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Currently aiming for about 52. The goal for this year is to try and get through a backlog of very heavy books and maybe revisit a few favorites. I'll try to get some stuff to match the Stravinsky challenge, as well. It's a cool idea.
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Jan 4, 2015 19:21
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January: 1. Tehanu (Earthsea #4)- Ursula K. LeGuin An altogether different story for Earthsea, but good nonetheless. Looking forward to reading the Tales soon. 2. Storm Front (Dresden Files #1) - Jim Butcher Not great, but fun. Given their following on this board, I figured I'd try these books out after I got the first three on a Kindle daily deal. 3. The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey An interesting 70s-era gem about a group of eco-terrorists trying to preserve the Southwestern United States from development. Often funny, usually crude. 4. Sacred Games - Vikram Chandra A 900-page behemoth about a gangster and policeman in Bombay. It follows the rise of the gangster through his career and the policeman's investigation after the gangster's mysterious suicide. Good, page-turning stuff. 5. The Long Ships - Frans Bengtsson The most fun book I read this month was this one, about a Danish youth who's abducted by reavers and goes a'viking around Europe in the 900s, journeying from Moorish Spain to the kingdom of the Bulgars in the east. 6. The Magus - John Fowles This was very strange. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks, regulargonzalez, for telling everyone to read it many times. 7 .Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell An interesting first-person account of some of the Spanish Civil War. Keeping track of the many factions was a little difficult, but his stories about his times at the front and the rioting in Barcelona are bracing. 8. Suttree - Cormac McCarthy This book tested my patience - as McCarthy usually does - but paid that effort back with some of the best writing I've seen in a long long time. 9. Wolf in White Van - John Darnielle This was really good, and I don't say that just because I love the author's musical output. I can see a lot of similar themes between his music and this book, though. I want to play Trace Italian! 10. Sacred (Kenzie & Gennaro #3) - Dennis Lehane I really enjoy this series - it's a hardboiled private detective story with a witty protagonist. Lehane writes a lot of good stuff, but I'm starting to get attached to these characters more than any of his others. Goals: Vanilla Goal 10/52. (This will likely be surpassed.) #2: One Female Author: Ursula K. LeGuin. I'm gonna up this to ten, though - my reading tends to go towards male writers all too often. I'm already working on a reread of my favorite Margaret Atwood book - The Blind Assassin. 1/10 #5: History: Homage to Catalonia. (I'm going to try to fit in 5 of these this year!) 1/5 #8: Postmodern: The Magus, John Fowles. (Would this count as absurdist? It's absurd at times.) #16: That Book That's Been On Your Shelf Forever: Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. Had this one since Borders went out of business in 2010. I have tons and tons of these kinds of books, though, so this will continue to be updated.... 1/? #22: Mystery: Actually 3 of em in one month - Sacred Games, Sacred, and Storm Front. Hooray for books! Anyone got a wildcard for me?
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Feb 1, 2015 02:56
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February: 11. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood 12. Devil in the Grove - Gilbert King 13. Fool Moon (Dresden Files #2) - Jim Butcher 14. Titus Groan (Gormenghast #1) - Mervyn Peake 15. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 16. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 17. The Year of Reading Dangerously - Andy Miller 18. Shadow Country - Peter Mathiessen 19. Romola - George Eliot 20. Native Son - Richard Wright 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 20/52 2. Read a female author: 4/10 (adding Eliot, Atwood, and Lee) 3. The non-white author: 1/? (Richard Wright) 4. Philosophy 5. History: 2/5 (Devil in the Grove) 6. An essay 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. Something absurdist 10. The Blind Owl (Free translation if your ok with reading on a screen or cant find a copy!) 11. Something on either hate or love 12. Something dealing with space 13. Something dealing with the unreal 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. Something published this year or the past three months 16. That one book that has been sitting on your desk waiting for a long time: Titus Groan (I've had a paperback of the Gormenghast trilogy for.... a long, long time. Finally broke it out.) 17. A play 18. Biography 19. The color red 20. Something banned or censored 21. Short story(s) 22. Good books this month. Highlights included Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall and the Groveland Boys about a civil rights case in Florida where four young men were accused of raping a young white lady. They didn't, of course, but the degree to which the law pursues them is sickening. Native Son, on the other hand, makes no bones about the protagonist's guilt but examines why he is guilty. Both were excellent reads. Beyond that, Shadow Country was a monster of a tome about a planter in Florida with a bloody reputation. (I see a lot of recurring themes in this as I type it out...) While it is dauntingly massive, it's a fantastic read. Finally, I reread some favorites - The Blind Assassin, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men - because I always have to reread some books. Wildcard, anyone?
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Mar 5, 2015 07:01
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March: 21. Gormenghast (Gormenghast #2) - Mervyn Peake 22. Grave Peril (Dresden Files #3) - Jim Butcher 23. Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) - Dan Simmons 24. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen 25. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #2) - Dan Simmons (L) 26. Half the World (Shattered Sea Trilogy #2) - Joe Abercrombie (L) 27. The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver 28. Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) - Rick Riordan 29. The American Political Tradition - Richard Hofstadter 30. Titus Alone (Gormenghast Trilogy #3) - Mervyn Peake 31. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 31/52 2. Read a female author: 6/10 (adding Kingsolver and Austen) 3. 4. Philosophy 5. History: 3/5 (American Political Tradition) 6. An essay:: The American Political Tradition was a series of essays about various famous American men. Some of it was good, some of it so-so. But they were essays. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. Something absurdist 10. The Blind Owl 11. Something on either hate or love 12. Something dealing with space: the Hyperion books. 13. Something dealing with the unreal 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. Something published this year or the past three months: Abercrombie's "Half the World" came out in February. 16. That one book that has been sitting on your desk waiting for a long time (None this month) 17. A play 18. Biography 19. The color red 20. Something banned or censored 21. Short story(s) 22. I have to say, I went the safe route this month and read a ton of fantasy/sci-fi books in series. (Like 7 out of 11 of the books I read were "part x of a series.") That's alright though - I've started on Ulysses. I'm thinking I'll probably finish that one in May...
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Apr 2, 2015 16:09
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Fell behind in updating this a bit.... April 32. Humboldt’s Gift - Saul Bellow 33. The Blade Itself (First Law #1) - Joe Abercrombie 34. Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig 35. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson #3) - Rick Riordan 36. Before they Are Hanged (First Law #2) - Joe Abercrombie 37. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson #4) - Rick Riordan 38. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) - Rick Riordan 39. A Stranger in Olondria - Sofia Samatar 40. Twenty-Five Books that Shaped America - Thomas C. Foster 41. The Great Glass Sea - Josh Weil 42. Last Argument of Kings (First Law #3) - Joe Abercrombie May 43. Summer Knight (Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher 44. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler - Italo Calvino 45. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage 46. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon 47. Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea #5) - Ursula K. LeGuin 48. Sailor Song - Ken Kesey 49. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston 50. Ulysses - James Joyce 51. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer - Jonathan L. Howard 52. Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett 53. Just Kids - Patti Smith 54. Heir to the Empire (Thrawn #1) - Timothy Zahn 55. Hearts in Atlantis - Stephen King Among the best: A Stranger in Olondria, which, while gorgeously written, is somewhat plotless - still, it deserves to be better known. Their Eyes Were Watching God, a story of an African-American woman in Florida dealing with life on her own terms, not on others - brilliant. If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler - an utterly bizarre series of false starts, as you - the reader - start reading the beginning of many books with no endings, and follow a strange and labyrinthine tale to find the original book. Just Kids was a really touching and interesting memoir by one of the queens of 70s rock, and discussed her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. And Ulysses... ooh boy Ulysses. It’s one of those books that teaches you how to read it while you’re reading it - and once you’ve gotten used to its strange stream of consciousness, Joyce starts doing all sorts of strange things in the latter chapters just to mess with the reader, including one chapter that’s entirely question-and-answer based and one that traces the evolution of the English language from medieval style to (then) modern slang. Beyond those? Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is an all-time favorite that I find myself reading every couple years - it played a big role in my wife and I starting to date long ago. Johannes Cabal The Necromancer was a really fun story with a lot of macabre and spooky soul-stealing. And The Great Glass Sea was a wonderful little find, the story of two brothers in an alternate Russia that has started to create 24-hour sunlight with the aid of orbital mirrors. (The science, I don't know if it checks out - but the soul of the story is the relationship between the brothers, which is fantastically done.) I also delved into a lot of series - I started and finished a reread of Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, finished the Percy Jackson books (shut up! I have students who wanted me to read it, and the last one was actually some degree of cool instead of the Harry Potter ripoff of the first four), and started a series that I haven't read since 6th grade: the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. I figure if I can read Ulysses and Bellow, I can fit in some easy, fun-to-read books. The worst book I read this year was Humboldt's Gift, which mixed insufferable philosophical ramblings with misogyny and lamentations about how hard it is to be a old white male writer. If I hadn't read Augie March years ago, I would completely dismiss Bellow... but Augie March was pretty good. BOOKLORD CHALLENGE 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 55/52 (Oops. Maybe I should expand this?) 2. Read a female author: 9/10 (Samovar, Patti Smith, and Hurston) 3. 4. Philosophy: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 5. History: 4/5 (A History of the World in Six Glasses) 6. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. Something absurdist 10. The Blind Owl 11. Something on either hate or love: Just Kids was about love - an unconventional kind, but love nonetheless. 12. 13. Something dealing with the unreal: A Stranger in Olondria - it's got ghosts. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. 16. That one book that has been sitting on your desk waiting for a long time: Humboldt's Gift, Sailor Song 17. A play 18. Biography 19. The color red 20. Something banned or censored: Ulysses was censored in the U.S. so I'm counting it for this one... 21. Short story(s): Both King's Hearts in Atlantis and LeGuin's Tales of Earthsea were not quite novels, but groups of short stories linked together by various themes. I'll count it. 22.
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May 31, 2015 15:19
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June! 56. Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Diana Gabaldon 57. Dark Force Rising (Thrawn #2) - Timothy Zahn 58. The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester 59. Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens 60. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf 61. The Last Command (Thrawn #3) - Timothy Zahn 62. Red Plenty - Francis Spufford 63. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This month was a little less overflowing with wonderful books, but I still found plenty to love. To the Lighthouse was my first - and still favorite - Virginia Woolf novel, and reading it again just reminds me of how beautiful and brilliant it is. That dinner party scene is a masterwork. Little Dorrit had your classic Dickens plot - orphans, secret inheritances, debtor's prisons, and the whole shebang - but some of his most inspired writing. (Or some of his most wordy and convoluted, depending on how you feel about Dickens.) Red Plenty was really interesting, as it took a semi-fictional look at the lives of Russians during the USSR's dreams of becoming the world's greatest communist superpower, able to provide for its people and shame the capitalist U.S. Also good were Americanah, about Nigerian immigrants to the U.S. and U.K., and The Professor and the Madman, about the mentally ill murderer who helped put together the Oxford English Dictionary. The Timothy Zahn books were pure cheese but occasionally summoned up the spirit of fun of the original movies, and Dragonfly in Amber was a concession to my lovely wife, who loves those Outlander books a great deal. (They're not precisely my cup of tea, but they're well-written enough and we'd just finished watching the first season of the show.) BOOKLORD CHALLENGE 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 63, out of.... I dunno, 100? 2. Read a female author: 12 (Gabaldon, Woolf, and Adichie) 3. The non-white author: Adichie 4. 5. 6. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. Something absurdist 10. The Blind Owl 11. 12. 13. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. 16. 17. A play 18. Biography 19. The color red: Red Plenty 20. 21. 22. I still need to get to the Wildcard (Planet of the Apes) that someone recommended to me, but what I'm really stuck on is the absurdist book. Any suggestions for an absurdist book I might read?
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Jun 30, 2015 03:10
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July! 64. Fourth of July Creek - Smith Henderson 65. Death Masks (Dresden Files #5) - Jim Butcher 66. A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James 67. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy 68. The Public Burning - Robert Coover 69. The Witches - Roald Dahl 70. The Deep - John Crowley 71. Go Down, Moses - William Faulkner 72. The Post-Office Girl - Stefan Zweig 73. Fool - Christopher Moore Though I haven't really dug into my remaining booklord challenge books, I read some drat good books this month. Fourth of July Creek and A Brief History of Seven Killings were books released last year, and I feel like they both snuck under the radar for me. Fourth of July Creek felt like something by a more accessible Faulkner or McCarthy - the cadence of the language reminded me of them, at least, sometimes - and follows a 1980s social worker who gets wrapped up with a violent off-the-grid survivalist waiting for the end of days. Brief History of Seven Killings was - ironically - a sprawling narrative about the gang world of Jamaica from the late 60s to the 90s, focusing first on the failed assassination attempt on Bob Marley in 1976. The story is told by a variety of people who were around or pivotal to the assassination attempt, including journalists, gang dons, and a deceased narrator who follows the mayhem from beyond death. Also, there are a lot of cool Jamaican cusses that I learned, as well. The God of Small Things was possibly one of the most beautifully written books I've read this year, and follows a twisted family through some truly awful events in the 1960s in India. It reminded me a great deal of Midnight's Children and 100 Years of Solitude, only without the magic - everything is, for the most part, realistic. Go Down, Moses is Faulkner at his bitter, dusty best, following an even more twisted family tree through a Reconstruction-era South. The Public Burning is a ridiculous, overblown, over-long book about the execution of the Rosenbergs in 1953. Told mostly by a nebbish, luckless Richard Nixon, it examines the American psyche at the time and presents it as a blustering, terrifying Uncle Sam figure that speaks like the apotheosis of American hubris - always fighting the Phantom, his nemesis from the East. Sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious, it was definitely absurd, so that's my pick for #9. Beyond that, Death Masks was the most enjoyable Dresden Files I've read yet, and I bought the next two books. The Witches was a reread of a childhood favorite, and it was just as macabre and brilliant as I remember. Fool was your typical Christopher Moore book - bawdy, cheesy, and eager to tweak the nose of the classics. (He reminds me of a horny American Terry Pratchett.) 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 73/100 2. Read a female author: 13 (Roy) 3. The non-white author: (Roy, James) 4. 5. 6. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. Something absurdist: The Public Burning 10. The Blind Owl 11. 12. 13. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. 16. 17. A play 18. Biography 19. 20. 21. 22.
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Aug 2, 2015 02:48
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August~ 74. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline 75. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville 76. The Waves - Virginia Woolf 77. The Color of Water - James McBride 78. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain 79. Beasts - John Crowley 80. Augustus - John Williams 81. Blood Rites (Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher 82. Half a War (Shattered Sea #3) -Joe Abercrombie 83. Engine Summer - John Crowley 84. Endymion (Hyperion Cantos #3) - Dan Simmons 85. All the Pretty Horses (Border Trilogy #1) - Cormac McCarthy 86. Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos #4) - Dan Simmons 87. The Scar (Bas-Lag #2) - China Mieville 88. The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa This month was full of rereads and fantasy/sci-fi for the most part. I finished the Hyperion series with Endymion and Rise of Endymion; I can't think of a sci-fi series I've enjoyed more in recent memory (even if the writing in the two Endymion books wasn't as good as the first two). The first two Bas-Lag books (Perdido Street Station and The Scar) were rereads that I'd been intending to do for a long time - while Mieville is good, those two continue to be my favorites of his. Finally, I finished a collection of short novels from John Crowley (whom I love for his fantasy Little, Big) and while The Deep and Beasts were both pretty good novels, Engine Summer was absolutely stellar, one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books I've ever read - in that it was so strange. It reminded me a good bit of Riddley Walker, without the language barrier. On the not-so-good side was Ready Player One. Somewhat cringe-worthy, but it kept me turning the pages, I guess. It'll be interesting to see what Spielberg does with it. Beyond that, The Color of Water was a lovely memoir about the author's mother - a Jewish woman who left her repressively religious family to marry an African-American man and eventually raise 12 children - and a look at the author's young life itself. Having read his John Brown novel The Good Lord Bird a year or two ago, I had my eye out for more James McBride, and I gotta say I like that guy. I also picked up Augustus based on my love of John Williams's Stoner, and it was pretty good too - if not as good as Stoner - about the life and intrigues of Augustus Caesar, written in an epistolary style. Finally, my other favorite would have to be All the Pretty Horses. I think I did myself wrong when I jumped into Blood Meridian as my first McCarthy book, because it kicked my rear end. I've been reading his less-imposing stuff - Suttree and now the Border Trilogy - and I'm really starting to appreciate his work. All the Pretty Horses was fantastic, possibly my favorite I've read of his. It can go from a laconic, almost spare style to incredibly eloquent and lovely language, and succeeds incredibly at both. Who knows? After the Border Trilogy I may take another swing at Blood Meridian sometime. 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 88/100 2. Read a female author: 13 (a second Woolf book) 3. The non-white author: (McBride) 4. 5. 6. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. 10. The Blind Owl 11. 12. 13. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. Something published this year or the past three months: "Half a War" 16. 17. A play 18. Biography 19. 20. 21. 22. Chamberk fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 22:10
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September! 89. Tell the Wolves I’m Home - Carol Rifka Brunt 90. Gone Baby Gone (Kenzie and Gennaro #4) - Dennis Lehane 91. Purity - Jonathan Franzen 92. Lucky Alan & Other Stories - Jonathan Lethem 93. The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin 94. The Crossing (Border Trilogy #2) - Cormac McCarthy 95. Ghosts - Henrik Ibsen 96. Trigger Warning: Short Stories and Other Disturbances - Neil Gaiman 97. Stardust - Neil Gaiman 98. Iron Council (Bas-Lag #3) - China Mieville 99. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts 100. Dead Beat (Dresden #7) - Jim Butcher 101. The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow - Rita Leganski 102. Cities of the Plain (Border Trilogy #3) - Cormac McCarthy Reading a lot these days, in addition to various books pertaining to my impending dad-hood. (After that, who knows how much I'll read outside of Dr Seuss?) Some very good stuff, though: McCarthy's Border Trilogy ended as strongly as it began, as Cities of the Plain was excellent. (The Crossing was good, too, but I felt like I didn't really get a handle on the main character, Billy Parham, until Cities of the Plain.) Shantaram was a very interesting and entertaining read, though the author/narrator seemed a little full of himself at times. And both "Tell the Wolves I'm Gone" and "The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow" were fantastic books that I'm glad I tracked down. Tell the Wolves I'm Gone is about a young girl whose uncle dies of AIDS, and Bonaventure Arrow is about a boy who can't speak but has supernatural hearing. All in all, good stuff. 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 102/100 2. Read a female author: 15 (Leganski and Brunt) 3. The non-white author: Liu Cixin 4. 5. 6. 7. A collection of poetry 8. 9. 10. The Blind Owl 11. 12. 13. 14. Wildcard (Some one else taking the challenge will tell you what to read) 15. 16. 17. A play: Henrik Ibsen, "Ghosts" 18. Biography 19. 20. 21. Short story(s): "Lucky Alan" and "Trigger Warning" 22.
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Sep 27, 2015 23:48
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October! 103. The Other Wind - Ursula K. Le Guin 104. In the Woods - Tana French 105. In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson 106. The Waste Land and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot 107. The BFG - Roald Dahl 108. Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie 109. The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder 110. Talking at the Gates - James Campbell 111. The Blind Owl - Sadegh Hedayat 112. Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boulle 113. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway 114. Proven Guilty (Dresden #8) - Jim Butcher 115. The Gay Place - Billy Lee Brammer Overall, a good month, though nothing really stood out. In the Woods was a solid mystery, The Other Wind was a solid conclusion to the Earthsea Series, In the Garden of Beasts was a good nonfic about Hitler's rise to power, and Planet of the Apes was a good sci-fi novel (and interesting to see how the movie/movies developed from the books). I guess the biggest thing is that I completed the booklord challenge! Just in time, too, because I just had a kid, and I doubt I'll ever read again. At least not until he's over 3-4 months. He's cute tho. 1. The vanilla read a set number of books in a year.: 115/100 2. Read a female author: 16 - Tana French, as well as another Le Guin book 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. A collection of poetry: The Waste Land and Other Poems 8. 9. 10. The Blind Owl 11. 12. 13. 14. Wildcard: Planet of the Apes 15. 16. 17. 18. Biography: Talking at the Gates 19. 20. 21. 22.
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Nov 1, 2015 07:28
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November! 116. City on Fire - Garth Risk Hallberg 117. Voyager (Outlander #3) - Diana Gabaldon 118. White Night (Dresden #9) - Jim Butcher 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - J.K. Rowling 120. Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5) - Brandon Sanderson 121. Mystic River - Dennis Lehane 122. The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett 123. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - Anthony Marra 124. The Red and the Black - Stendhal 125. Small Favor (Dresden #10) - Jim Butcher 126. Assassin’s Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy #1) - Robin Hobb 127. Freakanomics - Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner 128. The Winter of our Discontent - John Steinbeck Well, it turns out having a kid still allows you to read a good bit, especially if you take two weeks of PTO and he sleeps most of the time. Granted, a lot of what I read this month was light and fluffy - nothing too dense - but I did get a good bit read. The best book (which I read MOSTLY in October, but finished in November) was City on Fire, which is a 900-page behemoth about New York in the 70s. It follows several somewhat interlinked characters in their lives before the big NYC blackout of 77. While the trope of "here are some people who are vaguely related to each other but you'll see they are more closely connected than you'd expect!!" is overdone a lot, I really enjoyed this book. The story and characters were solid, and there were some interesting interstitials between sections - one a Rolling-Stone-esque article, another a letter from a father to his son, another a 'zine on the music scene of NYC - that gave the book some interesting variety. It's a well-hyped book, sure, but the hype was deserved. Another "here are some people, look how they're subtly intertwined!" book that turned out to be good was A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, which followed three main characters in Chechnya from 1997-2004. Wonderful writing, and the way the plot came together reminded me a bit of Catch-22 - you'd catch something near the end that would explain everything you weren't catching before. ("Oh, so THAT happened to him...") A good month!
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Dec 3, 2015 17:51
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