Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 61

Thread: Top 10 Books First Read in 2015

  1. #1
    I'm in the milk... Mara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    16,919

    Top 10 Books First Read in 2015

    Brand new year, guys.

    1. Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore
    2. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    3. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder
    4. Fairest by Marissa Meyer
    5. The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
    6. Panic by Lauren Oliver
    Last edited by Mara; 04-19-2015 at 02:13 AM.
    ...and the milk's in me.

  2. #2
    1. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

  3. #3
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    2. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    3. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    4. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    5. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    6. The Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret
    7. Girl Walks Into a Bar by Rachel Dratch
    8. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente
    Last edited by EyesWideOpen; 01-31-2015 at 01:57 AM.
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  4. #4
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    1. From Hell (Alan Moore, 1988-97)

    Good start.

  5. #5
    i am the great went ledfloyd's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    6,230
    Quote Quoting Mara (view post)
    Brand new year, guys.

    1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    Thoughts on this? I was thinking of picking it up.

  6. #6
    I'm in the milk... Mara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    16,919
    Quote Quoting ledfloyd (view post)
    Thoughts on this? I was thinking of picking it up.
    It's well-written and introspective. IMO it leans too heavily on pop culture, making it a little hard to invest in chapters where I wasn't familiar with what she was critiquing. It also makes me worry that the book won't age well.

    But Gay has an honest, relate-able, compassionate, and funny way of looking at the world. It's worth checking out.
    ...and the milk's in me.

  7. #7
    Whole Sick Crew Benny Profane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Whole Sick Crew
    Posts
    4,167
    1. The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe
    Now reading: The Master Switch by Tim Wu

  8. #8
    1. Auf dass uns vergeben werde by A.I. Homes
    2. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

  9. #9
    Best Boy Our Aurora's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    MA
    Posts
    236
    1. Tenth of December - George Saunders
    2. The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber
    3. Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
    4. Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
    5. Yes Please - Amy Poehler
    6. Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng

  10. #10
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    Fiction:
    1. Hisaye Yamamoto’s Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories
    2. Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling
    3. Patrick Wang’s The Monologue Plays

    Nonfiction:
    1. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
    2. Peter Enns’s The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It

    Yamamoto's got about four or five stories there that beautifully capture conflicting attitudes from Japanese Americans from the 1940s-1980s who were interned in Arizona, as she herself was. Lots of fascinating content for those interested in seeing how minorities perceive those atrocities, and how there's intercultural bonding in her "A Fire in Fontana."
    Last edited by dreamdead; 01-29-2015 at 04:45 PM.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  11. #11
    Novels:
    • Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)
    • No Longer at Ease (Chinua Achebe, 1960)

    Short story collections:
    • My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man (Georges Bataille, 1941-67)
    • Collected Stories (Saul Bellow, 1951-95)
    Last edited by baby doll; 01-30-2015 at 04:48 PM.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  12. #12
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    Quote Quoting EyesWideOpen (view post)
    1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    2. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    3. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    4. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    5. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    6. The Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret
    7. Girl Walks Into a Bar by Rachel Dratch
    8. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente
    I've been on a tear. I barely read anything last year so one of my New Year's Resolutions was to read one book a month this year and I ended up reading 8 just this month!
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  13. #13
    I'm in the milk... Mara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    16,919
    Quote Quoting EyesWideOpen (view post)
    I've been on a tear. I barely read anything last year so one of my New Year's Resolutions was to read one book a month this year and I ended up reading 8 just this month!
    Ooh, some really great ones, too.

    I'm reading and critiquing a manuscript by a friend, which somehow takes about ten times as long as reading a regular novel.
    ...and the milk's in me.

  14. #14
    Whole Sick Crew Benny Profane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Whole Sick Crew
    Posts
    4,167
    1. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
    2. The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe


    Business Books

    The 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace - Hiroyuki Hirano
    Now reading: The Master Switch by Tim Wu

  15. #15
    Kung Fu Hippie Watashi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Big Apple, 3 AM
    Posts
    11,346
    I've been trying to read a book a week, but with teaching and Disney, it's going to be tough.

    Here's what I have so far:

    1. The Picture of Dorian Gray
    2. Animal Farm
    3. Flowers for Algernon

    Granted, I'm mostly going to be reading books I will be teaching/or want to teach in my later high school classes.

    I will try to tackle Moby Dick soon though.
    Sure why not?

    STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Rian Johnson) - 9
    STRONGER (David Gordon Green) - 6
    THE DISASTER ARTIST (James Franco) - 7
    THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker) - 9
    LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig) - 8


    "Hitchcock is really bad at suspense."
    - Stay Puft

  16. #16
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
    3. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    4. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    5. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    6. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    7. Flight by Sherman Alexie
    8 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
    9. Quiet by Susan Cain
    10. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

    [
    ]
    Last edited by EyesWideOpen; 03-02-2015 at 02:46 AM.
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  17. #17
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    Quote Quoting EyesWideOpen (view post)
    1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
    3. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    4. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    5. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    6. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    7. Flight by Sherman Alexie
    8 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
    9. Quiet by Susan Cain
    10. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

    [
    ]
    I think I'm going to have to take a break on reading anymore Alexie books for awhile. I really enjoyed the first two but by the third in three weeks I was getting diminishing returns due to the similar subject matter.
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  18. #18
    Novels:
    • Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
    • Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)
    • The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934)
    • No Longer at Ease (Chinua Achebe, 1960)

    Short story collections:
    • My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man (Georges Bataille, 1941-67)
    • Collected Stories (Saul Bellow, 1951-95)

    Non-fiction:
    • More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts [Updated and Expanded Edition] (James Naremore, 1998/2008)
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  19. #19
    Whole Sick Crew Benny Profane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Whole Sick Crew
    Posts
    4,167
    1. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
    2. The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe


    Business Books

    The 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace - Hiroyuki Hirano
    The Lean Turnaround - Art Byrne
    Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
    Now reading: The Master Switch by Tim Wu

  20. #20
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    Quote Quoting EyesWideOpen (view post)
    1. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
    2. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
    4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    5. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    6. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    7. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    8. Flight by Sherman Alexie
    9. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
    10. Quiet by Susan Cain


    [
    ]
    New #1!
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  21. #21
    Novels:
    • Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
    • North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell, 1855)
    • Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)
    • The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934)
    • No Longer at Ease (Chinua Achebe, 1960)

    Short story collections:
    • The Girl With the Golden Eyes and Other Stories (Honoré de Balzac, 1831-35)
    • My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man (Georges Bataille, 1941-67)
    • Collected Stories (Saul Bellow, 1951-95)

    Non-fiction:
    • More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts [Updated and Expanded Edition] (James Naremore, 1998/2008)
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  22. #22
    Whole Sick Crew Benny Profane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Whole Sick Crew
    Posts
    4,167
    1. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
    2. King Lear - William Shakespeare
    3. The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe


    Business Books

    The 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace - Hiroyuki Hirano
    The Lean Turnaround - Art Byrne
    Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
    Now reading: The Master Switch by Tim Wu

  23. #23
    I'm in the milk... Mara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    16,919
    Being sick has put me so, so far behind on my reading. But Wedlock by Wendy Moore is fantastic. It's a non-fiction, fascinating look at a divorce case that was pivotal for women's rights in the 18th century.
    ...and the milk's in me.

  24. #24
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,864
    1. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
    2. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
    3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
    4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
    5. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
    6. Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg
    7. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
    8. Flight by Sherman Alexie
    9. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
    10. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie


    [
    ]
    TV Recently Finished:
    Catastrophe: Season 1 (2015) A
    Rectify: Season 3 (2015) A-
    Bojack Horseman: Season 2 (2015) A
    True Detective: Season 2 (2015) A-
    Wayward Pines: Season 1 (2015) B

    Currently Playing: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (replay) (XB1) / Contradiction (PC)
    Recently Finished: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) A+ / Life is Strange: Ep 4 (PS4) A / Bastion (replay) (PS4) B+

  25. #25
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    Fiction:
    1. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
    2. Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sowers
    3. Hisaye Yamamoto’s Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories
    4. Elliot Ackerman’s Green on Blue
    5. Toshio Mori’s Yokohama, California: Stories
    6. Joanna Russ’s The Female Man
    7. Louis Chu’s Eat a Bowl of Tea
    8. Toni Morrison’s A Mercy
    9. Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling
    10. Patrick Wang’s The Monologue Plays

    Nonfiction:
    1. Cyrus Patell’s Emergent U.S. Literatures: From Multiculturalism to Cosmopolitanism in the Late-Twentieth Century
    2. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
    3. Margaret Atwood’s Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
    4. Fareed Zakaria’s In Defense of a Liberal Education
    5. Peter Enns’s The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
    6. Stephen Apkon’s The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
An forum