Also just your year in reading in general. How many books did you read, what kind of books, this year compared to others, etc.

I read a bit less this year compared to last year, mainly because I think I've just been busier and didn't set a numerical goal. 54 last year and only 36 this year (I'll probably get to like 38) but my average book length went from 250 to 310

read a lot of great fiction, still want to get more into non-fiction and the fiction classics for next year

here's my top 10

1. the savage detectives by roberto bolaño
2. in the distance by hernan diaz
3. a fine balance by rohinton mistry
4. the goldfinch by donna tartt
5. the passenger by cormac mccarthy
6. caste by isabel wilkerson
7. heat 2 by michael mann & meg gardiner
8. indian horse by richard wagamese
9. the sirens of titan by kurt vonnegut
10. open veins of latin america by eduardo galeano

Diana Khoi nGOATyen is coming up…

Novels:
1. Moby-Dick or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville
2. Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo
3. House Made of Dawn (1968) by N. Scott Momaday
4. By Night in Chile (2000) by Roberto Bolaño
5. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (1983) by Paula Gunn Allen
6. Invisible Cities (1972) by Italo Calvino
7. Spring Snow (1967) by Yukio Mishima
8. Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy
9. Middle Passage (1990) by Charles Johnson
10. Thousand Cranes (1952) by Yasunari Kawabata

Poetry:
1. Passion (1980) by June Jordan
2. The Dead Lecturer (1964) by Amiri Baraka
3. Splay Anthem (2006) by Nathaniel Mackey
4. Winter Of The Salamander: The Keeper Of Importance (1979) by Ray A. Young Bear
5. Ghost Of (2018) by Diana Khoi Nguyen
6. From Sand Creek (1981) by Simon J. Ortiz
7. I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (2018) by Tiana Clark
8. Harlem Shadows (1922) by Claude McKay
9. The Bean Eaters (1950) by Gwendolyn Brooks
10. Obit (2020) by Victoria Chang

Non-fiction:
1. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) edited by Cherríe L. Moraga & Gloria E. Anzaldúa
2. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983) by Cedric J. Robinson
3. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (1997) by Saidiya Hartman
4. The Intimacies of Four Continents (2015) by Lisa Lowe
5. A Small Place (1988) by Jamaica Kincaid
6. DMZ Colony (2020) by Don Mee Choi
7. Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (2004) by Nikhil Pal Singh
8. Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance (1993) by Gerald Vizenor
9. Just Us: An American Conversation (2020) by Claudia Rankine
10. Black Box (2017) by Shiori Itō

I read 40 books and havent been reading for a month now. Need to pick it up again.

1. My Struggle(2009-2011) - Karl Ove Knausgård.
2. The Idiot(1868) - Fjodor Dostoyevsky
3. The Metamorphosis(1915) - Franz Kafka
4. Hunger(1890) - Knut Hamsun
5. Bartleby(1853) - Herman Melville

Read all 6 books of My Struggle in 2 months, absolutely loved it, I was blown away with the way he composed and the writing of these novels. I was completely obsessed with it and it made Knausgård one of my favourite writers instantly.

• Ice by Anna Kavan
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• From Hell by Alan Moore (Graphic Novel)
• Mozart: Reign of Love by Jan Swafford
• The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley

Would want to read Underworld but that book is so f***ing big

No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai
Dawn - Octavia Butler
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

Did you end up buying and reading The Idiot?

My top 2 novels (as well as Tess) were all huge time commitments I took on over the summer along with Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I was just in the right frame to knock a couple epics out of the way. I think it’s worthwhile if you already like the author!

dawn and slaughterhouse five…great selections

i been meaning to get to no longer human for a minute too

Not in person lol, book store I normally go to didn’t have it so downloaded the digital version. Read like 50 pages and couldn’t really get in to it so proceeded to read some different things. Problem w these long books is that if I don’t really find it gripping I tend to give up earlier, cus I don’t really want to spend too much time reading books I don’t really like. I’ll try to finish it tho in the future but have to get some motivation.

favorite books this year

crime and punishment
war and peace
either/or
brief interviews with hideous men
cats cradle

No order

Fiction

Pulp by Charles Bukowski

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Non fiction

Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent

The Plant Paradox by Steven R. Gundry

Monster by Sanyika Shakur

Lies My Doctor Told Me by Ken Berry

The Plant Paradox by Steven R. Gundry

If you don't like the book it's a good thing to stop, agreed.

Once I started reading I instantly loved it. Dostoyevsky always gets me with his melodramatic writing, love it

I got War and Peace still on my shelf.

Need to start with it, but heard its quite repetitive because Tolstoy keeps throwing his philosophy at you and it could've been a lot shorter.

What's your opinion on the book?

1. Brothers Karamazov
2. A Storm Of Swords
3. Blood Meridian
4. A Feast Of Crows/A Dance With Dragons
5. Crime & Punishment
6. Sword Of Destiny/Capitalism Realism
7. Black Swan
8.The Last Wish/Of Mice & Men
9. The Gospel according to Jesus Christ
10. No Longer Human

I'll probably end up reading 25 this year. Pretty much the same as last year. However now the majority of the books I read were translated into Spanish, which I am really proud of myself for doing :D

Average book length of 232 pages. Last year it was 278.

Norwegian Wood by Murakami

• This story goes relatively slow; it reads just as someone recounting their life; but it is dips into themes of confused adolescence, decay, love and broken relationships, hesitancy, unstable mental health and melancholy. A slow burner, but I feel like I just lived someones entire life, loved all of the people he loved, lived the lonely nights he lived; and experienced all of the feelings and emotions he felt.

• With all Murakami books they are male-gazey, and the main character has s***with every main woman character; which unfortunately detracts from the main themes

After Dark by Murakami

• Reads just like a Murakami book, a slow burner, confusing plot - but that's not what matters. What matters is what you feel. And it makes you feel like you are living.

Border and Rule by Walia Harsha

• This book launched me into a dark depression that made me stop reading non-fictinos books. It was too much, but it really unlocked a previously unfound empathy.

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

• This book's main character narrates through an incomprehensible drivel of symbols and almost schizophrenic connections between characters. Uses some esoteric nihilistic teenage-angst philosophy to view the world.

• Very easy to see the connection to his real life.Amazing f***ing book; really, f***ed up, but beautiful, beautiful writing and amazing plot. Would recommend.

eh it couldve definitely been shorter but i feel like the scope of what tolstoy tries to accomplish and his merit as a writer is why i like his s*** so much

i generally don’t like books centered around topics like history or war either but he deadass brings so many parts of a different era to life that the book doesn’t even feel old if that makes sense

highly recommend

1. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
2. 2666 - Roberto Bolaño
3. Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter
4. The Complete Stories - Flannery O'connor
5. St Agnes' Stand - Thomas Eidson
6. That Old Ace in the Hole - Annie Proulx
7. Black Wings Has My Angel - Elliott Chaze
8. In the Distance - Hernan Diaz
9. You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat) - Andrew Hankinson
10. Things We Lost in the Fire - Mariana Enriquez

I read a few books this year but favorites were easily:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
2. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I also read It Ends With Us which felt very juvenile and wattpad like just bc I was tryna sauce a shorty

I finished 22 books so far (most I’ve ever done in a year!)Here’s my top ten I read this year:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude
2. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles
3. Cloud Atlas
4. Kafka on the Shore
5. The man who mistook his wife for a hat
6. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
7. The Best of Greg Egan
8. Siddhartha
9. Solaris
10. Letters to a Young Poet

Honourable mentions: Gilles Deleuze by Claire Colebrook, Rethinking Consciousness, Bourne, No Exit

I love all of these books so much

So real

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching & Aggressive Defense
by Jack Dempsey

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

dark matter was insanae

such a fun read. tv adaptation coming out next year.