Kevin's Watch

www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2014

Of course I have read none of them.

--A

Avatar wrote:www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2014

Of course I have read none of them.

--A

That's because they are garbage!

It's a "who has the most vocal fanbase" contest. Nothing particularly wrong with that, mind you. Just means the best books get left among the nominees.

Nothing in that list I particularly want to read.

I got a copy of "Red Rising" in my WFC book bag this year. Will have to give it a whirl.

I keep looking at those Deborah Harkness books and stepping away from them. They seem a little lightweight to me. But maybe I'm wrong.

The Gabaldon has been on my TBR list (but not actually purchased yet) since it came out.

Which is all to say that I haven't read any of them, either. Also, what Murrin said. Winning any crowdsourced award requires a vocal and mobilized fan base, which the best book in the contest may not have.

Anway, looking at nominees:

Fantasy: City of Stairs is very good. I've not read The Goblin Emperor yet but I've been hearing it praised all over the place.

SciFi: Annihilation is great. Scalzi's latest is good. Ancillary Sword is one of the best books of the year.

Horror: Broken Monsters is a good one. I've not read the rest but The Girl with All the Gifts is on my long list of 2014 releases I've heard good things about and need to read. (The winner, Ann Rice, is on my unofficial "don't touch with a ten foot pole" list.)

Comics: Saga! Locke & Key! Ms Marvel! Wonder Woman! Sex Criminals! Seconds! This One Summer! Rat Queens! Through The Woods! Chew! Pretty Deadly! I have read half of the things on this list and they are all brilliant. Which suggests I need to try the others on the list.

I've not read anything from the other categories, although I've heard good things about Brown Girl Dreaming from the middle grade/childrens section.

Best book I read in 2014 [or was it 2013 - anyway....] was Les Miserables by Hugo but more importantly to note, in the Norman Denny translation. I can't read the french version [alas] but Denny, rather than sticking literally with a 'word for word' translation opted to keep more in the 'spirit' of the original and in doing so retained the 'poetry' of the french text in the translated prose. The result was a staggering sucess. It was a beautiful rambling illogical mess of a book that by turns educated, enlightened, and wrenched one through the lives of 'the wretched' whose story it told. One finishes the work with a deeper and enriched understanding of why our world so often fails to live up to its promise and a greater sympathy for those who struggle aginst a yoke of poverty from which they can never break free.

peter wrote:Best book I read in 2014 [or was it 2013 - anyway....] was Les Miserables by Hugo but more importantly to note, in the Norman Denny translation. I can't read the french version [alas] but Denny, rather than sticking literally with a 'word for word' translation opted to keep more in the 'spirit' of the original and in doing so retained the 'poetry' of the french text in the translated prose. The result was a staggering sucess. It was a beautiful rambling illogical mess of a book that by turns educated, enlightened, and wrenched one through the lives of 'the wretched' whose story it told. One finishes the work with a deeper and enriched understanding of why our world so often fails to live up to its promise and a greater sympathy for those who struggle aginst a yoke of poverty from which they can never break free.

I've read it a couple of times, but not in a recent translation. What irritated me about the translation I read was that the two chapters that interrupt the 'action' that are often moved out of sequence were indeed moved to the back of the book.

It's a hell of a book and having seen the musical (which I assume is most people's exposure to it) the spirit of the book is not captured at all. I would assume the same is true for the various film versions.

It's a very, very moving book and it's so easy to get emotionally carried away with situations, especially those that take a long time to resolve. While I generally hate death bed scenes for the fact that they are so often a blunt and ill-executed implement to tug on the heart strings (cf. Oscar Wilde's comments about Little Dorrit's death bed scene), Valjean's death bed scene is incredibly moving, particularly his reconciliation with Cosette.

I need to read more Scalzi. I've only read a couple of his books, but I liked them a lot.

(Oh gods -- Anne Rice.... )

I haven't read any either, but the Atwood book has possibilities (haven't read Atwood in decades). Thank God no "50 Shades" made the cut!!