75 Books...More or Less! discussion

Well, I suppose I should stop lurking and start my own list. I usually end up just shy of 50 at the end of the year, but this time around I've been reading through my short story collections along with the novels, so I might be able to hit 75. Got off to a bit of a slow start, though, when I spent half of January slogging through the first 1/3 of War and Peace, but I've set it aside for a bit. Will finish before 2010. I hope...

1) Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl (Short fiction)
2) Matilda by Roald Dahl
3) The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
4) The Cool Cottontail by John Ball (Virgil Tibbs mystery--sequel to In the Heat of the Night, read in December)
5) The Lottery and Other stories by Shirley Jackson (short fiction)

6) Rust and Bone: Stories by Craig Davidson (Short fiction)
7) Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
8) The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya
9) The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (Short fiction)
10) The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

11) A Model World and Other Stories by Michael Chabon (Short fiction)
12) Johnny Get Your Gun by John Ball (Virgil Tibbs mystery #3)
13) Presence: Stories by Arthur Miller (Short fiction)
14) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
15) The Stories of J. F. Powers (Short fiction)

16) Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age by Arthur Herman
17) King Rat by China Miéville
18) Inverted World by Christopher Priest

19) The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories by Shelley Jackson (short fiction)

Jacob, welcome! I'm glad you decided to jump in for the challenge. Good luck - you are off to a good start!

20) The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
21) Five Pieces of Jade by John Ball (Virgil Tibbs Mystery #4)

22) Star Wars: Millennium Falcon by James Luceno
23) The Etched City by K.J. Bishop
24) War and Peace (Volume I, 554 pages)* by Leo Tolstoy

*I started reading War and Peace back in January, gave up around 1/3 of the way through, and will probably give it another try sometime over the next week. I know it's technically a single book, but my edition is divided into three volumes so I'm going to count it as such. Anyone who argues may get hit in the face with a certain heavy object.

No argument from me! You managed to get approximately 504 pages further in than I ever have :)

Stacie wrote: "No argument from me! You managed to get approximately 504 pages further in than I ever have :)"

I probably should've stopped where you did. Read Les Miserables last summer and thought I'd stick with the classics, but W&P is so freakin' dull. I only made it as far as I did because a friend told me it got better after the Battle of Austerlitz. He was wrong, and by then I was too far in to just give up...

25) Someone Like You by Roald Dahl (short fiction, much better than "Switch Bitch" was--at least, Dahl isn't writing about sex this time, so these stories aren't as misogynistic as the others)
26) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston (#1 in the new Fate of the Jedi series. I decided to give it a try after skipping the Legacy of the Force books, but this storyline doesn't really interest me either. I think I'll sit this one out, too.)

27) War and Peace (Volume II, 545 pages) by Leo Tolstoy (I'm a bit worried--there were a few moments where the story actually got readable and somewhat interesting, so perhaps I started writing the angry and sarcastic review a bit too soon...)
28) War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches edited by Kevin J. Anderson (Anthology, exploring the Martian invasion of Wells's novel from the viewpoints of other historical figures of the time--Picasso, Tolstoy, Einstein, Twain, etc. Mixed quality, a few forgettable samples, although a number of the stories are rather good)

29) A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Re-read: listened to the audiobook a year or so ago, and felt like reading it again)
30) The Houses of Children: Stories by Coleman Dowell (short fiction)

31) War and Peace (Volume III, 548 pages) by Leo Tolstoy (Took me four months to finish this bastard. I'm not one to toot my own horn, but check out the review)
32) Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner by F. X. Toole (short fiction)
33) Twilight by Leo Tolstoy...I mean, Stephenie Meyer (I swore I'd never read this, but I needed something to help me recover from War and Peace. Good riddance)

34) Dubliners by James Joyce (Short fiction, and not as bad as I thought it would be. I guess I just had Ulysses on my mind)
35) The Stand by Stephen King (*sneeze*)

36) Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk (Ugh. Just...ugh)
37) The Eyes of Buddha by John Dudley Ball (Virgil Tibbs Mystery #5)
38) I Am Not Jackson Pollock: Stories by John Haskell (Short Fiction)
39) Then Came Violence by John Dudley Ball (Virgil Tibbs Mystery #6)

40) The City & the City by China Miéville

Jacob wrote: "40) The City & the City by China Miéville "

Hey how's it goin? what did u think of the new Mieville? Been meaning to get it, but all my money's going to college lately. Is it worth it? How did u think it compares with his other stuff?

Nice list! I'm gonna check a bunch of them out

Amanda wrote: "Hey how's it goin? what did u think of the new Mieville? Been meaning to get it, but all my money's going to college lately. Is it wor..."

Just finished it a few days ago, and it's pretty good. It's not my favorite--I'll always be biased towards his Bas-lag Books, especially Iron Council--but as a standalone it's fairly interesting (and better than King Rat, I'd say). Character development is a bit flat, but the setting more than makes up for it. Mieville is always great with the worldbuilding.

41) The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor (Short fiction)
42) Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (Short fiction)
43) Singapore by John Dudley Ball (Virgil Tibbs Mystery #7)
44) The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

45) The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo
46) Churchill, Hitler and the "Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World by Patrick J. Buchanan (Mr. B is really insistent on that subtitle--apparently, the biggest tragedies of the second World War were the end of the British Empire and the decline of American and British influence in general. Because remember, the Third World is scary and full of--gasp!--brown people)

47) Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake
48) The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (First time reading it, and...meh)
49) Trailerpark by Russell Banks (Short fiction)
50) Replay by Ken Grimwood

2/3 there! Hard to believe I've reached 50 in just over six months, but I've also been reading short stories, and I did count War and Peace as three books. Without that, and the collections, I'd only be at 30, which is a fairly respectable number too. Six months left to read 25 more books. I think I can afford to slow down and add a few doorstoppers to the list.

Good for you, Jacob!

51) Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Book I of the Baroque Cycle. Massive, ambitious, and...kinda boring.
52) Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America by Dan Savage
53) Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger (Short fiction)

54) War by Candlelight: Stories by Daniel Alarcón (Short fiction)
55) Desolation Road by Ian McDonald

56) The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (Short fiction. Very, very GOOD short fiction)
57) Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson

58) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Read this a few times before, but this time I've decided to try the rest of the series)
59) Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme (Short fiction)

Would've been #58, but I gave up less than halfway through. First book this year I haven't finished. Barthelme may have been daring and experimental, but most of the time he failed to be interesting. And despite the brevity--most of the stories are under five pages--I couldn't bring myself to keep going.

I hear Sixty Stories is better, so I may give that one a try.

Jacob wrote: "Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme (Short fiction)

Would've been #58, but I gave up less than halfway through. First book this year I haven't finished. Barthelme may have been daring and experi..."

Well, that sounds like a pretty good track record, only giving up on one this year. I've probably given up on a dozen - most often, reading something someone else raved about! Perhaps I have unusual tastes in books. . .

Kay wrote: "Well, that sounds like a pretty good track record, only giving up on one this year. I've probably given up on a dozen - most often, reading something someone else raved about! Perhaps I have unusual tastes in books..."

I'm generally a patient reader, and most of the "bad" books I read this year (Re: Chuck Palahniuk's latest crapfest) were short enough to breeze through. Except for War and Peace. Somehow I had the patience to fight through that, but I couldn't handle Barthelme...

60) The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen (A rare read, for me--something both new and well-reviewed, which I usually avoid because, let's face it, there are so many older books out there I haven't read yet. But I was pleasantly surprised. It's an interesting and charming little story)
61) Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
62) Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb (Shilt's bio of Harvey Milk included a very brief history of the gay movement before the 70s, and I thought this would expand on that. But mostly, I'm trying to work my way back to the John Boswell's intimidating works on the subject of homosexuality through history)

63) Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card (The conclusion to the Ender series, and good riddance. It started to go downhill during Xenocide, but we hit bottom here. In four books, Card turned a fascinating sci-fi saga into an unbearably awful family drama. I should've stopped at Ender's Game)
64) The Cider House Rules by John Irving (After the terrible ending to the Ender series, I decided to reward myself. Yeah, I feel better now)

Jacob, I have had Cider House on my TBR pile for years. I'm going to move it to the top! How does it feel to be 11 books away from your goal?

Andrea wrote: "Jacob, I have had Cider House on my TBR pile for years. I'm going to move it to the top! How does it feel to be 11 books away from your goal? "

It's more like six or seven away, now--I just haven't added any lately--but it feels pretty good. Never read this much in one year before. Granted, reading one or two short stories each day on top of novels certainly helps; that's an extra 20-25 books right there.

And good luck with The Cider House Rules! I finished it about a week ago and I already want to reread it. Not as good as some of his others (especially Garp) but still great. You read anything else by Irving before?

65) Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger (Meh.)
66) The Young Apollo and Other Stories by Louis Auchincloss (Short fiction)
The Confusion by Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle #2. Another abandoned book. Read Quicksilver earlier this year and wasn't impressed, but I figured I'd give the next one a try. Clunky story and clunkier prose. Wasted ten days on it before giving up. Maybe Stephenson just isn't for me.
67) Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J. D. Salinger (After reading Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories earlier this year, I figured I should try the other two. And now, after reading every book he's published, I'm just waiting for Salinger to die...)

Jacob, your post encouraged me to pull out my copy of Cider House Rules. I put it to the top of the pile and hoep to get it in for this year. This will be my first Irving! Do you have any advice or comments for me?

Also, I did not know that Salinger is 90! I really need to get to one of his books as well as Irving. A funny story is my brother had The Catcher in the Rye for years and could not use the library because of this. My brother is the last person on earth that would read a book for pleasure. About 15 years later we found the book. Now I always smirk when I hear that title!

Andrea wrote: "Jacob, your post encouraged me to pull out my copy of Cider House Rules. I put it to the top of the pile and hoep to get it in for this year. This will be my first Irving! Do you have any advice or comments for me?"

Advice about Irving: Be patient. Irving has a very rich, very heavy, rather dense writing style. He likes to take his time with things, and he enjoys dashes, semicolons, and parentheses. It's easy to get lost in his writing, but some find it frustrating.

About CHR: It's one of Irving's "Big Three" (With "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany") and generally a good place to start. However, Cider House Rules is about abortion. Irving presents both sides of the issue quite fairly, but the story does have a strong pro-choice stance. If you're a strong pro-lifer you may feel a bit uncomfortable. I don't want to discourage you or anything--it's a great story--but I figured a warning couldn't hurt. Otherwise, give it a try, and let me know what you think!

As for Salinger, try Nine Stories. Catcher is overrated and the others are plodding and dull. But maybe that's just me.

I am open minded and not easily offended Jacob :) Now I really want to get into soon and I promise I will let you know what I think. Salinger will have to wait until 2010!....lol

68) With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Polish historical epic, largely unknown outside of Poland. Which is a shame, considering it's been compared to War and Peace--and, in my opinion, is loads better. At 1100+ pages, Part One of "The Trilogy"--It's that famous/important in Poland)
69) Emporium: Stories by Adam Johnson (Short fiction)

70) You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett (Short fiction)

Five to go. Or seven, if you don't count War and Peace as three...

Oh - I would DEFINITELY count "War and Peace" as three. Are you kidding? In today's world, I don't think you'd find it published as anything less than a trilogy.

In today's world, I don't think you'd find it published at all--at least not in its full "glory." No editor would let Tolstoy keep all 1600 pages. Of course, as I said in my review (Warning! Shameless self-promotion!), in today's world Tolstoy would probably be too busy blogging about politics and history to actually write an book. And wouldn't that be nice?

Jacob wrote: "In today's world, I don't think you'd find it published at all--at least not in its full "glory." No editor would let Tolstoy keep all 1600 pages. Of course, as I said in my review (Warning! Sha..."

1600 pages? I must have had a different edition than the one you read. When I checked the book out of the library I looked at the end and saw 800 and some pages. "That's not as bad as everyone says", I thought. Then once the book was home I saw that the numbering started over with each section. (Sigh). I didn't even make it all the way through Part 1. So I admire the heck out of anyone who reads the whole thing.

Tolstoy a blogger? That's an interesting picture!

Mine's a smallish paperback, but it's 2-3 inches thick, and divided into three books of 540+ pages each. Still don't know how I had the patience.

71) All Things, All at Once: New and Selected Stories by Lee K. Abbott (Short fiction, but not as good as I thought it would be. Alas)
72) Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving (Irving's newest novel. Had some trouble getting into it, but it's turning out pretty good)

73) T.R.: The Last Romantic by H. W. Brands (Biography of Theodore Roosevelt. I don't generally read political biographies--although I should, I really should--but I saw this on display at the library and had to give it a try. Look at that cover--this book pretty much demands to be read. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear Brands doesn't like Teddy, and views him as a spoiled and immature man-child. Still, it's interesting--I'll just have to counterbalance the negative portayal by reading Edmund Morris's two-part bio sometime later.)

74) Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Parts by Will Self (Short fiction/novellas. Won this in a GoodReads First Reads contest. Pretty good so far)

Almost there!

Yea! Just one to go . . .

75) Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón

Hey look, I made it.

Jacob wrote: "75) Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón

Hey look, I made it."

Yay! :)