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2018 Challenge Wrap-Up
I was trucking along quite happily towards these goals for the first half of the year, but then things went south. It was still fun to participate, though, and see what others were reading. I read seven books for this challenge. A 20th century classic: The Land of Mist by Arthur Conan Doyle A classic by a woman author: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie A children’s classic: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction: Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum A classic with…
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Misery
Misery by Stephen King Published: 1987 Narrated by: Lindsay Crouse Length: 12:21 (369 pages) A popular novelist has just finished his latest book, a gritty departure from the historical romance series he’s recently ended. He gets into an accident on his drive home and wakes up in the remote home of Annie Wilkes, his number one fan. She loves the historical romance and doesn’t want it to end. She also doesn’t want him to leave, and he’s too injured to escape. I really expected to love this. I thought the movie was great, and I know many readers look down on ‘self-important’ authors writing novels in which the protagonist is…
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X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont Illustrated by: John Byrne Publisher: Marvel Collects: Uncanny X-Men: #138-143 Published: 1981 Length: 184 pages This was a bit of an odd one. It consists of six issues from a 1981 run of Uncanny X-Men, but only two of those issues are actually the Days of Future Past storyline. The first issue is essentially a recap of every major event in the X-Men timeline, which is a cool idea but excruciatingly dull to read through. It read like an overview from an excited child. “And then Magneto attacked them, and then they were in the Savage Lands with dinosaurs, and then aliens…
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Head On
Head On by John Scalzi Published: 2018 Narrated by: Wil Wheaton Series: Lock In #2 Length: 07:36 (335 pages) John Scalzi novels narrated by Wil Wheaton have become a sort of comfort food for me over the last few years, and that’s exactly the sort of thing I needed for the final months of this year. I enjoyed Lock In, the novel previous to this, but it wasn’t my favourite of his. It caused a small stir when, shortly after it was published, he revealed in a blog post that he purposely avoided using any gendered pronouns for the protagonist as a little experiment to see which gender the reader…
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Yes, Chef
Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson Published: 2012 Narrated by: Marcus Samuelsson Length: 11:47 (319 pages) I really enjoy food-related writing and have started to dip my toe into chef memoirs these last couple of years. I love reading about what inspires people to take up cooking, what their first experiences are like, what foods and meals they remember from their childhoods, and what drives them to continue learning. I didn’t think I knew Marcus Samuelsson going into this, who apparently appears on American Food Network shows, but I realized once I started I have seen his restaurant, Red Rooster, featured on a couple of shows. My main reason for picking…
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Jupiter’s Travels
Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon Published: 1978 Narrated by: Rupert Degas, Ted Simon Length: 16:51 (447 pages) As I mentioned in my October wrap-up, I’m a new motorcycle rider! After getting my license, my immediate thought was to read or listen to something related to the topic. I knew of Ted Simon from Long Way Round, the motorcycle travelogue book and television series from Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, so he was my first thought. He’s been inspiring motorcycle tours since this came out, so it seemed like a great place to start. Ted Simon is one of the earlier pioneers of motorcycle adventuring. I was expecting him to have…
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November in Review
Books Acquired: Saga, Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples Paper Girls, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang Books Read: Hell House by Richard Matheson Head On by John Scalzi Misery by Stephen King X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont, John Byrne We’ve hit December already! Unfortunately, my few months of reading drought here will mean I won’t be hitting most of my goals, but that’s okay. I enjoy making goals more than I hate missing them, so it all works out. Feeling a bit more in the swing of things now, though, so I expect the reading to pick up again. Since keeping track…
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Property Values
Property Values by Charles Demers Published: 2018 Length: 176 pages This takes place mainly in Vancouver, and I don’t often read novels that are set anywhere near me, so this was a treat in that regard. I was excited to see that the first chapter took place in my hometown, Kamloops. I think the only other time I’ve seen it mentioned in a book was in the introduction to The Best of Robert Service, as he lived there briefly. The characters described the town as redneck buttfuck nowhere, which I think is fair. Scott Clark has broken up with his girlfriend and is currently living alone in the house they…
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Sailing Alone Around the World
Sailing Alone around the World by Joshua Slocum Published: 1900 Narrated by: Bernard Mayes Length: 07:25 (273 pages) I was looking for a non-fiction adventure read after Pirate Hunters earlier in the year, and I came across this. It’s the memoir of Joshua Slocum, the first man to solo circumnavigate the globe by boat. And he’s Canadian! I didn’t pay much attention in my young school days, but I don’t remember ever hearing about him before reading this. During the entire book, I was thinking that it was amazing more people hadn’t heard of him, particularly in Canada, but then I realized that it’s very possibly just me. After a…
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And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Published: 1939 Narrated by: Dan Stevens Length: 06:01 (264 pages) Despite loving detective fiction, I only read my first Agatha Christie novel earlier this year – Murder on the Orient Express, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I remember discussing, but not reading, And Then There Were None in a detective fiction course I took at university, so I thought it would be a great next step. We did watch the 1945 film adaptation in class, which was entertaining, but I can’t really remember too much from it. I think it played out slightly differently from the book. I just recently saw that the…
