2012 Books Read List

[aphoenixrain]

January

The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd
Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger In The Stanford White Family - Suzannah Lessard
The Stone Gods - Jeanette Winterson
Fool - Christopher Moore
The Binding Chair or A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society - Kathryn Harrison

FebruaryDiary - Chuck Palahniuk

Comments

[clumsy_chord]

It always amuses me how I can feel like I'm a pretty well-read person (did I read somewhere that on average people read 2 novels a year after university/college?), but then look at things people have read and realize I've read none of them :D

I may have read Choke from Chuck Palahniuk - I can't remember which of his books I've read - but I gave up on him pretty early on. He struck me as someone who writes disgusting things for the sake of being disgusting, not because it's necessary to the story. Maybe I picked his worst two or three books though :D I've read a couple Christopher Moore novels too, but didn't stick with him as a writer either, though I did find him entertaining.

It looks like you read quite a bit of non-fiction, which is an area where I only dabble. A couple of these have titles that make me want to add them to my library request list.

[aphoenixrain]

Some of the choices are for my book club, Diary by Palahniuk was, but not Choke.

I have found that as I age I read more non-fiction. Which ones are you considering? I can tell you a little more about them (as in whether or not I feel them to be a waste of time ;) )

[clumsy_chord]

The Ghost Map... The one about the OED... Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia... and Virgin all have interesting enough titles. Yeah, definitely let me know what you think.

I went and looked back on anobii (which I used before I switched to GoodReads, I never transferred my data over) and I'd read Lullaby and Fight Club from Palahniuk. Looks like I didn't mind Fight Club so much, but didn't really go for Lullaby (I thought it had an interesting concept but that it fell apart by the end and that Palahniuk revelled in gross detail, though I didn't explain why I thought that).

I wish I could find a book club, but most of the ones I've found in my city are too far away for a transit user like me. The new library which is in walking distance of me mostly focusses on programming for new Canadians and English as a Second Language groups, so they haven't got anything started up yet either. Maybe eventually they'll start adding some of the programs the other city libraries have though.

[aphoenixrain]

All four of those were good. The Ghost Map is probably the driest of them all, but it was really interesting from a historical perspective. The Professor and the Madman was a great read, great character development and really well written.

Virgin is a great book. The chapters are really well defined and the author has a great sense of humor. It's a must read for anyone into female studies.

Life Behind the Veil was interesting. It was an easy read, but my book club found the main character hard to sympathize with at times. I think there are probably better books about this topic elsewhere.