DVD Talk Forum - Rank 'Em As You Read 'Em 2011

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Rank 'Em As You Read 'Em 2011

I've filched most of the following from the earlier threads: 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010.

Numbers have been falling, so let's try and get more than 20 active participants this year. I'll even commit to it myself which, regrettably, I've failed to do until now!

This thread is different than the monthly "What are you reading" threads:

Please no book images, keep the images confined to the "What are you reading" threads.
[Even in those threads, it is worth including the book title to help people find your post in searches].
Keep your list in one post (edit!) and keep them in some sort of order. Use the below star ranking system if you like (easy way to get the images is to quote this post and copy/paste it out).
When listing a book please use the full title of the book and name of the author.
Write a brief review of the book and tell us why (or why not) you liked the book.
If you like put a link to Amazon or Barnes and Noble to a book using the DVDtalk link.

And here are the stars:
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Enjoy!

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China Mieville's The City & the City
This science-fiction crime thriller tied with the current book I'm reading for 2010 Best Novel Hugo. It also captured the British Science Fiction and the Clarke Awards as well as the World Fantasy Award. If one takes five stars as representing, say, one's top 20 books ever, when I give three and a half it is intended to signify something along the lines of "a good read". I've read several from Mieville's oeuvre and appreciate his work. This tale follows a murder/Extreme Crime detective resident in one "half" of a peculiar Eastern European city-state. Without getting bogged down with the details, I believe that, the unique feature of the shared city (and the behaviour and traditions flowing from this) is a science fiction device that should not necessarily alienate non-science fiction readers who are comfortable with magic realism or "slipstream" works.
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Currently reading "The Wind Up Girl". Will rate when complete.

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Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá
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John Adams by David McCullough
World Without End by Ken Follett
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The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
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The Journal of John Woolman by John Woolman
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt BY Edmund Morris
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At Home by Bill Bryson
Dune By Frank Herbert
Game of Thrones By George R Martin
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Live From New York by Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller
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Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales
War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest By Micheal Rosenberg
Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession by Dave Jamieson
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
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Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport By Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski
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To The Last Man By Jeff Shaara
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Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
North Dallas Forty - Peter Gent
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
Dune Messiah - Frank Hebert
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Mourner - Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark
Pronto - Elmore Leonard
The Score - Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark
The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter

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American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Children of Dune - Frank Hebert
Dr. No - Ian Fleming
Halo: Cryptum - Greg Bear
Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
The Outfit - Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark

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Goldfinger - Ian Fleming

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Re: Rank 'Em As You Read 'Em 2011

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R.R. Martin (1996) - 9/13 (Kindle)
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971) - 10/29

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium Trilogy #3) by Stieg Larsson (2007) - 2/28 (Kindle)
Grave Secrets (Temperance Brennan #5) by Kathy Reichs (2002) - 3/19
Deep Storm by Lincoln Child (2007) - 3/26
Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) by Jim Butcher (2004) - 4/24
Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11) by Charlaine Harris (2011) - 5/03
The Terror by Dan Simmons (2007) - 5/12
Dead Beat (The Dresden Files #7) by Jim Butcher (2005) - 6/11
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) by Suzanne Collins (2008) - 6/21 (Kindle)
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins (2010) - 6/29 (Kindle)
Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8) by Jim Butcher (2006) - 8/17
The Passage by Justin Cronin (2010) - 12/31

Fatal Voyage (Temperance Brennan #4) by Kathy Reichs (2001) - 1/16
Death Masks (The Dresden Files #5) by Jim Butcher (2003) - 2/16
Waking Nightmares (Peter Octavian #5) by Christopher Golden (2011) - 4/10 (Kindle)
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins (2009) - 6/21 (Kindle)
Cold Vengeance (Pendergast #11) by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (2011) - 8/24 (Kindle)
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris (2011) - 9/21

Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (Peter Octavian #2) by Christopher Golden (1995) - 1/08
Of Masques and Martyrs (Peter Octavian #3) by Christopher Golden (1998) - 1/24
The Gathering Dark (Peter Octavian #4) by Christopher Golden (2003) - 2/07
Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child (2009) - 4/03 (Kindle)
Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #1) by Charlaine Harris (1990) - 4/11
The Julius House (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #4) by Charlaine Harris (1995) - 4/14
A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse: The Complete Stories) by Charlaine Harris (1994) - 4/16 (Kindle)
Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #5) by Charlaine Harris (1996) - 4/18
A Fool and His Honey (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #6) by Charlaine Harris (1999) - 4/18
Last Scene Alive (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #7) by Charlaine Harris (2002) - 4/18
Poppy Done to Death (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #8) by Charlaine Harris (2003) - 5/13
Bare Bones (Temperance Brennan #6) by Kathy Reichs (2003) - 5/18
Blood Lines (Victoria Nelson #3) by Tanya Huff (1992) - 5/23
Blood Pact (Victoria Nelson #4) by Tanya Huff (1993) - 5/28
Monday Mourning (Temperance Brennan #7) by Kathy Reichs (2004) - 8/02
Exorcist: The Beginning by Steven Piziks (2003) - 9/26
Legion by William Peter Blatty (1983) - 11/13
The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy by Various (2011) - 11/13 (Kindle)
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell (2002) - 11/25
Bag of Bones by Stephen King (1998) - 12/07

Gideon's Sword (Gideon Crew #1) by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (2011) - 3/13 (Kindle)
A Bone to Pick (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #2) by Charlaine Harris (1992) - 4/12
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #3) by Charlaine Harris (1994) - 4/13
UR by Stephen King (2009) - 4/27 (Kindle)
Blood Debt (Victoria Nelson #5) by Tanya Huff (1997) - 6/04
Hit List (Anita Blake #20) by Laurell K. Hamitlon (2011) - 6/16

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Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

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Stephen King - Under the Dome

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I'll be tracking my reading on Goodreads (link in signature), but I feel better for some reason having a post in the Book Talk Rank 'Em thread just feels right. Titles will link to my blog review.

Outstanding

Impressive

A Positively Final Appearance, Alec Guinness
Back to the Batcave, Adam West with Jeff Rovin

Average

Star Trek: Spock: Reflections #1-4, Written by Scott and David Tipton, Layouts by David Messina
Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, Mark K. Updegrove
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Disappointing

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This has to become sticky

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1. Sunset Park - Paul Auster
2. Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good: Larry David and the Making of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm - Josh Levine
3. The Big Rewind - Nathan Rabin
4. American Pickers: Guide to Picking - Libby Calloway with Mike Wolfe, Frank Fritz, and Danielle Colby
5. The Elements of Zen - David Scott and Tony Doubleday

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Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt - 3/5

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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
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Looks like we're about half way to the target of 20 participants.

I'll sticky if/when we reach 15 and doubt that the thread will fall off the first page before then...

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So far for 2011:

Room by Emma Donoghue 4/5: Great book, very enjoyable
Just Kids by Patti Smith 3.5/5: Good book, the end is not as enjoyable as the beginning
Superfreakonomics by Levitt and Dubner: 5/5 for the first half, 2.5 for the second half. Great correlations to start the book off loses steam afterward

Added:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebeka Skloot: 5/5: Best I read in a long time, reads like fiction.
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace: 4.5/5: Great collection of essays

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[b]Currently Reading:[b]

The Girl Who Played with Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3) - Larsson, Stieg

Read in 2011:

Outstanding:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3) - Larsson, Stieg

Very Good:

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) - Collins, Suzanne
The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium, #2) - Larsson, Stieg
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) - Larsson, Stieg
Late Eclipses (October Daye #4) - McGuire, Seanan
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) - Collins, Suzanne
An Artificial Night (October Daye, #3) - McGuire, Seanan
The Naked Dame - Bovberg, Jason

Average:

Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim, #2) - Kadrey, Richard
Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim, #1) - Kadrey, Richard
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) - Collins, Suzanne

Disappointing:

I make use of GoodReads to track what I've read, currently reading, and my "to read" pile.

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Horns by Joe Hill - 4/5

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1. To Hell And Back- Audie Murphy: A, amazing first hand account about WWII from the greatest soldier America has ever known. The only problem I had was when Murphy spelled the dialogue of some his comrades in their accents, it was annoying at times.

2. We Die Alone-David Howarth: B+, an incredible survival story, but the editor of this book should have been fired. So many spelling and grammatical errors.

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Richard Yate's Young Hearts Crying (1984)
Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun (2001)
Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World (1985)

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David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
Walker Percy's The Moviegoer (1961)

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007)
Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (2006)
Junot Díaz's Drown (1996)
H. P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections (2001)
Haruki Murakami's After Dark (2004)

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Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990)
Michael Chabon's Maps & Legends (2008)
Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000)
Simon Winchester's Bomb, Book & Compass / The Man Who Loved China (2008)
Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage (2007)
P. G. Wodehouse's The Crime Wave at Blandings (1936)

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Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw (2010)
Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance (1988)
John le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor (2010)
Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (2008)

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