Cecrow - 2020 TBR Challenge

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Cecrow - 2020 TBR Challenge

1Cecrow
Editado: Dic 11, 2020, 5:49 pm

Primary List:
1. Not Wanted on the Voyage* - Timothy Findley (2020/01)
2. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne (2020/02)
3. The First Man in Rome - Colleen McCullough (2020/03)
4. Hard Times - Charles Dickens (2020/04)
5. The Iron King - Maurice Druon (2020/05)
6. The Annals of Rome - Tacitus (2020/06)
7. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell (2020/07)
8. A Distant Mirror - Barbara Tuchman (2020/08)
9. The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemison (2020/09)
10. The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemison (2020/10)
11. The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemison (2020/11)
12. The Ladies' Paradise - Emile Zola (2020/12)

COMPLETED (2020/12)

Alternate List:
1. The Heart of What Was Lost - Tad Williams (2020/01)
2. The Archer's Tale (aka Harlequin) - Bernard Cornwell (2020/02)
3. The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner (2020/03)
4. Seven Gothic Tales* - Isak Dinesen (a.k.a. Karen/Tania Blixen) (2020/05)
5. The Book of Margery Kempe - Margery Kempe (2020/10)
6. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (2020/11)
7. Le Grand Meaulnes (aka The Lost Estate) - Alain-Fournier (2020/07)
8. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (2020/06)
9. The Human Stain* - Philip Roth (2020/09)
10. Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler (2020/11)
11. The Time Traders - Andre Norton (2020/05)
12. Cannery Row & The Long Valley - John Steinbeck (2020/08)

COMPLETED (2020/11)

* = brought forward from previous year.

2Cecrow
Editado: Dic 16, 2019, 1:23 pm

Ninth year of the challenge for me; if this was my kid he'd be in fourth grade now. I've selected to tackle my TBR books relating to the 14th-century and to read the Jemison trilogy this year. Meanwhile I'm still pursuing Roman times, Sterne marks the end of my 18th century reads, and I have my annual Dickens. The Steinbecks come together in one volume, thus both. Sterne and Tuckman may go slowly but all the rest look fairly easy. Always some surprises, though.

3Narilka
Dic 20, 2019, 4:44 pm

You have your 2020 list up nice and early. That Jemison trilogy is also in my TBR, though I wasn't planning to include it on my list. Looks like another great year of reading lined up :) Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on your books.

4LittleTaiko
Dic 20, 2019, 5:04 pm

Okay, now I want to put up my list before I change my mind again. I'll be joining you with Hard Times since I never got around to it in 2019. So tempted to put North and South on my list too but will be content to wait another year. Really interested in seeing your thoughts on Slaughterhouse Five. I read it almost seven years ago and remember enjoying it if not always understanding it. Oh! And I found Cannery Row to be fun and plan on reading the sequel soon.

5Cecrow
Dic 22, 2019, 11:59 am

I think Hard Times and North South were published same year and follow a similar theme so I figured they oughta go well together.

6Petroglyph
Editado: Ene 5, 2020, 9:34 pm

Interesting list!

Hard times I read a few years back for this challenge, and I thought it was pretty good. North and south was part of my 2017 challenge (my review here) Tacitus's "The histories" (about 69, the year of four emperors) I loved when I read it, and I hope the Annals are equally great. (Be sure to get a readable translation, though.) Both Tuchman and Sterne I've lumped into my "perhaps one day" category. Seven Gothic tales I liked better in hindsight, I think, than while reading it. Slaughterhouse five, well, I found it meh, but people do seem to like it in general. Curious to see what you think.

I'll be finishing off N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy this year, and will let you know once I finish volume 3. It's a great set of books, I think, some of the best the genre has to offer right now.

I was planning on reading The book of Margery Kempe this year, too (though not for this challenge). wanna compare notes?

7Cecrow
Ene 5, 2020, 9:05 pm

Re Tacitus, ill be reading the Annals, not the Histories; I think it covers a broader range of emperors.

Try linking me to your review of Margery, if you beat me to it. Curiosity is driving me, not sure I'll actually like reading it, lol.

8Petroglyph
Ene 5, 2020, 9:38 pm

>7 Cecrow:
Tacitus: sorry, that was unclear in my message. I meant it as a general comment on the surprising readability of Tacitus (edited now to reflect this).

And I will link my review. If, that is, I actually get to it this year. ;)

9Cecrow
Editado: Ene 16, 2020, 1:40 pm



#1 Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley

You can bet when I saw this cover, I tossed the other copy I already had and snatched up this one. I liken this novel to The Satanic Verses, in that Findley goes playing in the Bible's backyard with more than a little irreverence and a healthy dose of magical realism. It's a retelling of the story of Noah. In the Bible, Noah loaded two of every animal onto his Ark to save each species from a worldwide flood sent by God to punish the wicked. In this telling, it's hard to see what makes Noah and company the best specimens of humanity since their foibles, flaws and sins are many. They don't have a lot going for them besides Noah's loyalty to Yaweh, who appears to them as a ridiculous figure, a tired and decrepit old man who just can't get no respect. I feel like I got the point the author was making in this intriguing study of good and evil, but he's lucky the pope doesn't issue fatwas.

10Narilka
Ene 17, 2020, 6:22 pm

First book down! Too bad the cover doesn't seem to relate to the book much. I'd be expecting a cat rescue story or something.

11Cecrow
Ene 20, 2020, 7:51 am



#2 The Heart of What Was Lost by Tad Williams

Excellent winter reading, a short fantasy novel about a lingering war in frozen wastelands. I think any fantasy fan could pick this up and appreciate it, but it is actually a coda to the original Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy that Williams published in the 1990s - and stuffed with spoilers about it, be warned - as well as a lead-in for the new trilogy that he is writing now. I've held off on pursuing that (quite enough to read, thank you very much) but thought I could get away with reading this. Now I might be too baited to resist. Typically any fantasy author finally returning to a world that they invented decades ago just falls on their face, but astonishingly Williams recaptures the feel of Osten Ard like he was never gone. If he's doing that in the new trilogy (and reviews are suggesting it is so), that's a powerful lure.

12Cecrow
Ene 20, 2020, 7:57 am

>10 Narilka:, there's a cat that does figure fairly large in the story, if not centrally; on the other hand she's a calico, nothing like the cover.

13Cecrow
Feb 11, 2020, 7:40 am



#3 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Tristram tries to write an autobiography, but gets so badly sidetracked into one digression after another that he never gets properly started. Instead we get to know his father and uncle, and his uncle's servant, along with more minor looks at several other folks and a whole host of side topics I can't even begin to list. There's no point in waiting for a plot, or even much of a story. The fun lies in seeing which direction Tristram's digressions take him next, with metafictional experiments along the way to explore the limits of what the novel (then new) can convey. This means an occassional comparison with or brush against other art forms, and some experimenting that would now be called postmodern. The 18th century language can be bit hard to penetrate in places, but get yourself an edition with good footnotes for help with that, and to better appreciate the wittiness. Could be frustrating for some readers, but I had a good time with it.

14Cecrow
Feb 26, 2020, 8:02 am



#4 The Archer's Tale (aka Harlequin) by Bernard Cornwell

This historical fiction novel is the first of a few books in my challenge that focus on the 14th century. Its UK title "Harlequin" was dispensed with in US printings, thanks to being heavily associated there with the romance genre. In this book it's the name of the villain, based on the French word "hellequin" which means something like "devil's horsemen". Ironically the French form is also a label that the hero's band picks up as they romp around the French countryside destroying peasants' lives. Cornwell deserves credit for not sugar-coating the nasty work these men were engaged in. I'm not sure he's an author who demands a revisit, but he earned my respect for keeping his story moving while inserting a lot of teaching points from the period.

15Narilka
Feb 28, 2020, 10:37 pm

>14 Cecrow: Sounds interesting. Not sure I've read anything that focused on that time period.

16Cecrow
Mar 29, 2020, 10:33 am



#5 The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

Picked a great time to read this one. A 1970s science fiction novel about environmental collapse - complemented by epidemics, which didn't make for comfort reading as COVID-19 headlines took over the news. The action takes place in an America ruled by a President who doesn't care, and who also hates immigrants. Wow, I'm sure glad this stuff never happens in real life! Outside of its tasteless depiction of women, there's still some bite to its message about our needing to prioritize environmental issues in politics. Since it's aiming for scare tactics, the story gets pretty bleak. Ironically its one hopeful note rings false: the idea that even if America self-destructs from its own terrible environmental practices, somehow the rest of the world will go on and maybe even better than before. Sorry, John - fact is, we're all mixed up together in this big blue marble's fate, and the world is much smaller than you apparently thought.

17Yuki_Onna
Mar 29, 2020, 3:13 pm

>16 Cecrow: Cecrow: Wow, that read REALLY was timely! Creepy...

18LittleTaiko
Mar 29, 2020, 3:20 pm

>16 Cecrow: - Oof, that is timely. Next year you need to put a book or two on your list about a world with happy people and perfect world leaders. If such a book even exists...

19Cecrow
Mar 30, 2020, 8:38 am



#6 The First Man in Rome (Masters of Rome #1) by Colleen McCullough

The first of a seven-volume series of historical fiction behemoths, detailing the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. This one has Marius front and centre, with Sulla in the near background. McCullough's writing isn't all it might have been, especially in dialogue, but she did her research and I like fiction's power to put me in that time and place: a nice contrast with Plutarch, Tacitus, etc. who I'm relying on to tell me the Empire's history that comes later. I plan to read the first three books of this series (one per year), after which it becomes the Julius Caesar story that I'm already familiar with and I can step off this train. This was good enough that I sneak peeked at the opening of the next book, and nearly took my challenge off its wheels so I could continue right now, but - other reading goals await!

20riida
Abr 4, 2020, 5:55 am

i like your list :) it looks quite challenging to me...but then again, i am quite intimidated by the dickenses in my shelf!

maybe i should add one to my list (im thinking of bleak house which i've started and dropped so many times already!)

21Cecrow
Abr 4, 2020, 10:10 pm

>20 riida:, I'd recommend Bleak House for sure, it's technically his best I've read so far. My favourites are Pickwick and Dombey, up to this point. I still have Two Cities and Great Expectations ahead of me, can't rank those yet.

22LittleTaiko
Abr 5, 2020, 4:47 pm

>20 riida: - Dombey and Tale of Two Cities are my absolute favorites of Dickens. Though I still have a couple others to go.

23Cecrow
Editado: Abr 24, 2020, 6:37 pm



#7 Hard Times by Charles Dickens

This is an oddly short novel for Dickens, and a bit depressing as well (at least for him). The theme is centered on bemoaning a decline of the arts in education, and too much regimen with too little respect for workers in industry. These aren't especially darker topics than what Dickens has tackled before, but you might think so from how untiringly he harps on it. Dickens was having a hard time with his marriage, which might explain it. This is maybe the first of his novels I've read that I would rate as not fun, so I'm a bit put out, but I did have some forewarning that this will be the trend of his later writing. He's still himself in his fine character portrayals, plenty of whom are sympathetic, and he is plotting well now, even if coincidence is still strongly at work. Not one of my favourites of his, but not terrible.

24Petroglyph
Abr 30, 2020, 2:11 pm

>23 Cecrow:
An English lit professor at uni called it "Dickens' best", though he didn't elaborate on that comment. It seems you would disagree!

25Cecrow
Abr 30, 2020, 2:17 pm

Whew, that opinion is hard to fathom. I can't think of what would make this stand out, except that the shorter length forces Dickens to stick to the point. If you don't care for the inordinate time he usually takes to move his plot forward, and maybe if you'e something against his borderline cartoonish characterizations (which he tones down here) ... possibly there's an argument there.

26Cecrow
mayo 4, 2020, 8:28 am



#8 Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen

One of the better short story collections I've read, after I wasn't sure what to expect. The word 'gothic' has begun to make me flinch. There are still some of the classic gothic sensibilities here so it isn't a misnomer, but I far prefer this 1930s style. Dinesen writes the kind of characters I like to read about, people who carefully reason their way through strange situations. The plots, messages and themes are all draped under layers of seeming digresssions that might not be, and locked within nested stories. Like a value pack at the grocery store, you get more than just seven. I'd recommend this much more quickly than Flannery O'Conner.

27frahealee
Editado: Jul 14, 2022, 4:18 pm

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

28Cecrow
Editado: mayo 23, 2020, 6:38 pm



#9 The Iron King (Book One of The Accursed Kings) by Maurice Druon

Another book set in the 14th century, this one is historical fiction from France, first published in 1955. That's long enough ago that it was an influence on George Martin, who went on to write Game of Thrones and refers back to this as "the original Game of Thrones". You have to set that comparison aside or at least not take it too literally. Druon is exploring the court of Philip IV of France, the fellow responsible for ending the Templars so he could claim their wealth for his treasury. That makes for a fine opening to the drama, which also includes some foibles on the part of his daughters-in-law, and some Italian lenders working behind the scenes to prop up the treasury. Some great end notes that demonstrate the author did his homework, and an easy to read style.

29Cecrow
mayo 23, 2020, 6:27 pm



#10 The Time Traders (Time Traders #1) by Andre Norton

1950s cold war science fiction, light on characters and description, headlong in plot. As the title suggests, time travel is the latest cold war weapon: the Russians are using it to secure alien technology, and the Americans are trying to catch up. I'd heard of Andre Norton almost as soon as I heard of science fiction but this is my first time reading her. If this is one of her best, I don't think I need to read any more.

30Cecrow
Jun 28, 2020, 7:35 am




#11 The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus

Tacitus covers the lives of the first five Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. They don't all get equal billing, since not all of Tacitus' work has survived. Augustus gets hardly a chapter before he dies, Tiberius is missing a couple of years, Caligula is missing entirely, Claudius gets shortchanged and Nero gets cut off. It is still an interesting and powerful view into how each emperor's rule played out, by someone who had nearly a contemporary perspective. Tiberius gets half the book, which was good from my perspective since he's the one of the five I knew least about. I'm looking forward to reading Robert Graves, so the preview of Claudius was interesting too. Nero is a good one to end on, since his rule had the most drama, but it gets pretty dark.

31Cecrow
Jun 29, 2020, 10:48 pm



#12 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This wasn't high on my list of classics to read someday, but nobody ever forced me to and its time finally arrived. A puritanical New England colony in the 1640s forms the setting, where death seems a reasonable penalty to some after Hester Prynne is caught in adultery. In their mercy, instead she is forced to wear a large letter 'A' on her chest for the rest of her shunned life, in part because no one has seen her husband for years now and he might be dead anyway. All of this happens at the start. The story is primarily driven by Hester's refusal to identify her daughter's father, but this requires making the circumstances of the adultery a mystery as well. That in turn makes it difficult to know Hester beyond the surface detail, which hurt my enjoyment until that gets cleared up, and then it became wonderful. By the halfway point my mind's usually set about a novel, but some can do a flip and this was one of them. Proof that it can be worth hanging in there.

32LittleTaiko
Jun 30, 2020, 11:45 am

>30 Cecrow: - I have I, Claudius on my list this year. It would have been nice to have this introduction but I'll just go in cold.

>31 Cecrow: - I know I read this in high school but don't remember much about how I felt at the time. It's definitely one I want to read again someday. I'm glad it worked out for you in the end.

33Cecrow
Editado: Jun 30, 2020, 12:12 pm

>32 LittleTaiko:, Tacitus depicts Claudius as an easily manipulated scatterbrain, largely controlled by his wives. It makes me curious to see what kind of story Mr Graves read into that.

34Narilka
Jun 30, 2020, 1:21 pm

Not quite half way through the year and you're half way through your list. Well done!

35Cecrow
Jul 13, 2020, 11:28 am

>34 Narilka:, definitely encouraging versus my recent challenge years, but I was hoping to be a bit ahead because of Barbara Tuchman coming up, pretty sure I'll go overtime reading her.

I'm gonna be a bit ashamed of myself if I don't finish them all: lots of reading time, and lots of short ones. Even if I don't though, at least I'm whittling down the TBR pile thanks to no recent acquisitions. But look out, local bookstores are opening again ...

36Cecrow
Jul 17, 2020, 4:28 pm



#13 North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I think I just read the best book I'll read this year, and a contender for my top ten favourites ever. It certainly jostles with Jane Eyre as my favourite romance.

It seemed like some kind of weird coincidence, that Hard Times as well as North and South should be published in the same year,both touch on generally the same topic, and both be heralded as classics today. It's less weird since I found out that Dickens was responsible for publishing Gaskell's work on the heels of his own. I wasn't expecting great things from this, reading in a more obligatory sense than anticipatory, but - surprise! Margaret and Thomas are a match like ... well, like the agrarian south and the industrial north. Opposites on the surface, not entirely appreciative of each other's strengths, but on the same values page although they are slow to recognize it. Their courtship bears comparison to labour relations, and Gaskell does exactly that in subtle form. I'd definitely like to read more by this author now.

37Narilka
Jul 17, 2020, 9:04 pm

>36 Cecrow: Glad you found a good one :) I think I gave that 3 stars when I read it last year.

38Cecrow
Jul 24, 2020, 8:04 am



#14 The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Henri Alain-Fournier

At first blush this is a romance novel in the love-at-first-sight tradition, where two beautiful kids find instant attraction and remain devoted despite exchanging a whole five sentences and knowing nothing about one another. It's the exact opposite of what I just read about in North and South and an approach to romance that exhausts me. A trap, as it turns out. Precisely this reaction was sought for and addressed, and it becomes a tale about the glamour of such romantic perceptions. The plot annoys with its piled-on coincidences but the unpredictability has an attraction, and the message endures. Call it instead a coming-of-age novel, and now I better understand Simone de Beauvoir's endorsement. If you've a still lingering ache about a first love from long ago, this novel's message might ease your pain.

39LittleTaiko
Jul 26, 2020, 3:25 pm

>36 Cecrow: - I'm definitely putting North and South on my list for next year - sounds wonderful!

40Cecrow
Ago 29, 2020, 11:16 pm



#15 A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman

As an early teenager, I tripped across this in the basement of my friend's house, something his mom had read, and thought "looks like something I'll read someday". I never shook that thought, so it makes this a bit of a milestone read for me. It proves to be a super engaging non-fiction overview of the 14th century in Western Europe, aided by a combination of my interest in the topic and Barbara Tuchman's fantastic writing that has just the right amount of depth for a layperson's history. The 14th century marked the end of chivalry and the Middle Ages, which makes it feel like eons ago, but remembering that Columbus "sailed the ocean blue" less than a hundred years later helped put it in context. She subtly demonstrates several parallels between her choice of study and the chaos and Cold War gloom of her own 20th century. Even if the scope managed to run away with her (she originally intended only to look at the Black Plague) it proved well worth her time and mine. I'm interested in some of Tuchman's other work, especially The Guns of August.

41Narilka
Ago 30, 2020, 8:46 am

>40 Cecrow: That sounds pretty interesting.

42Cecrow
Editado: Sep 4, 2020, 10:54 am

.

#16 Cannery Row & The Long Valley by John Steinbeck

I'm glad that I found room in my challenge this year for more Steinbeck. He's always a pleasure to read, even more so in his lighter works. In Cannery Row he is aiming for a mood piece and mostly succeeds, depicting a town of imperfect people who somehow possess the key to happiness - minus the wives who are being beaten that Steinbeck glosses over. Not as nice for them, I'd imagine. There's a sequel I may read, Sweet Thursday. If it featured cat-loving optimist Mary Talbot, who only gets one vignette chapter here, I'd be looking for it already.

The Long Valley is an earlier collection of short fiction. One of the stories, "The Snake", reads like a Cannery Row prequel. It and a few others are based on real incidents that he couldn't get out of his head. Turning them into stories invited his readers to speculate on 'what he meant by them', which became like a collective pondering upon the meaning of his own memories, helping him with trying to understand them. Kind of smart. My edition is pretty ancient (not the pretty pictures above) and oddly paired with Cannery Roy rather than the Red Pony stories, so I'll have to find those some other way.

43Cecrow
Sep 21, 2020, 9:13 pm



#17 The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

A fantasy trilogy where all three books won the Hugo award in their respective year? Sign me up! Jemisin delivers a powerfully built world, full of powerful people (earthquake magic!) and some real scene zingers that gripped me good. I'm annoyed by the narrative tricks she didn't need to pull, as if she didn't trust her story to be compelling enough without some curious structure as an extra hook. The anachronisms can go too, especially in those terrible chapter titles - ugh. But I'm far from regretting that I've lined up the rest of this trilogy back-to-back, so the complaints department is closed for business.

44Cecrow
Editado: Nov 23, 2020, 11:24 am



#18 The Human Stain by Philip Roth

There's a crow in this story that gets domesticated and can't return to the wild, because other crows sense its "human stain". Similarly, this is a novel about characters who diverge so far from their origins that they can never go home. Each instance is an interesting variant on this theme. Roth is fearless about spoiling his own ending and revealing his characters' secrets without any build-up, trusting entirely to the flow of his story; not an author you can enjoy if your reading is about finding out what happens. The emphasis here is on the journey, and he kept me hooked all the way. On at least one occasion however, he scores 11 out of 10 on the cringe meter when his main character suggests that his lover's being abused as a child made her better in bed. Just, wow.

45LittleTaiko
Oct 1, 2020, 12:57 pm

>42 Cecrow: - I really enjoyed Cannery Row and have the sequel on my shelves just waiting to be read.

>44 Cecrow: - That is a book I've heard of and until your review I had no clue what is was about. It sounds rather interesting, though your last point does give me pause. Wow that would be hard to take.

46Cecrow
Editado: Oct 8, 2020, 2:30 pm

>45 LittleTaiko:, it amounts to one line in a book of 350 pages, but yeah.

47Cecrow
Oct 14, 2020, 8:41 am



#19 The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin

I liked this one better than the first. The anachronisms are still there (get ready to rumble? really?) but the narrative is straightforward this time compared to the first book's contortions. For an end of the world scenario with plenty of bloodletting and angst, the tone never becomes overly grim and keeps the story enjoyable to read. It's an unusual mix of fantasy and science fiction, a strange concoction that's difficult to categorize on multiple levels, gripping and sufficiently fast-paced with several good set pieces and great imagery.

48Cecrow
Oct 27, 2020, 9:06 pm



#20 The Book of Margery Kempe as dictated by Margery Kempe

This is the last of four books I listed in my challenge that center on the 14th century, and the first autobiography to be recorded in English. Margery tried and failed at a couple of businesses, before she decided God was talking to her (literally). Her new routine became to weep long and loud whenever something reminded her of Christ's crucifixion, which was just about everything. This behaviour got her arrested multiple times, hauled before various archbishops, etc. to be charged as a heretic. This illiterate woman was able to speak in so correct and holy a manner before all of these learned men that they kept letting her go. Is it wrong that I chuckled a few times? Angsty turmoil over whether she'll burn at the stake this time, until they finally let her off with a don't-come-back warning, then she crosses the next river and - pounce! - here we go again. Subjecting herself to all of that, was she sincere in her faith? Absolutely. Also, to judge from her having composed and dictated this entire story with no educational background, pretty darn smart.

49Cecrow
Nov 10, 2020, 6:12 pm



#21: Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

A curious thing happened when I got to page 58; it was succeeded by page 330 and its following 30 pages, before continuing with page 89. Those missing thirty pages were nowhere else to be found in my copy, so I had to borrow a second one from the library. Happily, this was worth the extra work.

Barney is getting a bit senile, possibly early Alzheimers' coming on, and his (fictional) memoir is very rambling at first but full of necessary scene setting, providing a frame to hang all the rest on. I seem to have unknowingly developed a fondness for "grouchy old man reflects back on his good old days and what he's learned" stories, go figure. The Quebec, Jewish and 1950s generation stuff is still going past me, however good the writing, but I'm feeling primed and ready for "old man" stories by other authors in the coming decades that will recollect Generation X experiences I can plug into. I get it now.

50Narilka
Nov 10, 2020, 6:58 pm

>49 Cecrow: Ahh, the fun of a misprint. Good you found a copy at your library to enjoy.

51LittleTaiko
Editado: Nov 24, 2020, 4:34 pm

>49 Cecrow: - The idea of more books coming that reflect on the Gen X experience makes me quite happy. Love a grumpy old person book, especially when it starts becoming something I can relate to.

52Cecrow
Nov 23, 2020, 11:22 am



#22 The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N.K. Jemisin

Wasn't really feeling this at first, maybe just my November blahs. Fantasy trilogies traditionally conclude with the wrapping up, the final face-off, and Jemisin only strays a little from the path. But it nicely completes the thesis she presented in her first volume, and it does a good job of navigating the middle book's ending that seemed hard to top. There's a structural parallel between the Broken Earth and the original Star Wars trilogy: a fascinating intro to a new kind of world, followed by a strong middle chapter that deepens and expands that world, and then a tidying up with some oddball bits thrown in but hitting all the right notes at the end.

53LittleTaiko
Nov 24, 2020, 4:34 pm

Look at you getting close to the end of both lists - very impressive!

54Cecrow
Nov 26, 2020, 10:11 am

Pretty sure I'm going to make it. Good thing because I've a tough list for next year, I could use a head start.

55Cecrow
Nov 29, 2020, 9:04 am



#23 Slaughterhouse-Five or, The Children's War by Kurt Vonnegut

A book I long wished to read, an author I long wished to sample. As I was told, it features World War II, time travel and alien kidnappers, but it is not nearly surreal or post-modern as that makes it sound. Billy Pilgrim time travels back and forth all over his lifespan, rotating and circling in towards the key moment of his life, the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut was there himself as a prisoner of war and wanted to address it in his fiction, but I guess he had to approach it slowly and in a similar way. The sci-fi elements are there to lend an appropriate sheen of dissociation. How else do you talk about experiencing the murder of that many people?

56LittleTaiko
Nov 30, 2020, 4:11 pm

I just looked it up and it's been nine years since I read that one - all I remember is that I liked it and of course the phrase "and so it goes." I've only read a couple other of his works with Welcome to the Monkey House being my favorite.

57Cecrow
Dic 11, 2020, 5:51 pm



#24 The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola

I enjoyed the PBS series based on this classic, when it was on Netflix a couple of years back, and I'd always wanted to sample Zola. Having that background lent reading this some extra flavour. Zola sets up the Paradise (think Walmart) as an inevitable good for society, but he doesn't shy away from what it does to smaller businesses in its shadow. It's an easy pleasure read with a dash of romance unless a story that largely extols commercialization (and paints all women as suckers for it) is going to set your teeth on edge.

58Cecrow
Dic 11, 2020, 5:57 pm

Whew, only the third time in nine attempts that I've read all 24. It was an easier set this year in terms of page count, that definitely helped. That and having caught up on all my previous years' contestants gives me a free hand for 24 fresh titles next year. Also managed to reduce my total TBR pile down to 100 even, although I've mostly Covid discouragement to thank for not acquiring more at the usual rate (as opposed to willpower, lol).

59LittleTaiko
Dic 11, 2020, 9:47 pm

Congratulations!!!!!! Can’t wait to see what you have on your list for 2021.

I’ve been buying more books I think during Covid. I’ve been justifying it as supporting small businesses with my online orders.

60Narilka
Dic 12, 2020, 9:06 am

Congrats!!! That's an amazing job :)

61LibraryLover23
Dic 21, 2020, 9:37 am

Congrats on finishing the challenge!