Book Lists 2019 Book • Page 2

Update

1. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami*
2. Skyward - Brandon Sanderson (currently listening)
3. Deadhouse Gates (Malazan #2) - Steven Erikson (currently reading)

*Finished 1Q84 and have very conflicting thoughts on it. I like Murakami and there were parts of 1Q84 I enjoyed but I can't help but feel that this was about 500 pages too long. I gave it 3 stars but not my favorite.

@Vivatoto I started Deadhouse Gates. I read a couple recaps of Gardens since it's been a couple years since I read that. Do you have any secondary resources you recommend to keep things straight, like a certain Malazan fan site or something?

 

I am also interested in this answer because I too will be starting DG in the next month or two.

 

Honestly, when I was going through the Wheel of Time I kept trying other resources and always ran into major spoilers, the same thing just happened to me with the Aspect Emperor series. I avoided it completely with Malazan. I more or less just accepted that there were things I wasn't going to understand at the time, but I feel like everything always came together eventually, even if it was books down the line. Tor.com did a Malazan re-reread where they go chapter by chapter for each book and summarize what's important, from both a new readers perspective and a second read. Those seem like they would help immensely but I could never find it in me to pause reading the book to read the summaries lol. Eventually there is a flowchart that will help you know what books to read but its not important now and there's also a flowchart for the magic system that I felt helped a lot, but that won't make any sense for a long time so I wouldn't worry about it until like book 6.

Oh and although it's obvious for fantasy reading, use the maps as much as possible. Print yourself up a world map since I don't think one is ever in the books

 

Okay thanks...so you're saying at a certain point it's been recommended to ditch the release order of the books and switch to a chronological order or what do you mean?

 

Oh no, definitely read the series in release order, I just mean if you plan on reading ICE books, which I 100% recommend and wouldn't read without them. The chart is also going to help with time frames and which books are going to be direct sequels.

Also my personal rec would be that you read Night of Knives after Deadhouse Gates, it's a novella and you can probably read it in one or two reads. The information regarding Malaz City is super important.

 

I was terrible last year. I have a modest goal of 25 this year.

 

Anyone in here keep a Goodreads or a book blog that they update there progress with?

 

I use Goodreads

 

Yeah I like Goodreads a lot. I mainly just use it for star ratings and keeping track though, I don't really write reviews.

 

I use Goodreads all the time! Deanna Chapman

 

As if a 10 book series wasn't long enough you have to go and tell me there's actually a zillion of them. Ok I'll look into it. Only 120 pages into Deadhouse Gates so it'll take me a bit to finish.

 

Send me your Goodreads, people!

 

If you're anything like me when it's all said and done, it won't be enough.

 

the hell is this chart

can't they just put it in bullet point format

 

Updated list. GoodReads linked above.

Currently reading:
Pierce Brown - Iron Gold
Rachel Held Evans - Inspired

 

I like those Pierce Brown books. Not the best thing ever but they're quite enjoyable for what they are.

 

I’m loving them. I needed something fun to start off the year. The Audible narrator is fantastic.

 

I haven't read Inspired yet, but I'm hoping to get to it this year. I have a lot of respect for Rachel Held Evans.

 

She and I went to the same college—a few years apart. Her father was a mentor of mine the four years I was there. I’ve read Monkeytown, but own the other three. I appreciate her openness, especially on Twitter and moving through the toughness and questions.

 

Colby Searcy

I only write reviews for stuff I get through Netgalley but am pretty good with updating it regularly with what I'm reading

 

Lol, I believe Torr.com has a suggested reading order that's in list format and has the same information but I just found it easier to visualize with the flow chart.

The magic flowchart is also very fun but I'd wait a few books to check that out.

 

I'm just now figuring out Malazan isn't the authorsa name

 

i keep forgetting / confusing that too. i just assume it's his last name, even though i'm reading the first fucking book and look at the cover on a daily basis. sounds like a good last name.

 

Ok I need to read my books. I need to get a nice dim lamp for my end table so I can start reading before bed cause my main light is too bright. My goal is to finish all my half read books this year.

Rn I'm reading Scream: the science of fear. One day I just had to know why we associate certain things with fear like ppl see ghosts as these old Victorian images but we never see like a flock of seagulls ghost. So anyway I stumbled upon the book at Powell's that same day. Beginning is talking about like rollercoasters and theme parks tho and idc about that so I'm slogging thru

 

Updated for January.

@Garrett L. wanted a bit more fun so here's a quick overview of what I've read (which hopefully constitutes as fun!)

I'm doing a counselling course so that's why I read Martin Payne and Irvin D. Yalom. The latter I would highly recommend as it's more of a general book but deals with the death anxiety we all experience at some point in life one way or another. I found it that it made me think and it was helpful overall.

In terms of fiction: I'm a big Bernard Cornwell fan (not sure if he's as big in America but his books are really popular here) so enjoyed reading the latest instalment of that series. As for The Snow Child, the first two thirds were gorgeously written so that was nice. I loved the Alaska snowscape setting - it really came alive.

I also happened to read the new Rachel Held Evans book about the Bible which was mentioned earlier in the thread. It was good overall. If you're on that kind of questioning beliefs journey as I am, it's a worthwhile read.

My mother-in-law passed on the Michelle Obama book to me so I thought I might as well read it - it was very enjoyable. Being in the UK I didn't know most of her story and I particularly appreciated the 'behind-the-scenes' White House life information when it gets to that bit of her life.

The Paul Matthew Harrison / Aaron Weiss friendship book was interesting as a fan of mewithoutYou but it's only a 150 page afterword to the actual book. If you didn't like that one "because it's more about Paul's life than Aaron", you won't like this one. I wrote a review of that here. I also wrote a review of Voices of Powerful Women because I had an ARC.

Eight books in total - a good start to the year.