Happy New Year!
As is usual for my New Year's post, time to list the books I've been reading over the past twelve months. This year I started a 'to read' list, writing down titles of books I should or want to read. Even though this list has no deadline, the sheer fact of its existence is probably the reason why I've read nearly forty books this year. I'm constantly aware of all the books out there I want to get through, so I don't slack off on the one I'm reading now.
Hide Me Among the Graves - Tim Powers
The Older Woman in Recent Fiction - Zoe Brennan
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination - Margaret Atwood
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Call For the Dead - John le Carre
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
The Twyborn Affair - Patrick White
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakam
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Candide - Voltaire
Sea Hearts - Margo Lanagan
Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel García Márquez
The Harp in the South - Ruth Park
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Sharpe's Rifles - Bernard Cornwall
Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
Dead Europe - Christos Tsiolkas
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
The Devil in Silver - Victor LaValle
N.P. - Banana Yoshimoto
The Amulet - Roberto Bolano
Crash - J G Ballard
The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
The Year of the Flood - Margret Atwood
Madwoman on the Bridge - Su Tong
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Allen Quartermain - Rider Haggard
Strange Weather in Tokyo (Sensei no Kaban) - Hiromi Kawakami
Not a lot of duds this year. The closest was The Devil In Silver which was just sort of underwhelming, and The Book Thief which wasn't bad so much as superfluous. Cryptonomicon was at least four hundred pages too long. The Third Policeman was surreal but didn't really engage me.
Lots of hits though. I loved The Garden of Evening Mists, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Cannery Row. Dead Europe was pretty brilliant, if rather uncomfortable reading (it is a strange book you're reading when you're thinking 'if it weren't for all the exploited underage teenagers this would be kind of hot'.) Crash was also kind of fascinatingly disgusting. I wanted to wash my hands after reading it and never get in a car again. Sharpe's Rifles was good clean manly light reading and if I didn't have that huge list of worthy books hanging over my head I might read more (and the fact that I have to order them from another state tends to put me off.)
Here's to another year of good books.
Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it's a good one.
Hide Me Among the Graves - Tim Powers
The Older Woman in Recent Fiction - Zoe Brennan
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination - Margaret Atwood
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Call For the Dead - John le Carre
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
The Twyborn Affair - Patrick White
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakam
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Candide - Voltaire
Sea Hearts - Margo Lanagan
Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel García Márquez
The Harp in the South - Ruth Park
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Sharpe's Rifles - Bernard Cornwall
Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
Dead Europe - Christos Tsiolkas
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
The Devil in Silver - Victor LaValle
N.P. - Banana Yoshimoto
The Amulet - Roberto Bolano
Crash - J G Ballard
The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
The Year of the Flood - Margret Atwood
Madwoman on the Bridge - Su Tong
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Allen Quartermain - Rider Haggard
Strange Weather in Tokyo (Sensei no Kaban) - Hiromi Kawakami
Not a lot of duds this year. The closest was The Devil In Silver which was just sort of underwhelming, and The Book Thief which wasn't bad so much as superfluous. Cryptonomicon was at least four hundred pages too long. The Third Policeman was surreal but didn't really engage me.
Lots of hits though. I loved The Garden of Evening Mists, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Cannery Row. Dead Europe was pretty brilliant, if rather uncomfortable reading (it is a strange book you're reading when you're thinking 'if it weren't for all the exploited underage teenagers this would be kind of hot'.) Crash was also kind of fascinatingly disgusting. I wanted to wash my hands after reading it and never get in a car again. Sharpe's Rifles was good clean manly light reading and if I didn't have that huge list of worthy books hanging over my head I might read more (and the fact that I have to order them from another state tends to put me off.)
Here's to another year of good books.
Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it's a good one.