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Message: [QUOTE="Gorse, post: 20913, member: 73"] Every book Gorse read in 2024, paired with a brief review? Yes please, madam! I’m pretty sure these are in chronological order from when I started reading them, too. Let’s-a go! [B][IMG align="left" width="217px" size="694x1000"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/710VJBrMVyL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG]#1: [I]Ibid[/I] [/B]by Mark Dunn. I couldn’t tell you how disappointed I was in this book, especially because Dunn’s first novel, [I]Ella Minnow Pea[/I], is one of my favourite books ever. This one really dropped the ball, though… the characters were all really bland and uninteresting, the central “gimmick” that the book is based around (everything is written in footnotes with no body text) is pointless, and there’s a lot of really ham-fisted political commentary that’s now completely outdated. The more I learn about Mark Dunn, the more I dislike him, though [I]Ella Minnow Pea[/I] still comes highly recommended. [B][IMG align="right" width="210px" size="648x1000"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71H-a3ZjSzL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG]#2: [/B][I][B]The Lady in the Lake [/B][/I]by Raymond Chandler. This was great! I love all the Philip Marlowe books – [I]The Big Sleep [/I]is the best and [I]Farewell My Lovely [/I]is the worst, but they all have their charms – and this was another excellent entry in the series. It's much more grounded in reality than the other ones, because it was written around the time when the U.S. was getting heavily involved in the WW2 effort, but the prose is still top-notch, the mystery is exciting, and the villain is deliciously devious. I like the setting a lot, too – it's very different than all the other Marlowe books, but it's a welcome change and I found it very atmospheric. [B][IMG align="left" width="196px" size="558x1000"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/711R8En-QTL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG]#3: [I]Exercises in Style[/I] [/B]by Raymond Quenaeu. As my obligatory non-fiction book for the year, this was a fun little way to explore different styles of writing. The same short story is told in 99 different styles, giving you a pretty neat insight into how written (and spoken!) language works, and how it affects our interpretation of a central source text. Apparently the content was heavily "localized" ( :cautious: ) from the original French, and as such, the book contains both an opening [I]and [/I]closing essay by two esteemed authors who attempt to justify the changes. I don't know if I buy any of that shit, and I'd still like to read the original version some day if I ever learn French, but this was still a cute time. [B][IMG align="right" width="188px" size="642x1000"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71gaERBGUcL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG]#4: [/B][I][B]Mort [/B][/I]by Terry Pratchett. LOVED IT!!!!!!! I went through a big chunk of my life thinking that I hated Discworld because the first one I read, [I]Small Gods[/I], did nothing for me (and had a pretty smug, self-satisfied tone), but this one pulled me back. I really, really love all the characters – they're entertaining and loveable, and they all change very believably from start to finish in a pretty small amount of time. I'm not a fantasy guy at all, but Pratchett's doses of comedy made the world of [I]Mort [/I]much easier to enjoy, and I closed the book feeling quite pleased with it. Unbelievably... I even laughed a few times. Recommended! [B][IMG align="left" width="223px" size="1745x2560"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Ix27edoJL.jpg[/IMG]#5: [I]Binge[/I][/B] by Douglas Coupland. This was my favourite book of the year! It's a collection of like 60 short stories, each only 2-3 pages long, about the lives and trifles of seemingly unrelated people that somewhat converge right at the end. Coupland's voice really comes through in everything he writes, and I found myself engaged, entertained, and occasionally disgusted at some of the crazy BS he came up with in no more than 500 words each time. True to the book's name, I kept picking this up intending to read just one or two stories, but constantly "binged" on it until I'd read about 10 stories per sitting. I've loved everything this guy has ever written, and I'm going to keep buying his books until one of us dies. [B][IMG align="right" width="213px" size="654x1000"]https://atboundarysedge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/last-and-first-men-1.jpg?w=654[/IMG] #6: [I]Last and First Men[/I] [/B]by Olaf Stapledon. I do like my classic sci-fi, and this was a great way to get back into the genre. It's a "future history" book speculating on how the human race will evolve and change in the next several million years, and it proposes a lot of interesting theories and concepts regarding our increasingly shared culture, the impact of technology (and this was written barely after the industrial revolution, so there's certainly no computers involved), and how our lives might be affected by the eventual expansion of the sun. The first three-quarters are wonderfully well-written and interesting, though it does get a touch too philosophical towards the end for my taste. Good SF book, overall! [B][IMG align="left" width="194px" size="179x282"]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPoaPVOaz-JdvuiJqn4EgIRafKkBdKXVpXmA&s[/IMG]#7:[/B][I][B] Jamaica Inn[/B][/I] by Daphne du Maurier. Continuing the theme of disappointing follow-ups to books I really love, du Maurier's [I]Rebecca [/I]is one of my top three fave novels ever, but I just thought this one was really boring. It's a gothic love story set in the most miserable, tedious location ever – moorish Cornwall – and all the characters are really rote and uninteresting. Aside from one scene with the main girl on her own in a small marketplace on a snowy night, I struggle to remember anything I liked about this... even the climax, which is really big and explosive, didn't leave any sort of impression beyond apathy. I still love ol' Dapher, but this wasn't quite my speed. [B][IMG align="right" width="193px" size="666x1000"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91Bxwppob1L._UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg[/IMG] #8: [/B][I][B]The Beach Trap[/B] [/I]by Ali Brady. I bought this book at a drugstore purely out of curiosity – what sort of literature do women in their late-20s/early-30s (the current target audience for all fiction) read? Well, now I've read one of these books, and I can safely say that my career as a novelist is fucked beyond all redemption, because this SUUUUUUUUCKED!!! The plot is just [I]The Parent Trap [/I]meets a Hallmark beach movie, all the female characters are vapid and annoying, all the male characters are vapid and underwritten (I doubt either of the authors has ever had a long-term relationship with a man that didn't involve intercourse), and the writing was like a series of Instagram posts (which also describes much of the plot). Let's be kind and say I'm not the target demo, here. [B][IMG align="left" width="209px" size="826x1360"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71cJZhTBa6L.jpg[/IMG]#9: [I]Hell Hound[/I][/B] by Ken Greenhall. I've been meaning to pick up a few of these "Paperbacks from Hell" novels for a while, now, but they're tough and expensive to get in Canada. Now that I finally got my hands on this one, though, I can say that I really enjoyed it! It's a very short novel – only about 150 pages – about an EVIL MURDEROUS DOG WHO KILLS PEOPLE, RUFF RUFF, but what really makes it good is a lot of very well-developed human characters and a comfortable, atmospheric collection of settings. I only wish that it had been a bit longer, which would have allowed for more development of the dog himself – he narrates some scenes in first-person – and the book's central theme of instinct, but I was very satisfied by what I got and was glad I picked this up. I'll read more of these next year, promise! And that's that! Best book was [B][I]Binge[/I][/B], worst was probably [B][I]The Beach Trap[/I][/B]. I read some comics and 1 volume of manga this year, too, but I'll post about 'em elsewhere. OK year, overall, and it really helped me narrow down who I want to keep reading more of in the future. I completely stole this format from [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQOFaAqxMU']this old Austin McConnell video[/URL], so if you liked it, watch that. Here's to another year of fine literature! ? [/QUOTE]

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