Foster Zygote
Dental Floss Tycoon
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I'd recommend finishing the series. I enjoyed it very much.
Favourite book(s) read in 2022?
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I'd recommend finishing the series. I enjoyed it very much.
My favourite book this year was "Again, Rachel" by Marian Keyes. Deep and hilarious.
Second favourite was "The Time of My Life" by Myf Warhurst, her autobiography. Sweet and funny.
Second favourite was "The Time of My Life" by Myf Warhurst, her autobiography. Sweet and funny.
Faydra
sinning sybarite
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Again Rachel appears to be part of a series, do you recommend the entire series? If not, can they be read separately without being lost?
I read them separately and wasn't lost. I recommend all the books of hers I've read, which is a large perception of them.
I read Again, Rachel about 20 years after reading the first one, and Again Rachel reminded me of the bits necessary to understand the story. A fine book.
A quick scan through my Goodreads list to pick out some highlights.
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes - Rob Wilkins
Official biography written by PTerry's long-standing assistant. Naturally a little one-sided, but actually feels very balanced and doesn't shy away from the great man's eccentricities and acerbic side.
Little Women/Little Men/Jo's Boys - Louisa May Alcott
Finally got round to reading these and loved them. A little saccharine and unrealistic in places, but also deeply touching and affecting. Well worth the effort, though probably not to everyone's taste.
A Decade in Tory - Russell Jones
Definitely one-sided, but hilarious account of the Tory government between 2010 and 2020.
Undoctored: Adam Kay
Following on from his bestselling This Is Going To Hurt covering Adam's time as a junior doctor in the NHS, this second book focuses more on Adam's time after leaving the medical profession, but includes flashbacks, and is a more serious take on the issues facing the NHS, and Adam's life in general.
honourable mentions to:
The Gray Man - Mark Greaney
I saw the Netflix film, enjoyed it, and went back to the original book, which is less glamourised, but still a great action/thriller romp about a disavowed assassin.
Point of Impact - Stephen Hunter
This time I read the book first then went on to watch the film (which was pretty good) and the TV series, (which started good then got pretty crazy). Ex Marine sniper comes out of retirement to help prevent an assassination attempt on the US President, and it all goes Pete Tong. Very solid writing, and the start of a good series.
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes - Rob Wilkins
Official biography written by PTerry's long-standing assistant. Naturally a little one-sided, but actually feels very balanced and doesn't shy away from the great man's eccentricities and acerbic side.
Little Women/Little Men/Jo's Boys - Louisa May Alcott
Finally got round to reading these and loved them. A little saccharine and unrealistic in places, but also deeply touching and affecting. Well worth the effort, though probably not to everyone's taste.
A Decade in Tory - Russell Jones
Definitely one-sided, but hilarious account of the Tory government between 2010 and 2020.
Undoctored: Adam Kay
Following on from his bestselling This Is Going To Hurt covering Adam's time as a junior doctor in the NHS, this second book focuses more on Adam's time after leaving the medical profession, but includes flashbacks, and is a more serious take on the issues facing the NHS, and Adam's life in general.
honourable mentions to:
The Gray Man - Mark Greaney
I saw the Netflix film, enjoyed it, and went back to the original book, which is less glamourised, but still a great action/thriller romp about a disavowed assassin.
Point of Impact - Stephen Hunter
This time I read the book first then went on to watch the film (which was pretty good) and the TV series, (which started good then got pretty crazy). Ex Marine sniper comes out of retirement to help prevent an assassination attempt on the US President, and it all goes Pete Tong. Very solid writing, and the start of a good series.
Athyrio
Hipster Doofus
Like your selection. Currently trying to read books that were written before I was born. Just finished Typee a week ago that took me a few months to read because of my habit of reading a few books at a time - an office (home) book, a bedroom book, and a vehicle book. Typee was the vehicle book so I was going to replace it with Not Without Laughter but it turned out to be easy reading, really flowed, because most of it was conversation and I could hear the dialect in my head like I was watching a movie, so it never made it into the vehicle.
I'd say my favorite book this year was Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology, by J. Storrs Hall. I did a reread of Engines of Creation before this (I think it holds up pretty well), but I'd say this is the better of the two books, and not just because it's more recent. It feels like he goes deeper both into the potentials of the technology, the potential dangers, the ways it can develop (more incrementally than Drexler implies), etc. I'd say it's the best look at nanotechnology that I've seen.
Runners up (I think these are all from this year, with Covid time just seems to have blended together the last few years):
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. This was incredibly fun, and very similar in style to The Martian, which I also loved. It's got the same sort of one puzzle followed by another style, the same fun vibe. I finished it in basically one sitting as I couldn't put it down.
War and Peace, Tolstoy: This held up to its reputation. There's something incredibly real about the people portrayed in this story, it feels like a deep and subtle examination of the soul of humanity. It's a famously long book, but he often says so much with a few passing words of description about someone's manner.
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham: Maugham is my favorite author and I've read most of what's he's written, but I'd been saving his most famous book for the right time. That time finally came and it didn't disappoint. It's a semi-autobiographical work, or you could think of it as a highly fictionalized version of the author's life, in which he really doesn't come off that well. It's still a work of fiction and not meant to represent real events, but his life is sort of the template for the story. There's a grimness to the world he portrays, but there are also rays of beauty and hope. Maugham is just one of those authors who seems to understand people, at our best but also our weaknesses and the ugly sides we try to hide, and somehow he manages to show both sides of humanity in a way that feels real and natural. Anyway, highly recommended.
Runners up (I think these are all from this year, with Covid time just seems to have blended together the last few years):
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. This was incredibly fun, and very similar in style to The Martian, which I also loved. It's got the same sort of one puzzle followed by another style, the same fun vibe. I finished it in basically one sitting as I couldn't put it down.
War and Peace, Tolstoy: This held up to its reputation. There's something incredibly real about the people portrayed in this story, it feels like a deep and subtle examination of the soul of humanity. It's a famously long book, but he often says so much with a few passing words of description about someone's manner.
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham: Maugham is my favorite author and I've read most of what's he's written, but I'd been saving his most famous book for the right time. That time finally came and it didn't disappoint. It's a semi-autobiographical work, or you could think of it as a highly fictionalized version of the author's life, in which he really doesn't come off that well. It's still a work of fiction and not meant to represent real events, but his life is sort of the template for the story. There's a grimness to the world he portrays, but there are also rays of beauty and hope. Maugham is just one of those authors who seems to understand people, at our best but also our weaknesses and the ugly sides we try to hide, and somehow he manages to show both sides of humanity in a way that feels real and natural. Anyway, highly recommended.
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I read those this year as well, on the recommendation of someone on the forum (maybe you?). They were great.
Faydra
sinning sybarite
- Joined
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I just finished Piranesi by Susanna Clark.
I absolutely loved it, although I will say it's not for everyone.
Piranesi lives in the house. "The house" is a massive series of interconnected halls with statues in them and subject to persistent and terrible flooding. He lives in the house with 'The other', and 13 dead people. That is the entirety of the world.
So wonderfully odd, it's the only book I have ever wanted to read again.
I absolutely loved it, although I will say it's not for everyone.
Piranesi lives in the house. "The house" is a massive series of interconnected halls with statues in them and subject to persistent and terrible flooding. He lives in the house with 'The other', and 13 dead people. That is the entirety of the world.
So wonderfully odd, it's the only book I have ever wanted to read again.
Mongrel
Begging for Scraps
My two favourites from last year;
Recursion by Blake Crouch. Hard to say why without spoiling it but starts slow, speeds up then goes very sideways heading towards apocalypse
Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. The story of a student in a semi-sentient magic school that doesn't care if you get killed in class or by the 'mals', magic creatures that regard students as snacks. It's an older YA novel but a fun read, Harry Potter meets Battle Royale.
Recursion by Blake Crouch. Hard to say why without spoiling it but starts slow, speeds up then goes very sideways heading towards apocalypse
Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. The story of a student in a semi-sentient magic school that doesn't care if you get killed in class or by the 'mals', magic creatures that regard students as snacks. It's an older YA novel but a fun read, Harry Potter meets Battle Royale.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
I read between forty to fifty books during 2022. I have managed to whittle the ones I enjoyed the most to the following four:
Compartment No 6
by Rosa Liksom (Author), Lola Rogers
A young woman burning with curiosity to visit the petrographs of far east Siberia at the Ukok plateau on the Russian-Mongolian border near Kazakhstan, sets off by train from Moscow via Helsinki. Liksom tells of a deeply introspective weeks’ long journey by train from Moscow to Ulan Baator in Mongolia. The characters - who are strangers who meet on the train - are described as ‘the man’ and ‘the girl’, and in in the third person narrative, but through the narrative of the man conversing passionately about his life in the Soviet Union, whilst she listens, rarely speaking. There is a roughness about the man and a hint of violence and even danger. However, there is a rich narrative of the girl’s inner life, of what she has left behind in Moscow, and through the eyes of an outsider, as a Finn.
Some parts are almost a travelogue as they pass through old Soviet towns, near-deserted settlements and kolkhozes (collective farms) - through and past the Ural mountains - and other parts a spiritual exploration of Soviet and post-Soviet history and the natural scenery, as the train passes through a vast Siberian landscape from west to east. The changing of the days, the stars, the sky, the people. The poetic style of writing reminded me of Jack Kerouac. Having reached Ulan Baator, the girl manages to find some willing Uyghur guides to take her to see the petroglyphs. It is an uplifting moment. Does she meet up with the man again? You will have to read the book.
I had to look up some references, such as the man’s liking for smetana (a slightly sour cream rather like crème fraiche) and felt I had gained a richer knowledge of that mysterious part of the world.
A View Of The Harbour:
by Elizabeth Taylor
I love Elizabeth Taylor novels. She writes with such intense acuity and perspicacity. Her insights into human nature are second to none. Her observational skills makes one gasp. Yet she writes with subtle humour to marvellous comedic effect, with the lightest of touch.
A View of the Harbour is set in an English seaside town, set in the days of lighting by gas lamp, suspenders and corsets. Tory, a fashion-conscious divorcee and flibbertigibbet, is conducting an affair with Robert, the GP husband of her old schoolfriend Beth, a novelist, who lives next door.
The tale unfolds gently with the banalities of small town life. But stick with it, as Taylor draws the reader in to a whole community, at turns, funny, sad, dark, light and before you know it, you can't put the book down until it reaches its epiphany, which is expected, yet unexpected, as we realise Tory is not quite the lightweight floozy we thought.
As usual with Taylor, there is more to the characters than meet the eye. Her wicked wit and subtle mockery of some of them, makes one suspect she is writing about real people from life who once crossed her, and the gentle send up of them, her writer's revenge.
Zennor in Darkness
by Helen Dunmore
Absolute classic! Dunmore is much missed. One of the best writers of our time. Set in St Ives, Cornwall, this tells the story of Clare Coyne and her widowed gentleman father, Francis. Clare has three female cousins and a fourth, John William, with whom she is very close, having all of them grown up together. Set in WWI in 1918, war and conscription is the landscape.
Enter one D.H. Lawrence and his pariah German wife, Frieda, fleeing the spies and tormentors, to a remote Cornish cottage, and there we have the perfect tale of Clare, John William and DH Lawrence (‘Lorenzo’ to wife Frieda.)
Dunmore writes vividly and incredibly poetically. A few brushstrokes, beautiful similes and metaphors and the reader is right there in turn of the century Cornwall in a compelling portrait of love, secrets and ultimate betrayal.
Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
by Albert Woodfox
This is a searing indictment of the US prison system and its particularly unfair and unequal treatment towards African-Americans. Albert Woodfox spent some forty-four years locked up, mostly in solitary, in the notorious ‘Angola’ prison, where he eventually teamed up with Herman Wallace and Robert Hillary King, via a burgeoning Black Panther movement, to become known by civil rights campaigners as ‘The Angola Three’. This led to reform of the treatment of such prisoners.
Albert Woodfox came into my view when he died recently. I read an obituary in a newspaper, compelling me to find out more.
I could barely put the book down. However, it was so horrific and desperately sad, I could only read two chapters at a time. However, I did have to read to the end!
Fantastic writing and hopefully, a catalyst to change in the US justice system.
Every so often, an unlikely book comes along that triggers one's imagination. this is one that happened for me in 2022.
Compartment No 6
by Rosa Liksom (Author), Lola Rogers
A young woman burning with curiosity to visit the petrographs of far east Siberia at the Ukok plateau on the Russian-Mongolian border near Kazakhstan, sets off by train from Moscow via Helsinki. Liksom tells of a deeply introspective weeks’ long journey by train from Moscow to Ulan Baator in Mongolia. The characters - who are strangers who meet on the train - are described as ‘the man’ and ‘the girl’, and in in the third person narrative, but through the narrative of the man conversing passionately about his life in the Soviet Union, whilst she listens, rarely speaking. There is a roughness about the man and a hint of violence and even danger. However, there is a rich narrative of the girl’s inner life, of what she has left behind in Moscow, and through the eyes of an outsider, as a Finn.
Some parts are almost a travelogue as they pass through old Soviet towns, near-deserted settlements and kolkhozes (collective farms) - through and past the Ural mountains - and other parts a spiritual exploration of Soviet and post-Soviet history and the natural scenery, as the train passes through a vast Siberian landscape from west to east. The changing of the days, the stars, the sky, the people. The poetic style of writing reminded me of Jack Kerouac. Having reached Ulan Baator, the girl manages to find some willing Uyghur guides to take her to see the petroglyphs. It is an uplifting moment. Does she meet up with the man again? You will have to read the book.
I had to look up some references, such as the man’s liking for smetana (a slightly sour cream rather like crème fraiche) and felt I had gained a richer knowledge of that mysterious part of the world.
A View Of The Harbour:
by Elizabeth Taylor
I love Elizabeth Taylor novels. She writes with such intense acuity and perspicacity. Her insights into human nature are second to none. Her observational skills makes one gasp. Yet she writes with subtle humour to marvellous comedic effect, with the lightest of touch.
A View of the Harbour is set in an English seaside town, set in the days of lighting by gas lamp, suspenders and corsets. Tory, a fashion-conscious divorcee and flibbertigibbet, is conducting an affair with Robert, the GP husband of her old schoolfriend Beth, a novelist, who lives next door.
The tale unfolds gently with the banalities of small town life. But stick with it, as Taylor draws the reader in to a whole community, at turns, funny, sad, dark, light and before you know it, you can't put the book down until it reaches its epiphany, which is expected, yet unexpected, as we realise Tory is not quite the lightweight floozy we thought.
As usual with Taylor, there is more to the characters than meet the eye. Her wicked wit and subtle mockery of some of them, makes one suspect she is writing about real people from life who once crossed her, and the gentle send up of them, her writer's revenge.
Zennor in Darkness
by Helen Dunmore
Absolute classic! Dunmore is much missed. One of the best writers of our time. Set in St Ives, Cornwall, this tells the story of Clare Coyne and her widowed gentleman father, Francis. Clare has three female cousins and a fourth, John William, with whom she is very close, having all of them grown up together. Set in WWI in 1918, war and conscription is the landscape.
Enter one D.H. Lawrence and his pariah German wife, Frieda, fleeing the spies and tormentors, to a remote Cornish cottage, and there we have the perfect tale of Clare, John William and DH Lawrence (‘Lorenzo’ to wife Frieda.)
Dunmore writes vividly and incredibly poetically. A few brushstrokes, beautiful similes and metaphors and the reader is right there in turn of the century Cornwall in a compelling portrait of love, secrets and ultimate betrayal.
Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
by Albert Woodfox
This is a searing indictment of the US prison system and its particularly unfair and unequal treatment towards African-Americans. Albert Woodfox spent some forty-four years locked up, mostly in solitary, in the notorious ‘Angola’ prison, where he eventually teamed up with Herman Wallace and Robert Hillary King, via a burgeoning Black Panther movement, to become known by civil rights campaigners as ‘The Angola Three’. This led to reform of the treatment of such prisoners.
Albert Woodfox came into my view when he died recently. I read an obituary in a newspaper, compelling me to find out more.
I could barely put the book down. However, it was so horrific and desperately sad, I could only read two chapters at a time. However, I did have to read to the end!
Fantastic writing and hopefully, a catalyst to change in the US justice system.
Every so often, an unlikely book comes along that triggers one's imagination. this is one that happened for me in 2022.
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I read the trilogy a few years ago and just watched the first episode of the Chinese adaptation: