Ed's Fifth Challenge

2013 looms large and rather closer than the horizon - time to kick off the thread for the coming year. Books started in 2012 will count for 2012 if the New Year sees me past the half way point; for 2013 if less than half way.

Welcome back! Nice way to handle the in-process books. I think I'll do the same.

Good strategy Ed, I thnk I'll adopt that too in future.

Glad to see you back again, Ed! Happy New Year!

1) Wolf Hall to start the year with a big one. On the basis that it was cleared pretty quickly there must be something to the hype - and indeed on the basis of it more from the same author will be read.

2) London Under was a feintly disappointing acount of the subterranean aspects of London - good, but lacking though it does remind me that it's a few years since I last read Neverwhere.

3) Maskarade was the next stop on the reread of the Pratchetts and is probably my favourite of the series.

Hrumpf... I thought I'd updated this more recently. Let's see what I can remember.
4) George, Dont Do That is a series of monologues set in a nursery. We never get to find out what "that" was that George shouldn't be doing but it's none the worse for that.

5) Feet of Clay continued the Pratchett re-read.

6) Frankenstein was one for the book club. I'd forgotten how much of the teen angst was rolled up with the at time stifling verbosity but the moral and ethical questions remain as sharply posed and, with the rise of the possibilities of genetic engineering, increasingly relevant.

7) Hogfather a month after I'd been hoping but what the Hell, it's still just about seasonal with the way the weather has gone in the last week or so.

8) Vanished Kingdoms is an excellent alternative view of history. I spent a large chunk of Friday night discussing it and it's themes in the pub and my basic view holds goo having now gotta the end of it - slightly too long for the material but a fascinating view on things. The author clearly has things to say on the state of modern Britain and a bit more directness would have been good, but aside from that those faults the only criticism that I can find is that the tale is wrong. There were at least two republics dealt with.

Sudden fit of catch up - two manic months at work have probably stuffed this challenge, however...

9) The Bad Food Guide

10) Jingo

11) On The Road

13) King Arthur

14) The Last Werewolf

15) Science of Discworld IV

16) Tithe

17) Alias Grace

18) The Information

I think that gets me up to date. No, second thoughts...

19) Gulag Boss

Not a good year for reading so far... Too much work. Nevertheless, there are a few to add, but seventy five for this year is really looking horribly optimistic.

20) The Science of Discworld

21) The Winter King - a history of Henry VII that did a lot to tie up various loose ends of my knowledge.

22) Whispers Underground

23) The Night Circus - faintly disappointing as it felt to be close to being so much more than it turned out to be.

24) Bring Up The Bodies

25) Mud Blood and Poppycock

26) Let The Great World Spin

Meh, so you won't make 75. At least you're reading some good books!

I got Let the Great World Spin as a gift from a friend, so I'm giving it the honor of making it airplane reading next week. Looking forward to it.

re #10, I'm not saying "never", just that it's looking rather unlikely. With a couple more that I should finish this month I'm 10 behind schedule which isn't impossible.

re #11, it was one for the bookclub, and only really started to grow on me once I started thinking what to say on it. Definitely glad to have read it.

27) Carpe Jugulum to keep the reread of Pratchett ticking over.

28) The Somme to start a reread of some of the First World War history that I have not looked at much. A good one for putting the context and politics around the campaign.

Hang in there! At least the Pratchett books are rolling along.

29) Guns Germs and Steel for a bit of long term global history.

30) The Ocean At The End Of The Lane just leapt off the shelf at the bookshop and into my hand. Gaiman at his modern fairy tale best.

31) The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared was a hugely entertaining one to come from the Brighton Book Club. Best farce I've read in years, and worryingly close it appears to being wrecked by cinematography.

32) The Dark Side of the Sun for a bit of pre-Disc Pratchett. Intriguing how many oddities put in an appearance - Hogswatchnight for example.

33) the Long War disappointed by building up a good position and then jumping straight to the end, missing what should have bee the interesting bits. Pity, it was a nice idea.

34) Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was a diversion bought about by a little exposure to the musical Cats. What a little gem (the book that is).

35) Snow Crash as a dose of cyber sci fi. Good but a touch dated now - too much has already come to pass. I'm always a bit of a sucker for a dystopia so the ultra corporatist, post nation state was neat. Time perhaps to re-read Reamde to see the writer's changes to a similar situation. On the other hand, that's rather a long book and I'm still badly behind schedule.

36) Broken Homes to pick up the story from #22. Good on the tactical bits, but disappointing on the "series strategy" ones until the end - and given Aaronovitch's tendency to treat the endings as only there to be cliff hangers for the next one it's just a tad irritating. Worth it though.

37) The Naked Ape is one that's been living in a shoe box in the wardrobe for the last decade or so. Worth the reread although it's feeling a bit dated now in some respects. Still there are interesting shared threads and different perspectives having recently re-read Guns, Germs and Steel.

38) Burying the Typewriter was an unusual view of eastern Europe - that of the family of a dissident.

39) The Fifth Elephant to continue the Pratchettathon. One of my favourites.

40) Folk Tales of the British Isles possibly wins a prize for title with the least mystery. A good variety of themes and styles and best read as something dipped into.

You are moving right along, Ed!

Yeah, 75 for the year isn't looking impossible anymore. Should be 50 by the end of the month so with

41) Down With Skool as the start of a revisiting of the collected works of Molesworth Major. I can only hope that his atroshus spelling isn't too contajus.

42) Grand Barrage is an absolute cracker. The life, loves and death of an anti-aircraft gunner on Malta.

... And a couple more approaching half way, so I should only be 4 behind schedule at the end of the month.

43) How To Be Topp for part 2 of the Molesworth set. Aah, the joys of his "Self Adjusting Thank-you Letter"

44) The Truth to keep the Pratchett re read moving.

45) The Last Hundred Days was one for the book club. Similar subject matter to Burying the Typewriter and not so good.

46) The Thief of Time as one of my favourites came up on the Pratchett re-read.

47) Legion of the Damned

48) The God of Small Things

49) Heath Robinson Contraptions

50) The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

51) You Only Live Twice to remind me just how much films differ from books.

52) Rivers of London since I enjoyed Broken Homes a couple of month back.

53) The Science of Discworld II

54) Whizz for Atomms to continue the Molesworth theme.

I hope you enjoyed Rivers of London--that's been a real favorite around LT. And I still have never seen either of the Science of Discworld books around here.

re the above - it's been one of my favourites for a while too. My only qualm with the whole series is that there are too many obvious cliff hangers for the next book. Unnecessary in the extreme. As for Science of Discworld - may I direct your attention to #15 (for number four), #20 (for number one) and #53 (for number 2). Am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?

55) Night Watch for more Pratchett

56) March Battalion following on from #47. Really quite astonishing how much the style and content shifted - presumably to give the audience what the wanted.

57) The Gunpowder Plot is an interesting, not quite contemporary, account of the attempt to trash Parliament. A piece of catholic propaganda in response to all the government propaganda.

58) The Purple Hibiscus as the next one for the book club. Something of a coincidence that two months running we have had disfunctional chistian families in former colonial countries. not one that really grabbed me and we'll have to see what thoughts come out at the discussion.

59) The Carpet People made me wonder how much revision there had been. But am I sad enough to try to track down a copy of the original text? And the answer to that is "Not at the moment".

60) Whizz For Atomms to complete my re-read of the collected works of Molesworth Senior aka The Goriller of 3B.

So, two months to go and 15 books to meet the challenge. Not looking like a great bet.

61) The Monks of War looks at the role of the crusading orders in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Spain. Particularly interesting were the later bits - 17th century onwards as the rise of the nation state changed the political situation.

62) Between Silk and Cyanide was tremendously readable for a fundamentally pretty massive tome. The bits on the codes are good, but the internecine politics is the real eye opener.

63) Good Omens on account of it being one of my favourites which I haven't read for a very long time.

64) Raising Steam was truly a disappointment. Far too formulaic and glib.

65) Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind is more about the development of knowledge about prehistory than about prehistory itself. Worth the time though for the way it opens up the question of what humanity is.

66) Wee Free Men to continue the Disc reread.

67) The People's Act of Love was one for the book club and a bit of a failure as advertised (no real tension) but an interesting read on the themes of extremism - religious, political, etc.

68) Asterix in Britain for a complete change of style and content.

69) Northern Lights because I've been wanting to reread the Dark Materials trilogy for a while and it seemed a good time to start it.

Seventy-five by the end of the year? Not impossible.

Oh, that's too bad about Raising Steam. It hasn't come out over here yet. I felt that Making Money was somewhat formulaic and glib following Going Postal, and hoped for more from this one.

I really must get back into the habit of updating this list more often.

70) The Subtle Knife to continue that reread! probably my favourite of the three.

71) The Amber Spyglass completed that. The thought recurs to me that Pullman is not so much atheistic in his writing as anticlerical. Mind you, there's more than enough to justify that.

72) Asterix and the Golden Sickle as another piece of diversion and a semi cheat to get to the seventy five.

73) Church Furniture as a highly diverting diversion on Christmas Day.

74) Both Great and Small Beasts is a slightly puzzling work. Animal rights in the Middle Ages with illustrations by a cartoonist shoulda like it should be parody, but dating from 1956 and published by an animal welfare group makes the rather dry account likely to be for real.

75) The Prague Cemetery was the next one for the book club and saw a further decline in my opinion of Umberto Eco.

Anyway, that gets me to the seventy five, and there are still a couple more that may get finished off this year.

Congrats! I'm of a similar opinion about Eco. Hope your next is better.

In line with my approach outlined at the top of the post, I add in...

76) The Undercover Economist finished this morning.

77) Introduction to Computers as a vintage 1968 has very little to say about computers as we now encounter them on a day by day basis but does a good job of reminding you just how much we take what we do for granted. (20 pages still to go, it'll be finished by the weekend)

78) Grow Your Church's Income won't be the subject for a "guess what this book's about" contest. (Also 20 pages to go, and finished in the next couple of days).

Anything else in progress hasn't made it even remotely close to the half way mark so will be counted as a 2014 read.