FuturePast's 75 for 2010

Talk75 Books Challenge for 2010

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FuturePast's 75 for 2010

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1FuturePast
Edited: Jan 28, 2010, 1:50 pm

This sort of thing is, to use a well-worn cliche, right up my alley!

So far, one book this year:

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

This book is basically a discussion on Susanna Kaysen's experiences, thoughts, and mind just before, during, and after her 2-year stay in a psychiatric hospital. I say discussion because, although the short chapters seem like journal entries, they are not consecutive. As one reads the book, there are sentences and paragraphs of introspection and thought about the experiences written of. I think it was a very interesting and mind-broadening book.

2alcottacre
Jan 21, 2010, 1:26 am

Welcome to the group!

3drneutron
Jan 21, 2010, 9:50 am

Welcome to the group and to LT! Let us know if you have any questions about the site. We love to help out!

4FuturePast
Jan 28, 2010, 1:49 pm

Thanks everyone :-)

I just finished:

02: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

It was the first book I've read in the 'alternate history' genre and I found it extremely interesting and entertaining. Somehow, the style and characters seemed to have an echo of Charles Dickens in them.

5alcottacre
Jan 28, 2010, 10:43 pm

#4: Oh, that was a good one wasn't it? I may have to go back and give it a re-read.

Have you read anything else by Clarke? Her book The Ladies of Grace Adieu is pretty good too, although it is a book of short stories not a novel.

6FuturePast
Edited: Feb 5, 2010, 7:21 pm

I plan on reading more of Clarke's work. That was my first!

Finished:

03. 1984 by George Orwell

One of the most classic and famous of dystopian novels. I found that it lived up to it's legendary reputation. It's worth reading more than once, in my opinion.

7FuturePast
Feb 5, 2010, 7:22 pm

04 Animal Farm by George Orwell

A cautionary tale, it seems, about leadership and society.

8FuturePast
Feb 21, 2010, 7:50 pm

05 Moneyball
An interesting book, even to me and I am not even really into baseball. It's a story of the character of the Oakland A's, basically.

06 Invisible Cities
An excellent book that I am surprised isn't more well known. A series of prose-poem descriptions of imagined cities set in the backdrop of Marco Polo conversing with Kublai Khan.

9alcottacre
Feb 22, 2010, 1:43 am

#8: I have had Calvino's Invisible Cities in the BlackHole for a while now, but my experience of reading his If on a Winter's Night a Traveler has put me off a bit. Your description of the book sounds interesting though, so I will start looking around for it. I think I would like that one more than Winter's Night.

10FuturePast
Edited: Feb 25, 2010, 6:07 pm

Calvino is the first author I've read of his type. I wouldn't be surprised if there were those who didn't find him suited to their literary palate, just because that's how things go :)

Invisible Cities takes some getting used to at first, at least for me, but certainly imagination-stretching!

07 Marcovaldo Italo Calvino
A collection of glimpses into the life of the man Marcovaldo, from finding mushrooms growing in the street and waiting for them to ripen, to something of what happens when one takes to following the mysterious routes of city cats. Each story has Calvino's typical, and unexpected, twist at the end :)

08 Envy Yuri Olesha (translated by Marian Schwartz)
One of the most tragic books I've ever read. It builds upon itself very well from the start, revealing bits of the story as tearing strips of wallpaper from a wall in strips reveals the wood beneath. Perhaps a strange analogy, but a fitting one, I think. Worth reading, imho