Current Events > I've read 20 books by 20 different authors so far this year. Ask me anything

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'll get this question out of the way:
In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck
Signs Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera
The Sound And The Fury, William Faulkner
The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsumi
We Had To Remove This Post, Hanna Bervoets
A Dead Man's Memoir, Mikhail Bulgakov
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John Le Carre
The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
O Caledonia, Elspeth Barker
Grime, Sybille Berg
Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolao
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Did you like The Idiot? I read it last year and was pretty disappointed with it, I expected more after reading Crime and Punishment and The Brother Karamozov (I thought both were fantastic)

My god he's becoming Sunhawk.

What Vonnegut novels have you read? I remember you mentioning before about reading him.

Mike_Xtreme posted...

Did you like The Idiot? I read it last year and was pretty disappointed with it, I expected more after reading Crime and Punishment and The Brother Karamozov (I thought both were fantastic)

I really did like it, yeah. You can feel as you read it that it was sorta unplanned, it was published serially and he changed his thoughts as he went along. But it still packs a lot in there.

a-c-a-b posted...

What Vonnegut novels have you read? I remember you mentioning before about reading him.

Breakfast of Champions
Slaughterhouse-Five
Cat's Cradle (actually re-listened to the audiobook recently, so it's the freshest in my memory)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Mother Night
Deadeye Dick

Slapstick is on my shelf, just waiting for the right moment to join this list.

Antifar posted...

Breakfast of Champions
Slaughterhouse-Five
Cat's Cradle (actually re-listened to the audiobook recently, so it's the freshest in my memory)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Mother Night
Deadeye Dick

Slapstick is on my shelf, just waiting for the right moment to join this list.

Solid list. He's one of my favourite writers and I love most of his stuff.

I would highly recommend The Sirens of Titan. It's one of Vonnegut's first novels from the late 50s but it's really good.

KanWan posted...

if you had to recommend 3, what would they be?

Signs Preceding the End of the World
Tinker, Tailor
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Have you read Vita Nostra?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It's really strong. For a variety of reasons, Okonkwo is often an unsympathetic protagonist and yet his fate feels unjust and unfair in the end.

CyricZ posted...

Have you read Vita Nostra?

I have not

Antifar posted...

I have not

It has been billed "the anti Harry Potter".

The Decagon House Murders sounds interesting, whats it about? Is it a mystery novel?

FunWithAFryPan posted...

The Decagon House Murders sounds interesting, whats it about? Is it a mystery novel?

Yeah, it's a mystery novel. I don't know if the translation let it down or what, but I found the writing pretty bland and uninspired, even if the mystery itself was neat.

Tuesday night bump

Listening to audio books IS NOT READING.

KINDERFELD posted...

Listening to audio books IS NOT READING.

These are books I read! I reserve audiobooks for stuff I've read before

KINDERFELD posted...

Listening to audio books IS NOT READING.

Not if you read the books before. Which I have done

KINDERFELD posted...

Listening to audio books IS NOT READING.

Objectively wrong.

I've read two of the books on your list, so other than The Jungle, and The Idiot what from your list would you suggest I read first?

I'm up to around 45 this year or so. Goodreads isn't tracking everything correctly for some reason, but I suspect it's cuz I frequently turn off wifi on my Kindle to keep library books longer when I get a sudden influx of available holds. Which, btw, is a great life hack if you weren't aware.

That being said, I do not have nearly the same author diversity because I binge series and new authors I discover, so like... Of those 45ish books, I probably only read like... 12 authors lol

Why didn't you read different books from the same author this year?

I've never heard of any of those books. Have you ever read Harry Potter?

I cant be arsed to pull all the ones from my spreadsheet Ive read, but if you count a Wheel of Time audio re-read Ive read 48 books so far, roughly 33,459 pages. Im hoping to finish Light Bringer today or tomorrow, so that will be 49.

How do you pick which books to read?

Antifar posted...

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

I read that one last year. It was really good. I can see how the more grim aspects of impoverished worklife overshadowed the intended commentary on inequality.

Not a serious question, but was John Cena mentioned in invisible cities?

Bishop_Hastur posted...

I've read two of the books on your list, so other than The Jungle, and The Idiot what from your list would you suggest I read first?

If you liked The Jungle: In Dubious Battle
If you liked The Idiot: The Flamethrowers

Ricemills posted...

Why didn't you read different books from the same author this year?

It wasn't planned going in, but at some point fairly early on I realized I could do 30 books by 30 authors and set that as my goal.

refmon posted...

How do you pick which books to read?

So I'm weird about this. But I've tried to balance my reading via contrasts: following up a newer book with an older book, an author from the US with one from elsewhere, trying to read more women authors in general.