Book Lists 2019 Book • Page 10

I’m a legal and marketing assistant for a law firm that needs neither position. Some days it legitimately feels like they’re paying me to read.

 

Now that'd be a dream job!

 

Now if only they could just keep me on the payroll and not make me make the 45 minute commute each way!

 

My commute is roughly 20-30 minutes and I zone out completely into my book on the train in the morning that it hits me hard when I have to get off at my stop and walk. I've tried audiobooks but I end up way too distracted!

Congrats on the new job though, that's awesome!

 

I fell in love with audiobooks hard a few years back. Really glad they work for me, as I love reading so much but often fail to find time where I can just sit down and do it for very long.

Thanks!

 

That sounds great! I'm sure you're glad it's just no longer retail haha.

I definitely understand this and I do too but I tend to listen to books I've already read physically or stuff that I'm interested in but maybe not interested in reading necessarily and try it out by listening instead.

 

Finished The Black Company. Wrote a little about it in the fantasy thread but I liked it though not as much as the works it inspired. The Institute was excellent, the middle act was really depressing and did a great job of making you hope for a bloody conclusion. I feel like King has been writing books recently that have two giant climaxes where a more boring writing would just have one. Orphan Annie ftw. A Little Hatred fucking ruled, I love that world and can't wait for the rest of the trilogy. Sharp Objects was really good, I know I'm late on that one, I just adore how cynical Flynn's narrators are. I'd read most of the stories in Joe Hill's short story collection already, but it's a great group of little stories. The most fascinating thing was the intro where Hill goes in depth on his decision to not use the King name, and how he tried sooooo hard for a large portion of his life writing shit because he was purposely not trying to be his dad. Really loving the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, I'm about halfway through the second book and it's even better. Supposedly Ridley Scott is making a movie for S. Craig Zahlers' Wraiths of the Broken Land, and if that happens it might be the most fucked up movie ever made. I swear there is nothing better than seeing Horror/Western on the genre list.

Now the truly unbelievable book I read was Stephen Chbosky's Imaginary Friend. I've never read The Perks of Being a Wallflower (not really a coming-of-age reader) and I picked it up solely because it's a 700+ horror epic. Ends up it's a fucking masterpiece. Best book I've read all year. Honestly reminded me so much of IT, which is my favorite book of all time so you can imagine what that means. After maybe like the first 100 pages it starts getting unbelievably intense and I swear there's like a 400 page section at the end that just does not let up and I can't come up with enough words to praise it. Everyone should read it! especially @Night Channels @Deanna, @Ryan Gardner @Joel Gustafson @Colby Searcy, my fellow horror fans.

As for comics Bitch Planet was really good. It's no Pretty Deadly but Kelly Sue is a master. Joe Hill's The Cape was great, basically Brightburn but with a 20'sish burnout. And he has a chainsaw at one point. It's truly gleeful. White Sand came to a satisfying conclusion, I'm so happy to experience a new story in this world for the future volumes. I can see why Marvels is on every list of comics you have to read before you die. Alex Ross is just incredible. Horde was a fun little horror graphic novella, It definitely seems like Bennett wants to explore more of the deeper stuff she's been getting into in Animosity, which I am all for.

Also, although I didn't collect it here because I read the whole series though it technically has a final chapter coming out in a few months, I still wanted to mention that I read through Bendis Powers, which I loved.

 

@Vivatoto I actually won a copy of Imaginary Friend! I’m hoping to read it after I read Nightmares & Dreamscapes later this month. Going to attempt to get through some shorter books in the next couple weeks though.

 

Yeah both of those books are beasts haha

 

I was planning to read Imaginary Friend after I finished The Institute but I was exhausted by the end of The Institute so I'm taking a break. May just end up listening to the audiobook

 

I don't know how much of a difference it actually makes, but there are a lot of interesting quirks to the physical copy of the book. Almost like a very lite-House of Leaves. There's odd punctuation that holds secret messages, it's all explained eventually but it was really fun finding it out for myself. Some pages are formatted oddly to fit the mood, it just feels like a very "Book" book, if that makes sense, lol.

Like just for example I'm pretty sure the first line is written with a hint of dyslexia, which is important to the story.

 

Hmmm, you've convinced me to just read the book. I'll have to wait until I'm more in the mood and have a decent amount of time to spend reading. Most likely I'll get it from the library so I'll have a finite amount of time to read it.

 

Updated my list for September and October. Knocked out three good books in the last two months.

The Grip of It was haunting. I've seen a lot of comparisons to Hill House that I think are accurate. Jemk does a great job of weaving between viewpoints and messing with you so you never quite know what's going on.

Thrilled to announce that I'm one step ahead of @Vivatoto as I bought Imaginary Friend shortly after I started my side job at Barnes & Noble (Book #50 for me and also my current staff rec at the B&N in Grand Rapids). I'd go as far to say that this was my favorite book this year; I accidentally knocked it out in one weekend because I couldn't put it down.

I read Doctor Sleep to be ready for the movie and enjoyed it. Not my favorite King novel, but I liked seeing how the Overlook affected Dan and how he responded to his abilities.

As far as comics go, please read House of X/Powers of X so we can talk about it at length.

I'm starting this month by reading Shaun Hamill's "A Cosmology of Monsters". As always, recommendations are welcome!

 

2019 List:
1. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
2. Skyward - Brandon Sanderson
3. Deadhouse Gates (Malazan #2) - Steven Erikson
4. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs - Stephen Brusatte
5. Origin - Dan Brown
6. Stinger - Robert McCammon
7. The Border - Don Winslow
8. Dreamcatcher - Stephen King
9. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion #2) - Dan Simmons
10. No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
11. The Wonga Coup - Adam Roberts
12. Crossroads of Twilight (Wheel of Time #10) - Robert Jordan
13. The Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1)- Stephen King
14. The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower #2) - Stephen King
15. Endymion (Hyperion Cantos #3) - Dan Simmons
16. The Waste Lands (Dark Tower #3) - Stephen King
17. The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R.F. Kuang
18. The Plot Against America- Philip Roth
19. I’ll Be Gone In The Dark - Michelle McNamara
20. Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower #4)
21. The Last Jew of Treblinka - Chil Rajchman
22. The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty
23. The Institute - Stephen King
24. The Troop - Nick Cutter
25. Dark Age - Pierce Brown
26. The Green Mile - Stephen King

It’s been a while since I updated my books here, apologies.

 

What'd you think of I'll Be Gone In The Dark?

 

I liked it. I'm a sucker for true crime podcasts and I listened to I'll Be Gone In The Dark on audiobook so it really just felt like an extension of a true crime podcast. I didn't know much about the case so it was all fresh to me. If you're already familiar with the details I don't know that this presents any new information and I know there was an arrest after this came out and the book doesn't go into any of that.

 

Yeah I loved it. The common thought is that this book ultimately lead to the arrest. Michelle posthumously has been getting lauded

 

Just realized I never did a writeup of my October books. Whoops. I've got hours and untold hours of time right now, though (turkey's in the oven and Sleeping Beauty's on TV), so might as well.

Novels: A Gathering of Shadows was fun and quick. I enjoyed the continuation of the story and I'm looking forward to wrapping it up in the next installment. I did think that it got a little indulgent, and Lila's character came across as very "look at me I'm not like the other girls I'm so cool," but I did enjoy her actual arc and plot, so eh, no worries overall. I Don't Want to Kill You was great. It wrapped up the initial John Cleaver trilogy in a really satisfying way and introduced a cool new plot angle for the next series. I'll probably read some of Dan Wells's other stuff the next time I return to him before I get back to the next John Cleaver, but this one was a great conclusion to the arc. The Second Story was fun and quick, not a ton to say about it, it's a great MG novel and I'm looking forward to the third one that just came out. The Croning instantly became one of my favorite books ever, wow. It was fantastic. If you're looking for good, creepy, disturbing cosmic horror, look no further. Finally, I realized I haven't actually read much Lovecraft yet, so I started with The Colour out of Space because I already owned it in a collection. Good stuff, more science fiction than horror, but a good read as always.

Other: So Wolverines is finally done, thank heavens. What a mess. Some good stuff in this TPB, but mostly just plodding. I'm glad I finished it up though. And now I get to start reading The Hunt For Wolverine and finally get back to the reason I was reading these comics in the first place! so that's cool. Batman was really good, I loved the Bloom character and the wrap-up of previous events and threads. Still have to read Epilogue but then I'll be done with the New 52 Batman series and I can either catch up on the other Batman New 52 runs or move on to Rebirth or whatever. Spectacular Spider-Man was neat, lots of moments that for lack of a better word I'll call zany. I'm mostly just excited for the lead-in to Spider-Geddon, but I'm enjoying the ride. Everyone should read Gideon Falls because I think it's a fantastic use of the comics medium. It really breaks a lot of conventions and is a great horror story as well. It starts pretty slow (in a good way), so I'm really looking forward to volume 2. Hungry Ghosts was...meh. The art was pretty good, and the legends the stories are based on are really interesting, but the telling of the tales was rushed and kind of nonsensical. Not bad, just not as good as I'd hoped. Oh well.

 

November was a great month! I read two four star books and one 4.5 star book, so definitely turned out well.

I accidentally read Sarah Bessey’s new book in one sitting at Starbucks. I already love her, and this book moved me in a lot of ways. She shares about her struggle in faith and finding it again in a way that doesn’t feel preachy. Would definitely recommend.

I started reading the Arc of a Scythe series on a whim. We had the display at work with the final book (which I’m currently reading), so I dove in and am very impressed. Nothing amazing, but a very thoughtful YA series that’s thrilling and has profound things to say about how we view death as a society.

As far as comics, not a lot of new stuff, but the three Dawn of X series I’m subscribing to (X-Men, X-Force, Marauders) are great. I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed Absolute Carnage.

As always, recommendations are welcome. I can’t promise I’ll get to them this month, but I’d love to have some ideas for next year!

 

Scythe is so good. Gotta get the third here soon.

 

Hit my year goal today! read a couple short ones toward the end but I'm counting it lol

 

FINAL UPDATE. 150. Wow.

 

DAMN

 

I hit 149 and scrambled for a kid’s book, not gonna lie.

 

Book Lists 2020 • forum.chorus.fm