Book Lists 2019 Book • Page 9

Late check in for July. It's been a busy month with job interviews and moving across the country, but those long trips meant that I knocked out a few books.

I enjoyed Unbury Carol; this was my first Malerman book and definitely want to check out more of his stuff. Biased was eye-opening and I'd highly recommend it to everyone. The Shining Girls was just good, and the Nickel Boys wasn't my favorite, but the writing itself was top notch. I re-read Surprised by Hope and loved it just as much as the first time; it's easily one of the most formational books in my life and faith.

Other than House of X and Powers of X (which both rock), nothing new to report on comics.

Any recommendations would be welcome, especially stuff that I could find at the library. On a side note, if any of you are in west Michigan, let's meet up and talk about books in person!

 

Slightly fast year, my goal was 50 books and I'm currently at 46 approaching quickly to 50. Might need to up that now!

 

Comics:
1) Happy!
2) A Study In Emerald

Audiobooks:
1) Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan
2) The Fifth To Die by J.D. Barker
3) Guess Who by Chris McGeorge
4) An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
5) A Stranger In The House by Shari Lapena
6) The President Is Missing by James Patterson
7) The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
8) The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
9) Light As A Feather, Stiff As Board by Zoe Aarsen
10) Two Can Keep A Secret by Karen M. McManus
11) The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
13) Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
14) The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn
15) IT by Stephen King
16) Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
17) Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard
18) The Hiding Place by C.J. Tudor
19) The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
20) The Girls In The Garden by Lisa Jewell
21) Watching You by Lisa Jewell
22) Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell

Books:
1) Elevation by Stephen King
2) The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
3) Two Can Keep A Secret by Karen M. McManus
4) The Hiding Place by C.J. Tudor
5) The House Next Door by James Patterson
6) Hunting Annabelle by Wendy Heard
7) The Property Ladder by Ruth Ware
8) The Tale of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
9) Light As A Feather by Zoe Aarsen
10) The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
11) The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz
13) Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
14) Watching You by Lisa Jewell
15) People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins
16) Invisible by James Patterson
17) Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
18) Every Heart A Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire
19) Down Among The Sticks And Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire


Updated as of today

If you can't tell I'm working my way through Lisa Jewell's bibliography via audiobook mostly but they are mostly all enjoyable so far.

The Sherlockian was also super cool and clever if you're into Sherlock Holmes and such.

Ellen Hopkins' book on gun violence was interesting and showed different perspectives especially in today's modern world.

Lock Every Door is my personal favorite of Riley's 3 books so far.

Wayward Children series are really good and I'd recommend them for fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland. Super short (about 170ish pages)

 

Finally got around to updating this. No surprise that over 1/3 of my reading so far this year has been King books. I have at least 5 more of his to read by December.

 

Update, I just finished The Nickel Boys as well....no spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it but the conclusion of this book made me react in a way no book ever has. I was simultaneously stunned, dazzled, impressed, and fucking devastated. I thought Underground Railroad hit me hard but this book took it to another level. One of the best books I’ve read in my life and it’ll stick with me for a long time.

 

breathtaking and horrific in equal measure. damn

 

Update, now at 20 books on the year. Latest:

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead*
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead*
Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, The Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape by Mark Lee Gardner*


currently reading: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Extremely enjoyable so far, and I've been surprised just how much dialogue the movie (which I love) took directly from the book.

 

Okay, much-belated July wrap-up update post from me.

Novels: Next Shannara book was great. I know this trilogy was released swiftly (like 14 months for all 3 books), and I've heard some fans say that they thought the series suffered as a result, but I've been really enjoying it. Classic conflicts, compelling character arcs, and interesting magic. I'm particularly enjoying how this series is chock-full of callbacks and borrowings from previous series, but in a way that actually makes sense (and is really cool) instead of just being fan servicey. I'm presently about to finish up book three and it definitely didn't disappoint. Similarly, Limited Wish was a great middle story and I'm excited for the final novella coming up later this year. I need to read more Mark Lawrence.

Comics: Heavy on the Spider-Man this month, and with much delight. I've loved Dan Slott's run, and these arcs were really solid. (The conclusion was great too, but shh, that's from August.) Spidey was neat too—I like reading about fully adult Peter Parker and Parker Industries and all that, but it's cool also to have a sort of throwback run with a younger Spider-Man just learning the webs. Definitely continuing this series. Rose was kind of disappointing, but maybe because I was expecting it to be more like Monstress, which is incredible. Rose still has some good stuff going for it, and I'll pick up the next tpb to see how the story progresses, but I'm a little cautious. (Mostly just not as original as I was hoping. Artwork is good though. Little more sexist in its treatment of the female characters than I'm okay with, but not enough to keep me from reading more—might turn out to be worldbuilding-related.) Finally, I recently received the complete Calvin & Hobbes collection as a gift, and I couldn't be more thrilled, but I'm hesitant to actually read out of it so I'm rereading some old battered collections I had when I was a kid haha. Perfection, as it always was.

For upcoming weeks: I'm finishing up the last Shannara book in this trilogy and then going to focus on some other authors for a couple months before I read another Terry Brooks book. I've got a few things I know I'll read immediately: rereading Masters of Atlantis; probably The Nonexistent Knight and a few other shorter works, including some YA novels, that I've got lying around; and then I'd like to read a thriller or a mystery or something as a brief reprieve from heavy fantasy. Any recommendations? I plan to read the next Soji Shimada book when it comes out in softcover, and I've been meaning to reread Dan Brown's books (and read the few I haven't read yet), same with James Rollins, but I'm willing to check out something new if anybody wants to recommend something thrillery, horrory, or mysteryy. After that, I want to jump back into big science fiction or fantasy, and that presents its own problem. Next Malazan? Next Lightbringer? Start The Dandelion Dynasty? Dune? Oathbringer? Bands of Mourning? The Reluctant Queen? The Iron Hound? Too many options. But that's where I'm at.

 

Oathbringer. Always.

 

I'm rereading Oathbringer right now and its tiiiiiiight

 

I’m working towards starting 2020 with a re-read of Wheel of Time, Stormlight, Narnia, and Harry Potter. And my bi-annual re-read of all things Tolkien.

 

That's awesome. I've done the full Cosmere, minus Oathbringer, and looking to start Lightbringer and Wheel of Time as soon as I'm done!

 

Updated my list for the month. Between moving and getting settled into my new job, I only finished The Sundial, but I really enjoyed it. Something that I think Shirley Jackson does really well is capturing how people add to or create horror, which was demonstrated well in this novel.

 

Solid month.

Novels: The Invisible Library was a fun read. I'll definitely be following the series when I get around to it—one of those "not a priority, but I'm interested" type of books. Definitely lots of potential for cool growth though. Shatterworld was decent; it's a self-pub story by a friend of mine, so I'm invested even when otherwise I might not continue with it. Good story and ideas, even when the execution is lacking. Looking forward to the final book sometime soon. Seven Forges was decent also. It was an easy, enjoyable read, like a knockoff David Gemmell, but with a few noticeable flaws (rampant sexism, some weird plot contrivances, lack of compelling individual characters beyond just a couple). I'll probably read the next book sometime, because this book set in motion some really interesting concepts (and there are a few mysteries I want to have solved), but I'm pretty ambivalent overall about it. (Maybe I should try his newer series? Seems like a reasonably good writer.) (Also, holy crap does that book need a better copyeditor.) Witch Wraith was everything I hoped it would be—fantastic conclusion to a compelling series. I'm very satisfied with it. I'm going to take a little break from Terry Brooks for a couple months and catch up on some other series/authors, but then I'll dive back in around November. Good stuff.

Other: Kind of a slow month for comics, which is funny because I just bought a bunch of new ones I'm really excited about (War of the Realms, Symbiote Spider-man, Aero, Ms. Marvel, and wtf Secret Warps???). The end of Dan Slott's run with Amazing Spider-Man was really fantastic. I loved the wrap-up with Carnage/Red Goblin; it seemed like a great concluding arc for such a long and varied run. I'll miss his work on ASM (fortunately I have lots of his stuff pre-Superior that I haven't read yet). Nick Spencer seems good to take up the mantle; the first issue was very "back to basics," and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Curious to see what new things he'll bring to the table though. I also started the Spectacular mini-run, and it's pretty interesting. I read a review that said Chip Zdarsky tends to just throw a bunch of ideas at the panel and see what happens, and that was definitely the case here. Good stuff so far though.

For September I've got a fun bunch of stories lined up: a reread of Masters of Atlantis, my next Italo Calvino story, a couple YA/MG novels on my shelf, a short story collection or two, a couple of nonfiction books (quantum physics mostly), another Sanderson novel or two, another nice big fantasy on my shelf, and a heavy-metal/vocaloid/anime/sci-fi novel that I'm super stoked about; and then for comics I'm going to hit Spider-man, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, and some tie-in stuff pretty hard, plus work through my backlog and throw in a couple manga. Pretty ambitious list, now that I look at it, but a lot of those are pretty quick reads. Very excited about this month for sure.

 

@Joel Gustafson Have you also read Dark Matter? I've read that but not Recursion yet (waiting for paperback). Just wondering about any (spoiler-free) comparisons.

 

So first off The Black Company series has been an easy read and a good enough time. The books are fairly short for fantasy, averaging a little over 300 pages, I read book 5 in one sitting. Some really powerful moments. It's not hitting as hard as the series that it inspired, things like Malazan and Aspect-Emperor, but it's definitely worth the read. The Lady rules.

I adored the first book of the Divine Comedy (The Inferno). The rhyming got a bit ludicrous but I guess that's why translations don't always works out best. I didn't as much enjoy the second two books, obviously some beautiful imagery but if you've read it you probably know what I'm talking about. Very much like reading a really out-there sermon.

Growing Things was great, Paul Tremblay fucking rules and I love everything he does. It's a bit insane that EVERY SINGLE STORY he has ever written ends in the most ambiguous way possible and he has a lot of fun with that here. There's also a lot of small connections to his other work so if you've read Head Full of Ghosts I definitely recommend checking it out, there's a few in there that connect to it.

I loved The Odyssey. Even more than I expected to and after reading the Iliad I was very much looking forward to it. I didn't like it as much as the Iliad but that's a tough bar to beat. The really big surprise for me was I had heard a lot about the story through school and pop culture and whatnot, but I'd only every heard about the journey, and knew nothing about the suitors and how Odysseus had to wage that brutal war when he got home. The last few chapters/books I read with my jaw fully dropped. Staying on the topic, I also read the Aeneid and also very much enjoyed it. I liked that it filled in all the blanks for the story of Troy that I was aware of but wasn't represented in the Iliad (Trojan horse and Achilles death, for example)

Ok so I love Josh Malerman but he had his first total stinker. Inspection. I hated almost all of it.

Just finished The Wanderers....I really loved the middle act, when they laid all the cards on the table and told us exactly what was going on, and then everything was leading to such an epic conclusion...but then it ended just alright. Wendig is definitely someone to keep an eye on though, I had absolutely no problems with his writing.

@Night Channels did you know about this? S. Craig Zahler who made the perfect Bone Tomahawk film is also a novelist and he has two books that fit into the same bloody horror/western category as BT? I read Congregation of Jackals and it fucking ruled. Lots of comparisons to be made with Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridan style. Got his next book ready to go after The Institute this Tuesday.

And I also found one of my absolute favorite series ever. Dan Simmons Ilium and Olympos. Fuuuuuuuuck. So I've read all of Simmons horror fiction, most of his action, and the Hyperion Cantos. I knew I shouldn't read Ilium and Olympos until I read The Iliad and Odyssey and now that I did that I immediately jumped on them. Like no joke, better than Hyperion. It has the same very hard sci fi elements that Hyperion has, but also The Iliad is playing out on Mars by Gods that appear to be real. It's absolutely fucking bonkers and I don't want to say too much about it but everyone should check it out if you like Hyperion and Homer. There's also a shitload of Shakespeare related stuff so the more of that you know the better.

As far as comics I feel like most of my reading has been new issues, which I don't collect here. I finished some thorough reading of the Top Cow Universe Circa 00's. Obviously all sorts of ups and downs but there was some good stuff in there. Joe Hill's The Wraith was excellent and absolutely a story worth of the masterpiece that is N0S4A2. Pretty Deadly is also incredible. If you like Monstress you should be reading.

 

I have! Recursion is definitely a lot wilder than Dark Matter. I think I still liked Dark Matter more, but Recursion was equally intense and very twisty.

 

I did not know this. Noted.

Currently about halfway through Wanderers and I'll obviously be following that up with The Institute.

Paul Howarth's Only Killers and Thieves is a part of my endless list as well.

 

Sorry started a new job so not had time to update for August. I read 9 books, finishing The Chronicles of Narnia. Not much new to say about them, haha! My main recommendation is There There by Tommy Orange. It was a great read and great to read a book that centred on Native American peoples.

My other recommendation was something that I had been reading on my lunch breaks at my old job - A History of Christianity. It was over 1000 pages but I am so glad that I invested time into it. It's written by an Oxford historian who is not a Christian. I did study History at university and some of the threads of history were familiar to me but I learnt so much. To be honest, I wish I had read this years ago and I also wish that Christians would read this because it really made me see that most people don't have a clue about where they or their beliefs come from. If you live in America or the UK (like myself), your life is basically wrapped up in the history of Christianity and I think most people would benefit from understanding that. Finally, I appreciated that this book did not just centre on the white Christian story but made ever effort to keep the focus on Eastern Christianity and then other parts of the world as the time progressed. Overall, an illuminating read.

 

Sweet! I'm really excited for it. I figured it would be great, but you never know. Thanks!

 

Wasn't sure where else to post this, this looks like the right spot. Anyone interested in reading this?



I got it for my girlfriend after hearing terrific things and she already read it so I wanna give it to someone who would like it. Absolutely free, i'll even cover shipping. Let me know!

 

Well, September was another solid month for me, and led nicely into an October that's been filled with some good horror novels so far. But more on that at the end of the month. For now, September's review.

Novels: Calvino doesn't disappoint (he never does) with The Nonexistent Knight. I found this to be charming and clever, and I really enjoyed it. I think I'll tackle Cosmicomics next. Annihilation was fantastic, a little bit different of an experience than the movie (but both were great). It definitely made me stop and ponder things multiple times. Looking forward to finishing the series soon. For some reason I decided to read Solaris right afterward (I'd recently watched one of the movies and wanted to follow it up). That was a fun read right after Annihilation; they both deal with similar topics and made me consider parallel questions about humanity and identity. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Solaris, given that half of it is fake scientific history lessons. It was really good though—instantly a favorite.

Other: Finishing the original run of Ms. Marvel was definitely bittersweet. I've loved the entire story start to finish, and it was a fantastic ending. I'm looking forward to what's next, but I'll definitely be revisiting these initial TPBs in the future. The Life of Captain Marvel was ... interesting. I liked it, for sure, but I'm curious to see how this semi-retcon will affect future comics. It was a good story, and it hit a lot of the right themes for Carol, but ... it'll be interesting, that's all. Symbiote Spider-Man was really, really, really good. My wife bought them for me as single issues for my birthday. It was a really neat storyline that bridged a gap in Peter's history and added some cool insight to current stories. I think it's just a mini-arc and finished, but if they ever picked up with it later on, I'd be excited. Finally, Voices of a Distant Star was great. The short film is one of my favorites, so it was nice to revisit it as a manga. Good stuff.

For October, I've got a couple good novels and comics already under my belt, and I just picked up about a dozen books at the library for the month. I might start with The Croning or some Lovecraft. I've also got the newest Soji Shimada, a couple of Stephen King books, and an audiobook or two to handle this month, as well as some darker comics/manga lined up, so it'll be pretty full of horror/suspense/good spooky stuff for Halloween. I'm also going to blaze through a couple SFF books on my shelf in between. Should be a really solid month for me.

 

I'm a really slow reader. So far in 2019 I've only read...

The Jordan Rules - Sam Smith
An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth - Chris Hadfield
The Final Detail - Harlan Coben

On deck is Breaks Of The Game - David Halberstam

 

Huge update. My new job allows for a lot of audiobook reading time...

 

What are you doing now for job?