Chaos Reading discussion

Such a pleasure to know at least that for the 2012 edition I had to ask Riona to post this topic: in 2013, here I am doing it myself! I learned something!

What were your (5, say) favourite books of 2013 and why? Same question for worst? Personally, I like a meaty visceral rant- if we can be in accordance, let loose.

Best:

- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. Great advice and a new alive person to imagine spending time with.
- Ficciones by Borges: such a small amount of pages can make you cry with their beauty! Lol wtf.
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by DFW. Words can punch you in the face?!
- The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Every single page is quotable somewhere, and shakes the room you're in.
- The Book of Dave by Will Self. Incredible empathy, social commentary and sheer day-to-day British horror.

Worst:

- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Book equivalent of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOqKyS...
- The Satanic Verses By Salman Rushdie. Wow! Salman Rushdie('s characters) has (have) read a lot of books!... what was your point?
- Money by Martin Amis. Amis, I'm not you: help me out: what the hell are you on about?
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m09...
(nothing else leaps out as overwhelmingly offensive, what joy!)

How about you? How was your year in books?

And Happy New Year when it comes!

i'm terrible at these, like the wee boy in Mad Max 2 (everything in life can be correlated to a Mad Max moment) my life fades.

so i think i read these in 2013 and i either loved or hated then

Loved

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - beautifully written and engaging and followed by a movie that was almost as good. Was it as good as Catcher in the Rye? who knows, i was 17 when I read that and it nailed being 17, I was 39 when I read Perks and it nailed being shy and awkward - which I still am

The Fault in Our Stars - my wife is a teacher of teens so I try and keep up on YA books so she knows what the foul little fuckers are talking about. Sometimes I hit dross (the Gone series) but sometimes it's far better. Fault is better. I still question the motives of the author in writing it, and i would say if I were a kid with cancer I would likely feel even worse for not being as cool as these kids, but it was a powerful and characterful read. So saying some passages were almost unreadable for me as they were too reminiscent of when my daughter was in hospital 4 years back.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - it's not perfect but book 2 ends with the most staggering moment of genuine evil I have ever read which makes it flat unforgettable. Pair that with an astonishing gall stone surgery sequence and you have a book that it unforgettable, though maybe not entirely enjoyable. Also, Cloud Atlas The Movie was astonishing

HATED

The Rosie Project - treats asbergers like Pretty Woman treated prostitution and has a lead character who reminds you constantly that it is ok to laugh at him, which it really isn't. Reads like fan fiction of The Big Bang Theory and even names the lead character Don (Sheldon). Basically awful

Anna Karenina - read it in preparation for the movie as I am a big fan of Joe Wright films. It was ok but I didn't warm to anyone in the book and after 600 pages I started yawning constantly so skipped to the end. The movie was also awful

Doctor Sleep - I grew up reading Stephen King, my first big book was Christine and my mother pursued me around the house shouting that I should not be reading that filth which lead to me finishing the book locked in the toilet (which likely makes me the only teenage boy ever to lock himself in the bathroom with a book rather than the lingerie section of the catalogue). Every new King book out I buy hoping to rediscover the thrill of the books I read as a teen, but they grow worse and worse (the Kennedy book being the exception). Doctor Sleep was utterly forgettable, there was no threat, limp bad guys, no chills, no character and basically nothing happens and the fucker refuses to end. A huge disappointment

I'm going to have to go away and think about this one. Glad you loved The Book of Dave: A Revelation of the Recent Past and the Distant Future though, Leo. I keep picking it up & putting it down again. I bought it for the pretty cover - part of a sailor tattoo style cover art series. ;)

Glad to see The Man WIthout Qualities and Thousand Autumns on best lists, these are on my TBR list. The "No, really, I actually WILL read these" TBR list. I don't really understand the vitriol for Anna Karenina, I wouldn't call it my favorite book, but I did quite enjoy it. Not enough to engage in meaty visceral rants, though. Sorry to see Doctor Sleep on a worst list. I haven't read a Stephen King in quite a while, and I was looking forward to this one.

My list. At least as I would rank them at this moment, it could change tomorrow.

Best
-Last Exit To Brooklyn. Totally unique, heart-breaking, amazingly compassionate towards the kind of people you usually cross the street to avoid.
-Palimpsest. For invoking fantastic cities and unrequited longing, not to be beat.
-The Master and Margarita. Maybe even better on reread.
-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Listening to Alexie read this makes it even better. Naked honesty about the psychic toll stepping outside your group and being an outsider can take.
For fifth choice I can't decide among 4 different books, so I'll just post the four I'm fairly unequivocal about. Mainly because I like the oxymoronic term 'fairly unequivocal'.

Worst - disclaimer here is that I don't finish books I totally hate, so none of these are really, really awful:
-Boneshaker. Thought I should read a Steampunk novel, picked the one that seems to be considered the best by many. All window dressing, no substance.
-Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury. More uneven than straight-out bad. For a tribute to Ray Bradbury, the magic was lacking.
-Lionel Asbo: State of England. Maybe because I'm not British, but just didn't see the point.
-Noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story ... . Should have known that a book with an introduction by Daniel Handler would tend toward patronizingly twee.
-Dodger. Not terrible at all, but very disappointing for a Terry Pratchett book.

Note that two of my top four were Chaos Reading books!

Great submissions and chat guyz! "treats asbergers like Pretty Woman treated prostitution" ahaha wonderfully scathing! I'll get on Last Exit To Brooklyn ASAP because I know lots of you in the group loved it too :-)

And not totally surprising to see another Amis on the hated!

It's not vitriol for Karenina, I just found it very baggy...

I have the tattoo cover of Dave too! Very cool :-) I read it when I was in London and I could totally see it happening- that was a big part of the enjoyment, but it's such a giant pisstake and so empathetic at the same time- genius

Selections are taken from my 2013 Reading Challenge. The reviews linked are for convenience and why they rate at the top of or at the bottom of my reading for 2013.

The first two books I recommend unabashedly and without reservation. They are without question great works.

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson.

my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


This one is just a fine read and with a couple of minor idiomatic issues most likely due to the translation. A surprise, for me at least, good read.
The Dinner by Herman Koch

The Best re-read of the year was Jasper Johns by Michael Crichton.
my review - >https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Worst
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again by Drew Pinsky
my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Happy New Year. Now I return you to your regular programming and I'm going back to Fuego live from Bayside on MiAmigo.

Forgot to mention The Goldfinch, absolutely appalling. It takes a long time for the disappointment to manifest as you keep thinking it can't be as bad as it is. Aside from a cracking beginning there is nothing to recommend here at all.

AHA! I'll read The Goldfinch soon and see how it is :)

Happy New Year everyone! We had a very quiet but relaxing NYE. Even Swanky was a bit festive though, presenting us with the biggest gecko I have ever seen. When I wasn't chasing disembodied, but very wiggly, lizard pieces around the lounge room, I gave some more thought to my list..

MY BEST OF 2013
*S. - For so many reasons, on so many levels. This really was an "experience" rather than a "read", and an absolute joy. I'm looking forward to the group discussion, and trawling some of those links people have posted too..

*City of Saints and Madmen - VanderMeer really knows how to build up a mosaic, piece by tiny piece. My review explains why I consider myself to have dual citizenship in Ambergris: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

*Taipei - This book was a total surprise, and I'm including it in my favourites for the unique nature of the writing. My review explains why: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

*Ack-Ack Macaque - Pure fun. End of story. Except for the review, such as it is: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

*Light Boxes (Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) & Silently and Very Fast would have to tie for the last spot. Both are really beautiful, beautiful fairytale-ish short books.

..and a special mention for best anthology:
*Brave New Worlds - Every story is a winner in this plus-sized anthology. Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

MY WORST OF 2013
*Pale Fire - Not so much the fault of the book as the circumstances of reading it at the time.

*The Swan Book - If you're going to go all stream-of-consciousness, you need to understand he words you're using. And definitely not try to make puns with them. Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

*Both Parasite & How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea - the not-so-stunning conclusion to my long-running beef with Mira Grant: Reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... & https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Edited to include BOTH terrible MG books and an angry panda review

*Diary of a Maggot - Just a bad ebook.

Wow that was tough. I read a lot of really good books in 2013.

Sandyboy wrote: "Forgot to mention The Goldfinch, absolutely appalling. It takes a long time for the disappointment to manifest as you keep thinking it can't be as bad as it is. Aside from a crackin..."

Dammit! I recently bought that, but the size is putting me off..

Ruby [Reviles Censorship] wrote: "Dammit! I recently bought that, but the size is putting me off.. "

I enjoyed The Secret History, was thinking about going on a Tartt-binge and reading the other two soon ;-)

History was magic, Little Friend slow but worthy.....Goldfinch though is just desperately wanting to be Dickens and failing with bad stereotypes and no plot

Leo [Hydra Kids, Hydra Wife] X. wrote: "Such a pleasure to know at least that for the 2012 edition I had to ask Riona to post this topic: in 2013, here I am doing it myself! I learned something!"

Yay, I am so proud!



Okay, so my best of 2013 (and the only 3 I gave 5 stars to... hmm, rough year, huh?) would have to be The Secret History, The Thirteenth Tale, and The Shining Girls. Now that I list them, it's kind of strange how similar they all are: all gritty, dark mysteries that have similar tones and maybe even writing styles, all by female authors. The titles even fit a pattern. Odd, that.

As far as worst, I had a few of those too -- mostly that Fifty Shades dreck I forced myself through and Stockholm: A Novel, which was just boring and plotless. Nothing this past year really made me ragey, though, which is something -- mostly it was a year of book mediocrity. I had a loooot of 2- and 3-stars on my shelves.

Leo [Hydra Kids, Hydra Wife] X. wrote: "I enjoyed The Secret History, was thinking about going on a Tartt-binge and reading the other two soon ;-) ..."

You binge-Tartter. :)

The book I'm reading right now would definitely have made my top 5 if I'd finished it in time: In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods. It's pure poetry with a pretty high weird factor.

Finally, here is my review of The Book Thief, one of the three best books I read in 2013 - and, in fact, one of the best books I have ever had the privilege of reading:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...