Help me select books

[Miss Chicken]

As I haven't read any of her books I think I will read Stiff and Spook before deciding whether to read Bonk and Packing for Mars.

"Sex" might be a possible category when I get to 2014 (14 in 14 Challenge)

If anyone is inerested my current 12 in 12 Challenge is here. I didn't start it until July so I had to pick categories that fitted books I had already read and I am not really that satisfied with my categories.

 

[MLJames]

A suggestion for the "Disease, Death, and ..." category would be Flu by Gina Kolata (published in 1999). It's about the 1918 influenza pandemic and efforts over the years to isolate the virus and discover why that flu was so deadly.

Two nonfiction suggestions for the "Books about Books" category:
The Book of Lost Books by Stuart Kelly -- Just what it says on the label, books we know about but no longer have. It's broken up into eighty or so small chapters dealing with authors from Homer on up to Sylvia Plath.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. The subtitle for the book is "The true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession."

Lastly, for the "Alternate History" category, I have both fiction and nonfiction suggestions.
Fiction:
The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling
Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois -- a mystery set ten years after the Cuban War of 1962.

Nonfiction:
What If?, What If? 2, and What Ifs? of American History, all three edited by Robert Cowley. These are collections of essays by historians (and some authors of historical fiction), dealing with subjects ranging from the premature death of Alexander the Great to the consequences of the Spanish not bringing back the potato from the new world.

I'm not sure if they would fit under whatever guidelines the challenge follows, but I might also throw in two books by Dougal Dixon: After Man: A Zoology of the Future and The New Dinosaurs. They're illustrated field guides to two different alternate worlds, one set 50 million years after humanity's extinction, the other set today in a world where the dinosaurs never went extinct.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I actually have a 1981 version of After Man: A Zoology of the Future. Though I bought it for myself, one of my sons loved it and would always be reading it. He spilled hot chocolate over it and so it is rather stained. It also had a badly damaged spine which I patched up with library tape.

I have Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission on my list. Looking at the preview on Amazon I was surprised to see it actually lists the book I am currently reading - The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness - obviously it isn't lost but maybe it is Overlooked or Under-read. It is a truly beautiful novel.

The Book of Lost Books seems to be similar to Lost Classics but I have no doubt that they cover a differing range of books so I have added The Book of Lost Books to my list.

The Man who Loved to Books Too Much was already on my list. I now have 12 books on the Books About Books list and that I haven't even put a Jasper Fforde book onto it yet. I might have to make the Books About Books a full category (i.e 13 books) and make the Bombs and Boomerangs a half category (6 or 7 books).

My 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die long-list has 38 books on it and will need some serious pruning.

I have John Barry's The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History on my list. I think it will beat out Flu by Gina Kolata because Barry's book has a Kindle version and, as I have failing eyesight I prefer to read a book on my iPad when I have a choice.

I will look at your alternative history suggestions tomorrow.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think I got through all 5 books in about about 7 weeks.

And you have two more books to read before you finish the Ice and Fire Saga, presuming GRR Martin ends up writing them.

I'll never remember anything. I"ll have to reread the last one (all 1000 pages) before I start number 6.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

For the bio category, I'd suggest Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted, by Gerald Imber (himself an M.D.). Revolutionary surgeon and cocaine addict.

For mysteries or strong female leads, anything by Laura Lippman. My favorite is I'd Know You Anywhere. It's more a psychological thriller than mystery, really.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Thanks for the suggestions, Tora Ziyal. The Halsted book looks extremely interesting.

I am getting so many good suggestions that I wish I could increase some of my half-categories to full categories. Unfortunately using 5 full categories and 8 half categories gets me up to 117 books for the year, or slightly less (maybe 110) because some books will go into two categories. I think I will be hard-pressed to read much more than that in a year.

 

[Mistral]

I have read "THe Diary of Anne Frank" but only the original version. I believe the newer version contains passges that her father left out.

I don't need a fantasy category for "Libriomancer" as it would fit perfectly into the Books about Books category and I have added it to that list and I think i will be definitely buying it.

I couldn't remember that one's title or I'd have suggested it for that category.

Shame you limited yourself to 42 degrees south-but this will still work for the alt hist category.

http://www.amazon.com/Kelly-Country-A-Bertram-Chandler/dp/0886770661

The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling
Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois -- a mystery set ten years after the Cuban War of 1962.
^-both good reads.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I have included some books about or by Australians in other categories.


I have just ordered the Ned Kelly book and will add it to my Alternative History list. I am quite a Kelly buff and have read several books about him but this will be a welcome change to the Kelliana I have read in th past. Have hated the Ned Kelly movies but enjoyed and own "The Last Outlaw" the Australian miniseries from the eary 1980s that starred John Jarratt as Ned.

I will consider the other two though my alternative history list is getting rather long.

For my last category I have decided on the topic "Feuds". In this I will include a book about the Bone Wars (Cope vs Marsh) a book on the Hatfields and McCoys and "Ancient Animosities" which is a book I already own but haven't read and which is about the feud between the Stewart of Appin clan and Campbell clan.

My 13 categories ae now

Full categories

42 Degrees South
Choices from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Sherlockiana
Other Mysteries
Books about Books

Half categories

Iceland
Sci-fi (non-Anglo authors, alternative histories)
Biographies
Sickess, Death and ???
Feuds
The New Voyages of Me (books about countries I have never read about before)
Bombs and Boomerangs
Potpourri

 

[Mistral]

For potpourri, perhaps The 5 People You Meet In Heaven? Fantastic little book.

And your sickness, death and ??? maybe "the end of civilization"-then you could squeeze "Collapse" in there...

 

[Kegg]

7) Land of Ice and Fire (books about Iceland, or written by Icelandic authors)

Not really sure if you'd be interested in either, but the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda came immediately to mind. They're two major sources of Norse mythology, and they were both written down in Iceland. While the former are basically the oral tradition written down, the latter is an attempt to summarize the various myths in prose by Snorri Sturluson, who is thus, logically, an Icelandic author.

 

[Miss Chicken]

For potpourri, perhaps The 5 People You Meet In Heaven? Fantastic little book.

And your sickness, death and ??? maybe "the end of civilization"-then you could squeeze "Collapse" in there...

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven would fit into my 'Sickness, Death and ???" as the ??? stands for what might happen beyond death.

I have already read (and own) Collapse.

Not really sure if you'd be interested in either, but the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda came immediately to mind. They're two major sources of Norse mythology, and they were both written down in Iceland. While the former are basically the oral tradition written down, the latter is an attempt to summarize the various myths in prose by Snorri Sturluson, who is thus, logically, an Icelandic author.

I have already read the Eddas, as well as many of the Viking Sagas as well.

I would love to read a biography on Snorri Sturlason, who I gather was an interesting but not very likeable man.