Arctangential » 50 Book Challenge – 2008

This erring mortals levity may call

avi — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Well, there goes 2008. I did manage to meet my reading goal for the year; 120 books with an average page count of 300 per book. Actually 300.04, but who’s counting? I almost didn’t make it; I do most of my reading on the bus to and from work, and with the terrible weather and the holidays, I haven’t been on a bus in weeks. It was close going up to today, but this morning I inexplicably woke up at 4:30 and sat down to read. I finished Straight over lunch this afternoon, bringing me right to the finish line. Here’s my final stats for 2008:

1. Neil Gaiman – Anansi Boys – 1-6-08 (287pp)
2. Jonathan Vankin – The Big Book of Bad – 1-7-08 (93pp)
3. W. Michael Gear – The Warriors of Spider – 1-16-08 (367pp)
4. Max Brooks – World War Z – 1-19-08 (342pp)
5. Hari Kunzru – Transmission – 1-27-08 (276pp)
6. Bill Watterson – The Complete Calvin and Hobbes – 1-30-08 (480pp)
7. W. Michael Gear – The Way of Spider – 2-7-08 (408pp)
8. Dick Francis – Hot Money – 2-12-08 (423pp)
9. W. Michael Gear – The Web of Spider – 2-21-08 (648pp)
10. Philip José Farmer – The Maker of Universes – 2-22-08 (247pp)
11. Samuel R. Delany – Empire Star – 2-23-08 (132pp)
12. Philip José Farmer – The Gates of Creation – 2-25-08 (188pp)
13. Neil Gaiman – Don’t Panic – 2-27-08 (182pp)
14. Philip José Farmer – A Private Cosmos – 2-29-08 (275pp)
15. Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club – 3-1-08 (218pp)
16. Philip José Farmer – Behind the Walls of Terra – 3-3-08 (188pp)
17. John Swartzwelder – The Time Machine Did It – 3-4-08 (138pp)
18. Philip José Farmer – The Lavalite World – 3-6-08 (282pp)
19. David Mamet – On Directing Film – 3-7-08 (107pp)
20. Steven Gould – Helm – 3-11-08 (383pp)
21. Sharyn McCrumb – Missing Susan – 3-14-08 (401pp)
22. Philip José Farmer – Red Orc’s Rage – 3-15-08 (282pp)
23. Dick Francis – Break In – 3-18-08 (371pp)
24. Philip José Farmer – More Than Fire – 3-21-08 (312pp)
25. Hugh Cook – Wizard War – 3-25-08 (447pp)
26. Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights – 3-30-08 (324pp)
27. Hugh Cook – The Questing Hero – 3-31-08 (186pp)
28. Hugh Cook – The Hero’s Return – 4-4-08 (204pp)
29. Jack Weatherford – Indian Givers – 4-4-08 (255pp)
30. Philip K. Dick – Eye in the Sky – 4-7-08 (255pp)
31. Hugh Cook – The Oracle – 4-12-08 (346pp)
32. Stephen King – Everything’s Eventual – 4-14-08 (583pp)
33. Hugh Cook – The Walrus and the Warwolf – 4-21-08 (779pp)
34. Robin Wayne Bailey – Shadowdance – 4-26-08 (537pp)
35. Hugh Cook – The Wicked and the Witless – 5-2-08 (459pp)
36. Joel Engel – Screenwriters on Screenwriting – 5-6-08 (287pp)
37. Jeffrey Richter – CLR via C#, Second Edition – 5-8-08 (648pp)
38. Hugh Cook – The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers – 5-12-08 (448pp)
39. Larry Niven – Crashlander – 5-16-08 (281pp)
40. Hugh Cook – The Wazir and the Witch – 5-23-08 (448pp)
41. Walter Jon Williams – Ambassador of Progress – 5-28-08 (432pp)
42. Michael Howard – Writing Secure Code – Second Edition – 6-1-08 (745pp)
43. Spalding Gray – Swimming to Cambodia – 6-3-08 (127pp)
44. Hugh Cook – The Werewolf and the Wormlord – 6-3-08 (352pp)
45. Hugh Cook – The Worshippers and the Way – 6-6-08 (380pp)
46. Geoffrey Sampson – Writing Systems – 6-12-08 (217pp)
47. Hugh Cook – The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster – 6-19-08 (726pp)
48. Symon Jade – Return from the Dead – 6-20-08 (181pp)
49. Ian Fleming – Thunderball – 6-22-08 (188pp)
50. Symon Jade – Cosmic Carnage – 6-23-08 (198pp)
51. Symon Jade – Alter Evil – 6-25-08 (196pp)
52. Robert A. Heinlein – Between Planets – 6-25-08 (190pp)
53. Mike Resnick – The Widowmaker – 6-27-08 (293pp)
54. Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice – 7-7-08 (324pp)
55. Mike Resnick – The Widowmaker Reborn – 7-8-08 (297pp)
56. Richard Brautigan – Trout Fishing in America – 7-10-08 (112pp)
57. Mike Resnick – The Widowmaker Unleashed – 7-10-08 (231pp)
58. Emil Petaja – Saga of Lost Earths – 7-11-08 (124pp)
59. Stephen King – The Colorado Kid – 7-12-08 (184pp)
60. Emil Petaja – The Star Mill – 7-14-08 (128pp)
61. Ian Fleming – For Your Eyes Only – 7-15-08 (143pp)
62. Emil Petaja – The Stolen Sun – 7-16-08 (136pp)
63. Mark Twain – Pudd’nhead Wilson – 7-21-08 (172pp)
64. Emil Petaja – Tramontane – 7-22-08 (119pp)
65. Michael Moorcock – The Wrecks of Time – 7-23-08 (135pp)
66. Susan R. Matthews – An Exchange of Hostages – 7-28-08 (372pp)
67. Ian Fleming – Diamonds Are Forever – 7-30-08 (160pp)
68. Susan R. Matthews – Prisoner of Conscience – 8-1-08 (312pp)
69. Dick Francis – High Stakes – 8-2-08 (223pp)
70. Steve McConnell – Code Complete 2 – 8-3-08 (862pp)
71. Susan R. Matthews – Hour of Judgment – 8-5-08 (260pp)
72. John Swartzwelder – Double Wonderful – 8-6-08 (151pp)
73. Susan R. Matthews – Angel Of Destruction – 8-11-08 (342pp)
74. Isaac Asimov – The Human Body – 8-14-08 (320pp)
75. Susan R. Matthews – The Devil and Deep Space – 8-19-08 (362pp)
76. Cynthia Kadohata – The Glass Mountains – 8-21-08 (301pp)
77. Scott McCloud – Zot! – The Complete Black and White Collection – 8-24-08 (288pp)
78. Susan R. Matthews – Warring States – 8-26-08 (395pp)
79. Lawrence Watt-Evans – The Wizard and the War Machine – 8-28-08 (291pp)
80. Isaac Asimov – Adding a Dimension – 8-29-08 (224pp)
81. Isaac Asimov – An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule – 9-2-08 (158pp)
82. Midori Snyder – New Moon – 9-2-08 (280pp)
83. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – 9-3-08 (54pp)
84. Midori Snyder – Sadar’s Keep – 9-6-08 (341pp)
85. Isaac Asimov – The Relativity of Wrong – 9-8-08 (302pp)
86. Dick Francis – Reflex – 9-9-08 (346pp)
87. Midori Snyder – Beldan’s Fire – 9-14-08 (376pp)
88. Isaac Asimov – Computer Crimes & Capers – 9-16-08 (235pp)
89. Timothy Zahn – Conquerors’ Pride – 9-18-08 (389pp)
90. Isaac Asimov – Asimov’s Lecherous Limericks – 9-19-08 (207pp)
91. China Miéville – Perdido Street Station – 9-25-08 (623pp)
92. Timothy Zahn – Conquerors’ Heritage – 9-30-08 (360pp)
93. Sam J. Lundwall – Bernhard the Conqueror – 10-2-08 (159pp)
94. Timothy Zahn – Conquerors’ Legacy – 10-6-08 (486pp)
95. Isaac Asimov – David Starr, Space Ranger – 10-7-08 (144pp)
96. Isaac Asimov – Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids – 10-8-08 (144pp)
97. Aristotle – Poetics – 10-8-08 (118pp)
98. Dick Francis – The Edge – 10-11-08 (348pp)
99. Isaac Asimov – Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus – 10-11-08 (142pp)
100. Megan Lindholm – Wizard of the Pigeons – 10-14-08 (254pp)
101. Isaac Asimov – Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury – 10-15-08 (143pp)
102. Virginia Woolf – Orlando – 10-16-08 (333pp)
103. Isaac Asimov – Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter – 10-17-08 (142pp)
104. Donna Tartt – The Secret History – 10-22-08 (524pp)
105. Isaac Asimov – Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn – 10-23-08 (144pp)
106. Michael Moorcock – Byzantium Endures – 10-30-08 (404pp)
107. Dick Francis – Banker – 10-31-08 (306pp)
108. Michael Moorcock – The Laughter of Carthage – 11-12-08 (602pp)
109. Ian Fleming – Dr. No – 11-14-08 (192pp)
110. Michael Moorcock – Jerusalem Commands – 12-1-08 (577pp)
111. Richard Brautigan – A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, The Hawkline Monster – 12-6-08 (595pp)
112. Joanne K. Rowling – The Tales of Beedle the Bard – 12-9-08 (111pp)
113. Mark Twain – The Diaries of Adam & Eve – 12-11-08 (127pp)
114. Michael Moorcock – The Vengeance of Rome – 12-16-08 (618pp)
115. Wassily Kandinsky – Point and Line to Plane – 12-20-08 (146pp)
116. Jim Dodge – Fup – 12-21-08 (59pp)
117. James Joyce – The Dubliners – 12-26-08 (170pp)
118. Isaac Asimov – Sattelites in Outer Space – 12-27-08 (79pp)
119. Max Brooks – The Zombie Survival Guide – 12-30-08 (254pp)
120. Dick Francis – Straight – 12-31-08 (303pp)

Totals:
Books: 120
Pages: 36005

I hope everybody has a good New Year’s Eve and a productive 2009!

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

avi — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:25:00 +0000

I haven’t done a book status post for a while, and since I’m snowed in this morning, I figured I might as well. I was also holding off making this post until I finished Michael Moorcock’s The Vengeance of Rome, the last in a 4-book series called “Between the Wars”. I’ve been waiting to read these books for something like 15 years; I bought the first two books, Byzantium Endures and The Laughter of Carthage from the remainder table of the Border’s in Framingham, MA when I was in high school. I waited something like 3 more years until I was able to find a copy of the third book, Jerusalem Commands, which I thought at the time was the past book. It turns out, of course, that there was a fourth book, and Moorcock didn’t finish it until last year.

I could write pages and pages about these books. They’re like nothing I’ve ever read before and I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with a concise description for them. They follow the life of a man born on January 1st, 1900. His name is always unclear; we meet him as Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, or Pyat, but he changes his name on a regular basis as it most benefits him. The books follow his life from the age of 18 (at the end of WWI) to the age of 36 (at the beginning of WWII). He travels all over the western world, starting in the Ukraine, moving all over Europe and then on to the USA, then to northern Africa and then back to Europe. He works as a movie star, invents a laser beam to fight the reds in the siege of Odessa, ends up as a sex slave to a mad hermaphrodite in the Sahara, works to build Mussolini an air force and even dresses up like a woman to be Hitler’s dominatrix.

Part of the joy of these books is Pyat’s complete self-involvement and inability to see the reality of any person other than himself. He lies almost constantly through the books; he invents not only new names, but entirely new personas for himself as they’re needed. He pretends to be a count, to be a Colonel in various armies and to be a member of almost every major political faction in the world. While doing this, however, he is unable to recognize when anyone else is ever lying, taking everything said to him at face value. Even though the books are written in his voice and we see his world through his own warped vision, it is entirely clear to the reader when people are tricking him and he never, ever catches on.

Anyways, I’ll stop there. Here’s my stats:

I know I said when I started this that I wouldn’t be reading a bunch of short books at the end in order to meet my quota, and this has turned out to not be true. However, I’m not reading short books for the end of this month in order to meet my book count quote, but rather to bring down my average number of pages, which is at roughly 307 pages per book. I have figured out a set of short books I can read over the next couple of weeks which should allow me to bring that down much closer to 300.

I’m now reading a book on art theory by Wassily Kandinsky. It’s something else; I’ll probably end up doing a post on it soon.

A heart, how shall I say? too soon made glad,

avi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:56:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since I posted anything. I’ve been writing a short story and somehow the urge to write also blogs hasn’t really been coming into me. For now, here’s a book update:

Totals:
Books: 106
Pages: 31866

My goal for the end of the month was 100 books, so I’m 6 books ahead of the curve right now, which is quite good I think. I’m at an average of 300.62 pages per book as well, which is about as close to that average as I could hope to be. I think the average number is going to be rising slightly over the next month, as I have some whoppers to work through, but that’s ok. I have a plan in place that should let me hit very close to 300 by year’s end.

I’m not sure if I’ll do this experiment again next year. Partially it is fun just keeping track, but I’m not sure anybody actually cares. Of course, that’s not why I’m doing it. We’ll see.

Hopefully more interesting later.

When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,

avi — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:41:00 +0000

It’s about time for another book status post. I’m only 200 pages shy of my goal for August, which is a lot closer than I’ve been at this time of the month for a while. I might actually make my goal of 120 books this year! Crazy. Here’s the stats:

Totals:
Books: 77
Pages: 23800

Sorry I haven’t been posting much recently. I have about a half dozen almost-done entries. All I need to do now is actually finish them.

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free

avi — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:36:00 +0000

I haven’t done a book update for a while. I haven’t done any kind of update for a while actually. Anyways, here’s where I’m at:

Totals:
Books: 66
Pages: 20219

I’m still a little bit behind on the month, but not as much behind as I was last month, so I’m confident that my 120 book yearly goal is reachable, but I don’t think that I’ll go much past that. I’ve now started Susan R. Matthews’ “Jurisdiction” series, which is interesting so far, but I worry that the quality will decline as I work my way through the 6 books. We’ll see.

And though the last lights off the black West went

avi — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:03:00 +0000

It’s June, so I thought I’d do a little end-of month book update. I have three “goals” going right now. The original 50 book goal would have me at 6,250 pages right now. My updated 100 book goal would have me at twice that, 12,500 pages. I’m thinking now that maybe I want to do 120 books, or 10 books per month, which would have me at 15,000 pages now. So here’s the data:

Totals:
Books: 42
Pages: 14694

So, you can see that I’m only a little bit shy of the third goal, so I think that’s going to be what I’m aiming for now. I think my reading rate will be increasing in the upcoming months, as my new commute involves a lot more bussing that it has in previous months, which gives me a lot more time to read. However, I’ve also been reading more technical books (which you can see from the list) and those books really take a long time to get through. So, we’ll see. Note also that I’m well behind on my actual book count as opposed to my page count, and that’s because I’ve been reading a LOT of books recently that are well above my 300 page-per-book average. I’m going to try to read more smaller books in the months to come to bring that average back down, which should cause the book count to come into nice parity with the page count.

Once I finish the Hugh Cook books, I think I’m going to write up a whole post about the series. It’s really fascinating.

To their first elements their souls retire:

avi — Sun, 18 May 2008 04:26:00 +0000

I haven’t done a book update in a while. I’m reading a lot faster than I thought I would; even if I don’t read one single page more this month, I’m projecting that I’ll be over 31,000 pages by the end of the year, which is 16,000 pages more than my 50 book goal and 1,000 pages more than my 100 book goal. The number of books I’ve read so far is kind of low, but that’s because I’ve been working through this Hugh Cook series and all of those books are well more than the 300 page average I’ve set for myself. I’m planning on reading a bunch of really short books after I’m done with this series, to bring my page average back down. I’m massively over thinking this.

Totals:
Books: 39
Pages: 13069

Than or Whitehalls, or Mantuas were.

avi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:08:00 +0000

So, another book update. As of last night, I’ve reached both of my goals for this month, in terms of number of books read and average number of pages per book; in fact I’m 15 pages per book ahead of the curve right now. A lot of this was due to the length of the book I just finished, the 5th (fourth) book in Hugh Cook’s Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series. It is pretty daunting to read a book that’s nearly 800 pages long; there’s something about the fact that your bookmark seems hardly to move, even after you’ve been reading for a half hour bus trip, that is kind of discouraging. It did help quite a bit that the book was very fun to read, a nice light-hearted adventure. I realized the other day how long I’ve been collecting these particular books; in volume 4 (three) I found a packing slip from Half.com which had a note exhorting me to donate to help victims of the recent attacks on the World Trade Center. That means that I’ve been trying to complete this series of 11 (ten) books for over 7 years. That’s kind of crazy.

Totals:
Books: 33
Pages: 10409

I may revise my yearly goals at some point in June, but I’m just going to enjoy being ahead of the game for now.

Right up above the mast did stand,

avi — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:20:00 +0000

It’s time for another book update. I’ve modified my book database software so it can generate this report, but that necessitated modifying the way some of the data was laid out, so some of the numbers here have changed slightly. Nobody cares. I don’t even care. Anyways.

I finished the fourth (or third) book in Hugh Cook’s Age of Darkness series. It was really good. This series is not really at all what I had been expecting; instead of being a series of books following a group of characters over time, each book covers the same time period, but centering on different characters and how they are affected by the major world events in that time period. The interactions that the different characters have with the events are very different: for example, in the first book there’s a major land battle and our main character (for that book) is in command over one side’s forces; we learn a lot about the battle in this book. In the third book, that book’s main character is a very low-ranking soldier on the other side of the battle and he actually sleeps through most of it because he’s sick.

Another really fun thing about this series is that each book in written in a different style of fantasy writing. The first book is classic Tolkeinesque high fantasy about a group of wizards on a Great Quest. The second (and third) book is a comedy about a bumbling hero who only wants to have sex. The fourth book is a feminist fantasy story, a-la Marion Zimmer Bradley, about a woman who begins the story as a slave and ends as empress of the realm. Each book is completely stand-alone, and could be enjoyed without knowing anything about the other books, although having read those, I find many sidelong references to the others quite enjoyable. I’m really looking forward to reading the next 7 books. Interestingly, this was originally planned to be a 60 book series; the first 20 about this time period, then 20 more about another time period and finally 20 more about a third time period. Unfortunately, the books didn’t sell well and Cook has stated publicly that he won’t be writing any more. Oh well.

Totals:
Books: 31
Pages: 9047

I have to read 953 pages in 2 more books by the end of the month to keep on track. Should be pretty easy.

The British language claims in either sense

avi — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:25:00 +0000

Time for another book update, I guess. I finished Farmer’s World of Tiers series the other day, after a short delay because it turns out I had been missing the sixth book in the series and had mistakenly thought that the seventh book was the sixth. Overall I liked the series, but it was a little bit “out there” at times, and the last two volumes, written decades after the original books, were a great shift in tone that I didn’t find entirely agreeable. I’ve also now finished the first book (of 11) of Hugh Cook’s Chronicles of an Age of Darkness and I liked it quite a lot. I’m looking forward to reading the rest in the next few weeks.

1. Neil Gaiman – Anansi Boys – 1-6-08 (287 pp)
2. Jonathan Vankin – The Big Book of Bad – 1-7-08 (93 pp)
3. W. Michael Gear – The Warriors of Spider – 1-16-08 (367 pp)
4. Max Brooks – World War Z – 1-19-08 (342 pp)
5. Bill Watterson – The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, Vol. 2 – 1-20-08 (240 pp)
6. Hari Kunzru – Transmission – 1-27-08 (276 pp)
7. Bill Watterson – The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, Vol. 3 – 1-30-08 (240 pp)
8. W. Michael Gear – The Way of Spider – 2-7-08 (408 pp)
9. Dick Francis – Hot Money – 2-12-08 (423 pp)
10. W. Micheal Gear – The Web of Spider – 2-21-08 (648 pp)
11. Philip José Farmer – The Maker of Universes – 2-22-08 (247 pp)
12. Samuel R. Delany – Empire Star – 2-23-08 (132 pp)
13. Philip José Farmer – The Gates of Creation – 2-25-08 (188 pp)
14. Neil Gaiman – Don’t Panic – 2-27-08 (182 pp)
15. Philip José Farmer – A Private Cosmos – 2-29-08 (275 pp)
16. Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club – 3-1-08 (218 pp)
17. Philip José Farmer – Behind the Walls of Terra – 3-3-08 (188 pp)
18. John Swartzwelder – The Time Machine Did It – 3-4-08 (138 pp)
19. Philip José Farmer – The Lavalite World – 3-6-08 (282 pp)
20. David Mamet – On Directing Film – 3-7-08 (107 pp)
21. Steven Gould – Helm – 3-11-08 (383 pp)
22. Sharyn McCrumb – Missing Susan – 3-14-08 (401 pp)
23. Philip José Farmer – Red Orc’s Rage – 3-15-08 (282 pp)
24. Dick Francis – Break In – 3-18-08 (371 pp)
25. Philip José Farmer – More Than Fire – 3-21-08 (312 pp)
26. Hugh Cook – Wizard War – 3-25-08 (447 pp)

Totals:

Books: 26
Pages: 7377

My goal of 100 books and 300 pages per book is pretty well on track. In order to be meeting it, by the end of March I should have read 25 books (obviously I’m there) and 7500 pages, which I’m confident I’ll reach in the next 5 days.