Elliot’s Comments (group member since Jan 07, 2016)

Elliot’s comments from the Reading Challenge 2016 group.

Today's list from Off the Shelf helps with another of our checklist items, as they posted 13 Hilarious Memoirs From Our Favorite Comedians. I'm a fan of memoirs generally, and as a generalization I find those written by comedians to be the best - my feeling is, if you're going to tell me about your life, amuse me along the way!

Of the ones on this list, I've read Tina Fey's Bossypants (as great as you'd expect), her best friend Amy Poehler's Yes Please (not nearly as good as you'd hope; it felt rushed), and Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories by Mike Birbiglia (if you don't know Birbiglia you really should. This is the book that launched his career and it is exceptional. As is the movie, the comedy special, etc.)

On my to-read list because I've heard good things are Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by the versatile Steve Martin and the new Judd Apatow book Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy. I've also heard very good things about Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance (he's the little dude from Parks and Rec) and Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (she's the chatty girl from The Office), though neither particularly appeals to me.

Thoughts? Other recommendations? I'm getting desperate for some feedback here :)

Off the Shelf, a great site for lists of books (they basically post one list a day of any random topic, such as "great novels set in wartime"), posted its own list of 10 Books Coming to a Movie Theater Near You. The nice thing is that only one of them overlaps with the B&N list above (The Choice), so we now have lots more to choose from.

Once again, here is the list with the goodreads link to each book. And (for real this time) I'm curious to hear from people who have read any of these already and whether they think they'll make good transitions to the movie screen.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness - I read this book (as did my sister). I think she'd agree with me that it's excellent, it should be read, and that it's a pretty easy read for non-fiction despite the medical aspect of it and despite it being heartbreaking. Oh - and I can't wait to see it as a movie. The choice of lead actress will be crucial. Scarlett Johansson would be perfect!
How to Be Single
The Girl on the Train - supposedly, if you loved Gone Girl you will love this book/movie. I didn't read this (or Gone Girl) but I saw the movie and it was excellent.
Inferno
The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster
American Pastoral
The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
The Light Between Oceans

Barnes & Noble must know about our list, because they posted an article about books coming to the big screen this year. It went up a month ago but I only came across it now. You can click on the link and get release dates for the movies, actors, and a paragraph from B&N about each. But below I will put the goodreads link to each book. I'm curious to hear from people who have read any of these already and whether they think they'll make good transitions to the movie screen. The Nicholas Sparks and Jojo Meyes books were bestsellers so were probably read by a few of you; I'm personally curious about "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

The 5th Wave
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
The Choice
Me Before You
Allegiant
The Jungle Book
Tarzan of the Apes
A Monster Calls
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

We're not all from New York, but many of us are, and I know a few of you are big music fans anyway. So I'm going to throw out there legendary music critic Robert Christgau's memoir, Going into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man, where "the city" is the late '60s to mid-'80s NYC. I just began reading it yesterday.

One reason to plug it now: if you're interested in it but don't feel like shelling out the $$, it's coming out in paperback and Goodreads is running a giveaway now for 10 free copies that is ending on Tuesday. I've actually won a few of their giveaways so it's worth giving it a shot.

Didn't think that two of the books I'd read in the first few weeks of the new year would be books translated from another language!

Just finished The Undiscovered Self by C.G. Jung, originally written in German in 1957. This book is ostensibly about society in the post-WWII and Cold War era, but it is as relevant today as it was then. An absolute must-read for any socially or politically minded person, or one who wants to understand the nature of good and evil in our world.

I just finished reading Candide, the 18th century classic by Voltaire, specifically the edition translated by Robert M. Adams. I'm happy to have completed an otherwise tough item on the checklist, but despite the "classic" tag I found myself underwhelmed. That said, if you are a fan of French literature (or just want to give Candide a try - it's OK and a short read) I highly recommend this edition. The background and criticism selected by Adams is very and adds a lot to the reading.

My full review of Candide can be found here.

If anyone has a better suggestion for a book translated into English from another language, please post!

Amy wrote: "I'm Amy in Texas. I basically read everything I get my hands on, but my weaknesses are music biographies and books that compile personal letters (my favorites are letters between two writers/artist..."

Hi Amy, welcome! Well, you and I both read WAY too many music biographies, lol, but I hope you've read Girl in a Band. Finished it a few weeks ago and it's fantastic.

I'd be really interested in books that compile personal letters. I like to read that kind of back of forth online but haven't seen a book like that which interested me (unless you count Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Any suggestions?

Aisha wrote: "Hi! I'm Aisha, I am from Vancouver, Canada.

I have been trying to up my reading count for the last couple years with the Goodreads challenge. As I have a TON of books and I need to try and get th..."

Hi Aisha! Welcome to the group. It's great to have a fan of sci-fi/fantasy books - hopefully you can post some good books in that genre and we can give you good ideas to expand your interests.

Haven't read either of the classics you mentioned, but I've been trying to read some classics myself. I found that the easiest to go back to was Oscar Wilde - so witty, so easy to read - but over the past few years I've "graduated" as far as Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment is easily one of the best books I've ever read.

I guess I hadn't anticipated getting members that I didn't know ... but I'm so glad we did!

I welcome all new members to use this thread to post anything they want about themselves (within reason :) ... why did you join? what do you normally like to read? what are you looking to read in 2016 that's different from your usual go-to genres?

I'll start - I'm Elliot, live all my life in Brooklyn. I probably read more than I should (if that's a think) and don't have any genres that I stick to - I'm open to a lot - though I do have some that I avoid (sci-fi/fantasy, history & historical fiction, poetry, mystery). I suppose I mainly read 75% non-fiction.

I started off this year by trying to expand my knowledge base - reading A Little History of Science as a launching pad for more science reading in 2016. Also, on the recommendation of my little boy, I'm reading Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events series! I'm the one who bought him the books but he insisted that I'd like them ... and so far they're great!

Haha. There really are some random ones on these lists!

Another one of the items on the checklist is "New York Times Bestsellers." This is a weird one - I always assumed these were pretty easy to identify but apparently the Times has a few dozen different categories of best seller lists. Strange.

Anyway, you can find all of the NY Times Bestseller lists as well as archives of the prior lists at http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-b... . If you go to that site you will first see some very narrow sub-categories, like at this moment I see the best sellers in "Animals" and "Espionage" among others. I personally think it makes more sense to stick with the major categories, which you can find by just going back a single week. Like here: http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-b... . But make of the challenge whatever you wish, it's up to you as reader!

I don't have any great recommendations here. Of the 30 total books on the general fiction and non-fiction lists for Jan. 10, 2016 (15 each list) I've only read one of the books and it was Yes Please by Amy Poehler. I am a huge SNL fan and absolutely love Amy but found the book to be eh (gave it 3 stars). Hopefully I'll find something better for 2016. Recommendations welcome as always!

You are going to try and read all of Thomas Pynchon in one year? I can't decide if that's super-admirable or insane! I have a cool old copy of The Crying of Lot 49 at home but haven't gotten around to it yet. That's going to be my first Pynchon whenever I finally do.

Thanks for the other reco's. I don't generally like historical fiction but I'm going to mention Europe Central to my wife - it's totally in her lane and she's always looking to me to find her next book!

One of the items on the checklist is "National Book Award Winners." I would have no idea how to find one of these or even know if I stumbled upon one. Fortunately Goodreads has a page dedicated to all of the National Book Award Winners in history. It's at https://www.goodreads.com/award/show/...

I scanned through the first few pages and I haven't read any of them. On my "To Read" list is White Noise by Don DeLillo, Fiction winner for 1985.

Any other suggestions?

You can see the full challenge list by clicking on the photo associated with the group. But if for some reason you can't see the photo, you can also access the list at: http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-...