2023 50 Book Challenge

[Salad]

7. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson. Found this on my book shelf and didn't remember reading it. This lead to:
8. Home, Marilynne Robinson
9. Lila, Marilynne Robinson. Taking a break but will get to the last book in this series soon.
10. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, V.E. Schwab. Complete departure from what I've been reading. I will say that I enjoyed it.

 

[Oswald Cornelius]

14) Hitch 22, Christopher Hitchens. I don't listen to many audiobooks--my ADD won't allow it--unless I'm driving. I bought this one a few years ago and Martin Amis's fond mentions of The Hitch in his memoir/novel drove me to dig it up. I hadn't listened to it when I bought because I found Hitch's accent hard to understand in the car and gave up after an hour or so. But this time I decided to focus on it and after a little while got into his rhythm and truly enjoyed it. There's something about hearing him reading his own biography after he's gone that's oddly affecting. So glad he read it himself.

I'm a big fan of Hitchens and Amis. I knew they were good pals, but didn't know how truly close they were until I read both of these books.

 

[Fueco]

I haven’t been writing down books as I finish them, but I’m up to 13 books for the year, having finished two this week.

12. Let Your Mind Run, by Deena Kastor
13. Hidden Mountains, by Chris Wejchert

 

[feliks]

18. Jesse Byock- Medieval Iceland
19. Eudora Welty- Delta Wedding
20. Jon Kabat-Zinn- Everywhere You Go, There You Are
21. Ocean Vuong- On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
22. Kurt Vonnegut- God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Currently reading CLR James' The Black Jacobins and four plays by Aristophanes

 

[Cotillion]

I'm up to 30 myself so far. Will post a list at some point

 

[Salad]

11. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchel
12. A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan.

There's no way I'm getting to 50 at this rate but I'll keep going. David Mitchel novels don't help with some of them being 600+ pages, lol.

 

[feliks]

23. CLR James- Black Jacobins
24. Aristophanes- Four Plays
25. Joyce Carol Oates- Triumph of the Spider Monkey
26. Cormac McCarthy- Child of God

Currently reading Richard Yates' 11 Kinds of Loneliness

 

[Salad]

13. The Keep, Jennifer Egan

 

[Oswald Cornelius]

15) Experience, Martin Amis.
16) How Hitchens Can Save the Left, Matt Johnson. WWCHD?
17) The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis.

You may be sensing a theme, here. Experience, Hitch 22, Pregnant Widow (novel) and Inside Story (mostly memoir) are Amis/Hitch books that feature lovely depictions from both sides of their many-year friendship.

18) The Green Man, Kingsley Amis. This one I'm currently rereading, fourth time, I believe. Many years Halloween gets by me and I think, "Damn! I should've reread Green Man." Well, not this year! I tell you.

 

[Salad]

14. Slade House, David Mitchell.
Blew through this one quickly. Basically a spin off of Bone Clocks. I will say I didn't mind it. It was kind of refreshing to not have to keep track of characters, time and place when reading his books even though that's what I enjoy most about his books.

 

[feliks]

27. Yates- 11 Kinds of Loneliness
28. John Berger- G
29. Ernst Junger- Storm of Steel

Currently reading Yates' Easter Parade and Jane Bowles' Two Serious Ladies

 

[Salad]

15. Justin Cronin, "The Ferryman".

 

[mhip]

15. Justin Cronin, "The Ferryman".

I'm still super pissed what Fox did to The Passage...

 

[Salad]

I'm still super pissed what Fox did to The Passage...

I knew nothing about the author before randomly picking up The Ferryman at the library. I take it you didn't like the series adaptation of The Passage, lol.
I think I'll put The Passage on my to do list.

 

[BernardoSoares]

I'm on 111 so far. I'll write a few words about my favourites (Dante aside, anything I say about him would be downright pedestrian), and if you want me to comment on any other, just ask. Here's the full list: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/41025824

The Wild Ass's Skin by Honore de Balzac (1831)
A penniless gambling addict on the brink of suicide is given a piece of donkey skin which grants him wishes, but each wish shrinks the skin and consumes the physical energy of the wisher. This contains some of Balzac's - or anyone's - most brilliant, evocative, immersive prose. Some of it is truly beautiful and poetic. It's virtually unmatched. If you ever wanted to actually feel like a broke gambler putting his last chips down at 2 in the morning, or you wanted to smell the aftermath of a 19th century whorehouse orgy, read this. This book sent me on a Balzac reading spree, looking for more like it, and I wound up mostly disappointed.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1842)
A mysterious stranger visits provincial towns in Russia to buy the names of deceased serfs from their landlords' poll tax lists in order to secure a fraudulent mortgage and reinvent himself as landed gentry. This was my second reading of the novel, and this time I read the translation recommended by Nabokov. I don't know the book well enough to compare it with the Penguins Classics version that I had read previously. Gogol is easily the most hilarious writer that I have ever read. He is, most of all, unbelievably sharp and astute. He will describe people so well that you will begin understanding people in your own life better because of Gogol's writing - the only other writer who has had this effect on me is Dostoyevsky. Gogol's mind is truly bizarre. In many ways he prefigures Kafka, not least in the fact that if you read Gogol's biography, he sounds like the kind of character that Kafka would create.

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (1859)
Wasted life. About a man who can barely get himself out of bed, and out of some kind of anxiety he either rejects or sabotages every opportunity given him to succeed, find love, or just live well. The most hilarious, sentimental, confronting, and depressing book on this list.

A Parisian Affair and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant (1881)
A collection of short stories. Some are life lessons, some are a good laugh, some are tragic, some are a friendly joke on the reader, some are brutal eviscerations of the class system in which Maupassant lived, and which could be easily translated into modern day life. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant is similar in terms of beautifully flowing prose and economy of language, though a little more self-indulgent. Maupassant is the child of a single mother, an exceptionally well-read woman who divorced her abusive husband at the risk of social disgrace. Some of his stories highlight the senseless social norms and structures that destroyed the lives of many an unlucky woman. Maupassant died as an inveterate womaniser and syphilitic wreck at the age of 42, and I think that, aside from being brilliant stories in their own right, his stories are also fascinating to read in light of these considerations.

La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola (1890)
As violent and depraved as a book can be, at least by 1890 standards, and fairly gruesome by today's as well. Zola looks at the various ways in which people destroy their lives and other people's - betrayal, addiction, greed, rage, violence - all of which are perfectly brought together in his iconic image of an unstoppable runaway train.

Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov (1944)
Reignited my interest in Gogol and sparked an interest in Nabokov. I don't usually read literary criticisms but I will if it is by somebody who is a well-respected author in their own right, since I figure they will have much more interesting insight, and there was plenty of that in this book. Nabokov, well-known for how eagerly he disparages giants of literature, showers Gogol in the most fawning praise, draws many interesting comparisons between Gogol's life and work, exposes the errors in many western interpretations of Gogol, and points out a few good translations of him while warning us away from many others. Aside from learning more about a favourite author, the book sparked my interest in Nabokov's own work, which I had been avoiding due to the subject matter of Lolita.

Tigers in the Snow by Peter Matthiessen (2000)
Accompanying researchers in the field, Matthiessen writes about the Siberian tiger, it's habits, history, cultural significance, the threats it faces and the hope for its future. Matthiessen writes beautifully, as usual. He writes with a genuine, spiritual respect and awe, not just for the wonders of nature, but for every species, people and culture that he has encountered on his own quest to better understand the natural world. Personally, I would recommend beginning with his book The Snow Leopard.