Ed's fourth challenge

Time to reset the counter and see what the next twelve months will bring.

Welcome back!

Glad to see you back with us, Ed!

1) Reamde was a bit laboured towards the end and lacking in the depth that appealed so much in Anathem, but when such a brick of a book can be dispatched in under a week it's clearly pretty good.

2) The Travels of John Mandeville part travel guide for the pilgrim to the Holy Land, part account of the cultures and peoples of the middle and far east, part imaginary. Quite where the balance between the first two and the last falls is one for the scholars to debate, but wholly excellent. Given that it was written in the mid fourteenth centuary it gives a surprising view of the Medieval mind and has a nice little exposition on why the earth is clearly spherical.

3) The Devil's Dictionary was a bit of a disappointment - some wonderful pithy bits of cynicism (year - a period of 365 disappointments, for example), but too much added fluff and doggerel.

4) Homage to Catalonia was a reread for the book club and every bit as good as I remembered it. The observational bits on the war experience, the political details and infighting all work together.

"The Travels of John Mandeville is an interesting book indeed. It was quite astonishing for me to see what kind of text european readers of "livres des merveilles" seemed to expect exactly what Mandeville gave them and where somehow disappointed when an author gave a more realistic view of the lands of the east - there are manuscripts of Marco Polo's account in which images seem to try to compensate for the lack of real marvels in the text by showing men with dog heads etc.

Are you planning to read more medieval texts this year? I see whe share the "Nibelungenlied" and Boethius, too.

Currently no plans for the Nieblunglied - Boethius I read last year. Don Quixote almost rates as medieval and was started last night, but nothing else from that period planned yet.

How are you getting on with Don Quixote? That's one I've never read and would like to one day...

Don Quixote goes slowly at the moment, but that's more because of work and other reading than anything else. Liking it so far.

5) Is That a Fish in Your Ear considers the subject of translation. Some interesting bits on how the mechanics work in international courts, the UN etc but on the whole a bit too focused on the philosophy rather than the practice for my liking.

6) The Colour of Magic to start another cycle of Pratchett's. Nice to read one that's not formulaic!

7) The Etymologicon was one that I'd been thinking about for a while and finally gave in and bought yesterday morning. Started yesterday afternoon and finished yesterday evening. Some books suffer from being culled together from an assortment of newspaper or magazine articles, or blogs - but in this case itnworked quite nicely with each piece handing on to the next and the last taking you back to the start.

8) A History of the World in 100 Objects does what it says on the tin. A series of brief essays/articles on 100 items from the collection of the British Museum ranging from ancient to modern and famous to mundane. Excellent.

9) The Light Fantastic pursues the re-reading and, in line with my comments of above provides a refreshing absence of recycled plot lines.

10) The Psychopath Test was pretty well summarised by the subtitle (a journey through the madness industry) at least as far as it applied to pyschopathy. Good and some interesting probing of the boundary between sanity and madness.

11) The Shadow of the Wind was slightly disappointin - better in the last third but still an overall disappointment.

12) QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance only goes to show that it isn't just with drama that the book is better than the telly. Must try to find the first book.

13) Equal Rites to continue the rereading.

14) The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England is the second in what threatens to become a series. A follow up to the similarly tirled guide to Medieval England I think it suffered from being bigger as the points became a bit more waffly. Nevertheless, a good one.

15) Tithe is a sort of Neil Gaiman meets Susannah Clark and good enough, despite the liberal dosing with teenage romance to tempt me into more of them.

16) Mort as part of the ongoing cycle of rereading Pratchett.

17) The Woman in White is one that I got part way through a few years ago and which the book club brought me back to. I'm not a huge fan of the mystery book but this one works well enough and the different characters of the narrators come through much more clearly than many authors manage.

18) Garden Rubbish comes from the pens that gave us 1066 and All That, which promptly worms its way back onto my to read list. Mostly poking fun at the pass time of gardening but with additions, for no readily explicable reason, on poultry psychology (egg-o-maniacs the lot of 'em, to give an idea of the style) and camping.

19) Rivers of London as a light reread on the train.

20) The Arch Conjuror of England: John Dee was a bit of a disappointment as it was more on the court politics than the alchemy/occult: I'd been hoping for a bit more background on that. Nevertheless the insight into the way that the Elizabethan court operated and the mainstream nature of these subjects shows a side of things you don't often see.

21) Sourcery to continue the second rotation through the Disk. It's intriguing to note how ossified the arrangements at the UU became after this point.

Time to play catch up. Though I have a nagging feeling that I may have missed one...

22) If I Told You Once was one for the book club and not as good as I'd hoped. I dare say that the discussion on Wednesday will add something to it but as we stand now I find it hard to rate it as better than value for money. Since the money in quests was 1p from Amazon, that is rather faint praise.

23) Wyrd Sisters for the next piece of the reread of Pratchett. I find myself crystallising mo fully on the view that the earlier ones are far better for inventive ideas and well turned phrases.

24) Love in a Cold Climate had been on the to read list for a while but was, after The Pursuit of Love a disappointment. Lacking in the bite that it intended - presumably on account of my not knowing the people being lampooned.

25) The Man Who Was Thursday is a sort of Alice in Wonderland meets international politics. The terrorist organisation that iis run by a committee of police agents all thinking that they have successfully infiltrated holds a nice balance between farce and commentary on the ways of power.

26) The Name of the Wind I read a couple of years ago and reread now having the sequel on the to be read pile. A bit long and drawn out but better, I think, on rereading.

27) Mostly Harmless is, as the blurb observes, the fifth of the increasingly I accurately named trilogy (of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy). And an absolute hoot. Why it took me so long to get round to it is a mystery given how avidly I consumed the rest of them. Still wonderfully inventive and a really neat way to bring the story to an end with the loose ends wrapped up.

28) Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilisation very much covers what the title says. The story of the civilisation, how it presaged civilisations that followed and what it contributed to them. What I'd never realised was how much earlier it was - not decades, but centuries to millenia. That gives a rare sense of perspective but also a realisation of just how much influence a civilisation "extinct" for over two thousand years can still exercise on the modern world. A dimly realised gap in my knowledge of history is now much better plugged.

29) Pyramids continues the tour through the early bits of the Disk. A regrettable dead end for so many characters with potential.

30) Enigma: The Battle for the Code is a reread and a worthwhile one to remind you that there was a whole lot more than just Bletchley Park. It also sets the wider context of the problems of using such a source of information and the political issues that this can lead to.

31) The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited draws very heavily on Orwell's original both in terms of structure and approach as well as the lifting of large chunks of text. The value in the last of these is the emphasising that many of the problems are really unchanged, though others have come and gone. I found it marred by some sloppiness, a botched definition of the median and misleading proofing errors, and a tendency to the belief that a bottomless public purse is the correct response. But though irritating for these bits, it is nevertheless a vital sight of an unseen part of Britain - and you'll never look at a Wonga advert in the same way.

32) Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Sharia Law combines travelogue with a legalistic history of Islam. Interesting but the second part is better, where the history gives way to a more comparative approach to modern interpretations. Not quite what I was hoping for when I bought it, but well worth while.

33) Dead Aid takes a look at why aid to developing countries doesn't result in their developing. Good but slightly disappointing as it lacked the detail to ram home the general points and make the proposed alternative more than hypothetical.

34) Guards! Guards! continues the cyclical rereading.

35) Looking Backward is a piece of Utopian fantasy that just doesn't quite carry it off. A nice idea and well work up but the socialist "future" of the twentieth century is just too dissonant with its record in reality. A case of reality spoiling a good fantasy, but one can hardly blame the author for not knowing the future when pen was put to paper in 1888.

36) Like Water for Chocolate was another one for the book club, despite the fact that I'll be missing the meeting this month. Without doubt it is one that I would never have even thought of reading had it not been for that, and here is the joy of a good book club. Reminiscent of A Hundred Years of Solitude but considerably easier going it was well worth the time.

37) Moon Over Soho I re-read in preparation for the arrival of the next in the series. I'm still disappointed in the extreme by the gratuitously over provided cliff hangers at the end though.

38) Eric I think has to be one of my favourites of the Discworld series. The only question is exactly how he would imagine hell for management consultants.

39) Normandy to the Baltic is the second of the two campaign histories that I've had for ages and finally got round to. It's strange to read military history where there is virtually no mention of anything smaller than a division, and as with his account of North Africa and Italy, it is the emphasis on the logistical that comes as a surprise.

40) Underground Whispers is the third of the series begun by #19 and continued by #37 above. Disappointingly the big cliff hanger at the end of the second book that irritated me so much with its clumsiness was followed by a narrative gap of several months. Good, but not great and time I think to reread Neverwhere, to which this seems to bear more than a few passing similarities.

41) Fast Food Nation is a fascinating history of the American fast food business (imagine George Orwell in non-fiction mode meets Samuel Smiles' Self Help). A pity it is now a decade old as it would be interesting to know how e picture has developed of the more recent years.

42) The Black Prince was one for the book club Nd not one that I'd have otherwise read. Good enough that I'll red more Murdoch - but not for a while.

43) The World of Chaucer mixes the history of the late fourteenth centuary and the poet's biography to fairly good effect. Particularly illuminating are the observations on how the great courts worked.

44) Moving Pictures continues the Tour de Terry.

45) How to Run a Bassoon Factory & Business for Pleasure just goes to show that there is nothing new in the world of management speak and daft ideas. All there in 1950.

46) The Long Earth is rather reminiscent of Pratchett's early sci-fi stuff. Good but a little unbalanced with a sudden acceleration in the plot at the two thirds point, just where the significant ideas start to play out rather than the mechanical scene setting.

47) Churchill's War Lab gives an account of the personal and political factors affecting Churchill' approach to WWII before and during the Second World War. And as that it's rather good. Unfortunately, that's not what is says it is on the tin. As an account of "code breakers, boffins and innovators" - well, they are touched on but almost only in passing. A pity

48) The Book of Books was OK but missed the mark of its subtitle. The conflation of the Authorised Version with the bible in English was one aspect of this and (especially towards the end) the relentless application of modern standards and views in judging the actions of the past is another.

49) Witches Abroad to return to the re-read and the period when the Discworld became formulaic.

50) Towers and Bells is one that I'd acquired a few years ago after some work was done on the bells at the church I'm treasurer of. An interesting technical diversion.

51) The Disappearing Spoon for a bit of semi-chemistry. Good but a bit too wound up in the radioactive elements. The digressions on the politics of science serve to remind you that science is fundamentally a human business and doesn't get played by the rules it espouses.

52) Never Let Me Go was one for the book club,vthat I'd missed the deadline for owing to a stinking cold. A pity in some ways that the ethical aspects were confined to the last 10%, but I suppose that could have left it looking too much like a reworking of Frankenstein. But I love Ishiguro's way with his characters.

#31: I really enjoyed Never Let Me Go, the first Ishiguro book I read. I really need to read more of his works.

53) Dr Johnson's London as a miscellaneous reread prompted by stumbling on a diverting Twitter feed viz. DrSamuelJohnson.

54) Only You can Save Mankind for a bit more of Pratchett in Sci Fi mode

55) Alone in Berlin was the next one for the book club and good as an evocation of the time and place. A good range of characters which left me wondering what the author's intent was. Written when the events were still fresh in the intended readers' minds it obviously wasn't to tell what it was like. I'll need to do some inking on this before the club meets.

56) Placebo is a fairly technical Look at the placebo effect: it's history and the ways that the medical establishment has tied to get a hold of the concept. Fascinating for some of the side issues it touches on, particularly on the ethical side.

57) The Spanish Armada for a bit of history. Interesting on the logistical and political and a reminder of the opportunities for nature to stuff a plan completely. The final conclusion, that it was pretty much of a non-event as far as being a turning point in history is interesting and well made - but it is in the nature of legends that the story is more important that the reality of the events and this is one of those events that has gone "a bit mythic".

58) Reaper Man continued the reread of the Disc.

59) Dodger was bought this morning and finished this evening. Good, but sadly too close to the formulaic plot lines of a lot of Pratchett's more recent books. But a great catching of the place and people and has thrown Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor back onto my list of things to reread and reminded me that I'd intended to read some Dickens this year.

60) Notes From an Exhibition was a book club one and enough to get me interested in reading more of Gale's work. more of a series of snapshots than a story, not least because none of the potential story lines that were introduced we're brought to a conclusion - save for the one that concluded with the start of the book. But the snapshots worked well, and the characters likewise, and for that reason time well spent.

61) Religion and the Decline of Magic traces the developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that lead to the decline in magical beliefs, though not as the title might imply by the triumph of religion.

62 Cliches: Avoid Them Like the Plague was a bit of a disappointment. More a matter of where a hundred and odd of them came from without a thread to pull it together, perhaps by theme, origin or most pervasive area of use.

63) Small Gods continues the second cycle of the rereads. For my money this is probably the best of the Disc series for the meat of what it gets into. Just a pity that it doesn't quite stand on its own without assumed prior knowledge.

64) The Ascent of the Matterhorn works as an account of the early days of mountaineering , with a touch of social history and some wonderfully dry observations on some of the people and places.

65) Lords and Ladies continues the Pratchett cycle and continues to entertain.

66) Bad Pharma covers some of the more egregious misdeeds of the pharmaceutical industry, viz the suppression of inconvenient data and the amount and style of marketting. I fear that the two wider questions are of how much trust should be put in accademe and what really is independence. From his own arguments, the regulators and even government are not to be trusted, especially where the Pharma business is a major export earner and thus the government is, via the tax pot, a vested interest acting as judge, jury and executioner. So while Goldacre proposes various things that "you can do" that would help some aspects of the problem, it is more a "here's a problem, be aware of it" than a solution.

67) Cloud Atlas is one for the book club and not one that I'd really bother to recommend. Some nice bits but the connections between the stories are I feel too tenuous to justify seeing it as more than a collection of miscellaneous fiction and the device of interrupting to move to the next is hit and miss in its effect: between the Sonmi and the Cavendish stories it adds but for the rest it is neutral or detracting for me. It remains to b seen whether this evening's discussion changes my mind.

68) the Welfare State We're In looks at why politicians should be either strangled at birth or not allowed real power. A bit on the polemical but the basic points are well made and the importance of knowing your own history is driven to the front as the UK government's involvement in housing, education, medicine and families is drawn over the coals.

69) Blink of the Screen is a collection of short pbits by Pratchett, recently dropped into the bookshops. Mostly it is "off Disc" and most entertaining. A pity he seems only now to be moving back to some of those ideas and away from the siren money of stereotyped Disc.

70) Men at Arms to continue the reread - another of my favourites as there's still some character development.

71) The Missing Ink is another on the subject of handwriting and its place in the future. The author seems to come to the conclusion that its future will be lifestyle/recreational for most people (like cooking from scratch is his analogy). A bit patchy but worthwhile.

72) The Great Gatsby was one from the book club and it must be said one that had 'won' the tie break by being considerably shorter than the alternative. One that I will need to reread as I realise that I read the first half looking for all the wrong things.

73) Soul Music to continue the reread of Pratchett, and I realise I'd missed quite a few fairly ghastly references to bands on previous reads. Shows that there's always something new to be recognised.

74) Interesting Times sees me put on a bit of a spurt with the reread in a forlorn hope to get to Hogfather in a seasonal manner.

75) Wars of the Roses was a slightly unusual take on the subject by looking at five individuals' paths through the period. Given how little war there was it's a good way of approaching the subject, giving a good idea of the society it took place in and above all the fact that those who were young at the start were old at the finish. It also serves to remind me of my observation a few years ago that any consideration of medieval political history is best approached by seeing it as soap opera writ large.

And thus the target for the year is met with a couple of weeks to spare. Yippee and on with the bonus material.

Congratulations on reaching your goal!

Congrats!

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I want to wish you a glorious celebration of that time of year when we all try to unite around a desire for Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward All. Merry Christmas, Ed!

76) The Hobbit as I've not read it for a while andthe film brought it back to mind - not that I've seen the film; by the sound of it it's quicker to read the book!

77) The Horologicon as a light linguistic jaunt for a holiday frame of mind. Good fun.

78) One Hundred Years of Solitude I read last year and didn't think much of. This reread came courtesy of the Book Club, and made a bit more positive an impression but still not one to write home about. I await with interest the discussions on Wednesday.

79) I Never Knew That About the River Thames is best described as a guide book to e towns and villages of the river. A pity that it is all short descriptions and even those are written as stand alone sentences making it a book to dip into regularly rather than one to sit down and read. Informative though.

80) Gamesmanship should not be taken too seriously and rather over eggs the pudding but it entertains. I particularly enjoyed the wild invention behind the claims that WG Grace was actually Gladstone wearing a false beard.

And there endeth the reads for 2012.