Sir Furboy's 999 Challenge

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Sir Furboy's 999 Challenge

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1sirfurboy
Editado: Sep 18, 2009, 4:24 am

Okay I am posting this rather late, but I have done much of the reading so I wanted to set this out as a challenge and use it to guide my reading over the rest of the year.

My categories will be:

1. Award Winning Books
2. Classics (Complete)
3. History (Complete)
4. Christianity
5. Celtic (Complete)
6. fantasy (Complete)
7. Science Fiction (Complete)
8. Current Affairs/Politics
9. Contemporary Fiction (Complete)

2sirfurboy
Editado: Oct 9, 2009, 10:09 am

1. Award Winning Books

i. The Graveyard Book - Neil gaiman (Newbery Award)
ii. The Great Elephant Chase - Gillian Cross (Smarties and Whitbread Award)
iii. Listen to the Dark Maeve Henry (Smarties Award)
iv. The Owl Service - Alan Garner (Carnegie Medal)
v. Midnight Blue - Pauline Fisk (Smarties Award)
vi. Skellig - David Almond (Carnegie Medal, Whitbread award + others)
vii. The Giver - Lois Lowry (Newbery Award)
viii. The Dark is Rising (Newbery Award) *re-read
ix. The Grey King (Newbery Award) *re-read

Category Complete

I seem to have read more award winners than I knew about, so technically I completed this category a while ago. But these are the ones I intended to put there.

3sirfurboy
Editado: Sep 1, 2009, 10:09 am

2. Classics

i. The Metamorphasis - Franz Kafka
ii. Madam Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
iii. The Story of the Treasure Seekers - E. Nesbit
iv. Siddharta - Hermann Hesse
v. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Scott Fitzgerald
vi. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
vii. The Hobbit - J R R Tolkien
viii. Middlemarch - George Eliot
ix. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Category complete

4sirfurboy
Editado: Jul 20, 2009, 6:29 am

3. History

i. AD 381 - Charles Freeman
ii. The History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
iii. Emperor: The Field of Swords - Conn Iggulden
iv. Emperor: The Gods of War - Conn Iggulden
v. Fire From Heaven - Mary Renault
vi. Roman Mysteries Omnibus II - Caroline Lawrence
vii. Roman Mysteries: The Pirates of Pompeii - Caroline Lawrence
viii. The Fire of Ares - Michael Ford
ix. The Histories - Cornelius Tacitus

Category complete

5sirfurboy
Editado: Sep 30, 2009, 5:27 am

4. Christianity

i. God is Back - John Micklethwait
ii. Stealing Jesus - Bruce Bawer
iii. Christianity: A Guide for the Perplexed - Keith Ward
iv. Why There Almost Certainly Is a God - Keith Ward
v. A Life of Trust - George Müller
vi. The Old Testament of The Bible
vii. The New Testament of the Bible
viii. Exegetical Fallacies - D. A. Carson
ix. Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious - Christopher Catherwood

Category complete

7sirfurboy
Editado: Jul 20, 2009, 6:13 am

8sirfurboy
Editado: Ago 19, 2009, 11:05 am

9sirfurboy
Editado: Dic 12, 2009, 8:41 am

8. Current Affairs/Politics

i. Hamas in Politics - Jeroen Gunning
ii. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism - Robert Pape
iii. Virtual Shadows - Karen Lawrence Oqvist
iv. God's Politics - Jim Wallis
v. Guantanamo Boy - Anna Perera
vi. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind
vii. Dreams from my Father - Barack Obama
viii. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidency
ix. The Healing of America T R Reid

Category Complete

10sirfurboy
Editado: Jul 20, 2009, 5:44 am

9. Contemporary Fiction

i. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
ii. Wind up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
iii. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
iv. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
v. Number 9 Dream - David Mitchell
vi. Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
vii. After Dark - Haruki Murakami
viii.Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
ix. Choke Chain - Jason Donald

Category Complete

My favourites in this category were Black Swan Green and Choke Chain.

11avatiakh
Jul 20, 2009, 7:06 am

Welcome to the challenge. You've already read an interesting mix of books and I notice that you've become a fan of David Mitchell. I have his Black Swan Green on my tbr pile but not part of my 999 challenge.

12VictoriaPL
Jul 20, 2009, 8:50 am

Welcome!

13sirfurboy
Jul 20, 2009, 8:51 am

Thanks for the welcome. And yes, I very much liked Black Swan Green and was not disappointed by his other books. I am looking forward to seeing what he writes next.

14sirfurboy
Jul 23, 2009, 4:45 am

Added Guantanamo boy under politics/current affairs.

A harrowing account of how a fifteen year old boy gets caught up in George Bush's ill conceived "war on terror". Accused of planning to bomb London after he and some friends collaborated on the creation of a computer game, British school child, Khalid is abducted from Karachi in Pakistan, where he was visiting relatives. His CIA kidnappers will not believe he is 15, nor that he was just passing through a demonstration in Karachi to find his father. They fly him to Kandahar, where he is tortured into signing a confession that is then uses to send him to Guantanamo bay.

This is an immensely painful story - mostly because so much of it is based in real events. If anything, the inhumanity is toned down to make it suitable for young adult readers. Khalid, the protagonist, is fictional - but the story is true, and it is a book that will make you angry, depressed, frightened and sad. And yet there is a message of hope there too. Hope that we can answer evil with good, and turn away from the violence that is perpetrated against us.

This book moved me deeply. I knew it would have to - it is one of those subjects that cannot leave you untouched. But depressing as the subject material must inevitably be, and despite the evil it describes - I cannot recommend this book highly enough. There is no glossing over of unhelpful facts here. There is no wallowing in self pity or partisanship. Instead there is a story of evil, injustice, understanding, love and ultimately hope.

15sirfurboy
Ago 1, 2009, 1:36 pm

Added Rewind - Terry England to Science Fiction.

This book had an interesting concept - Aliens make contact with humans and land on Earth and after some information exchange and broadly friendly relations, they depart - but before they do, they take 17 visitors to their space ship and do something to their bodies to revert them to 9 year old children. The book then looks at the can of worms this opens whilst trying to untangle the mystery as to why this was done to these people.

Unfortunately the book missed the mark in so many ways. It is Science Fiction, and there is a hint in that word "fiction" that tells us that this is just a story! Thus the story concept is not a problem here, but I very much disliked what the writer did with the concept, because events led from the preposterous to the nonsensical.

For instance, when the world comes ti understand what has happened to these 17 adults, a legal judgement is passed down that because these people look like children they must now be treated like children. Thus their property ends up being confiscated, and they must be adopted by suitable responsible adults.

Fiction this may be, but we need a lot more convincing that any court would make such a nonsensical ruling. There are people lucky enough to look younger than they are. I knew someone who, at the age of 20 looked like she was 12. On vacation in Ireland she was asked why she wasn't in school and had to produce a passport to prove her age! But such a person is clearly considered an adult in law. So to would be a 43 year old who has been abducted by aliens and given a younger body, but remains mentally a 43 year old. No court would rule differently - and if they did then they would be censured for failing to provide an education to these "kids" some of whom are college professors!

And after the ruling everyone takes it meekly. There is no hint or thought of an appeal until the gay member of the group is told he can no longer be in the custody of a gay man!

So counting to 20, and swallowing one's disbelief at this very odd turn of events, we read on. The author tries to write some kind of criticism of religion in this book. I am not sure exactly what he was criticising though as I could not recognise any church group here. It appeared strongly that the writer's familiarity with religion did not extend beyond flicking through American religious TV channels, and thus when we had religious speakers speaking they did not *sound* like religious people. When they were berated on TV the scene was phony and when a Christmas day service descended into the hysterical murder of two "children" I was simply left bewildered. What was the author actually trying to say here?

The CNN commentary was also grating. I would have suggested that the author does not understand journalism either - except that the biography tells me he is a professional journalist. Maybe US journalism is just different from its British counterpart, but all the same I felt the commentary lacked something.

All in all this book was an interesting concept, very poorly done.

16sirfurboy
Ago 4, 2009, 6:27 am

Added The Hobbit and Middlemarch to "classics"

The Hobbit J R R Tolkien

This is the book that started an industry. Written for children, it is a wonderful piece of magical fiction that was loved by children and adults alike from the 1930s onwards. When Tolkien eventually wrote the more mature "Lord of the Rings" story, he went back and changed some parts of the Hobbit to tie in more closely with that story - and it was this revised version that I read.

But this book works well on its own. Despite being written a long time ago now, it still reads well. It is exciting, hugely imaginative and with nearly all the classic story elements that make a good tale.

Hobbits are a people who keep themselves to themselves, so a company of dwarves are confused as to why the wizard, Gandalf, chooses one Bilbo Baggins to be the company "burglar" in their quest to find and defeat the dragon Smaug. But before long Bilbo proves his worth.

The final part of the book is amusing. I won't detail it to avoid spoilers - but it wraps up the grand adventure very nicely.

The Hobbit is Tolkien's most accessible work. Many people skip it and go straight to "The Lord of the Rings", but I think this is a mistake. The book was clearly written for children, but that should not put off older readers - there is plenty to enjoy in this book.

Middlemarch - George Eliot

This story is somewhat off my usual fayre. Ostensibly it is a romance story, or rather three romance stories that are intertwined. As such it is a book I never before bothered to read as I would not want my cool macho image to be dented by the sight of me flicking through a romance! But I managed to get a copy for my e-reader from "Manybooks" and thus read it in secret!

And I am very glad I did so. Of course, this is a classic so the judgement of history is already there as to the worth of this book, and nothing I add here can change that. Without a doubt this is a book that can be read and enjoyed by many many people. What I can add to this is that it can also be enjoyed by people who do not go in for icky romances! And the reason I can say that is that the real strength of this story does not lie in the romances themselves, but in the wonderful observation ad depiction of life in the 1830s of rural England.

From the opening pages where you have people namedropping Wilberforce and other such luminaries in their social circles, you are drawn into experiencing life amongst the tight Victorian social circles. You see how people wish to better not just themselves but others, but are often frustrated by the cages of convention. You see characters reform themselves, and others ruin themselves. You see people who are not evil and yet do evil deeds for human reasons. You see a mirror on the souls of the characters and ultimately ourselves as readers.

George Eliot's characterisations are wonderful. Her writing is still accessible to the modern reader, and whilst she makes some use of techniques where the narrator knows all and can moralise on the reader's behalf - something you would not find in a modern work - these techniques do not wholly detract from the work, and were - of course - quite common in Victorian fiction. One plot element also reminded me of Dickens in the unfolding coincidences in the background of two characters. But whilst the work is therefore clearly Victorian, it remains very readable. The auction scene and some other scenes were very funny, and as you recognise the types of characters being portrayed in real people - past and present - you will be amused by this work.

So if, like me, you don't do romances - don't skip this work. It is well worth reading.

17sirfurboy
Ago 8, 2009, 6:25 pm

Added The Dark is Rising to award winning books. (This was a re-read for a librarything group read).

The Dark is Rising is the perfect children's book. It is one of those books you want to start reading over again as soon as you put it down. It well deserved to win the Newbery medal. Susan Cooper intertwines just enough hints of real history and myths and legends to invent a whole new mythology in a classic fight of good against evil.

Will Stanton contemplates his 11th birthday, just an ordinary boy in an ordinary family - other than that there are a lot of children in it. But with his birthday comes the knowledge that he is not ordinary at all. In fact he is one of the race of "Old Ones" - not quite human at all. The last of the Old Ones, he has a special task to undertake and standing against him are the forces of the dark who will do anything to frustrate his plans and to destroy him.

This is an excellent book that takes Susan Cooper's earlier "Over Sea and Under Stone" and turns it into part of a fascinating and imaginative series that should be on any good reading list.

The movie, on the other hand, will be a great disappointment to anyone who loves these books. It loses absolutely everything that makes this series a classic.

18sirfurboy
Ago 19, 2009, 11:25 am

Added Empire - Orson Scott Card to Science Fiction, competing that category.

Orson Scott Card has written many excellent books. This is not one of them.

It is clear from the author's Afterword, that the book was contrived to fit with a video game, and that roughly describes the sophistication of this plot which is well below Card's normal standard.

Reuben Malich is a major in the US Army working on secret assignments in Washington. He is joined by captain Bartholomew Coleman (Cole) just as an act of treachery takes a plan he wrote for the president's protection to carry out an assassination on the same. The success of this and other operations triggers a civil war, where members of the American democratic party, still smarting over the appointment of George Bush as president, when Al Gore won the vote - start a civil war.

In his afterword, Card indicates that it was all to easy to conceive of events that would lead to a civil war - but like Shadow of the Hegemon, we see in this book that Card does not really do politics too well. For him, great events can be flawlessly shaped by the outrageous plans of a few. Compare with Tolstoy who says that those few are merely puppets of the greater circumstances, and you see the flaws in this plot laid bare. Frankly the whole plot is preposterous, and lacks the depth and strength of feeling required to make the preposterous plausible.

Could a stable democracy like the USA have another civil war? Certaily it is possible - but not over anything so petty as in this book! Civil wars have to be fomented over a period of time, a sharp division, and a growing sense of outrage that allows people to conceive of actions that are otherwise treasonable. This mistake that Card makes is to think that the differences between American Republicans and American Democrats are large enough for anyone to fight over.

He almost recognises this early in the book, where in a university class discussion, Major Malich makes that very point in a voice we recognises as one of reason. He simply ignores the "conservative v liberal" debate and answers more intelligently. But then card blows it by making the issues something that people really are willing to fight with bullets over. To me there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the American political situation there.

But so what? If it makes an enjoyable plot, what does it matter if the politics in Card's books are so black and white - so simplistic?

But there are other problems with this book too. One annoyance for someone who has probably read all of Card's books, is that he has recycled language, characters and plot elements from other works - and to poor effect. For instance, for me the word "jeesh" now refers to battle school kids - not a mature army combat unit. Ideas such as the double password on the PDA came from the short story "Dogwalker". And it went on!

Someone new to Card though would miss those references, but might still hate this book because the dialogue is so unconvincing. They might hate it because the plot is rather predictable (other than the odd choice to kill off ... well maybe I shouldn't say to avoid spoilers - but anyone reading the book is likely to know what I mean and agree it's an odd choice).

One of the things I have historically liked about Card is the way he focuses his books widely, incorporating foreign languages and cultures. Also the way he makes you think about issues. But in this book his cultural references are right out of an American right wing chat room, and show a remarkable lack of critical thinking!

When I read "European news media tells you what to think. American news media shows you enough so you make your own opinions", I was flabergasted, as should any other european who has numbed their mind watching the news on visits to that country! Not that I have a vested interest in news media, and not that I have any rosy spectacled view of European orgaisations. It just made me think that I was reading some American neo-con and not the Orson Scott Card who I have respected for very many years.

It seems to me that in recent years there has been a marked decline in the quality of Card's output. I suspect that this is an excellent writer with just too many projects with too short deadlines on the go.

Card completists (like me) will read this book whatever I say. Anyone else - avoid this one.

19sirfurboy
Sep 1, 2009, 10:11 am

Added Anna Karenina to "Classics" and The One Percent Doctrine to Current Affairs/Politics

Here is my review of the 1 percent doctrine:

This book is not so much an eye opener, as for most of the world it was always clear that the 11th September attacks were just used as a pretext to prosecute a war against Iraq that was never justified by the events. However it was a clear vindication of all that many many people were saying, based on testimony from some very well placed sources. As such this was a good piece of journalism in book form.

From the opening pages it was clear that Suskind was going to take no prisoners. He tells us that Bush was never much of a reader (despite the efforts to project an image that he was), and that he based his decisions on gut reactions based on face to face meetings.

The genius of Suskind is that he writes in a way that shows he is not just twisting a knife in the dying corpse of a discredited administration. In fact he makes a good case for Bush's strengths in his use of gut feeling - something that served him well over the years. Yes, the author is fairly clear that Cheney was really pulling the strings in the US administration (with the help of Rumsfeld et al.), but we see Bush fighting to assert his own authority, and his strengths and weaknesses laid bare.

The result is, of course, a fairly damning indictment on men who followed an obsession against the evidence, leading America into what we can all now see to be the biggest American foreign policy disaster ever. Nevertheless it is written in a way that is not anti American. It is well informed, compassionate and articulately written.

My biggest problem with the book though was the slight;y piecemeal way it is laid out. The timeline jumps forward and back a little. As this is essentially a narrative history based on primary sources, I would have liked it to be laid out in a slightly more logical and chronological order. But that is not a reason not to read this book. In fact this book or something like it should be used in all future courses on American history!

20sirfurboy
Sep 18, 2009, 4:23 am

Added Dreams from my Father under current affairs. A review is posted.

21sirfurboy
Sep 25, 2009, 7:10 am

Added Exegetical Fallacies to "Christianity".

I have had this book in my Amazon basket for way too long. Unfortunately it had slipped to the third page of my books to buy and I had forgotten about it, until an Amazon price change reminded me it was there (I saved a whole 4 pence on the previous price)!

So this book is a look at various fallacies of biblical exegesis. It is the kind of book any serious student of scripture should read, and the author is very careful to limit his criticism to criticism of method, without getting caught up in defending his own theological persuasions. Indeed he even criticises his own published work, which seems very fair.

The book is divided into sections - firstly on fallacies around language (words especially), then around grammar, then logical fallcies and presuppositional fallacies and such like. The structure works well enough, although by the end I was wondering whether there was another way to structure the material. On reflection, I cannot think of anything better though. the problem is simply that there are too many ways we can err.

I felt that some knowledge of Greek helped me in the reading of this book. The author transliterates all the Greek words he discusses, but he does not actually translate any (and does the same with German once too). Fortunately I understood everything I needed to, but I felt a translation would make this book more accessible to students of the Bible with no knowledge of Greek, who are not working from the Greek but might be evaluating the arguments of people who are saying things like "ah well, in the original Greek we see this word play..."

Some of my favourite pet peeves were covered nicely in this book, and many others I had not considered. And the fact that I can think of other pet peeves that were not covered is not a bad reflection on the book, because the point is to give us the exegetical tools for avoiding falling into error. And inasmuch as that is what the book is attempting, it achieves just that.

22sirfurboy
Sep 30, 2009, 5:29 am

Added Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious to Christianity category. A review is posted.

This completes that category.

I now only have 1 Award Winning book to add and 2 Current Affairs and Politics.

23sirfurboy
Oct 9, 2009, 10:10 am

Added The Grey King to complete my award winning books category. That leaves me with just two current affairs/poltics books to read to complete this challenge.

24sirfurboy
Dic 12, 2009, 8:45 am

Added The Healing of America - T R Reid to "current affairs" as it relates to Obama's healthcare reform bill. An interesting survey of healthcare systems across the world, showing strengths and weaknesses and generally critiquing the US hotchpotch of systems that makes that system the most expensive in the world whilst returning some very poor outcomes, particularly for anyone denied coverage by the private sector insurance companies.

This book completes my current affairs category and thus my 999 book challenge for 2009.