Books I have read: 2013
Books I have read in 2012
(Year-to-date totals: books, 31; pages, 11 150)
January (books: 5; pages: 1124)
Blood Sports by Eden Robinson (278 pages)
An engaging novel set in Vancouver's DTES.
Iced: Crystal Meth: the Biography of North America's Deadliest New Plague by Jerry Langton (255 pages)
An interesting book, although I wasn't impressed when the author kept switching back and forth between calling a meth addict's brother Richard and Robert. Poor editing can really ruin a book.
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (129 pages)
The Face of Another by Kobo Abe (237 pages)
The Language of Names by Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays (225 pages)
February (books: 2; pages: 573)
Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres (355 pages)
Scheeres' horrifying and heartbreaking memoir about surviving a Christian reform school in the Caribbean, run by what she refers to as "sadistic Jesus freaks", a very apt description. An excellent book that I very highly recommend.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (218 pages)
March (books: 3; pages: 936)
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (478 pages)
A re-read.
Ru by Kim Thuy (141 pages)
Discord: The Story of Noise by Mike Goldsmith (317 pages)
I picked this book up from the library because the topic interested me, as I've had major problems in the past with noisy neighbours, and I am sensitive to noise. At first the book was a bit dull, but it picked up halfway through and was fairly interesting. The following quotes from the book are things that I've known, first-hand, for years:
However, continuous background noise--even if it is no longer consciously heard--has a wide range of negative effects on people, from stress, tiredness, and increased irritability to reduced accuracy in task performance. (p. 94)
Unwanted noise is bad; inescapable noise is terrible. (p. 277)
April (books: 3; pages: 1003)
Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates (279 pages)
I was hesitant to read this book as I hated the title, but it sounded interesting--a story about a pedophile who kidnaps a young child. However, I found the way the story written weird and annoying, and really didn't care for the book.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (271 pages)
A sweet, heart-warming story about Dewey, a cat who was abandoned in the book return bin of the Spencer Public Library, Iowa, on a cold January night.
The Whipping Boy by Beth Holmes (453 pages)
The story was engaging-it didn’t bore me or drag on-but it made no sense. Because the plot and the characters’ motivations and actions made absolutely no sense, I would not recommend this book. There are far too many better books in the world to read and not enough time to read them all, and no time should be wasted reading this book.
May (books: 3; pages: 1069)
I have always been an avid reader, yet I have read very few classics, mostly out of fear that they’ll be boring or difficult to understand. However, I’ve decided to finally read a bunch of classics and see what I’ve been missing.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (491 pages)
An enjoyable book.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (337 pages)
Reading classics can be challenging at times due to the antiquated language, but it is also quite interesting to see how language and expressions have changed. For example, in Wuthering Heights, something that jumped out at me (as well as my sister), was the frequent use of the word “ejaculate” in the sense of “said” or “expressed”. I know it’s immature to find this funny, but I couldn’t help but find this amusing, particularly as the expression was used a lot.
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (241 pages)
I quite enjoyed this book, although every once in a while I had to re-read a page or a paragraph because I found my mind wandering, and the language was slightly more difficult than that of the other classics I have read (also, this was the oldest of the books). Despite the book being written over 200 years ago, I could still find similarities between the behaviour of the characters, and the behaviour of people today. One specific example made me laugh: John Thorpe, a douche who is infatuated with Catherine, who clearly dislikes him because he’s an obnoxious jerk, is trying to impress her by showing off his “gig” (horse and carriage). This is really no different than guys today showing off their cars. Catherine, unsurprisingly, was completely uninterested in his gig.
June (books: 2; pages: 696)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (464 pages)
Loved the book, although it was so sad. I definitely recommend this book.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (232 pages)
Not my cup of tea, although I am glad I read it in my goal to read more classics, and I am going to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
July (books: 2; pages: 758)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (326 pages)
I enjoyed this more than Tom Sawyer, and some parts were even mildly engaging. However, the last third or so dragged on. While I don't feel as if I wasted my time reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, these aren't books I'd recommend if someone is interested in classics.
The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi (432 pages)
Engaging, but I did not enjoy it as much as its companion piece, Stones from the River, and hated the characters. Good read, but annoying story.
August (books: 2; pages: 663)
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (354 pages)
The second of Hardy's books I have read, and I loved it. Hardy is definitely one of my new favourite authors.
The Dinner by Herman Koch (309 pages)
Interesting, but nothing special. A quick read, though.
September (books: 1; pages: 877)
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (877 pages)
I actually started reading this in August, and it took me about six weeks to read (I'm a slow reader, and I was actually quite busy during August and September, so had little time to read).
This was my first Dickens book. Since I was interested in reading classics, I had to read at least one Dickens novel. I spent a lot of time trying to decide which book to read, and I finally settled on David Copperfield because it sounded quite interesting. I was intimidated by the length, but I really enjoyed it (although it could have been 200 pages shorter), and want to read more Dickens novels. Here's a quote that I really like:
"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you." (p. 224)
October (books: 1; pages: 402)
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami (402 pages)
I didn't like it as much as Tell it to the Trees, but it was an alright book. I'm really ignorant about history and politics, so it was interesting to learn about Indira Gandhi's assassination (I didn't know the reason and details), and about the Air India bombing (of course I knew about it, but I honestly didn't know what it was all about).
November (books: 4; pages: 2306)
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (933 pages)
I'd never heard of this book, but a friend gave it to me for my birthday. While it's not one of my favourite books ever, I still really enjoyed it and would recommend it (warning: it's quite violent and gory). 4/5 stars.
Needful Things by Stephen King (736 pages)
One of my favourite books ever. I read this book every few years, and this is probably the fourth or fifth time I've read it.
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King (305 pages)
A re-read.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (332 pages)
A re-read. I probably first read this about 20 years ago. I should also re-watch the movie, as I recall really liking it.
December (books: 3; pages: 747)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (288 pages)
Nothing special.
The Purchase by Linda Spalding (352 pages)
This book has won awards and has gotten quite the buzz, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why. It was a piece of crap. I wanted to read the book not because it was popular (I learned my lesson after reading The Da Vinci Code), but because I was genuinely interested in reading the book. Too bad the person who wrote the synopsis didn’t write the book; it might have been worth the read.
The story sounded quite interesting (the lives of Daniel Dickinson, a widowed Quaker, and his five children in the early 19th century are changed after the purchase of a young slave, and there’s secrets and murder, etc etc), but the characters are annoying and unlikable, and the writing was terrible. I knew within a page that I’d hate the book because of the writing style (read one paragraph and you’ll know what I’m talking about), and that the plot, no matter how interesting it was, would not compensate for the awful writing. But I sort of wanted to read it to see just how bad it would be, and in that respect, I wasn’t disappointed. It was bad.
The story line definitely had potential, but the execution was just awful. It’s as if the author had an idea for a story, but didn’t know how to write it. Not only did I not like the writing style, but I hated the characters. There was no insight to their actions and motivations for their behaviour, making them very unsympathetic, and unlikable. Basically, they did something and time (anywhere from a month to a couple of years) passed, and then they did something else, and then more time passed, and so forth, with a few “consequences” of their actions thrown in (I put “consequences” in quotation marks because the author is portraying these events as consequences, but really, it felt more like a series of disjointed events). If a reader’s reaction is nothing but “So what?” or “Huh?”, then the author is probably doing something wrong.
The title of the book, The Purchase, is in reference to the purchase of a young slave by Daniel. Daniel is an abolitionist, and he goes to a slave auction to buy farm tools. Despite being against slavery, for no reason at all, he raises his hand to bid on a young boy as soon as he is brought on stage, even before hearing the opening bid (which results in the auctioneer starting the bid at twice the price).
I think the author’s intention was to make it seem like Daniel was predestined to put his hand up and that it was fate, or perhaps God's will, who brought the boy into their lives, which resulted in all sorts of tragedy, including murder! ("Instead, he went on trying to organize his understanding of God's plan, and he felt his right arm go up as if pulled by a string.") However, it came off as some guy foolishly putting up his hand for absolutely no reason at all, being taken advantage of by the auctioneer, resulting in buyer's remorse.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (107 pages)
(Year-to-date totals: books, 31; pages, 11 150)
January (books: 5; pages: 1124)
Blood Sports by Eden Robinson (278 pages)
An engaging novel set in Vancouver's DTES.
Iced: Crystal Meth: the Biography of North America's Deadliest New Plague by Jerry Langton (255 pages)
An interesting book, although I wasn't impressed when the author kept switching back and forth between calling a meth addict's brother Richard and Robert. Poor editing can really ruin a book.
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (129 pages)
The Face of Another by Kobo Abe (237 pages)
The Language of Names by Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays (225 pages)
February (books: 2; pages: 573)
Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres (355 pages)
Scheeres' horrifying and heartbreaking memoir about surviving a Christian reform school in the Caribbean, run by what she refers to as "sadistic Jesus freaks", a very apt description. An excellent book that I very highly recommend.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (218 pages)
March (books: 3; pages: 936)
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (478 pages)
A re-read.
Ru by Kim Thuy (141 pages)
Discord: The Story of Noise by Mike Goldsmith (317 pages)
I picked this book up from the library because the topic interested me, as I've had major problems in the past with noisy neighbours, and I am sensitive to noise. At first the book was a bit dull, but it picked up halfway through and was fairly interesting. The following quotes from the book are things that I've known, first-hand, for years:
However, continuous background noise--even if it is no longer consciously heard--has a wide range of negative effects on people, from stress, tiredness, and increased irritability to reduced accuracy in task performance. (p. 94)
Unwanted noise is bad; inescapable noise is terrible. (p. 277)
April (books: 3; pages: 1003)
Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates (279 pages)
I was hesitant to read this book as I hated the title, but it sounded interesting--a story about a pedophile who kidnaps a young child. However, I found the way the story written weird and annoying, and really didn't care for the book.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (271 pages)
A sweet, heart-warming story about Dewey, a cat who was abandoned in the book return bin of the Spencer Public Library, Iowa, on a cold January night.
The Whipping Boy by Beth Holmes (453 pages)
The story was engaging-it didn’t bore me or drag on-but it made no sense. Because the plot and the characters’ motivations and actions made absolutely no sense, I would not recommend this book. There are far too many better books in the world to read and not enough time to read them all, and no time should be wasted reading this book.
May (books: 3; pages: 1069)
I have always been an avid reader, yet I have read very few classics, mostly out of fear that they’ll be boring or difficult to understand. However, I’ve decided to finally read a bunch of classics and see what I’ve been missing.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (491 pages)
An enjoyable book.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (337 pages)
Reading classics can be challenging at times due to the antiquated language, but it is also quite interesting to see how language and expressions have changed. For example, in Wuthering Heights, something that jumped out at me (as well as my sister), was the frequent use of the word “ejaculate” in the sense of “said” or “expressed”. I know it’s immature to find this funny, but I couldn’t help but find this amusing, particularly as the expression was used a lot.
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (241 pages)
I quite enjoyed this book, although every once in a while I had to re-read a page or a paragraph because I found my mind wandering, and the language was slightly more difficult than that of the other classics I have read (also, this was the oldest of the books). Despite the book being written over 200 years ago, I could still find similarities between the behaviour of the characters, and the behaviour of people today. One specific example made me laugh: John Thorpe, a douche who is infatuated with Catherine, who clearly dislikes him because he’s an obnoxious jerk, is trying to impress her by showing off his “gig” (horse and carriage). This is really no different than guys today showing off their cars. Catherine, unsurprisingly, was completely uninterested in his gig.
June (books: 2; pages: 696)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (464 pages)
Loved the book, although it was so sad. I definitely recommend this book.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (232 pages)
Not my cup of tea, although I am glad I read it in my goal to read more classics, and I am going to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
July (books: 2; pages: 758)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (326 pages)
I enjoyed this more than Tom Sawyer, and some parts were even mildly engaging. However, the last third or so dragged on. While I don't feel as if I wasted my time reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, these aren't books I'd recommend if someone is interested in classics.
The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi (432 pages)
Engaging, but I did not enjoy it as much as its companion piece, Stones from the River, and hated the characters. Good read, but annoying story.
August (books: 2; pages: 663)
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (354 pages)
The second of Hardy's books I have read, and I loved it. Hardy is definitely one of my new favourite authors.
The Dinner by Herman Koch (309 pages)
Interesting, but nothing special. A quick read, though.
September (books: 1; pages: 877)
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (877 pages)
I actually started reading this in August, and it took me about six weeks to read (I'm a slow reader, and I was actually quite busy during August and September, so had little time to read).
This was my first Dickens book. Since I was interested in reading classics, I had to read at least one Dickens novel. I spent a lot of time trying to decide which book to read, and I finally settled on David Copperfield because it sounded quite interesting. I was intimidated by the length, but I really enjoyed it (although it could have been 200 pages shorter), and want to read more Dickens novels. Here's a quote that I really like:
"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you." (p. 224)
October (books: 1; pages: 402)
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami (402 pages)
I didn't like it as much as Tell it to the Trees, but it was an alright book. I'm really ignorant about history and politics, so it was interesting to learn about Indira Gandhi's assassination (I didn't know the reason and details), and about the Air India bombing (of course I knew about it, but I honestly didn't know what it was all about).
November (books: 4; pages: 2306)
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (933 pages)
I'd never heard of this book, but a friend gave it to me for my birthday. While it's not one of my favourite books ever, I still really enjoyed it and would recommend it (warning: it's quite violent and gory). 4/5 stars.
Needful Things by Stephen King (736 pages)
One of my favourite books ever. I read this book every few years, and this is probably the fourth or fifth time I've read it.
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King (305 pages)
A re-read.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (332 pages)
A re-read. I probably first read this about 20 years ago. I should also re-watch the movie, as I recall really liking it.
December (books: 3; pages: 747)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (288 pages)
Nothing special.
The Purchase by Linda Spalding (352 pages)
This book has won awards and has gotten quite the buzz, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why. It was a piece of crap. I wanted to read the book not because it was popular (I learned my lesson after reading The Da Vinci Code), but because I was genuinely interested in reading the book. Too bad the person who wrote the synopsis didn’t write the book; it might have been worth the read.
The story sounded quite interesting (the lives of Daniel Dickinson, a widowed Quaker, and his five children in the early 19th century are changed after the purchase of a young slave, and there’s secrets and murder, etc etc), but the characters are annoying and unlikable, and the writing was terrible. I knew within a page that I’d hate the book because of the writing style (read one paragraph and you’ll know what I’m talking about), and that the plot, no matter how interesting it was, would not compensate for the awful writing. But I sort of wanted to read it to see just how bad it would be, and in that respect, I wasn’t disappointed. It was bad.
The story line definitely had potential, but the execution was just awful. It’s as if the author had an idea for a story, but didn’t know how to write it. Not only did I not like the writing style, but I hated the characters. There was no insight to their actions and motivations for their behaviour, making them very unsympathetic, and unlikable. Basically, they did something and time (anywhere from a month to a couple of years) passed, and then they did something else, and then more time passed, and so forth, with a few “consequences” of their actions thrown in (I put “consequences” in quotation marks because the author is portraying these events as consequences, but really, it felt more like a series of disjointed events). If a reader’s reaction is nothing but “So what?” or “Huh?”, then the author is probably doing something wrong.
The title of the book, The Purchase, is in reference to the purchase of a young slave by Daniel. Daniel is an abolitionist, and he goes to a slave auction to buy farm tools. Despite being against slavery, for no reason at all, he raises his hand to bid on a young boy as soon as he is brought on stage, even before hearing the opening bid (which results in the auctioneer starting the bid at twice the price).
I think the author’s intention was to make it seem like Daniel was predestined to put his hand up and that it was fate, or perhaps God's will, who brought the boy into their lives, which resulted in all sorts of tragedy, including murder! ("Instead, he went on trying to organize his understanding of God's plan, and he felt his right arm go up as if pulled by a string.") However, it came off as some guy foolishly putting up his hand for absolutely no reason at all, being taken advantage of by the auctioneer, resulting in buyer's remorse.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (107 pages)