Books You Plan to Read in 2022

[Moksha]

Do you have a reading list for the year? This is mine (half of them were on my reading list last year, so I doubt I'll get through them all!!):

John Higgs: Blake
Yuval Harari: Sapiens
P G Wodehouse: Thankyou Jeeves
Thom Gunn: Collected Poems
Alan Watts: The Way of Zen
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (can't think of the author's name)
Patrick Fermor: Mani
Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
Herman Hesse: The Glass Bead Game
Audiobook of Stephen Fry reading Sherlock Holmes
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (even though I have literature degree, I've never read a word by Austen, so thought I'd better give her a go)
Harold Bloom: Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles and also The Western Canon
Nabokov: The Luzhin Defence and Sebastian Knight
Primo Levi: The Wrench
Stephen Fry: Making History
Edward St Aubyn's latest novel (can't think of the name)
John Gribbin: The Seven Pillars of Science
Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker
Paul Nurse: What is Life?
Tom Stoppard: Arcadia
A. C. Grayling: History of Philosophy and The Limits of Knowledge
Anthony Burgess: Earthly Powers

I'm going to try and read more of a mix this year, both fiction and non-fiction. For fiction, I'm following Harold Bloom's reading list. But I also want to read more popular science. I'm really bad at science, and very ignorant, so it's a bit of a struggle, but the older I get the more it interests me. Must also get back into audiobooks. It's a great way to plough through the classics - stuff like Dickens, Hardy, Woolf, H G Wells's Time Machine, etc.

Actually, it would be interesting to put up a list of films people plan to watch and CDs they plan to buy (do people still buy CDs??). I want to re-watch Blade Runner, and also the new version with Ryan Gosling. And I must get a DVD boxset of Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard plays. Final plan is to start listening to vinyl, beginning with all the early Pink Floyd albums (the Syd Barret era).

[Orwell20]

Stephen Fry: Mythos
D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love
Clive James: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin
Merlin Sheldrake: Entangled Life
Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall
Nessa Carey: The Epigenetics Revolution
Kay Redfield Jamison: An Unquiet Mind (Just started it. Very interesting and gut-wrenching account of a life lived under the shadow of mental illness. She's a fascinating person, someone with a science background who also writes knowledgeably about Byron, Virginia Woolf, and so on.)
Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun
Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin

I agree with the OP about audiobooks. I ought to listen to them more. My sister bought me Stephen Fry's Troy on CD, so I'll probably begin with that.

[Dougella]

I still buy CDs.

I've already read one book, The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman. I actually think you'd enjoy this one Moksha.

I'd also like to read The Trans Issue by Shon Faye, and Bob Mortimer's autobiography the name of which escapes me.

[Orwell20]

Btw, please, please, please buy your books from bookshops, not online. It would be so horrible if bookshops began closing down.

[Dougella]

^ I'm more concerned about libraries.

[Dougella]

^ Some people really like kebab shops

Anyway, what do you plan to read this year?

[SpectralOwls]

Ooh I like this thread. I've been thinking of rebooting a book club some point after I move. Me and my two friends did it through Discord together!

It will be based more around fantasy series though. I'll post my reply when I am free!

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by SpectralOwls

Ooh I like this thread. I've been thinking of rebooting a book club some point after I move. Me and my two friends did it through Discord together!

It will be based more around fantasy series though. I'll post my reply when I am free!

Ah, that reminds of two more for the list: The Hobbit and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. I will probably listen to Philip Pullman on audiobook. But I definitely want to read The Hobbit. I read it as a kid and always meant to read it again. It's a great winter book – if only I had a log fire!

[limey123]

So many great books, so little time! Aside from dipping into lots of textbooks/reference works, the following might be a halfway realistic goal:

Sydpolen. Den norske sydpolsfærd med Fram 1910–1912 (Amundsen)
Historical Linguistics (Campbell)
Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (Paul)
Four Thousand Weeks. Time and How to Use it (Burkeman)
The Little Book of Stoicism (Salzgeber)
Sprog på Grænsen/Grenzsprachen (Weinreich/Ipsen)
Die Varusschlacht (Moosbauer)
Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love (Booth)
The War of the Worlds (Wells)
The Word Hoard: Daily Life in Old English (Videen)
How Dead Languages Work (George)
Geschichte Schleswig-Holsteins (Bohn)
Germanerne. Mytene, historien, språket (Janson)
Kontrastsprache Niederländisch – Ein neuer Weg zum Niederländischen auf der Grundlage der germanischen Sprachverwandtschaft (Arntz/Wilmots)
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
Het Achterhuis (Frank)
Bob de Straatkat (Bowen)
How to Improve at Chess (Ke)
Niederdeutsch. Fünf Vorträge zur Einführung (Various)

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by The*Crafty*Elf

I would really love to just get lost in the escapism of books but to read i would need it to be quite and peaceful and there isn't enough of that around here. Or i'm stressed out and not able to relax

Why not order some noise cancelling headphones? Then listen to stuff on audiobook. It’s great. If you want to escape into a fantasy world (and who doesn’t??!!), you could listen to Stephen Fry read the Harry Potter books. Or Lord of the Rings. Or Philip Pullman. Or, well, whatever floats yer boat.

[Orwell20]

Has anyone ever set themselves a reading challenge? During lockdown, a lot of people I know, both online and in real life, decided to read War and Peace, Hawking’s Brief History of Time, all of Dickens’ novels, or the complete works of Shakespeare, etc. I wonder how many actually stuck to it? I planned to read the complete works of Virginia Woolf, but only managed one and a half novels before depression wiped me out.

If AI replaces most jobs, and we all end up on a universal basic income with nothing to do, what reading challenge will you set yourself?

[Mr. Spaceman]

Been rereading my old Famous Five books and I'm up to 14 of 21 now.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Orwell20

Has anyone ever set themselves a reading challenge? During lockdown, a lot of people I know, both online and in real life, decided to read War and Peace, Hawking’s Brief History of Time, all of Dickens’ novels, or the complete works of Shakespeare, etc. I wonder how many actually stuck to it? I planned to read the complete works of Virginia Woolf, but only managed one and a half novels before depression wiped me out.

I planned to read Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past during lockdown. Big mistake. I managed the first volume (there are five), which I can only describe as hell!! It was like wading through a muddy field in darkness - just on and on and on. Never again.

The only writers whose complete works I’d like to read are Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy and Kurt Vonnegut. I like Dickens, but I don’t think I could manage all his novels.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by limey123

Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

Do you read Latin Limey? I know you study Old English, Dutch, etc. I so regret not doing languages at university. I really wish I'd done classics. To be able to read something like The Meditations in the original would have been fascinating.

[limey123]

Originally Posted by Moksha

Do you read Latin Limey? I know you study Old English, Dutch, etc. I so regret not doing languages at university. I really wish I'd done classics. To be able to read something like The Meditations in the original would have been fascinating.

I don't. Modern Italian is on my list to learn to read, though.
It would be interesting to read Caesar's accounts of the Gallic Wars and Tacitus' Germania in the original, though, as well as M. Aurelius.

Why not learn it self-didactically, Moksha? There's nowt stopping you

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by limey123

I don't. Modern Italian is on my list to learn to read, though.
It would be interesting to read Caesar's accounts of the Gallic Wars and Tacitus' Germania in the original, though, as well as M. Aurelius.

Why not learn it self-didactically, Moksha? There's nowt stopping you

Any particular reason limey? Do you have a secret ambition to read The Divine Comedy in the original?

I’ve always regretted not doing classics at university. What I’d really love is to read Ancient Greek. I’ve always wanted to translate bits of The Odyssey, and the odd bit of Plato. I actually have a pile of teach yourself Ancient Greek books at home...but, well, it’s just so goddam hard!! Ugghh, curse my feeble brain!!

[limey123]

^ That's in medieval Italian, rather than the modern language. Well, better textbooks are being written in Italian, for some reason, on Germanic linguistics and early Germanic culture than in any Germanic language. I recently bought 3 such Italian books and one day plan to read them. Also, it would just be a change to learn a language outside of the Germanic family.

You've got a decent brain, Moksha. I bet with the right resources and approach you could learn to read Ancient Greek.

[neilm]

Originally Posted by Orwell20

Has anyone ever set themselves a reading challenge? During lockdown, a lot of people I know, both online and in real life, decided to read War and Peace, Hawking’s Brief History of Time, all of Dickens’ novels, or the complete works of Shakespeare, etc. I wonder how many actually stuck to it? I planned to read the complete works of Virginia Woolf, but only managed one and a half novels before depression wiped me out.

If AI replaces most jobs, and we all end up on a universal basic income with nothing to do, what reading challenge will you set yourself?

'War and Peace' is long but perfectly readable. I dont know why its got such a bad reputation really....

The first third is a little slow, but it picks up well after that.

Helps if youre interested in Russian/European history too.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by limey123

^ That's in medieval Italian, rather than the modern language.

Just out of curiosity, would a modern Italian be able to read The Divine Comedy with ease? Or would it be like us trying to read, say, Chaucer? I once asked a Greek girl whether she could read Homer, Plato, etc, in the original, but I can’t remember what she said.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by neilm

'War and Peace' is long but perfectly readable. I dont know why its got such a bad reputation really....

I guess partly because it’s so long, but also, aren’t there loads of tedious digressions - I mean where Tolstoy bangs on about farming conditions, agricultural policy, etc? Have you read it Neal?

[neilm]

Originally Posted by Moksha

I guess partly because it’s so long, but also, aren’t there loads of tedious digressions - I mean where Tolstoy bangs on about farming conditions, agricultural policy, etc? Have you read it Neal?

Yes, a couple of times.

I guess at the time it was written these issues were very important in Russia, and with Russia being rather backward when it came to things like Agrarian matters, Serfdom etc, maybe Tolstoy was trying to push more enlightened thinking on the subject through his characters?

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by neilm

I guess at the time it was written these issues were very important in Russia, and with Russia being rather backward when it came to things like Agrarian matters, Serfdom etc, maybe Tolstoy was trying to push more enlightened thinking on the subject through his characters?

The poet Tennyson once had dinner at a friend's house in the country (in the UK). A Russian aristocrat was also spending the weekend there. One morning, the Russian was late for breakfast. When he arrived, he apologized, and said "I went for a walk and shot some peasants." One of the other guests said "I'm sorry to correct your English, but it's pronounced pheasants." The Russian replied "No, no. Two men. Peasants. They were rude to me, so I shot them"!!!

I don't know whether that story is true (probably not), but 19th century Russia was unbelievable. Studying 19th, and even early 20th century Russian history is like peering into a giant time capsule. That is pretty much what Europe must have been like in around 1200 - landowners who regarded the farm labourers as, basically, property.

[neilm]

Originally Posted by Moksha

The poet Tennyson once had dinner at a friend's house in the country (in the UK). A Russian aristocrat was also spending the weekend there. One morning, the Russian was late for breakfast. When he arrived, he apologized, and said "I went for a walk and shot some peasants." One of the other guests said "I'm sorry to correct your English, but it's pronounced pheasants." The Russian replied "No, no. Two men. Peasants. They were rude to me, so I shot them"!!!

I don't know whether that story is true (probably not), but 19th century Russia was unbelievable. Studying 19th, and even early 20th century Russian history is like peering into a giant time capsule. That is pretty much what Europe must have been like in around 1200 - landowners who regarded the farm labourers as, basically, property.

Yes, Russia was, extremely backward on such issues, and only abolished Serfdom as recently as 1861.

The 'Serf' issue features in a lot of Russian Literature of the 19th Century by the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol etc, and I think most of these authors saw it as an embarrassment, and it rarely features in a good light in those novels.

Similar to the way that Charles Dickens also campaigned aginst things like Debtors Prisons, Poor Factory Conditions, the archaic practices of The Courts Of Chancery etc. He used his stories to highlight the injustices of these sort of things, and was highly effective in doing so.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by neilm

Yes, Russia was, extremely backward on such issues, and only abolished Serfdom as recently as 1861.

The 'Serf' issue features in a lot of Russian Literature of the 19th Century by the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol etc, and I think most of these authors saw it as an embarrassment, and it rarely features in a good light in those novels.

Did you study Russian history at university neil? Just curious. I often regret not doing a language (I did literature instead). If I could have my time over, and be 18 again, I think I'd do a BA in Russian language and literature.

[Orwell20]

The problem with reading lists is that I keep adding new books (which I know I'll never read).

Has anyone ever read Stanislaw Lem's Solaris? I heard someone rave about it on a podcast.

I also want to read Douglas Adam's A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Actually, I might get it on audiobook.

I also bought a couple of secondhand books today, which I've added to the "I'll never around to reading them" list: Yuval Harari's Homo Deus, which looks fascinating, and Stephen Fry's Making History.

[Tubbs]

Originally Posted by Orwell20

Stephen Fry's Making History.

I love that book

[neilm]

Originally Posted by Moksha

Did you study Russian history at university neil? Just curious. I often regret not doing a language (I did literature instead). If I could have my time over, and be 18 again, I think I'd do a BA in Russian language and literature.

No, Ime just something of a general history buff, whos built up a reasonable working knowledge over time.

[gregarious_introvert]

Originally Posted by limey123

I don't. Modern Italian is on my list to learn to read, though.

It would be interesting to read Caesar's accounts of the Gallic Wars and Tacitus' Germania in the original, though, as well as M. Aurelius.



Why not learn it self-didactically, Moksha? There's nowt stopping you

I've only just seen this (and the subsequent posts); I had to read Caesar's Gallic Wars for my Latin O level (a mere 44 years ago!). On the subject of ancient and modern languages, I see very little connection between Latin and modern Italian (although knowledge of Latin does help with any modern Romance language, of course) and think that modern Spanish seems closer to the ancient Roman.

You are all so learned, it puts me to shame.

Sent from my SM-A202F using Tapatalk

[Orwell20]

Originally Posted by Tubbs

I love that book

Stephen Fry is actually a very good writer. I mean his prose is first class – better than many high brow novelists. His autobiography, Moab is my Washtub, will be considered a classic 50 years from now. People like to run him down, but the guy has a truly incredible mind. There is a lecture by him on youtube all about coming technological change. Jesus, his knowledge of computing, engineering, science, etc, is like that of a university professor. And yet this is the same man who wrote a book on poetry, two books on Greek myth, and numerous novels. Such an extraordinary polymath. I literally cannot think of anyone I'd rather sit next to at a dinner party.