Mount TBR 2017 discussion
Level 8: Mt. Olympus (150+)
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Andrew's Ambition is Probably Annoying
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I've started today with a graphic novel, because I saw volume two has come out and I haven't read the first volume yet, a 400+ page fantasy book called Castle Waiting by Linda Medley. I do read tons of graphic novels, and when a friend of mine sadly passed away early last year, I came into possession of many of his. They've been sitting on shelves all year. I won't only be reading these, but they are part of what I would like to spend my time on in 2017.
Book 1: Castle Waiting by Linda Medley finished 1/2/17.Talk about immersion...I dove in and read the bulk of this in one day. It starts out with the familiar tale of sleeping beauty, but that's just to get things started. We have a fully realized fantasy world, a gentle, funny, adventurous world with gorgeous art and storytelling and lettering by my favorite letterer in comics, Todd Klein, who knocks my socks off this time. I kept making sounds like "squee" and "yess!" and "oh my god!" and "how could anyone not love this?!"
So yeah, highest possible recommendation.
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Oh, but you DO! ;-) It's really very good...hahaha....So I guess to get this done it's three TBR books a week. I hadn't thought this through before committing. But I'm still gonna do it, by golly!
Wow! This sounds wonderful, Andrew. I've never read graphic novels (mostly I read mystery novels) but this one really intrigues me. My local library has a copy of it, so I'm going for it (even though it can't count for my climb this year up Mt. Ararat.) Wait, the point is to decrease my TBR pile, not increase it. Hahaha.
*evil grin*Well, I read it relatively quickly, so maybe it will be a similar experience for you...or you could get it and save it for next year!
Andrew wrote: "Book 1: Castle Waiting by Linda Medley finished 1/2/17.Talk about immersion...I dove in and read the bulk of this in one day. It starts out with the familiar tale ..."
This looks awesome! Is the art full-color or black and white?
The art is black and white. I think later volumes have color but I'm not sure. If you go to images.google.com and search "castle waiting" you can see some sample frames.
Looks like a good find! would you recommend it?
OH, yes, highest possible recommendation!
Mod
So I guess to get this done it's three TBR books a week. I hadn't thought this through before committing. But I'm still gonna do it, by golly!"
This is your evil plot--to get us so distracted by your books that you're the only one to reach the top of Olympus. :-)
Bev wrote: "This is your evil plot--to get us so distracted by your books that you're the only one to reach the top of Olympus. :-) "Muahahaha
Nah, I want us all to succeed. I just also have that insatiable desire to spread the good stuff around!
Andrew wrote: "So I guess to get this done it's three TBR books a week. I hadn't thought this through before committing. But I'm still gonna do it, by golly!"I sum it up -- 25 books every two months.
Steven wrote: "Andrew wrote: "So I guess to get this done it's three TBR books a week. I hadn't thought this through before committing. But I'm still gonna do it, by golly!"I sum it up -- 25 books every two months"
That works too!
Mod
Muahahaha
Nah, I want us all to succeed. I just also have tha..."
:-)
Andrew wrote: "Book 1: Castle Waiting by Linda Medley finished 1/2/17.Talk about immersion...I dove in and read the bulk of this in one day. It starts out with the familiar tale ..."
That looks interesting. I'm tackling about 25 books this month too.
This morning I finished book two on the climb, Boy21 by Matthew Quick. This is a young adult novel by the Silver Linings Playbook guy. I grabbed this at the Dollar Tree last year for a buck, because I love books about outsider types. Boy21 is an outsider who is the kind I enjoy reading about. The narrator, an Irish kid who doesn't like to talk and is part of the Irish mob, is still kinda normal so wasn't very interesting to me. And what is it with young adult novels pretending that teens can spend hours just kissing? Please! I was not a sexually active kid but even I am not that naive.Anyway.
The story was engaging up until everything started happening out of the blue and, well, yeah. But I liked aspects of it, and I really liked the character of Boy21, so there ya go. 3 out of 5 stars. Book to be donated.
Last night I "curled up" with a strange and beautiful graphic novel by Michel Gagné called The Saga of Rex, about a fox-like creature, a strange annual ritual of the gods, some sci-fi games, surreal landscapes, soulmates, tragedy, heroism, and wonder. My inner child and my guardian angel were both overjoyed. It's a keeper.
Further, I abandoned Oliver Twist (I won't be counting it, because I only stopped at chapter three!). I started In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. I have also started The Complete Normalman: Volume 1 by Jim Valentino, a comic book series twisting on Superman, in which a kid gets sent into outer space by a lunatic father who mistakenly thinks his planet is going to explode, and this normal kid ends up on a planet completely populated by superheroes. So far, it's a lot of fun.
Today I finished In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. I didn't know there was so much more basic stuff to learn on this topic, but there was. `I've been diagnosed with "binge eating disorder," a real psychiatric thing for which I suppose I should be in treatment but I'm trying to kick it on my own, and this book is topical, certainly. I don't know that it's helpful along those lines, as it's not therapeutic. But if one can follow the advice herein, I'm sure it's an excellent way to live. The history of the food industry and the science behind it is the most interesting part of this book. I blessed it with four stars.
By the end of the day today I'll have finished two more to add to this list and I'll be caught up to my "three per week" rough measuring stick. I've also started Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography which is fun (if not deep, but not everything need be deep!) and it looks to be a pretty fast-going book as well.
Finished two short books this morning, and continuing on with The Complete Normalman: Volume 1, which I hope to finish by end of the day. That book is very clever and I really like the art in it, but I have to confess I'm starting to tire of it. It's a parody, so maybe four-hundred-plus pages isn't sustainable, and maybe that's just me!Anyway, read these this morning:
Jayson Goes to Hollywood by Jeff Krell. I ordered this online a couple years ago on recommendation of a friend of mine, who had just returned from a queer comics conference (think "gay comic-con") and was showing off his treasures on facebook. I like his Archie-like line-drawings, and some of the (sometimes quite adult) humor was indeed funny, though by all means not all of it...indeed, not very much of it. Characters are sitcom-shallow (just like in Archie!), fat-phobia abounds (in my opinion), and ultimately I felt unsatisfied, if slightly amused. I felt bad giving a "member of the family" a low score, but not TOO bad. I'm sure some people dig this sort of thing, but the audience doesn't seem to be very big.
I also kicked back and immersed myself in the little book from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Foundation (they have a cool website: ), Words Works: Volume 1.
Slim enough to slip into your jacket pocket, less than fifty pages, you get small excerpts from interviews and letters by O'Keeffe, as well as paintings and some photos of her. There's a variety in here, a sampling really, and I have to recommend it if you like art. This was a gift from my boss, who gave a copy to everyone on staff a few years ago. She was a member of the board of the museum, and an art fan herself.
Finally finished what was, for me, a bit of a slog, The Complete Normalman: Volume 1 by Jim Valentino. It's twelve issues, some bonus stories, a cover gallery, and other stuff. The issues were longer than typical comic books. For the record, the art is great, the concept is clever, and often the book is very funny. And for me, it just went on way to long. 
I had a long weekend so I binged on Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, a book which seemed a bit overindulgent for a guy who's younger than me, but it had its fun moments, and the bits toward the end were the strongest in my opinion, regarding Hedwig the Angry Inch, The Tonys, his touching (and bloody fantastic) 40th birthday adventure, and his thoughts regarding his kids.
Andrew wrote: "I had a long weekend so I binged on Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, a book which seemed a bit overindulgent for a guy who's younger than me, but it had its fun m..."I have this one as next up on my audiobook list. He does seem rather young, but then, I'm currently listening to Amy Schumer's book...
I have started A Few Tricks Along the Way: Daily Reflections for Gay Men, Queer Boys, Magnificent Queens, and the People Who Love Them, which I've had forever it seems. You're supposed to read it over the course of a year, and I always forget on January 1. Well this year that wasn't gonna stop me. So I read the first 16 days this weekend and now I'm reading each page on the "assigned day." As the title suggests, it's an encouraging and thoughtful book for gay men, but not too pithy or precious. Each date is pretty much a full page of text too...it's not a little gift book. So I won't finish this until 12/31.
I've also started Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet by Jack Norris. A lot of it will be review for me, but as I still haven't made the damn commitment, I'm going to keep pouring this stuff into my brain until I get my ass in gear! Also, there is a chapter for veganism for diabetics which I need to learn about anyway. So there's that. Should be an easy, quick read. I need to pick my next novel.
So I just got cable and internet at home. I wonder what this is going to do to my progress here....uh oh!
...and yet I am still making that progress. I've also started a novel, A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik, as well as The ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman. I think I'm going to need to do a burst of graphic novels though to get back on track, or I'm going to feel the sluggishness hit and get discouraged!
Finished ALPHABET: The LGBTQAIU Creators from Prism Comics by Jon Macy & Tara Madison Avery (372 pages) yesterday night.I helped "kickstarter" this one and I'm glad it's out there. It's a very diverse collection with an appropriate title...not just lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans material...some asexual stories, something for furries, and other stuff too.
Quite a hodgepodge in terms of content,and also quality. MOST of it is very good. Some of it is, well, not so much, but it's nice it was included anyway. Certainly enough of it was good to warrant a four-star rating from me, and it's staying on my shelf, surely.
Oh man, I'm falling behind!My tenth book was really bad. Finished the last few pages this morning, 2/1/17
Now I'm going to start cram-reading. I don't like being behind!
Andrew wrote: "Oh man, I'm falling behind!My tenth book was really bad. Finished the last few pages this morning, 2/1/17
Now I'm going to start cram-reading. I don't like being behind!"
A bad book can throw everything outta whack. *noddles* Are you allowing DNFs for yourself?
I haven't allowed any DNFs yet, because I never get to page 100 before I realize it's dead on a arrival! I decided to use that same criterion for DNFs. What slowed me down, not even kidding, was I got internet and cable at home. I didn't have either before, and so I had lots of reading time. Now there's competition.....
Just have to put it out there in order to make it come true...I'm going to finish three books this weekend. Yes, there will be at least one graphic novel involved, of course, but I have to start getting caught up. This is ridiculous! I'll finish Sedaris' Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays, Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet, and at least one graphic novel, maybe more.Carry on!
Haha...I'm going to stop making daily goals! Okay, we'll just see how the year goes. I'm going to stay pointed in this yearly goal, and have fun along the way. The main reason I thought I could do 150 is this huge amount of graphic novels I was given last year. So it's still possible. Anyway, I finished a book this morning, not a graphic novel:Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays by David Sedaris
I think this is his earliest work. I get downright giddy listening to this guy read his stuff (I've tried reading it myself, on paper, and I just miss listening to him do it, so I don't try anymore). I actually bought a box set of him doing just that and realized there were a couple books in that box set I hadn't listened to yet, and this is one of those books.
Very uneven, I'm afraid, but worth the time if you're a fan. And I'm a fan. So I'm glad I spent the time.
Also, the Vegan book is much more sciencey than I expected, so it is not going to be a "quick read." This is good, actually, as it's not just a review...I will learn something!
Yesterday finished the last Sedaris book I hadn't read. Man, these two were disappointing. I guess he found his game later. But "Santaland Diaries" is of course a classic and worthy of attention.
Oh, I am done with 14 books so I guess I passed Pike's peak! Yay me!
2/11/17 finished Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Vol. 2 by Andy SetoThese two volumes were on my shelf...not very well written. The art is lovely in places though.
I won't be seeking out later volumes in this series, and will be giving these books to a coworker who is nearly a black belt in Kung Fu himself and may find more enjoyment out of these books than I did.
PS: They are not related to the story related in the film.
Down to the Bone by Ralf König 2/13/17Gay-oriented mature-readers graphic novel featuring the same detective as in The Killer Condom. Quite funny and clever and naughty and even charming. And yes, very adult. NC-17 almost.
FATE: Stays in my library!
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery - after three or four days of intermittent struggle with these poems, I gave up! Ashberry is notoriously difficult if you try to read him straightforwardly, but even if you just go for the music of poetry, or the nuance of symbolism, or any other angle, you really have to focus. But a lot of people really love him. So maybe I've just lost my focus? I don't know. But I gave him my best shot and that was that. I've given upon a few books this year already, and this is the first time I've counted one of them, because I really tried.
Andrew wrote: "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery - after three or four days of intermittent struggle with these poems, I gave up! Ashberry is notoriously difficult if..."
There is a weird stigma attached to not enjoying a Pulitzer winner's work, isn't there?
Clarification: There shouldn't be, but it seems like there is.
It seems like it sometimes, Jessica, for sure...I shared on Facebook that I was struggling with this book, and eventually that I gave up, and some expressed that they were disappointed that it didn't click for me, but nobody expressed judgment thankfully. Or maybe they knew I'd bite them! I got the impression that Ashberry enjoyed writing this stuff, and for those who have the right mind for it, it's probably very rewarding. I'm moving on to the November 2016 volume of POETRY, which I assume counts as a book, as that's basically what it is.
That cover is awesome. lol When a horse wants to be difficult.
Mount TBR 2017
Books mentioned in this topic
The Great Gatsby (other topics)The Great Gatsby (other topics)
Boy Meets Boy (other topics)
Boy Meets Boy (other topics)
The Amateur Cracksman (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
F. Scott Fitzgerald (other topics)F. Scott Fitzgerald (other topics)
David Levithan (other topics)
David Levithan (other topics)
E.W. Hornung (other topics)
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1. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley finished 1/2/17
2. Boy21 by Matthew Quick 1/7/17
3. The Saga of Rex by Michel Gagné 1/7/17
4. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan 1/14/17
5. Jayson Goes to Hollywood by Jeff Krell 1/15/17
6. Words Works: Volume 1 by Georgia O'Keeffe 1/15/17
7. The Complete Normalman: Volume 1 by Jim Valentino 1/16/17
8. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris 1/16/17
9. ALPHABET: The LGBTQAIU Creators from Prism Comics by Jon Macy & Tara Madison Avery (372 pages) 1/24/17
10. Brain Boy Volume 1: Psy vs. Psy by Fred Van Lente 2/1/17
11. Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays by David Sedaris 2/5/17
12. Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 1: A Sea of Troubles by Conor McCreery 2/7/17
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Vol. 1 by Andy Seto 2/8/17
14. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris 2/9/17
15. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Vol. 2 by Andy Seto 2/11/17
16. Down to the Bone by Ralf König 2/13/17
17. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery - GAVE UP 2/14/17
18. Even the Sun Will Die: An Interview with Eckhart Tolle by Eckhart Tolle 2/20/17
19. MIND MGMT, Volume Six: The Immortals by Matt Kindt 3/6/17
20. Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man by Brian Reed 3/9/17
21. Black Science, Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever by Rick Remender 3/13/17
22. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 3/17/17
23. Deadlock, Vol. 1 by Saki Aida 3/17/17
24. Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering by David Gregory 3/20/17
25. Blood + Water by Judd Winick 3/20/17
26. The Power of Prayer: Guidance, Prayers, and Wisdom for Listening to the Divine by Caroline Myss 3/24/17
27. The End Of New York by Marc Almond 3/25/17
28. Age of Ultron by Brian Michael Bendis 3/27/17
29. The Walking Dead, Vol. 01: Days Gone Bye by Robert Kirkman 3/29/17
30. The Walking Dead, Vol. 02: Miles Behind Us by Robert Kirkman 3/30/17
31. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 4/3/17
32. The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung GAVE UP 4/6/17
33. Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan 4/8/17
34. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 4/14/17