At the start of 2006, my friend lunacia proposed the Fifty Book Challenge,
versions of which have been around online for at least the last four
years. The idea is simple - each person taking on the challenge agrees to
read at least fifty books in a given calendar year. For some us, this will
make little difference to familiar reading habits. For others it may be a
bit of strain, but our hope is that it'll provide an exciting opportunity to
explore the world of books, to get hold of good recommendations and to
encounter new favourites. We hope that it will encourage people to push
themselves a bit as readers. We hope it'll be educational, and we hope
it'll be fun.
What Sort of Books Count?
The rules for this challenge are very relaxed. You can
count non-fiction books; you can count anthologies; you can count
children's books; if you run out of time and are determined to complete
the challenge anyway, you can count Mr. Men books. We ask
only that you try to enter into the spirit of the thing and use your
judgement as to what it is or is not sensible to include. Nobody will be
impressed (and you probably shouldn't be too impressed with yourself,
unless you're under five) if you've read only Mr.
Men books. Graphic novels count, as do anthologies of such work,
but individual comics do not. You can count individual books of
the Bible, and nobody's going to expect you to treat The Complete
Works of Shakespeare as a single entry. On another note, it is
okay to include books which you're re-reading.
Who Will Be the Witness?
The Fifty Book Challenge is really about personal
commitment. There won't be a test afterwards; no-one will come round to
knock on your door and ask what happened at the end of chapter eight. We
do, however, encourage you to keep a public record of your reading if you
are able to. Make a list on a webpage or post to an appropriate thread in a
participating newsgroup or web forum (there are no formal rules for such
participation, so if you can get together a group of interested regulars
you can start this anywhere). If possible, write small reviews of what you
read - even if it's just a couple of sentences, it'll make it possible for
interested readers to determine what might appeal to them. At the end of
the year, people taking the challenge can compare lists and discuss how
their reading habits differ.
What if I Can't Afford Fifty Books?
Try to make use of your local library system. Tell them
about your involvement with the Fifty Book Challenge. If you have
difficulty accessing a library, you can always make use of the free
e-books (including many popular classics) available from Project Gutenberg. Furthermore, lots
of us involved in this year's challenge are borrowing books and swapping
them with friends.
My Fifty Books
I'm using this space (amongst others) to keep a list of
the books I read in 2008. I do still have some eye damage caused by my
stroke at the end of 2006, so reading can be physically difficult, but
I've had a year to pull myself together now, and this year I intend to
read the whole fifty.
- Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in
Classical Antiquity, by Sarah B Pomeroy. An early classic of
its sub-genre (one might call it 'seminal', but that would probably be
risking a clout round the ear), this thorough and well founded study
represents an attempt to fill in the missing pieces in the historical
record where women are concerned. Pomeroy does a solid job, neatly
identifying her sources without detracting from the readability of the
narrative. Most readers will find it reasonably accessible and it remains
essential reading for Classical historians.
- The Man who was Thursday, by GK Chesterton. I had
been meaning to investigate Chesterton's work for some time as he's a
favourite of some of my smarter friends, so I figured I'd start with this
classic, also important as one of the originators of the spy novel. I'm
afraid it really didn't work for me, though. The author is clearly a man
of considerable intellect, but to me that only makes his trite story more
frustrating. That it should be contrived is acceptable in accordance with
the nature of the genre, but less so when it happens at the expense of
believable characters, particularly when those characters are given so
much representative weight. I shall state honestly that few things
irritate me more than a repetitive plot, and this one is transparent from
chapter three, excepting its Deus in Machina ending which, whilst
constituting an interesting departure, in certain ways rather lets its
characters off the hook, reducing its moral impact. It's also written in
such florid prose that only Chesterton's winking reference to
Bulwer-Lytton and his brief flirtation with cyclopean architecture can
save it.
- The Law of the Playground, by various artists,
including contributions from my friend Susanna Krawczyk. I initially
approached this as a linguistic resource but it's a very easy thing to get
drawn into. A collection of stories about people's experiences at school,
it should be considered essential reading for children, parents, teachers,
anthropologists, prison officers and Philip Zimbardo. Anything you need to
know about primate group behaviour you can find exemplified here. If
certain US senators are right and the primary goal of schooling is to
teach socialisation, reading this should mean that one doesn't actually
have to go.
- The Pigeon, by Patrick Süskind. A hauntingly
beautiful modern fairy tale; a humble story made remarkable by
Süskind's understanding of the importance of detail, by his poetic
writing and by his humanity. The hero, Jonathan, is a man who has devoted
his entire life to establishing stability, certainty and, thus, security,
but everything is turned upside down when the course of an ordinary day is
interrupted by the arrival of a pigeon. So great and so convincing is his
torment that at times this is really hard to read, but at the same time it
casts a spell under the influence of which one cannot tear oneself away
from the page.
- Ivan the Terrible, by Henri Troyat. I'm only
surprised that this volume doesn't have a gorier looking cover. It's a
bloodbath from start to finish. According to scholars, an immaculately
researched and accurate biography of Russia's famous tyrant tsar, it
nevertheless reads very differently from the average history book, being
highly descriptive, energetic and empathetic. There are lots of
interesting passages about international politics and cultural
developments in between the torture scenes, but it's certainly not for the
faint-hearted.
- The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. Despite
his popularity as a mystery writer, I always think Greene is at his best -
and, perhaps, his most mysterious - when writing about love. This perhaps
ranks as his most personal work, written as it was around the time when he
ended a years-long affair with a woman who had been one of the great
loves of his life. The insight he provides through his fiction must have
been painful then, but is sharper for it. Perhaps it's hard to
like the hero, bitter as he is, but it's easy enough to
sympathise with him. As always the characters are vividly realised,
complex and subtle, full of apparent contradictions which only make them
more real. This isn't Greene's most powerful work, but it's masterful
nonetheless.
- Authority and the Individual, by Bertrand Russell.
I used to read Russell's work when I was small and I retain a certain
fondness for him, even if this particular book has more to offer as a
historical document than as educational matter. A collection of six
lectures, it provides an intriguing insight into postwar Britain and its
visions of the future are delightful, sometimes far-fetched, sometimes
surprisingly accurate. Many of the examples Russell cites in support of
his various theories are now evidenced as being quite wrong, yet his
theories themselves have generally stood the test of time.
- James and the Troublesome Trucks, by W. Rev.
Awdry. I read this because it was the best thing available during a visit
to my doctor's surgery. My brother, being called Thomas, had all the
'Thomas the Tank Engine' books when he was a kid, so I know them well.
Percy the Small Engine was always my favourite. Anyway, this is a fairly
sympathetic tale of James, who is in trouble essentially because he
rebelled when told he was going to be painted blue. He has to prove his
loyalty and fortitude in order to win back the Fat Controller's esteem.
This seems rather unfair, but I guess at a deeper level it's also about
James wanting to prove something to himself.
- Kingdom of Fear, by Hunter S Thompson. Reading
this book was saddening, because the great man is no longer with us, yet
in other ways I felt glad he didn't live to see the further extension of
the tendencies toward social authoritarianism in Western society that he
laments here. Like most of his work, it's a wayward book, with flashes of
genius mixed in with ramblings which are at heart pretty dull and keep one
reading only because of the elegant way in which they're styled. When he
gets to geeking it's almost unreadable, but then, out of nowhere, he'll
break into one of his incredible 'true' stories ("it's certainly true that
is was a story") and it'll be the most fun since cake was
invented. It's just a shame that he still spends so much time touting
himself on the strength of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
instead of recovering the spark which allowed that book to happen.
- Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People
in Western Europe from the Beginnings of the Christian Era to the
Fourteenth Century, by John Boswell. A groundbreaking work from
Boswell, this was mostly pretty familiar stuff for me but will amaze many
readers with its revelations about the real history of anti-homosexual
prejudice, something which is often blamed unfairly on the church.
Although it uses homosexuality as its focus, it explores social prejudice
in a wider sense and considers how it has affected, in parallel, groups
like the Jews. As with all Boswell's work, it's immaculately researched
and is annotated in such a way that the curious reader can go off and
access most of its sources directly. It's incredibly thorough but very
accessible, even to the non-academic reader. And packed with detail as it
is, it certainly held a few surprises for me - for instance, that the
church once forbade growing plants indoors!
- My Lives, by Edmund White. Eloquent as all his
works and sometimes shockingly self-absorbed, White's first
straightforward biography is fascinating to me for the very reasons that
some readers might find it off-putting. The author is fastidious in
exploring his own weaknesses and unpleasant traits, providing a much more
rounded human portrait than we are used to seeing. It represents - perhaps
unconsciously, on his part - the sort of shift I've been expecting in
twenty first century interpersonal relations, wherein our enhanced
communicative and observational abilities lead us to know more about each
other than we might traditionally have wanted to, in turn challenging us
to adjust the way we acknowledge one another's humanity. Beyond this, of
course, White lived in interesting times (though he seems overall to have
been pretty sheltered - he has odd ideas of what constitutes poverty),
and his record of social and artistic developments in the latter half of
the twentieth century could fascinate anyone.
- The Subjection of Women, by John Stuart Mill. One
of the most important philosophical contributions to early feminism, this
makes a fascinating read today. Mill was certainly an enlightened man by
the standards of his time, yet it's really hispolitical differences and
his subtle prejudices which make for such interesting reading. A
surprisingly rational set of observations about women sits side by side
with absurdly unquestioned notions about assorted national characters, for
instance. He's an energetic writer, and perhaps there's a reason for that.
Much of his thinking appears to have it origins in the influence of one
particular woman. It's quite charming to encounter the work of a famed
thinker so overwhelmed by emotion.
- Shame, by Salman Rushdie. An oblique companion
piece to Midnight's Children, this novel examines the
Pakistani experience in the aftermath of Partition, fictionalising it and
then taking a further step away into fantasy in order to express what is
difficult to anunciate with mere facts. History through the lens of
magical realism, it draws on mythic tradition to examine the doomed cycles
of power in an unstable and frequently tyrannised state, yet much of it
reads, on the surface, as a family soap opera. It's on this level that,
whilst scoring plenty of jokes, it is weakest, with the author taking on
more characters than he really has time to flesh out. As myth, howevrr,
it's a delightful read, and a novel which reaches beyond itself and really
has something to say.
- Biko, by Donald Woods. Somehow I'd never got
around to reading this, although I used to work for an English publication
which campaigned against Apartheid and I had occasional correspondence
with some of the figures who appear in it. It's quite startling to read it
now and to feel the great gulf of years between then and now, the way that
notions of what's normal and what can't be changed have themselves
changed. Of course, Apartheid seemed shockingly primitive then, but now it
seems utterly alien. And now, after so many other things have changed, one
can appreciate the true magnitude of the impact which Bantu Stephen Biko
has had on the world and all of its oppressed peoples. Few other figures
have even come close to achieving such a profound social impact on
history. This book, for those of you who don't know, is the story of
Biko's conflict with the South African regime, of his death at the hands
of the police and of the dream he had for his country. The author was a
friend of his whose daring escape from the country afterwards and whose
publication of this very book inspired campaigners around the world and
helped to bring an end to that brutal regime. It's a tremendously
important work and very readable besides. Nobody with an interest in
politics should be without it.
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon, by
Gideon Defoe. This latest adventure of the pirate crew eschews the usual
formula and opts instead for a more prosaic adventure set on the island of
St Helena, where the Pirate Captain hopes to keep bees. It doesn't
altogether work. Defoe is beginning to look like a man running out of
ideas (given how closely the Pirate Captain's life mirrors my dear
Stuart's, I sometimes get paranoid as to where they have come from), and
he doesn't really have the confidence or the skill with dialogue to carry
off the story in their absence. That said, there are several extremely
funny bits here and the book is still hard to put down. Napoleon is a
great character, highlighting the Pirate Captain's own major flaws, and we
do get to meet some ponies. I just hope this doesn't mark a
permanent decline in the series, as I'd love to read more fun pirate
adventures in the future.
- Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control, by
Dominic Streatfield. A very thorough and often fascinating history of work
by the British and US secret services to try and develop truth drugs, take
over the minds of enemy agents, etc., this also takes into account
religious cults, false memory syndrome and similar phenomena. It's written
for the general reader and expects a level of naivety which sometimes
makes it frustrating, and sometimes it works just a little too hard to
pretend it's utterly neutral, but overall I enjoyed it very much. Of
course, in just one volume, it can't go into great depth on any one case,
so some accounts feel slightly insubstantial, but it's a great
introduction to the subject.
- The White People, and Other Stories, by Arthur
Machen. Deeply influential, gloriously poetic and a technically excellent
writer, Arthur Machen was one of the founding fathers of 20th Century
occult fantasy horror. How is it, then, that a collection of his works can
be as singulary boring as this one? Though it contains the exquisite
Ornaments in Jade, and though there is at least a hint of
something special in The White People, the rest of this book
is leaden, clumsy and repetitive. The only thing which kept me from
falling asleep was the offensiveness of Machen's weak arguments,
particularly his continual use of straw men. He had no right to take such
a smug stance against rationality when he clearly failed to comprehend the
basics of logical thinking. His mysteries might as well have been solved
by rolling dice. The biggest mystery is how this ever saw print. My
partner Donald advises me that it's because of its popularity with
Call of Cthulhu GMs (it's published by Chaosium) - when they
want to quote something obscure, insane, and rambling, it's just the
thing.
Check out my lists for 2006 and 2007.
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Last updated 8th June, 2008