I reached my 52-book goal just in time. I managed to just make it by the skin of my Tintin. I'm counting it, even though it was short. This year wasn't a great one for reading. I'm not sure why. I didn't read a lot of stellar books. I ended up reading mostly sub-par stuff. I'm not sure how it ended up that way. I also did a lot of starting and not finishing books. I got several hundred pages into Bleak House and somehow couldn't bring myself to finish it.
It's getting harder to devote time to reading/reaching my goals and also to read really worthwhile stuff at the same time. So I ended up turning to a lot of fluff with very little substance. Also had to read a bunch of stuff for work and none of it was really good. I did end up reading Ulysses, which was a major event in my reading life. It had been on my formal "to read" list for over 10 years. It was as tedious as I had anticipated, but there were some very nicely written parts. I am looking forward to reading better in the coming year, even if it means not reading a book a week, and I'm also hoping to tick a few more off of that life-long list. Even though this year's books were largely a bust, there were a few books this year that made an impact. My Top and Bottom 5 after the list...
It's getting harder to devote time to reading/reaching my goals and also to read really worthwhile stuff at the same time. So I ended up turning to a lot of fluff with very little substance. Also had to read a bunch of stuff for work and none of it was really good. I did end up reading Ulysses, which was a major event in my reading life. It had been on my formal "to read" list for over 10 years. It was as tedious as I had anticipated, but there were some very nicely written parts. I am looking forward to reading better in the coming year, even if it means not reading a book a week, and I'm also hoping to tick a few more off of that life-long list. Even though this year's books were largely a bust, there were a few books this year that made an impact. My Top and Bottom 5 after the list...
1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Shaffer and Barrows
2. Beloved - Toni Morrison
3. The Basil and Josephine Stories - F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Something From the Oven - Laura Shapiro
5. The Sweet Hereafter - Russell Banks
6. Big Hair and Flying Cows - Dolores Wilson
7. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
8. The Secret History - Donna Tart
9. Ulysses - James Joyce
10. Rabbit, Run - John Updike
11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
12. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
13. Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins
14. Fablehaven - Brandon Mull
15. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
16. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbra Kingsolver
17. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niggenegger
18. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
19. Harry Potter (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
20. How to Cook a Wolf - MFK Fisher
21. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
22. Trout Fishing in America - Richard Brautigan
23. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) - Rick Riordan
24. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson #3) - Rick Riordan
25. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson #4) - Rick Riordan
26. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) - Rick Riordan
27. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
28. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
29. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
30. Atmospheric Disturbances - Rivka Galchen
31. The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping - Ormond and Harry Arbi
32. Strange As This Weather Has Been - Ann Pancake
33. Wolf Brother - Michele Paver
34. True North - Jim Harrison
35. Spirit Walker - Michele Paver
36. The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
37. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
38. Maus - Art Spiegelman
39. Maus II - Art Spiegelman
40. The End of the Affair - Graham Green
41. A Lost Lady - Willa Cather
42. You Better Not Cry - Augusten Burroughs
43. Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick
44. March - Garadine Brooks
45. The Book of Nightmares - Galway Kinnell
46. Pride and Prejudice (Graphic Novel Version)
47. Kindred - Octavia Butler
48. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
49. The Food of a Younger Land - Mark Kurlansky
50. Turtle Island - Gary Snyder
51. Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney
52. Tintin in America - Herge
Top 5 books:
5. American Born Chinese - An incredibly funny and heartbreaking graphic novel that should be taught in school. It blew me away.
4. Kindred - A SciFi book about slavery in America...it's what all SciFi should be. I remember all of my professors doing a "read-in" of this book in college, so it was nice to remember them, as well.
3. Rabbit, Run - It's been on my list for awhile. Had I known it was this good, I would have read it a long time ago.
2. Maus and Maus II - I spiraled into this world for days. The most visceral depiction of the Holocaust I've never read. I think it could have only been told in graphic novel form.
1. Beloved - Brilliant. Seriously, read this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks afterward, and that is what a proper book should do to you! She is a master.
Bottom 5 books:
5. Poisonwood Bible - It just didn't seem believable, the characters were one dimensional. I was really disappointed with this book.
4. The Te of Piglet - A really pathetic follow-up to a sweet book. Not worth wasting time on.
3. True North - Not his best. Meandering and repetitive, unfortunately. I forgive him.
2. The Secret History - Not a badly written book. It was a page-turner. However, it really upset me. Here is my goodreads.com review from last Feb: 629 pages? Overly long; flat characters that are difficult to sympathize with; muddy details which I often times questioned the authenticity; purple patches. I hate it when authors use first person and then, when it's finally time to reveal a major point, the character "doesn't remember exactly," or "doesn't want to go into it" for no good reason. 629 pages and you don't want to go into it? Bogus, Richard! You're fictional...you don't even exist. And yet, you owe it to me for putting up with your excruciating minutiae. Everything you ate that year, the drinks each character in the room were drinking every time they drank, every cigarette anyone ever smoked, what time you woke up every time you woke up that year. Then you go and do a "what they're doing now" for the last 5 pages of the book like the ending credits of some movie...for characters so minor that I didn't even remember some of them. Way to tack on a few. I can't believe that someone caught up in murder can be so boring.
1. The Time Traveler's Wife - A lot of people recommended this book to me. A lot of formerly trustworthy people. Like Secret History, it is not poorly written. The first half or so was really good. I was so excited to be reading something romantic and well-written. Then it all just fell apart. I felt like I knew the characters less towards the end than I knew them at the beginning. What's more, I hated them all toward the end. They were also totally flat and the the writing wasn't exciting. In fact, it was really boring. It felt as though the author wrote it while suffering from insomnia. And it went on forever. It was at least 200 pages more than it should have been.
*Note about the Bottom 5: these are certainly not the worst books I've read, they are just the books that disappointed me the most. I hate it when someone recommends a book and it doesn't come through. I hate it when something garners a lot of interest and it's total crap. Usually, these books have been on my shelf for a significant amount of time. That's way more upsetting than randomly choosing a flop from the library. That said, please recommend some books for 2010! I might not love them, but I sure hope I do.
1. The Time Traveler's Wife - A lot of people recommended this book to me. A lot of formerly trustworthy people. Like Secret History, it is not poorly written. The first half or so was really good. I was so excited to be reading something romantic and well-written. Then it all just fell apart. I felt like I knew the characters less towards the end than I knew them at the beginning. What's more, I hated them all toward the end. They were also totally flat and the the writing wasn't exciting. In fact, it was really boring. It felt as though the author wrote it while suffering from insomnia. And it went on forever. It was at least 200 pages more than it should have been.
*Note about the Bottom 5: these are certainly not the worst books I've read, they are just the books that disappointed me the most. I hate it when someone recommends a book and it doesn't come through. I hate it when something garners a lot of interest and it's total crap. Usually, these books have been on my shelf for a significant amount of time. That's way more upsetting than randomly choosing a flop from the library. That said, please recommend some books for 2010! I might not love them, but I sure hope I do.
5 comments:
ove your reviews, they are so intimate and personal. for some reason shes come undone by wally lamb jumps to my mind.I also was disappointed in the poisonwood bible. i did however really enjoy anything by toni morrison, though it has been years since I have read or really bathed in a great book. I also hate thinking about a book for days after, it is such a distraction to me...
I feel exactly the same way about The Time Traveler's Wife. Ugggg. I just finished it yesterday and was let down by it.
Here are some recommendations, but I have a feeling you may have read them already. :)
1) The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb (anything by Wally Lamb I love, but this one by far is my favorite)
2) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (my doctor recommended this to me when I first became sick - I have since read it 3 or 4 times)
3) Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote (a feel good book about a great dog!)
Rabbit, Run is one of my favorite books. How was elegance of the hedgehog? I have it but haven't read it yet.
I thought Elegance of the Hedgehog was kind of a let-down. It was basically a Cinderella story. I felt like where it ended up wasn't exactly what the author intended when she created the characters. They are almost too good for where it goes. Which was a bummer. I would say it's a 2 or 3 out of 5.
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