2022 50 Book Challenge

[Geoffrey Firmin]

The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson.
43. Virtual Light
44. idoru
45. All Tomorrows Parties

Haven’t reread these since they were originally published.. Highly Recommended.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson.
43. Virtual Light
44. idoru
45. All Tomorrows Parties

Haven’t reread these since they were originally published.. Highly Recommended.

Yeah, and I would have loved to have seen these made into a series...

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Okay, I have a few to add:

76. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
I don't know why I do this to myself. It's worse becuase this one turned out to be an extra novel inbetween the actual novels in the Locked Tomb sequence, and is mostly a bunch of feral kids running about in a war zone on a planet that seem uncannily like parts of London I've been to.

77. The Employees by Olga Ravn.
Translated from the Danish, this is an excellent, award-nominated satirical SF novel about work and (in)humanity. Ostensibly it's a series of transcripts on interviews or statements collected by an anonymous team investigating workplace satisfaction in an unnamed workplace. But it pretty quickly turns out that we are certainly "not in Kansas anymore."

78. Until Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
The third one of these very lightweight Japanese novels about a café with a time-traveling seat. Except that this switches to a different café (yes, apparently there is more than one) in the scenic and very filmable (hint, hint) town of Hakodate in Hokkaido. Otherwise it's more of the same with relatives lost to illness, disappointed ambitions and loves lost (or maybe not!). Not really worthy much time, but then again, it doesn't take much time to read.

 

[Fueco]

55. This Way To the Universe: A Theoretical Physicist’s Journey To The Edge Of Reality, by Michael Dine

 

[Fueco]

56. An Unforgiving Place, by Claire Kells

A pair of National Park Service investigators look into a mysterious death in Gates Of The Arctic National Park.

 

[jiredell]

48 - The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy

His brand new novel that came out last week. For the first 150 pages, I couldn't believe this was written by the same man who wrote The Road and Blood Meridian. After that, he pretty much abandoned any notions of a plot and the book became much more interesting. Best description I can come up with is that this is an 89 year old man's meditations on coming toward the end of life. I suppose I'm going to be stuck reading Stella Maris, the companion novel that comes out next month.

It was brilliant. Just picked up Stella Maris

 

[mak1277]

It was brilliant. Just picked up Stella Maris

my copy came today too. I’m fairly pessimistic about it based on reviews I’ve read (one which said simply, “there’s no reason this book needed to be written”).

 

[jiredell]

my copy came today too. I’m fairly pessimistic about it based on reviews I’ve read (one which said simply, “there’s no reason this book needed to be written”).

If Ima be frank about any conventional reader--and this includes reviewers--they don't get it, and they never will. This **** is way over their heads.

 

[SixOhNine]

44. Golden Son, by Pierce Brown
Book 2 in the Red Rising series. Things on Mars are escalating as our protagonist tries to negotiate the tricky path of becoming a leader in the traditional caste system while simultaneously trying to figure out how to destroy it. There are even more deaths than in the first book, which was pretty bloody. It also feels a bit more bleak, probably because the civil war on the horizon is shaping up to be ugly. Kinda like the real world, actually.

45. Last Orders, by Caimh McDonnell
Book Four in The Dublin Trilogy (yeah, he admits it's not normal). This one actually closes out the series, chronologically, at least. Events from the past finally catch up to Bunny McGarry and not in a happy way. Still an enjoyable read. I like McDonnell's writing, so I'll continue on with more of his books. There are, after all, two more books in the "trilogy".

46. Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong In The Real World, by Matt Parker
Fun and fascinating book about how we make all sorts of mistakes with numbers, with sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, consequences. It gets a bit nerdy at times, which is to be expected, given the subject matter, but it's very accessible and definitely worth reading.

(I don't think I'm gonna make it to 50, by the way. Oh well; it was interesting to track my reading, which isn't something I've ever done before)

 

[SixOhNine]

47. Dead Man's Sins, by Caimh McDonnell
Book 5 of The Dublin Trilogy. This one is a sequel to book 3, thus making it a prequel to book 4. I feel like the author found a character he liked in Bunny McGarry, but had written himself into a corner chronologically, so he keeps going back in time. I get it, the main character in the first book isn't particularly interesting, so it makes sense to veer off into the others.

 

[SixOhNine]

48. Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots
Being a supervillain takes a lot of support. Hench men and women for everything from goons for bank robberies and kidnappings to folks making sure the breakroom in the secret lair is stocked. Anna is such a person; barely scraping by on temp assignments through a placement agency when villains need someone with data assembly skills. Then one day she gets badly injured when she's collateral damage by a superhero. While she's recovering, she does what she does best- assemble data, only this time, it's data about how much damage "heroes" do. That leads to new employment with the world's greatest supervillain and a mission to save everyone from the good guys.

The book is marketed as darkly comic, but it's not especially funny. That's not to say it's bad- I liked it, but it definitely leaned into the dark, which isn't generally my thing.

 

[mak1277]

Best of 2022:

Fiction
Favorite - Lincoln in the Bardo
Hon. Mention - All the Pretty Horses; Gilead


Non Fiction
Favorite - Snow Leopard
Hon. Mention - Encounters with the Archdruid; Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

 

[Oswald Cornelius]

49 - A Sport and a Pastime, James Salter

someone had mentioned it up thread and I enjoyed Solo Faces so I picked it up. Really really fine writing. Sex scenes weren’t bad either.

Do yourself a favor and just read of all of Salter. Sport/Pastime is really good, but try Light Years and the story collections Dusk. They are both sublime. Actually, that reminds me, there is a short documentary on Sport that is worth looking up. It was on AMZ last year, probably still available. Best to not watch the doco until you've read the book because spoilers.

 

[SixOhNine]

Decided to go back and refresh my memory of what I read this past year. More series than I realized. I knew my preferred genres, sci fi and fantasy trend that way, but I need to start looking for more stand alone stuff. Anyway, I think my favorite nonfiction book was Humble Pi, by Matt Parker, my favorite fiction book was The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson, and my favorite author discovery was Caimh McDonnell. The Space Between Worlds was my absolute favorite of the entire 48 I read. In fact, I think I'm going to read it again soon.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

@FlyingMonkey got a copy of The Mountain in the Sea…what a remarkable novel, entertaining intelligent and shades of old style cyberpunk…fascinating reading.