Book review of 2009
Back on the blog just to post my new year's review of books read in 2009. It's a little bit shorter that the list from 2008 - only 100 (compared to 103) books. But I did have a higher number of ones that I couldn't be bothered to finish.
Books read in 2009
January
- Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown EXCELLENT
- Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island VERY GOOD
- Jim Dodge, Fup VERY GOOD
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building VERY GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency GOOD
- Charles Palliser, The Quincunx VERY GOOD
- Clare Morrall, Astonishing Splashes of colour GOOD
- J K Rowling, The Tales of Beadle the Bard VERY GOOD
- Guy Delisle, Burma Chronicles VERY GOOD [Graphic novel]
- Agatha Christie, An Autobiography GOOD
February
- Susan Brownmiller, Waverly Place POOR
- Roager Boar & Nigel Blundell, The World's Greatest Spies and Spymasters GOOD
- Deborah Rodriguez, The Kabul Beauty School GOOD
- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything EXCELLENT
- John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold GOOD
- Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things VERY GOOD
- Charlotte Bronte, The Professor EXCELLENT
- Arnaldur Indridason, Tainted Blood GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs VERY GOOD
March
- Graham Greene, Brighton Rock VERY GOOD
- Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, La's Orchestra Saves the World GOOD
- John Le Carre, The Tailor of Panama OK
- Bill Bryson, Notes from a Big Country EXCELLENT
- Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Aykroyd GOOD
- Alan Sugar, The Apprentice OK
- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas VERY GOOD
April
- Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns VERY GOOD
- Mayra Montero, You, Darkness GOOD
- Cecilia Ahern, Rosie Dunn POOR
- John Le Carre, The Russia House VERY GOOD
- J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians VERY GOOD
- Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad EXCELLENT
- Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News? VERY GOOD
- John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Novice EXCELLENT
- Isabel Allende, Zorro GOOD
May
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World OK
- Katharine McMahon, The Alchemist's Daughter GOOD
- Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss GOOD
- M.C. Beaton, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death OK
- Michelle Magorian, Goodnight Mister Tom EXCELLENT
- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield EXCELLENT
- Peter Hoeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow GOOD
- V. Sackville-West, The Easter Party OK
June
- Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher GOOD
- A.S. Byatt, Possession VERY GOOD
- H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau VERY GOOD
- Mark Slouka, The Visible World OK
- Lynn Knight (ed.), Infinite Riches OK
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe GOOD
- Walter Scott, Old Mortality VERY GOOD
- John Le Carre, Single & Single VERY GOOD
- Alex Garland, The Beach EXCELLENT
July
- Jeffrey Eugenides (ed.), My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead OK
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones VERY GOOD
- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange VERY GOOD
- Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent VERY GOOD
- Michael Cox, The Meaning of Night VERY GOOD
- Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union OK
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun VERY GOOD
August
- Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care POOR
- James Hogg, Four Tales VERY GOOD
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose EXCELLENT
- Isabel Allende, Paula VERY GOOD
- Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis EXCELLENT
- Trudi Canavan, The High Lord EXCELLENT
- Louis Begley, Wartime Lies GOOD
September
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye OK
- Kathy Reichs, Grave Secrets GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Hamburger VERY GOOD
- Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father VERY GOOD
- Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader GOOD
- Marie Darrieussecq, White OK
- Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati EXCELLENT
October
- John Le Carre, A Most Wanted Man EXCELLENT
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World GOOD
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables Vol 1 GOOD
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables Vol 2 GOOD
- Alan Allport, Demobbed EXCELLENT
- Maggie Graham, Sitting Among the Eskimos GOOD
- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots VERY GOOD
- John Cleland, Fanny Hill GOOD
November
- Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten GOOD
- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex EXCELLENT
- John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things VERY GOOD
- Alan Taylor (ed.), Long Overdue: A Library Reader OK
- Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis OK
- Mari Strachan, The Earth Hums in B Flat GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Lord Edgeware Dies GOOD
- Neil Gaimen, The Graveyard Book VERY GOOD
December
- Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend EXCELLENT
- Sarah Waters, The Night Watch GOOD
- George Mackay Brown, Beside the Ocean of Time VERY GOOD
- Peter Hoeg, The Quiet Girl VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, After the Funeral GOOD
- C.J. Sansom, Revelation VERY GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Magician's Apprentice GOOD
- Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie VERY GOOD
So, the awards...
Best book: Shalimer the Clown by Salman Rushdie, closely followed by The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine which was so enchanting and unusual I bought three copies for people at Christmas.
Biggest surprise (in a good way): Walter Scott's Old Mortality After putting off reading it for over a year (the introduction suggested it was not the most inviting of reads), I finally dug in and really loved the story.
Biggest surprise (in a bad way): My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, a collection of love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. Paul bought it for me as a birthday present and we were both surprised to discover that it contained almost no romance whatsoever, just lots and lots of miserable stories about disappointed love.
Biggest author discovery: I didn't really have one this year. Maybe Peter Hoeg. I've read two books by him in 2009 but hadn't a clue who he was prior to that.
Longest book: Les Miserables. God, that was a marathon I never want to run again.
Shortest book: Fup by Jim Dodge. It was little more than a short story. But very cute.
Best plot device: Anger management classes for the cast of Wuthering Heights in The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde.
Book that made me want to cheer out loud the most: The Hakawati. I love it each time Layla or Fatima kick ass over the male characters.
Biggest obsession: The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. I just couldn't get it out of my head for ages.
Most 'worthy' book: Les Miserables *sigh*
Least 'worthy book: Alan Sugar's guide to The Apprentice season two. It was interesting in a way.
Most awful book I bothered to finish: Cecelia Ahern's Rosie Dunn (also published as Where Rainbows End) which was just dire and I skipped huge chunks.
Most awful book I didn't bother to finish: Erm... The Healer by Greg Hollongshead. Classic of a case of a book trying to be difficult and 'worthy' without having any substance. Some paragraphs were so obscure I read them three times and still didn't understand. I hated the first 50 pages or so and gave up.
Book I am most annoyed I never read: The large omnibus collection of Graham Greene novels I received last Christmas. It's too unfortunately too unwieldy to be taken on the bus so sits on my shelf gathering dust.
Books read in 2009
January
- Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown EXCELLENT
- Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island VERY GOOD
- Jim Dodge, Fup VERY GOOD
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building VERY GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency GOOD
- Charles Palliser, The Quincunx VERY GOOD
- Clare Morrall, Astonishing Splashes of colour GOOD
- J K Rowling, The Tales of Beadle the Bard VERY GOOD
- Guy Delisle, Burma Chronicles VERY GOOD [Graphic novel]
- Agatha Christie, An Autobiography GOOD
February
- Susan Brownmiller, Waverly Place POOR
- Roager Boar & Nigel Blundell, The World's Greatest Spies and Spymasters GOOD
- Deborah Rodriguez, The Kabul Beauty School GOOD
- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything EXCELLENT
- John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold GOOD
- Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things VERY GOOD
- Charlotte Bronte, The Professor EXCELLENT
- Arnaldur Indridason, Tainted Blood GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs VERY GOOD
March
- Graham Greene, Brighton Rock VERY GOOD
- Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, La's Orchestra Saves the World GOOD
- John Le Carre, The Tailor of Panama OK
- Bill Bryson, Notes from a Big Country EXCELLENT
- Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Aykroyd GOOD
- Alan Sugar, The Apprentice OK
- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas VERY GOOD
April
- Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns VERY GOOD
- Mayra Montero, You, Darkness GOOD
- Cecilia Ahern, Rosie Dunn POOR
- John Le Carre, The Russia House VERY GOOD
- J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians VERY GOOD
- Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad EXCELLENT
- Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News? VERY GOOD
- John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Novice EXCELLENT
- Isabel Allende, Zorro GOOD
May
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World OK
- Katharine McMahon, The Alchemist's Daughter GOOD
- Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss GOOD
- M.C. Beaton, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death OK
- Michelle Magorian, Goodnight Mister Tom EXCELLENT
- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield EXCELLENT
- Peter Hoeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow GOOD
- V. Sackville-West, The Easter Party OK
June
- Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher GOOD
- A.S. Byatt, Possession VERY GOOD
- H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau VERY GOOD
- Mark Slouka, The Visible World OK
- Lynn Knight (ed.), Infinite Riches OK
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe GOOD
- Walter Scott, Old Mortality VERY GOOD
- John Le Carre, Single & Single VERY GOOD
- Alex Garland, The Beach EXCELLENT
July
- Jeffrey Eugenides (ed.), My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead OK
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones VERY GOOD
- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange VERY GOOD
- Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent VERY GOOD
- Michael Cox, The Meaning of Night VERY GOOD
- Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union OK
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun VERY GOOD
August
- Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care POOR
- James Hogg, Four Tales VERY GOOD
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose EXCELLENT
- Isabel Allende, Paula VERY GOOD
- Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis EXCELLENT
- Trudi Canavan, The High Lord EXCELLENT
- Louis Begley, Wartime Lies GOOD
September
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye OK
- Kathy Reichs, Grave Secrets GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Hamburger VERY GOOD
- Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father VERY GOOD
- Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader GOOD
- Marie Darrieussecq, White OK
- Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati EXCELLENT
October
- John Le Carre, A Most Wanted Man EXCELLENT
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World GOOD
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables Vol 1 GOOD
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables Vol 2 GOOD
- Alan Allport, Demobbed EXCELLENT
- Maggie Graham, Sitting Among the Eskimos GOOD
- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots VERY GOOD
- John Cleland, Fanny Hill GOOD
November
- Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten GOOD
- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex EXCELLENT
- John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things VERY GOOD
- Alan Taylor (ed.), Long Overdue: A Library Reader OK
- Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis OK
- Mari Strachan, The Earth Hums in B Flat GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Lord Edgeware Dies GOOD
- Neil Gaimen, The Graveyard Book VERY GOOD
December
- Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend EXCELLENT
- Sarah Waters, The Night Watch GOOD
- George Mackay Brown, Beside the Ocean of Time VERY GOOD
- Peter Hoeg, The Quiet Girl VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, After the Funeral GOOD
- C.J. Sansom, Revelation VERY GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Magician's Apprentice GOOD
- Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie VERY GOOD
So, the awards...
Best book: Shalimer the Clown by Salman Rushdie, closely followed by The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine which was so enchanting and unusual I bought three copies for people at Christmas.
Biggest surprise (in a good way): Walter Scott's Old Mortality After putting off reading it for over a year (the introduction suggested it was not the most inviting of reads), I finally dug in and really loved the story.
Biggest surprise (in a bad way): My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, a collection of love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. Paul bought it for me as a birthday present and we were both surprised to discover that it contained almost no romance whatsoever, just lots and lots of miserable stories about disappointed love.
Biggest author discovery: I didn't really have one this year. Maybe Peter Hoeg. I've read two books by him in 2009 but hadn't a clue who he was prior to that.
Longest book: Les Miserables. God, that was a marathon I never want to run again.
Shortest book: Fup by Jim Dodge. It was little more than a short story. But very cute.
Best plot device: Anger management classes for the cast of Wuthering Heights in The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde.
Book that made me want to cheer out loud the most: The Hakawati. I love it each time Layla or Fatima kick ass over the male characters.
Biggest obsession: The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. I just couldn't get it out of my head for ages.
Most 'worthy' book: Les Miserables *sigh*
Least 'worthy book: Alan Sugar's guide to The Apprentice season two. It was interesting in a way.
Most awful book I bothered to finish: Cecelia Ahern's Rosie Dunn (also published as Where Rainbows End) which was just dire and I skipped huge chunks.
Most awful book I didn't bother to finish: Erm... The Healer by Greg Hollongshead. Classic of a case of a book trying to be difficult and 'worthy' without having any substance. Some paragraphs were so obscure I read them three times and still didn't understand. I hated the first 50 pages or so and gave up.
Book I am most annoyed I never read: The large omnibus collection of Graham Greene novels I received last Christmas. It's too unfortunately too unwieldy to be taken on the bus so sits on my shelf gathering dust.