75 Books...More or Less! discussion

I only finished 61 books in 2010 (spent too much time online, reading about the latest durn fool thing Sarah Palin/Christine O'Donnell/John McCain/Sarah Palin Again said), but this year will be better. Screw politics, I'm gonna read a book.

2011 Reading List: 1-10
1) A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor
2) Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
3) Hadrian the Seventh by Fr. Rolfe (Baron Corvo)
4) Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
5) The City & the City by China Miéville

6) How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
7) The Bostons: Stories by Carolyn Cooke
8) A Shadow in Summer: Book One of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
9) Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E. W. Hornung
10) The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevenson

Good luck on your challenge this year, Jacob!!!

1) Hadrian the Seventh by Fr. Rolfe (Baron Corvo) (401 pages) Read 1/1/2011 to 1/8/2011 (****) See review

Hadrian the Seventh isn't the first book I finished this year, but reviewing it first will help explain one of my reading goals in 2011. Hope nobody minds cumbersome pictures book porn!



To start with, this is Hadrian the Seventh. I found it on a $1 clearance shelf back in 2006 and bought it because the cover was nice and the story--about a minor English priest unexpectedly elected to the Papacy--sounded somewhat interesting. Didn't think much about it, didn't read it, etc.



This is Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame). I bought it in 2007 for the same reasons--nice cover, interesting premise--and I read and reviewed it last month.

You may have noticed those two books look similar--cover design-wise, that is. As it turns out (and it took me a few more books to discover this) that they were both published by the New York Review of Books (or NYRB), a fairly eclectic publisher of older and out-or-print books, works in translation, memoirs, travel writing, and so on. Mostly books I never would've noticed in the first place, were it not for the gorgeous covers. They all look like that. Same design, great artwork, monochromatic spines and backs. In fact, if you get enough of them together on a shelf, they look like this:



Pretty, huh?

So, over the years I've bought a lot of books from the NYRB (46 in the photo taken last month, with seven more bought since then. I am not ashamed!), but I've only read a handful of them. My goal this year, starting with Hadrian the Seventh, is to read at least a dozen, 18 or so if I'm not so lazy, and two dozen (or more) if I feel really ambitious and don't mind pushing aside other non-NYRB books. I don't want to rush them, though, because NYRB books are often as good as they are pretty. Need to enjoy them. Because if they're just sitting there on the shelf unread, they're nothing but decoration.



Pretty decorations, but decorations nonetheless.

2) Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar (Short fiction: 6 stories) (148 pages) Read 1/2/2011 to 1/7/2011 (***) See review

Second goal for 2011: Short stories. I own a lot of single-author collections and keep buying more, and I've been trying to read through them, generally one or two collections at a time, one or two stories per day, for two years now. Read 28 collections in 2009 and another 28 in 2010, and I should reach (and maybe pass?) that number this year too.

Lara Vapnyar is an immigrant from Russia who has been writing and publishing in English for about fifteen years now. I read and enjoyed her first collection (There Are Jews in My House: Stories) late last year, and I was moved to hunt down this one two. The stories here, about immagrants connecting to one another with food, aren't quite as good as the other collection, but are enjoyable nonetheless. I'd still recommend There Are Jews in My House before Broccoli. The unfortunate thing is, Vapnyar hasn't published much: aside from these two, very slim collections (each are less than 150 pages and contain six stories apiece), Lara Vapnyar has one novel. Haven't read it yet, might soon.

Jacob, I'm not sure what NYRB is, but the books make a beautiful display!

3) A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor (112 pages) Read 1/3/2011 to 1/5/2011 (****) See review
Leigh Fermor is a travel writer, and most of his work is published by NYRB. Silence is a short book about several visits to European monasteries he took during his youth. Very interesting, though brief.

4) Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (Short fiction: 18 stories) (206 pages) Read 1/1/2011 to 1/13/2011) (*****) See review
Very brutal collection of short stories centered around the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. Not for the squeamish.

5) The City & the City by China Miéville (336 pages) Read 1/9/2011 to 1/13/2011 (****)
Mieville is a genre-bending sci-fi/fantasy/horror (or, as he prefers, "new weird") author, most famous for his steampunk Bas-lag series. TC&tC is a murder mystery set in two very strange Eastern European cities. A bit sparse compared to his other work, but good.

6) How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown (267 pages) (Library) Read 1/13/2011 to 1/19/2011 (*****)
Popular science and memoir from an astronomer whose discovery of several large Kuiper Belt objects led to the demotion of Pluto to "dwarf planet" status. Fun and informative, but unapologetic. Pluto lives!

7) The Bostons: Stories by Carolyn Cooke (Short fiction: 9 stories) (180 pages) Read 1/14/2011 to 1/21/2011 (**) See review
Short fiction. Not very interesting.

8) A Shadow in Summer: Book One of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham (363 pages) Read 1/15/2011 to 1/26/2011 (***) See review
Fantasy, first of a 4-book series. Pretty good.

9) Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E. W. Hornung (Short fiction: 8 stories) (179 pages) Read 1/22/2011 to 1/26/2011 (*****) See review
Short stories about a gentleman-thief and his sidekick, written by Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law. Fun and adventurous, and so good I tracked down the rest of the series.

10) The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevenson (Short fiction: 3 stories) (59 pages) Read 1/27/2011 to 1/29/2011 (**) See review
Three interconnected stories about a Prince in London who discovers a club of people dedicated to ending their own lives. Far too short to be satisfying. Will have to try some of Stevenson's other work to make up for it.

2011 Reading List: 11-20
11) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Review)
11) Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant
12) A Betrayal in Winter: Book Two of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
13) CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders (Review)
14) The Friend of Women and Other Stories by Louis Auchincloss (Review)
15) Trash: Stories by Dorothy Allison

16) The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson (Review)
17) Supertoys Last All Summer Long: And Other Stories of Future Time by Brian Aldiss
18) The Diary of a Rapist by Evan S. Connell (Review)
19) An Autumn War: Book Three of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
20) Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

2011 Reading List: 21-30
21) The Collected Raffles by E. W. Hornung (Review)
22) Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizanovsky (Review)
23) Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (Review)
24) The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)
25) Complete Short Stories of Graham Greene

26) The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
27) In Persuasion Nation: Stories by George Saunders (Review)
28) We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau (169 pages) (Review)
29) Rumble, Young Man, Rumble by Benjamin Cavell
30) The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories by Julia Slavin (Review)

Wow, Jacob!

I also wanted to read The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers. I picked this up somewhere and almost got it but at the last minute I remembered I have 600+ unread books at home and out it down.

2011 Reading List: 31-40
31) Embassytown by China Miéville (Review)
32) 1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport (Review)
32) The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories by Tayeb Salih
33) The Wine-Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia
34) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
35) Romantic Fairy Tales, edited by Carol Tully (Review)

36) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
37) The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft (Review)
38) Napoleon by Paul Johnson (Review)
39) The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach (Review)
40) Eating Mammals: Three Novellas by John Barlow (Review)

Andrea wrote: "Wow, Jacob!

I also wanted to read The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers..."

I'm back! And way behind on posting! I got lazy back in March and stopped updating, but now that I'm approaching the 75-mark I figured I should stop being so lazy. So here I am.

I wasn't very impressed by The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories. The title story was ok, while the rest...weren't bad, but they weren't exactly memorable either.

2011 Reading List: 41-52
41) In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales by Lord Dunsany (Review)
42) The Price of Spring: Book Four of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
43) The Queen's Mirror: Fairy Tales by German Women, 1790-1900, edited by Shawn G. Jarvis and Jeannine Blackwell
44) Guadalajara: Stories by Quim Monzo
45) Pages from the Goncourt Journals by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

46) The Quantity Theory of Insanity: Together with Five Supporting Propositions by Will Self (Review)
47) Hav by Jan Morris
48) The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel (Review)
49) Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia (Review)
50) Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi 

51) The Night in Question: Stories by Tobias Wolff (Review)
52) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: And A Man Called Horse, The Hanging Tree, Lost Sister: The Great Western Stories of Dorothy M. Johnson (Review)

I guess I should be happy that I resisted. I like short stories though so I may borrow it from the library at some point.

I'm glad to see you back and posting! Looks like you got a good amount of reading done :)

2011 Reading List: 53-57: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Review)
53) A Study in Scarlet (Review)
54) The Sign of the Four
55) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
56) The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
57) The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Andrea wrote: "I guess I should be happy that I resisted. I like short stories though so I may borrow it from the library at some point.

I like short stories too--but that collection just didn't work for me. Others seem to like it, though, so you may want to give it a try anyway.

I'm glad to see you back and posting! Looks like you got a good amount of reading done :) "

Plenty of reading...not enough reviewing or discussing.

2011 Reading List: 58-68
58) A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Review)
59) The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions That Made Modern Europe, 1648-1815 by Tim Blanning (Review)
59) Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories by Frank Bill
60) Vertical Motion: Stories by Can Xue (Review)

61) In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan le Fanu (Review)
62) The Colour Out of Space: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Blackwood, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird, edited by D. Thin (Review)
63) Damned by Chuck Palahniuk (Review)
64) The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock (Review)
65) German Literary Fairy Tales, edited by Frank G. Ryder and Robert M. Browning

66) Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas
67) The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio (Review)
68) The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia (Review)

2011 Reading List: 69-72: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
69) The Hound of the Baskervilles
70) The Valley of Fear
71) His Last Bow
72) The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Aaaand I'm caught up. Remind me never to fall behind again...

Jacob wrote: "Remind me never to fall behind again . . ."

OK! Here is your reminder . . .

Kay wrote: "OK! Here is your reminder . . ."

Ha, thanks.

73) Jubilee King: Stories by Jesse Shepard (Short fiction: 12 stories) (183 pages) Read 11/27/2011 to 12/2/2011 (**)

Not very good--just a bunch of dumb and boring short stories about dumb and boring losers. I was only reading it as a break between Sherlock Holmes and The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime, but I should've tried something a bit more interesting instead.

2 more! You so own this challenge!!

Joy wrote: "2 more! You so own this challenge!!"

Well, I'm cheating a bit--I read the complete Sherlock Holmes (4 novels, 5 collections of 56 stories total) in 2 volumes, but decided to count them as 9 books. But otherwise, I'm doing pretty well--especially considering I only read 61 last year.

Jacob wrote: "Joy wrote: "2 more! You so own this challenge!!"

Well, I'm cheating a bit--I read the complete Sherlock Holmes (4 novels, 5 collections of 56 stories total) in 2 volumes, but decided to count them..."


I wouldn't consider that cheating. You could have read 9 different books to read the same content, if those were the editions available to you.

I agree with Charleen! Besides this is just for fun so even if you want to count Goodnight Moon we will cheer you on :)

74) The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Anthology: 11 stories, 10 authors) (321 pages) Read 12/3/2011 to 12/11/2011 (*****)

Anthology of Victorian detective fiction (written between 1864 and 1915) starring female private eyes--all of them just as capable as Sherlock Holmes, and yet every one of them forgotten by readers. Great stories, but most of their other adventures are out of print or very hard to find. Highly recommended.

75) Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia (119 pages) Read 12/5/2011 to 12/11/2011 (***)

Confusing and somewhat claustrophobic Italian crime novel. Very short, probably something to read in one sitting--but I took my time with it, and probably lost a bit by drawing it out. Either way, I made it to 75, so I'm happy. Huzzah!

76) Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette (98 pages) Read 12/12/2011 to 12/13/2011 (****)

French crime novel novella. Short, violent, and probably much deeper than I could understand. Deserves a reread. Deserves several.

2011 Reading List: 73-80
73) Jubilee King: Stories by Jesse Shepard (Review)
74) The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Review)
75) Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia (Review)

76) Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette (Review)
77) The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Review)
78) The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 1858-1919 by Douglas Brinkley
79) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
80) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens

Congratulations on hitting 75!

You did it! way to go!!!

Yay, Jacob! Just in time :)

Yep! And a good thing, too--I made the mistake of picking up a Teddy Roosevelt biography and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell at the same time, and there's probably no way I'm going to finish either before the year is out. So it's good I got some smaller stuff out of the way...

77) The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Anthology: 12 stories, 12 authors) (248 pages) Read 12/13/2011 to 12/22/2011 (****)

A companion anthology to The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime, featuring criminals from the same period. Fun stuff--and while most of the writers and stories anthologized are out of print or hard to find in print, many are still available (for free!) on Project Gutenberg.

78) The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 1858-1919 by Douglas Brinkley (940 pages) Read 11/1/2011 to 12/29/2011 (*****)

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, and every year around that time my library puts up a display of biographies. I read one a few years ago, and this year I took the bait again. The Wilderness Warrior examines Roosevelt's life as a wildlife and environmental conservationist both in and out of politics, and it's endlessly fascinating.

79) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (782 pages) Read 11/14/2011 to --

I'm re-reading this after five years, although it was probably a mistake to pick it up while working through the Theodore Roosevelt biography. I'm not going to finish this before January 1, but I'm counting it as a 2011 read anyway.

80) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens (Short fiction/articles: 8 pieces) (288 pages) Read 12/23/2011 to --

Ditto for this--it's a 2011 read, even if I don't finish by the end of the year. I've never read "A Christmas Carol" before, but I really enjoyed it--but I've been sick lately and didn't feel like reading the other stuff, so I fell behind. Bleh.

Final tally!

1) A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor
2) Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
3) Hadrian the Seventh by Fr. Rolfe (Baron Corvo)
4) Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
5) The City & the City by China Miéville
6) How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
7) The Bostons: Stories by Carolyn Cooke
8) A Shadow in Summer: Book One of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
9) Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E. W. Hornung
10) The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevenson

11) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Review)
11) Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant
12) A Betrayal in Winter: Book Two of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
13) CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders (Review)
14) The Friend of Women and Other Stories by Louis Auchincloss (Review)
15) Trash: Stories by Dorothy Allison
16) The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson (Review)
17) Supertoys Last All Summer Long: And Other Stories of Future Time by Brian Aldiss
18) The Diary of a Rapist by Evan S. Connell (Review)
19) An Autumn War: Book Three of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
20) Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

21) The Collected Raffles by E. W. Hornung (Review)
22) Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizanovsky (Review)
23) Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (Review)
24) The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)
25) Complete Short Stories of Graham Greene
26) The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
27) In Persuasion Nation: Stories by George Saunders (Review)
28) We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau (169 pages) (Review)
29) Rumble, Young Man, Rumble by Benjamin Cavell
30) The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories by Julia Slavin (Review)

31) Embassytown by China Miéville (Review)
32) 1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport (Review)
32) The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories by Tayeb Salih
33) The Wine-Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia
34) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
35) Romantic Fairy Tales, edited by Carol Tully (Review)
36) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
37) The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft (Review)
38) Napoleon by Paul Johnson (Review)
39) The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach (Review)
40) Eating Mammals: Three Novellas by John Barlow (Review)

41) In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales by Lord Dunsany (Review)
42) The Price of Spring: Book Four of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
43) The Queen's Mirror: Fairy Tales by German Women, 1790-1900, edited by Shawn G. Jarvis and Jeannine Blackwell
44) Guadalajara: Stories by Quim Monzo
45) Pages from the Goncourt Journals by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
46) The Quantity Theory of Insanity: Together with Five Supporting Propositions by Will Self (Review)
47) Hav by Jan Morris
48) The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel (Review)
49) Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia (Review)
50) Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi 

51) The Night in Question: Stories by Tobias Wolff (Review)
52) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: And A Man Called Horse, The Hanging Tree, Lost Sister: The Great Western Stories of Dorothy M. Johnson (Review)
53) A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Review)
54) The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
55) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
56) The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
57) The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
58) A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Review)
59) The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions That Made Modern Europe, 1648-1815 by Tim Blanning (Review)
59) Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories by Frank Bill
60) Vertical Motion: Stories by Can Xue (Review)

61) In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan le Fanu (Review)
62) The Colour Out of Space: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Blackwood, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird, edited by D. Thin (Review)
63) Damned by Chuck Palahniuk (Review)
64) The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock (Review)
65) German Literary Fairy Tales, edited by Frank G. Ryder and Robert M. Browning
66) Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas
67) The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio (Review)
68) The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia (Review)
69) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
70) The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

71) His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
72) The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
73) Jubilee King: Stories by Jesse Shepard (Review)
74) The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Review)
75) Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia (Review)
76) Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette (Review)
77) The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims (Review)
78) The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 1858-1919 by Douglas Brinkley
79) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
80) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens

Jacob wrote: "Final tally!

1) A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor
2) Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
3) Hadrian the Seventh by Fr. Rolfe (Baron Corvo)
4) Knockemstiff ..."

AWESOME!!!

A great year Jacob, that is an impressive list!