The 2012 Fifty Book Challenge

[Jeremy]

I'm sure everybody knows the drill . Post the books you read for the year in a list. Include page numbers if you like. The challenge is to get to 50, but you can set your own challenge if you like. Please write a short review of each book you read (although you don't have to). I'll start


1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams 229pg [ebook]

These books seem to get a lot less funny as they go along. I found this a little tedious, although it did get better towards the end. It's the 5th Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy book, and the last (of 7) that was actually completed and published by Douglas Adams (Salmon of Doubt is constructed from drafts, and there is another after that written by a different author). I was planning on reading the last two after this, but the ending seems final enough to leave the series on, at least for the time being.

[Jeremy]

1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams - 229pp [ebook]
2. I Am Legend by Richard Matherson - 180pp [ebook]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Fairly different to the movie, and especially largely devoid of Christian symbolism, which was a blessing. It's almost about the good people who are left behind by revolutions. Perhaps. I'm not sure. Anyway, definitely recommended.

[dp]

1. Legs By William Kennedy 318pg

[bigdirtyfoot]

Thanks for starting the thread this year Jeremy! I'm going to shoot for 52 books this year.

1. Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 463 pg.
2. Minority Report, Philip K Dick, 103 pg.

This year I plan on reading all of Joseph Heller's and Ayn Rand's books (excluding Anthem, which I read last year). I had already read Catch-22 about ten years ago, and I have a VHS copy of the film, so this was more of a revisit for me than anything. The book is well-written, so much so that it succeeds at being confusing and tedious, which I suspect Heller was attempting in an effort to mirror the vibe of war. I like it, and am looking forward to the rest of his books this year.

I saw Minority Report at a used bookstore and had to pick it up. Even though it's been remimagined into a movie, this was a fresh short story for me. The concept PKD tinkers with in this is Precrime, which is the ability for precogs to anticipate crimes that are going to occur a week before they do. Interesting thoughts about the effects of free will and time travel. If you can find this one, give it a read.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Just brushing up on outdoor skills

1. Winter Hiking & Camping - Michael Lanza [188 pgs]
2. Leave No Trace: Wilderness Ethics - Annette McGivney [187 pgs]
3. Mountaineering First Aid - Martha Lentz [112 pgs]

[lilo]

1. Agatha Christie - Miss Marple & Mystery (collection of short stories)

2. Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial
Pure fairy floss! Knocked this one out in less than a day.

3. Anna Stothard - The Pink Hotel
Another easy read. The story was interesting to begin with but I have to admit I skimmed the last few chapters just for the sake of finishing it and ticking it off.

4. Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
I saw the film about a year ago and it made me bawl my eyes out. The book didn't move me as much (maybe because I knew what would happen?) but it's still such a beautifully written book.

[Jeremy]

Good work Lilo, although I'm not sure about this "skimmed the last few chapters" stuff. Given the quality of the book in question though, it's probably acceptable

1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams - 229pp [ebook]
2. I Am Legend by Richard Matherson - 180pp [ebook]
3. The Drowned World by JG Ballard - 158pp [ebook]

Weird. Fairly scientifically detailed, but with some silly errors too, although I accept they could have been the characters making those errors. Anyway it was an engaging plot, about a world devastated by global warming, collapsed civilisation, devastating heat etc. but the ending was disappointing (I might almost say non-existent). I liked the start a lot more than when the drama began to unfold though - it had a very "On the Beach" feel about it.

[Zac Miley]

1. Letters Between Friends: Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse
2. Three Artemis Fowl books which I will count as one, Eoin Colfer
3. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
4. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (reread)
5. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace
6. Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis

Quite satisfied with all of those.

Currently reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

[lilo]

1. Agatha Christie - Miss Marple & Mystery (collection of short stories)
2. Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial
3. Anna Stothard - The Pink Hotel
4. Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go

5. Martina Cole - The Runaway

Absolute rubbish. I got this book from the library because the series of the is showing here at the moment, and is excellent, so I thought the book would be too... but it's not. I'm fine with violence and sex in books (and this book has a LOT of it), but if the words don't fit together properly that makes me grit my teeth. I don't know how it ever became a number one bestseller. No stars.

[Jeremy]

1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams - 229pp [ebook]
2. I Am Legend by Richard Matherson - 180pp [ebook]
3. The Drowned World by JG Ballard - 158pp [ebook]
4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding - 248pp [ebook]


This was amazing. I already knew the plot, but still really enjoyed it. Well written. Also gross, and much more gross in respect to the symbolism than the literal story. That part where they kill the sow/gang rape their mum was amusing, but terrible.

[Nathan]

Nice, that's one I had to read in high school and would like to check out again.

For me so far this year:

1. Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
2. Chuck Klosterman IV (essay collection) by Chuck Klosterman

[dp]

1. Legs by William Kennedy 318pg
2. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 276pg

[bigdirtyfoot]

I am glad we've already got some interest for this year's challenge. Everyone is doing such a great job already! Nathan, what did you think of Still Life with Woodpecker?

3. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins, 391 pg.
4. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins, 392 pg.

These are the last two books in The Hunger Games trilogy. Although I really enjoyed the series, it is extremely bleak and many of my friends describe it as "depressing." I thought it was really moving, and although I don't think Collins is the most skilled writer, she is a very effective storyteller and has crafted one of the best collections of characters I have read in any book.

[RM]

1. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (conversation around page 50 is a good read)
2. All Quiet on the Western Front, E.M. Remarque (love this one)
3. Deception Point, Dan Brown (already read it, but dan brown's stories are worth a once-over)
4. Glamorama, Bret Easton-Ellis (some serious stuff, not for the squeemish)

[Jeremy]

2. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 276pg

Thoughts?

4. Glamorama, Bret Easton-Ellis (some serious stuff, not for the squeemish)

I learnt the other day, and it blew my mind, that Bret Easton Ellis sued Ben Stiller and reached an out of court settlement over the fact that the movie Zoolander is a complete rip-off of Glamorama.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

2. Chuck Klosterman IV (essay collection) by Chuck Klosterman

Ha! I get a kick out of Chuck. I read his sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs last year

[dp]

1. Legs by William Kennedy 318pg
2. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 276pg
3. Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte 407pg

A book by an Italian who traveled around the eastern front in 41, 42 and 43. One of the most amazing WWII books I've ever read. Malaparte, as an Italian was able to travel around with Germans and get a look at things from an incredible perspective. At dinner with some of the Nazi leaders in Poland he writes:

"But at this juncture the door opened quietly and there appeared on a silver tray a roast goose, lying on its back amid a garland of potatoes roasted in fat. It was a round fat Polish goose with a flourishing bosom, full hips and a strong neck; and I cannot say why there came into my mind that its neck had not been cut in the good old-fashioned way, but that the goose had been shot against a wall by a platoon of SS men. I seemed to hear the harsh voice ordering "Fire!" and the sudden rattle of shots. No doubt the goose had fallen looking proudly into the eyes of the cruel oppressors of Poland."

I really liked that little section, and there are stirring and unexpected passages all throughout.

Jeremy- I read The Shallows because I saw it on your list. I think it generally confirmed things I already felt. The internet has some great things about it, but I'd do well to use it as little as humanly possible. Not sure the book needed to be quite as long as was.

Legs by William Kennedy is the first book in Kennedy's Albany series. They are (pretty much) un connected novels whose only connecting factor is that they take place in Albany. Really good book, this one looks into Jack "Legs" Diamond, a bootlegger in the prohibition era, and really delves into the minds of people in that world. I'll probably also be reading Ironweed by Kennedy later this year.

[Jeremy]

1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams - 229pp [ebook]
2. I Am Legend by Richard Matherson - 180pp [ebook]
3. The Drowned World by JG Ballard - 158pp [ebook]
4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding - 248pp [ebook]
5. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre - 338pp [ebook]


This book is amazingly impressive, and I recommend it to everybody. It details just how dishonest and misleading various groups, especially nutritionists, alternative medicine people, and the media are with science, and it explains how science works, and how to interpret the poor media stories.

Interestingly the book starts with an anecdote about a machine that supposedly sucks the toxins out of people by their feet. You put your feet in this pool of liquid, turn the machine on, and it sucks the stuff out. Scientific tests confirm it as bullshit. How does the machine supposedly work. Well the liquid is salty water, and the machine runs a slight current through it... Sounds remarkably familiar. Indeed one could almost imagine that anybody promoting electrolysed salt water as a cure for anything had read this book and followed the exact misleading strategies he outlines - references to non-peer reviewed studies, multiple measurements in studies, and then cherry picking the ones that show statistical improvements, needless and confusing scientific jargon, and of course, no rational mechanism for how the treatment could work. This is a book everybody should be forced to read.

[Jeremy]

1. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams - 229pp [ebook]
2. I Am Legend by Richard Matherson - 180pp [ebook]
3. The Drowned World by JG Ballard - 158pp [ebook]
4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding - 248pp [ebook]
5. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre - 338pp [ebook]
6. Galactic Human Handbook: Entering The New Time: Creating Planetary Groups by Sheldon Nidle and Jose Arguelles - 157pp


I have a policy where if people give me books that strongly contradict my view of the world, I make sure to read them. This is one such book. It's absolute rubbish - Deepak Chopra style new age bullshit. One of the authors claims to be in direct regular contact with aliens. It argues that the 7 day week, and the Gregorian calendar are hugely damaging to humanity. It carries messages of dolphin worship, and an interesting romanticism with Japanese culture (especially Manga). It makes a lot of very specific predictions about the future, all of which, we can now see are wrong (since most of the predictions are about what will happen between 1995 and 2005).

The only thing that really interested me about this book, is wondering whether the authors, and people who believe this rubbish, are just deluded, or are mentally ill. I certainly think that believing aliens are talking to you on a daily basis is evidence of serious mental illness, but I wonder whether the people who believe that person are as well? Maybe they are just gullible.

[dp]

1. Legs by William Kennedy 318pg
2. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 276pg
3. Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte 407pg
4. The Volga Rises in Europe by Curzio Malaparte 281pg

Where Kaputt was fictional, The Volga Rises in Europe is a two part collection of his journalistic dispatches back to Italy. The first half follows Malaparte as he rides along with a Wehrmacht mechanized column into the heart of the Ukraine right when Germany first declared war on Russia. The second half describes his time with a Finnish ski infantry unit during the Siege of Leningrad in the winter. Really great stuff. I could see somebody using the images in these two books and turning them into a screenplay.

Jeremy, whats your opinion on ebooks?