Art's 2012 TBR Challenge

This is my first year participating in this challenge. As they say, here goes nothin'.

MAIN LIST
1) Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (Finished 3/30/12)
2) The First Men in the Moon - H.G. Wells (Finished 5/6/12)
3) The Food of the Gods - Wells (Abandoned 11/12/12)
4) In the Days of the Comet - Wells
5) Cthulhu's Heirs - Thomas M.K. Stratman (ed.) (Finished 8/16/12)
6) Utopia - Sir Thomas More (Finished 7/7/12)
7) Vathek - William Beckford (Finished 9/7/12)
8) The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (Finished 10/1/12)
9) Ape and Essence - Aldous Huxley (Finished 4/9/12)
10) A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay
11) The Silver Stallion - James Branch Cabell
12) A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

ALTERNATES LIST
1) Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich (Finished 5/15/12)
2) Civilization: The West and the Rest - Niall Ferguson
3) The Histories - Herodotus
4) Deeper Into Movies - Pauline Kael
5) When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison - Greil Marcus (Finished 4/5/12)
6) Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians - Peter Guralnick
7) Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1 - Steve Ditko and Stan Lee (Finished 6/1/12)
8) Mighty Avengers Vol. 1 - Brian Michael Bendis (Finished 4/12/12)
9) Batman: Dark Victory - Jeph Loeb (Finished 11/29/12)
10) Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street - Warren Ellis
11) Hard Boiled - Frank Miller
12) Sin City: Booze, Broads, & Bullets - Miller

You have some great books on your list. I read A Game of Thrones this year and it was one of my top reads. And I have been wanting to read Cryptonomicon for quite a while now. I look forward to seeing what you think of it. I can't wait until the new year starts!

The Herodotus I've heard can be a struggle, but I'd like to try it sometime. Cryptonomicon and Game of Thrones are winners for sure. You've picked some Wells I couldn't get through when I tried, although I still own them. Vathek and Scarlet Letter won't surface this year for me, too far down the TBR. I kinda wish we had more than 365 days.

Interesting books on your lists. So interesting, that I want to add them to my wish list. However, I'm going to be strong and resist the urge but I will be most interested in following your progress this year.

Thanks for your interest, everyone.

>2 billiejean:

Interesting that you mentioned the two books that old high school friends insisted I read as soon as possible. They're also by far the longest books on my lists (among the fiction books, anyway).

>3 Cecrow:

I've wanted to read The Histories ever since reading Frank Miller's excellent 1998 comics series about the Battle of Thermopylae, 300; hopefully I'll get to it this year. I've been on a bit of a roll with Wells, reading four of his novels in the past two years, so hopefully that trend continues.

It occured to me that a few explanatory notes on my list are in order:

1) I have attempted to follow the parameters set up in the group description (and the blog) as closely as possible. However, there are a couple I "cheated" on a little bit: The Silver Stallion is a title that was brought to my attention by an LT friend about a month ago. As I was composing the list, it came to my attention that there is a copy of it available at a local college library and so I decided to add it to the list. The other "cheat" is Civilization: The West and the Rest. I saw the author of this interviewed on C-SPAN about a month ago, and , based on his description of it, felt like it was a book that I needed to read as soon as possible because it wouldn't be nearly as relevant or important a year or two from now, so that one went on the list, too.

2) The 24 books I selected are divided up by type. The books on the main list are prose fiction; the books on the alternates list are evenly divided between non-fiction (1 - 6) and graphic novels (7 - 12). The reason I did it this way is that I find I like to alternate between prose fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels as much as possible; I particularly find that graphic novels make for excellent palate cleansers between prose works. I also notice that I oddly (since it's some of my favorite reading matter) did very little non-fiction reading last year, so I wanted to make sure there were at least 6 non-fiction works on my lists.

3) Books were primarily selected for brevity and for the length of time they've been on my TBR lists; more the former than the later 'cause this is my first time doing the challenge and I didn't want to not finish my books and look like a dumbass. Obviously, there are a couple of doorstops on the lists (Cryptonomicon, A Game of Thrones) but I figured that since most of the others were fairly short I should be able to get to the big boys as well. :)

Just for fun, here's a list of "the ones that got away" (or "near misses", as Cecrow calls them): books that I had really hoped to get to in 2012 but that I couldn't squeeze onto the lists:

The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Baudelaire in English - Charles Baudelaire
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Blaze - Stephen King
The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke
Gateway - Fredrick Pohl
Hell House - Richard Matheson
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
Three Books of Known Space - Larry Niven
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
The Fantasy Hall of Fame - Robert Silverberg (ed.)
The Children of Cthulhu - John Pelan (ed.)
From a Buick 8 - Stephen King
The City and the Stars and The Sands of Mars - Arthur C. Clarke
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories - Michael Cox
On the Road: The Original Scroll - Jack Kerouac
The Essential Ellison - Harlan Ellison
Complete Tales & Poems - Edgar Allan Poe
The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll - Charlie Gillett

Sorry, guys - maybe in 2013. :(

Hit the 150 page mark on Cryptonomicon today. Here's hoping the remaining 989(!) pages go as quickly.

Lots of good books on your did not make the list list as well!

Good luck and Happy Reading!

>9 billiejean:

Lots of good books on your did not make the list list as well!

So many books... (you know the rest) :)

Good luck and Happy Reading!

Thanks, billiejean. Same to you. :)

Well, halfway through the month and I am only 367 pp. into CRYPTONOMICON. I had hoped to at least be to the halfway mark (i.e., around p. 570) in it by now. Guess I'll just have to buckle down and knock off at least 3-4 chapters a day until I'm done with it.

I hope you're at least enjoying it - I really liked that one.

Having similar problems with Gardens of the Moon, I'm not halfway through that one either. It demands a slower read than I'd anticipated, but at least it's totally worth it. Puts some pressure on my challenge, alas, but I figure January is way too soon to start getting stressed over it.

>12 Cecrow:

Thanks for commenting, Cecrow. :)

I hope you're at least enjoying it - I really liked that one.

Oh, yeah, it's freakin' great - I'm just having trouble making the time to read it. Looking at ways to spend my time more efficently, I've noticed that I spend way too much time watching the news on TV; I've therefore resolved to limit my TV news viewing time to an hour a day - hopefully that will free up more reading time for me (it tends to get kinda redundant after the 1st hour anyway).

Having similar problems with Gardens of the Moon, I'm not halfway through that one either. It demands a slower read than I'd anticipated, but at least it's totally worth it. Puts some pressure on my challenge, alas, but I figure January is way too soon to start getting stressed over it.

Yeah, looks like GotM is a bit of a doorstop as well. And you're right - we're only 16 days into the new year - we've got plenty of time to even things out with quicker reads as we get further into it. :)

I think 367 is pretty good for halfway through the month!

>14 billiejean:

Thanks, billiejean. I think part of the problem is that most of the prose fiction reading I did in 2011 was of the short story/novella variety - even the proper novels I read tended to be on the very short side (i.e., in the 150 - 180 pp. range). After that, something like CRYPTONOMICON, which runs to 1100+ pp. in mmpb, looks like a real beast.

Anyway... back to reading. :D

Finally hit the halfway mark (p.570) on CRYPTONOMICON. Still enjoying it, but it kinda seems like it's becoming The Book That Ate My Life. :/

I was wondering what happened to you, lol. Thanks for the progress update, I was starting to worry you'd gotten discouraged. Slow is okay - it's slow-and-painful you want to avoid!

I expect I'll eventually be in your shoes with one or another of these Malazan books; I'm starting the second one soon. It can't always keep going as smoothly as it has for me so far, if last year is anything to judge by.

>17 Cecrow:

No, I'm doing okay - just easily distracted. It hasn't helped that I've decided to get caught up on a bunch of DVDs I've been meaning to watch. :D

I may find myself in a similar boat when HBO's dramatized version of A Game of Thrones is released in April. We don't pay for cable, let alone HBO, so I've been anxiously awaiting this release for about a year now. Even better - my birthday's in May!

I keep checking in here, anticipating the post that says you've unravelled Cryptonomicon. :) I haven't been back to Neal Stephenson since I read that, but Anathem is on my TBR shelf. Not sure when I'm going to get to it though. I was impressed by him - would also like to try The Diamond Age and Snow Crash - just too much else to sample in the meantime.

>20 Cecrow:

Thanks for checking in, Cecrow. Looks like I'm on the 3-month plan with CRYPTONOMICON. Currently on p. 677, so I've made some progress, albeit not nearly as much as I would have liked to. I usually knock off at least 20-30 pages when I get to it - it's the getting to it that is problematic. :/

I see that CRYPTONOMICON is one of the top 50 books on the "What Members are Reading" list on the LT homepage right now. That makes me feel a little bit better somehow. :)

Just hit the two-thirds mark (p. 759) on CRYPTONOMICON this morning. Beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. :)

At the same time I'm 1/3 into Deadhouse Gates ... if only that coincidence helped us ;)

#23> So how are you liking it so far? Worth the effort?

#25> You must be referring to post #23, rather than #3, n'est-ce pas?

Hit the 3/4 mark (p. 854) on CRYPTO tonight. Just have to power through the final 200+ pages now.

***

>25 billiejean:

I like it just fine, billiejean - I just wish I were done with it (if that makes any damn sense). There are just so many other books that I've been dying to get to that I've had to put off because this one's taking so bloody long. I mean - the only other reading I've really got in while I've been reading CRYPTO are a couple of short graphic novels and a few short stories. I can only imagine how long this would be taking me if I decided to read another full-length prose novel while trying to finish this one. :/

I get the same mixed feeling, when I'm enjoying something I'm reading but at the same time feeling the pressure of the rest of the list. Wonder if doctor's feel this way about their patients; trying to give them the best care and enjoying their work, but mindful of the waiting room, lol

>28 Cecrow:

Well, yeah, that's actually a pretty good analogy. As someone who writes quite a bit (albeit not fiction), I know the kind of blood, sweat, and tears that can go into getting a piece of prose right, so I don't want to disrespect the author's hard work by just flippantly giving up on it; at the same time, I know there's tons of other stuff out there that's practically crying out to be read. We seem to be in the enviable position of suffering from a surfeit of good stuff to get to these days; it's a funny thing to bitch about, but there it is.

Page 900. :)

When it's a good book, the last 200 pgs are always faster than the first 200.

>31 Cecrow:

Yes indeed. I'm gonna be really disappointed if there isn't some kind of big apocalyptic conclusion to this thing - I feel like I've invested far too much into this book for it to stop with a :P ending, if you know what I mean.

Page 1,000. 15 more chapters.

Finished Cryptonomicon. Oh Em Gee.

You can read my Cryptonomicon review here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3OLRNLEVQCOC1/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_cm_cr_notf_APPROVED_f...

Started When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening To Van Morrison by Greil Marcus early this morning. I picked this one for four reasons: (1) It's short (approx. 200 pp.); (2) It's on one of my lists; (3) I haven't read any non-fiction books so far this year; (4) I've been listening to a lot of Van Morrison. I'm about 20 pp. into it right now - so far, so good.

You did it - woohoo! Sounds like you enjoyed it, respected it, but aren't in a rush for more of Stephenson's large novels any time soon, lol. Did it have the ending you were hoping for?

He wrote some shorter ones that are well reviewed (The Diamond Age, Snow Crash) but I can't vouch for them personally. Must be a relief to be starting something shorter. ;)

>36 Cecrow:

Sounds like you enjoyed it, respected it, but aren't in a rush for more of Stephenson's large novels any time soon, lol.

I'm not in a rush for more of anyone's large novels any time soon! :D

Having said that, I do still intend to get to A Game of Thrones in the next year or two.

Did it have the ending you were hoping for?

Yeah, basically - I thought it was satisfactory, y'know? I felt like his real strength was pinpointing moments that really defined his characters and then delineating them in meticulous and hilarious detail (something which I of course neglected to mention in my review - I always think of this stuff after I've written my review). That's not something I've really ever seen in a science fiction-identified writer before - to me it's more reminiscent of someone like Elmore Leonard or Quentin Tarantino.

He wrote some shorter ones that are well reviewed (The Diamond Age, Snow Crash) but I can't vouch for them personally

Yeah, I know that Snow Crash was on TIME's top 100 novels list (http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/#all). I actually own a copy of that - maybe I'll give it a whirl next year.

Must be a relief to be starting something shorter. ;)

Oh my God, yes. :D

I forgot you had Game of Thrones on the list too; that's another big one. I think you'll at least find it to be more of an attention-demanding page-turner; it's a fun ride.

Cryptonomicon is well known for delineating in exacting detail the proper way to eat a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal. Not too many novels can get away with a peculiar digression like that, but somehow it works - along with the many other asides.

>38 Cecrow:

Not too many novels can get away with a peculiar digression like that, but somehow it works - along with the many other asides.

I think Stephenson has a great ability to detect the hilarious and asburd in most situations and to convey that in his writing.

***

Finished When That Rough God Goes Riding, which I liked quite a bit. I'll add a link to my Amazon review when they post it.

ETA: http://www.amazon.com/review/RZNN5I8B37L3M

Forgot to mention that I also started on Aldous Huxley's Ape and Essence, as I've been in the mood for a good dystopian/post-apocalyptic tale for a while now. We'll see if this one fits the bill.

Finished Ape and Essence tonight. I liked this one a lot also. Once again, I'll link to my Amazon review once it's up.

I think I'm going to take a day or two to get caught up on my reading for our Weird Tradition reading group (http://www.librarything.com/groups/theweirdtradition) and then start one of the graphic novels on my list.

Wow, they're falling hard and fast now!

>41 Cecrow:

LOL! I had a feeling that once I finished CRYPTO that would happen. :)

Finished Mighty Avengers this morning and was very pleasantly surprised with it. Up next - The First Men in the Moon!

I'm looking forward to the Avengers movie, in a "I know I'm being blatantly marketed to but I want to see it anyway" kind of way.

"First Men" is a novel I tried and failed at. Suspension of disbelief problem.

I'm interested in the movie primarily because, to my knowledge, it's unprecedented to have a major live-action superhero film that teams up characters from several preceding films. I am skeptical as to whether or not they can pull it off, but if they can it should be a pretty kick-ass piece of cinema. 8)

The ability to suspensed disbelief is one of my few assets as a reader. I figure if I was able to suspend disbelief for Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books, anything by Wells should be a piece of cake. :)

I read the novelization of the John Carter movie to my 7yr old son, and even he knew it was terrible literature. If we got through that, surely the actual Mars books can't be worse!

Oh, I wasn't trying to indicate that I disliked the original Mars books - just that they were pretty preposterous scientifically, even from an early 20th century standpoint.

Anyway, I find the key to reading A Princess of Mars, The First Men in the Moon, etc., is to simply pretend I'm reading a transcript of someone else's dream (which, in a sense, I am).

I am stopping by at last to congratulate you on finishing "Crypto." Good job hanging in there! My long books are languishing.

>48 billiejean:

Thanks, billiejean. It was really good - I just wish I had picked something else to start out the year with.

Ah, but you've made up for it fast. And now it's out of the way - a conquered mountain.

>50 Cecrow:

And now it's out of the way - a conquered mountain.

That's right! 8)

How's everyone doing?

I finished The First Men in the Moon this evening - a good novel with a great ending. H.G. Wells continues to amaze me - a true visionary master.

Up next: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

>52 artturnerjr:. Great. Now I have to try reading it again. Thanks a lot, lol

>53 Cecrow:

How far did you get last time, Cecrow?

Probably only the first chapter or two. As soon as I realized my mistake - the title said "in" the moon, not on it - I decided this was going to be a farther stretch than I'd be able to manage. Sounds like it's worth the voyage though.

>55 Cecrow:

Well, as I indicated, I really enjoyed it. Even though it even pushed my limits of suspension of disbelief at times, I found it to be a very rewarding read. You might like it, too.

Finished Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America this afternoon. I liked it ("enjoyed" is not quite the world): as someone who currently makes only three or four bucks an hour over the national minimum wage, my initial reaction to Barbara Ehrenreich's extended discussion on low-wage workers in the US was sort of "welcome to my world"; as I went along, however, I warmed to it a bit, and would definitely recommend it, most especially to anyone currently in any sort of public office.

Up next: I am frankly in the mood for something purely escapist after that satisfying but somewhat depressing read, so I think I'm gonna tackle Essential Spider-Man, Volume 1 now.

Fisnished Essential Spider-Man, Volume 1 today. Basically, this and co-author Stan Lee's collaboration with Jack Kirby on The Fantastic Four (collected in the first several volumes of the Essential Fantastic Four series (http://www.librarything.com/series/Essential+Fantastic+Four)) are the foundations of the modern superhero genre; everything in the genre from the mid-1960s onwards has been, in some fashion, a response to these two comic book runs. They probably seem a bit crude to those who've grown up on the likes of Maus and Watchmen, but for someone like me who grew up reading this sort of thing, it's wonderful fun to revist.

In the "Now For Something Completely Different" department, my next volume will be... Thomas More's Utopia!

>57 artturnerjr: I had pretty much the same reaction to Nickel And Dimed when I read it a year or two ago. Glad to hear you liked it too!

From Spiderman to More ... that oughta make your head spin for the first few pages, lol

>59 LibraryLover23:

Yeah, I think it's kind of sad that a book like that had to be written, but since it did, I'm glad Ehrenreich is the one that wrote it.

>60 Cecrow:

Yes indeed! :)

Okay, finally finished Utopia this afternoon. Wow, that took way too long to read for such a short book! I blame it mostly on the archaic prose style, in which it is not at all unusual for a paragraph to run for a page or more. Still, intermittently fascinating and essential reading for anyone who is interested in the history of socialist political thought (as I am).

Up next: I seem to be hankering for some Cthulhu Mythos fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos), as I picked up a colllection called The Book of Cthulhu from my local public library about a week ago and, without intending to, immediately devoured 3 or 4 short stories out of it, so I think Cthulhu's Heirs is gonna be next off my lists.

You do enjoy switching it up, don't you? Whew! :)

>63 Cecrow:

Oh, yeah, as much as possible. I am interested in too many different kinds of books to stick with any one genre for very long.

Will you publish your TBR Challenge Dos and Don'ts?

Well, I finished Cthulhu's Heirs... kind of. That is to say, I just finished the last story in the collection; trouble is, there are three stories (actually, two stories and a poem) that I skipped because I read a page or two of each when I first started the book and just didn't get into them at the time. I guess in the interest of fairness I should go back and read them before I cross the book off my list, eh? :/

Probably what I would do. I keep expecting to grow out of it.

>67 Cecrow:

I keep expecting to grow out of it.

It's funny - with very few exceptions, I don't seem be able to make myself skip/skim parts of a book I'm reading (even though I've heard more than one prestigious literary figure (Somerset Maughm springs to mind) endorse "the fine art of skimming"), the main reason probably being that I like to review the books I read, and I hate it when somebody starts a review with something like, "Well, I didn't read the whole book, but..." Well, why'd you review it then, dumbass? Call me crazy, but if I'm gonna take the time to read a review, I'd like to read one by somebody who's actually read the whole book. >:(

That's part of it; not feeling I'm entitled to (or can fully defend) my opinion if I haven't read every single word of it. Also, just the worry that I'm going to overlook some critical plot point, or else lose the effect that the author's building up (maybe he/she is lulling me on purpose?) so the scene that follows falls flat for me, etc.

Also I like to dabble in writing myself, and I trust my subconscious to pick up on good/bad stuff and absorb accordingly, so I'm doing it a disservice any time that I consciously decide a page or paragraph has no value. Also explains my terribly slow reading speed, which is why I'm in this 24 books annually group and not some "Kazillion Books a Year Challenge".

Also, just the worry that I'm going to overlook some critical plot point, or else lose the effect that the author's building up (maybe he/she is lulling me on purpose?) so the scene that follows falls flat for me, etc.

That's an excellent point. The thing that I've slowly come to realize after many years as a reader/listener/viewer is that art (particularly anything that has any sort of narrative arc to it) is about cumulative psychological effect as much as it's about anything. An example: one of the things I commonly read in reviews of the movie version of 2001: A Space Odyssey is that it's kind of boring. There are any number of (quite legitimate) reasons a viewer might feel this way, but I've come to realize that perhaps the main one is... it's supposed to be. One of the central points of the film is to give the viewer as realistic a depiction of space travel as possible, including the psychological experience of space travel, and the fact of the matter is, once the novelty of the experience has worn off, a long space flight would actually be pretty boring. If Stanley Kubrick had tried to jazz it up with a bunch of flashy MTV-style editing (whatever the 1960s equivalent of that would have been, anyway) he would have completely ruined this important aspect of the film.

Okay, finished Cthulhu's Heirs - completely this time. I thought this one was just okay. Not something I'd recommend to someone who's new to Cthulhu Mythos/Lovecraftian fiction; actually, not something I'd particularly recommend to someone who had read quite a bit of it, either. :/

Next is either The Food of the Gods or In the Days of the Comet or Vathek (there was actually a Vathek reference in the last piece I read in Cthulhu's Heirs, incidentally). I think I'm going to sit down with all three of them, read the first page or two of each, and pick one based on that.

I decided to tackle Vathek next - it made me laugh twice while reading the first page, which I take as a good sign. It's also short (108 pp. (minus footnotes) in the edition I'm reading it in), so it should make for a fairly quick read.

I'd expect Heirs is a tribute anthology. I'm wary of those. Some of the authors may be fans, but some are doing it for the paycheque, and very rarely in either case can they recapture the tone or voice of the original.

Vathek is a future TBR for me, sounds great! Somehow I'm not surprised the Wells lost that contest, although you said First Men was good.

I finally saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it was not boring to me. However, at the end, I felt like I did not totally understand what I had just seen. Which makes me want to read the book. It is still missing, so I guess I will buy another copy. One of the reasons that I joined LT was so that I would organize my books and stop buying duplicates. Somehow I think that buying duplicate books indicates something about my organizational skills.

>73 Cecrow:

I'd expect Heirs is a tribute anthology.

After a fashion. The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared universe (think Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, the respective universes of the DC and Marvel superheroes, Star Trek, etc.) created by H.P. Lovecraft and expanded upon by other writers, which is something that Lovecraft encouraged. Everything written in this universe could therefore be said to be a sort of tribute to Lovecraft (since he created the thing), although many post-Lovecraft writers have taken the Mythos in directions that its creator almost certainly never imagined.

Vathek is a future TBR for me, sounds great!

I'm about twenty pages into that one now. It's... very strange and extremely unpredictable so far; I have absolutley no idea what's going to happen next.

Somehow I'm not surprised the Wells lost that contest, although you said First Men was good.

Both the Wells novels seemed like they could develop into something promising; they just didn't grab me the way Vathek did.

>74 billiejean:

I finally saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it was not boring to me.

I'm glad for both! :D

However, at the end, I felt like I did not totally understand what I had just seen. Which makes me want to read the book.

A very common reaction. It's not designed to be like (for example) Casablanca, where a dozen people go to see it and they all have basically the same interpretation of what was going on on the screen; there's not really a definitive interpretation of what happens in the film, although Clarke's novel comes as close as anything is ever going to.

Somehow I think that buying duplicate books indicates something about my organizational skills.

I feel your pain. I recently discovered I have duplicate copies of both Lolita and Anne Rivers Siddons' The House Next Door (and it's hardly the fist time that that sort of thing has happened!).

And I just bought a Bradbury book for my daughter, and then discovered that I gave her the same book last Christmas. Luckily, I have another daughter, so she will get the copy. Or I could keep it myself.

>76 billiejean:

Which book is it?

The Bradbury book is a collection put together by Barnes and Noble. It includes The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and The Golden Apples of the Sun. I have only read The Illustrated Man. I have to admit that I am tempted to read it before sending it on to my daughter. She is quite busy, so I don't think she would mind if I read it first.

>78 billiejean:

I have to admit that I am tempted to read it before sending it on to my daughter.

Yeah, I think you should. At least read the short story "The Golden Apples of the Sun" (from the collection of the same name) - it's one of my favorite stories of all time, regardless of genre, and one of those where you realize that Bradbury has earned every single accolade he's received.

About 25 pp. from the end of Vathek. Hanging out with the fam today (Labor Day, y'know), but still hoping to finish it either tonight or tomorrow at the very latest.

Finished Vathek this morning. Another one that was just okay for me - a narrative in the style of The Arabian Nights with a fairly standard "pride goeth before a fall" storyline. Still, I enjoyed most of the phantasmagorical imagery (especially toward the end of the book), and it was (for me) a fairly quick read, so... not a total loss.

Taking a break from my TBR lists to read T.E.D. Klein's novella Black Man with a Horn for my Weird Tradition reading group, and then I'm on to The Scarlet Letter. :)

Vathek sounds good, it'll stay on my "someday" list. And that's definitely my plan for next year's challenge ... more breaks!

>82 Cecrow:

I'm thinking next year's lists are going to be a little lighter on "classics I've always felt guilty about not reading" and a little heavier on "books I want to read for sheer entertainment value". :D

A Game of Thrones should set you up nicely for doing that, then.

>84 Cecrow:

I thought about starting that one after I finish The Scarlet Letter, but I don't want to still be reading it into next year. I haven't been doing well with long books. :/

There are long books that tease your mind and require careful, slow reads to appreciate, like Cryptonomicon. Then there are books where the pages fly past because you can't wait to read what happens next, like Game of Thrones. Just saying. ;)

#83> I agree! I continue to rewrite my list for next year to get plenty of reads that I know I want to read with just a few of those should've read them by now books.

Halfway through The Scarlet Letter - much sooner than anticipated!

Funny, the way books creep their way closer to the top of my TBR pile when I see other people reading them. That one is in there somewhere. Saw the movie with Demi Moore waaaay back when.

I'm finding it much more engrossing than I anticipated. I tried to read it when I was a teenager and couldn't finish it. Just goes to show that I'm a completely different person than I was then (or at least one who is more adaptable to different prose styles).

There's a few I'm hoping I'll feel that way about, when I get around to giving them a second chance: Fifth Business, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Great Expectations ... and those H.G. Wells novels I've been leery of opening again, lol

Great Expectations is actually one that I had a relatively easy time with the first go-'round. Not sure why The Scarlet Letter was so tough for me the first time, other than the somewhat antiquated quality of the prose and dialogue - it certainly has more than enough angst to appeal to the average teenager! :D

I never would have finished Jane Eyre as a teenager, even though it would have done me a world of good had I been able to perceive its wisdom. At that time I was most infatuated with simple adventure fantasy stories like The Sword of Shannara and Dragons of Autumn Twilight, which I would extremely fearful of reading again now for spoiling the memories, lol.

I did read The Brothers Karamazov and still lay claim to having done so, even though I remember almost nothing and it left no impression. Moby Dick was the big exception; read it as an adventure story and loved every bit of it, even the whaling details. I bet that one would stand up to a re-read.

Yeah, I was reading mostly fantasy/science fantasy stuff for fun at that age (Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, etc.) as well as a lot of Stephen King and superhero comics, a lot of which I've revisited since and a lot (though not all) of which holds up surprisingly well.

Moby-Dick, as one of our fellow LTers has pointed out, was sort of the Cryptonomicon of its day - Melville, like Neal Stephenson, had a great big brain full of information which he seemed to feel the need to download to us in the form of a gargantuan and complex novel.

Finished The Scarlet Letter today. Wow, what can I say? Perhaps a bit too much of its time, stylistically, for some tastes, but I found it to be an involving and insightful tale - a quintessentially American opera, artfully composed in a minor key.

The Food of the Gods is next.

That's the other Wells I've had at home since forever and have yet to read.

>96 Cecrow:

Haven't really got a sense of what it's going to be like yet - I'm only about 15 pp. in right now. I'll let you know what I think of it when I get done, of course. :)

ETA: The Food of the Gods is also the 12th book from my lists. Like billiejean, my goal is to finish 12 of the books I listed, so everything I read after this one is gravy. 8)

Halfway through The Food of the Gods. This one's taking longer than I thought it would. :/

Distractions, or is it the book's fault? Or perhaps like what I've encountered with Pickwick; it's a good book, but it just sort of wanders and almost invites you to put it down whenever you like.

Or perhaps like what I've encountered with Pickwick; it's a good book, but it just sort of wanders and almost invites you to put it down whenever you like.

It's more like that. This novel has more weird tonal shifts than just about anything I can recall reading; it sort of goes from straight SF to comedy to horror and then back to straight SF again. Also the characters are far too cartoonish for me to get really concerned about their fates. It's an entertaining book, but not one I am really feeling compelled to read.

I have a collection of Wells books, and I have been meaning to read them. Maybe I will add some to my list next year.

I am officially abandoning The Food of the Gods today. A recent family tragedy has thrown me completely off-kilter and I just do not have the heart to continue a book that I was really not that into in the first place. When things get back to normal a bit (hopefully before the end of the year) I hope to get back on track reading books off my list but right now it is just not in the cards.

I know how family events can make a reading list pale in comparison on the priority scale. Take care and pull through!

>103 Cecrow:

Thanks, Cecrow. :)

A little update - I reread H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth and Pete Townshend's excellent autobiography Who I Am (review here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3H48TJJQH9U5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm) while I was "away" and am now back on track with my Challenge books; looks like I'm going to finish Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's graphic novel Batman: Dark Victory today, so I guess I will get my 12 in after all. 8)

Finished Batman: Dark Victory, which was a typically well-crafted and engrossing Jeph Loeb superhero murder mystery. Next: tying up a few literary loose ends and then another selection from my lists (don't know which one yet, though).

Nice to have you back!

>107 Cecrow:

Thanks, Cecrow - nice to be getting my life sort of semi-back to normal. I look forward to seeing what everyone else in the group has been reading - just hard to make time for it at the moment.