Be Excellent To Each Other

I am determined to read more this year, so I thought why not do a 52 challenge like that there games one. My aim is to try and read, at least 10 of each of the following:
Non Fiction
Classic books
Stuff by authors I used to read (including rereading some books)
New (to me) books

So, without further ado, here is my first completed book.

1) How to be right... in a world gone wrong by James O'Brien

Pretty much exactly what you'd expect if you follow him on Twitter or listen to his LBC Show, I find myself tending to agree with him on most things, and he does explain things quite well.

Great idea Malc! I think I'll keep a list here too (once I finish a book this year)

It is a good idea. Macbeth, Jo Nesbo. Despite the title, it did not occur to me that this was a re-write of the play. Um, well, yes; obviously. It works well to start with, then less well as the madness kicks in. It just isn't very convincing in a modern setting. I still finished it, but I can't recommend it.

Yeah Kern, it's not a great idea, only a a good one. Thanks JBR!

52 is somewhat ambitious. I’d be happy if I read 12 books this year.

What a reasonable idea!

I'm currently reading "The Wandering Inn", which is literally a gazillion pages long, so it might be tricky to get through 52...
https://wanderinginn.com/

In!

1) Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (fiction)

What happens when a nano-virus designed to speed up evolution can't find the monkeys it was meant to infect and infects spiders instead? GIANT HYPERSMART SPIDERS. And what if that planet was the only planet left that the remaining human race can land on to live? FIND OUT IN THIS BOOK! (Also one of the main characters is called Kern, which is fun). 8/10!

"the French Revolution and what went wrong"

About what went wrong in the French Revolution

I like this idea.

Serious stupid question, do audio books count? I would say much of the time I spent listening to audio books is time I'd otherwise spend reading, I just like the ability to nod off while doing it.

Sure, just type them all out and you're good to go.

Yeah, I think audio books should count, it's not quite the same as reading, but someone is reading it to you and you're taking the time to listen, so it's a close second.

1) The Midnight Line - Lee Childs

Book 22 in the Jack Reacher series, 8/10

Jack Reacher is having a bad day.

It would be a dumb idea to make it worse.
Reacher sees a West Point class ring in a pawn shop window. It’s tiny. It's a woman cadet’s graduation present to herself. Why would she give it up? Reacher was a West Pointer too, and he knows what she went through to get it.

All he wants is to find the woman.

No chance of me reaching 52, but I will give it a go

1.) The Road Past Mandalay by John Masters.
A book found on a bookshelf in a pub, an interesting ( but very much of it's time ) abourt a Indian Army officer's experience in WWII - Iraq, Persia, Syria and then Burma.

1) Night Film by Marisha Pessl

A BOOK WOT I READ WITH MY PEEPERS. A well crafted thriller. Schlocky at times, but it plays with the form in sometimes interesting ways, and uses multimedia to change how exposition and plot development is played out (e.g. newspaper articles, magazine interviews) and so forth. It's about a mysterious film auteur famed for making terrifying, cultish films. The book has plenty of potential to be anything but, and I found myself unable to unpick where it was headed. Definitely recommended.

1) The Midnight Line - Lee Childs - Kindle
2) The Chimp Paradox - Dr. Steve Peters - Audiobook



Have found it a very helpful book, I keep listening in the car. 9/10

Ooh I'm in!

1) Jo Nesbo - The Son

That's the book which picks the Reacher series back up again after a few ropey books.

Is that the one that ends with the washing machine?

Not that I recall

Which? Is the best buy Lee Child?

Yes a tumble dryer.

Just on past tense now.

I just started from book one and worked through. Some are a bit off, but the rest is great.

Ha, thanks, it was actually an attempt at a shit joke based on the washing machine query.

I have read the first one and enjoyed it a lot, but imagined I'd be re reading the same story in the later books.

i suppose yes, like Bond films, evil villan, girl, save world, fast cars. Reacher is a big 'littlest hobo' drifts into a town, and sorts a problem.

I like that. Michael Knight is basically the littlest hobo in a talking car.

Seems doable

1) The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

Ooh, she was recommended to me. What are your thoughts on her?

1) Jo Nesbo - The Son
2) Lee Child - Without Fail

I asked Gaz for The Testatments for Christmas as I'd really enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale book end of last year (late to this party as apparently everyone else in the world had read it). I started and finished it within 24 hours - it was really good. There were a couple of things that struck me as a little inconsistent with the first book but with the large gap between the release of the two that doesn't surprise me. Definitely recommend both books though - start with The Handmaid's Tale if you've not read it already.

I haven't and I will. Thank you.

2) Firefly: The Unification War by Greg Pak and Dan McDaid

Starts off excellent, ends pretty poorly.

Title.

63%

This is most excellent and I recommend it. Louis XVI wasn't a total prick, Marie Antoinette wasn't entirely innocent of being a knob.

Just finished the last book in the painted man series. Very good, at a loss now

Not looking good for Louis XVI at the moment, lads. Basically, he's gone fucked up by wanting to do clocks, locks,and hunting all day and stuff, and his wife has totally gone fucked up with her pretend farm and hats and shit, everyone thinks he is sooooo past it and are openly taking the piss, and calling the queen "the other bitch" in a great pun and saying she is totally slutting it about, too!!.. However, he's trying to keep his game together and has set up some reforms to get the country back inside!

Can't wait to see how this one ends. Redemptive third act on the way! He's only gotten everyone around his gaff for a big chinwag about how to straighten it out. He could pull a blinder here.

1) Jim Butcher, Brief Cases.

Parkour, bitch.

3) Hero - Lee Child (non-fiction)

A great - but short - exploration into language throughout history, with an explanation of how it lead to the survival of the human race. Well worth a read.

Bad news, lads. He totally Pinot'd it.

1) The Midnight Line - Lee Childs - Kindle
2) The Chimp Paradox - Dr. Steve Peters - Audiobook
3) Past Tense - Lee Childs - kindle

Reacher ends up near the town his dad was born. Decides to research the family tree. Uncovers more than he bargains for. 9/10 if you are a Reacher fan

What's twist!. They have gone and chopped his head off! And his wife's!

2) Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze - Charlotte Jansen

Jesus! I’d better pick someone else to bet on for the TdF now.

1. Star Wars: Aftermath – Chuck Wendig

First book in a trilogy that explores the fall of the Empire after Return of the Jedi, leading up to the events of The Force Awakens. A decent first book featuring returning characters Norra and Temmin “Snap” Wexley as well as Wedge Antilles, along with a host of new characters (and some I recognise from X-Wing pilot and crew cards!). There’s even a heavily modified B1 battle droid, so he wasn’t afraid to reference the prequels either.

Just starting the second one now.

3) Jim Denny and Pat Williams - How to be like Walt (Audio)

I enjoyed this from three perspectives, hearing about Walt Disney and his life, hearing what they had to go through to bring it all together and how Walt ran his business. I found it pretty feel good and with a couple of crappy weeks at work, looked forward to getting back into my car to listen to more.

Mythos - Stephen Fry: A Book Wot I Read With My Ears (ABWIRWME). Frequently obscene, often gruesome, always fascinating, this retelling of the Greek myths by Stephen Fry is a pleasure. His insights on the etymology of words such as Echo are interesting, though often feel like something one should know already.

Sapiens - Yuval Hoah Harari: (ABWIRWME).
Very accessible and well-researched history of the human race. The extent to which mankind's progress has been defined by its ability to be administrative is striking e.g. writing was invented, not so we could communicate, but to store information such as land ownership. The final chapter on understanding happiness felt particularly relevant, given the general horror around us.

2.) Ancestral Journeys - an interesting but a bit uneven book about the origins of Europeans and their migrations and cultural exchanges from Palaeolithic times up to vikings. A whole load of talk about haplogroups and mtDNA, and a slightly odd occasional divergence into actual "history" in a few places, along with a lot of pictures of pots. Lots of info about a fascinating subject but not always an exciting read.

Ooh, I've just started* this having only heard good things.



*Listened for few minutes then turned it off as I wasn't listening to it as I was thinking about other things.

My listening is often like that. I'm Trying mindfulness so I can better focus, but is definitely a downside of audiobooks vs reading books. Much easier to zone out.

4) The Stone Man by Luke Smitherd (fiction)

A sci-fi story about a large statue that appears in the UK and the journalist that ends up with a strange psychic link to it. Not bad, but not great.

Four in a month!

On track!

1. "Who Dares Wins" by Dominic Sandbrook

The fifth in his high enjoyable series* on the political and cultural life of Britain, taking the story through the first few years of Thatcher from the 1979 election to the Falklands. As ever, Sandbrook deftly mixes high politics with pop culture, and this one is no exception with chapters on football hooliganism, the Toxheath and Brixton riots, the micro boom, Sloane Rangers, Steve Davis, and Ian Botham at Headingly accompanying discussions about industrial decline, nuclear war, monetarism, the Troubles, and Ken Livingstone. I wonder if the jibes at Corbyn will date the book in years to come.


*The others being Never Had it So Good (Macmillan and Douglas-Home), White Heat (Wilson), State of Emergency (Heath), and Seasons in the Sun (Wilson Mk 2; Callaghan).