Books you read in 2019

1. Friday Black - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah A series of short stories. Skewers commercialism and is pretty violent. The first story is amazing. (8.5/10)
2. Washington Black - Esi Edugyan Loved this book. Story of a boy who escapes slavery in Barbados. Told from his perspective and is really an amazing character. Great ending, read the last 75 pages in one sitting last night, couldn't put it down. Named to NYT's top 10 books of 2018. (9/10)

 

Give us the deets on these books.

 

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Was going to suggest Washington Black for a future book club, got a lot of buzz.

 

February??

 

1) The Force by Don Winslow 3/10

 

2019
1. The Urban Monk *5.0
2. Fire and Blood *7.0

Was told good things about the Urban Monk and how it was a great entry into meditation/mindfulness lifestyle and while there were ideas and pieces that were good, I developed a strong hatred of the author from the way he writes. He seems like someone I’d want to punch in the face. Also he has so much fake medicine bullshit he’s doing more harm than benefit with the book.

I liked Fire and blood but it was super dull for stretches. Dance of Dragons part was my favorite, but I didn’t care at all for the entire Aegon III part, super boring. Wanted more of the later Targaryen King stories.

 

Finished the first book of the JK Rowling (pen name Robert Galbraith) mystery series this morning, and started....

1. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Highly recommend. Shit is wild.

 

1. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History -- Sidney Mintz (6/10)
Interesting topic but way too wordy/technical for me. Didn't realize before starting, but this book actually comes from the "cultural anthropology" section instead of history. So it takes forever to make a point and some paragraphs devolve into jargon about symbolic this and paradigmatic that. Certainly an interesting topic though. I'd be interested in reading some other, more readable books about the history of different foods/beverages if anyone knows of any.

 

Feels good to tack my first one of the year onto the list. 2017 I was in the 30s, last year in the 40s, this year hoping to hit the 50s on books completed

 

1. Consent to Kill (Mitch Rapp #7) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
2. Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabell Wilkerson (9.5/10)
3. Act of Treason (Mitch Rapp #8) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
4. Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose (8.5/10)

Mitch Rapp novels - Whomever told me these next few books were the best in the series wasnt lying. I read both books in like 3 days. Couldnt put them down.

Warmth of Other Suns - This book should be required reading in HS social studies. Tells the story of African American migration to the north and west after Jim Crow.

Citizen Soldiers - Book Club book. Different than a lot of war books. Tells more personal stories of the soldiers and what they had to deal w on a micro level, rather than focusing on the generals and overall tactics of the war.

 

Salt by Mark Kurlansky (spelling?) has been recommended to me several times and is on my TBR.

 

This is on my shelf. Will be reading this year

 

1) The Force by Don Winslow 3/10
2) The Way of Shadows (Night Angel #1) by Brent Weeks 8/10

 

The Force was my least favorites of the Don Winslow books I've read. No bueno.

 

Yeah it was ridiculously over the top and unbelievable. By far his worst work imo.

 

Night Angel series is great.

 

Trying to finish Fire and Blood. Hopefully I get through it before the Game of Thrones spin-off series starts.

 

I didnt get very far. It's super dry

 

I’m a quarter way through it.

Spoiler

the Jaehrys chapters are just sooo long and uneventful it’s just daunting

 

1. Consent to Kill (Mitch Rapp #7) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
2. Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabell Wilkerson (9.5/10)
3. Act of Treason (Mitch Rapp #8) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
4. Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose (8.5/10)
5. Protect and Defend (Mitch Rapp #9) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
6. Extreme Measures (Mitch Rapp #10) by Vince Flynn (8/10)
7. Pursuit of Honor (Mitch Rapp #11) by Vince Flynn (7.5/10)
8. American Assassin (Mitch Rapp #12) by Vince Flynn (6/10)

These Mitch Rapp books are great. Obviously IM flying through them. Short and quick reads. I read a few on those a couple sittings. Last couple have been a little less great, but still good. Need to read somethign else next.

 

This is me with "The Prize", a 900 page history of oil.

 

1. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History -- Sidney Mintz (6/10)

2. Popularity: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World -- Mitch Prinstein (9/10)
This book explains a lot about popularity in school and how it affects you later in life, and why popularity is still important throughout life even when you leave school. There are two kinds, likability and status. Likability is the one that will ultimately make you happy per this book. Very interesting. Many stories of the crazy effects things early in life can have on shaping your personality

 

Currently reading "Gang Leader for a Day." This book's good af!

 

That was a great book. I remember loving it, especially living in Chicago. Been so long i dont remember many details tho :(

 

This book might as well be The Wire with some of the characters in it. It gives me that same type of feel of showing the human stories behind all the different sides of the picture without clear "good guys." I'm getting towards the end and the part I'm reading now is about the police -- Officer Jerry might as well be Officer Walker straight off The Wire. "What you need to understand is there's two gangs in the projects -- the gangs and the cops."

 

This book has my interest. There's a chapter in Freakonomics talking about some of his work but I'm sure I'd enjoy a deeper dive.

 

I haven't read Freakonomics but yeah, in the intro he talks about that's where the book grew from. I know Freakonomics was huge when it came out -- you think I should work my way back to that one, or are there other books that do the job now?

 

Tangman I believe I remember you liking "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City"; this book's even better I would say

 

At the very least, I'd read the chapters where Levitt makes his argument for Roe V Wade being the reason for the drop in crime in the '90s. Later editions also include his responses to criticisms of that theory. Pretty interesting stuff.

I'd definitely put Evicted in my top 5 or so reads last year so that's a strong endorsement in my view.

 

1) The Force by Don Winslow 3/10
2) The Way of Shadows (Night Angel #1) by Brent Weeks 8/10
3) Shadow’s Edge (Night Angel #2) by Brent Weeks 9.5/10

 

1. Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills by Charles Henderson 6/10

 

1. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History -- Sidney Mintz (6/10)
2. Popularity: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World -- Mitch Prinstein (9/10)

3. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets / Sudhir Venkatesh (10/10)
Great read. Writing something like this would be my dream job -- hanging around something and observing for years and years to get the insider details. This guy really has an eye for what's unique and interesting because despite having read and watched stuff on this subject before, this didn't feel like rehash. I was engrossed throughout. My mind's kinda blown because in reading up on the author, he has now left academics and works at Facebook. Kinda scratching my head on that

 

I forgot about the secondary title and how cringy it was. ROGUE SOCIOLOGIST!!!!!

Regardless, I loved that book.

 

1. Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills by Charles Henderson 6/10
2. Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz 8/10 This was a very interesting book about the inter-war period in Germany. Very detailed about life in Germany during this period, there seemed to be more details about life for the civilians than politics but it still covered the politics of the period. Would recommend it to anyone interested in the period.

 

1. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History -- Sidney Mintz (6/10)
2. Popularity: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World -- Mitch Prinstein (9/10)
3. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets / Sudhir Venkatesh (10/10)


4. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War / Mary Roach (4/10)
Not my thing. Picked it up because I heard about the book on NPR or somewhere and mistakenly thought it focused on the psychology of humans at war. Nope, this is a science book. Which I'm still interested in, but this author is apparently known for her focus on the gross-out. There are no kidding not one but two different chapters devoted to genital injuries and transplants in here Also a chapter on diarrhea, etc.

Other thing that drove me crazy is her writing style. She thinks she's funny with these little asides she makes every page. Well, user TC did not find them funny at all. Stick to the fucking point woman. I quit reading the footnotes after a while after every single one was about as funny as a FriarJuggs "pokemon" spoiler.

Will not be reading her other books "Stiff" and "Bonk"

 

1. Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany (Stephen E. Ambrose) - 8/10 - Shared more in the book club thread but I enjoyed this a lot. More of a look at the experiences of the GIs than the politics or military strategies of the participants. Ambrose has a real knack for popular history writing.
2. The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov - Burgin/O'Connor Translation) - 9.5/10 - One of the best novels I've ever read, I think. I'm a sucker for biblical and classical references in literature and this one has it in spades. To be frank, I'm not smart and/or well-read enough to catch a lot of them so the commentary at the end really helped. Don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it but juxtaposes a trip from the devil to 1930s Moscow and the story of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. This translation was highly recommended and I thought it flowed well but its loyalty to the original is hard to know unless you've read it in Russian and compared it to other translations.

New feature for 2019: Up Next - 1) The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing 2) Washington Black

 

1. Consent to Kill (Mitch Rapp #7) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
2. Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabell Wilkerson (9.5/10)
3. Act of Treason (Mitch Rapp #8) by Vince Flynn (9/10)
4. Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose (8.5/10)
5. No Exit by Taylor Adams (7.5/10)
6. An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendrick (6.5/10)
7. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (8.5/10)

No Exit - This would make a great movie. Girl driving home from college during winter break gets stuck at a rest stop because of a blizzard. After settling an meeting the other 4-5 people there, she runs out to her car fro something, and notices a girl locked in a cage inside of a van in the parking lot. Now she's trying to figure out who the van belongs to and how to save the girl.

An Anonymous Girl - This was getting a ton of pub so I decided to read it. The last book to be declared "The Next Gone Girl" It was ok, but not great.

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Never read it before and been wanting to knock it off my lst for a while. It's a classic for a reason. Really good. I know it was meant to be an inflammatory book to spark thought in the abolitionist movement. It was definitely heavy handed. I kind of got a laugh out of the parts where narrator jumps in to basically layout the point Stowe was making. As if 1850s readers couldnt pick up even heavy handed nuance. lol..

 

1. The Future of Humanity by Machio Kaku ****
2. The Giver by Lois Lowry ***
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes *****
4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess ****

 

1. Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills by Charles Henderson 6/10
2. Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz 8/10
3. Operator Down (Pike Logan #12) by Brad Taylor 7/10 Not as good as some of the other books in this series but wasn't bad either. Quick read that was an enjoyable break from some other reading I've been doing.

 

Crashed was really good, was definitely not prepared for it to be 600+ pages when I picked up my hold at the library