The 2013 Book Challenge

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DTank126
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by DTank126 » 12 Jul 2013 20:59

So much for reading a book every month. :roll:

1. Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 729 pg
2. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 303 pg
3. Post Office - Charles Bukowski 196 pg
4. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 180 pg
5. Infinite Jest - David F Wallace Too many pages

This was fun.... I definitely did not feel any fucking closure at the end and stayed up for 2 hours after finishing it just searching online for what other people thought about it. Too many run-on sentences for my taste. Mostly bc I read before I go to sleep and my brain's too tired to remember something that starts at the top of a page and doesn't complete it's thought until the next page.... Alright, there weren't any sentences that long, but you know what I mean. Anyway, this was good and I wanna read it again, but it's too damn long and I wanna read alotta other stuff.
Doug Tank

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Jeremy
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 14 Jul 2013 14:32

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp

I've been quite bored by the most recent of Palahnuik's books, because they seem so similar. Anyway I saw this for about $2 and thought I'd give him another go. It turns out not much as changed, and this was boring and predictable. It also didn't feel as tight as earlier books. Some of the recurring themes only lasted a few chapters, which was strange. Also I didn't get all of them. Like a theme develops of saying foreign language phrases and attributing them to the wrong language, but why? Is it meant to be a joke? Is it just indicating the ignorance of the character? I'm not sure. The only thing I did enjoy is the screenplays (based on the plot of the book, in typical "meta" Palahnuik fashion), which were full of hilariously bad sex scenes. "Meat shaft" and "love stick" - that kind of thing. Obviously deliberately bad (in line with the character writing it), but still really funny, and no doubt I'll be annoying my partner quoting them all week :P

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Pasquar » 19 Jul 2013 10:16

1) The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West 203 pg.
2) Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez 346 pg.
3) Whole Self/Whole World: Quality of Life in the 21st Century by Eric Gerinke 119 pg.
4) Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism by Cornel West 219 pg.
5) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman 245 pg.
6) The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson 189 pg.
7) The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in America by Winthrop Jordan 229 pg.
8 ) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass 99pg
9) La Raza: The Mexican Americans by Stan Steiner 392 pg
10) Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters 256 pg.
11) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig 406pg.
12) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins 265pg.
13) Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 371pg.
14) Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin 125 pg.
15) The Underdogs (Los de abajo) by Mariano Azuela 150 pg.

This book was... interesting, definitely not what I expected and I honestly didn't like it that much. It's a fictional account of events surrounding the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Knowing this before I read it and knowing that it was a fictional piece, I did nonetheless expect to learn a bit of history about the Mexican Revolution, but I didn't find much. What I found was that this book followed a slew of characters who were rebels fighting against the the federal government, but these rebels seemed to basically move from town to down and use the same repressive ways that the government they were fighting against perpetuated. The overall feeling was that many of the rebels did not care what was before or after the revolution, they just cared about the revolution, seemingly meaningless of what that even meant. I was surprised to find this in this book and was forced to reflect on what the reality during the Mexican Revolution actually was, apart from knowing the surface details of Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and the 1910 Revolution resulting in the 1917 Constitution. I didn't like it that much, but I definitely did benefit from reading it.
Nick Pasquarello


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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Pasquar » 19 Jul 2013 10:44

1) The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West 203 pg.
2) Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez 346 pg.
3) Whole Self/Whole World: Quality of Life in the 21st Century by Eric Gerinke 119 pg.
4) Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism by Cornel West 219 pg.
5) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman 245 pg.
6) The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson 189 pg.
7) The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in America by Winthrop Jordan 229 pg.
8 ) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass 99pg
9) La Raza: The Mexican Americans by Stan Steiner 392 pg
10) Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters 256 pg.
11) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig 406pg.
12) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins 265pg.
13) Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 371pg.
14) Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin 125 pg.
15) The Underdogs (Los de abajo) by Mariano Azuela 150 pg.
16) The Huey P. Newton Reader by Huey P. Newton with David Hilliard and Donald Weise 360 pg.

This was amazing. This was pretty much a bunch of selected writings from Huey Newton, containing some biographical information, his time in college, meeting Bobby Seal and forming the Black Panther Party, his trial and conviction of murdering a cop in Oakland, but mostly was a compilation of Newton, one oft he most prominent leaders of the Black Panthers in the last 60's/early 70's. It is a very important segment of personal and collective history to read about in my opinion. I found that throughout my secondary and college education, nothing was ever said about the more radical side of the fight for civil rights, including but not limited to Malcom X, Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, the more radical MLK, and the Panthers. Newton has many writings covering everything from the necessary unity of the black struggle with the feminist and gay liberation movements in the 70s, environmentalism, the Vietnam War, and the overall idea of the Unites States as not a nation-state, but rather an empire. Clearly the Panthers were considered a grave threat to U.S. imperial interests, given their openly Marxist approach and their 'survival tactics' (as Newton referred) including armed patrols of police in areas where police brutality of blacks was rampant. Newton formulated a theory that he termed inter-communalism which the Panthers used as their forming ideology.

On the whole the book was great and I learned a lot. A lot more can be critically seen in retrospect, such as Newton's affinity towards Mao in China and North Korea, seeing what became of that historically. But I do feel that the Panthers were doing something truly amazing back in their time, organizing the communities they lived in, and becoming a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, as the last chapter shows, the Panthers received the brunt of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI the CIA's Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO <http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro> under "Black Extremist") which targeted dissident groups opposed to U.S. policy. Hoover declared the Pather's free breakfast program the "biggest threat to National Security". So eventually, many false letters were sent and a lot of spying was done to create in-fighting within the BPP which, along with other factors, lead to their decline.
Nick Pasquarello


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Zac Miley
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Zac Miley » 20 Jul 2013 19:18

1. A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, John Perry
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
6. The Fold/Leibniz and the Baroque, Gilles Deleuze
7. Diaries 1914-1923, Franz Kafka
8. Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu
9. Richard Serra: Line Drawings, Gagosian gallery
10. Richard Serra: Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990, several contributors
11. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, several contributors
12. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
13. Animal Farm, George Orwell
14. Candide, Voltaire
15. The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Dave Hickey
16. The Prince, Machiavelli
17. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
18. The World as I Found It, Bruce Duffy
19. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
20. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

The recent 4 have all been extremely good for very different reasons.

I feel like I'm forgetting some. Oh well.

Currently on Dubliners.
Jay (8:06:01 PM): Bu-bu-buu-buug--Looks up, and the feeling goes away like a sneeze-bu-buuuh-BULLLSHITTT
Jay (8:06:14 PM): *wipes bellybutton*

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Pasquar » 21 Jul 2013 09:54

Zach, could I get some brief thoughts on Moby Dick? I just started it a little while ago.
Nick Pasquarello


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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Zac Miley » 21 Jul 2013 12:41

Sure. To be honest, I am fairly biased - I've been particularly interested in whales this year for some reason and have done some gigantic drawings of them (I just graduated from art school), so I already had a high opinion of it before I started.

I think it is easily one of the top 5 novels, if not books, of all time. Easily. It is one of the most thoroughly researched and scholarly novels I think you will ever find - every single page just exudes erudition. It is mind-boggling. It was difficult for me to grasp as I worked my way through it, and so it took me a long time to read in comparison to other books of similar size. Metaphorically, I think you'll be able to find some personal value in it (I am mostly interested in whales because of their seemingly endless allegorical ability), which I think is a goal of most good novelists. The narrative itself, I thought, was fairly traditional and easy. I think that's all I can say against it.

You've already started it, but I would suggest getting an annotated edition if you can find it - it helped me a lot.
Jay (8:06:01 PM): Bu-bu-buu-buug--Looks up, and the feeling goes away like a sneeze-bu-buuuh-BULLLSHITTT
Jay (8:06:14 PM): *wipes bellybutton*

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Jeremy
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 21 Jul 2013 17:33

I found the amount of information a little annoying. It felt like it was a non-fiction book with a brief story on the side. Given the time it was written, it has a lot of errors too, so it's not even like you're learning anything, or you have to look things up to find out which bits are true and which aren't. I did enjoy the actual story though. The intro was particularly amusing and captured me. I read it while spending a month sailing down the East Coast of Australia too, which added to the experience I think.

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Jeremy
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 29 Jul 2013 15:50

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp
16. The Happiest Baby Guide To Great Sleep by Harvey Karp - 373pp [ebook - google]

Obviously an important issue for new parents (due September). I found this book helpful, but also a little annoying. At times it recommends quite questionable treatments, aromatherapy etc. and it has an annoying habit of providing scientific evidence for some claims, but not others. There are no references either. It also frequently confuses correlation with causation. While obviously you do need to demonstrate a correlation to demonstrate causation, in many of these instances no plausible explanation for the relationship is offered, and it seems very plausible that third factors, or even a reverse causation is in place. For example babies that sleep less are more likely to develop ADHD, but that doesn't mean a lack of sleep causes ADHD - it could be that the lack of sleep is an early symptom of what will turn out to be ADHD. Without references or explanations, it's hard to accept the link.

The book also repeats itself very regularly. There are really only about a dozen specific tips that it gives, but they're repeated over and over through the book, and offered in different situations, sometimes even with different names. This probably helps me remember the advice better though, but it did get tedious. I also got a little bored towards the end, since it deals with sleeping advice from new-born to about 5 years old, and that seems a long way away for me. Not that this is a criticism of the book, but if anybody wants to read this for the sake of the content then maybe it's better to read the specific sections as you get to them.

Anyway flawed but hopefully helpful (the proof will be in the pudding, but I guess with these kinds of things it's impossible to know whether they've actually worked).

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 29 Jul 2013 19:25

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp
16. The Happiest Baby Guide To Great Sleep by Harvey Karp - 373pp [ebook - google]
17. The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish by Christopher Hitchens - 28pp [ebook - google]

I'm sure I've written at length as to how much of a fan I am of Hitchens generally, so I won't bother going into that. This is more of a pamphlet than a book, but I bought it as an ebook, and I'm struggling, so I'm counting it anyway :P It was quite dense though. I note that the print version is actually about 60 pages, which sounds more accurate. I loved it anyway. If you want to read some arguments about the lunacy of monarchies, generally or the specific Commonwealth monarchy, this is probably the place to start. It's one of those things that strikes me as absurd that there's even debate about the state sanctioned existence of monarchies, let alone the fact that the proponents are somehow winning (in Australia, winning despite the majority being in favour of becoming a republic). I have no doubt that eventually all countries will give up this kind of government in totality (as opposed to modifying it to symbolism).

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Zac Miley » 30 Jul 2013 10:32

1. A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, John Perry
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
6. The Fold/Leibniz and the Baroque, Gilles Deleuze
7. Diaries 1914-1923, Franz Kafka
8. Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu
9. Richard Serra: Line Drawings, Gagosian gallery
10. Richard Serra: Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990, several contributors
11. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, several contributors
12. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
13. Animal Farm, George Orwell
14. Candide, Voltaire
15. The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Dave Hickey
16. The Prince, Machiavelli
17. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
18. The World as I Found It, Bruce Duffy
19. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
20. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
21. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
22. Dubliners, James Joyce

The Trial next.
Jay (8:06:01 PM): Bu-bu-buu-buug--Looks up, and the feeling goes away like a sneeze-bu-buuuh-BULLLSHITTT
Jay (8:06:14 PM): *wipes bellybutton*

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 31 Jul 2013 01:56

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp
16. The Happiest Baby Guide To Great Sleep by Harvey Karp - 373pp [ebook - google]
17. The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish by Christopher Hitchens - 28pp [ebook - google]
18. Killing us Softly: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine by Paul Offit - 182pp [ebook - google]

Fantastic read. Obviously preaching to the converted somewhat, but there was still a lot of information I took from it. A book about the evils of alternative medicine. It was quite enraging actually, the number of stories about people who have died unnecessarily because of supplements and quacks. Also it's amazing how implicated Oprah Winfrey is in promoting many of these frauds. It's a very engaging, and sometimes humorous book, and very comprehensively referenced. I think if you have the remoteness of belief that vitamin pills, antioxidents, other health supplements, acupuncture, homoeopathy, chiropractic, or the teachings of Deepak Chopra, Jenny McCarthy, Suzanne Somers or Dr Oz could be beneficial, you should read this book - not just to see that they don't work, but that they may contribute to your death.

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 07 Aug 2013 18:22

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp
16. The Happiest Baby Guide To Great Sleep by Harvey Karp - 373pp [ebook - google]
17. The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish by Christopher Hitchens - 28pp [ebook - google]
18. Killing us Softly: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine by Paul Offit - 182pp [ebook - google]
19. Dodger by Terry Pratchett - 366pp

Fun read, but a little formulaic and predictable. Very standard Pratchett. I found the historical references interesting, but also felt like I was probably missing a lot. He does give a bit of an overview in the acknowledgements at the end though.

I have 31 books to go in 145 days, which is ~4.7 days per book. It's tough, but I think still achievable, although I have started reading Atlas Shrugged, and I don't think I'll get through that in under 5 days :P I seem to be always reading 2 books at once these days, a hard copy and an ebook, so I'll try to keep up with the ebooks and take my time on AS.

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by bigdirtyfoot » 09 Aug 2013 19:20

15. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, J. R. R. Tolkien, 330 pg.

Really enjoyed this one. I've read parts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and was inspired to read this book after watching the movie adaptation recently. I remember trying to start it when I was a young child but wasn't very interested. It's too bad it took me this long to give it another shot, because it's a great book. The characters and plot are fully developed and the writing style is easy to follow while simultaneously capturing my attention. I'm looking forward to reading the full Lord of the Rings trilogy, although it will most likely take me a while to get through.
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Zac Miley » 10 Aug 2013 11:16

1. A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, John Perry
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
6. The Fold/Leibniz and the Baroque, Gilles Deleuze
7. Diaries 1914-1923, Franz Kafka
8. Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu
9. Richard Serra: Line Drawings, Gagosian gallery
10. Richard Serra: Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990, several contributors
11. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, several contributors
12. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
13. Animal Farm, George Orwell
14. Candide, Voltaire
15. The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Dave Hickey
16. The Prince, Machiavelli
17. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
18. The World as I Found It, Bruce Duffy
19. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
20. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
21. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
22. Dubliners, James Joyce
23. The Trial, Franz Kafka

Glory next.
Jay (8:06:01 PM): Bu-bu-buu-buug--Looks up, and the feeling goes away like a sneeze-bu-buuuh-BULLLSHITTT
Jay (8:06:14 PM): *wipes bellybutton*

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by dp » 12 Aug 2013 09:35

1. A Life of Picasso: 1907-1917 by John Richardson 500pg
2. A Life of Picasso: 1917-1932 by John Richardson 592pg
3. Vertigo by W.G. Sebald 263pg
4. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson 116pg
5. Pastoralia by George Saunders 188pg
6. Campo Santo by W.G. Sebald 221pg
7. The Success and Failure of Picasso by John Berger 210pg
8. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders 179pg
9. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald 298pg
10. Quick Studies: The Best of Lingua Franca edited by Alexander Star 512pg
11. The Man of Feeling by Javier Marias 182pg
12. How Fiction Works by James Wood 265pg
13. Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner 181pg
14. The Unknown Matisse: The Early Years 1869-1908 by Hilary Spurling 480pg
15. Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard 208pg
16. On the Natural History of Destruction by W.G. Sebald 202pg
17. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse 286pg
18. At the Mind’s Limits by Jean Amery 111pg
19. Mating by Norman Rush 480pg
20. The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald 296pg
21. 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe by Mary Elise Sarotte 321pg
22. Whites by Norman Rush 150pg
23. The Art of Making Magazines edited by Victor Navasky and Evan Cornog 179pg
24. Mortals by Norman Rush 715pg
25. Open City by Teju Cole 259pg
26. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut 191pg
27. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon 292pg
28. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley 371pg
29. Herzog by Saul Bellow 371pg
30. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy 302pg
31. East of Eden by John Steinbeck 601pg
32. To the Lighthouse by Virgina Woolf by 209pg
33. Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow 260pg
34. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano 648pg
35. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges 565pg
36. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides 513pg

Books books books.
Danny P.

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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Jeremy » 17 Aug 2013 18:37

1. The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson - 390pp
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - 272pp [ebook - google]
3. The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy by W. Allan Walker - 241pp [ebook pdf]
4. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier - 192pp
5. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - 288pp [ebook - google]
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - 437pp
7. Extinct Boids by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy - 240pp
8. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 384pp [ebook - google]
9. The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 570pp
10. Sideshow; Dumbing down democracy by Lindsay Tanner - 202pp
11. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 345pp [ebook - google]
12. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott - 96pp
13. The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - 424pp
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - 320pp
15. Tell-All by Chuck Palahnuik - 174pp
16. The Happiest Baby Guide To Great Sleep by Harvey Karp - 373pp [ebook - google]
17. The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish by Christopher Hitchens - 28pp [ebook - google]
18. Killing us Softly: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine by Paul Offit - 182pp [ebook - google]
19. Dodger by Terry Pratchett - 366pp
20. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody - 264pp [ebook - google]

I read this when I was a teenager, but have gone back to reading the series since the concluding book in the series (of 7) is supposed to be released this year, and I'd like to re-read the others before I read that. It's a plot heavily influenced by John Wyndam's The Chrysalids, but a bit more serious I guess. Australian writer too. I guess I didn't enjoy this as much now as when I first read it, because of the anti-technology/anti-science themes. Still it's pretty engaging and fun.

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bigdirtyfoot
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by bigdirtyfoot » 22 Aug 2013 16:50

16. Right Where You Are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson, 207 pg.

This is an interesting blend of fiction and non-fiction from RAW. Instead of choosing one or the other, each chapter alternates between a completely incoherent fiction tale, and the usual intellectual jargon found in many of RAW's non-fiction books. I can't say it lives up to The Illuminatus! Trilogy or Cosmic Trigger, but I feel like it's right up there with Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy. Definitely a great book, but won't be entirely memorable in the long run.
David Wilder

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Pasquar
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Pasquar » 23 Aug 2013 07:41

1) The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West 203 pg.
2) Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez 346 pg.
3) Whole Self/Whole World: Quality of Life in the 21st Century by Eric Gerinke 119 pg.
4) Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism by Cornel West 219 pg.
5) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman 245 pg.
6) The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson 189 pg.
7) The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in America by Winthrop Jordan 229 pg.
8 ) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass 99pg
9) La Raza: The Mexican Americans by Stan Steiner 392 pg
10) Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters 256 pg.
11) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig 406pg.
12) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins 265pg.
13) Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 371pg.
14) Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin 125 pg.
15) The Underdogs (Los de abajo) by Mariano Azuela 150 pg.
16) The Huey P. Newton Reader by Huey P. Newton with David Hilliard and Donald Weise 360 pg.
17) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen 298 pg.

Wow, it's been way too long since I've finished a book. This was a good one, Tannen is a sociolinguist who focuses this book on the differences between men and women and how we talk and communicate with each other. Definitely more of an academic book, but very readable IMO. She forms a theory which posits that men communicate mostly through the lens of status whereas women communicate through the lens of connection. This plays out in interesting ways when we observe men and women communicate within genders and between genders.

In other book news, I shelved Moby Dick after about 140 pages. Thought it was interesting at first. but once they got out to sea, it got super boring in my opinion and couldn't hold my interest.

Also, currently reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, loving it! Should be done soon.
Nick Pasquarello


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Zac Miley
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Re: The 2013 Book Challenge

Post by Zac Miley » 24 Aug 2013 09:33

1. A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, John Perry
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
6. The Fold/Leibniz and the Baroque, Gilles Deleuze
7. Diaries 1914-1923, Franz Kafka
8. Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu
9. Richard Serra: Line Drawings, Gagosian gallery
10. Richard Serra: Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990, several contributors
11. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, several contributors
12. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
13. Animal Farm, George Orwell
14. Candide, Voltaire
15. The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Dave Hickey
16. The Prince, Machiavelli
17. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
18. The World as I Found It, Bruce Duffy
19. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
20. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
21. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
22. Dubliners, James Joyce
23. The Trial, Franz Kafka
24. Glory, Vladimir Nabokov
25. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
26. Wittgenstein, P.M.S. Hacker
27. On Certainty, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Jay (8:06:01 PM): Bu-bu-buu-buug--Looks up, and the feeling goes away like a sneeze-bu-buuuh-BULLLSHITTT
Jay (8:06:14 PM): *wipes bellybutton*

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