How many books can you read in a year?

No, surprisingly enough. I had it read to me, and I do definitely remember being sad at the end, but I didn't end up crying. I am greatly looking forward to the movie, though. I have high expectations of it because John Green mentioned that he was watching them do the shooting for it, and he told (I think) Hank that he didn't realize just how sad he had made the book.

 

Bumping this to say that I've finally endured the rest of Rick Riordan's House of Hades (which the lovely @whitesubtitlesoncanadianwinter and I read together over Skype over many grueling months). Onto the next one, as they say, which she also will be reading to me. Maybe I will post my thoughts on the book later... while most of the people who have read it seem to welcome it with open arms, I saw it as a bit of a slide downhill for Riordan's series. It struck me as very... fanfic-y. Maybe Ms. Whitesubtitles will post her thoughts here as well?

 

GAH NEED TO UPDATE MINE

I find it appropriate that upon retrospective inspection it turns out my start/end date was US's National Reading Day. I'm done with 287 books! Will update sooner or later.

 

2014:

Finished:
Emma--Jane Austen
House of Hades--Rick Riordan
S--J. J. Abrams

In Progress:
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore--Robin Sloan

In review:
House of Hades read like fanfiction written by 12 year olds and even had a token gay character. (You know you're writing a good book when there are seven points of view and the one character without a point of view is the gay one. So great....)

S was absolutely fantastic. The concept is great; there is the main story in the book and a secondary (really the main) story line in the margins as two characters write back and forth to each other. Visually the book is stunning and the story holds up to that.

 

@Rose Hathaway Don't catch up. Just don't. Preserve your soul.

 

The Kane Chronicles series is actually quite good. I don't know whether I'm looking at it through my rose-coloured nostalgia glasses, but I remember all of the books being good and mostly quite entertaining. All of the Heroes of Olympus books were also pretty good, up until House of Hades which (as Krista noted) felt more like Riordan plucked a bunch of fanfic off of the 'net and strung it loosely together with a plot. There is a looooot of angst in a few of the chapters there. It was primarily just "wow such teen angst i am so edgyyyyy" especially in the chapter related to a certain diaper-clad God of love. Yeah...

Overall, I still love the series, but there were a lot of fanservice-y moments within this book and stuff that came out of nowhere that I honestly thought was a joke.

 

I've just updated mine as well. Ironic how I'd just gotten the time to start reading for pleasure again as this topic is updated by Rose for the first time in eons. :5 I've come off to a slow start on my new year rather than a strong one, but for me and my scheduling, that might well be a good thing later so I don't tire out and schedule everything poorly around work/school to a point where I can yet again get nothing done.

 

Once this is all over I think I can start reading again, but for now I'm still just stuck reading research articles from boring journals. gg

 

Bringing this back!

This next six months or so will be my last before I start the whole never ending post secondary process (and have little time for personal reading) therefore I've set myself a fairly lofty goal of 75 books before September.

So far I have read:

Starflight by Melissa Landers
This was a surprisingly good YA science fiction novel.  A quick read, I finished it in less than three hours.  Set in a time when only the wealthy can afford to live on Earth, it features Solara, a young talented mechanic who is looking for a fresh start in the lawless 'outer realm'.  The characters were definitely the best part of this book, with everyone feeling real and flawed and all having a real role to play in the plot.  It appears to be part of a series and I really look forward to the political and capitalist side of the world being revealed further.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Station Eleven is written by a Canadian author and it received quite a lot of attention and won a variety of awards.  It is set in this post apocalyptic world and I was really sick of reading dystopian fiction so I avoided reading this book for quite awhile.  That was definitely a mistake; Emily St. John Mandel is quite simply a beautiful writer.  The prose was nuanced and stayed away from the romanticism that other dystopian novels have.  I highly recommend it.

Today Means Amen by Sierra Demulder
This is Sierra Demulder's most recent poetry collection and it does not disappoint.  Although she is known for being a slam poet her work holds up well to reading.  Incredibly moving, her work is sensual but also carries a heaviness that causes you to choke on your own tongue even when not reading aloud. Here is a taste from her poem Floating,

  

Now I am one of those terrible people that reads many books simultaneously so here is what I am currently reading: 

• Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull
• Confessions of A Mask by Yukio Mishima
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Welcome to Night Vale by Jeffery Cranor and Joseph Fink

 

Now that I've finally found myself in a place with an abundant amount of free time on my hands, following that catching up on my latest ongoing freelance gig's workload from January on through now, I feel like joining Krista on her reviving this topic and running headfirst into this bookish escapade, yet again. For starters, I'm going to sit down outside today post-lunch and start chugging my way through Americanah by Chimamanda Nigozi Adichie, which the aforementioned actually gifted me for our prior ZEJian Secret Santa event! 

Yo girl I approve of this venture.

I'm simultaneously going to begin reading Outsider in the White House by none other than American presidential candidate, senator, and long-time badass Bernie Sanders. Once I've finished each, I'll round-about back to this topic and post my initial thoughts, along with what I'm reading next. In the meantime, enjoy this short list of what I know I have backlogged that I'm planning to tackle this year:

• The Immortals by Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell
• Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Told you it was short. I'll probably return to this in a while with a firm edit once I return our bookshelves and see what's up.

Oh, and if online fiction counts, I'm going to play catch-up with Strange Chemistry by @Starrie, too.

 

It seems I've forgotten to update, whoops.  Also I am definitely not on pace but mental illness can do that to your reading.
Anyway this is what I've been reading:

• Censoring an Iranian Love Story: a novel, Shahriar Mandanipour
• Confessions Of A Mask, Yukio Mishima
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami
• Among Others, Jo Walton
• Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
• Blind Spot, Len Gasparini
• A Good Fall, Ha Jin
• Holy Cow, David Duchovny
• My Year of Meats, Ruth L. Ozeki
• The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar
• The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith
• The Orenda, Joseph Boyden
• Mercury, Hope Larson
• Melody: Story of a Nude Dance, Sylvie Rancourt
• We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo
• Between The World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, Stephen Collins
• Are You My Mother? : a comic drama, Alison Bechdel
• A collection of e. e. cummings poetry
• The Haiku Year, a poetry collection by various authors
• A collection of Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry
• A collection of Emily Dickinson poetry
• Jane, the fox & me, Fanny Britt
• Welcome to Night Vale, Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor
• God is Dead, Ron Currie Jr.
• Everything Matters, Ron Currie Jr.
• Carry Me, Peter Behrens
• Creativity Inc, Ed Catmull

I am currently reading:

• The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
• Astrtiod Polyp, David Mazzucchelli
• Challenger Deep, Neal Shusterman
• Fricatives, Gillian Sze