RMXtremes 1010 Challenge

Good day ladies and gentleman,

After trying and failing the 888 challenge I decided not to join the 999 one, but due to the beehive-like activity of the group (which means that there always one thread near the top of the talk page), not currently doing any other challenges and wanting to give my reading a little more focus I've decided to join the challenge.

These are my categories:

1| It wasn't me (Crime / Mystery) (2)
2| Once upon a time (Fantasy / Fairy tales) (1)
3| Zijn we d'er toch ingetuind! (Dutch / German) (1)
4| What have I gotten myself into (1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die) (1)
5| The old world (English classics) (1)
6| The improbable made possible (Science Fiction / Alternate history) (2)
7| And the winner is... (Booker / Pulitzer) (2)
8| The new world (American classics) (1)
9| Comic books with better binding (Graphic Novels)
10| The young ones (books published within the last ten years) (1)

I doubt I'll be able to read ten books in every category, but with a head-start of three months I'm hoping to read five books in each category with more in others so that by connecting the dots it will resemble a difficult mountain stage in the Tour de France.

The possibilities are my on my current TBR-shelf so I'll be reading those, but not all of them (Ulysses I'm looking at you).

It wasn't me (Crime / Mystery) (1)

1| Ruth Rendell - A Demon in My View
2| Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon

Possibilities:

G.K. Chesterton – The complete father Brown
Dashiell Hammett - Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett - The Thin Man

Once upon a time (Fantasy / Fairy tales) (1)

1. TH White - The once and future king

Possibilities:

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Mitch Albom - The Five People You Meet in Heaven

3| Zijn we d'er toch ingetuind! (Dutch / German) (1)

Franz Kafka – The castle

Possibilities:

What have I gotten myself into (1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die) (1)

1| John Fowles - The Magus

Possibilities:

Henri Stendhal - The Charterhouse of Parma
James Joyce - Ulysses
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow

The old world (English classics) (1)

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Possibilities:

Jane Austen - Emma
Jane Austen - Persuasion
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
Charles Dickens - Bleak House
Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
Charles Dickens - Nicolas Nickleby
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol and Two other Stories

6| The improbable made possible (Science Fiction / Alternate history) (2)

1. HG Wells - The First Men on the Moon
2. Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

Possibilities:

HG Wells - The Invisible Man
HG Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau
HG Wells - The Time Machine
HG Wells - The War of the Worlds
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Stephan King - Dreamcatcher

7| And the winner is... (Booker / Pulitzer) (1)

1. Cormac McCarthy – The road
2. Ernest Hemmingway - The Old Man and the Sea

8| The new world (American classics)

1. John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men

Possibilities:

Henry Fielding - The history of Tom Jones

Comic books with better binding (Graphic Novels)

Possibilities:

Alan Moore - Watchmen

The young ones (books published within the last ten years)

1| Philip Roth – The Plot Against America

Possibilities:

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

Great categories!

I'll be reading both Ulysses and Stranger in a Strange Land for my 101010 challenge this year, so I'll be back to see if you decide to read them and, if so, what you think!

Thanks,

I share your opinion on The Handmaid's Tale (good, but not great) so I'll be following your thread to see what you make of the books you mentioned.

Already finished my first book before starting this thread:

TH White - The once and future king

There are people on LT who are better at writing reviews so I'll contend myself with saying that I really enjoyed his writing (apart from a few poor jokes in the first book), the story he told and the comments he made.

9/10

Great categories, I'll be following your thread. Good luck with your challenge!

I'm a huge fan of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Hope you enjoy it.

@paruline:
Thanks

@kristenn
I very much enjoyed Kafka on the Shore for about 4/5 of the book; I'm hoping I'll enjoy The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles 5/5.

I've added a ticker for a 100 to make it a real challenge as I usually read about 50 books per year.

Also finished my second book: A Demon in My View which I found a bit predicable and too neat if I'm honest. The book did improve my opinion of American Psycho, because it improved my limited knowledge on psychopathy. So I've read a “better“ book from the viewpoint of a Psychopath and also better romance stories; I think the book was too short to successfully combine the two.

6/10

Finished my third novel for this challenge and my first Wells: The First Men on the Moon. Though I liked his ideas I found the execution a bit lacking; the characters were stereotypes and the prose was unimaginative.

7,5/10

>16 RMXtreme:, HG Wells is one of my favorite authors, but only because of his ideas. I too find his prose and characterization lacking, but his ideas are so great - especially when you consider how ahead of his time he was. He envisioned a massive aerial battle in The Sleeper Awakes nearly 5 years before the Wright brothers are credited with accomplishing the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight and over ten years before aircraft were first used in military combat. Although most of his books are hardly what I would consider great literature, I am on a quest to read them all to further enjoy his imagination.

I tend to agree with about Wells. I find him a bit dry but I sometimes I reckon that it works in his favour. War of the Worlds I felt was quite nicely understated :)

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

I was spellbound for most of the book, but for a small section which I found a bit preachy and grandiose, by the beautiful prose, the interesting characters and the great story. If it wasn't for the aforementioned section and a too-neat coincidence I would have awarded the book a ten.

9,5/10

Cormac McCarthy – The road

I fail to see why this book won so many accolades.

6/10

>20 RMXtreme:
It's bleak, that's for sure, but certainly evocative. I gave it 4/5 stars, but I can see why it won acclaim.

It's bleak, but I wasn't expecting a post-apocalyptic tale to be cheerful, pleasant.

The very disappointing ending, the two-dimensional characters and the very simple prose are enough for me to not rate it very highly.

I am becoming much more interested in trying The Road it seems to draw out such differences of opinion!

Looking forward to read what you think when you decide to read it.

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

I liked the first half, the second half not so much.

6,5/10

I loved Stranger in a Strange Land when I read it a few decades ago. Last year, not so much. It's a great story that should have been told in about 1/3 of the length. The out-of-date sexist mores are pretty tough to take, but they'd be less annoying without the out-of-date endless philosophizing.

Did you read the uncut version last year?

They cut about a third in the original, but if they had cut the endless philosophizing out of the last half alone, which would have made it a better novel, there wouldn't be much left (of the last half). The last half was very thin on story.

>27 RMXtreme:

I thought it was the original published version, but I'm not sure now. At any rate, it didn't age well, and I was very disappointed, since I had fond memories.

I look forward to seeing what you think of your reading this year! I'll also be reading a Dickens (not sure which one to start with) and some fairy tales. Have you heard of R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated? I heard the author on Talk of the Nation last week and saw some of the pages online....very intriguing. Could be an option for your Graphic Novel category. I also see that you've listed The God Delusion - awesome book!!

Will it be your first be Dickens? It will be for me; so I'll probably read only one (and maybe A Christmas Carol too around Christmas) for this challenge, because if I like his book I don't want to read too many at once and if I don't I won't be reading another one for a while.

I've bookmarked R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated, but I'm not sure I should take advice from someone who only rated Nineteen Eighty-Four two stars ;)

John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men

I really liked it; though it did read more like a play then a novel. The only thing I disliked was that all the characters had an accent, which of course to be expected as most people have one, but it did make it a little hard to follow sometimes (a dictionary being no help). Definitely going to read more of his novels.

9/10

Did I really only rate 1984 two stars?? Hmmmm........

Good categories and book choices. Many have been on my 'I'll get to it eventually' list. I'll be looking forward to your comments on them.

Franz Kafka – The castle

Not very likable characters, uninteresting story, setting and everyone speaks exactly the same.

The only somewhat interesting bit for me was the Barnabas family, the rest mostly bored me.

5/10

Don't you hate it when a classic or award-winner disappoints?

I "hate" it when I dislike a book I bought because I thought I would enjoy it; doesn't really matter whether it is considered a classic, has won awards or not. Though the expectations for a classic or award-winning book are probably higher.

Ernest Hemmingway – The Old Man and the Sea

Maybe I'm too young to fully appreciate it; should probably reread in a decade (or two). Though I didn't greatly enjoy his prose.

7/10

Oddly enough, that's what I was thinking of in my previous post. I remember thinking "what's all the fuss?"

I'm guessing it's like modern art: "Other people see things in my paintings that I didn't even know I put there" roughly paraphrased from a short story by Camus. I hugely prefer it if the author doesn't leave it to me to see the meaning of his/her book.

For me The Old man and the Sea is a (very) simple story about a poor fisherman who does the only thing he knows: fish. Not much more.

10 John Fowles – The Magus

Well I've finally finished the Magus. I started out with a mild dislike for the main character; by the end it was a serious dislike. For a supposedly intelligent 'man', he wasn't very smart. Because of my dislike for the main character (or any other) I couldn't gather much enthusiasm for the story, which turned out to be not very interesting anyway. I really liked his descriptions of the beautiful landscape; what I didn't like were the number of references to ancient and modern plays and ancient mythology. The few I understood didn't seem necessary.

CarlosMcRey worded it better than me in his review: http://www.librarything.com/work/7923/reviews/33699306

6/10

11 Philip Roth – The Plot Against America

I really liked the build-up even though I sometimes found him to meander a bit too much (there were also too many sentences which went like and, and, and, and or or, or, or, or, but I don't know what that's called). But felt the ending too rushed.

7/10

Dashiell Hammett – The Maltese Falcon

Didn't really like it, it was missing action (only a few brawls), didn't really care for the plot, didn't find the characters very interesting (except Sam Spade himself). So overall a disappointment as I've enjoyed most of Chandlers work.

6,5/10