2025 Reading Challenge discussion
ARCHIVE 2015
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Adam's 75 Books in 2015
Good luck with your challenge this year, Adam! What are you most looking forward to reading?
There are three series that I'd really like to finish reading. I've only read one book of each so far. Hard Magic, A Game of Thrones & Missing 411: Western United States and Canada. The Grimnoir Chronicles is a really cool sci-fi/super hero story. The Song of Ice and Fire books are just awesome. And the Missing 411 books are really creepy true stories of people who go missing under mysterious circumstances in or near National Parks on a regular basis.
Last year I read a couple of Donna Tartts books, now I'm going to read the last one I haven't read called The Little Friend. Then there's another huge book I bought last year sitting up on my shelf that I haven't sunk my teeth into yet called The Making of the Atomic Bomb which sounds super interesting. I love reading non-fiction stuff that almost sounds like it should be fiction.
My secret santa also sent me a really good book that I'm excited to get into called Ruled Britannia a historical fiction book during Shakespeare times. Last year I read through all the Century Trilogies by Ken Follet and I'm hoping this one is just as good or better. Speaking of that I've also got some Ken Follet audiobooks I haven't listed to yet that I want to start on too. Really tough to decide which books to read first!
2.
- Just watched through all the seasons on HBO and got hooked. So I thought I'd give the books a try while I'm waiting for the next season and so far this first book was well worth the time to read it. I really enjoy how much detail goes into each character, land & family. It's also fun to know that the show doesn't follow the books exactly, so there is still the suspense in wondering who will live or die. And the dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, is just as awesome in the book as in the show, only you get to know him a whole lot better.5 Stars
3.
I listened to this book on audio book while remodeling my office. Made me chuckle quite a few times.3 Stars
4.
Read this with the book club and I really tried to like it, but I was constantly annoyed throughout the book, especially with the unfinished ending. A one word review for this book would be "anti-climatic." Spoiler Below:
Basically the story is this. A young Christian pastor flies to another planet to teach about Jesus. He leaves his wife on Earth where everything turns to crap when he's gone. The aliens already believed in Jesus anyway, but he helps them build a church. There is no crime among the aliens, so his purpose seems pointless, other than the aliens wanted to hear more about the Bible, which they call "The Book of Strange Things." He emails his wife a lot, and his wife gets mad at him for not writing as much as he promised and then later gets made that he doesn't ask about her pregnancy. The aliens give themselves the names of "Jesus Lover 1, Jesus Lover 2, etc." depending on which one converted first. You never really learn a whole lot about the aliens, other than that they are ugly and can't pronounce their S's & T's. The water tastes like honey dew and makes your pee turn orange. Nearly everyone on the planet is depressed, and at the end the main character and one other character decide to go home. The company he works for might be evil, but when he brings it up his coworkers tell him to keep quiet, so he does. He thinks he gets poisoned, but he's not. He thinks the aliens might be murdering people, but they're not. He thinks he might have an affair with is coworker, but he doesn't. Jesus Lover #5 hurts her hand and is dying, but you don't hear if she makes it or not. Nothing is really resolved or explained, and then it ends.
1 Star
I couldn't agree more with your review of The Book of Strange New Things! I feel the exact same way! So frustrating.
5.
A very creepy story. A journey into madness.4 Stars
6.
Some of this is just common sense, but there was also some very good advice based on studies done with large groups of children. Only thing that bugged me though, is that the speaker uses the phrase "That said" way too much. I laughed every time he'd say it.5 Stars
7.
I tried this first as an audio book but couldn't understand anything. So I read it on my kindle which was really nice so that I could look up all the words I didn't know. It still took me a while to finish it, but hopefully I absorbed most of the important parts of the book. It may be a while before I get the guts to read the sequel, but my brain could use the workout!4 Stars
Adam wrote: "2. - Just watched through all the seasons on HBO and got hooked. So I thought I'd give the books a try while I'm waiting for the next season and so far this fir..."I love this series so much! Martin writes such interesting characters, I love how multifaceted they are. I've got so many favorite characters, also among the 'evil' ones :D
Haha yes it's really fun to root for the bad guy sometimes!
8.
2nd book in the series. This book is guaranteed to give you nightmares. It's a collection of cases where people, mostly children, go missing in the wilderness. The creepy part is that when you read them all together, you start to notice similar trends in their disappearances that make it sound like they were kidnapped under impossible circumstances. The author doesn't draw any conclusions in his book for you, but points out how most of the missing people are taken from certain clusters throughout the United States. I'm going to try and get through the last 2 books of the series this year. Really fascinating read, but hard to read about the people who aren't found alive, if they are ever found at all.5 Stars
9.
This book brings up an interesting observation that America was formed by a group of certain "nations," and that they still exist today. It goes through the history of each of them up until the present day. One of the main things I got from the book was how complicated the civil war really was, and also how lucky we were that all the states have stayed in the union. And did you know there used to be a state called Franklin? I had no idea! But it was illegally formed and was later dissolved.4 Stars
10.
Read this with the goodreads book club and it was a pretty fun book. Not a page turner but I liked how it described what it'd be like if 99% of the population would suddenly die and slowly begin to rebuild. It also jumps around a lot from different time periods, but I didn't mind because there weren't a whole lot of characters to keep track of, and they all tie in to each other.4 Stars
11.
I didn't quite understand what an introvert was until I read this book and felt like it was describing my whole personality. The chapter about marriages between extroverts & introverts was also extremely enlightening. I can also see now how one of my kids takes after me and the book offers some good advice at what to do when he gets moody and drained from too much social interaction. The book also helps dispel the myth that all introverts are shy & anti-social. It's more about how an introverts brain works differently from an introverts. Different neural pathways are used in the brain that causes them to think about things more deeply and take more time to form their opinions on things, and will often study something in depth so that they can have a more educated opinion. I also liked what it said how introverts carry on a dialogue in their mind throughout the day, which I thought everyone did! I highly recommend this even if you don't think you're an introvert. It will help you understand those around you that are and help you understand how they think.5 Stars
12.
I love books like this that take you back in time and show you what it was like to live in their shoes. Most of the book is from journals about people's experiences & struggles in Utah mainly during the Brigham Young/Wild West era up until around 1900. It also brings to light a lot of the injustices from early Utah history, and so many crimes that were gotten away with. It's also interesting to see how a lot of the conflicts between Mormons & non-Mormons that existed in Utah 150 years ago still continue today. The footnotes were very helpful & a lot of research was done to verify or correct many of the stories in the accounts.5 Stars
Adam wrote: "11. I didn't quite understand what an introvert was until I read this book and felt like it was describing my whole pe..."Have you read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking? It sounds similar and it's very good. As an introvert, I can totally relate to how we are not necessarily shy, we just think differently than extroverts. I'll have to check out this book.
Thanks I haven't read that one yet, I'll have to add it to my reading list. I just watched a movie yesterday that really demonstrated the power that an introvert can have called "The Imitation Game." True story about an extremely introverted person who cracks the German codes with a computer he designs himself. It was tough seeing him struggle when he realized he didn't think like most other people and he tried so hard to get along with others. Really awesome movie.
13.
I have yet to read a Neil Gaiman book that I don't love. There were a lot of great characters in this story and I really had no idea where the story was headed until towards the end of the book, which is a good thing. I like adventure & mystery, mixed with a little magic. I also liked that the philosophical messages throughout the book about beliefs and how peoples gods cease to exist when there is no one to believe in them and things like that.5 Stars
14.
This book got me thinking about how unhealthy my eating is, and I've since changed to eating a lot more nuts, fruits and vegetables than I did before, but I'm still not sold on the idea of whole foods being the only kind of food I should eat. Humans have been cooking food and eating meat for thousands of years, surely by now our bodies have evolved somewhat so that these kinds of foods will still benefit us. Processed foods on the other hand I totally agree with him that too much of these will cause malnutrition & disease. I'd like to find a book that holds the opposite theory to this one & see how their arguments hold up. I only rated this 3 stars because the book is 2 parts ranting, 1 part science. And I also really wanted to hear more about how to start the whole foods diet he proposed so that I could try it out.3 Stars
15.
After reading 2 books this has become my all-time favorite book series. And I started book 3 today immediately after finishing this one. I'd like to get caught up before the next season begins in April, but I'll be sad when I have to wait sit and wait for the next book to come out like everyone else who's been reading these for years. 5 Stars
16.
This was a very thought-provoking book about how German Mormons survived Nazi Germany. The main theme of the book shows how most of them were left alone, and even protected, while some of the other churches in the area who spoke out were persecuted and thrown into concentration camps. The book talks about both the heroes & the Nazi sympathizers in the church. Sadly, both of the heroes, one who saved several of his Jewish and Polish friends, the other who passed out handbills against the Nazis, were both excommunicated from the church. The really sad parts were about how the Jewish Mormons were told they could not come to church, and when they wrote to their American leaders at the church headquarters for help to immigrate there just before the war started, they were all sent the same form letter stating that they didn't wish to get involved.
It was interesting to hear the rumors that were going through the church at that time too. Some thought that Hitler was a secret Mormon since it was said that he never drank or smoke, and that he had a program where Germans would eat a modest meal once a month and give the money saved to the poor. The Nazis really admired the church's work in genealogy, but with had other purposes in mind for using it.
Before and throughout the war, one of the main tenants of the church was repeated to the German members that "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." At one point a German branch president took down the painted of Jesus & Joseph Smith in his building, and replaced them with portraits of Hitler, and at other times he would lock the members in the meetings and made sure they would listen to Hitlers broadcasts.
The author spent over a decade in researching data for this book, and was even given access to old mission journals and was even given access to many other archives by the Church History Department.
One funny (kind of) part in the book, was when the European mission presidents met together, and they suspected that one of them from Germany had become a Nazi sympathizer. As a joke, one of them crept up behind him, laid a hand on his shoulder and yelled Heil Hitler!. He was surprised to see him swing around, giving the Nazi salute and shouting Heil Hitler right back to him as a knee-jerk reaction.
5 Stars
17.
This book is mainly about the character of Kit Carson, his travels and the decisions he had to make in his life. It's very detailed book and seems to give a good description of what kind of man he was and his accomplishments as well as his mistakes.4 Stars
18.
I've never read a book this long without loosing interest halfway through it until now. It's hard to talk about the specific parts I really liked without giving things away, but I especially enjoyed the surprises in the book that were not in the show.5 Stars
19.
I didn't like that half the characters are left out of this book and saved for the next book, so that was one of the main motivating factors in reading this one so quickly. I wanted to get to the good stuff in the next book! But towards the end of this one a lot of crazy things happened that I didn't see coming, and Brienne's long, seemingly pointless search finally gets interesting towards the end. It seems like some characters are finally growing up in this volume (like Samwell & Jaime) but others (like Cersei) just seem to never learn. But the book wouldn't be very fun without some really wicked antagonists in it, and the more evil they are, the sweeter the revenge!5 Stars
20.
By far the longest book in the series, but well worth the read to experience the epic story. Not a whole lot of things are resolved in this book, but it does explain more about the hisotry & carries on the stories of the all main characters in the book. Seems like this one has the most significant cliffhangers too. It's such a complicated book though and it hurts my head every time more characters are introduced that I have to keep track of, but the Game of Thrones wiki page helps me remember who's who when I need it. It's so nice to finally be caught up on this series. They are extremely huge books! But now I can finally get back to the rest of the books on my to read list for this year, most of which are only a quarter of the size of this book.
5 Stars
I'm ready to start A Storm of Swords. I'm excited for it but the books get bigger! I'm not so excited for that.
Yes that was my biggest frustration too! But at least it will keep you entertained for a long time to come since there aren't too many boring parts. Plus when you finish them you'll have a greater sense of accomplishment for getting through these massive volumes.
21.
I saw this book on sale for a buck or two and saved it until after I caught up on the books. It points out a lot of things I didn't catch while readying the books and reminded me of a lot of the clues given throughout the series. The part I really liked though is when it talked about what historical figures & places inspired some of the characters & places in the books. I'm only giving it 4 stars though because I think most of this book was gleaned off of internet discussion boards. But it's nice to see all the relevant information gathered into one book.4 Stars
22.
Wow, this was one of the funnest books I've ever read. If you like 80's pop culture trivia & video games this book is for you. In a way it's like a modern day Willy Wonka story, but in this contest only the nerds stand a chance at winning.5+ Stars
23.
This book has some interesting ideas about the afterlife and the purpose of life. The story itself was good and is more or less the same as the movie, only more dragged out. Of course I couldn't help but picture Robin Williams as the voice of the main character throughout the whole book, and just that alone added some emotion to the book. But the main story about a guy willing to risk going to hell and back for his soul mate is pretty cool.3 Stars
Thanks! I bet the author had to have had the movie in mind when he wrote it. Sorrento = Slugworth (like when he tempted him to sell the secret clue for money), Halliday = Willy Wonka of course (mysterious rich guy who rarely makes public appearances) but Wade Watts was more like a mix between Charlie & Mike Teavee.
24.
I don't like reading too many reviews or summaries of books before I read them, so I began reading this thinking that it would be a Matilda-like story of a little girl with super powers. It wasn't what I thought, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. It is a dystopian story and without giving anything away, it deals with the struggle of how justifiable murder is when it could save the human race. Of the three main characters, one is completely on one side of the spectrum, another the opposite, and then one that is stuck in the middle and doesn't quite agree with either extreme. The ending was great too and is the kind of book that leaves you thinking about the choices that they made and wondering what you would do in their place.4 Stars
25.
A fun book to read about how Abraham Lincoln hunts down vampires and chops off their heads. It reads like a biography and kind of jumps around a bit. There weren't too many plot twists or unexpected changes in the story like I'm used to in other books. Revenge seemed to be the main motivator for the plot, and the ending to me was anti-climatic. The movie improved a little on the plot and the ending. But I enjoyed the humor throughout & I liked the pictures in the book that show vampires wearing sunglasses in old photos & of Abraham Lincoln and his ax. As I read the book it would sometimes make me wonder if Lincoln really did have a secret vampire hunting hobby on the side. 3.5 to 4 Stars
26.
Very well written descriptive story, lots of action, creepy villains & tons of cool magic. It was similar to another book I've read called Hard Magic, but overall it was still had a lot of original concepts & was a fun read. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.5 Stars
27.
Wow. This is a book that I think most people would appreciate since nearly everyone on the planet has benefited from this woman. It talks about how cancer cells from a lady who died in the 50's have helped change the world of medicine, saved countless lives and her cells are still alive today being used to test various vaccines, treatments, etc. It also goes into the back story of who Henrietta Lacks was, how her family reacted when she passed & also when they found out years later that their mother's cells had become famous without their knowledge or consent. 5 Stars
28.
I think I liked this book because I really enjoy mysteries & ghost stories, but also because I've experienced some of the same things this couple had, although not quite as terrifying. Maybe I'll write about them someday too. This book was interesting the whole way through & I read it all in just one weekend. 5 Stars
29.
I enjoyed reading about how different people began their businesses and what they did with their wealth. I liked to hear about the people who began famous brand names such as Levi Straus, Coors, Wells Fargo, etc. This isn't really a page turner book and it took me longer than normal to read. But it's more of a coffee table book to read a chapter or two each morning and learn about how some people made their fortunes or lost them, but each contributing to the expansion of the West in a significant way. I'll probably keep this book as a reference book when I come across some of these people in future old west books I read, especially about the railroads, which are hard to keep track of who ran each one. 4 Stars
30.
Even though this story took place back in the 70's, it didn't make it any less creepy. It's a book that was originally written for the author's immediate family, but was later released as a book about his experiences with mysterious events that took place in an apartment he lived in. A very fun & interesting read.5 Stars
31.
Of the 3 books this one was my favorite. Besides the magic & the cool battles, the characters are trying to clean up the mess they made in the first book after completely taking apart the government and people's way of life, so they struggle on how to rebuild the world, and they wonder if they are actually worse off than before they conquered the Lord Ruler.5 Stars
32.
I bought this from a coffee shop near 25th Street in Ogden where these stories take place. I thought it might be cool to hear some local ghost stories. But really it's just short fictional short stories loosely based on local ghost stories, so you're left to wonder what the actual folklore is and what was made up. So I didn't really like this book, but I at least finished this volume to give it a chance. The only small parts I did like was when it referred to actual history and what life was like back in the bootlegger days of Ogden when it used to be the railroad junction of the nation.3 Stars
33.
I really want to catch up on my Scientific American magazines, so I thought including them would help motivate me to read them all cover to cover. I really enjoyed this one which focused on the most current knowledge & best theories of what the universe actually is, and what it could be. Very mind boggling stuff! 4 Stars
34.
I read this book with my wife as our own little book club. She really likes vampire books so she chose this one. I wanted to really like it since I loved Stephen King's recent book 11/22/63, but it was really nothing like it. For me this book was way too descriptive, and often went off on tangents about what the street lights sounded like or the last time someone was more scared than they were now. Plus it was frustrating that during nearly the whole book the characters wasted so much time trying to convince themselves if the vampires were real or not, even though they had already seen them and people were dying around them. The ending was super predictable and I was hoping for at least some kind of a twist, but I was disappointed. None of it was really scary to me too, but maybe that's because it's an older book.3 Stars
35.
The third book of the trilogy where everything is wrapped up nicely and there are are some pretty cool character developments and plot twists. 5 Stars
36.
I met this guy a few years ago and bought this book from him and just got around to reading it now. It was actually a really fun read hearing about his adventures and misadventures near the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, where all kinds of crazy crap goes on. Definitely not a boring book. 5 Stars
37.
Most of the articles in this issue had to do with the evolution of humans and about the different paths we and our cousins took throughout the course of time. Learned a ton of stuff I've never known about. I'm really enjoying reading this to get a little more up to date with the scientific world since I haven't been to school in years.4 Stars
38.
Wow, if you haven't already, read this book!!! I watched the documentary on it first on HBO and heard that the book had a ton more info it, and I was a whole lot more shocked from what's in the book. The book does a very good job at describing why people join Scientology and what motivates them to keep dumping money into the "church." Parts of the book made me laugh out loud, while there were some very heart wrenching stories about people escaping the religion while they are being chased and hunted down by its members, and other times people would commit suicide because of how much the religion had warped their minds. Such a crazy and fascinating book.5+ Stars
39.
This was such an easy book to sink into. Even though I vaguely remember what happened during the movie, the book adds so much more depth into the characters and draws you into the stories atmosphere around the murders and what the killer is thinking. Can't wait to read through the rest of the series! Also if you're a fan of the Hannibal TV series, you'll notice they used a few things from this book for the characters in the show. 5 Stars
40.
Since my #36 book left me wanting to hear more about this story from another source, I picked up this book and read about what was going on from the actual scientists point of view who were investigating the ranch after it was purchased by a multi-millionaire. Very bizarre and fun to read. I've always enjoyed reading these types of books since I was a kid.5 Stars
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Customs of the World: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are (other topics)In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (other topics)
Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened & Why Do They Say It? (other topics)
The Flux (other topics)
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (other topics)
More...
1. Ogden: Junction City - It's history is a lot more exciting than I would have thought! It was one of the most important railroad hubs back in the day, and is also the home of John M. Browning, the famous gun inventor. I also really enjoyed seeing old pictures of buildings that use to be here, and also about the history of the tallest & interesting historic buildings in downtown Ogden.
4 Stars