Author Topic: 50 Books in 2018!  (Read 115558 times)

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #200 on: February 23, 2018, 06:17:51 AM »
1. The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
2. The Girl with a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. & 5.  Mémoires d’Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
6. In the Land of the White Death by Valerian Albanov
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8., 9. & 10. Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
11. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I really enjoy this one. It reminded me in a strange way of Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander series. The Road is set in a different century with many fewer characters, but like M&C, what seems to be a tale of adventure actually turns out to be all about relationships and language.

Off the Wheel

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #201 on: February 23, 2018, 06:57:41 PM »
1. Leviathan Wakes - James Corey
2. Caliban's War - James Corey
3. Abaddon's  Gate - James Corey
4. The Sun & Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur (broke up the space opera with some feminist poetry)
5. Cibola Burn - James Corey
6. Nemesis Game - James Corey
7. Babylon's Ashes - James Corey
8. Excess Male - Maggie Shen King --> interesting premise. Ok execution. I was hoping for more.
9. The Power - Naomi Alderman --> another interesting premise, ok execution. Ending makes up for it though.
10. The Rook - Daniel O'Malley --> fun fantasy mystery.
11. The Lost Plot - Genevieve Cogman --> this is apparently the 4th in a series, and how I missed a fantasy series where the heroine is a sassy Librarian (and where the librarians have special powers!) I will never know.
12. The History of Bees - Maja Lunde --> ok. "Climate change fiction" (cli-fi) which I find hard to read. A little too real.
13. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman --> didn't like this one much at all.
14. Persepolis Rising - James Corey --> the most recent in the Expanse series! LOVED IT. So sad there are no more to read. May have to pick up the other series from the authors.
15. Nocturnal Animals (aka Tony & Susan) by Austin Wright --> picked up on a whim because the movie was supposed to be good. A very strange, interesting but upsetting book. One of those novels where the characters are pretty awful and what they portend about humanity is not very good.
16. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. I LOVE teen drama, when well written, and this is that. I don't know how I missed it.
16. The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll. Not as ogod as the Sittenfield, but still enjoyed it. Also, reading both of these back to back brought to a very visceral teenage place. I am terrified to ever have a teenage girl.

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #202 on: February 23, 2018, 07:25:32 PM »
1. How not to die by Michael Greger md. Book espousing a plant-based (vegan) diet.
2. Now that you mention it by Kristan Higgins - more romance!
3. Unprocessed by Megan Kimble. A thoughtful "year-of" book in which she eats only unprocessed food for 12th months, and uses it as a vehicle for discovery and discussion about our food systems.
4. My year of less by Cait Flanders (audiobook). Another "year-of" book in which the author documents her year of a shopping ban. A thoughtful and sometimes heart-wrenching exploration of our urges to consume and how to find balance despite them. I'm going to adapt this approach for Lent this year.
5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Fun, Victorian/steampunk/magic book about a plucky, sassy protagonist Librarian who works for the Library and rescues books from alternate worlds. First in a promising series.
6. On Second Thought by Krista Higgins (more romance)
7. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Odd take on televised sci-fi series and characters with different lives in alternate realities. Quirky and fun.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. (Audiobook) Focuses on the unconscious snap judgements and decisions that shape our lives.

Serendip

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #203 on: February 24, 2018, 08:48:27 AM »
1. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright) *IMO very good!
2. Plastic Free : How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too (Beth Terry)
3. Taking the Leap : Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (Pema Chodron)
4. Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Hurari)*

5. Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement (Katy Bowman)
6. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson)
7. The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store (Cait Flanders)
 *more personal drama than I expected, I thought it would be about her no-shopping challenge

8. The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection (Scott C. Anderson) *quite liked this, neuroscience and food
9. Why Isn't My Brain Working: A revolutionary understanding of brain decline and effective strategies to recover your brain's health ( Datis Kharrazian)
10. The Back of the Turtle (Thomas King) * realized I hadn't read any fiction so I picked this one from the library. The Governor General's award winner and an interesting eco-drama, well written..makes me want to find more fiction!

11. The War of Art  (Steven Pressfield)
12. Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School (Andrew Hallam) *someone on this forum recommended this to learn about investing..still got a little swamped down in it but will keep plugging through

13. Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow (Yuval Noah Harari)--still reading this one: the follow-up to Sapiens


ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #204 on: February 24, 2018, 10:48:47 AM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #205 on: February 24, 2018, 03:15:39 PM »
1. A Torch Against The Night- Sabaa Tahir- 1/8/18
--I cannot wait until the next one. Excellent books.
2. Hounded - Kevin Hearne - 1/17/18
3. Hexed - Kevin Hearne- 1/23/18
--fun short reads. Doritos for the brain. Not quite as good as Dresden, but still entertaining.
4. Hammered- Kevin Hearne- 2/9/18
--this one wasn't quite as good at the first two, but it was readable. Hope the next is better again.
5. Lab Girl- Hope Jahren- 2/24/18
--God this took me forever. It just was not compelling for me. Got better at the half way point, but just not my cup of tea. My book club all loved it, though, so maybe I'm alone on this one! I think it would be way more interesting to people who haven't worked in research before, because it'd be 'exploring an unknown life' style.

6. Tricked- Kevin Hearne

sweetkerryline

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #206 on: February 25, 2018, 12:10:27 AM »
I am also in.

1. Nonverbal Messages: Cracking the Code: My Life's Pursuit (Paul Ekman)**
2. The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas)*****
3. Yes Please (Amy Poehler)***
4. Dear Martin (Nic Stone)*****

5. The Automatic Millionaire (David Bach)*****
6. Go Tell it on the Mountain (James Baldwin)*****

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #207 on: February 25, 2018, 01:31:59 PM »
Finally finished Sapiens. at 416 rather dense pages, that was not a fast read!
(Good thing I got a head start in January.)


How did you like Sapiens? I was thinking about adding it to my list.

I really liked it. It's pretty readable, and has a lot of big ideas.

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #208 on: February 25, 2018, 01:35:14 PM »
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse

8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!

Next up:
Debt Free U
Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
Lavinia, Le Guin
Delusions of Gender (I think this was a recommendation from Bracken Joy?)

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #209 on: February 25, 2018, 02:54:05 PM »
Delusions of Gender (I think this was a recommendation from Bracken Joy?)

Haha, definitely cannot claim credit for that one! =) I don't do a whole lot of non fiction. Probably should, though.

ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #210 on: February 25, 2018, 05:47:11 PM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders

BZB

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #211 on: February 25, 2018, 07:08:33 PM »
Oof! At this rate, I'm not getting to 50 books...
Trumpet of the Swan - E.B. White
2. Deep Work - Cal Newport
3. Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich
4. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon - couldn't get into it, so finished about half of it

I just put in some more holds through the library and got one book by Hoopla from the library.

formerlydivorcedmom

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #212 on: February 26, 2018, 07:39:39 AM »
This is my first year to track what I've read.  I'm at 19 and counting for the year... I'm thinking about setting myself  a subset challenge of reading 50 nonfiction books this year.

Fiction

1) How to Lose a Bride in One Night                    Sophie Jordan
2) Viking Unchained                                            Sandra Hill
3) The Tattoeed Duke                                            Maya Rodale
4) Chasing Christmas Eve                                    Jill Shalvis
5) The Pleasures of Passion                                    Sabrina Jeffries
6) Burning Up                                                    Susan Anderson
7) Promise Not to Tell                                             Jayne Ann Krentz
8) In Scandal They Wed                                     Sophie Jordan
9) One Night With You                                     Sophie Jordan
10) Surrender to Me                                             Sophie Jordan
11) Too Wicked to Tame                                     Sophie Jordan
12) The Heir and The Spare                             Maya Rodale
13) A Groom of One's Own                                     Maya Rodale
14) The Rogue and the Rival                             Maya Rodale
15) Wallflower Gone Wild                                     Maya Rodale   
16) What a Wallflower Wants                             Maya Rodale   
17) The Wicked Wallflower                                     Maya Rodale
18) A Tale of Two Lovers                                     Maya Rodale   
19) The Brat                                                     Lynsey Sands

Nonfiction
1) Her majesty : Queen Elizabeth II and her court                                   Robert Hardman    - Very interesting look at what goes on behind the scenes in the palace; dated
2) On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into some Strangely Related Families   Jeremy Paxman
3) Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor                                   Anne Edwards
4) Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley                           Alison Weir  -  This book should have been cut in half. 577 pages was absolutely ridiculous - and Darnley died on page about 300.
5) Material World: A Global Family Portrait                                                   Peter Menzel - My kids read part of this with me.  It was a wonderful look at how similar and different families are across the world (as of 25 years ago).  I'd love to see this updated.
6) The Queen Mother:  The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon who Became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother   by Lady Colin Campbell - This was a gossipy, meandering, name-dropping book I wish I hadn't read.

in progress:
The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman

diapasoun

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #213 on: February 26, 2018, 08:04:13 AM »
Oof! At this rate, I'm not getting to 50 books...
Trumpet of the Swan - E.B. White
2. Deep Work - Cal Newport
3. Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich
4. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon - couldn't get into it, so finished about half of it

I just put in some more holds through the library and got one book by Hoopla from the library.

Ohhh how did you like the new Erdrich? I've been eyeing it...

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #214 on: February 26, 2018, 07:53:30 PM »
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!

Next up:
Debt Free U
Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
Lavinia, Le Guin
Delusions of Gender (I think this was a recommendation from Bracken Joy?)

10. Glass Houses, Penny. Kinda fun recommendation from a librarian, but when I start a request with "I'm trying to read 50 books this year", which part of that suggests that a 400-page book would be a good recommendation?

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #215 on: February 26, 2018, 09:55:34 PM »
1. How not to die by Michael Greger md. Book espousing a plant-based (vegan) diet.
2. Now that you mention it by Kristan Higgins - more romance!
3. Unprocessed by Megan Kimble. A thoughtful "year-of" book in which she eats only unprocessed food for 12th months, and uses it as a vehicle for discovery and discussion about our food systems.
4. My year of less by Cait Flanders (audiobook). Another "year-of" book in which the author documents her year of a shopping ban. A thoughtful and sometimes heart-wrenching exploration of our urges to consume and how to find balance despite them. I'm going to adapt this approach for Lent this year.
5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Fun, Victorian/steampunk/magic book about a plucky, sassy protagonist Librarian who works for the Library and rescues books from alternate worlds. First in a promising series.
6. On Second Thought by Krista Higgins (more romance)
7. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Odd take on televised sci-fi series and characters with different lives in alternate realities. Quirky and fun.
8. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. (Audiobook) Focuses on the unconscious snap judgements and decisions that shape our lives.
9. The New One-Minute Manager by Blanchard & Johnson (Audiobook). Blessedly short. May have seemed revolutionary when it was originally published, now feels like "duh." But: concise.

Urchina

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #216 on: February 26, 2018, 09:58:48 PM »
Finally finished Sapiens. at 416 rather dense pages, that was not a fast read!
(Good thing I got a head start in January.)


How did you like Sapiens? I was thinking about adding it to my list.

I really liked it. It's pretty readable, and has a lot of big ideas.

I read Sapiens last year as part of a book club. There were big ideas for sure, but I really wished he'd backed them up with more evidence. I felt like the book was mostly opinion.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2018, 10:02:45 PM by Urchina »

bucketsofrain

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #217 on: February 27, 2018, 09:04:55 AM »
1.) Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott
2.) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
3.) Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabo
4.) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5.) You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
6.) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
7.) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
8.) My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
9.) Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
10.) Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
11.) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
12.) Red Winter by Anneli Furmark
13.) Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14.) Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
15.) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16.) What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #218 on: February 27, 2018, 09:42:45 AM »
Finally finished Sapiens. at 416 rather dense pages, that was not a fast read!
(Good thing I got a head start in January.)


How did you like Sapiens? I was thinking about adding it to my list.

I really liked it. It's pretty readable, and has a lot of big ideas.

I read Sapiens last year as part of a book club. There were big ideas for sure, but I really wished he'd backed them up with more evidence. I felt like the book was mostly opinion.

Yes,  I automatically mentally substitute "Your hypothesis" for "this is the truth" and it makes me less grumpy. There were plenty of unsubstantiated theories in there, but I find making the mental substitution helps. (Also, in some cases I've read more about some of his theories elsewhere, and thought they were reasonably well-grounded, so he was maybe trying to keep it to 400+ pages.)

Adventine

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #219 on: February 27, 2018, 11:04:13 AM »
    1. Ghostland: an American History in Haunted Places - Colin Dickey
    2. The Cooking Gene - Michael Twitty
    3. Your Money or Your Life - Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin and Monique Tilford
    4. Authority - Jeff VanderMeer
    5. Acceptance - Jeff VanderMeer
    6. The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars - Joël Glenn Brenner

    7. Enough: Finding More By Living With Less
    8. Brave Enough
    9. White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America
    10. Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant
    11. Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter
    12. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times
    13. Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
    14. What, What? And Life’s Other Essential Questions
    15. Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential
    16. Fortune’s Children: the Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
    17. The Three-Body Problem
    18. Coined: The Rich Life of Money and How Its History Has Shaped Us
    19. Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street
    20. The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt
    21. Make Your Bed: Little Things that Can Change Your Life and Maybe the World
    22. Flight: Volume 8
    23. How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain
    24. The (Mis)Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward
    25. The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick
    26. The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #220 on: February 27, 2018, 03:33:26 PM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)

12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)

Ugh, feels like I've been reading that book forever.  So glad to be done.

Travis

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #221 on: February 27, 2018, 07:23:09 PM »
10. Up Front - Bill Mauldin
11. To End all Wars - Adam Hochschild
12. A History of the Colt Revolver - Charles Haven
13. National Geographic History - Feb 2018

ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #222 on: February 27, 2018, 07:43:58 PM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders

(14) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #223 on: February 28, 2018, 04:39:57 PM »
1. Cane River - this was for a book club, which is the only reason I finished it. Five hundred pages of depressing slavery historical fiction, ranging from super depressing slave rape and torture to slightly-less-depressing institutional racism by the end of the saga. Would not recommend.
2. The Road Less Traveled - this is a psychology cult classic from the 70s that's fun to read. In one chapter he mentions in a footnote that "the only healthy marriage is an open marriage." Lol, the seventies were awesome.
3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones - a well-written and darkly funny YA fantasy novella. Think CS Lewis with vampires.
4. The Hating Game - this was just a bubble gum contemporary romcom about a love-hate-love relationship. Super fast and sexy read, recommended as a nice beach read if you like romance.
5. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - How did I end up reading so much YA at the beginning of this year? I don't even particularly like YA, these were all recommended to me. This was a fun romp of pirates and highwaymen and gay interracial relationships in the 1800s, but it was very very YA. I can't even put my finger on what "Very YA" means, but whatever it was, this book was that. My next read is YA, too, then I think I'm done for a while. I think it's the quirkiness that gets me. Everyone is so goddamn quirky in YA books.
6. Jane Unlimited - ugh, another YA, this one with a quirky main character who makes artsy umbrellas. Four mentions of Doctor Who in the first half of the book, how weird and nerdy lolol!!! I'm so done with YA.
7. Dead Wake - okay, this one is historical fiction about the Lusitania. I don't know history so this is always good for me. Plus Erik Larsen is the tits, this was a guaranteed Good Book after my latest string of failures. This book is not quite as good as his epicly awesome Devil in the White City that I love love loved, but it's still good and suspenseful.
8.The Duke and I - Regency romance, definitely more erotic than Jane Austen. Fun and light but not particularly great. Recommended all over the place as one of the best contemporary-written regency romances, which probably means I just don't really like this genre. I love Jane Austen, though, oh well.
9.Paris To the Moon - Another French travelogue about an American moving his family to Paris. Funny, well-written, but not epically hilarious like my favorite of this genre, Toujours Provence.
10. Drop the Ball - nonfiction, about how women need to stop trying to do it all. Kind of a companion book to Lean In, which I also didn't like. This book just feels repetitive. It did get my husband and I to make a spreadsheet for our grocery lists, though.
11. A Man Called Ove - another book club read, I guess it was a movie? Anyway, it made me ugly cry at the end although the opening chapters were hard for me to get into. Old grumpy man inspirational lit, I would classify it.
12. The Artist's Way - I am not in the right spot to get into this kind of book, in that I have a toddler and would love to do "morning pages" but it's clear from the way this author writes that she cannot imagine not having alone time every day. Well, bully for her. I'll pick this back up in a few years.
13. Designs for Living and Learning - really great book about childhood learning environments. Gave me a bunch to think about as I create living spaces for my young toddler.

Tick-Tock

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #224 on: February 28, 2018, 09:34:32 PM »
24.  Kerry Greenwood, Ruddy Gore [mystery]
25.  Kerry Greenwood, Blood and Circuses
26.  Kerry Greenwood, The Green Mill Murder
27.  JD Robb, Dark in Death
28.  TE Kinsey, In the Market for Murder
29.  TE Kinsey, Death Around the Bend
30.  Ann Swinfen, The Troubadour's Tale
31.  TE Kinsey, Christmas at the Grange
32.  Ann Swinfen, The Merchant's Tale
33.  Ann Swinfen, The Huntsman's Tale
34.  Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues
35.  Kerry Greenwood, Death at Victoria Dock

ringer707

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #225 on: March 01, 2018, 06:20:25 AM »
1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
2. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
3. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
4. How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway
5. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
6. Between the World and Me by Ta Nahisi Coates
7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
9. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Illustrated) by J.K. Rowling
11. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
12. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
13. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14. Beloved by Toni Morrison

Started The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley last night. 51 hour audiobook... oof. Probably be a while before I check back in here...

formerlydivorcedmom

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #226 on: March 01, 2018, 07:44:07 AM »
8.The Duke and I - Regency romance, definitely more erotic than Jane Austen. Fun and light but not particularly great. Recommended all over the place as one of the best contemporary-written regency romances, which probably means I just don't really like this genre. I love Jane Austen, though, oh well.

I wouldn't judge the whole genre by Julia Quinn.  Although I love her writing, I know a lot of people who don't, and the Duke and I is one of hers that I liked the least.  The next one in that series, The Viscount Who Loved Me, is my favorite by her. 

I'd also recommend trying an Eloisa James novel, although many of her best are set in the Georgian period rather than the Regency.  She's a professor of Shakespeare by day, and there's more depth in her books than in many of the others.  (Of hers, Three Weeks with Lady X is my absolute favorite, but its language tends towards more graphic; after that, I love the Essex sisters quartet, all inspired by Shakespeare plays - Much Ado About You, Kiss Me Annabel, the Taming of the Duke, and Pleasure for Pleasure).




woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #227 on: March 01, 2018, 12:29:58 PM »
I wouldn't judge the whole genre by Julia Quinn.  Although I love her writing, I know a lot of people who don't, and the Duke and I is one of hers that I liked the least.  The next one in that series, The Viscount Who Loved Me, is my favorite by her. 

I'd also recommend trying an Eloisa James novel, although many of her best are set in the Georgian period rather than the Regency.  She's a professor of Shakespeare by day, and there's more depth in her books than in many of the others.  (Of hers, Three Weeks with Lady X is my absolute favorite, but its language tends towards more graphic; after that, I love the Essex sisters quartet, all inspired by Shakespeare plays - Much Ado About You, Kiss Me Annabel, the Taming of the Duke, and Pleasure for Pleasure).
Okay, good to hear. I'll try Eloisa James. I don't mind graphic stuff (heck, I've written 25 erotic romance novels myself) but it's not my favorite part of romance books either. I'm actually trying to write my own regency romance with less/no erotic content so I was hoping to read stuff that's more up that alley for inspiration. I've only ever read old school regency so I'm kind of at sea, and while if I were writing to market I'd be reading a lot more for research, this is just a little pet project so I don't really mind if I get a few conventions wrong in the genre.

tnrunner

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #228 on: March 02, 2018, 08:10:38 AM »
1. Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich
2. Three to get deadly by Janet Evanovich
3. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
4. Seamless by Angie Smith
5. High Five by Janet Evanovich
6. Hot six by Janet Evanovich
7. Seven up by Janet Evanovich

8. hard eight by janet evanovich

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #229 on: March 02, 2018, 05:02:54 PM »
1. The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
2. The Girl with a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. & 5.  Mémoires d’Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
6. In the Land of the White Death by Valerian Albanov
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8., 9. & 10. Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
11. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
13. Conquistador Voices: Volume 1 — Christopher Columbus; Hernán Cortés, by Kevin H. Siepel. This is an account of Columbus’s and Cortés’s voyages of discovery and conquests in the new world, mostly through primary sources (hence Conquistador *Voices*). The section on Cortés’s conquering of The Aztec empire was particularly interesting partly because multiple primary sources were used including Aztec sources (so you got to hear what happened from multiple perspectives), but also simply because Cortés was a fascinating character. You get the impression that he was so much more intelligent, “street smart” and wily than Columbus. In fact, he reminded me greatly of Pablo Escobar as portrayed in the Netflix series Narcos. No, Cortés didn’t go around saying: “Plata o promo!” but he could have as he was essentially using the same carrot & stick technique.

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #230 on: March 02, 2018, 05:14:16 PM »
1. A Torch Against The Night- Sabaa Tahir- 1/8/18
--I cannot wait until the next one. Excellent books.
2. Hounded - Kevin Hearne - 1/17/18
3. Hexed - Kevin Hearne- 1/23/18
--fun short reads. Doritos for the brain. Not quite as good as Dresden, but still entertaining.
4. Hammered- Kevin Hearne- 2/9/18
--this one wasn't quite as good at the first two, but it was readable. Hope the next is better again.
5. Lab Girl- Hope Jahren- 2/24/18
--God this took me forever. It just was not compelling for me. Got better at the half way point, but just not my cup of tea. My book club all loved it, though, so maybe I'm alone on this one! I think it would be way more interesting to people who haven't worked in research before, because it'd be 'exploring an unknown life' style.
6. Tricked- Kevin Hearne- 3/2/18

7. World War Z- Max Brooks

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #231 on: March 03, 2018, 04:57:30 PM »
1. Cane River - this was for a book club, which is the only reason I finished it. Five hundred pages of depressing slavery historical fiction, ranging from super depressing slave rape and torture to slightly-less-depressing institutional racism by the end of the saga. Would not recommend.
2. The Road Less Traveled - this is a psychology cult classic from the 70s that's fun to read. In one chapter he mentions in a footnote that "the only healthy marriage is an open marriage." Lol, the seventies were awesome.
3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones - a well-written and darkly funny YA fantasy novella. Think CS Lewis with vampires.
4. The Hating Game - this was just a bubble gum contemporary romcom about a love-hate-love relationship. Super fast and sexy read, recommended as a nice beach read if you like romance.
5. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - How did I end up reading so much YA at the beginning of this year? I don't even particularly like YA, these were all recommended to me. This was a fun romp of pirates and highwaymen and gay interracial relationships in the 1800s, but it was very very YA. I can't even put my finger on what "Very YA" means, but whatever it was, this book was that. My next read is YA, too, then I think I'm done for a while. I think it's the quirkiness that gets me. Everyone is so goddamn quirky in YA books.
6. Jane Unlimited - ugh, another YA, this one with a quirky main character who makes artsy umbrellas. Four mentions of Doctor Who in the first half of the book, how weird and nerdy lolol!!! I'm so done with YA.
7. Dead Wake - okay, this one is historical fiction about the Lusitania. I don't know history so this is always good for me. Plus Erik Larsen is the tits, this was a guaranteed Good Book after my latest string of failures. This book is not quite as good as his epicly awesome Devil in the White City that I love love loved, but it's still good and suspenseful.
8.The Duke and I - Regency romance, definitely more erotic than Jane Austen. Fun and light but not particularly great. Recommended all over the place as one of the best contemporary-written regency romances, which probably means I just don't really like this genre. I love Jane Austen, though, oh well.
9.Paris To the Moon - Another French travelogue about an American moving his family to Paris. Funny, well-written, but not epically hilarious like my favorite of this genre, Toujours Provence.
10. Drop the Ball - nonfiction, about how women need to stop trying to do it all. Kind of a companion book to Lean In, which I also didn't like. This book just feels repetitive. It did get my husband and I to make a spreadsheet for our grocery lists, though.
11. A Man Called Ove - another book club read, I guess it was a movie? Anyway, it made me ugly cry at the end although the opening chapters were hard for me to get into. Old grumpy man inspirational lit, I would classify it.
12. The Artist's Way - I am not in the right spot to get into this kind of book, in that I have a toddler and would love to do "morning pages" but it's clear from the way this author writes that she cannot imagine not having alone time every day. Well, bully for her. I'll pick this back up in a few years.
13. Designs for Living and Learning - really great book about childhood learning environments. Gave me a bunch to think about as I create living spaces for my young toddler.
14. Voyage  -a play by Tom Stoppard that's a witty sendup of every Russian play from the greats. Lots of philosophizing and wordplay, but not nearly as entertaining as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which everyone should read (and watch the movie version!) if they have ever read Hamlet. For you Game of Thrones fans out there, Jorah is Hamlet, and that should seal the deal. He also wrote Shakespeare in Love which was a fun screenplay.
15. Chrysalis - nonfiction, an account of female naturalist Maria Meriam. The book I'm writing is going to have a main character named after her, so I thought I'd do some research. Really interesting so far, she was a gifted artist and scientist back when science was stuck more in naming and classifying rather than experimenting. Makes me excited to write my book!

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #232 on: March 04, 2018, 08:29:25 AM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)

13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)

ahptex

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #233 on: March 04, 2018, 10:02:23 AM »
(1) Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
(2) A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
(3) The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
(4) Wildwood by Colin Meloy
(5) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
(6) Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu
(7) Family Matters:Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
(8) Street of Eternal Happiness:  Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz
(9) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
(10) The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
(11) Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits by Pema Chodron
(12) The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
(13) The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
(14) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

(15) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #234 on: March 04, 2018, 04:36:37 PM »
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
Did you see the movie Capote? It was very interesting to watch after reading this book, gave me a different perspective on the background of the publishing world at the time he wrote In Cold Blood. Great cast, too.

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #235 on: March 04, 2018, 09:52:22 PM »
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!
10. Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
11. Lavinia, Le Guin

In progress:
Delusions of Gender
Debt Free U

i feel like I'm just barely able to keep on pace, and I'm "having to" skip New Yorker articles...

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #236 on: March 05, 2018, 06:47:24 AM »
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)
Did you see the movie Capote? It was very interesting to watch after reading this book, gave me a different perspective on the background of the publishing world at the time he wrote In Cold Blood. Great cast, too.

I didn't realize there was a movie, I'll have to add it to my list.  Thanks for the tip!

diapasoun

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #237 on: March 05, 2018, 09:12:39 AM »
1. Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin (library)
2. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (library)
3. The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley (library)
4. The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu, Joshua Hammer (mine)
5. The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok, trans. Ben Waggoner (mine)
6. Practical Sigil Magic, Frater U.:D.: (pdf)
7. The Refrigerator Monologues, Catherynne Valente (library)
8. What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah (library)
9. Loitering with Intent, Muriel Spark (library)

10. Everfair, Nisi Shawl (library). This is intelligent alternate history streampunk; it has numerous enjoyable characters; it deals with all manner of weighty things, from racism to nation building. It has a lot going for it.

At the same time, I found this a hard read. The episodic nature of the book made it hard to sink in deeply, and meant the pacing was difficut to weather. I recommend it, but also completely understand people not finishing it.

ChipmunkSavings

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #238 on: March 06, 2018, 07:28:43 AM »
1. Cheap : The high cost of discount culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
2. The price of a bargain
3. The One thing : the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results
4. Pillars of the earth

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #239 on: March 06, 2018, 07:55:12 AM »
1. The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
2. The Girl with a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. & 5.  Mémoires d’Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
6. In the Land of the White Death by Valerian Albanov
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8., 9. & 10. Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
11. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
13. Conquistador Voices: Volume 1 — Christopher Columbus; Hernán Cortés, by Kevin H. Siepel. This is an account of Columbus’s and Cortés’s voyages of discovery and conquests in the new world, mostly through primary sources (hence Conquistador *Voices*). The section on Cortés’s conquering of The Aztec empire was particularly interesting partly because multiple primary sources were used including Aztec sources (so you got to hear what happened from multiple perspectives), but also simply because Cortés was a fascinating character. You get the impression that he was so much more intelligent, “street smart” and wily than Columbus. In fact, he reminded me greatly of Pablo Escobar as portrayed in the Netflix series Narcos. No, Cortés didn’t go around saying: “Plata o promo!” but he could have as he was essentially using the same carrot & stick technique.
14. Conquistador Voices: Volume 2 — Francisco Pizarro and his brothers; Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; Hernando de Soto by Kevin H. Siepel

Bracken_Joy

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #240 on: March 06, 2018, 09:46:40 AM »
1. A Torch Against The Night- Sabaa Tahir- 1/8/18
--I cannot wait until the next one. Excellent books.
2. Hounded - Kevin Hearne - 1/17/18
3. Hexed - Kevin Hearne- 1/23/18
--fun short reads. Doritos for the brain. Not quite as good as Dresden, but still entertaining.
4. Hammered- Kevin Hearne- 2/9/18
--this one wasn't quite as good at the first two, but it was readable. Hope the next is better again.
5. Lab Girl- Hope Jahren- 2/24/18
--God this took me forever. It just was not compelling for me. Got better at the half way point, but just not my cup of tea. My book club all loved it, though, so maybe I'm alone on this one! I think it would be way more interesting to people who haven't worked in research before, because it'd be 'exploring an unknown life' style.
6. Tricked- Kevin Hearne- 3/2/18
7. World War Z- Max Brooks - 3/5/18
--As always (it was a reread for book club), an excellent book.

8. Trapped- Kevin Hearne

bucketsofrain

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #241 on: March 06, 2018, 08:24:10 PM »
1.) Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott
2.) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
3.) Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabo
4.) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5.) You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
6.) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
7.) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
8.) My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
9.) Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
10.) Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
11.) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
12.) Red Winter by Anneli Furmark
13.) Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
14.) Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
15.) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16.) What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
17.) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
18.) This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Off the Wheel

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #242 on: March 06, 2018, 10:45:24 PM »
1. Leviathan Wakes - James Corey
2. Caliban's War - James Corey
3. Abaddon's  Gate - James Corey
4. The Sun & Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur (broke up the space opera with some feminist poetry)
5. Cibola Burn - James Corey
6. Nemesis Game - James Corey
7. Babylon's Ashes - James Corey
8. Excess Male - Maggie Shen King --> interesting premise. Ok execution. I was hoping for more.
9. The Power - Naomi Alderman --> another interesting premise, ok execution. Ending makes up for it though.
10. The Rook - Daniel O'Malley --> fun fantasy mystery.
11. The Lost Plot - Genevieve Cogman --> this is apparently the 4th in a series, and how I missed a fantasy series where the heroine is a sassy Librarian (and where the librarians have special powers!) I will never know.
12. The History of Bees - Maja Lunde --> ok. "Climate change fiction" (cli-fi) which I find hard to read. A little too real.
13. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman --> didn't like this one much at all.
14. Persepolis Rising - James Corey --> the most recent in the Expanse series! LOVED IT. So sad there are no more to read. May have to pick up the other series from the authors.
15. Nocturnal Animals (aka Tony & Susan) by Austin Wright --> picked up on a whim because the movie was supposed to be good. A very strange, interesting but upsetting book. One of those novels where the characters are pretty awful and what they portend about humanity is not very good.
16. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. I LOVE teen drama, when well written, and this is that. I don't know how I missed it.
17. The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll. Not as ogod as the Sittenfield, but still enjoyed it. Also, reading both of these back to back brought to a very visceral teenage place. I am terrified to ever have a teenage girl.
18. I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson. Lovely story about family and art.
19. Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer. Interesting premise, funny to read, but a bit trite and the ending was underwhelming.
20. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. Light and easy, but not bad for a celebrity memoir.

Raenia

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #243 on: March 07, 2018, 07:39:38 AM »
1. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - Harvey Ussery (1/9/2018)
2. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (1/19/2018)
3. The 4-hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss (1/21/2018)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (1/23/2018)
5. Home Cheese Making - Ricki Carroll (1/25/2018)
6. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (1/26/2018)
7. Dead of Winter - Matt Lake, Susan Fair, Laurie Hull, H.W. Lawson, Brian Goodman (1/27/2018)
8. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (1/30/2018)
9. The Not So Big House - Sarah Susanka (2/5/2018)
10. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2/21/2018)
11. Purity - Jonathan Franzen (2/22/2018)
12.  Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (2/27/2018)
13. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (3/4/2018)

14. Running & Being: The Total Experience - George Sheehan (3/7/2018)

Do not recommend, I found it preachy and pedantic, and he seems to revel in being an anti-social loner and a 'bad friend' (his own words).

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #244 on: March 07, 2018, 09:15:56 AM »
1. An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sachs
2. Song of the Quarkbeast, Fford
3. David and Goliath, Gladwell
4. Why Buddhism is True, Wright
5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
6. B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton
7. Siddhartha, Hesse
8. Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, Harari
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,  Haddon. Talked about this with a high school student on my way out of tutoring last week, and grabbed it to (re-) read so I can ask him about it more next week. Love it!
10. Glass Houses (librarian recommendation when I asked for something lightweight)
11. Lavinia, Le Guin

In progress:
Delusions of Gender
Debt Free U

i feel like I'm just barely able to keep on pace, and I'm "having to" skip New Yorker articles...

12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card

Needed a break from the current non-fiction, saw this book in a pile where I volunteer as a tutor. It's a fast, relatively engaging read (I, um, finished it at 2 AM this morning, which is going to make today a very long day...), but OMG, he is so stuck in traditional gender roles that even the aliens have them. All the aliens! And a good man can save everyone from arbitrarily bad parenting and abuse! I kinda feel like I need a shower.

woopwoop

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #245 on: March 07, 2018, 04:25:31 PM »
12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card

Needed a break from the current non-fiction, saw this book in a pile where I volunteer as a tutor. It's a fast, relatively engaging read (I, um, finished it at 2 AM this morning, which is going to make today a very long day...), but OMG, he is so stuck in traditional gender roles that even the aliens have them. All the aliens! And a good man can save everyone from arbitrarily bad parenting and abuse! I kinda feel like I need a shower.
Yeah, Orson Scott Card is a pretty homophobic Mormon, when he spoke at my college there were lots of protests. But Ender's Game is still one of the most awesome scifi books ever. I assume you've read it, Speaker for the Dead is actually a sequel so if you haven't, go back and read it! That and Ender's Shadow were two absolutely riveting reads.

jeninco

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #246 on: March 08, 2018, 09:26:07 AM »
12. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card

Needed a break from the current non-fiction, saw this book in a pile where I volunteer as a tutor. It's a fast, relatively engaging read (I, um, finished it at 2 AM this morning, which is going to make today a very long day...), but OMG, he is so stuck in traditional gender roles that even the aliens have them. All the aliens! And a good man can save everyone from arbitrarily bad parenting and abuse! I kinda feel like I need a shower.
Yeah, Orson Scott Card is a pretty homophobic Mormon, when he spoke at my college there were lots of protests. But Ender's Game is still one of the most awesome scifi books ever. I assume you've read it, Speaker for the Dead is actually a sequel so if you haven't, go back and read it! That and Ender's Shadow were two absolutely riveting reads.

I think I skimmed through Ender's Game when my 13-year old was reading it, so I could make conversation. It was OK. And I knew this was a sequel, but it's pretty dreadful, in terms of male and female roles, and how having a good, solid man around can solve everyone's problems. And how women making moral decisions on their own lead to bad things... Just yuck.

Melisande

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #247 on: March 08, 2018, 08:06:45 PM »
1. The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy
2. The Girl with a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. & 5.  Mémoires d’Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
6. In the Land of the White Death by Valerian Albanov
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8., 9. & 10. Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
11. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
13. Conquistador Voices: Volume 1 — Christopher Columbus; Hernán Cortés, by Kevin H. Siepel.
14. Conquistador Voices: Volume 2 — Francisco Pizarro and his brothers; Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; Hernando de Soto by Kevin H. Siepel
15. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles . So, this will not be #15.  I got to around p. 120 out of 460 pages and am officially giving up now. Precious, pretentious, pointless, plotless. I have better things to do with my time than finish for finishing’s sake.

formerlydivorcedmom

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #248 on: March 09, 2018, 11:35:39 AM »
Yesterday I took my kid to a doctor; we've been going there about twice a month for six months.  The doctor made a joke about this being at least the 10th book he's seen me with.  I smiled and told him that since January 1st, this was my 33rd book.  He was speechless.

The good news is I think this has made him decide I'm not a hoarder.  For a while, every time we went in I happened to be reading about hoarding or decluttering.

This is my first year to track what I've read.  I'm at 19 and counting for the year... I'm thinking about setting myself  a subset challenge of reading 50 nonfiction books this year.


Fiction

1) How to Lose a Bride in One Night                    Sophie Jordan
2) Viking Unchained                                            Sandra Hill
3) The Tattoeed Duke                                            Maya Rodale
4) Chasing Christmas Eve                                    Jill Shalvis
5) The Pleasures of Passion                                    Sabrina Jeffries
6) Burning Up                                                    Susan Anderson
7) Promise Not to Tell                                             Jayne Ann Krentz
8) In Scandal They Wed                                     Sophie Jordan
9) One Night With You                                     Sophie Jordan
10) Surrender to Me                                             Sophie Jordan
11) Too Wicked to Tame                                     Sophie Jordan
12) The Heir and The Spare                             Maya Rodale
13) A Groom of One's Own                                     Maya Rodale
14) The Rogue and the Rival                             Maya Rodale
15) Wallflower Gone Wild                                     Maya Rodale   
16) What a Wallflower Wants                             Maya Rodale   
17) The Wicked Wallflower                                     Maya Rodale
18) A Tale of Two Lovers                                     Maya Rodale   
19) The Brat                                                     Lynsey Sands

Nonfiction
1) Her majesty : Queen Elizabeth II and her court                                   Robert Hardman    - Very interesting look at what goes on behind the scenes in the palace; dated
2) On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into some Strangely Related Families   Jeremy Paxman
3) Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor                                   Anne Edwards
4) Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley                           Alison Weir  -  This book should have been cut in half. 577 pages was absolutely ridiculous - and Darnley died on page about 300.
5) Material World: A Global Family Portrait                                                   Peter Menzel - My kids read part of this with me.  It was a wonderful look at how similar and different families are across the world (as of 25 years ago).  I'd love to see this updated.
6) The Queen Mother:  The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon who Became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother   by Lady Colin Campbell - This was a gossipy, meandering, name-dropping book I wish I hadn't read.
7) The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman

Fiction:
20)   The Key   Lynsay Sands
21)   The Perfect Wife   Lynsay Sands
22)   Animal Magnetism   Susan Anderson
23)   Animal Attraction   Susan Anderson
24)   Love is Blind   Lynsay Sands


Nonfiction:
8) It's All Relative by A.J. Jacobs - This was a really funny look at genealogy research.

in progress:
Unstoppable by Bill Nye - This is about climate change.  It's a well written book with a lot of information, but it is dense.  I can only read about 20 pages before I have to stop and let it digest.

FireHiker

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Re: 50 Books in 2018!
« Reply #249 on: March 09, 2018, 04:51:44 PM »
1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read in one night since it's been 20 years and my son was reading it in school)
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
9. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (I WILL get through his complete works...eventually).