

 

[Fueco]

54. Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992, by Allen Ginsberg

 

[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
10 Ancillary Justice
11. Words without Music
12. Digital Minimalism
13. When Rivers Run Dry
14. The Uninhabitable Earth
15. Do we need inequality?
16. Carbon Ideologies: No Immediate Danger
17. The Secret Life of Trees
18. Educated
19. River of Doubt
20. Holy Sister
21. A War in Crimson Embers
22. Ancillary Sword
23. Ancillary Mercy
24. One Way
25. The Raven's Tower
26. Dark Emu

26. Dark Emu

This is a book about Indigenous Australian farming and housing techniques, which sounds super dry, but it isn't.

The essential point of the book is this - settlers refused to see what was in front of them, so convinced that Indigenous Australians were savages and un-civilised. In doing so, they missed the farming, the cropping, the housing, the governance and the successes. In doing so, they also imposed agricultural decisions that were inappropriate for the climate, flora and fauna.

These books are so hard to read, so depressing, so dark. As I read books on settlement and colonialisation I can't help but asking 'what was lost? what have we traded? what have we done?'. It's just such a deep and unapproachable shame.

 

[Fueco]

55. Cold Mountain Poems: Zen Poems of Han Shan, Shih Te, and Wang Fan-chih

A collection of poems written in the 6th through 8th centuries by hermits living in the mountains.

Why’s my heart always, always spinning?
A human’s life is just a mushroom’s life, finished in a morning.
How to bear that in two decades at the most
my family, all my friends, will be gone cold and fallen down.
These thoughts weigh on my heart, and so of course I grieve,
a grief like love, unbearable.
What to do, what should I do?
Take this body home
into my mountain shade.

 

[Fueco]

56. Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and The Rule Of Law, by Preet Bharara

 

[Fueco]

57. The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene

An overview of modern physics; including string theory and the quest for a theory of everything. I actually read this when it first came out fifteen years ago, but circled back again...

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

25 Machines Like Me by Ian McEwaan

Once upon a time the arrival of a new an Ian McEwan novel was a highlight of the literary year. However.....There was a particular boring nihilistic predictability to the narrative and its characters. Overall it required a Sisyphean effort to finish it.

 

[Fueco]

58. Much Depends On Dinner, by Margaret Visser

A history of some of the common foods we eat. Thanks for the recommendation, @Geoffrey Firmin .

I found this book fascinating, and learned a lot of new pieces of history that I hadn’t known.

 

[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
10 Ancillary Justice
11. Words without Music
12. Digital Minimalism
13. When Rivers Run Dry
14. The Uninhabitable Earth
15. Do we need inequality?
16. Carbon Ideologies: No Immediate Danger
17. The Secret Life of Trees
18. Educated
19. River of Doubt
20. Holy Sister
21. A War in Crimson Embers
22. Ancillary Sword
23. Ancillary Mercy
24. One Way
25. The Raven's Tower
26. Dark Emu
27. A Memory Called Empire

27. A Memory Called Empire

An excellent sf book about an ambassador to the centre of an empire. Overt commentary on colonialism, memory and tradition. Fascinating, riveting and a deeply impressive first novel.

 

[Fueco]

59. Beyond The Mountain, by Steve House

Stories from climbing in the US, Slovenia, Canada, and the Karakoram from one of the preeminent alpinists of the past 30 years.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

26. The Savage Altar by Asa Larson
“Weak people are often drawn to the church. And people who want power over week people are also drawn there.”Conspiring christian gospel of prosperity pastors and an assortment of religious nutters combine to cover up a grisly psychotic murder.

Add a grand standing prosecutor who sees the case as a ticket out of the backwoods to the big city. Plus a pregnant detective and her side kick who doggedly seek the truth.

Then add a highly unlikely anorexic lawyer who escaped the church and gets involved with the past and damaged goods of failed salvation.

Combine it all and you have murder most foul committed in the name of the Lord.

ho hum what is going on with Scandi Noir these days?

Found this on the exchange table of the local bookstore.The first book (and last I’ll read) in a series.

 

[Fueco]

60. The Garden Of Eden, by Ernest Hemingway

One of the works left unfinished at the time of Hemingway’s death. This one tells the story of an American couple honeymooning on the Mediterranean coast of France, and deals with gender identity, and what happens when those two fall in love with the same woman.

 

[Fueco]

61. Factotum, by Charles Bukowski

The story of a loser making his way around the country holding jobs for hours, or even days. This novel doesn’t have much going for it, but reads like a train wreck you just can’t look away from.

 

[Fueco]

62. Portage: A Family, A Canoe, and The Search For The Good Life, by Sue Leaf

A collection of stories about canoeing with spouse and with or without kids. This one caught my eye at the library, as our older boy is nearing the age where he will begin to appreciate the wonders of nature.

This book is less about the kids, and more about the experience and natural history of the places where Leaf and her husband paddle.

 

[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
12. Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa's Deluge, by Yusuke Kimura
13. The Black Monday Murders, Volume 2: The Scales, by Jonathon Hickman
14. Dark Echoes of the Past, by Roman Diaz Eterovic
15. Acute Misfortune, by Erik Jensen
16. The Low Road, by Chris Womersley
17. Steve Smith's Men: Behind Australian Cricket's Fall, by Geoff Lemon
18. River of Salt, by Dave Warner
19. City of a Million Dreams, by Jason Berry
20. Nagaland, by Ben Doherty
21. Queen of Kenosha, by Howard Shapiro
22. Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
23. Saga, Volume One (Eps 1-3), by Brian
24. The Forest of Wool and Steel, by Natsu Miyashita
25. The Waiter, by Matias Faldbakken
26. Manchester Happened, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
27. This body's Not Big Enough For Both of Us, by Edgar Cantero
28. The Erratics, by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
29. Saga Book 2, by Brian Vaughan
30. Murder in the Crooked House, by Soji Shimada
31. The Brewer of Preston, by Andrea Camilleri
32. Eight Lives, by Susan Hurley

33. Fu Ping, by Wang Anyi

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

Fu Ping is an orphaned village girl who has been promised in marriage to a young man she has never met. She travels to Shanghai to be with the boy's grandmother. As she is immersed in the big city and meets people from walks of life she has never encountered, Fu Ping grows to be more independent and assertive, casting doubt on the plans for her future.

The great strength of this novel is how vividly Wang Anyi describes life in the back alleys and shanty towns of Shanghai. As Fu Ping encounters the unfamiliar, the reader is also taken to places and lifestyles that have mostly passed into history. I was particularly impressed with her accounts of the lives of the river folk, and of the impact of the annual flood of the river, which reminded me in some ways of Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend.