Vincennes Review of Books 2006

[ms_bracken]

My overall aim for 2006 was to read less, but better. Going by a very imprecise scale (looking at everything I read in 2005 and everything I read in 2006 and rating each one as good, bad or indifferent) I appear to have achieved the first aim quite well and the second, less so. I read 2/3 as many books in 2006 as 2005. However, I rated 75% of these

Comments

[infov0re]

history not about Nazis

What is this other kind of "history" of which you speak? Surely there is no "history" but that which contains Nazis?

[baddidodo]

Alias Grace.

Yes, yes, yes.

And also, yes.

[danalcapone]

Well done you, especially on the Proust.

As per our conversation, I've read 20 books this year, of which 5 were fiction. That's a bit rubbish really. My timing may be slightly out (I don't date the dates I finish things, I'm going by the fact I remember reading Reich's The Cancer Biopathy at Catherine's parents last year, and I've read 20 since then - this did take me awhile to finish though, thus inaccuracy.

This year, I intend to:

Read more books! Including:
Homer - The Iliad
Pynchon - Against the Day (both on bedside table at present)
Reich's stuff that I've not read (loads of it)

Also, do you think Metamorphsis might make a good book club read? I've read it, but didn't get a huge amount out of it last time. Shared analysis might help.

[ms_bracken]

I'd really like to do Metamorphoses as a book club read, actually - that was one of miss_annersley's 'to-reads' and was heartily endorsed by baddidodo. I think there's probably enough interest there for it to be fun...

[miss_annersley]

I still like my to-read list actually - I might see if I can stick to it (though I notice I've only picked enormous thick books, maybe not the best idea). Keen on Metamorphoses as well as Don Quixote, and I think it might attract more people for a book club read... also some more poetry wouldn't go amiss.

I checked my total for last year and, not counting rereads or work books, it looks like I read 33 books of which 12 were children's books and 7 non-fiction (mostly natural history). Total is a bit rubbish but since it includes the Baroque Cycle and excludes such mammoth tomes as The Making of the English Middle Class I'm not too perturbed... Best book - not sure - possibly The Mouse and His Child? Book enjoyed least - On Beauty. Most disappointing - The Pinhoe Egg (sadly - reads like slightly off-key fanfic).

Losing Nelson is tip-top, btw.