Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vector]

One of us, one of us!

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 13/52 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
  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
  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
  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
  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.
• Catch-22
  561 Pages
  Just so good. Witty and painful at the same time.
• Rethinking Life and Death
  222 Pages
  Because books on ethics are fun to read.
• Interworld
  239 Pages
  Gotta read fast.
• Harry Potter and the Natural 20
  156,141 words
  Because Binge reading fan fic is the best possible way to spend a Sunday.

So I just marathoned the Harry Potter fan fic Vector posted.

It took me eight hours to read from the time I opened the first link to the time I closed the last chapter. Doing things is for chumps.

[varnish]

Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. A very quick and easy read, which surprised me a little. Normally I have some trouble with english books from the 19th century. Not much important happens in the book, which I like. Read it at the recommendation of my sister, who also thinks I should read North and South, Wives and Daughters, and everything else written by the same author.

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
10. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
11. Gifts - Ursula Le Guin
12. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell

52 is looking like a very big number right now.

[Ancre]

So I finished another book, about ancient greek literature. It's from the "que sais-je" (what do I know) editions, which I like and find funny because they decided their books all have to be exactly 128 pages, so if there's too much information, they just shrink the characters' size down.

I'm at nine books now. I should read less fanfiction and more serious stuff !

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jean Giraudoux - La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (the Trojan war will not happen)
Jean Giraudoux - Electre
Jean Giraudoux - Ondine

Ciaran Carson - Belfast Confetti

"Gustave Doré, un peintre né"

Jean Racine - Britannicus
Jean Racine - Athalie
Jean Racine - Andromaque

"Greek literature from Homer to Aristotle"

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: 11/52 (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
The Ringworld Engineers - Larry Niven
The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood
Continental Drift - Russel Banks

These were both really good.  Edible Woman's about a woman (who knew?!) who gets engaged and gradually loses the ability to eat.  A satire of the way gender and matrimonial roles and expectations fuck us up. 

Continental Drift is about a 30 year old blue collar worker from New Hampshire who sells his life for a dream in Florida and (surprise) it doesn't work out.  Really good and an easy read prose-wise, but occasionally hard to watch.

Old Man and the Sea is on deck, as is Heart of Darkness, The Trial, and another Joseph Conrad story but I don't remember the name The Secret Sharer, but I'm not sure that counts.

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 14/52 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
  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
  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
  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
  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.
• Catch-22
  561 Pages
  Just so good. Witty and painful at the same time.
• Rethinking Life and Death
  222 Pages
  Because books on ethics are fun to read.
• Interworld
  239 Pages
  Gotta read fast.
• Harry Potter and the Natural 20
  156,141 words
  Because Binge reading fan fic is the best possible way to spend a Sunday.
• Plato The Republic
  358 pages
  Because why not.

[Dutchling]

Finished my fourth book.

Frankenstein's Monster, by Mary Shelley.

Why? It's a classic, it's Frankenstein, and my brother had a copy anyways. The book was a very good one imo. Ending was pretty tragic, but the Monster's last words made it all work out in the end. I'm not very good at writing what I think about books. I just liked it.

[Simmura McCrea]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Three Musketeers - 520
Summer Knight - 405
Look to Windward - 403
Player of Games - 308
Death Masks - 408
A Memory of Light - 909
Harry Potter 1 - 288
Harry Potter 2 - 319
Harry Potter 3 - 408
Harry Potter 4 - 684
Harry Potter 5 - 925
Harry Potter 6 - 611
Blood Rites - 384
Harry Potter 7 - 715
Hydrogen Sonata - 517
Legion - 412
Outcast Dead - 459
Nemesis - 459
Horus Rising - 412
False Gods - 406
Galaxy in Flames - 407
10 011 pages total

21 finished, and partway through a 40k binge. Also over 10 000 pages read.

[Kirbypowered]

Finished. Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan is stunning, possibly my favourite work of fiction yet read. It's set in a fantasy world, but there is no magic, or any fantastical creatures. Just the castle of Gormenghast, a cold and lifeless labyrinth full of people equally cold and lifeless following endless ritual and tradition. There isn't any particular hero, either, just imperfect characters that act on their own interests, creating subtle changes within the monotony. No clash between good and evil, just a lot of what most would consider evil.

...sounds pretty depressing, and maybe it is. Definitely hard to get through at parts, but I still loved it. It is in fact part of a trilogy, of which I also have the second book (which I'll probably be reading in the coming weeks).

I technically started it sometime last year, so I'm not totally sure I can add it to this list.

Ignore what I said here, I'm putting it in the list. I had only stopped reading it because I'd lost it until recently, and it took me long enough to finish the stinkin' thing. Seems fair enough to me.

Spoiler: 2/40 (click to show/hide)

The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip - Keith Devlin
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 15/52 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
  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
  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
  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
  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.
• Catch-22
  561 Pages
  Just so good. Witty and painful at the same time.
• Rethinking Life and Death
  222 Pages
  Because books on ethics are fun to read.
• Interworld
  239 Pages
  Gotta read fast.
• Harry Potter and the Natural 20
  156,141 words
  Because Binge reading fan fic is the best possible way to spend a Sunday.
• Plato The Republic
  358 pages
  Because why not.
• The Sirens of Titan
  Kurt Vonnegut
  219 pages
  That was.... not the happiest book I've read.

[Sappho]

Spoiler: First 18 (click to show/hide)

Junky - William S. Burroughs
Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm - Nancy Farmer
American Gods (Author's Preferred Ed) - Neil Gaiman
Hell - Robert Olen Butler
Seven Emus - Xavier Herbert
Jamestown - Matthew Sharpe
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
A Child Called 'It' - David Pelzer
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Diary - Chuck Palahniuk
Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Forgot to add on here that I finished Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk) a week or so ago. It was as good as it was the first time, and Fight Club still remains the only book where I find the movie based on it to be not better, not worse, but equal in merit to the book. Even the differences - the film version is a better film than the book version would be, and vice versa. Also, the book feels more serious, while the film is very funny (though in a dark way).

Partway through re-reading a few other books now. I have to motivate myself to read more - I was way ahead just over a month ago and now I feel I'm falling behind.

Total Pages: 5457

[i2amroy]

Partway through re-reading a few other books now. I have to motivate myself to read more - I was way ahead just over a month ago and now I feel I'm falling behind.

It's not that bad. Come next Tuesday we'll only have just finished week 16, so right now you are still a little more than 2 books ahead.

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 16/52 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
  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
  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
  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
  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.
• Catch-22
  561 Pages
  Just so good. Witty and painful at the same time.
• Rethinking Life and Death
  222 Pages
  Because books on ethics are fun to read.
• Interworld
  239 Pages
  Gotta read fast.
• Harry Potter and the Natural 20
  156,141 words
  Because Binge reading fan fic is the best possible way to spend a Sunday.
• Plato The Republic
  358 pages
  Because why not.
• The Sirens of Titan
  Kurt Vonnegut
  219 pages
  That was.... not the happiest book I've read.
• The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
  Robert A. Heinlein
  382 pages
  That was actually a really good book, although I wouldn't really classify it as Sci-Fi

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was amazing, although I'm getting a friend to lend me a handful of easier books because if I keep up with what I'm reading now there's probably no chance of reaching 52.

[i2amroy]

Two more books finished (it was a relaxing weekend ) both by Terry Pratchett. Pyramids, coming in at 323 pages and Wyrd Sisters, coming it at 265 pages. Both of them had me laughing out loud at times, and I highly look forward to reading the other 5 books or so of his that I picked up at the same time as these.

Spoiler: Books Finished 20/52 (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
Crusade - Taylor Anderson
Maelstrom - Taylor Anderson
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett

Total Pages: 9687

And for all of you who are tracking your progress come tomorrow you should be finishing your 16th book, so if you're ahead of that then congratulations but if you are behind then you might need to pick up the pace!

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: 12/52 (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
The Ringworld Engineers - Larry Niven
The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood
Continental Drift - Russel Banks
Song of Kali - Dan Simmons

This book was interesting.  From the back of the book, its trade paperback appearance, and some first impressions, I was expecting cheap horror/thriller fare.

Holy fuck was I wrong.

It took a while to hit, but when it hit it was bad.  I was so jarred from my original expectations that I initially hated the book, feeling like it was a pointless sucker punch.  After a while I started to like it though, once I'd reorganized my perception of what the book was.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The protagonist, his wife, and their baby go to Calcutta to recover a manuscript of an epic poem.  Much of the poem is vignettes of senseless acts of violence and insanity.  Through such events, the song of Kali slips into the world.  The back of the book says that he has to rescue his kidnapped daughter who will be sacrificed to bring Kali into the world.  That's true in a roundabout way, but I'd still call it pretty misleading.

The baby is kidnapped, but instead of holding her to be rescued, typical thriller fare, they just kill her and sell her body to two smugglers who fill it full of jewels.  The parents find her like that.  The dad listless goes through the motions of his life, buying an antique luger and practicing with it at the shooting range, only subconsciously aware of why he's doing it until he buys a ticket to Calcutta, planning on killing everyone even tangentially involved.  As he's walking to his first target he hears the Song of Kali in his head, urging him to go on, and he realizes that the cultists killed his baby to provoke him into just such an act of senseless violence, and that he was just adding to the cycle of violence that Kali or whatever was acting as Kali thrived on.  He fought it off and went back home to his wife, and they had another baby.