# What fiction are you reading in 2016?



## DW1689 (Dec 31, 2015)

Last year I started reading fiction intentionally. That is, having a sort of reading plan for the fiction I wanted to get done. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead was a particular favourite 

This year I'm planning on reading a novel every 7-8 weeks (about 5 pages a day), making seven novels in total this year. The firs three I've chosen are:

Great Expectations, Dickens (started this last week)
Cry Beloved Country, Paton
My Name Is Asher Lev, Potok (read this last year, can't wait to read it again!)

Pilgrim's Progress is also going to be a special reading project. My plan is to read it as many times as possible.

What about you? Any book's lined up? Any recommendation for me? Does anyone want to join me in reading any of the above?


----------



## johnny (Dec 31, 2015)

I'm really looking forward to Adler's "Great Books of the Western World" 
which is in pre production on the Logos platform.

https://www.logos.com/product/55052/great-books-of-the-western-world


----------



## RamistThomist (Dec 31, 2015)

I want to read _The Possessed_ by Dostoevsky.

Reread the Silmarillion by Tolkien.


----------



## Logan (Dec 31, 2015)

That's hard to say for me. I read a good bit of both fiction and non-fiction but one of my goals this last year and this has been to read books that commonly appear on the top 100 list of classics. Definite ones on my list for this next year are:

Brothers Karamazov
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Jane Eyre
The Odyssey

But before (or with) those will probably read:
Robin Hood, The Prince of Thieves (Alexandre Dumas)
I am Not a Serial Killer
The Game of Kings
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Colours in the Steel (KJ Parker)
Crime and Punishment
A Farewell to Arms
Lonesome Dove
Ready Player One
Quest for Lost Heroes
Atlas Shrugged
Ender in Exile
Mockingjay
Pride and Prejudice
Anathem

That's most of the fiction that's on my list anyway, but I'm quite sure more will be added (always happens).


----------



## DW1689 (Dec 31, 2015)

I've had a similar goal too Logan. I'd enjoyed reading things that I might not usually read. The first classic I chose was Huckleberry Finn, which was fantastic! Reading Dickens over Christmas has been great too. 

I've found the most helpful tool for me is audiobooks. All the classics I read I use free audio books and can get through a lot more than I could otherwise. For instance, I've got half way through Dickens' Great Expectations in 6 days from mostly listening to it whilst washing the dishes or preparing my daughter's lunches!


----------



## Logan (Dec 31, 2015)

I've tried Librivox on drives but the readers are real hit and miss for me. Plus, I'm pretty sure my enjoyment of an audiobook is less than reading the actual book. They just move too slow.


----------



## DW1689 (Dec 31, 2015)

Logan said:


> I've tried Librivox on drives but the readers are real hit and miss for me. Plus, I'm pretty sure my enjoyment of an audiobook is less than reading the actual book. They just move too slow.



Librivox is defintely hit and miss. I've found USF's Lit2Go to be the best in terms of voice and reading quality.

Have you tried speeding up your mp3's? On an ipod you can set playback speed of audiobooks to 1.5x faster, which is a great reading pace. With this setting 60 mins of audio becomes 50 mins, which if you add up over the course of a book is a big amount of time saved!


----------



## RamistThomist (Dec 31, 2015)

I usually read a lot of Shakespeare in the spring (I have to teach through several plays). There are a few Jane Austen books I need to finish. 

In terms of audio, I HIGHLY recommend Hachette Audio's reading of David Baldacci's novels. They are dramatized and professionally done. I get mine from the local library. If a backwoods system like Monroe has them, most libraries should.


----------



## timfost (Dec 31, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> I want to read _The Possessed_ by Dostoevsky.



I read this in high school. It's a good, depressing book, at least that's what I thought after reading it.  I do remember getting mixed up with all of the Russian names. Honestly, that's about all I remember.

Have fun!


----------



## RamistThomist (Dec 31, 2015)

timfost said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > I want to read _The Possessed_ by Dostoevsky.
> ...



I read a good bit of Dostoevsky in high school and college. I've then read a good bit of German and Russian idealism and Russian philosophy since then, so I figured I would appreciate this more if I read it now.


----------



## Edward (Dec 31, 2015)

DW1689 said:


> Any recommendation for me?



To Kill a Mockingbird.


----------



## Edm (Dec 31, 2015)

I like Ken Follett. Finishing the latest trilogy.


----------



## TylerRay (Dec 31, 2015)

Right now I'm reading J. R. R. Tolkien's translation and commentary of Beowulf (whether that counts as fiction is debatable i suppose).

I am cautiously considering reading The Brother's Karamazov in the Summer. It's been nagging me for a few years, but I have yet to take the plunge. I don't read a lot of fiction, and I try to be judicious with the time I devote to it, but this year might be the year.


----------



## bookslover (Dec 31, 2015)

I have two volumes of Anthony Trollope's short stories (in the Oxford World's Classics paperback series) that I want to finish next year.


----------



## RamistThomist (Dec 31, 2015)

TylerRay said:


> Right now I'm reading J. R. R. Tolkien's translation and commentary of Beowulf (whether that counts as fiction is debatable i suppose).
> 
> I am cautiously considering reading The Brother's Karamazov in the Summer. It's been nagging me for a few years, but I have yet to take the plunge. I don't read a lot of fiction, and I try to be judicious with the time I devote to it, but this year might be the year.



Do *****NOT***** read the Constance Garnett translation. Read the one by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

Here is another way to help understand Karamazov:

*Papa Karamazov *is* Homer Simpson. 

Or you can read it as an early telling of _Arrested Development_


----------



## TylerRay (Jan 1, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> TylerRay said:
> 
> 
> > Right now I'm reading J. R. R. Tolkien's translation and commentary of Beowulf (whether that counts as fiction is debatable i suppose).
> ...



Thanks for the tip! I have read several of Dostoevsky's shorter writings done by various translators, and I have generally tried to stay away from Garnett, because I had read that she uses a great deal of license. Recently, though, I read her translation of The Gambler, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll take your advice, though--If I'm going to devote the amount of time it will take to read a large work like that, I want the best translation available.


----------



## Philip (Jan 1, 2016)

I'll probably end up rereading a lot of Walker Percy as well as _A Canticle for Leibowitz_.

Other than that, probably _A Confederacy of Dunces_ and a bunch of Wodehouse.


----------



## RamistThomist (Jan 1, 2016)

TylerRay said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > TylerRay said:
> ...



Dostoevsky is such a good thinker that, like many thinkers, his story can transcend the limitations of the translation (lots of good Calvinist epistemology there).


----------



## Clark-Tillian (Jan 1, 2016)

I'll be mostly doing re-reading.
I plan on reading The Bard's "Big 4" again--Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Lear. Macbeth has always been a fave.
I also want to read Anthony Hecht's Collected Poems again; he should've won a Nobel by now-searing, formal poetics.
He's not well known, but I heartily recommend the novels of Mark Helprin--touch of magic realism. Feted by the literrati for years until he wrote a speech for Bob Dole and then the jig was up. A Soldier of the Great War rivals Hemingway and Remarque for WWI and surpasses them, in my view because it's a work of unbelievable scope. 

As for new reading, I have to get to 100 Years of Solitude; I've read most of his major works but that one.


----------



## VictorBravo (Jan 1, 2016)

As with the last year, so for this year: Police reports. Not that they are fiction in themselves, but there is usually some good fiction in witness statements.

And sometimes the prose is quite artful. As in this description of a woman: "She was wearing a brown top and pink sweet pants. I could discern green from stains of grass streaking from the knee to the right side of the pink sweet pants...." 

I also have Hugo's _Les Travailleurs de la mer_ beckoning. It's been sitting there for a month and I'll dig into it after January is done.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion (Jan 2, 2016)

I have some like this on my wishlist to read:

http://www.amazon.com/Marilynne-Robinson/e/B000AQ76O2/

I am told her books have a distinctive Presbyterian flavor, so it piqued my interest.


----------



## greenbaggins (Jan 2, 2016)

I am reading Russell Kirkpatrick's fantasy books, which are outstanding. Not only are they clean, but they are compelling. He is a cartographer, which lends something unique to his books. He also understands the Pentecostal movement pretty well. I'm still not sure whether he agrees with Pentecostal and Open Theism, but he is a fantastic writer.


----------



## Timmay (Jan 2, 2016)

I'm about the start Volumes 1 & 2 of Sherlock Holmes. When the Western books comes out I'm going to devour the fiction in there. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## DDJM (Jan 3, 2016)

I haven't read too much fiction, but this year I'm planning to start with some classics. I'll probably start with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and maybe some Chesterton after that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## DW1689 (Jan 3, 2016)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> I have some like this on my wishlist to read:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Marilynne-Robinson/e/B000AQ76O2/
> 
> I am told her books have a distinctive Presbyterian flavor, so it piqued my interest.



Definitely read Gilead. I finished it just before Christmas. It gives a wonderful portrait of the 'ordinariness' of the pastorate, one which most Evangelics need to be reminded of. And it's just a great piece of literature!


----------



## Logan (Jan 4, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Do *****NOT***** read the Constance Garnett translation. Read the one by Pevear and Volokhonsky.



Why not Garnett? I've looked into this multiple times over the last year and she seems to get a lot of hate, but then lots of people "in the know" seem to think she's just fine.

The criticisms I've seen of PV seem to mainly focus on their lack of qualifications (Pevear didn't know Russian) and that it's unfamiliar to an English speaker, whereas Garnett is much more readable even if she takes liberties with phrasing now and again.

Reminds me of Bible translation debates


----------



## 2ndViolinist (Jan 4, 2016)

Among other literature, I plan on listening to _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy in the car on my way to and from work each day.


----------



## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Jan 4, 2016)

I have been picking up, and putting down, Tolstoy's "War & Peace" for 35 years. I am determined to lay my ears back and actually finish it as my first fiction this year.


----------



## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Jan 4, 2016)

After that, I think I may plow back into Tolkien's Unfinished Tales.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion (Jan 4, 2016)

GulfCoast Presbyterian said:


> I have been picking up, and putting down, Tolstoy's "War & Peace" for 35 years. I am determined to lay my ears back and actually finish it as my first fiction this year.


Heh. It took me ten years to finally get through it. I was the better for it, what with some added seasoning to my life's experiences.


----------



## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Jan 4, 2016)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> GulfCoast Presbyterian said:
> 
> 
> > I have been picking up, and putting down, Tolstoy's "War & Peace" for 35 years. I am determined to lay my ears back and actually finish it as my first fiction this year.
> ...



I am glad to know there may be hope for me! A couple times I have threatened to just go get the Ciff Notes!


----------



## ZackF (Jan 5, 2016)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> GulfCoast Presbyterian said:
> 
> 
> > I have been picking up, and putting down, Tolstoy's "War & Peace" for 35 years. I am determined to lay my ears back and actually finish it as my first fiction this year.
> ...




The one person I know that got through "War and Peace" filled a loose leaf notebook to keep track of the characters and events as his first attempt at reading the novel failed when he got lost half way through.


----------



## py3ak (Jan 5, 2016)

I took a week and did nothing but eat, sleep, and read _War and Peace_. It was a full time job with some overtime, but sadly I wasn't paid for it.


----------



## ZackF (Jan 5, 2016)

"Curious George", "Clifford the Big Red Dog", "Pete the Cat" and whatever other "classics" my DW and DD check out.


----------



## MICWARFIELD (Jan 6, 2016)

The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
The Vesuvius Isotope, and (Vol 2) The Death Row Complex- Kristen Elise, PhD (a good friend of mine)
The Koran


----------

