This is my first time doing a category challenge, so chances are I'll be tweaking them fairly often till I work out the kinks.
I'm going to start straight away because I just can't wait til January and I don't have any other challenges in the way.
I don't want to tie myself to only reading challenge books for the whole year, so I'm only committing to at least 5 books per category which should give me some flexibility.
1.
Lost in Translation - books originally written in a language other than English
2.
Digging My Own Grave - books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list
3.
Things Could Be Worse - dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction
4.
Book'em Danno! - Booker Prize shortlisted novels
5.
Cheese's Wall of Literary Shame - classic Japanese novels I've never read, despite having a degree in Japanese culture
6.
Children of Herodotus - non-fiction history books, any topic
7.
Land of the Rising Sun - non-fiction books about Japan
8.
They Did What?!?!? - books turned into movies or TV series
9.
Dusty Tomes - books written before 1900
10.
How Novel! - books published between now and Dec 2010 (not necessarily fiction)
Hmmm....while I keep hoping this will help me reduce my TBR pile, I have a feeling I will now be buying more books, using the justification "But it fits one of my 1010 categories!"
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 11, 2009, 10:55pm.
1. Lost in Translation
Books read:
1.
Mr Muo's Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie (finished 26/10/09, translated from French)
2.
Papillon by Henri Charriere (finished 22/12/09, translated from French)
3.
4.
5.
Possible candidates:
Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin
Masks by Fumiko Enchi
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, I dag, 5:10pm.
5. Cheese's Wall of Literary Shame
Books read:
1.
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (finished 29/10/09)
2.
3.
4.
5.
Possible candidates:
The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon (not really a novel, but still a classic)
Depending on how I go for time, I may also try to read either Banana Yoshimoto's
Kitchen or Natsume Soseki's
Kokoro in the original Japanese. Maybe.
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 29, 2009, 6:10am.
10. How Novel!Books read:
1.
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (finished 4/11/09)
2.
3.
4.
5.
Possible candidates:
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, nov 3, 2009, 10:02pm.
This is mostly for my own reference should I happen to decide to do some more categories once I've done these 10.
Categories I wanted but didn't have room for:
Sci fi
YA fiction
Books about the English language
Authors' first novels
Australian fiction
Nobel Prize winners
Women's studies/feminism
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 11, 2009, 11:49pm.
You have some great categories -- and with creative names, no less! I'm planning to at least minor in Japanese, though I will probably go for a major, so I am quite intrigued by your non-fiction Japanese and Japanese literature categories. I'm definitely putting a star by your thread to see your final choices!
Welcome to the challenge!
Hi, I love your categories and the pictures are very cool. I keep meaning to the
The Pillow Book so will be interested to see what you think.
Interesting categories, some overlap with mine, but with different choices (1001, Booker). I am also doing the "at least 5" thing to keep my sanity, but I am having a lot of fun rediscovering my library while filling the categories.
Great categories. I have a 1001 category, a history category and a published in 2009-2010 category (waiting for all those books to get off hold at the library!).
I'm looking forward to seeing how you fill in your categories. Good luck with the challenge!
Great pics and categories! And, yes, as much as you want to reduce the TBR-pile, the category challenge will help it grow... :)
>4, OMG I Love the picture you have chosen for "Things Could Be Worse"
awesome i will try to do this
I'm amazed by how many LTers can speak Japanese (I'm so jealous!) Nice catagories and pictures :-) I especially like your "Digging my own grave" header.
Great categories. I look forward to learning about the books of/about Japan as well as those in you post-apocalyptic category. :)
Thanks for all the feedback! If anyone has some recommendations for some good dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction I'm all ears. I love the genre and I don't think I've read enough of it. I've done some of the big ones (
1984,
Brave New World,
Day of the Triffids,
On The Beach etc) but I feel there are a lot of gaps.
I've started my first read for the Challenge with
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters for my Booker nominee category. Given the number of assignments and exams I have coming up, I suspect it might be slow going til the end of November.
Regarding dystopian fiction... have you read
The Children of Men by P.D. James? I probably sound like a broken record because I suggest it so frequently.
Have you tried the dystopian tale:
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin? I haven't it but its on my tbr (along with
The Road by Cormac McCarthy).
I have read
We, and really enjoyed it. There's no one like Russians for really dark authoritarian reads.
Not sure if it would be your cup of tea exactly but you could check out
A Strong and Sudden Thaw by
R.W. Day for your post-apocalyptic catagory. It was certainly a different sort of a story.
That's good to hear! I put
We on my TBR earlier this year so it's definitely in the 1010.
>26. I love post-apocalyptic fiction and have added
A Strong and Sudden Thaw to my challenge. It's available on Kindle, so an easy purchase. Also the author is on LT.
>22 Check out
http://www.librarything.com/topic/10297 for a list of post-apocalyptic fiction.
The Brief History of the Dead was quite good, and, Wyndham wrote several interesting stories not quite as famous as
Day of the Triffids, including
The Chrysalids,
The Kraken Wakes, and
The Midwich Cuckoos (the last is more of an alien invasion story).
Here are two I have tagged as apocalyptic, rather than post-apocalyptic:
Everything Matters!, an awkwardly titled but interesting look at the life of a man born knowing exactly when life on Earth will end.
The End of Science Fiction by Sam Smith. This is put out by a small press called Bewrite Books and is available in both paperback and electronic formats (
www.bewrite.net). I ran across this when the book was offered free for Ebook Week a few months ago. Here's my review:
Two determined detectives proceed with a murder investigation while humanity reacts in varying ways to the expected end of the universe. Not giving anything away in this review! - much of the tension is engendered by whether, in fact, the predicted calamity will actually happen. Thought-provoking, and very well-written.I just read the reviews of
A Strong and Sudden Thaw and it looks great. Really interesting, a bit different and multi-genre: all good traits! It might be hard for me to find here as it's from such a niche publisher (and we don't have Kindles) but I'll start the hunt.
I've read
Midwich Cuckoos and
The Chrysalids but I haven't go around to
The Kraken Wakes yet. Does it fit my category?
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 15, 2009, 11:22pm.
Amazon has co-sellers who have
A Strong and Sudden Thaw, in case you want to go that route. Not sure where you live and if by "we" you meant your family or your country, but Amazon has just made international versions of Kindle available (again, in case you're interested - I have no stock in Amazon!).
The Kraken Wakes is one of his rather oblique novels, in which you know something is going wrong but not sure what, and it happens so gradually society can't keeps its attention on the fact that things aren't looking good for humanity. Sort of apocalypse as it happens.
Thanks auntmarge64. I'm in Australia, so by the time I factor in exchange rate and postage, Amazon's usually not very economical. I heard about the international Kindles, but they're only releasing the older version, not the new one, and they're still negotiating contracts for the wireless aspect of them so no go yet. Not to mention, they're only releasing about 10% of the US Kindle titles, and unlike other countries getting the Kindle (UK, Germany etc), Australia doesn't have its own Amazon so it's unlikely to include any locally published authors.
I checked at work today and
A Strong and Sudden Thaw definitely has not had a local release so the only way I can get it is by ordering through the US. The exchange rate's pretty good right now but the postage is a killer. That's what happens when you live at 'the arse end of the Earth' as one of our Prime Ministers so memorably put it.
I checked and they have copies of
A Strong and Sudden Thaw available used and new at
http://www.betterworld.com which is a great book seller with very inexpensive worldwide shipping, if you wanted to check them out. (I have no affiliation with the website except that I've purchased through them before)
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 16, 2009, 11:04am.
>31
I was just reading about Kindle in Australia. The rights issue does indeed seem to be a problem, although some folks are apparently using a US-based account funded with gift cards (no credit card required for each purchase) and, and as far as I can tell, that should enable any title they have at all to be downloaded to a computer and transferred via USB cable to the Kindle. Can't guarantee that works, though. However, it appears to me that the newest of the regular Kindles (the K2) is available in Australia. If you wanted the large one, the DX, looks like you're right and they're not yet offered.
Well, it was just a thought.....
I appreciate the thought, auntmarge64! And a buying a Kindle is certainly something I'll be looking into in the future!
In other news, I finished my first book of the challenge. I read
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters for my Booker Prize nominees category. In many ways I knew what to expect because I've read a few of her books before, but this one was a bit different from her earlier books. I loved the backwards structure of the story, and even more than her earlier works, this book focused on the struggles and restrictions faced by those who don't conform with society's norms.
She really nailed the characterisation in this book. They were flawed, intense, shallow, intelligent, thoughtless, introspective and utterly human, and you can't ask for more than that! The time period was beautifully evoked too; the sense of dread underlying their lives, contrasting with the mundane dealings that still occurred despite extraordinary times.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Blitz, the home front, women's roles in society or queer history, or anyone who enjoys a beautifully structured, intelligently written book!
Looks like I'm on a roll, because I just finished book number 2 (can you tell I'm avoiding work...)
I picked up
Hiroshima Maidens a year or so ago at a bookfair. I became really interested in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after living in Japan and taking a university course in Atomic Bomb Literature. Not to mention visiting the very powerful and moving peace memorials and atomic bomb museums in both those cities.
Hiroshima Maidens gives a brief description of the events of the day the bomb was dropped, in a similar style to John Hersey's
Hiroshima (indeed, some of the people involved in the Hiroshima Maidens story were interviewed for Hersey's book). The book focuses on a group of young women who were permanently physically scarred by the bomb. It follows the amazing story of their trip to America 10 years after the bomb to have plastic surgery to restore not only their faces but the movement in their hands and arms.
The book is at times highly critical of the media attention the story received both then and now, and even takes a few potshots at some of the organisers of the trip and some of the doctors involved. It's hard to know how much of the story is completely accurate, as the author did not have access to everyone involved and there do seem to be some moments of bias. It's also occasionally patronising and very dismissive of the people in Hiroshima who were working to make a better life for hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors).
Despite these shortcomings, the story is fascinating, and it focuses on the importance of follow-up after a grand charitable gesture. The purpose of the surgery was to allow the women to resume normal lives and become self-sufficient, and it shows that the surgery was only one step in what would be a long hard process for women who had missed out on 10 years of their lives.
Overall it was a worthwhile read, and certainly one I would recommend to anyone interested in hibakusha and the long term personal consequences of nuclear warfare.
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 19, 2009, 12:54am.
Great categories, great books! And I love the illustrations.
That was a nice write-up of The Night Watch. I loved that book, as well as most of her others.
I'll be following you!
Thanks teelgee! I've already starred your thread.
So, I put off essay writing for yet another night and read a challenge book instead. I picked up
The Comfort of Strangers because it's been a while since I read an Ian McEwan book and I was in the mood for something short.
At 100 pages, it's really just a novella. While I ultimately found the story to be unsatisfying, the writing was (as always) stunning. The sense of ennui, passion and foreboding which permeated the story were beautifully handled and you could feel the rising tension long before the denouement. In all, a well-crafted piece of story telling.
Well, it's taken me about 15 years, but I've finally read
The Hobbit. I enjoyed it, it was fun, but Tolkien has never really blown me away (I can feel my membership of the Green Dragon being revoked as we speak...)
This was my first dilemma book - it fit into more than one category. Ultimately I decided to put it into the 1001 Books category, simply because it seems a more hard and fast designation than 'made into a movie/TV series'. Especially since I have not seen and do not plan to see the animated version of the Hobbit. I may see the live action one if it ever actually gets made.
My mother used to regularly read us
The Hobbit as a bedtime story. It was only a few years ago that I realized that's probably why I've always been afraid of spiders.
The spiders in
The Hobbit are definitely enough to give small children (or even adults) nightmares for years to come.
I'm trying to read across all my categories as evenly as possible so I decided to pick up a book I bought at least 2 years ago,
Mr Muo's Travelling Couch, to fill in my first entry for books in translation.
This was a strange, fascinating and fantastical story of a French-educated Chinese man travelling the country on a mission to get his first love out of gaol. The book looks not only at the tricky paths of negotiating love and sex, but it also shines a light on the shadowy yet commonly traversed paths of corruption at the heart of Chinese bureaucracy. The language is light and flowing and has been handled with a deft touch, probably a combination of inspired author and sympathetic translator. I love the twists and turns of Muo's journey, and most importantly the wonderful cast of supporting characters who force Muo into ever increasing personal and professional dilemmas.
I have seen the movie
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by the same author but never read the book. I may need to change that now.
Maybe I should try the Hobbit again. I bought it after reading LOTR, but didn't really like it and abandoned it.... I could put it in my TBR category...
The discussion of the hobbit makes me want to reread it too (as I now I have fond memories of teacher reading it to us in primary school). It's the only Tolkien I could ever stomach too ;)
Meddelelse redigeret af dens forfatter, okt 26, 2009, 9:29am.
My mother's fondness for
The Hobbit got her (and me) into trouble when I was in kindergarten. The teacher asked whether any of us knew a poem. I volunteered. And recited this:
Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
And many miles be still to go
But under a tall tree I will lie,
And let the clouds go sailing by.
ha ha! thats brilliant. It is a good drinking song though.
I lost myself in The Hobbit and the trilogy years ago (25?) when I read them - absolutely loved them; wonder if I'd have the same reaction now?
Just dropping by to say hi and that I love your categories!
Thanks missylc!
I finally managed to knock over a book from my Wall of Literary Shame!
Snow Country is the first Yasunari Kawabata I've read and I enjoyed it greatly. The book is very atmospheric and introspective rather than plot driven. A lot of time is spent on lovingly describing the landscape and the seasons, which play an unbelieveably important symbolic role in Japanese arts and culture. The novel captures a time and place in Japan's history and really focuses on male/female roles and relationships. It also, more obliquely, addresses issues of changing culture and the growing influence of Western culture on Japanese life.
I'm glad I've finally read something by Kawabata, one of the Japanese literary masters, and it's certainly encouraging me to pick up
The Master of Go which is another of his books that I own.
Well, looks like I've done 6 out of 50 already. I may end up revising my totals and try for the full 10 in each category (though by that stage I think I'll need to start buying books instead of just sourcing them from Mt TBR!)
And that is never a bad thing (the buying books problem) ;).
I have the same 'problem', I finished 7 out of the minimum of 50. At this rate I might make it to 100, and so will you! :D
I've made a start on another of my categories by reading
Unseen Academicals, the new Discworld book from Terry Pratchett. It slots nicely into my "How Novel!" category.
I really shouldn't have read it this week. I promised myself I wouldn't read it till after exams, but I couldn't resist. It was a little disappointing; the story and writing weren't as sharp and witty as usual. It may just have been because I don't come from a football culture, but I never got into the book as much as I would have liked. I still enjoyed it and had a good laugh, but I don't think it would make it into my Top 10 Discworld novels.
I'm not sure what I'll finish next, though I am part way through
A Canticle For Leibowitz. Hopefully I can leave it alone until I'm done with assessment next week.
I bit the bullet and decided to take advantage of the temporarily favourable exchange rate and ordered
A Strong and Sudden Thaw from BetterWorld Books. Thanks to everyone who suggested it and suggested ways to get it!
It should arrive sometime after my exams are over so it's something to look forward to while I spend my time buried in trusts and the Uniform Evidence Act.
So I decided I couldn't wait and I finished off
A Canticle for Leibowitz this morning. It's my first one in the dystopian/post-apocalyptic category and I'm not sure what I thought about it. It was more of a discussion of religion vs the secular world than I expected, and less about post-apocalyptic society. I suspect it's a book I would have got more out of if I had a Christian background, as I believe quite of a bit of Christian theology was discussed and used in the book. There's a sequel to this, but I think I might give it a miss.
>51
I don't think it's actually a sequel, but a section that fits into the middle of the book. I've never read it, and the reviews I've seen of it weren't as favorable as for the main book. I don't remember it being that theological. Huh.
>51 & 52, I don't remember it being that theological either, but that might be because I also read a lot about Christian history and theology, so it might not have been a problem for me....
I don't have a Christian background either, and there were liturgical type references in
A Canticle for Leibowitz that I had to Google. But there wasn't enough of it to be distracting or annoying.
I didn't find it annoying as such....I just felt like I was missing some of the significance. Particularly in the first section, there were some references which I recognised as biblical, and some bits which seemed to come direct from the bible with additions or alterations, but I have no real point of reference for them so I'm not sure.
I did enjoy the book (I was in a rush when I posted my thoughts so I wasn't very comprehensive!) but I just found it a little disjointed. I think it may also be that the book ended on a sour note for me which may be colouring my appreciation of the whole novel - I just didn't feel as engaged with the story as I would have liked.
>55
Hah, now I feel guilty - here it's your challenge, and we're giving you grief!
Next time I read it I'll have to watch for the religious references. I never thought much about it, but that could be because I was raised in a Christian, though non-Catholic, tradition. At any rate, it certainly isn't a favorable take on organized religion or our tendencies as a species, is it?
>54
And isn't Google great for that? Lately I've been reading books on fossils and geological ages, and without Wikipedia my reading would make much less sense.
Online integration is the only reason I would ever consider an e-reader, just to be able to click a word and have a wikipedia/wiktionary entry pop up would be a blessing in some books...
And 55, glad you still liked Leibowitz ;)
#57 I was reading an online book recently and selected words and had pop-up explanations, I really enjoyed that. I do not really enjoy embedded links though because I tend to get side tracked and forget about the story!
Ahem sorry to side track your thread. To get it back on track.. I have always been put off
A Canticle for Leibowitz because I supposed it was too heavy with theology.. but maybe I will give it a try. thanks for your thoughts.
Hello! Due to similar tastes I have starred your thread for future reference. I was also a Japanese major as an undergrad and am an avid fan of Japanese lit so I'm curious to see which books you choose to fill these categories in. :)
Thanks for the comments everyone! If nothing else, I now know that someone somewhere is actually reading my comments! Maybe I should be careful what I say... :)
My next book was
What is History? by E H Carr. It's a collection of a series of lectures he gave in the 60s about history and historiography. I took a class called History and Theory a few years ago and we looked at some of Carr's work regarding the English working class. He struck me as an interesting and thoughtful historian who could be both academic and readable at the same time (a rare achievement!) so when I saw this slim volume on the history table at the bookfair I just had to pick it up. Also, for me, one of the greatest advertisements for his book was that Keith Windschuttle hates it (if you haven't been following the Australian History Wars then you probably won't know who that is...needless to say, I'm not a fan!)
The book was fascinating. Carr looks at the theory and philosophy of history with a very post-modern view and has a number of interesting critiques around historical 'objectivity' and the influence of contemporary society on how we read and write history. Carr's Marxist influences are clearly on display through much of the book, with his focus on social and economic history and his critique of earlier historical focus on political and constitutional history.
Regardless of what you think of Carr's personal politics and philosophy, it can't be denied that he is a great writer, with a good understanding of structure and how to engage a reader/listener. I found his lectures to be diverse, interesting, well thought out and logical...even when I didn't agree with him.
This was a good start for my history category I think. It's been a while since I engaged in the theory of history, and I'm glad I've revived some of it in my mind before I start reading more of it again. Also, Carr mentions Herodotus often, which has renewed my desire to read The Histories.
I had to go and post my comments on
What is History? as a review because I went to see what others thought about it and discovered that not only were there only 4 reviews, they were all 1 sentence long. I don't usually post my comments as a review, because they're not really structured that way - they're more a set of personal reflections for my own reference - but I can't let a book go unreviewed when it's in my power to change it!
I see you have a Murakami on your list. I'm reading my first right now,
Kafka on the Shore.
@62 mathgirl40, that was my introduction to
Murakami also. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I've since added another 4 of his works to my collection but haven't found the time to read any of them yet.
dreamlikecheese, you have some wonderful books lined up as possible selections. I will be following your thread with interest. Good luck with your challenge.
@62, 63 I'm also very new to Murakami, reading my first (
The wind-up bird chronicle) just this summer. I sometime feel as the last person on earth to discover this interesting writer, so I'm really glad to see there are more of us slow learners :) Hope you enjoy it, dreamlikecheese - and what an interesting challenge you have here. I'm starring this thread!
I have
Kafka on the shore (which will be my second Murakami) on my 1010, but I'm not starting until january.
I have
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle on my list too. Never read anything by Murakami, but saw this book on my local bookshop's Evergreen list... Great to see so many positive recommendations!
Thanks for all the comments re: Murakami. I've read a few of his books over the years, but I seem to have missed some of his major works, hence
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles on my list. I'm looking forward to it, but I think it might be a while before I get to it.
I've had a bit of a detour through some non-challenge reading, and my reading has slowed down recently. 2 jobs plus study will do that to you!
I've also detoured through a few unexpected books because I have rediscovered the joy of the library. I'm halfway through
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for my Dusty Tomes category, and this morning I finished
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, another Booker Prize nominee.
I really enjoyed the direct tone of the book: it's written as a Pakistani's conversation with an American in Lahore. He details his time in America at university and working in the financial sector around the time of the September 11 attacks. The book deals with the personal effects of foreign policy and looks at how educated and seemingly liberal people can become 'radicalised'.
I'm not sure what I'll finish next, but it looks to be a race between
The Scarlet Letter and
Papillon which fits nicely into my translation category.
I found The Reluctant Fundamentalist to be the best post 9/11 book I've read, although I have not read that many.
In the 24 hours since I've finished reading it, I've already seen
The Scarlet Letter referenced twice on TV shows. Makes me wonder whether it's just coincidence, or if I've been missing all these references over the years and didn't know it....
The Scarlet Letter is the first in my Dusty Tomes category. I picked it up from the library as part of my quest to read more books about New York/Boston/Washington prior to my trip there next year. I'm also thinking about heading out to Salem so I've been reading about the witch trials and other events and I thought Nathaniel Hawthorne would be a good author to go with as he lived in Salem for many years.
The Scarlet Letter was not quite what I expected. It begins with a comic sketch of the characters encountered by Hawthorne in his work at the Customs House, and then becomes a psychological tale of society, morality and repression (with the most tenuous link to lead from one to the other). It was fascinating to watch the evolution of Hester Prynne from shy, ashamed social pariah to determined woman and the book was a sharp condemnation of the hypocrisy of the era.
I really enjoyed the book, but it once again confirms for me that deep down at heart, I'm a British literature girl - both contemporary and classic. But I will persist...my knowledge of the American classics is shameful.
I have only read the
House of the Seven Gables which was ok. It didn't make me want to rush out and try some more of his books. I would recommend visiting the house if you visit Salam though, interesting tour.
Looks like I slowed down massively in December. I've been ridiculously busy but I finished Papillon this morning for my 12th book. Hopefully I'll get a bit more reading in next week and in January.
Papillon was an interesting read. It's sort of a Boy's Own Adventure type book, but for really really bad boys. I must admit, I have a lot of trouble believing a lot of the things in this book. I'm willing to believe the harsh, almost medieval conditions of French colonial prisons in the 1930s. I'm willing to believe the crazy attempts Papillon made to escape these prisons. I'm not so sold on all these people who supposedly helped Papillon escape for no apparent reason. (Does it say something about me perhaps that I'm willing to believe the bad but not the good?) Either he's the most persuasively charming man on Earth....or there's a few missing steps in his story...
Either way, it was a great read. Not high literature certainly, and I think Patrick O'Brian (the translator) tried to capture as much of the amateur rambling and disjointedness of the author as possible, but a pacy and rollicking read nonetheless.
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