# Summer Reading Challenge



## Craiglet (Jun 15, 2005)

My goal is to read ten books by August 30th, which is the day we go back to school. If anyone else wants to partake, keep a log in this thread.

Book / Date Finished / Personal Rating

By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz - June 6th - 9/10
Pendragon: The Rivers of Zadaa by D.J. McHale - 6/10
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling - July 22 - 9/10


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## Kikster (Jun 15, 2005)

*Fortune's Rocks* - June 5th - 9/10
*Neither here nor there* - June 23rd - 7/10
*The Catcher in the Rye* - July 5th - 8/10
*A long way down* - July 24th - 10/10


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## Drzava (Jun 15, 2005)

I've read nothing, but I want a top spot so I can come back and edit  :lol:


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## Kikster (Jul 12, 2005)

craiglet, are you still doing this??


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## strangedaze (Jul 12, 2005)

I'll start today - July 12th.

To read:

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Generation X by Douglas Coupland
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby
The Tao of Pooh by whoever the fuck (I have to read *something* light)
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

 Maybe substitute something by Camus in there. Not necessarily in that order.

*Edit: On second thought, I might not even finish half of these, but it's worth a try 

Book / Date Finished / Personal Rating 

The Castle


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## damien_frosst (Jul 13, 2005)

Why not join in, right?

American Gods - Neil Gaiman - 8/10
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson - July 17 - 7/10

All Tomorrow's Parties - William Gibson - July 20 -  7/10
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow - July 23 - 8/10
Omega - Jack mcDevitt - July 28 - 8/10
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett - Aug 2 - 7/10
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town - Cory Doctorow - Aug 4 - 8/10
Superluminal: A Novel of Interplanetary Civil War - Tony Daniel - Aug 15 - 5/10
Angels and Deamons - Dan Brown - Aug 22 - 8/10
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling - Aug 31 - 8/10

And Manga (which I'm not counting as books):

One Piece 1 + 2
Kill Me Kiss Me 1 + 2 (I finally found #1)
Kare Kano 1 - 4
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind 1 - 4
Revolutionary Girl Utena 1 + 2
Chobits 1
Negima 6
Genshiken 2
Love Hina 2

---
*Aaannnnnd... we're done.*

August is practically over, and I just managed to make ten books.  Not always the easiest thing to do while keeping up with everything else life throws your way.  It was fun though.


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## Kikster (Jul 13, 2005)

strangedaze said:
			
		

> I'll start today - July 12th.
> 
> The Tao of Pooh by whoever the fuck (I have to read *something* light)



that's a pretty funny book... not as stupid as I thought it would be!  :wink:


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## strangedaze (Jul 13, 2005)

Starr,

I was thinking either the Plague or the Outsider, since the used bookstore has both of them. Your thoughts?


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## EmuJenkins (Jul 13, 2005)

I read a lot over the summer. Last year I read a novel a day at the cottage (longest being Timoty Findley's Spadework). I'll create a summer reading list by the end of the summer and post it.


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## Hodge (Jul 14, 2005)

Let me think...


_Slaughterhouse Five_, Kurt Vonnegut – May 10/10

_Prey_, Michael Crichton – May 9/10

_Something Wicked This Way Comes_, Ray Bradbury – May 8/10

_The Return of the King_, J.R.R. Tolkien – May 8/10

_Eats, Shoots & Leaves_, Lynne Truss – June 6/10

_Stranger in a Strange Land_, Robert Heinlein – June 10/10

_Voice of the Planet_, Michael Tobias – July 8/10

_2001: A Space Odyssey_, Arthur C. Clarke – July 12 9/10

_Cat's Cradle_, Kurt Vonnegut – July 15 10/10

_God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_, Kurt Vonnegut – July 21 8/10

_The Breakfast of Champions_, Kurt Vonnegut – July 22 10/10

_Dragons of Darkness_, ed. Orson Scott Card (it's an anthology) — August 3 8/10


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## Kane (Jul 14, 2005)

starrwriter said:
			
		

> Craiglet said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Come on now.  I've tried to read "real literature", but it just plain sucks usually.  I'd much rather read a fiction author I enjoy.  I think this quote sums it up well.



> To loosely quote Aristotle, as storytelling goes bad, so goes the neighborhood. The contemporary literary establishment routinely confuses literary fiction with literature. What we’re sold as literature these days is usually (again, with a few exceptions) little more than an attempt to mask an inability to tell a story with disdain for those who can, to replace substance with a frequently pompous style of—equally frequently—questionable beauty, and to pretend that it’s not boring unless one is a “philistine” who sees only a blank canvas where only a blank canvas is hanging.*
> 
> Literature is and always has been a form of storytelling, not of art. If a novelist doesn’t have a story that he absolutely must tell, and tell coherently, there’s no reason to read his self-aggrandizing drivel. If a novelist doesn’t have a story to tell, then all he is doing is posturing. And posturing is best kept to chat rooms.
> 
> The whole “literary” fad, with its fashionably unpopular authors, intellectual-wannabe critics, and logrolling literary award committees, has gone beyond just thinking outside the box. This fad has climbed out of the box and walked all the way around the bend from the reader who still remembers that reading a novel is supposed to be a pleasure, not a chore. It’s time to get back in the box and figure out that literature is no more and no less than a well-written work of fiction that tells a compelling story about characters who come alive in the reader’s mind, and leaves behind a slightly expanded perception of the world. Kind of like what Tom Wolfe does. Which is why he is popular.



http://www.encpress.com/opinion.html


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## Merforga (Jul 14, 2005)

dont remember the exact dates but i'v read so far
NeverWhere by Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game by Orson  Scott Card
Flights(it's an anthology of short stories)
Path to Savagery by Robert Edmond Alter
American Gods by Neil Gaiman


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## gohn67 (Jul 14, 2005)

> "The Stranger" (which is sometimes translated as "The Outsider") is his best book


The stranger is awesome.   But I read that along time ago.  Cant quite remember much, but I rememver really liking it.


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## Kelhanion (Jul 14, 2005)

I should be partaking, though I think I lag behind already. I work in a library and I carry home pretty much everything that has words on it, but after a long day I have no energy to read. One advantage is though that I don't have to pay any reservation fees (so I reserve every good DVD I can remember of  )


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## strangedaze (Jul 14, 2005)

Blah, if we include all the books I've read this summer, I'd tack on:

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
The Shipping News by E. Anni Proulx
Hey, Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
Crash by JG Ballard
Kilter: 55 Fictions by John Gould
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

Hmmm maybe I should include these, since I'm not even going to come close to finishing ten other books by Augusrt 30th  I'm such a bum.


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## cwilson (Jul 15, 2005)

Hearts in Atlantis [Stephen King]
Freakonomics [Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner]
Dreamcatcher [Stephen King]
Prey [Michael Chrichton]
Raise the Titanic! [Clive Cussler]
The Dark Tower [Stephen King]
The Amber Room [Steve Berry]
Death of an Expert Witness [PD James]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [J.K. Rowlings -- i finished it saturday]

One more to go...


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## strangedaze (Jul 15, 2005)

Add to my list of finished novels The Castle by Franz Kafka.


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## Hodge (Jul 15, 2005)

Nah. In 100 years contemporary authors will be analyzed and picked apart in the same ways we do to Dickens.


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## Kane (Jul 15, 2005)

> Real literature is art. Many of the books mentioned in this thread are entertainment. I have nothing against well-written entertainment like Graham Greene's "The Third Man" or the novels of Raymond Chandler. I enjoy them myself.
> 
> But real literature contains philosophical ideas and makes you think about the important issues of life. It can inspire the reader and give some depth to his experience. That's more valuable than entertainment, which you can get from a video game.



Again, I give you:



> Quote:
> To loosely quote Aristotle, as storytelling goes bad, so goes the neighborhood. The contemporary literary establishment routinely confuses literary fiction with literature. What we’re sold as literature these days is usually (again, with a few exceptions) little more than an attempt to mask an inability to tell a story with disdain for those who can, to replace substance with a frequently pompous style of—equally frequently—questionable beauty, and to pretend that it’s not boring unless one is a “philistine” who sees only a blank canvas where only a blank canvas is hanging.*
> 
> Literature is and always has been a form of storytelling, not of art. If a novelist doesn’t have a story that he absolutely must tell, and tell coherently, there’s no reason to read his self-aggrandizing drivel. If a novelist doesn’t have a story to tell, then all he is doing is posturing. And posturing is best kept to chat rooms.
> ...


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