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[Muz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be - Jack Canfield
2. Mastery - Robert Greene
3. The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
4. Man Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - John Gray
5. The 50th law - 50 Cent/R. Greene
6. How To Read A Book - Mortimer J Adler
7. The Paleo Solution - Robb Wolf
8. Eat That Frog - Brian Tracy
9. The Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande
10-26: will figure it out later

5/26 - kinda lagging behind but at least it's still more than I do other years.

Checklist Manifesto is more a narrative than a kind of guidebook to checklists, which surprised me a bit.

[Flying Dice]

Finished The Duchess of Malfi. I'm possibly going to have a chance to see an American Shakespeare Center performance of it (as well as Twelfth Night, and for $5 each no less!) soon, which has me feeling all tingly with anticipation. The final two acts are quite the spectacle. I suppose strangling children on stage has that effect.

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 9/52 completed (click to show/hide)

• Poké Wars: The Subsistence
  118,768 words
  Decent concept and interesting actions scenes, but the typos are fairly obvious even if you're not looking for them.
• Practical Ethics, By Peter Singer
  359 pages of content, 395 with notes and index
  Philosophy is fun, especially when you're a awkward introspective seventeen year old!
• Poké Wars: The Coalescence
  72,269 words
  It's definately readable, I'll give it that.
• The Last Dragon Slayer, By Jasper Fforde
  289 pages
  Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite authors, and this book is a good example why. Witty, fun and with amazing world building.
• The Emotion Machine, by  Marvin Lee Minsky
  346 pages, 387 with index
  While probably more relevant to my dream of working on AI, a lot less interesting than Practical Ethics. Good thing I just got Animal Liberation by Peter Singer from the library.
  
• Animal Liberation, By Peter Singer
  248 pages, 324 with everything else
  Animal Liberation is amazing, and will make you look at the world completely differently.
  
• The Saga of Tuck:Tuck Season
  ~250,000 words
  I read weird things on the internet. Sometimes I reread them.
• Flatland
  100 pages plus introductions
  Social Commentary on Victorian culture using a 2d world of shape-people.
• Blue Remembered Earth
  505 Pages
  I really needed some Sci-Fi to unfry my brain. Consider it uncooked.

Cheated off palch because palch is a cool dood and Blue Remembered Earth looked cool.

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: 9/52 (click to show/hide)

The Octopus - Frank Norris
House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Final War and other Fantasies - KM O'donnel
The Rise of David Levinsky - Abraham Cahan
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
Sula - Toni Morrison
Ringworld - Larry Niven
The Professor's House - Willa Cather
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

God, this was a tough one.  A lot of books are used as vehicles for a message, but this book took it to an extreme.  There's nothing written here that isn't contributing to some kind of overarching message.  Like Hemingway sparseness.  If you're reading this for the story of a dude and his family you're going to be very bored and very disappointed. Interesting though, stuff about cultural identity, nationhood, science, aesthetics, ridiculously information-dense for such a short book.

Over my weekend I'll be reading The Metamorphosis and Ringworld Engineers because Ringworld ended way too abruptly and I need some kind of continuation, if not because I liked it (I did, mind you) then because it can't just end like that.

After that, Native Son and whatever else I pick up at the local cheap-as-free bookstore.

[Antur]

Spoiler: 6/52 (click to show/hide)

End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Johnatan Strange & Mr.Norell - Sussana Clarke
Blindsight - Peter Watts
Diamond Age - Neal Sthepenhson

Well Diamond Age was not as fun as Snowcrash at least for me.I couldn't care less for most of the characters in the story and i'm still baffled what exactly technology could and could not do in the setting.

Now i need to get back into some polish books, so i started reading "Sieć" Bogusława Wołoszańskiego.

[pisskop]

Updated my list, if anyone cares.

[varnish]

The Promised Land, Mary Antin. All about immigration.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Froissart's Chronicles
2. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
3. Patricia McKillip - In the Forests of Serre
4. The Song of Roland
5. Andrea Moore Kerr - Lucy Stone: Speaking out for Equality
6. Ursula Le Guin - The Eye of the Heron
7. Tove Jansson - The Summer Book
8. Patricia McKillip - Od Magic
9. Mary Antin - The Promised Land

[palsch]

Thanks to jury duty and associated sitting and doing bugger all, three more down. Both Incryptid books from Seanan McGuire (recommended strongly to those who liked the October Daye series) and the latest Iain M Banks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charles Stross
Merchant Princes series ;
1 - The Family Trade
2 - The Hidden Family
3 - The Clan Corporate
4 - The Merchant's War
5 - The Revolution Business
6 - The Queen of Trades
From the Laundry Files series;
The Apocalypse Codex

Seanan McGuire
October Daye series;
1 - Rosemary and Rue
2 - A Local Habitation
3 - An Artificial Night
4 - Late Eclipses
5 - One Salt Sea
6 - Ashes of Honor
InCryptid series;
Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special
Newsflesh series (as Mira Grant);
Blackout (re-read with Mark Reads to laugh at him)

China Mieville
New Crobuzon series;
Iron Council

Alastair Reynolds
Blue Remembered Earth

Iain M. Banks
The Hydrogen Sonata

Richard Morgan
A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy;
The Steel Remains

Non-struck-out are the ones I'm reading now/next. Blackout is going to be over the next few weeks in painful slow motion, The Steel Remains is my main focus.

[mcclay]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fallout:Equestria-Kkat
Fallout: Equestria Project Horizons-Somber
Conan the Avenger-Robert E. Howard
Conan of the isle- Robert E. Howard
Feet of Clay-Terry Pratchett
Thud!-Terry Pratchett
Witches Abroad-Terry Pratchett
Snuff-Terry Pratchett
Romeo and Juliet-William Shakespeare

10/52

[Lectorog]

Finished Crime and Punishment last night. Whishaw translation, I think. Every bit was good, but it was a task of trudging to get through. The ending was amazing, having read the entire thing, if not great on its own. Especially liked the relatable characters.
The grammar is really weird, by the way. Comma usage is crazy, mostly in sparsity. Typographical errors left off many start and end quotation marks. The word "latter" used very vaguely. And characters are referred to interchangeably by their first two or last names, even when never introduced by one.

Before I started the former, I read Anthem, by Ayn Rand. 'twas interesting. Not a novel by far, but worth noting. I do not worship Rand.

Working on The Hunger Games now. Afterward, I think I'll reread A Song of Ice and Fire - I tried a half year ago to read the newest book, but couldn't get past 100 pages.

Spoiler: Hunger Games, no plot spoilers (click to show/hide)

Over 100 pages in. I don't like it so far. Twilight was better, and I didn't like that. The characters are incredibly simple, and none of the elements are of exceptional originality or other merit. It's an easy read, and I'm certainly waiting to pass final judgement. And no, I'm not sour toward it because I'm comparing it with Crime and Punishment - I briefly started it before the latter and felt the same.

Spoiler: List (click to show/hide)

Twilight
Grotesque
Crime and Punishment

Ongoing short stories:
  Anthem
  Lovecraft (1)

Definitely not making the 52 goal at this rate. But there's plenty of year left, and Crime and Punishment is thick.

[Loud Whispers]

Do it. I dare you. But by Zeus, you'd better finish the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships or you can't count it.
Catalogue of Ships

Well at some point I passed the catalogue of the ships. I really was expecting something horrific, long and bland but it surprised me. From Ancient Greek context it was like hearing a roll call of every city state's culture, their epithets, their heroes and their idols.
I even enjoyed it.

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: 10/52 (click to show/hide)

The Octopus - Frank Norris
House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Final War and other Fantasies - KM O'donnel
The Rise of David Levinsky - Abraham Cahan
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
Sula - Toni Morrison
Ringworld - Larry Niven
The Professor's House - Willa Cather
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Native Son - Richard Wright

Native Son was really good.  A black kid in Jim Crow America finds life so circumscribed that he can only create meaning for himself through violence.

[vagel7]

Finished Crime and Punishment last night. Whishaw translation, I think. Every bit was good, but it was a task of trudging to get through. The ending was amazing, having read the entire thing, if not great on its own. Especially liked the relatable characters.
The grammar is really weird, by the way. Comma usage is crazy, mostly in sparsity. Typographical errors left off many start and end quotation marks. The word "latter" used very vaguely. And characters are referred to interchangeably by their first two or last names, even when never introduced by one.

My god, "Crime and Punishment". I'm currently reading it, but I am reading it in Estonian. Yeah, the thing with Russians is that naming them by their first and father's name(the middle one) is quite formal. I really like it how Dostojevski didn't give the characters similar names, which is a problem with Russian names, as most people have the same or very similar names.

Dostojevski is difficult to read, no matter what. I'm trudging through it with difficulty myself.


I also finished "The Great Gatsby" a week or so ago. Excellent book and I really like how it shows that poor Gatsby actually had very little real friends. I can also relate to Gatsby as I feel that I have a danger to become like him, but not for love, but to prove myself to people or to spite them.

Spoiler: 10/52 (click to show/hide)

1.A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin - 959 pages
2.Diamonds are Forever - Ian Fleming - 304 pages
3.A Rakvere novel(Rakvere romaan) - Jaan Kross - 372 pages
4.The Good Firm(Hea firma) - Armin Kõomägi - 150 pages
5.The Cossacks - Lev Tolstoi - 167 pages
6.Berts befrielse - Sören Olsson and Anders Jacobsson - 160 pages
7.Emigrants - Aleksei Tolstoi - 288 pages
8.Mort - Terry Pratchett - 316 pages
9.The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli - 304 pages
10.The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald - 177 pages

[Lectorog]

Two or three women had their second name Ivanovna, which briefly led to thinking they were related. Overall though, name diversity was great.

The Great Gatsby is a very good book, in part because it's so short that it can be read easily.

EDIT: Because it's not worth a new post.
Finished The Hunger Games. Glad it's over.

Spoiler: No plot spoilers (click to show/hide)

The ending was absolutely terrible. I cannot think of any way it could have been worse. But I guess that's why I'm not writing YA fiction! (Just kidding, there's some quality stuff out there.)

UGH THE CHARACTERS. I found myself giving them additional thoughts, emotions, motivation, etc. because they were so bland and unintelligent.

I have been informed that I should read Battle Royale, which The Hunger Games was adapted from is singular proof that Suzanne Collins is an idiot. I will soon.

[i2amroy]

So after a long break due to some exams I'm back again now that it's spring break. Into the Storm, by Taylor Anderson, is a very interesting alternate history book. For a basic back-cover summary, a WWII battleship gets thrown into an alternate earth where humans don't exist, only to get caught in a war between two opposing species, The Lemurlike Cats' and the raptor-esque Grik. It's a very good book, with enough historical acting to enthrall the mind and enough fantasy to keep my mind occupied.

Spoiler: Books Finished (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire
The Redemption of Althalus - David and Leigh Eddings
Ghost Story - Jim Butcher
Cold Days - Jim Butcher
Prophecy: Child of Earth - Elizabeth Haydon
Destiny: Child of Sky - Elizabeth Hadon
Into the Storm - Taylor Anderson

Total Pages: 7945