Top Books First Read in 2019

[Dead & Messed Up]

Picking up right where was left off:

Fiction

1. The Gods Themselves (partial) (Isaac Asimov, 1972)
2. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (partial) (Stephen King, 2015)

Non-Fiction

Theater

1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)

Comic Books

1. The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis (partial) (Darryl Cunningham, 2014)

[Dead & Messed Up]

Not many readers this year!

Finished most of the leftovers from last year, digging into Bloch's original classic. Already interesting in how it differs from the movie, though not necessarily in bad ways. There's something cool about reading this story and seeing Norman Bates on the opening page and learning about his relationship with his mother through a striking and emotional argument. The Gods Themselves had a solid opening, a fantastically weird middle, and a somewhat limp final act. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a lesser King collection, too ruminative and wandering most of the time to create the same whiskey-shot pleasure of collections like Skeleton Crew and Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

Fiction

1. The Gods Themselves (Isaac Asimov, 1972)
2. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (Stephen King, 2015)
3. Psycho (partial) (Robert Bloch, 1959)

Non-Fiction

Theater

1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)

Comic Books

1. The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis (Darryl Cunningham, 2014)

[kuehnepips]

Read Tad Williams' :
The Witchwood Crown (Last King of Osten Ard, 1)
Empire of Grass: Book Two of The Last King of Osten Ard
and
Anthony Ryan's
The Waking Fire: Book One of Draconis Memoria
The Legion of Flame: Book Two of the Draconis Memoria

[baby doll]

Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)

[dreamdead]

Novels:
Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country
Ross Thomas’s Briarpatch
Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny
Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo
Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth
Yan Lianke’s The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas
Catherine Lacey’s Certain Americans States: Stories

Poetry:
Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
Tracy K. Smith’s Wade in the Water
Eunsong Kim’s Gospel of Regicide
J. Michael Martinez’s Museum of the Americas

Drama:
Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal
Suzan-Lori Parks’s Overdog/Underdog
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger
Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics

[dreamdead]

After a slew of poetry, an update:

Novels:
Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country
Ross Thomas’s Briarpatch
Park Wan-suh’s The Naked Tree
Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
Ling Ma’s Severance
Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny
Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo
Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth
Yan Lianke’s The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas
Catherine Lacey’s Certain Americans States: Stories

Poetry:
Sylvia Plath’s Ariel
Diane Seuss’s Four-Legged Girl
Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars
Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
Tracy K. Smith’s Wade in the Water
Eunsong Kim’s Gospel of Regicide
J. Michael Martinez’s Museum of the Americas

Drama:
Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal
Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger
Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics

[baby doll]

Novels:
Herzog (Saul Bellow, 1964)
Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (William Shakespeare, c.1608)
Heda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen, 1891)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)

[baby doll]

Novels:
Herzog (Saul Bellow, 1964)

Stories:
The Complete Stories (Flannery O'Connor, 1946-71)

Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (William Shakespeare, c.1608)
Heda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen, 1891)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)
The Physicists (Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1962)

Non-Fiction:
The Birth of Tragedy, or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872/86)

[baby doll]

Novels:
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1860-61)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1879-80)
Herzog (Saul Bellow, 1964)
Suttree (Cormac McCarthy, 1979)

Stories:
The Complete Stories (Flannery O'Connor, 1946-71)

Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (William Shakespeare, c.1608)
Heda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen, 1891)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)
The Physicists (Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1962)

Non-Fiction:
The Birth of Tragedy, or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872/86)

[kuehnepips]

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1879-80)[/b]




Excellent.

[baby doll]

Excellent.https://media.giphy.com/media/5nFShZWwq3fdm/giphy.gif

[baby doll]

Novels:
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (Daniel Dafoe, 1719)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1860-61)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1879-80)
Sanctuary (William Faulkner, 1931)
Herzog (Saul Bellow, 1964)
Suttree (Cormac McCarthy, 1979)

Stories:
The Complete Stories (Flannery O'Connor, 1946-71)

Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (William Shakespeare, c.1608)
Heda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen, 1891)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)
The Physicists (Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1962)

Non-Fiction:
The Birth of Tragedy, or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872/86)
Narrative Comprehension and Film (Edward Branigan, 1992)

[baby doll]

Novels:
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (Daniel Dafoe, 1719)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1860-61)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1879-80)
Sanctuary (William Faulkner, 1931)
Herzog (Saul Bellow, 1964)
Suttree (Cormac McCarthy, 1979)

Stories:
Selected Stories (Katherine Mansfield, 1910-24)
The Complete Stories (Flannery O'Connor, 1946-71)

Plays:
Agamemnon (Aeschylus, 458 BC)
Hippolytus (Euripides, 428 BC)
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (William Shakespeare, c.1608)
Heda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen, 1891)
Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Bertolt Brecht, 1941)
The Physicists (Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1962)

Non-Fiction:
The Birth of Tragedy, or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872/86)
Narrative Comprehension and Film (Edward Branigan, 1992)

[Peng]

Belatedly:

1. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
2. Dune (Frank Herbert)
3. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (George R.R. Martin)
4. Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
5. The Magicians (Lev Grossman)
6. The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together (Adam Nayman)
7. The Magician's Land (Lev Grossman)
8. The Magician King (Lev Grossman)
9. The Lower River (Paul Theroux)
10. Kahon Mahorratuek (Prab)