What Sho read in 2010
Created | Updated Dec 31, 2010
Updated on: 31st December 2010.
Since it will make my PS too cluttered, and if I do it in a journal it will be broken up by bits of chat, I thought I'd keep a record here.
2007, 2008, 2009 and
2010 - here's what I'm currently reading.
I am currently reading:
Arabian Nights
Started: 01.01.2008
~This was my emergency book in the car for ages, and I've been halfway through it for a couple of years because I've been pretty good about always having a book in my handbag. So I've decided it's time to finish it. I picked it up in the middle of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Pretty bloodthirsty, but good stories. And great for a bedtime book because you can read one little chunk, or a lot.
Travels With My Donkey - Tim Moore.
Started: 29.12.2010
~Another travel book - this time him, a donkey and the Way of Saint James (Jakobsweg, as I know it) to Santiago de Compostela. Great stuff.
Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome.
Started: 29.12.2010
~Next of the Swallows & Amazons, and my favourite of the series.
Done and dusted...
- Pratt á Manger - David Nobbs.
Started: 23.12.2010
Finished: 28.12.2010
~4th in the Henry Pratt series, I've read a few of his novels (including Reggie Perrin and Going Genttly which is one of the best books I've ever read. I'm hoping the standard is kept up with this one!
~It was most excellent. Now I'm off to find more of his work.
- The Silver Chair - CS Lewis.
Started: 17.12.2010
Finished: 27.12.2010
~On with the journey into Narnia with the 4th book of the series.
- Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 17.12.2010
Finished: 23.12.2010
~Most excellent. I love the ones featuring DEATH.
- Ramage's Signal - Dudley Pope.
Started: 07.12.2010
Finished: 17.12.2010
~On the cover it says "Takes over the helm from Hornblower" and it seems CS Forester encouraged Pope in his writing. This is number 10 or 11 in the series but it's my first Ramage, I picked it up in a charity shop and thought I'd give it a go.
~Totally fab. I'm going to try some others.
- Voyage of the Dawn Treader - CS Lewis.
Started: 12.12.2010
Finished: 16.12.2010
~The film is out now, I wonder if I'll get to see it...
- Do Not Pass Go - Tim Moore.
Started: 23.11.2010
Finished: 12.12.2010
~A trip round London with a Monopoly board to find out why the various streets and so on were chosen.
- In search of Elvis - Charlie Connelly.
Started: 27.11.2010
Finished: 06.12.2010
~Most excellent. Can't wait until his next one comes out.
- Scoop - Evelyn Waugh.
Started: 23.11.2010
Finished: 27.11.2010
~Hilarious.
- Prince Caspian - CS Lewis.
Started: 17.11.2010
Finished: 22.11.2010
~I don't care what anyone says. This is number 2 in the series.
- Jamaica Inn - Daphne Du Maurier.
Started: 19.11.2010
Finished: 22.11.2010
~Totally brilliant, I couldn't put it down.
- Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 09.11.2010
Finished: 16.11.2010
~And on to the next...
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling.
Started: 13.11.2010
Finished: 17.11.2010
~Reading this again in anticipation of going to see the film next week. Enjoyed it a WHOLE lot better 3rd time around. But now I won't read those for quite a while.
- Down Under - Bill Bryson.
Started: 31.10.2010
Finished: 08.10.2010
~Yaay, another travel book!
- Whisky Galore - Compton Mackenzie.
Started: 25.10.2010
Finished: 04.11.2010
~Got this one at the bookstall by the Jubilee Bridge (that's in London how cool!)
- Draußen nur Männchen - Käthe Lachmann.
Started: 25.10.2010
Finished: 31.10.2010
~Borrowed it from a friend, it's a bit of a Chick Lit auf Deutch...
- Peter Duck - Arthur Ransome.
Started: 15.10.2010
Finished: 25.10.2010
~The third of the Swallows & Amazons series. Most excellent.
- Eric - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 23.10.2010
Finished: 25.10.2010
~Still reading them in publication order. This one is great so far, but then I expected nothing less.
- Springtime for Germany (or how I learned to love lederhosen) - Ben Donald.
Started: 15.10.2010
Finished: 22.10.2010
~I love travel writing. I love Germany. How could I resist this one?
~I wish I had resisted it. It started off well with promise but soon descended into something that is more about the average Brit's (uninformed) attitude towards Germany and the Germans. It boiled down to: it's a big place, they like to get naked and they started two world wars. Sigh. zzzzz.
- The Rebel Prince - Celine Kiernan.
Started: 09.10.2010
Finsihed: 14.10.2010
~The third in her Moorehawke trilogy. A friend of mine brouht it back from Dublin as it's not available anywhere else, and managed to pick up a "signed by the author" copy. Cool. Although, since Cel is a friend of mine I suppose getting a signature would have been easy. Yep, I have close, personal friends who write highly regarded trilogies in the YA field. Coolio!
- Michael McIntyre: Life and Laughter - Michael McIntyre.
Started: 14.10.2010
Finished: 15.10.2010
~Bought this hardback copy in Selfridges on the day of publication and got it signed by the man himself. (dedicated to The Gillespies. When he saw it he shouted - for he is loud in RL too) "The Gillespies? The Gillespies? I LOVE the Gillespies!! and wrote under the dedication: I love you (as a family). Coolio. But really, he's in his early 30s: that is too young for an autobiography, no matter how amusingly it is written)
- It's a Girl Thing (LBD) - Grace Dent.
Started: 07.10.2010
Finished: 10.10.2010
~Got it for the Gruesome Twosome but they didn't like it. I thought it would appeal as similar to the Georgia Nicholson books but it's not as good. I want to do my Teen Novel again for NaNo 2010 so this is 'research'.
- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis.
Started: 04.10.2010
Finished: 06.10.2010
~I don't care what anyone says: this is the 1st in the series.
- Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 02.10.2010
Finished: 08.10.2010
~Still reading them in publication order and this is next up.
- Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan.
Started: 22.09.2010
Finished: 04.10.2010
~4th in the series.
- Bicycle Diaries - David Byrne.
Started: 25.09.2010
Finished: 02.10.2010
~I had no idea he wrote books. I also had no idea he was a confirmed city cyclist. It's a travel book so it's right up my street.
~Great stuff. He makes a lot of interesting points, and there are snippets about his creative life outside of Talking Heads. I think I love him a lot more now I've read this, and I've always had a little bit of a thing for him.
- The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro.
Started: 22.09.2010
Finished: 25.09.2010
~I am the last person on the planet to read this, and I've never seen the film. A terrrible gap in my cultural education.
~Beautifully written, I'm definitely going to try some more of his work. This one one the Booker. It seems that all his other novels have wone some prize or other.
- The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams.
Started: 17.09.2010
Finished: 21.09.2010
~The second and, unfortunately, last complete Dirk Gently novel.
- Hornblower In the West Indies - CS Forester.
Started: 20.08.2010
Finished: 16.09.2010
~The fourth and final story in the Admiral Hornblower omnibus. Bliss. Most excellent - it's a series of connected but easy to stand-alone short stories.
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams.
Started: 12.09.2010
Finished: 17.09.2010
~I prefer this to the Hitchhiker books (eek, I'll be in trouble now) but recently found that my copy was missing. Then I realised that the sequel was also missing from my collection. So now I have both, I'm going to read them.
- The Secret Mothers' Club - Joanne Fedler.
Started: 10.09.2010
Finished: 11.09.2010
~Child-free colleagues recommended this one to me. A group of Australian friends, mothers all, meet for a "sleepover" with heavenly food and confessions. Based on real conversations.
- The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz.
Started: 03.09.2010
Finished: 09.09.2010
~Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo. It has received numerous positive reviews from critics and went on to win numerous prestigious awards in 2008, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The title is a nod to Hemingway's short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and to the Irish writer Oscar Wilde.
~Now I know more than I ever thought to ask about the recent history of the Dominican Republic. Something I need to find out more about I think. Very well written - although the idea that someone who likes Tolkien, Doctor Who and Blake's 7 is a geek is a bit discombobulating!
- Pyramids - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 29.08.2010
Finished: 03.09.2010
~7th of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.
- SuperFreakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
Started: 23.08.2010
Finished: 28.08.2010
~Follow up to their previous bestseller has the tagline "global cooling, patriotic prostitutes and why suicie bombers should buy life insurance" How could I resist?
- The Treasure Seekers - Edith Nesbit.
Started: 20.08.2010
Finished: 22.08.2010
~A children's classic.
- Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett.
Started: 18.08.2010
Finished: 20.08.2010
~The next of the Discworld novels in order of publication. Very good, as they all are, and jogs along nicely.
- The Commmodore - CS Forester.
Started: 05.08.2010
Finished: 19.08.2010
~2nd in the Admmiral Hornblower omnibus. Brilliant stuff.
- Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson.
Started: 12.08.2010
Finished: 14.08.2010
~Turns out I already have this but I'm reading it anyway since it's so fab.
- The Group - Mary McCarthy.
Started: 05.08.2010
Finished: 11.08.2010
~6 Vassar graduates in the 1930s. Their lives and their loves and their careers.
- Why doesE=mc²? (and why should we care?) - Prof Brian Cox and Prof Jeff Forshaw.
Started: 27.07.2010
Finished: 08.08.2010
~Brain scrambling stuff - but the ambitious professors claim to be able to explain the basics of Einstein's theory of relativity using maths no more complicated than Pythagoras' theorem. Hmmm. I wonder if they will manage...
~As it happens they started to lose me in the middle of chapter 7, but I think I got the gist of it, which is good. Right?
- Flying Colours - CS Forester.
Started: 26.07.2010
Finished: 04.08.2010
~The first story in the 4 novel Admiral Hornblower omnibus. Bliss.
- Even Money - Dick Francis and Felix Francis.
Started: 03.08.2010
Finished: 04.08.2010
~The last collaboration, I think, before Dick Francis died. It has good reviews so I'm hopeful this one will jog along as well as the last one (Silks which I thought would make an excellent film or TV miniseries).
~And having finished it - it was great. Loved it. Very pacy.
- A Classical Education: The stuff you wish you'd been taught at school - Caroline Taggart.
Started: 19.07.2010
Finished: 03.08.2010
~Part of a series, and rather fab.
- Jeeves Takes Charge - PG Wodehouse.
Started: 31.07.2010
Finished: 03.08.2010
~The first in the Jeeves collection. Brilliant.
- Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby.
Started: 24.07.2010
Finished: 26.07.2010
~Another examination of the human condition by the master. In parts it is laugh-out-loud-hilarious, other parts just have you nodding along "yes, it's just like that!".
- And Did Those Feet: Walking Through 2000 Years of British and Irish History - Charlie Connelly.
Started: 16.07.2010
Finished: 23.07.2010
~The landscape of the British Isles is filled with history, much of which we miss as it flashes past the car window. Do we even realise that we're following the same path as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, or that we're driving past the exact spot where King Harold was killed, shot through the eye with an arrow? As a lover of both history and the British countryside, Charlie Connelly decided to rectify this, and set out on a series of walks that recreate famous historical journeys. I loved the other two books of his that I read and have high hopes of this one.
- Molesworth - Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle.
Started: 10.07.2010
Finished: 18.07.2010
~It's all 4 books in one volume, but I'm not counting them individually (as I do with Hornblower). I've only ever read the 4th, but Molesworth is fab as any fule kno.
- Percy Jackson: The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan.
Started: 05.07.2010
Finished: 16.07.2010
~The 3rd in the Percy Jackson series which I am starting to like a lot, and pimping to my daughters.
- 50 Great Short Stories - ed. Milton Crane.
Started: 23.06.2010
Finished: 09.07.2010
~It was a Christmas present from my OH and finally I've got round to it. Featuring such writers as Hemmingway, Katherine Mansfield and Steinbeck.
- The Age of Wonder - How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science - Richard Holmes.
Started: 01.06.2010
Finished: 05.07.2010
~What's not to like? The age of reason and the romantic poets. Totally fantastic, he covered 3 major players: Joseph Banks, Humphrey Davy and William Herschel - plus many many others. And given me a whole lot more people to find out about. Great stuff.
- Flash Forward - Robert L Sawyer.
Started: 18.06.2010
~The novel on which the recent TV series was based. Totally totally different from the TV thing - and much much more brilliant.
- Finger Lickin' Fifteen - Janet Evanovitch.
Started: 16.06.2010
Finished: 18.06.2010
~The latest in the series about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Ticked along nicely but nothing special.
- December 6 - Martin Cruz Smith.
Started: 05.06.2010
Finished: 16.06.2010
A novel about Tokyo over the weekend of 6th December 1941...
- Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan.
Started: 01.06.2010
Finished: 04.06.2010
~The second of the Percy Jackson books. Easily as fab as the first and so I'm off to order the third...
- A Ship of the Line - CS Forester.
Started: 29.05.2010
Finished: 01.06.2010
~A re-read. And Hornblower is as fantastic as ever.
- The Happy Return - CS Forester.
Started: 26.05.2010
Finished: 29.05.2010
~A re-read. And Hornblower is as fantastic as ever.
- Hornblower and the Atropos - CS Forester.
Started: 20.05.2010
Finished: 26.05.2010
~A re-read. And Hornblower is as fantastic as ever.
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Daniel H. Pink.
Started: 05.05.2010
Finished: 20.05.2010
~Apparently carrots and sticks aren't it - we are motivated intrinsically not extrinsically.
- Azincourt - Bernard Cornwell.
Started: 15.05.2010
Finished: 19.05.2010
~About the battle of Agincourt. I wonder if it's better than that Shakespeare bloke's effort.
~hmmmmm Well it jogged along and I liked it. But... it's just Sharpe's Waterloo (and all other Sharpes) set 400 years earlier... poor guy, has to leave home, good fighter, falls under the eye of a person of influence, there's a girl, people after him from his old life, high-ups who don't like him... and bloody gory descriptions of battle. And since I know next to nothing about Agincourt and Henry V I'm not sure how much of this is real history and how much is based around the myth created by Shakespeare and similar. But it's a good story, and broadly true. So it gets a thumbs up.
- The Blessing - Nancy Mitford.
Started: 28.04.2010
Finished: 14.05.2010
~The 'blessing' is a child who does his best to keep his parents on their toes.
~Definitely didn't like this. I'm wondering, now if I should bother with any of her others or stick to Waugh who does it so much better.
- Heretic - Bernard Cornwell.
Started: 12.04.2010
Finished: 11.05.2010
~Last in the Grail Quest series. Really not as good as the Sharpes.
- My Secret Garden - Nancy Friday.
Started: 29.04.2010
Finished: 05.04.2010
~First published in 1973 (and it shows) it's a collection of women's secret sexual fantasies (not necessarily acted out). To be honest, it's nowhere near as interesting as I thought it would be. In fact, it's actually quite boring - but I'll push on with it. Certainly the promise on the cover (that it's erotic enough to put me in the mood, basically) isn't true.
- Stamping Grounds - Exploring Liechtenstein and its World Cup Dream - Charlie Connelly.
Started: 24.04.2010
Finished: 27.04.2010
~Quirky travel book. Totally brilliant. Deffo going to check out more by him (and let my mum keep the one about the Shipping Forecast and get my own copy).
- Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks.
Started: 14.04.2010
Finished: 22.04.2010
~Apparently I'm going to either love or hate this. We shall see. But it's another of those where I feel I'm the last person in the universe to read it.
~Unfortunately, it was tedious. If you want WW1 read All Quiet on the Western Front. If you want French adultery, try Madame Bovary.
- Ghost - Robert Harris.
Started: 10.04.2010
Finished: 13.04.2010
~With the exception of Imperium I've enjoyed all the Robert Harris books I've read. This one is a real page turner.
~Hmmmm. The ending was not too bad. But some of the middle... we really really don't need to know how the guy Googled stuff. We all do that. Really, writers. You don't tell us how they make a cup of tea, now, do you?
- A Dog So Small - Philippa Pearce.
Started: 07.04.2010
Finished: 11.04.2010
~Read this yonks ago at junior school (Mrs Linklater got us reading all sorts of brilliant things) and this is a recent charity-shop purchase.
- Brighton Rock - Graham Greene.
Started: 08.04.2010
Finished: 10.04.2010
~I'm probably one of the very few people of my generation who didn't have to "do" this novel at school for English. I read this yonks and yonks ago, and then picked up a hardback copy (2 novels in one - The End of the Affair is the other) for a few quid in a charity shop last year. So now I am 'doing literature'.
~Totally fabby. I have to read more Graham Greene - why haven't I already read all his books?
- Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson.
Started: 06.04.2010
Finished: 08.04.2010
~Totally fantastic, and ties in with my current Swallows and Amazons kick. And indeed, it really is a rip-roaring yarn.
- Swallowdale - Arthur Ransome.
Started: 01.04.2010
Finished: 07.04.2010
~2nd in the Swallows & Amazon series. As brilliant as I remember it, and it makes me nostalgic for a childhood that I didn't even have!
- The Black Cauldron - Lloyd Alexander.
Started: 22.03.2010
Finished: 01.04.2010
~2nd of the Chronicles of Prydain series.
~And very good the series is, too. Can't wait for the next one.
- Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely.
Started: 27.03.2010
Finished: 01.04.2010
(The revised and expanded edition which covers the sub-prime fiasco) On Amazon recommendation (after I purchased Freakonomics). I'm quite interested in all this social sciences stuff. Maybe I should be scoping out the OU for a course.
- In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick.
Started: 20.03.2010
Finished: 27.03.2010
~The true story that inspired Moby Dick, the sinking of the Nantucket whaler the Essex. I've tried Moby Dick a few times but can't get into it. Maybe this will help - as I keep hearing that Moby Dick is one of those novels everyone should read.
- Stalin - The Court of the Red Tsar - Simon Sebag Montefiore.
Started: 06.01.2010
Finished: 23.03.2010
~At the end of Child 44, this book is referenced. As I picked it up second hand last year, I thought now would be a good time to give it a go.
- Vagabond - Bernard Cornwell.
Started: 03.03.2010
Finished: 22.03.2010
~2nd of the Grail Quest series. Quite liked the first one, so I'll give this one a whirl. (and I have part 3 ready and waiting to be read)
- Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan.
Started: 13.03.2010
Finished: 18.03.2010
~The first of the Percy Jackson series.
~Fabby and marvy. I can't wait to get the next one.
- Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office - Lois P. Frankel.
Started: 04.03.2010
Finished: 12.03.2010
~Maybe it will help... Most of it I know and I do already, but there were some good tips. Basically it was good to know that some advice I give to the girls in the office are confirmed in this.
- Dead Tomorrow - Peter James.
Started: 24.02.2010
Finished: 03.03.2010
~It is, apparently, the new Roy Grace novel. I've read one of these before, the beginning jumped around a bit, but the story was pretty good.
~OK, if I'm ever tempted to pick up another of these remind me that the story was good but the writing was terrible - it deffo needs a good editor.
- The Wimbledon Poisoner - Nigel Williams.
Started: 20.02.2010
Finished: 24.02.2010
~I saw this on the TV but don't remember anything about it except that Michael Kitchen was in it and it was good. It's supposed to be 'laugh out loud funny'. We will see.
~It was rubbish. I really can't recommend it.
- Ice Station Zebra - Alistair Maclean.
Started: 17.02.2010
Finished: 20.02.2010
~I keep meaning to read something of his. I picked up a set of 5 in a charity shop, so here goes...
- Swallows & Amazons - Arhur Ransome.
Started: 12.02.2010
Finished: 17.02.2010
~Fantastic stuff - they really don't write 'em like this any more.
~I had forgotten just how fantastic they are. And now I can feel that I'm going to have to read the whole series. ASAP. I think I only got as far as We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea when I was a kid, so the rest are going to be an adventure. And, of course, I really need to give Treasure Island another outing.
- 'Are these my basoomas I see before me?' - Louise Rennison.
Started: 16.02.2010
Finished: 16.02.2010
~The next of the Georgia Nicholson stories. The last book. And I was the first to finish it.
- 'Stop in the name of Pants!' - Louise Rennison.
Started: 14.02.2010
Finished: 16.02.2010
~The next of the Georgia Nicholson stories. I'm now ahead (book-wise) of Gruesome #2 and reading this at the same time as Gruesome #1. Soon I'll have overtaken them. Mwahahahaha!
- 'Lurve is a many trousered thing' - Louise Rennison.
Started: 14.022010
Finished: 14.02.2010
~The next of the Georgia Nicholson stories. Mental as the rest of them.
- False Colours - Alex Beecroft.
Started: 09.02.2010
Finished: 12.02.2010
~A Georgian, naval romance. A gay one. It's like all my dreams come true in a Hornblowery kind of way.
~Oh my! I was expecting Mills and Boon-y sort of things. But there were a few scenes which were... oh my! *fans self*
- Thee Book of Three - Lloyd Alexander.
Started: 05.02.2010
Finished: 09.02.2010
~The first book of the Chronicles of Prydain. Apparently if you liked Narnia, you'd like this. So far so good. (although I think it's more like a cross between the Sword in the Stone and The Hobbit.
~I definitely like it, and have the 2nd volume ready to read.
- '...startled by his furry shorts!' - Louise Rennison.
Started: 04.02.2010
Finished: 05.02.2010
~And the next in the Georgia Nicholson saga. - Service for All the Dead (Inspector Morse) - Colin Dexter
Started: 31.02.2010
Finished: 04.02.2010
~woo hoo! More Inspector Morse.
- The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (Inspector Morse) - Colin Dexter
Started: 28.022010
Finished: 31.02.2010
~woo hoo! Inspector Morse.
- How Not To Write A Novel - Sandra Newman and Howard mittelmark.
Started: 22.02.2010
Finished: 27.02.2010
~Apparently I'd been following their sage advice without knowing. I will not be troubled by a litery career then.
- '... then he ate my boy entrancers' - Louise Rennison.
Started: 21.02.2010
Finished: 23.02.2010
~Still with the teen-lit. - The Sword in the Stone - TH White.
Started: 07.01.2010
Finished: 22.012010
~Got this for the Gruesomes but they're not interested, the language is a bit old fashioned for them. But I'm enjoying it hugely. And got some great book recommendations at the end.
- ... and that's when it fell off in my hand - Louise Rennison.
Started: 19.01.2010
Finished: 21.01.2010
~Number five in the series...
- Dancing in my nuddy pants - Louise Rennison.
Started: 18.01.2010
Finished: 18.01.2010
~Number four in the series...
- Knocked out by my nunga-nungas - Louise Rennison.
Started: 17.01.2010
Finished: 17.01.2010
~Number three in the series...
- It's OK, I'm wearing really big knickers - Louise Rennison.
Started: 15.01.2010
Finished: 17.01.2010
~Number two in the series...
- Sharpe's Devil - Bernard Cornwell.
Started: 04.01.2010
Finished: 15.01.2010
~That's it, after this there are no more. - Angus, thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging - Louise Rennison.
Started: 13.01.2010
Finished: 15.01.2010
~I've come late (via the Gruesome Twosome - thanks, mum) to the teenage Bridget Jones. But it seems very funny. Just reading this series (there are ten in all) for research purposes. Honest, guv!
- Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith.
Started: 02.01.2010
Finished: 06.01.2010
~
bought this in summer to read on the train back from Aachen. Gruesome #1 chose it for me from my shelf of books waiting to be read.
- Sharpe's Waterloo - Bernard Cornwell.
Started: 24.12.2009
Finished: 04.01.2010
2nd from last... - The Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith.
Started: 01.01.2010
Finished: 02.01.2010
~Thought I'd give this a go.
- The Reader - Bernhard Schlink.
Started: 31.12.2009
Finished: 01.01.2010
~Yet another of my Charity Shop purchases when I was in the UK in October. Pity, it seems it's translated from the German, usually I'd read the original but since I have it, i'll read this one.
~Hmmmm. Not sure. Probably I read it too quickly, but I didn't really get the point. I think maybe I'll get it out of the library and read it in German. That usually slows me down enough to think about what I'm reading a lot more.
Missing in Action
Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv Sein Tod - Bastian Sick.
Started: 26.12.2007
Yes. It's a book about German grammar. It's fun. It's also currently lost which is why it's been on this page for about 3 years...
Officially given up on:
- The Guns of Navarone - Alastair MacLean.
Started: 16.09.2010
Officially gave up on: 28.09.2010
~I got a boxed set of 5 of his novels in a charity shop last year, because I wanted to read Ice Station Zebra. So now I'm reading the others to see if they are as good.
~I'm sure it's fine, the writing seems pretty good but it's boring me and there are so many books and so little time...
- Snoop - What your stuff says about you - Sam Gosling.
Started: 08.08.2010
Officially gave up on: 20.08.2010
~I was given this by my boss for having taken part in a committee at work. My desk is covered with stuff, I wonder if it's a 'hint' of some kind.
~It's not bad. But it's a lot more boring than I anticipated. Maybe another time.
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim N. Taleb.
Started: 25.06.2010
Officially gave up on: 21.07.2010
~Is it philosphy? Is it behavioural economis? Not sure, but it's very interesing.
~I went on with this self-congratulatory, aren't I brilliant twaddle for too long. But in the end the me-me-i-i got too much even for me.
- Tolkien Man and Myth: A Literary Life - Joseph Pearce.
Started: 02.04.2010
Officially gave up on: 06.04.2010
~Not sure if it's authorised or whatever, but at One Pound 59 from a charity shop, for a hardback in very good condition, I couldn't say no. Anyway, it's about time I read something about him aside of his actual literary output.
~Too boring. Not a biography, but just ramblings about his literary connections and christianity. Maybe another time.
- Beauvallet - Georgette Heyer.
Started: 21.01.2010
Officially gave up on: 31.01.2010
~Set in Elizabethan times, aboard a ship, not her usual Regency stuff.
~I love her Regency novels - really they are up there with Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. But the writing in this is absolutely awful. The copyright is from 1929 so I suspect that it was an early one before she got into her stride. It's a shame, but there it is - and it was only 10p from the Stocksbridge library sale of old books. (no wonder they wanted rid of it!)
