What Are You Reading 2017 - Page 17

farvacola

United States18869 Posts

December 26 2017 19:53 GMT

#321

On December 27 2017 04:36 Flicky wrote:

One thing I've tried which didn't work out for me was nobel prize winners. Chasing those did not work, but coming across an author who won one doesn't put me off.

Man, what a sobering reality this was when I tried the same thing. That said, it was nice to see Ishiguro win this past year, and yeah, every once in a while they get it right. I can't ever forget that they snubbed Virginia Woolf though :D

This thread and its yearly predecessors are a pretty good resource, I'd try some searches and see what turns up.

Atreides

United States2393 Posts

December 26 2017 23:32 GMT

#322

I went on a similar quest to read all the Pulitzer winners (novels). It was about 50/50.

If you buy a lot of books online you will get tons of recommended ones from whatever marketplace you use. I always look at those recommendations and end up reading a very small percentage but it is where I get a lot of my new reads in last few years.

IgnE

United States7684 Posts

December 26 2017 23:57 GMT

#323

@atreides

how many did you end up getting through?

Atreides

United States2393 Posts

December 27 2017 00:10 GMT

#324

On December 27 2017 08:57 IgnE wrote:
@atreides

how many did you end up getting through?

30-something. Most of the ones from 1940s-1960s were pretty good. There are some obvious great titles in that list which is what got me started on the idea in the first place. (Basically "The Old Man and the Sea" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" are in my personal all time greats list and gave me the whole idea.) I mostly gave up because I read 4 or 5 of the ones post 1990 and really just werent that interesting to me. "Olive Kitteridge" was pretty good, very different but I liked it. "Independence Day" by Richard Ford is the one that killed my interest finally, but it was kind of my own fault. When I looked into it it was part of a series of sorts so I tried to read the whole thing and I should have just read the one book.

To be honest, with a couple exceptions most of the ones that I thought were really good were ones I had at least heard of before. I read a couple books that I was familiar with the name of, but saw them on the list and was like "Huh, I didnt know that won the pulitzer" that turned out to be really good. (Lonesome Dove for example, which was nothing like I expected tbh) So I kind of decided that the pulitzer prize itself wasnt a very good determining factor. The books on the list that were really great had reputations independent of that, and the little known ones were kind of like I said 50/50, Its not the worst way to pick some reads though.

I havent read a book just because it was on the list for 5 years or so though.

The main appeal is if you want to read some more serious "American Literature" that isnt just bestseller stuff. I had just finished up a stint of European classics before I started it.

The problem comes from the fact that I mostly like novels, and the category is really just "fiction" and so a lot of the pieces arent really novels especially in last 30 years.

Archeon

3274 Posts

December 27 2017 01:25 GMT

#325

Just finished Reaper's Gale, Steven Erickson's 7th entry of the Malazan series and I've got to say the man gets better with every book he writes. Which was by now has become pretty impressive. Malazan might actually be the best fantasy series I've read since Riddle Master.
Although for an archeologist writing fantasy he has surprisingly little understanding of strategy. I hope someone wrote him a letter and the great sawtooth formations stop happening in the next book.

On December 04 2017 12:30 B.I.G. wrote:
Can anyone recommend books on some of the following historic subjects:
-Hannibal Barca
-Charlemagne
-Theodoric the great
-Anything on the early European "tribes" like the visigoths, osthrogoths, etc

Thanks!

Enjoyed Gisbert Haef's Hannibal, but I read it in German and neither wikipedia nor duckduck could tell me if there's an English version.

As weird as that may sound, Ad Astra - Scipio to Hannibal is a manga that leans on original sources about Hannibal and doesn't do bs either on strategy part nor in the political area as far as I can tell, and I've read a bit up on both parts. So if that's your thing, I enjoyed the read greatly. It doesn't seem to get translated any further or got cancelled though, but it depicts most of his Italy expedition until Cannae where it ends.

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