50 Book Challenge - Update

So, uh, I haven't updated my 50 Book Challenge list in, uh... two months? Since July? *cough* (That may also be since my last Fanart100... erm.) So, let's play some catch-up. I may not remember my thoughts in detail any more though...

50 Book Challenge: August & September

19. The Hedonism Handbook, Michael Flocker (2004)

"Do things that make you happy."
Not much of a handbook, is it? Katie tells me 'if you need a handbook for hedonism, you're doing it wrong'. :P Still, suggestions of ways to try enjoying yourself would have been nice.
Maybe I'm just not spontaneous enough. :P

20. Alice in Sunderland (graphic novel), Bryan Talbot (2007)

A gift from roseneko :D I... enjoyed it, but I have to confess that I don't do well with things that don't flow linearly. But I also don't think the story could have been told another way. (The self-referential-ness did grate a lot, I'll admit.) I'd probably give it a 7 - enjoyable and dense but not my style.

21. Dead Beat, Jim Butcher (2005)
22. Proven Guilty, Jim Butcher (2006)
23. White Night, Jim Butcher (2007)

And then my birthday presents from trenog. :D I'm really disappointed that the softcover for #10 isn't out yet, but ah well, what can you do?

24. The Supernaturalist, Eoin Colfer (2004)

A YA novel recommended by Chris R. It's basically a young adult Shadowrun game. Which is not to say it's bad, but it does have the trap of 1) characters are pretty one-dimensional and 2) knowing Shadowrun, the Johnson screwing them does not come as a surprise.

Apparently it's set in the same general world as the Artemis Fowl series, but I wouldn't know. The idea of paralegals as combat lawyers, though? Hilarious (although I have to wonder if Colfer knows that paralegal is an actual... you know... job title).

25. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Simon Wiesenthal (1998 expanded edition)

I reviewed this one in its own post.

26. Fetish Fantastic (anthology), ed. Cecilia Tan (1999)

For some reason, when Jen asked me for comment, I recalled not being a huge fan of a lot of the stories, only remembering one or two as really good. When I actually looked through the titles again, though, I remembered most of them rather fondly, with only one or two as being outright boring.

I have no idea why this is. (For the record, the two I thought were best were All Things Ripen In Their Own Time and Training A Priestess.)

27. Introduction to Italian Poetry: A Dual-Language Book, ed. Luciano Rebay (1991)

I've reviewed this one in its own post.

28. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

I find myself weirded out by the sheer number of people who call it the greatest love story ever. Who are these people?

I also found the book oddly... delineated. There was Part I/Part II, but I felt as though every 100-106 pages had a very explicit demarcation from one part to the next, to the point of it being jarring. (The middle 100 being the most entertaining, though I did like Rita, oddly.)

29. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back, Norah Vincent (2006)

My feelings on this one are... complicated. And I think I'll leave it at that.

---

Full list of goals here.

Random Bible stuff

A little over halfway through Deuteronomy.

If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past — as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies [...]

Does anyone else think someone writing this felt a little guilty about something? *lol*

Edit: Deuteronomy 28 is grisly, man.