2022 50 Book Challenge

[Fueco]

This is a book thread where literati wax lyrical on the reading material they consume while attempting to read 50 books in the year
.
Books are discussed, reviewed and recommended and occasionally condemned. Open to all.

1. Jumping Fire: A Smokejumper’s Memoir Of Fighting Wildfire, by Murry A. Taylor

This memoir follows the action of Taylor’s season of fighting wildfires in 1991 in Alaska and Idaho.

This book is almost like a memoir for me of what life might have been like had my career taken a different path. I was certified in Wildland Fire Suppression back in 1994, and easily could’ve gone down that rabbit hole.

Anyway, the book is well-written, even if the author dwells too much on his romantic failings.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Oh god, I guess I'll do this one this year again, after sitting it out last year (in which I still read over 100 novels)...

I've started the year off by continuing to explore Pushkin Vertigo's back catalogue - this is an imprint that specializes in crime fiction in translation. Over the new year, I've been reading Augusto de Angelis. He was an Italian crime writer, active from the mid-1930s and early 40s, during which time he wrote 20 novels. But his humane and anti-fascist views eventually saw him executed by Mussolini's regime. His crime fiction is very influenced by both Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, and are centred on Inspector De Vincenzi of the Milan police, a cerebral, psychologically-oriented investigator who tends to ignore material evidence in favour of interview and insight. The plots tend to be either banal or overly convoluated but the books are still enjoyable enough, especially for the period atmosphere and the occasionally quite fine writing (I've actually seen some crime blog reviewers complaining about the poetic language as if crime fiction shouldn't contain good writing... some people!). I'd already read the first two available, The Murdered Banker, and Death in a Bookstore (not from Pushkin) at the end of last year, and I've just read the other two - there are many more not yet translated.

1. The Hotel of the Three Roses.
A very melodramatic and claustrophic early case for De Vincenzi, in which he tries to stop a cavalcade of murders, involving various foreigners, mostly British, in a seedy hotel. It's almost gothic in its intensity and parade of untrustworthy characters.

2. The Mystery of the Three Orchids.
De Vincenzi notes early on that the feeling of this case reminds him of his earlier experience at The Hotel of the Three Roses, and it does seem to be a variation on a theme, as the Inspector tackles a killing at a dubious, if expensive, fashion house, again involving foreigners, this time mostly American.

 

[Fueco]

2. Artemis, by Andy Weir

Smalltime troublemaker Jasmine gets caught up in a crazy plot in Artemis, the city on the Moon.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

BTW, in case anyone is interested, I wrote about my favourite books of last year on my blog:

My Top (not just Science-) Fiction of the Year 2021

I read a lot of fiction this year, as usual, and most of it wasn’t SFF at all! If that’s what you’re interested in, you can skip the first three paragraphs here and scroll straigh…

ubisurv.net

Which also somewhat breaches my anonymity, not that I've ever really tried that hard to be anonymous!

 

[krudsma]

This sounds like a fun goal, although I don't imagine I'll get anywhere close to 50.

1. Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke (finished)
A collection of letters from Rilke to a young aspiring poet seeking advice and critiques of his work. What he receives instead are a series of profound lessons on life, art, solitude, and love. Beautifully written and truly, truly moving. Can't recommend it enough.

2. Clea, by Lawrence Durrell
Final novel in Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet," following the dramas of a group of both natives and expats living in Alexandria during the years leading up to WWII. Durrell's description of the series is interesting:

"Three sides of space and one of time constitute the soup-mix recipe of a continuum. The four novels follow this pattern. The three first parts, however, are to be deployed spatially...and are not linked in a serial form. They interlap, interweave, in a purely spatial relation. Time is stayed. The fourth part alone will represent time and be a true sequel.

I've loved the three preceding novels and so far am loving this one as well.

3. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
A collection of narrative prose poetry. The prophet Al Mustafa has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition.

 

[SixOhNine]

2. Artemis, by Andy Weir

Smalltime troublemaker Jasmine gets caught up in a crazy plot in Artemis, the city on the Moon.

I liked that one. I think I read somewhere that it was optioned for a movie, but no telling if anything will come of it.

And I may as well participate and see how close I can get to the goal...
1. How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It, by K.J. Parker

The second in a loosely related trilogy called The Siege. It's kinda fantasy, I guess, in that it's not set in the real world, but it's completely without magic, unreal creatures, or any other typical fantasy characteristics. It's modeled somewhat on the Roman empire, but with some significant anachronisms. Anyway, it's about an actor who gets pulled into pretending to be a war hero/political leader and ends up Emperor. It's light and fun and I'd recommend both it and the first book, Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

It's light and fun and I'd recommend both it and the first book, Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City.

I read that and I found it incredibly annoying. Then I found out it was written by Tom Holt under a pseudonym, and I never found his books funny either... different strokes etc.!

 

[SixOhNine]

I read that and I found it incredibly annoying. Then I found out it was written by Tom Holt under a pseudonym, and I never found his books funny either... different strokes etc.!

I can see that. His style is very specific and I'm guessing very polarizing. I enjoyed both books, but I don't think I'd want to read them back to back.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

3. Legion, by William Peter Blatty
At the back end of last year, I finally read The Exorcist, and I was surpised how good (and how genuinely scary) it was. This novel was the follow-up and the basis of the excellent film sequel, The Exorcist: Part III (as most will know, Part II was a complete bodge job), which Blatty also scripted. If you've seen the film then, you will get the basic plot. The book begins with the discovery of a boy crucified on oars at rowing club on the Potomac River, which seems to have some indications of a connection to a serial killer, but one who is long dead, and to a nice old lady with Alzheimer's, who couldn't possibly have anything to do with it, right? Heh heh... Investigating the case is our old friend from first book, Detective Kinderman, a big, shambling and instrospective Jewish policeman, who spends most of his time thinking and reading, and pondering the nature of evil and the universe, and sometimes arguing with his (quite psychologically scarred) Jesuit friend from Georgetown. There's also an ageing neurologist who is himself losing his mind - in other words lots of self-doubt. I think some people will be surprised by the tone of the book of these books - there is a great deal of philosophical rambling, wit and wordplay, and both are slow-building novels, which some people will find tiresome. But I find that this not only makes Kinderman's character, but also contrasts starkly to the horror when it comes. Spending time in his head means that neither book is some simple horror story - the issues are knotty and existential as much as they are simply terrifying and the implications are genuinely bleak. Evil is real in these novels, and it's not altogether clear that there is any counterbalancing force other than the stumbling efforts of some human beings to love each other - and this is despite Blatty having been a Catholic (albeit something of a heretic). That is in many many ways far more frightening than any cheap scares. A worthy sequel, which I have literally been reading under the bedclothes at night...

 

[Fueco]

3. The Boulder: A Philosophy For Bouldering, by Francis Sanzaro

Philosophy applied not just to bouldering, but to a broad cross section of sports. Call it a philosophy of pointless things. Good stuff…

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I am currently reading:

4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation).

I may be some time...

 

[PhilKenSebben]

2. Artemis, by Andy Weir

Smalltime troublemaker Jasmine gets caught up in a crazy plot in Artemis, the city on the Moon.

Read this one last year. Highly enjoyable!

 

[Fueco]

I am currently reading:

4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation).

I may be some time...

Meanwhile, I’m 2/3rds of the way though my next book.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

I am currently reading:

4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation).

I may be some time...

Masochist ?

 

[PhilKenSebben]

I am currently reading:

4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation).

I may be some time...

Along similar lines, I have started performing abdominal surgery on myself with a rusty screwdriver. I also may be a while