50 Book Challenge for 2011

[Alvedansen]

^i try to read as many shorter books and young adult books (since they're usually quick reads) to catch up a bit. just this year i had to start a series where each book has 700-1000 pages but they're great so i don't mind, even if it'll cost me to achieve the 50 books...there's always a next year

 

[ChrissyM]

^^are those the George R.R. Martin ones? I don't even know if I'm remembering that correctly

 

[Alvedansen]

exactly. but really, they're amazing and i only need so long to finish them since i barely have time to read anyways, actually they're so good you can barely put them down as well (if you're into medieval fantasy that is)

 

[tigerrouge]

37: The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London

To be honest, they're two versions of the same sort of tale - and one book is short, while the other is longer, so I'll count them together as one.

I suspect that, very soon, I'll not even have the time to do everything I'm supposed to do, never mind sit back with a book, so I'm trying to get a lot of reading done right now.

 

[Alvedansen]

01. John Steinbeck - The grapes of wrath
02. Richard Matheson - I am legend
03. Joyce Carol Oates - Big mouth & Ugly girl
04. Ken Follett - The pillars of the earth
05. Haruki Murakami - Afterdark
06. Gayle Forman - If I stay
07. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
08. Patti Smith - Just kids
09. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
10. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson - The lightning thief
11. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson - The sea of monsters
12. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson - The titan's curse
13. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson - The battle of the labyrinth
14. Stephen Baxter - Ark
15. Markus Zusak - The book thief
16. Ethan Hawke - Hin und weg (original title: 'the hottest state')
17. Patrick Süskind - Der Kontrabaß (English title: 'the double-bass')
18. Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt - Monsieur Ibrahim und die Blumen des Koran (English title: 'Monsieur Ibrahim and the flowers of the Qu'ran')
19. Eva Ibbotson - The secret of Platform 13
20. Justin Cronin - The Passage
21. Daniel Glattauer - Gut gegen Nordwind (English title: 'Love virtually')
22. George R. R. Martin - A Game of Thrones
23. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson - The last Olympian
24. Hape Kerkeling - Ich bin dann mal weg (English title: 'I'm off then')
25. George R. R. Martin - A Clash of Kings
26. Jay Asher - Thirteen reasons why
27. Fynn - Anna schreibt an Mister Gott (Original title: 'Anna's book')
28. Neal Shusterman - Unwind
29. Mark Haddon - The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
30. Harry Mulisch - Augenstern (English title:'Pupil')
31. Liz Jensen - Endzeit (Original title: 'The Rapture')

 

[Annu]

1. Pieces of Modesty by Peter O'Donnell
2. Treasure Yourself: Power Thoughts for My Generation by Miranda Kerr
3. My story by Marilyn Monroe
4. I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
5. Diary of a bad year by J M Coetzee
6. Solar by Ian McEwan
7. Consolation by Anna Gavalda
8. The Gun seller by Hugh Laurie
9. The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
10. Ruusumadonna by Tuija Lehtinen
11. Ruutumadonna by Tuija Lehtinen
12. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
13. Andorra by Peter Cameron
14. The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, When the Green Woods Laugh by H.E. Bates
15. Unaccustomed earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
16. 101 Experiments in the philosophy of everyday life by Roger-pol Droit
17. Witch tree symbol, Mystery of the moss-cover mansion & The mystery of the fire dragon by Carolyn Keene
18. Love virtually by Daniel Glattauer
19. The land of painted caves by Jean M. Auel
20. The Blythes are quoted by L. M. Montgomery
21. The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
22. War by Sebastian Junger
23. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer
24. Sputnik sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
25. The Xanadu talisman by Peter O'Donnell
26. Hiljaiset auttajat by Rauli Virtanen
27. The World without us by Alan Weisman
28. Matched by Ally Condie
29. Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
30. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
31. Seljan tytot by Rauha S. Virtanen
32. Everything I Know I Learned from TV: Philosophy Explained Through Our Favourite TV Shows by Mark Rowlands
33. Änderungsschneiderei Los Milagros by María Cecilia Barbetta
34. Loppuunkasitely by Anna-Leena Harkonen
35. Kolme miesta netissa by Tuija Lehtinen
36. The Hound of death by Agatha Christie
37. Kuka murhasi rouva Skrofin? by Mika Waltari
38. Komisaario Palmun erehdys by Mika Waltari
39. Hyperion by Dan Simmons

40. Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
41. Fifth Avenue, 5AM: Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's by Sam Wasson

I promised myself that when I don't have to read any books after reach 50. And I have achieved my goal already, I like reading again. I know that I would not finish all those books without this challenge, some of those were pretty stupid. Like Cosmopolis.. I have read something like this before, guy spend time on the car and except of ****ing, he tried to hack Internet with artificial intelligence.. yeah.. I don't remember if that book was any better though.

Fifth Avenue was like making of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Very adorable book, all those details made lovely story and very good reason to watch movie again
​

 

[tigerrouge]

38: The People of the Abyss by Jack London

In contrast to his 'wolf' books, this is a work of social conscience, his first-hand account of the conditions he encountered when he took on the false identity of a sailor and followed the lives of working-class people in London in 1902.
​

 

[Belowen]

01: American Subversive by David Goodwillie
02: The Collector by John Fowles
03: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
04: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
05: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
06: The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
07: Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
08: The Forest Of Hands & Teeth by Carrie Ryan
09: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10: The Odyssey by Homer
11: The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
12: The Woman In Black by Susan Hill
13: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
14: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

15: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton​

16: The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham

17: Bossypants by Tina Fey​

18: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

19: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins​

20: Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

21: Cell by Stephen King​

22: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
23: The Gradual Demise of Phillipa Finch by Emma Magenta
24: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
25: Divergent by Veronica Roth
26: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino
27: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
28: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

29: Prism by Faye & Aliza Kellerman
​

30: The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
31: All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

 

[lucy92]

wow belowen, i can't read any cormac mccarthy. he doesnt put any quotation marks in his books!

 

[ChrissyM]

wow belowen, i can't read any cormac mccarthy. he doesnt put any quotation marks in his books!

that's a huge point of frustration for me too lucy

i ended up really liking the road so then i went out and bought some of his other books (including the border trilogy which i slowly/painfully plodded my way through)

i think i have one book of his left that i own and have yet to tackle
i have to psych myself up for it

 

[kate_is_goddess]

I finished The Road today. I really liked it, even though I probably didn't understand a few of the "fancier" vocabs. His sentences are constructed so beautifully though!
I didn't mind the lack of quotation marks actually, I thought it fitted the sad and depressing story...

 

[Alvedansen]

^you give me hope, i want to read the road after i finish this book i'm reading atm.

 

[rox_yr_sox]

1. Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
2. Cupid and the King: Five Royal Paramours by Princess Michael of Kent
3. Haiku: Poetry Ancient and Modern: An Anthology by Jackie Hardy [Ed]
4. Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in a One-Party State, 1917-1992 by Bown & Taylor [Eds]
5. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
6. Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two by Vladimir Paperny
7. The Edifice Complex: how the rich and powerful shape the world by Deyan Sudjic
8. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
9. Plans, pragmatism and People: The legacy of Soviet planning for today's cities by R. Antony French
10. Quicksilver (Vol.1 in the Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson
11. The Confusion (Vol.2 in the Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson
12. The System of the World (Vol.3 in the Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson
13. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan by Rem Koolhaas
14. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
15. Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England by Alison Weir
16. Tete-a-Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre by Hazel Rowley
17. Pandora by Anne Rice
18. The Executioner by Joseph de Maistre
19. Selected Poems by Anna Akhmatova
20. Conversations With Students by Rem Koolhaas
21. Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson
22. Electra and Other Plays by Euripides
23. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
24. Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
25. Utopics: Spatial Play by Louis Marin
26. The Politics of Utopia: A Study in Theory and Practice by Barbara Goodwin & Keith Taylor
27. The Road to Delphi: The Life and Afterlife of Oracles by Michael Wood
28. Collected Poems by W.H. Auden
29. The Gentle Art of Persuasion: How to Argue Effectively by Chester Porter QC
30. Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love by Andrew Schaffer
31. 100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists Selected by Alex Danchev
32. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (currently reading)
33. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
34. Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of a Great English Dynasty by Catherine Bailey
35. Darkness Rising by Frank Tallis
36. Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris by Asti Hustvedt
37. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
38. The Cat Inside by William S. Burrroughs
39. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
40. Selected Poems by Bertolt Brecht (currently reading)

 

[Belowen]

Wow, you guys don't like Cormac McCarthy? I have grown to love his dry, sharp writing style. The lack of punctuation doesn't bother me either, I also love Tim Winton and he writes the same way

 

[tigerrouge]

39: The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

 

[mint condish]

My count is embarrassing so there's no point repeating all the books I've read in 2011 when I finish a book like every 3 weeks or whatever but I just finished rereading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl.

It's a book I'd really like to recommend to everyone. I think it's a 2007 book and ever since I bought the copy I've read it only about 3 or 4 times because it's just so intense and ambitious. It's more than 500 pages. It's a novel about a high school girl who's father is an extremely overbearing and intimidating character. There's a mystery right at the outset that goes right through the entire story.

I've never read anything like it, because of the style. At first I thought it was so incredibly cloying and pretentious -- seriously , like every other sentence is a metaphor! But I don't know, when I was finished the book I couldn't stop thinking about it. The second and third (etc.) times I read it I realized I loved it. It's so incredibly complex, and I still definitely know that it's pretentious, but I always go back to it. It's quite an accomplishment of writing. The writer is clearly like, the biggest reader ever.

Wondering if anyone else has read this book and has thoughts. Let me make it clear -- I don't think this is a young adult or high school type of book at all. I'm 29 and I love it. The author is about the same age. I am pretty sure this book will be adapted into a movie within the next few years.

For something with a similar theme, I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt last year or so, which I read rave reviews about, and I didn't think it was all that special. I prefer this one, but I'll probably reread The Secret History one day.

 

[kate_is_goddess]

1 // Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
2 // Limit by Frank Schätzing
3 // Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
4 // The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5 // Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
6 // Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
7 // The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
8 // The Collector by John Fowles
9 // The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett
10 // Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
11 // Slapstick! or Lonesome No More by Kurt Vonnegut
12 // Bei Einbruch der Nacht (L'Homme à l'envers) by Fred Vargas
13 // A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
14 // To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
15 // The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
16 // Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
17 // Written in Bone by Simon Beckett
18 // Whispers of the Dead by Simon Beckett
19 // My Booky Wook by Russell Brand
20 // The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
21 // Der Meister und Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
22 // All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland
23 // Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland
24 // Deadly Décisions by Kathy Reichs
25 // Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
26 // Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
27 // Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk
28 // A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer
29 // Der Brenner und der liebe Gott by Wolf Haas
30 // Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
31 // Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
32 // Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
33 // The Road by Cormac McCarthy
34 // Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

 

[ChrissyM]

Wow, you guys don't like Cormac McCarthy? I have grown to love his dry, sharp writing style. The lack of punctuation doesn't bother me either, I also love Tim Winton and he writes the same way

I have an appreciation for him but other than the road i've found that i've had a tough time grasping the threads of the plot (especially in the border trilogy where there is A LOT of untranslated spanish and any spanish i know has been picked up from foreign films, so that's not saying much. i sat there with my sister's spanish-english dictionary and really just plodded through the books, though in the end i'm glad i read them)

 

[tigerrouge]

40: Dubliners by James Joyce

Given the layers of allusions in his novels, I like to re-read Joyce every decade or so, to see what new understandings I get from his world of words... in terms of narrative and meaning, Dubliners isn't really that dense, so it's the easiest way to enter back into his work.
​

 

[Teja]

01. Burned Alive by Souad
02. Figures De Poupe by Marcel Marien
03. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
04. Notes From The Underbelly by Risa Green
05. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
06. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
07. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
08. Night by Elie Wiesel
09. Animal Farm by George Orwell
10. Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
11. Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
12. The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
13. Sherlock Holmes: A Study In Scarlet by Artur Conan Doyle
14. Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
15. The Tales Of Beedle The Bard by J.K. Rowling