The 2013 Book Challenge

[bigdirtyfoot]

Great to see new people joining in is right! Welcome Jon. Looking forward to your list.

2. Neuromancer, William Gibson, 276 pg.

This novel was first recommended to me by my university Science Fiction Literature professor in 2007. I read it during the summer following that Spring semester, and was it was a complete shock for me. I wasn't prepared for its unique language, strange settings, or references to obscure psychotropic drugs. While I enjoyed it, I didn't understand any of it. Here we are five and a half years later, and I was able to comprehend more of it the second go-round, and I found myself really enjoying it. Which is a good thing, because I plan on reading all of Gibson's novels this year, in order.

Neuromancer is the first novel in the Sprawl Trilogy, and it is Gibson's first published novel. Apparently he came up with several characters and settings in his short stories that came beforehand. I may get into those after I finish his novels. The book is about a rogue computer hacker named Henry Case who is recruited by street mercenary Molly Millions for underground side work with a shadowy ex-military officer named Armitage. After agreeing to the work, Case is drugged and neurotoxin sacs are implanted into his body that will bust if he does not complete the job. Armitage tells Molly and Case to steal a ROM module that contains the consciousness of one of Case's former mentors, who becomes an ally to Case throughout the rest of the novel. Gibson does an amazing job of creating believable and compelling characters, visualizable landscapes, and adrenaline-producing events in Neuromancer.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in science fiction, although it does have its own language that can be difficult to grok. I had to read a little slower than my normal pace, but I enjoyed every page and look forward to the rest of what Gibson has to offer.

[Jeremy]

I think with all the Gibson I've read, I've found it difficult to get into the book due to the language and trying to remember what's going on with the multiple stories, but enjoyed them once I've been reading the book for long enough to understand what's happening


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]

In the long list of books I feel compelled to read because of their influence, and part of my reading more literature crusade. I found a lot of it pretty boring, and I already knew the story quite well, having watched the BBC tv show as a child. I just wasn't particularly interested in the characters and romance, which I guess was probably predictable, but it very funny at times, and I'm glad I can say I've read it now

[Pasquar]

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.

This was a really good book that thoroughly breaks down the different waves of Latin American immigrants and their respective paths to the United States, highlighting the pivotal role the U.S. has played in encouraging migration through foreign and domestic policy. It covers Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Central American (Guatemala, El Salvador, & Nicaragua), Dominican Republic, Panamanian, and Colombian migration, which are all very interesting in their respective ways.

This is definitely a pretty dense, academic-style book. I took a class on Latino History in college and I wish this was the book we used. I hear it's used in a lot of similar classes and it should be, it does a great job of giving an overall picture to the Latin American influx in our nation's history.

Juan Gonzalez is himself Puerto Rican and makes a point to talk about the complexities of Puerto Rican colonization as well as their current status and issues concerning that.

[dp]

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

Thanks for the recommendation Asmus, I liked this quite a lot. I disagreed with a lot of what he said, but I also agreed with a lot of it and it made me think about different periods of Picasso's art in ways I hadn't considered before. His more blatantly Marxist comments sound very silly and dated, but overall I thought this was a very worthwhile book.

[Zac Miley]

1. A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, John Perry
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Haven't read it since middle school, liked it just as little.

'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger is another of his more popular books if you're interested in more of his work, Danny.

[dp]

Hmm, it seems I've forgotten how to post images on modified...

I supposed this kinda has spoilers, so if you haven't read The Great Gatsby, maybe don't open the link?

http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/gatsbysm.png

[Zac Miley]

haha, yeah. pretty much.

(it's [img]before%20and[/img] after.)

[Pasquar]

It's (Great Gatsby) probably worth a re-read, I enjoyed in in high-school but I thought the trailer for the movie didn't look anything like what I remembered..

[Outsider]

Funny, that. I was just reading Gatsby too. I'd found an old paperback copy of it some months back, and I'd left it laying about my bedroom for a while -- I'd sort of been curious to read it, but maybe never would have if not for this "50-book-challenge" business. And then I saw the preview for the movie coming out in a few months, so I figured now is the time... Also, there is that song by Bob Dylan, "Ballad of a Thin Man" where he says:
You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones

So, I'd wanted to read it for that reason too, because Bob Dylan is the king, and if he name-drops F. Scott Fitzgerald, than I gotta know a little bit more about him...

Anyway, I didn't like the book at all. I'd heard of this book from the time I was very young, and the name keeps coming around again and again, so I figured that it must be very good. Now I can't see why. I'm not completely sure what the phrase "over-written" means exactly, but it came to mind in the first chapter. Otherwise, well, whatever. I'm still curious to see the movie --- perhaps the movie will provide me with some extra insight --- a point-of-view on the novel that I missed when left to my own devices... Whatever. I'm zero-for-two on liking the book's I've read this year, I hope that streak doesn't last much longer.

[Zac Miley]

Hey Jon - I don't know if you've read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, but I think it is the most accurate description of Fitzgerald there is. I would suggest it if you're interested.

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

[dp]

Zac what did you think of A Farewell to Arms? I read it like 4 years ago or so and I remember hating it, but I was younger and stupider and don't have a solid memory as to why I hated it. Which isn't to say I wouldn't hate it now, I find some Hemingway somewhat silly and unappealing, however I absolutely loved For Whom the Bell Tolls (which I plan to read again this year hopefully) so I'm thinking maybe Farewell might be worth looking at again?

[dp]

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

Much much much better than Pastoralia. The book is a collection of short stories and a novella. I thought that every short story in this collection really packed a punch. The novella, in comparison, was quite weak.

George Saunders is an interesting guy. He got his degree in some sort of Mineral Engineering thing and spent some time working for an oil company in Sumatra. After coming back to the US he spent a number of years bouncing around working minimum wage jobs and just being crapped on. He ended up at the MFA program in Syracuse, married a fellow student, and then used his former knowledge as a engineer to get a job as a writer of technical stuff for some manufacturing company or something which he did for a few years as he wrote in his spare time. Now he is frequently published in the New Yorker and teaches at the Syracuse MFA program.

[Zac Miley]

Yeah, George Saunders is kind of a funky writer. Civilwarland was very up and down in my opinion.

Farewell to Arms is definitely not one of Hemingway's better books - it felt a bit like he relied too much on factual information from his past in this one (which I know he does a lot), and it lacked much imagination. In contrast, The Sun Also Rises is more subtle and "writerly". The story itself was ok, and a lot of his descriptions are just absolutely perfect (as usual), but there was also a lot of heavy-handed imagery. If you're looking to read Hemingway, I'd read something else.

[dp]

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

Ahhh. Sebald rules. He rules. He rules. The Rings of Saturn has been my favorite so far.

[Jeremy]

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]

A good science based guide to what to eat before, during and after having a baby. I appreciated the references and honest expressions of uncertainty. I think any health book (or science book generally) that attempts to claim certainty over issues should be viewed with some scepticism. I guess though, most of this book is just about having a healthy diet and doing enough exercise, while very little is pregnancy specific. Anyway, expect there to be an underlying theme in what I read over the next 7 or 8 months

[Pasquar]

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.

This book was amazing. Eric Greinke is a Clinical Social Worker who has worked with emotionally disturbed children for decades. He fluidly breaks down different factors of quality of life pertaining to death, love, materialism, technology, parenting/importance of children, entho and anthropo -centrism, and our universal consciousness.

This could easily be read in a day, but I really took my time with it. He has some amazing perspective-changing philosophical statements/phrases/quotes that are worth ample reflection, consideration, and discussion as well as pretty comprehensive empirical and implicit evidence supporting his positions, particularly in regards to children/parenting.

[Pasquar]

I don't think this is a topic worthy of another thread, so I'll just ask here.

What are people's thoughts on kindles/reading on ipads/ebooks? I've noticed Jeremy has read a number of ebooks and I'm just curious.

I've never read a book apart from the physical/tangible, print versions. I find reading on any screen a bit stressful on the eyes and couldn't imagine reading a whole book that way.

[Jeremy]

I don't have a problem what format I read a book as, but I tend to use different formats at different times. It's worth noting that Kindle's aren't back-lit and so you need a light source, and they really are similar to reading a book (unless you have sentimental feelings about books), except you can carry a lot around without much weight. I particularly found having a Kindle useful when I was doing a lot of travelling for work/uni. The long battery charge and small weight made it much better than carrying books when you're doing off track hiking through Kakadu (when I didn't have one, but saw the benefits), or any kind of restricted weight travelling.

For day to day reading, whether I read on kindle or book depends only on available formats, and what I happen to pick up (many of the books I've read lately, I've had both ebook and physical book copies, and actually read a mixture, but tried to indicate the format I used most, in order to avoid confusion).

The other main format I read ebooks is on my phone, which I primarily do at night when my girlfriend is sleeping, because if you set ebooks to "night mode" and turn down the brightness, it's not disturbing and I tend to go to sleep after she does. Some of these books I read with a mixture of formats, but mainly I will have one book I'm reading on my phone at nights, and a second that is either physical or kindle.

Reading ebooks has led to my book purchasing habits changing. Ebooks are available illegally in vast quantities, and I think it would be against the forum rules for me to say that I only pay for a few, so I won't say anything on how I acquire them. I do however tend to only buy physical books that are ones I particularly want to have a hard copy of, and tend to mainly buy hardcovers or particularly nice editions. I guess I buy books now based on whether I want the actual physical book, and not so much merely whether I want to read it (although I either have, and really enjoyed it, or know enough about it, that I think it's very important to read). This is good because I own many hundreds of books that I haven't read, so ebooks have helped met get control of my book buying addiction

There are also a number of books where the physical copy is just much more useful - this is particularly the case for field guides and science reference/text books. When I need a book like this, I always choose the physical copy. There are online alternatives, but they're webpages or aps, rather than ebooks, and I find the ebook format is the worst format for that kind of thing (although I'm sometimes reduced to using it).

[dp]

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

I've been working on this one on and off for a few weeks. I was reading about Aaron Swartz after he died and saw some reference to Lingua Franca, a magazine from the 90s about academic life which he liked very much. It looked really interesting and I saw that my library had this book of collected articles from the magazine.

Here's a little excerpt from wikipedia about the magazine"

[The magazine's founder] "saw a niche for vivid reporting about the academic world and especially about its many personal feuds and intellectual controversies." Kittay told the newspaper, "I was an academic who was very, very hungry for information about what made my profession so alive, where people became passionate about abstract ideas.

Very interesting magazine. Something I wish was still around.

[Zac Miley]

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