Monday, July 12, 2010

A Bad Year for the Bibliophile, A Great Year for the Mom

With all the commotion of Rin being born and the sleepless days and nights when he was little, I barely got any time to read.
Here are the best and the worst:

The best was Jasper Fforde's "Shades of Grey", the weirdest and most fun book I've read in a long time. I sighed when I finished it, but then gasped for joy when I saw on the overleaf at the back that a sequel is coming out. I can barely wait! (Just looked it up and it seems the sequel is already out! I'm ordering it now!) Anyone who likes strange fantasy/scifi/speculative future history with a side of WTF comedy should definitely pick it up.

And one honorable mention: The Chosen by Chaim Potok. I bought it ages ago and just got around to reading it this year. It's a bitter-sweet story of two smart but very different Jewish boys growing up in New York during the end of WW2 and their relationships with each other and with their fathers. It was worlds away from anything I've experienced but the quiet love and sadness should speak to anyone regardless of background.


The worst was "Book of the Dead." I had read some of Patricia Cornwell's mystery thrillers a number of years back and recalled them as having rather stilted dialogue, but otherwise good for genre-fiction. Boy, was I disappointed. Either my memory ahs failed me, or she's gone downhill quite a bit because this latest one was GARBAGE. No likable characters, no thrilling hunt for the killer, and nothing but boring soap-opera-esque drama from beginning to end. Blegh!

And now for the list; even counting re-reads I only clocked a measly 43 books. Here they are in reverse order:
(Also as you may have noticed. I've decied to give each one a ranking this time, from 1 to 10 stars with separate categories for literature, genre-fiction and non-fiction.)

April 2010
43: 24 Apr 10 Heartsick by Chelsea Cain GT-7☆
42: 12 Apr 10 Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell GT-1☆
41: 3 Apr 10 Aunts Are’t Gentelemen by P.G. Wodehouse (RR) GC-8☆
40: 1 Apr 10 Rebecca by Daphne DuMarier L-7☆

March 2010
39: 25 Mar 10 Bloody Mary by Carolly Erickson N-7☆
38: 10 Mar 10 The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope L-6☆
37: 5 Mar 10 Just After Sunset by Stephen King GH-6☆
36: 1 Mar 10 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson GT-8☆

February 2010
35: 25 Feb 10 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio L-8☆
34: 20 Feb 10 A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield N-8☆
33: 8 Feb 10 No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy L-5☆

January 2010
32: 31 Jan 10 Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde GSF-9☆
31: 15 Jan 10 Salt by Mark Kurlansky N-8☆
30: 2 Jan 10 Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane GH-4☆

December 2009
29: ? Dec 09 The Chosen by Chaim Potok L-9☆

November 2009
28: ? Nov 09 The Help by Kathryn Stockett L-8☆

October 2009
27: 27 Oct 09 Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan L-7☆
26: 26 Oct 09 Otherland Book 4:SOSL by Tad Williams GSF-9☆
25: 17 Oct 09 Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barberry L-8☆
24: 15 Oct 09 Mind’s Eye by Hakan Nesser GM-6☆
23: 11 Oct 09 In the Wood by Tana French GM-7☆
22: 7 Oct 09 Sold by Patricia McCormick L-6☆
21: ? Oct 09 The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Re-read L-10☆

September 2009
20: 20 Sep 09 Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell GM-3☆

August 2009
19: 26 Aug 09 Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay GH-6☆
18: 25 Aug 09 Otherland Book 3:MOBG by Tad Williams Re-read GSF-10☆
17: 23 Aug 09 Escape by Carolyn Jessop N-7☆
16: 22 Aug 09 The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks N-7☆
15: 18 Aug 09 Otherland Book 2:ROBF by Tad Williams Re-read GSF-10☆
14: 14 Aug 09 Otherland Book 1: COGS by Tad Williams Re-read GSF-10☆
13: 4 Aug 09 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro L-8☆

July 2009
12: 31 July 09 The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry L-8☆
11: 28 July 09 World War Z by Max Brooks Re-read GSF-9☆
10: 20 July 09 God? by William Lane Craig & Walter Sinott-Armstrong N-6☆
9: 13 July 09 The Book with No Name by Anonymous GA-5☆
8: 10 July 09 Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Haruki L-7☆
7: 8 July 09 The Reader by Bernhard Schlink L-7☆

June 2009
6: 25 June 09 Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup L-7☆
5: 20 June 09 Carry On Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Re-read GC-9☆
4: 18 June 09 The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Re-read GC-10☆

May 2009
3: 18 May 09 Powers by Ursula K. LeGuin GF-8☆
2: 16 May 09 The Pornographers by Nosaka Akiyuki L-6☆
1: 14 May 09 Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri L-7☆

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