The Book Thread Book • Page 117

maybe Slaughterhouse-Five

 

I vouch for Slaughterhouse-Five as well. Was the first I read from him a long time ago.

 

Yeah Slaughterhouse Five is def the best starting place. After that I'd probably say Cats Cradle.

 

Thanks all! I’d add it to my list!

 

Slaughterhouse Five for sure. But you really can’t go wrong IMO.

 

This was the first year that I really took time to read in a very long time, and hit my goodreads modest goal of 12 books (though some of these could've been multiple books!).

1. Recursion - Blake Crouch (5/5)
2. Dark Matter - Blake Crouch (3/5)
3. Dark Age - Pierce Brown (5/5)
4. The Institute - Stephen King (4/5)
5. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (5/5)
6. Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey (4/5)
7. Abaddon's Gate - James S.A. Corey (4/5)
8. Wanderers - Chuck Wendig (5/5)
9. Cry Pilot - Joel Dane (5/5) *This one was the biggest surprise of the year for me.
10. Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising - Timothy Zahn (3/5)
11. Summer Frost - Blake Crouch (3/5)
12. Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff (4/5)
13. Ring Shout - P. Djèlí Clark (4/5)

As you can see, lots of Sci-fi, but I found it the most appetizing with the weird year that 2020 was. Made it easier to "escape." I'm probably pretty generous with my rankings but I tend to do way too much research before committing to a book, so usually I pick things I know I will like.

*Edited with rankings.

 

Joining the fun. What I’ve read this year and my rankings. Only two re-reads, marked with an asterisk.

Near to the Wild Heart - Clarice Lispector (5/5)

Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver (3/5)

Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: The Lost Novel by Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman (2/5)

The House on Mango Street* - Sandra Cisneros (4/5)

The Moviegoer - Walker Percy (4/5)

The Book of X - Sarah Rose Etter (4/5)

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (5/5)

The Cider House Rules - John Irving (5/5)

Passing - Nella Larsen (3/5)

The Passion According to G.H. - Clarice Lispector (5/5)

The Sound of Waves - Yukio Mishima (3.5/5)

The Gangster We Are All Looking For - lê thi diem thúy (4/5)

Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson (3/5)

The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers (4.5/5)

Another Country - James Baldwin (5/5)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* - James Joyce (5/5)

Palm Lines - Jonathan Koven (10/5)

 

Cat's Cradle is probably my favorite of his, but agreed that Slaughterhouse 5 is probably the best place to start

 

Can't go wrong with Slaughterhouse Five, but I also love Welcome to the Monkey House which is a collection of Vonnegut's short stories.

 

Man I suck at reading these days, all I read were a handful of high fantasy books lol

 

Oh yeah and Fear and Loathing which got me to try bourbon for the first time and I drank so much I threw up which has NEVER happened to me before but that's another story

 

I figured I'd go ahead and post my TBR list for 2021. This includes books I've already purchased that I haven't gotten to yet, books in a series that I want to finish (the Expanse series and Cry Pilot series), and a couple of one-offs I'm highly interested in.

1. The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (currently going through audiobook since the mass paperback version is impossible to read comfortably)
2. Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson
3. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson
4. Rhythm of War - Brandon Sanderson
5. Dune - Frank Herbert
6. The Shadow of What Was Lost - James Islington
7. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (half way, need to finish)
8. A Promised Land - Barack Obama
9. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
10. Kill Orbit - Joel Dane
11. Burn Cycle - Joel Dane
12. A Little Hatred - Joe Abercrombie
13. Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse
14. Nemesis Games - James S.A. Corey
15. Babylon's Ashes - James S.A. Corey
16. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
17. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey

 

I rediscovered my love of reading during quarantine, so I read more this year than I normally would. Got around to some classics I'd never read, and the many many recommendations by friends and family.


1. Gates of Eden - Ethan Coen (4/5)

2. A Simple Plan - Scott B. Smith (3/5)

3. The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollack (4/5)

4. Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson (4/5)

5. Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami (5/5)

6. After Dark - Haruki Murakami (5/5)

7. Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami (4/5)

8. Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World - Haruki Murakami (3/5)

9. A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami (3/5)

10. Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami (5/5)

11. South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami (4/5)

12. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (3/5)

13. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (2/5)

14. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (5/5)

15. The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami (3/5)

16. The Vegetarian - Han Kang (5/5)

17. Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy (2/5)

18. Dune - Frank Herbert (3/5)

19. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (5/5)

20. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (4/5)

21. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami (3/5)

22. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (4/5)

23. The Stranger - Albert Camus (3/5)

24. The Trial - Franz Kafka (4/5)

25. The Shimmer - Carsten Stroud (1/5)

26. Killing Commedatore - Haruki Murakami (4/5)

27. Koko - Peter Straub (3/5)

28. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger (3/5)

29. A Time To Kill - John Grisham (3/5)

30. After The Quake - Haruki Murakami (4/5)

31. The White Book - Han Kang (5/5)

32. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (4/5)

33. Hurricane Season - Fernanda Melchor (3/5)

34. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (5/5)

35. Human Acts - Han Kang (5/5)

36. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3/5)

37. Memories of my Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (4/5)

38. Please Look After Mom - Shin Kyoung-Sook (4/5)

39. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (4/5)

40. Lolita - Vladimir Nobokov (3/5)

41. Death In Her Hands - Ottessa Moshfegh (3/5)

42. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (4/5)

43. Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2/5)

44. Swann's Way - Marcel Proust (5/5)

 

What a killer list. Love to see all that Murakami, you've reminded me I've got a few of his to catch up on

 

Achieved my goal was to read 1 book a month which is most ive ever read in a year. Was happy with my mix of non-fiction and fiction and hoping to continue my slow (in comparison to all yall) pace. If i had to choose Chaos was without a doubt my fav thing i read, one of the most engaging novels ive read before.

1. Dead Astronaughts - Jeff Vandermeer
2. Hitchcock / Truffeut - Francois Truffeut
3. Senlin Ascends - Josiah Bancroft
4. Dune - Frank Herbert
5. Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the sixties - Tom O'Neill
6. Can't Stop, Wont Stop - Jeff Chang
7. The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu
8. Empire of their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood - Neal Gabler
9. Arm of the Sphynx - Josiah Bancroft
10. The Hod King - Josiah Bancroft
11. Supergods - Grant Morrison
12. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson

 

I like seeing the expanse series on some lists. Such a good series.

 

Love Murakami. I lost my copy of Kafka on the Shore awhile back while I was reading it and bought a new one but never finished. I need to return to it.

I also tried Marquez this year with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Got about a third in and realized it was getting a bit challenging for me (was fantasizing about my next book while reading it lol). I should return to that someday too, especially since I think/hope I’ve grown as a reader this year.

 

some good lists here

 

I've read Solitude and Love in the Time and they were both tough, especially the latter, but I loved them both. Wonderful writer.

 

This is my 2020 book list in order read:

The Chain - Adrian McKinty
The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek - Rhett
McLaughlin
The Flight Attendant - Chris Bohjalian
Dark Matter - Blake Crouch
The Talisman - Stephen King
Black House - Stephen King
Tranny - Laura Jane Grace
Wanderers - Chuck Wendig
She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker
Needful Things - Stephen King
Hollywood Park - Mikel Jollett
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix
There She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell
The Silent Companions - Laura Purcell
My Best Friends Exorcism - Grady Hendrix
Bag of Bones - Stephen King
Touch the Night - Max Booth III
Dracul - J.D. Barker/Dacre Stoker
Home Before Dark - Riley Sager
The Coast to Coast Murders - James Patterson/J.D. Barker
The Dead Zone - Stephen King

 

I don't think we talked about you reading these. What did you think of them?


I'm working on finding the time to read The Chain; listened to the audiobooks of Flight Attendant and Then She Was Gone; my wife read Coast to Coast and I plan to start it soon.

 

The Chain is great.

 

I actually read Coast to Coast Murders after you mentioning it here!

The Chain - It reads super quick and I remember loving it. It has a crazy yet very intriguing plot.

The Flight Attendant - I honestly don’t remember a whole bunch of this since I read it back in January. I gave it 3 stars so there must be something there I didn’t love. I just went and read a summary to remember it and I don’t know, wasn’t one I felt too strongly on lol.

There She Was Gone - I read this in like 2 sittings haha. Super easy, fast read. My first book by Lisa Jewell. Definitely an author I’ll turn to for a very easy thriller. Despite it being a bit predictable, I found it pretty depressing. Which I’m into.

Coast to Coast Murders - This thing reads so fast, and so much happens to the point it gets a bit muffled at the end. I feel like it’s a very fun thriller with tons of stuff happening on the surface level but never dives deep and makes me feel a connection with any characters. It keeps you intrigued mostly because you are constantly guessing “what the hell is happening?” I recommend it!

 

Gonna try and make The Chain a higher priority now that you and @Vivatoto rec it!

Yeah I expected to like Flight Attendant more, kinda hated all the spy and espionage stuff plan to watch the show still but leery now.

I don't remember Then She Was Gone like at all haha.

My wife had pretty similar thoughts on Coast-To-Coast. Basically said it was crazy and ended very weird lol

 

Wife and I enjoyed the show. Didn’t realize it was a book!