Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 26 to 39 of 39

Thread: Top Books First Read in 2018

  1. #26
    64 - Hideo Yokoyama

    Very recommended.

  2. #27
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Updates!

    Fiction

    1. Contact (Carl Sagan, 1985)
    2. The Demolished Man (partial) (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    3. Cat's Cradle (partial) (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    4. Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)
    5. The Children of Men (partial) (PD James, 1992)
    6. Mr. B. Gone (Clive Barker, 2001)

    Non-Fiction

    1. The Poetics (Aristotle, tr. Malcolm Heath, 335 BCE)
    2. On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder, 2017)
    3. This Changes Everything (Naomi Klein, 2014)
    4. Writing for Comics (Alan Moore, 1986/2003)
    5. Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (Mark Hertzgaard, 2012)
    6. The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Harold S. Kushner, 2012)
    7. The Great Courses: Hinduism (Mark W. Muesse, 2003)
    8. The Great Courses: Islam (John Esposito, 2003)

    Theater

    1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)
    2. Deathtrap (Ira Levin, 1978)

    Comic Books

    1. Gyo (Junji Ito, 2001-2002)
    2. Shivers (Junji Ito, assorted)
    3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 (Moore & O'Neill, 1999-2000)
    Last edited by Dead & Messed Up; 10-09-2018 at 03:05 AM.

  3. #28
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    Quote Quoting kuehnepips (view post)
    64 - Hideo Yokoyama

    Very recommended.
    Have this one sitting and waiting for the end of the semester to power through it all. Excited to hear about this reaction. Doing Donna Tartt's The Secret History for a Halloween book club.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  4. #29
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Fiction

    1. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    2. Cat's Cradle (partial) (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    3. Contact (Carl Sagan, 1985)
    4. Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)
    5. The Children of Men (partial) (PD James, 1992)
    6. Mr. B. Gone (Clive Barker, 2001)

    Just started: Strange Weather (Joe Hill, 2017)

    Non-Fiction

    1. The Poetics (Aristotle, tr. Malcolm Heath, 335 BCE)
    2. On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder, 2017)
    3. This Changes Everything (Naomi Klein, 2014)
    4. Writing for Comics (Alan Moore, 1986/2003)
    5. Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (Mark Hertzgaard, 2012)
    6. The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Harold S. Kushner, 2012)
    7. The Great Courses: Hinduism (Mark W. Muesse, 2003)
    8. The Great Courses: Islam (John Esposito, 2003)

    Theater

    1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)
    2. Deathtrap (Ira Levin, 1978)

    Comic Books

    1. Gyo (Junji Ito, 2001-2002)
    2. Shivers (Junji Ito, assorted)
    3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 (Moore & O'Neill, 1999-2000)
    4. Locke & Key (TPB 1-2) (Hill & Rodriguez, 2008-2009)

  5. #30
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Finished Cat's Cradle, listened to it twice on audio tape and still feel like it needs a re-read. It didn't hit me the same way Slaughterhouse-Five and Welcome to the Monkey House did, but maybe reading it on the page in the near future will help.

    Fiction

    1. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    2. Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    3. Contact (Carl Sagan, 1985)
    4. Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)
    5. Strange Weather (partial) (Joe Hill, 2017)
    6. The Children of Men (partial) (PD James, 1992)
    7. Mr. B. Gone (Clive Barker, 2001)

    Just started: We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson, 1962)

    Non-Fiction

    1. The Poetics (Aristotle, tr. Malcolm Heath, 335 BCE)
    2. On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder, 2017)
    3. This Changes Everything (Naomi Klein, 2014)
    4. Writing for Comics (Alan Moore, 1986/2003)
    5. Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (Mark Hertzgaard, 2012)
    6. The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Harold S. Kushner, 2012)
    7. The Great Courses: Hinduism (Mark W. Muesse, 2003)
    8. The Great Courses: Islam (John Esposito, 2003)

    Theater

    1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)
    2. Deathtrap (Ira Levin, 1978)

    Comic Books

    1. Gyo (Junji Ito, 2001-2002)
    2. Shivers (Junji Ito, assorted)
    3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 (Moore & O'Neill, 1999-2000)
    4. Locke & Key (TPB 1-2) (Hill & Rodriguez, 2008-2009)

  6. #31
    Novels:
    • The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole, 1764)
    • Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1817)
    • The Charterhouse of Parma (Stendhal, 1839)
    • Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (George Eliot, 1861)
    • Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev, 1862)
    • Washington Square (Henry James, 1880)
    • Light in August (William Faulkner, 1932)
    • God's Bits of Wood (Ousmane Sembène, 1960)
    • Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson, 1980)
    • Satantango (László Kransznahorkai, 1985)

    [
    ]

    Short Stories:
    • The Complete Fairy Tales (Charles Perrault, 1691-1697)
    • The Gambler and Other Stories (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1848-1877)
    • Girls at War and Other Stories (Chinua Achebe, 1952-1972)
    • The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose (Woody Allen, 1966-1980)


    Non-Fiction:
    • Personal Views: Explorations in Film—Revised Edition (Robin Wood, 1976/2006)
    • Shame and Necessity (Bernard Williams, 1993)
    • Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (David Bordwell, 2005)
    • Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom (Daisuke Miyao, 2007)
    • The Philosophical Hitchcock: "Vertigo" and the Anxieties of Unknowingness (Robert B. Pippin, 2017)

    [
    ]
    Last edited by baby doll; 11-24-2018 at 12:05 AM.
    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

  7. #32
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Fiction

    1. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson, 1962)
    3. Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    4. Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)
    5. Contact (Carl Sagan, 1985)
    6. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (partial) (Stephen King, 2015)
    7. The Gods Themselves (partial) (Isaac Asimov, 1972)
    8. Strange Weather (Joe Hill, 2017)
    9. The Children of Men (partial) (PD James, 1992)
    10. Mr. B. Gone (Clive Barker, 2001)

    (Basically everything from 4-8 is interchangeable, as they're all different shades of "quite good" to me.)

    Non-Fiction

    1. The Poetics (Aristotle, tr. Malcolm Heath, 335 BCE)
    2. On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder, 2017)
    3. This Changes Everything (Naomi Klein, 2014)
    4. Writing for Comics (Alan Moore, 1986/2003)
    5. Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (Mark Hertzgaard, 2012)
    6. The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Harold S. Kushner, 2012)
    7. The Great Courses: Hinduism (Mark W. Muesse, 2003)
    8. The Great Courses: Islam (John Esposito, 2003)

    Theater

    1. Waiting for Godot (partial) (Samuel Becket, 1953)
    2. Deathtrap (Ira Levin, 1978)

    Comic Books

    1. Gyo (Junji Ito, 2001-2002)
    2. Shivers (Junji Ito, assorted)
    3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 (Moore & O'Neill, 1999-2000)
    4. Locke & Key (TPB 1-2) (Hill & Rodriguez, 2008-2009)
    Last edited by Dead & Messed Up; 12-30-2018 at 08:28 PM.

  8. #33
    - - - - -
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Posts
    11,530
    Quote Quoting Dead & Messed Up (view post)
    1. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    2. [We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson, 1962)
    Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!

    Quote Quoting Dead & Messed Up (view post)
    3. Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

  9. #34
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!



    Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
    Irish, don't be sad.

    'Cause two out of three ain't bad.

  10. #35
    I think Irish is my anti-me with regards to what we like and don't like.
    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
    (2019
    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
    (2020) 64

    Heroic Duo
    (2003) 55
    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

    Stuff at Letterboxd
    Listening Habits at LastFM

  11. #36
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    I don't expect to finish anything else in time for any changes to this last post:

    New Reads for 2018
    Fiction:

    1. Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Stories)
    2. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    3. Jenny Erpenbeck's Go, Went, Gone
    4. Tommy Orange’s There There
    5. Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America
    6. Min Jin Lee's Pachinko
    7. Charles Schuyler's Black No More
    8. Kayla Rae Whitaker's The Animators
    9. Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four
    10. Rachel Cusk’s Kudos
    [
    ]

    Nonfiction
    1. Michelle Kuo's Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, A Student, and a Life-Changing Frienship
    2. Stephen Bauman, Matthew Sorens, and Issam Smeir's Seeking Refuge: On the Shores of the Global Refugee Crisis
    3. Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
    4. Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know
    5. Peter C. Brown, Henry L Roediger III, and Mark A McDaniel’s Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
    6. James M. Lang’s Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty
    7. Michiko Kakutani’s The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
    8. Carina Chocano’s You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages
    9. Austin Channing Brown’s I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
    10. Karen Tei Yamashita’s Letters to Memory
    [
    ]

    Poetry:
    1. Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems: 1966-1987
    2. Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution
    3. Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X
    4. Carolyn Forché’s The Country Between Us
    5. Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead
    6. Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec
    7. Cathy Park Hong’s Engine Empire
    8. Kevin Young’s Brown
    9. Terrance Hayes’s American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
    10 Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come for Us
    [
    ]
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  12. #37
    Novels:
    • The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole, 1764)
    • Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1817)
    • The Charterhouse of Parma (Stendhal, 1839)
    • Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (George Eliot, 1861)
    • Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev, 1862)
    • Washington Square (Henry James, 1880)
    • Light in August (William Faulkner, 1932)
    • God's Bits of Wood (Ousmane Sembène, 1960)
    • Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson, 1980)
    • Satantango (László Kransznahorkai, 1985)

    [
    ]

    Short Stories:
    • The Complete Fairy Tales (Charles Perrault, 1691-1697)
    • The Gambler and Other Stories (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1848-1877)
    • Daisy Miller and Other Tales (Henry James, 1870-1909)
    • Girls at War and Other Stories (Chinua Achebe, 1952-1972)
    • The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose (Woody Allen, 1966-1980)


    Non-Fiction:
    • Personal Views: Explorations in Film—Revised Edition (Robin Wood, 1976/2006)
    • Shame and Necessity (Bernard Williams, 1993)
    • Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (David Bordwell, 2005)
    • Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom (Daisuke Miyao, 2007)
    • The Philosophical Hitchcock: "Vertigo" and the Anxieties of Unknowingness (Robert B. Pippin, 2017)

    [
    ]
    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

  13. #38
    Producer
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    2,936
    After an uncommonly good 2017, I really slacked off 2018 reading-wise.

    1. The Bone Clocks (David Mitchell)
    2. The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
    3. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsburg)
    4. Youth, It's Painful (Kim Ran Do)
    5. Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Companion (Matt Zoller Seitz)
    6. Buppesannivas (Rompang)
    7. Telegraph Avenue (Michael Chabon)
    8. May We Be Forgiven (A.M. Homes)
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
    The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
    The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
    Sisters (1973) - 6.5
    Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5

  14. #39
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    New Canaan, where to the shepherd come the sheep.
    Posts
    10,620
    Excluding books I didn't finish, I made it to 20 books this year instead of 16 in 2017, so a solid step up, and I'm almost done with three books already, which will make for a solid boost rocket in 2019:

    Fiction

    1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson, 1962)
    2. The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester, 1953)
    3. Coldheart Canyon (Clive Barker, 2001)
    4. Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut, 1963)
    5. Contact (Carl Sagan, 1985)
    6. Strange Weather (Joe Hill, 2017)
    7. Mr. B. Gone (Clive Barker, 2001)

    Non-Fiction

    1. The Poetics (Aristotle, tr. Malcolm Heath, 335 BCE)
    2. On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder, 2017)
    3. This Changes Everything (Naomi Klein, 2014)
    4. Writing for Comics (Alan Moore, 1986/2003)
    5. Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (Mark Hertzgaard, 2012)
    6. The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Harold S. Kushner, 2012)
    7. The Great Courses: Hinduism (Mark W. Muesse, 2003)
    8. The Great Courses: Islam (John Esposito, 2003)

    Theater

    1. Deathtrap (Ira Levin, 1978)

    Comic Books

    1. Gyo (Junji Ito, 2001-2002)
    2. Shivers (Junji Ito, assorted)
    3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 (Moore & O'Neill, 1999-2000)
    4. Locke & Key (TPB 1-2) (Hill & Rodriguez, 2008-2009)

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

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