2014 Reading Self-Challenge

[Shaldun]

I hope it's not too late to join this. Interesting thing to motivate me to read. I have a tendency to do others things instead of reading and not necessarily better things (like spend a lot of time browsing useless stuff on Internet tbh).

For now in 2014, I've read :

Leviathan Wakes (James S.A. Corey)

World War Z (Max Brooks)

Caliban's War (James S.A. Corey)

Wool (Hugh Howey)

I'm in Sand (Hugh Howey) now and it will be soon finished.

That's 4 in 2 months, with that pace it's 24 in the year, kind of precise I think because I'll have a lot of free time this summer but no time in April-May and from September to December it will be hard.

January : 3

February : 1

March : 2 (Sand is 80% finished, another one should be possible)

April-May : maybe 1 in 2 months, a lot of work and I think the free time will be series + movies (some interesting movies to see in theaters in this period)

June : 3

July-August : 7-8

September-October-November : 3

December : 2

That's 22-23 books, I'll set my objective at 20 books.

And now, I'm at 4/20,soon 5

[Frank Fitzpatrick]

8/45.

[Antonius Pius]

Going for 20 this year; don't expect to have too much free time on my hands this year. Will do my best, though.

2 down, by the way ;)

[lokisnow]

I'm at 4/15 so far.

I've finished the two books I got for Christmas:

The Four Hour Cookbook - the writing is atrocious, the author is annoying, but there are some good recipes I've already tried. I did read it cover to cover, since most of it is not a cookbook but the author detailing fictitious accounts of his life that make him sound like a badass--or so he thinks.

Lawrence in Arabia - a great book that gave me much needed background and expanded view on one of my favorite films. It's a phenomenal read that finally informed me on how a lot of the modern middle east was made by WWI and competing colonial interests.

The other two books I've read are one I started and mostly read in 2013, Raising Steam, which was pretty mediocre and haphazard and the one I finished last night.

A natural History of dragons was really lovely, a cutesy style riff on the Victorian sensibilities of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but kid friendly and with dragons. The narrator is rather excellent, and though the plot is not that exceptional, the characters make it breeze by in a thoroughly fun experience.

[Black Wolf Smith]

I guess I will put 60 books for this year.

IIRC I have read 13, at this point.

[Snowborn]

9/30. A lot better than last year!

In February, and the first week of this month, I read:

• The Half-Made World, which was fun and fast-paced. It felt fresh, and the characters were well done.
  
• Invisible Cities, it was beautiful, I loved the descriptions of the cities and the idea that it was Marco Polo describing his journeys to Kublai Khan.
  
• Return of the Crimson Guard, which was disappointing at first but made up for it in the last half. It's one of my least favorite Malazan books, but I still want to read more by Esslemont, I think he'll get better.
  
• Toll the Hounds, which was awesome against all odds. Having read some bad reviews and complaints about it, I thought it was going to be quite mediocre, but I found it to be very well written. I loved the narrator's voice (even though it could be annoying at times), and the characterization was more in depth than usual. I like introspective characters, so I didn't mind reading their thoughts instead of seeing them do things.
  
• Sandman 1: Preludes and Nocturnes. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did, it was my first graphic novel and I want more now.
  
• A book for university, about Spanish grammar, which was excellent and up to date.
  

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Up to 4/20. Finally finished Memories of Ice (which was great, just took me a long time to read because busy) and decided to take a break from Malazan by reading Vol 1 of Preacher, which I blasted through in an afternoon.

[YellowDogJen]

9/65 so far. Behind schedule, but WAAAAH! I've been reading BIG books, so no fair!

[deleted01]

Seeing as I'm already on 20/40, I've extended my goal to 60. I must have been reading a lot of really short books or something :laugh:

[Frank Fitzpatrick]

11/45 - 2 have been short stories/ novella's (A Study in Scarlett, The Sign of the Four), which is cheating slightly.

[Wizraban]

I read these too last year and they are certainly not short stories. The word count of each book is over 43.000. The usual upper limit for novellas is 40.000 words, so they would be classified as novels, albeit very short ones. No reason to worry.

[Biter]

Recently, I've read Updike's The Centaur - which I thought was great and felt quite surreal - and Fogelström's City of My Dreams, so I'm now at 6/26.

[Winterfella]

Recently:

Wool

The Martian

Naked Prey by John Sandford

Up to 8/15

Now working on Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

[Eponine]

8/26 - Only Forward was another of the kind of book I was hoping to discover in the list. I'd never heard of it before and now I plan to read more of the author.

I anticipate the book 9, first of Tad Williams Otherland will be a bit of a slog.

[Isildur's Mane]

5/20 now.

Finished reading The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, today, by Douglas Adams

So far I have read:

The Colour Of Magic

Fortunately, the Milk

The year of the Magna Carta

Wild Women

The Hitch hiker's Guide the the Galaxy

[Black Wolf Smith]

4 more to 17 of 60.

Sanderson - Words of Radiance

David Weber - Like a Might Army

mission of Honor

A rising Thunder

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Ok, not going to finish another book by the end of the month.

Read

- Blood Song, Anthony Ryan. This book lived up to the hype and more. Can't wait for the next in a few months.

- Herald of the Storm, Richard Ford. Solid but not remarkable. I will read the published sequel but am not in a huge rush.

- Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb. I read this years ago, but wanted to do a reread and read the next two trilogies. Great book, but a major downer at times (I remember the whole trilogy being that way).

- The Red Knight, Miles Cameron. Probably my favorite debut from last year, I reread this to refresh myself for the sequel. I am glad I did. The book was just as great the second time around, but the editing errors (confusion of directions or locations, names and relationships of characters shifting, and do on) were bothersome.

So I am at 16/52, 2/16 by women. Currently reading Assassin's Quest and The Fell Sword.

[Raja]

It's been an awful couple of months for reading ( among other things); my count is up to 8/40 now which is abysmal given how much time I've got on my hands this semester.

I've read 1984; The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson ( there was a lot in that book I didn't understand, I do want to pick up another book in a similar vein soon) and A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby.

Now starting a fairly short autobiography of Dennis Bergkamp. It should be a quick read.

It's weird, the lesser time I seem to have the more I read.

[Reposado]

6 this month. Which brings me to 17/52 I believe

[thistlepong]

I'm at 37 and, considering how last year went, I could be here come September.

The overwhelming standout is the first book of the year, Melville's Folk Roots by Kevin J. Hayes. It's kind of just what it sounds like: an analysis of Herman Melville's influence by and use of oral and musical folk traditions and the evolution thereof over the course of his career. The writing is excellent and the work is dense, but it's engaging and easy to read.

Everyone should read Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano. I liked to think my understanding of the subject was reasonably nuanced. It turns out that I was pretty wrong about that.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell was a clever high school romance with acknowledged shades of Romeo and Juliet, reminiscent of one of the plots of The Casual Vacancy. It's tighter than it seems if you don't recognize all the references. Recommended if you like starcrossed teens without a supernatural element.

And I read the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. I mostly loved them. He deployed some amazingly deft midieval planetary symbolism with a Christological bent that's not nearly as heavy handed as I'd been lead to believe.