Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Read Elon Green's Last Call and James McBride's Deacon King Kong. Both were good; the latter exceptional.

My reading has been at about the same level this year as in the past few years. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but also read printed books and the occasional ebook. I'm at about 160 books for the year so far.

I read through all of the Expanse novels and novellas this year. I've enjoyed the first four seasons of the tv show and decided it was time to read the books as well. Overall, I thought the books were very good and even excellent at times.

Another project that I set for myself was to get caught up on the 1632/Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint and numerous other authors. I read the first four books as they came out in the early 2000s, but then just kind of drifted away from reading them as work and other books took priority. Then the pile of books in the series became somewhat daunting since there are over 40 books in the main series from Baen. I've read 37 of the books in the series since the beginning of June and should have two more finished in the next few days. I should be caught up with the series in the next month or so. However, Flint also publishes a bimonthly online magazine with short stories set in the universe and there are more than 80 issues of that to read eventually as well. That's a project for another year. Some of the books are definitely better than others, but there is a wide range of characters and I have enjoyed the series quite a bit.

Some of the other books that I read this year which stand out a bit to me include:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (a Christmas present last year from my niece)

Super Powereds Year 4 by Drew Hayes - this was a fun series about young adults with powers who attend a super hero university within a regular university in order to get certified as heroes.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - This book is about a flu pandemic that kills off more than 99% of the population. I read it just before things started to close down in the U.S. in March.

Bleak House,Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - I started reading Dickens in 2018 and these were the last three novels I still needed to read. Each was excellent.

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch - I didn't think the latest Rivers of London book was quite as good as some of the previous entries, but it was still very good.

Bond Girl by Erin Duffy - This was a fun look at a young woman's Wall Street experiences.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Doctors by Erich Segal

The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells - Four novellas and one novel about a sentient robot who thinks of himself as Murderbot. Very entertaining.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - I'd seen the movie and enjoyed it. The book was excellent as well.

The Orphans of Raspay and The Physicians of Vilnoc by Lois McMaster Bujold - I've never been let down by one of Bujold's books.

I'd have thought all the enforced inside-time would have led me to a lot of reading, but it's been rather the opposite: particularly in the early months, I found I lacked the concentration to read much of anything.

The only novels of note I've read are Ben Lerner's The Topeka School and Ann Patchett's The Dutch House. I thought both were exceedingly well-written, though I felt Patchett's book cohered better into a complete work than Lerner's did (as much as I enjoyed the individual episodes in his).

Perversely, I decided to devote myself to The Great Influenza, to try and get some better understanding of the century-ago precedent for what we're undergoing. It was a daunting exercise, partly because the book is a forbidding 550 pages, and also because 1) it spends a lot more time than I anticipated on the history of medicine from Hippocrates forward and 2) it goes deep enough into scientific terminology that I was carried back to my distaste for grade school/high school science classes. The stuff on the epidemic itself was engrossing (it was a far worse and more widespread plague than what we're experiencing now), but too much of the book was content for which I hadn't signed on.

Finished that, I moved on to an Ian Ranking Rebus book -- feeling the need for a bag of chips after that hefty helping of spinach.

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson: The miniseries left me a quivering mess so I took some time before I read it. In truth, I don't think any work could live up to that first paragraph (which... wow) but it's still a superb piece of work.

Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin: I had VERY high expectations for this but it mostly underwhelmed me. Stories of unease with incomplete/ambiguous endings seems a dime a dozen in these Black Mirror days. Some stories are better than others. I'm still curious about her next works, but probably more a library than immediate buy.

Radicalized, by Cory Doctorow: Pretty good. Each novella is worthwhile but the stories are super-didactic. Which I was in the mood for, but if you're not.... Seems inspired equally by Black Mirror and the headlines.

I used to be an insatiable reader but as this century has rolled on I find myself reading way less then I ever had.

What little I read tend to be film relating either autobiographical or biographical works on film stars and film directors.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed in the Sydney Morning Herald a book review for Fall and Rise The Story of 9/11 by Michell Zuckoff. The review made the book sound very interesting and a quick on-line checks for additional reviews prompted me to contact my local bookstore and have them put a copy of side.

Since I started reading it a little over a week ago and I not been able to put it down. Its basically a blow by blow account of what happened on that dreadful day, the people caught directly in the tragedy, their love ones as well as the confusion the various government organisations had trying to piece together what was unfolding.

I cannot remember a book that has moved me as much as this one has and the expertise of Mitchell Zuckoff weaving the reader through all the characters and multiple events. I'd be surprised if there is a better book written on that dark dark day. Most highly recommened.

Just recently picked up Marlon James' "Black Leopard, Red Wolf", his followup to the Booker-winning "A Brief History of Seven Killings". Described as an African Game of Thrones, set in a fantastical Africa populated with folklore and legend, and the kick-off to a trilogy - I have great hopes for this.

danfrank wrote:Recent reads:
Less by Andrew Sean Greer: It's great that a novel like this won the Pulitzer. This is super-funny, smart, poignant. And written by a gay local (SF) boy! I strongly recommend this one.

This one read like a lesser Pulitzer - a seemingly lightweight novel that marks a strange compromise choice for the award. Nonetheless, I am glad I was exposed to it through the award, it's a fun zippy read, but in contrast to the final line - final word, even - of the novel, I was left wanting More.

Recent reads:

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff: Dazzling and brilliant first half; second half a bit pulp-y for my taste

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles: Total entertainment, charming, witty. Would make a good film

Less by Andrew Sean Greer: It's great that a novel like this won the Pulitzer. This is super-funny, smart, poignant. And written by a gay local (SF) boy! I strongly recommend this one.

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin: Baldwin is always brilliant, though I would say that this is not his best novel (Another Country is, in my mind). He steps outside the characters/story to make sociopolitical points a bit much. The movie, which I liked a lot, follows the book very closely in both plot and structure until the very end. The movie leaves out an important (tragic) plot element.

Since the beginning of the year, I've finished Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, Michelle Obama's Becoming, and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. I think I'm going to start my Black History Month binge early with Esi Edugyan's Washington Black and Richard Wright's Native Son.

Finished Ohio by Stephen Markley and The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason.

It seems like A Little Life sapped the life out of this thread nearly four years ago haha.

I recently (finally!) got Infinite Jest out of the way so it's probably a good time to start hacking away at the piles (and piles) of unread books in my library: Dickens, Tolstoy, etc. I left off in the middle of the second book of Proust's epic novel a few years ago so that will be the next assignment.

Yes, let’s definitely revive this thread. I’m currently reading David B. Feinberg’s Eighty-Sixed (Viking, 1989). It’s a classsic in the 1980s literature of AIDS. It’s very sharply written with quite a bit of sardonic wit in the ‘1980’ section (in the latter half of the novel, ‘1986’ the plague has obviously hit the milieu and the tone changes). I’m planning on reading the sequel, Spontaneous Combustion (Viking, 1991) next which follows what B.J. Rosenthal as the AIDS epidemic continues into the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

Lord of the World (1907), by Robert Hugh Benson... so far so good...

I tend to be a serial book-hopper with two or three going at a time. I haven't posted on here in almost three years, so I have a gigantic list I could discuss. At another time...

I won't read the same type of book at the same time, but I tend to read fiction and non fiction concurrently, with theatre thrown in for good measure.

flipp525 wrote:So, I just basically said I was one thing and then showed two examples where I haven't done that thing. (Just call me a GOP Presidential candidate.)

And, being a Navy contractor, you're a GOP Presidential candidate with actual government experience; therefore, you're a losing GOP Presidential candidate.