Reading Record 2022 - Uniquely Portable Magic - The Bear and Badger

Questor

Just finished Spirited - Carlie Judd Hardy an account / memoir of a woman's running of a 100 mile trail run to convince her husband to get heart surgery. Or so I thought. I got the audible version and if I'm honest, I struggled to finifh it. Not because the account of the race was boring, not at all, but there was a LOT (and I mean probably about a third of the book) of championing her mormon faith. Now I don't give a shit about what anyone chooses to believe, but the description of the book didn't give anything away that there would be so much of this, so it really grated every time.

davyK

Reading has been off the agenda of late due to my digestion of the genius of Anna Karenina and my Super Meat Boy addiction. I'm also dipping into a lot of poetry at the minute - I'm not reading entire books - I'm flitting hither and thither so won't chalk up anything on my list.

Have managed this very short "book", more an essay really - Dickens and Prince : A Particular Kind of Genius by Nick Hornby. He draws their common features together - their gigantic output, love of women, poor background, same life span, anger about publication etc and it makes for an interesting read. Has made me look to revisit both of their output too.

A Christmas Carol is an annual read for me but the only other book of his I have read is The Old Curiosity Shop. I really need to delve into his work instead of watching adaptations. I have a few Prince albums (Purple Rain, Sign O the Times etc) but I've never looked past that.

I also have Dark Sun on the go - a rather dense study of Russian spies embedded within the Manhattan Project. I need to knuckle down with that as it's enjoyable although heavy going at times because of the detail.

davyK

The Bodhran Makers by John B Keane is a marvellous Irish tale set in the fictional village and town of Dirrabeg and Trallock. It's a confection of a story but then it's raised by the colourful characters, underlying messages and the beautiful inspired dialogue, great humour and wonderful prose and descriptions by the author.

A beautiful, beautiful book. I have no idea if an non Irish reader will get quite the same out of it or not but it's worth a look.

This marvellous little clip is what got me onto this great man:

Gremill

27. Surprisingly Down to Earth and Very Funny (Limmy)
Another audio book and an absolute belter. It's an eye-wateringly frank account of growing up in a fairly typical working class Glasgow family and environment and is told with so much brutal honesty that you can't help but love the guy. So much of it chimed scarily close to my own life, both growing up and as an adult, and it was great to hear such a normal account of a life from the kind of voice that you don't often hear in publishing. It's very bleak at times, funny at others, and on a few occasions genuinely touching. The audio book reading is superb - it's really make me think about why I diluted my accent when I moved South of the border and whether I should reclaim it. Highly recommended.

Paul the sparky

That's diluted?!

Gremill

Paul the sparky wrote:

That's diluted?!

Hah, yeah.

davyK

Moved on from The Bodhran Makers to a short story collection by Keane called A Irish Christmas Feast which seems to be hard to get hold of physically. Managed to bag an old hardback copy off a UK based seller on Amazon but there are several pages left blank by the printer that eviscerate a small handful of the stories

Was given 50% off by the seller. Will probably spring for the Kindle edition to read the missing stories.

It's just a delightful set of little stories set around Christmas time all delivered in Keane's marvellous prose.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Moot_Geeza wrote:

The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan I bought this when you lot had it in a book club thread a while back, intending to join in, but my commute was barely 25 minutes at that point. It's close to two hours each way now, so I finally gave it a go. I'll dig the thread out later to see what the general consensus was, but my initial reaction is....masterpiece? I thought it was exceptionally good. One bit in particular nearly finished me on the way home from work last week - I ignored the wet eye wallop until I had to wipe a cheek. I get that with mawkish country songs if I'm hungover, but tend to resist lip wobbles with books for some reason. Not with the fish supper scene though! Beautiful stuff. It reminded me of Birdsong on occasion, which I remember being similarly excellent (it's been 20 years since I read that though). Big thanks to whoever suggested it initially, will now attempt to get other people to read it.

They're making a series on this. Not sure when it's coming out.

ShabbyMcCrabby

7 Best Served Cold - Abercrombie
Yes my reading has been very very very slow. Wasn't helped by work being absolute crap because that's where I do a lot of my reading in little grabs on breaks. This was great. Really enjoyed the new characters and I like how it slots into the world you already know. Am keen to keep digging on through the rest of these.

The Daddy

I’m current reading A Little Hatred, been working my way through his stuff on an every other book basis (as in, every other book I read is one of his). All great.

Gremill

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

7 Best Served Cold - Abercrombie
Yes my reading has been very very very slow. Wasn't helped by work being absolute crap because that's where I do a lot of my reading in little grabs on breaks. This was great. Really enjoyed the new characters and I like how it slots into the world you already know. Am keen to keep digging on through the rest of these.

Nicomo Cosca might be my favourite ever character from his books.

Gremill

28. The Doors of Eden (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Another insanely brilliant sci-fi tale from my favourite author. Taking in multiversal travel, evolutionary biology, alternative history, alien invasion, corporate bastardry, the secret service and the end of the world it's more evidence that there are few authors with the vision and imagination of AT.

Moot_Geeza

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan I bought this when you lot had it in a book club thread a while back, intending to join in, but my commute was barely 25 minutes at that point. It's close to two hours each way now, so I finally gave it a go. I'll dig the thread out later to see what the general consensus was, but my initial reaction is....masterpiece? I thought it was exceptionally good. One bit in particular nearly finished me on the way home from work last week - I ignored the wet eye wallop until I had to wipe a cheek. I get that with mawkish country songs if I'm hungover, but tend to resist lip wobbles with books for some reason. Not with the fish supper scene though! Beautiful stuff. It reminded me of Birdsong on occasion, which I remember being similarly excellent (it's been 20 years since I read that though). Big thanks to whoever suggested it initially, will now attempt to get other people to read it.

They're making a series on this. Not sure when it's coming out.

I'll give it a go if it's not crap, ta.

Moot_Geeza

London Belongs To Me - Norman Collins

Bought this after my wife accused me of only liking films where nothing happens, and then (while complaining about whatever it was I'd told her to watch) suggested I read a book where nothing happens. So I Googled 'novels where nothing happens' and eventually landed on this. As far as I can tell it's considered a near classic rather than a masterpiece for the ages. I'd never heard of it anyway.

It would probably be called a kitchen sink drama as a film (or even a soap opera as a TV series), and follows the lives of half a dozen or so ordinary people going about their business as WWII edges closer. There's plenty of drama though, so I'd definitely dispute 'nothing happens', and some of the characters are brilliant. Enjoyed this.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Gremill wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

7 Best Served Cold - Abercrombie
Yes my reading has been very very very slow. Wasn't helped by work being absolute crap because that's where I do a lot of my reading in little grabs on breaks. This was great. Really enjoyed the new characters and I like how it slots into the world you already know. Am keen to keep digging on through the rest of these.

Nicomo Cosca might be my favourite ever character from his books.

Yeah he's great. With how he did this one I'm interested to read how the other books fit into the world

davyK

Quite a reading year for me. I read slightly less (25 books - but 2021's 24 books included the mighty WW2 by Churchill and 3 heavy Russian novels) but the main reason for that was Anna Karenina was simply too good to follow without a break.

Best non-fiction : Suez:Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East (Keith Kyle)

Best fiction : Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), Watership Down (Richard Adams)

If I had just read these 3 the year would have been worthwhile but add in the Jeeves and Wooster stories and John B Keane's The Bodhran Makers and his glorious Christmas short stories anthology it's the best year in recent memory.

Gremill

28 books read in 2022. Underground Railroad was probably the best single book I read, with the Salvation triolgy my favourite series.

hylian_elf

4 for me. For shame.

Moot_Geeza

Maybe a dozen for me. Should've been more but I often find it hard to resist snoozing or aimless badgering when I'm on the train.

Best new book I read was The Bastard Out Of Carolina. Best old book I reread was The Last Picture Show.

LivDiv

10 for me. Most I've ever read in a year.
Mostly in the first half of the year. Since I have started and either abandoned or not finished multiple others.

I did read through about half of the complete Lovecraft collection. I suppose I could have counted some of those.

Books abandoned
Dorian Grey
Crime and Punishment
Leviathan Wakes (Expanse book 1)

Books started and not finished.
Alan Partridge Nomad (re-read)
Mythos by Stephen Fry
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R Martin
Total Recall My Unbelievable True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger
Automated Alice by Jeff Noon
Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (re-read)
Complete Lovecraft

EvilRedEye

I'm gonna be slowly dripfeeding myself Anna Karenina throughout the year so hopefully I enjoy it just as much.

EvilRedEye

Think I might try and reverse engineer how many books I read last year even though it's over.

Kid Brady Stories & Man of Means - PG Wodehouse - ★★★☆☆

The Whispering Dark - Kelly Andrew - ★★☆☆☆

Origins of the Wheel of Time - Michael Livingston - ★★★★☆

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky - ★★★★☆

Breakout: Pilgrim in the Microworld - David Sudnow - ★★★☆☆

Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii - James Moran - ★★★☆☆

Napa & Sonoma - Wildsam Field Guides - ★★★★☆

Mike and Psmith - PG Wodehouse - ★★★★★

Psmith in the City - PG Wodehouse - ★★★★☆

The Serious Guide to Joke Writing - Sally Holloway - ★★★★☆

Redwall - Brian Jacques - ★★★★☆

The Wine-Lover's Daughter - Anne Fadiman - ★★★★★

Box Hill - Adam Mars-Jones - ★★★★☆

Tumult in the Clouds - James Goodson - ★★★★☆

I make that 13 14 but I would really need to have a look around at home to see if there were any more. I thought there would be more, sadface.

dynamiteReady

I'd not got through a great deal this year, but The Night Manager (Le Carre) stood out for fiction, and Empireland was probably the best of the non-fiction books I'd read.

'You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]' was another standout, because it's a very creative biography of an odd subject. It's slightly churlish (I think the author wanted to distance himself from Moat in this way), but humanizes Moat subtly because of this. So if you're aware of that story, and like reading, it will stick in the mind.

acemuzzy

Excellent use of stars

dynamiteReady

Lol, yes. Looks like you can use UTF8 symbols almost everywhere these days,

DrewMerson

acemuzzy

Your very own meanie? Or can we share?

DrewMerson

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