Books of 2010
Yes, it's time for my annual blog post to record how I've fared with reading this year. I haven't done that well actually. I lost momentum for large parts of late spring and summer. Sometimes that happens I suppose. My final total was 86 books for the year. That's down from 100 in 2009. Must do better in 2011.
Books read in 2010
January
- Ian Fleming, Casino Royale OK
- John Le Carre, The Mission Song OK
- Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequals GOOD
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus VERY GOOD
- David Crystal, Just a Phrase I'm Going Through VERY GOOD
- Zadie Smith, Martha and Hanwell OK
- Andrew S. Dolkart, Biography of a Tenement House in New York City GOOD
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird EXCELLENT
- Gore Vidal, 1786 GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun GOOD
- Myla Goldberg, Bee Season GOOD
February
- Isabel Allende, Ines of My Soul OK
- Reginald Hill, Ruling Passion GOOD
- Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our familes GOOD
- Ian Fleming, Moonraker VERY GOOD
- Lois McMaster Bujold, Beguilement OK
- Paul Torday, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen VERY GOOD
- Tony Horwitz, Into the Blue: Going Boldly Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library GOOD
- Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze GOOD
- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides VERY GOOD
March
- Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society GOOD
- Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger VERY GOOD
- George Orwell, 1984 VERY GOOD
- Gill Twissell, Rest Upon the Wind GOOD
- Ian Rankin, Celebrating 20 Years of Inspector Rebus OK
- Marian Keyes, This Charming Man VERY GOOD
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South EXCELLENT
April
- Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country OK
- Adrienne Dines, The Jigsaw Maker GOOD
- Katherine Frank, Lucie Duff Gordon: A Passage to Egypt VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, A Murder is Announced OK
- Michael Faber, The Fire Gospel GOOD
- Michelle Roberts, Fair Exchange GOOD
- Various, Carry a Poem GOOD
- A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book EXCELLENT
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo EXCELLENT
- Alice Hoffman, Blue Diary GOOD
May (Whatever happened to my reading???)
- Joseph D'Lacey, Meat GOOD
- Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffaney's VERY GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Ambassador's Mission GOOD
June
- Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game EXCELLENT
- Paula Coelho, The Alchemist OK
- Agatha Christie, 4.50 From Paddington VERY GOOD
- Ted Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder GOOD
- Michael Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White EXCELLENT
- Matthew Thomas, Before & After GOOD
- Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet GOOD
- Kathy Reichs, Bare Bones GOOD
July
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath EXCELLENT
- Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus GOOD
- Michael Faber, The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories VERY GOOD
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Played with Fire VERY GOOD
August
- Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters EXCELLENT
- Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Best of the Ladies' Detective Agency GOOD
September
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Pale Horse OK
- Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal EXCELLENT
- Marista Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics VERY GOOD
- Christina Schwarz, Drowning Ruth GOOD
- Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca GOOD
October
- Ken Follet, Pillars of the Earth GOOD
- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables GOOD
- Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies GOOD
- Kate Grencille, The Lieutenant GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit GOOD
- Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory VERY GOOD
- Barbara Kinsgsolver, The Poisonwood Bible VERY GOOD
November
- Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front EXCELLENT
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest EXCELLENT [Audiobook]
- M. R. James, Ghost Stories OK
- Agatha Christie, Taken at the Flood GOOD
- Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood VERY GOOD
- Christine Colman, Paper Lanterns OK
- John Fowles, The Collector VERY GOOD
- Kathryn Lasky, Mayflower: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, 1620 GOOD
December
- Elizabeth Noble, The Reading Group GOOD
- Victor Pelevin, The Helmet of Horror OK
- Thomas Keneally, Schindler's List EXCELLENT
- L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea GOOD
- Adrienne Dines, Toppling Miss April GOOD
- Agatha Christie, N or M? OK
- David Grossman, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson GOOD
- Kate Morton, The House at Riverton VERY GOOD
So, the awards...
Best book:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Why had I never read this before??? I must've had a deprived childhood without even realising. The book is amazing!
Biggest surprise (in a good way):
The biography of Lucie Duff Gordon which I was sent as a rabck. The reaction when I got it was 'who?' but it turned out to be a really interesting read. She was a surprisingly broadminded and emancipated late-Victorian lady who spent several years chronicling her life in Egypt.
Biggest surprise (in a bad way):
Ian Fleming - Casino Royale. I was prepared to be outraged by the chauvinism, but its complete rubbishness shocked me. Whoever gets excited by games of baccarat? I wanted more scantily-clad women and car chases.
Biggest author discovery:
Would have to be Stieg Larsson. I read the whole Millenium trilogy and really enjoyed it. I know it's not particularly well-written, but the plots and characters seemed much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill airport fiction.
Longest book:
Good question. Don't think I read anything 1000+ pages this year. I think A.s. Byatt's The Children's Book was longest, or maybe it just had that many characters that it FELT that way. Really good book though: once you've worked out who the hell everyone is.
Shortest book:
The Carry A Poem thing. It was the 2010 Edinburgh freebie book.
Best plot device:
Zombie-killing Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yeah, the joke wore thin pretty quickly; but it was cool while it lasted.
Book that made me want to cheer out loud the most:
Crimson Petal and the White. Never before has a Victorian governess been so... utterly awesome! Even Jane Eyre can't match Miss Sugar foe that.
Biggest obsession:
To Kill a Mockingbird. I wish Atticus was my Daddy.
Most 'worthy' book:
Gore Vidal, 1786. Bit dull but alright.
Least 'worthy book:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Most awful book I bothered to finish:
Nothing truly terrible this year. Probably Casino Royale.
Most awful book I didn't bother to finish:
Erm... Think I've blocked them all from my mind to reduce the trauma! There was a self-published book about a middle-aged couple moving to Cornwall sent to me as a rabck which I tried to read out of politeness but failed. That was one of the worst, if not quite THE worst.
Book I am most annoyed I never read:
(Copied from last year's entry - *sigh*) 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 2010
January
- Ian Fleming, Casino Royale OK
- John Le Carre, The Mission Song OK
- Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequals GOOD
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus VERY GOOD
- David Crystal, Just a Phrase I'm Going Through VERY GOOD
- Zadie Smith, Martha and Hanwell OK
- Andrew S. Dolkart, Biography of a Tenement House in New York City GOOD
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird EXCELLENT
- Gore Vidal, 1786 GOOD
- Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun GOOD
- Myla Goldberg, Bee Season GOOD
February
- Isabel Allende, Ines of My Soul OK
- Reginald Hill, Ruling Passion GOOD
- Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our familes GOOD
- Ian Fleming, Moonraker VERY GOOD
- Lois McMaster Bujold, Beguilement OK
- Paul Torday, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen VERY GOOD
- Tony Horwitz, Into the Blue: Going Boldly Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library GOOD
- Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze GOOD
- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides VERY GOOD
March
- Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society GOOD
- Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger VERY GOOD
- George Orwell, 1984 VERY GOOD
- Gill Twissell, Rest Upon the Wind GOOD
- Ian Rankin, Celebrating 20 Years of Inspector Rebus OK
- Marian Keyes, This Charming Man VERY GOOD
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South EXCELLENT
April
- Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country OK
- Adrienne Dines, The Jigsaw Maker GOOD
- Katherine Frank, Lucie Duff Gordon: A Passage to Egypt VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, A Murder is Announced OK
- Michael Faber, The Fire Gospel GOOD
- Michelle Roberts, Fair Exchange GOOD
- Various, Carry a Poem GOOD
- A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book EXCELLENT
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo EXCELLENT
- Alice Hoffman, Blue Diary GOOD
May (Whatever happened to my reading???)
- Joseph D'Lacey, Meat GOOD
- Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffaney's VERY GOOD
- Trudi Canavan, The Ambassador's Mission GOOD
June
- Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game EXCELLENT
- Paula Coelho, The Alchemist OK
- Agatha Christie, 4.50 From Paddington VERY GOOD
- Ted Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder GOOD
- Michael Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White EXCELLENT
- Matthew Thomas, Before & After GOOD
- Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet GOOD
- Kathy Reichs, Bare Bones GOOD
July
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath EXCELLENT
- Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus GOOD
- Michael Faber, The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories VERY GOOD
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Played with Fire VERY GOOD
August
- Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters EXCELLENT
- Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey GOOD
- Alexander McCall Smith, The Best of the Ladies' Detective Agency GOOD
September
- Stieg Larsson, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest VERY GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Pale Horse OK
- Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal EXCELLENT
- Marista Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics VERY GOOD
- Christina Schwarz, Drowning Ruth GOOD
- Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca GOOD
October
- Ken Follet, Pillars of the Earth GOOD
- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables GOOD
- Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies GOOD
- Kate Grencille, The Lieutenant GOOD
- Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit GOOD
- Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory VERY GOOD
- Barbara Kinsgsolver, The Poisonwood Bible VERY GOOD
November
- Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front EXCELLENT
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest EXCELLENT [Audiobook]
- M. R. James, Ghost Stories OK
- Agatha Christie, Taken at the Flood GOOD
- Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood VERY GOOD
- Christine Colman, Paper Lanterns OK
- John Fowles, The Collector VERY GOOD
- Kathryn Lasky, Mayflower: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, 1620 GOOD
December
- Elizabeth Noble, The Reading Group GOOD
- Victor Pelevin, The Helmet of Horror OK
- Thomas Keneally, Schindler's List EXCELLENT
- L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea GOOD
- Adrienne Dines, Toppling Miss April GOOD
- Agatha Christie, N or M? OK
- David Grossman, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson GOOD
- Kate Morton, The House at Riverton VERY GOOD
So, the awards...
Best book:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Why had I never read this before??? I must've had a deprived childhood without even realising. The book is amazing!
Biggest surprise (in a good way):
The biography of Lucie Duff Gordon which I was sent as a rabck. The reaction when I got it was 'who?' but it turned out to be a really interesting read. She was a surprisingly broadminded and emancipated late-Victorian lady who spent several years chronicling her life in Egypt.
Biggest surprise (in a bad way):
Ian Fleming - Casino Royale. I was prepared to be outraged by the chauvinism, but its complete rubbishness shocked me. Whoever gets excited by games of baccarat? I wanted more scantily-clad women and car chases.
Biggest author discovery:
Would have to be Stieg Larsson. I read the whole Millenium trilogy and really enjoyed it. I know it's not particularly well-written, but the plots and characters seemed much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill airport fiction.
Longest book:
Good question. Don't think I read anything 1000+ pages this year. I think A.s. Byatt's The Children's Book was longest, or maybe it just had that many characters that it FELT that way. Really good book though: once you've worked out who the hell everyone is.
Shortest book:
The Carry A Poem thing. It was the 2010 Edinburgh freebie book.
Best plot device:
Zombie-killing Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yeah, the joke wore thin pretty quickly; but it was cool while it lasted.
Book that made me want to cheer out loud the most:
Crimson Petal and the White. Never before has a Victorian governess been so... utterly awesome! Even Jane Eyre can't match Miss Sugar foe that.
Biggest obsession:
To Kill a Mockingbird. I wish Atticus was my Daddy.
Most 'worthy' book:
Gore Vidal, 1786. Bit dull but alright.
Least 'worthy book:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Most awful book I bothered to finish:
Nothing truly terrible this year. Probably Casino Royale.
Most awful book I didn't bother to finish:
Erm... Think I've blocked them all from my mind to reduce the trauma! There was a self-published book about a middle-aged couple moving to Cornwall sent to me as a rabck which I tried to read out of politeness but failed. That was one of the worst, if not quite THE worst.
Book I am most annoyed I never read:
(Copied from last year's entry - *sigh*) 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.