Category Archives: book lists

Year-End Book Wrap-Up 2014

Posted by melydia on January 5, 2015 None comments

Books Read in 2014:
1. Obstacles by Chris Reardon
2. The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol
3. The Conspiracy Kid by E.P. Rose
4. The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey
5. Noodles by Michael Zulli
6. The Law of Superheroes by James Daily and Ryan Davidson
7. The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
8. Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
9. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
10. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
11. The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
12. Long Quiet Highway by Natalie Goldberg
13. Lexicon by Max Barry
14. Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson
15. Tokyo Fiancee by Amelie Nothomb
16. Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards
17. Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer
18. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
19. The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett
20. A Gazillion Little Bits by Claudia Brevis
21. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
22. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
23. World War Z by Max Brooks
24. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
25. The Infernals by John Connolly
26. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
27. Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
28. Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
29. Lies Across America by James W. Loewen
30. 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth and Other Useful Guides by Matthew Inman
31. Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole
32. City of Illusions by Ursula K. LeGuin
33. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
34. You Have to F*****g Eat by Adam Mansbach
35. How I Paid for College by Marc Acito
36. Attack of the Theater People by Marc Acito

Books Listened to in 2014:
1. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
2. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
3. The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
4. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
5. Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
6. Reckless by Cornelia Funke
7. Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
8. Don’t Know Much about Geography by Kenneth C. Davis
9. The Water Castle by Megan Frazer Blakemore
10. Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
11. Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins
12. First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
13. Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross
14. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
15. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
16. Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy by Peter Carlson
17. The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (abridged)
18. The Hit by Melvin Burgess
19. Dreamwood by Heather Mackley
20. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
21. The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny
22. The Gates by John Connolly
23. Fearless by Cornelia Funke
24. Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
25. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
26. 11/22/63 by Stephen King
27. Dark of the Moon by John Sandford
28. The Children Act by Ian McEwan
29. Life Beyond Measure by Sidney Poitier
30. Bossypants by Tina Fey
31. Vampirates: Tide of Terror by Justin Somper
32. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
33. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon

Only 69 this year, fewer than usual but not half bad. My car died, so I had a few weeks of listening to nothing until I got a new one, which explains some of it. But mostly I just wasn’t spending as much time reading. No long plane rides and very little solo travel. I also did not keep track of the books I started but didn’t finish, but there were a bunch of those, for various reasons.

A coworker introduced me to Ben Aaronovich and Marc Acito by lending me their books. Acito is fantastic but unfortunately has only written those two books. I gave the Sookie Stackhouse and Outlander series (serieses? seriesss?) a go but decided they weren’t my thing. I rediscovered my love for Erik Larson and Connie Willis, and was delighted by just how excellent 11/22/63 by Stephen King turned out to be.

All in all, a pretty good year, literatarily. (Oh come on, that’s a great word.) Here’s to the next!

Previous years: 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | Review Archive

Year-End Book Wrap-up: 2013

Posted by melydia on January 2, 2014 None comments

Here we go again. Almost-but-not-quite reached triple digits again this year. Just 4 books short.

Books Read in 2013:
1. Eighty Days by Matthew Goodman
2. The Devil and His Boy by Anthony Horowitz
3. The Fantasy Worlds of Peter S. Beagle
4. The Burning Time by J.G. Faherty
5. What Cats Teach Us by Glenn Dromgoole
6. The Ghosts of Nagasaki by Daniel Clausen
7. Uglies: Shay’s Story by Scott Westerfeld, Devin Grayson, and Steven Cummings
8. The Manual of Aeronautics by Scott Westerfeld and Keith Thompson
9. Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.
10. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
11. Marbles by Ellen Forney
12. The Dark Lady by Mike Resnick
13. English As She Is Spoke by José Da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino
14. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
15. There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
16. Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines
17. The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem
18. Mrs. T’s Bedside Book
19. How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers by Karen Salmansohn
20. Thwonk by Joan Bauer
21. Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper
22. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
23. Harley Loco by Rayya Elias
24. God’s Gift by Lucie Cave
25. Home Protection: How to Make Your Home a Safe Place by 55DSL.com
26. The Two Kings by A.J. Jacobs
27. It’s Nothing Personal by Kate O’Reilley
28. Leave of Absence by Tanya J. Peterson
29. Outside the Spotlight by Sophie Weeks
30. Movies in Fifteen Minutes by Cleolinda Jones
31. Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper
32. If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster
33. Reader by Erec Stebbins
34. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
35. American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
36. The Ghost from the Grand Banks by Arthur C. Clarke
37. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
38. Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
39. Mr. Obvious by James Lileks
40. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
41. The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse
42. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
43. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
44. I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
45. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
46. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
47. The Book of Times by Lesley Alderman
48. The Hand of Osiris by Jim Mastro
49. The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
50. BUtterfield 8 by John O’Hara
51. French for Cats by Henri de la Barbe
52. xo Orpheus edited by Kate Bernheimer
53. Otherworld Tales: Demon Invasion by C.T. Markee
54. The De-Textbook by Cracked.com
55. Standing Up by Marion Grodin
56. Solomon the Peacemaker by Hunter Welles
57. Broken Allegiance by Mark Young

Books Listened to in 2013:
1. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
2. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
3. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
4. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
5. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
6. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
7. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
8. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
9. The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
10. The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
11. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
12. Blue Moon by Alyson Noel
13. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
14. Every Day by David Levithan
15. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
16. Blackout by Connie Willis
17. All Clear by Connie Willis
18. Lyra’s Oxford by Philip Pullman
19. Dragons of the Dwarven Depths by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
20. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
21. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
22. Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey
23. And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer
24. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
25. Gulp by Mary Roach
26. The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
27. Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
28. Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen
29. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
30. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
31. Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix
32. Feed by M.T. Anderson
33. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
34. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
35. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
36. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
37. People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
38. Dragon Wing by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
39. Undead by Kirsty McKay

Books Started but not finished:
* Mr. Darwin’s Shooter by Roger McDonald (could not follow)
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (bad translation)
* Wearing Dad’s Head by Barry Yourgrau (not my style)
* The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (didn’t interest me)
* Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Muller (boring)

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Classics Retold Wrap-up

Posted by melydia on September 30, 2013 2 comments

This has been fun. I haven’t been able to watch quite as much as I’d hoped, largely due to some unforeseen situations in the months leading up to September, but I made a decent go of it. Here are the posts:

If I were to do it again, I’d also include these:

That last one would have been especially nice to get my hands on, since it’s an actual adaptation of the book. That was the main problem I ran into: most of the retellings I could find were not the original story, but only the character of an invisible man placed in various scenarios. It’s a shame, because there’s so much that could be done with the original tale of Dr. Griffin.

One last homage to my subject, The Invisible Man: a monument in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. The inscription reads: “The first monument to the Invisible man, the hero of Herbert Wells’ novel.” Hero? I’m not so sure that’s quite the word you’re looking for, but it might be a mistranslation. He’s certainly the central figure, but very definitely not a hero.

Classics Retold

Posted by melydia on September 4, 2013 2 comments

September is the month of Classics Retold, courtesy of Bookish Whimsy, among others. I decided to go with The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, one of my favorite authors. I’ll start with the book review tomorrow, then post reviews of assorted other things – mostly movies – based on this story.

I thought about making this a weekly thing, but instead I think I’ll just post things as I get to them, which will end up being distributed more or less evenly through the month, depending on how quickly Netflix delivers.

Note: many of these posts will contain spoilers, but I think most people know the general story of The Invisible Man – that is, there’s this dude who figures out how to make himself invisible and this ability makes him powerful, dangerous, and ultimately tragic. It’s a very short novel and is available online and via email for free, so you really ought to go read it.

Year-End Book Wrap-up: 2012

Posted by melydia on December 31, 2012 2 comments

I was this close to finishing 100 books this year. Just two short! Maybe next year.

Books Read in 2012:
1. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
2. All Her Father’s Guns by James Warner
3. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
4. Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
5. Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
6. Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson
7. Black Bodies and Quantum Cats by Jennifer Ouellette
8. Jaguar Sun by Martha Bourke
9. Ugly to Start With by John Michael Cummings
10. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
11. Shite’s Unoriginal Miscellany by A. Parody
12. Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright
13. e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor
14. Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
15. Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen
16. Walpurgis III by Mike Resnick
17. The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark
18. America: The Book by Jon Stewart
19. Passage by Connie Willis
20. First Person Plural by Andrew W. M. Beierle
21. Why Rattlesnakes Rattle by Valeri R. Helterbran
22. War of the Twins (Dragonlance Legends vol. 2) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
23. Test of the Twins (Dragonlance Legends vol. 3) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
24. The Daily Telegraph’s Book of Obituaries edited by Hugh Massingberd
25. Merciful Flush by Lance Manion
26. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
27. Ernie by Tony Mendoza
28. Ghosts of the Tower of London by G. Abbott
29. Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
30. Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin
31. The Best of Shrdlu by Denys Parsons
32. Breaking the Devil’s Heart by H.A. Goodman
33. Hey Canada! by Vivian Bowers and Milan Pavlovic
34. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
35. and then there were three… by Supriya Bhatnagar
36. Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
37. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
38. Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke
39. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
40. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
41. Marly’s Ghost by David Levithan
42. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
43. Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
44. The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America by Julian Montague
45. Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
46. Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
47. As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto
48. The Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells
49. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
50. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
51. The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
52. The Daria Diaries by Anne D. Bernstein
53. Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
54. Ring by Koji Suzuki
55. Found by Davy Rothbart
56. Jenny Kidd by Laury A. Egan
57. Godspeed by Dan Chabot
58. Servant of the Jackal God by Keith Taylor
59. The Darlings by Christina Alger

Books Listened to in 2012:
1. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
3. Luminous Airplanes by Paul La Farge
4-5. Back Story and Widow’s Walk by Robert B. Parker
6. Atonement by Ian McEwan
7. Evermore by Alyson Noel
8. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
9. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond
10. The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
11. Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
12. The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry
13. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
15. The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card
16. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
17. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
18. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
19. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
20. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larrson
21. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
22. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
23. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
24. Stuart Little by E.B. White
25. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
26. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle [reread]
27. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle
28. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle
29. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
30. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
31. Angelica by Arthur Phillips
32. Cod by Mark Kurlansky
33. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
34. So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld
35. The 13th Tale by Diane Setterfield
36. The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
37. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
38. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
39. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

Books Started but Not Finished:
* Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter by A.E. Moorat (just didn’t care)
* Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell (not my style of humor)
* Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (disc 3 of audiobook too scratched)
* Silence the Whispers by Cait London (didn’t interest me)

Previous years: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | Review Archive

Literary Synchronicity

Posted by melydia on July 3, 2012 None comments

Coincidence is a funny thing. I suppose if you do enough reading you’ll start picking out patterns whether or not they’re actually there. Still, even if my own brain is inventing the connection it amuses me all the same to note them. Sometimes I’ll encounter the same book in many unrelated places, or something amazing will fall into my lap at random. Then there are the strange connections that seem to pop up between books. For example, I read The Fault in Our Stars, which involves both cancer and Amsterdam, immediately before starting Her Fearful Symmetry, which begins with one character dying of cancer and another moving to Amsterdam. Then I was reading both Inkheart and Lost in a Good Book simultaneously, which are both about real people and fictional characters jumping into and out of books. I wonder what little connections I’ll notice next.

Any strange literary coincidences pop up in your life lately?

Audiobook Recap 2011

Posted by melydia on January 2, 2012 None comments

I participated in two audiobook reading challenges in 2011, and I think I did fairly well, all told.

Books listened to: 34 (plus the last bit of Spook by Mary Roach and the first bit of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly)

Total discs: 309 (though I did listen to a few on mp3)

Total time: 16 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes (aka 397 hours, 29 minutes). Most of that was in my car.

Male/Female Authors: 23/11

Male/Female Readers: 20/19

Shortest: Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith at 3 hours.

Longest: I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb at 32 hours, 15 minutes.

Full list: here

I don’t think I’ll be getting any awards, though as far as I can tell I’ve earned the “obsessed” and “singing it from the mountaintops” badges. I was so close to the highest badge on Bewitched Bookworks, but oh well. I would have made it had I driven to Illinois this summer instead of flown, but my busted ankle changed my life in a lot of ways.

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention which books I liked best or least. That’s just too hard. I really enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy by Collins, the Uglies series by Westerfeld, and of course everything by Gaiman and Funke and Hill. Most of the readers were excellent, with extra props to Corine Montbertrand and the cast of The Help in particular.

I won’t be signing up for any challenges this year. I’m tired, man! But I wish everyone the best of luck in whatever challenges they pursue in 2012. Happy New Reading Year! :D

Year-end Book Roundup: 2011

Posted by melydia on December 31, 2011 4 comments

Books Read in 2011:
1. Death from the Skies! by Philip Plait
2. Original Sin by Beth McMullen
3. Expiation by Greg Messel
4. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson
5. The Animal Review by Jacob Lentz and Steve Nash
6. Lodestone: The Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway
7. First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells
8. Exchange by Dale R. Cozort
9. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
10. The Talisman of Elam by Jim Mastro
11. Rin-Tin-Tin: The Movie Star by Ann Elwood
12. The Dog Park by Ann Elwood
13. Borneo Tom by Tom McLaughlin
14. The Dark City by Catherine Fisher
15. 1,001 Things You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know by Anna Mantzaris
16. Threadbared by Kimberly Wrenn and Mary Watkins
17. Whom God Would Destroy by Commander Pants
18. How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend by Gary Ghislain
19. The Demon Queen and the Locksmith by Spencer Baum
20. The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark
21. Lodestone Book Two: The World of Ice and Stars by Mark Whiteway
22. The Torah Codes by Ezra Barany
23. Releasing Gillian’s Wolves by Tara Woolpy
24. Otherworld Tales by C.T. Markee
25. The Meowmorphosis by Coleridge Cook and Franz Kafka
26. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
27. The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
28. Neopets Ghoul Catchers #1: The Creeping Danger by Vivian Larue
29. Finders Keepers by Russ Colchamiro
30. Waterwoman by Lenore Hart
31. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
32. The Two Dead Girls by Stephen King
33. The Mouse on the Mile by Stephen King
34. Coffey’s Hands by Stephen King
35. The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix by Stephen King
36. Night Journey by Stephen King
37. Coffey on the Mile by Stephen King
38. White River Junctions by Dave Norman
39. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
40. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
41. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
42. The Last Cowgirl by Jana Richman
43. The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
44. The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick
45. Grover G. Graham and Me by Mary Quattlebaum
46. River Rat: The Storm Treasure by Joseph Fleck
47. Lodestone Book Three: The Crucible of Dawn by Mark Whiteway
48. Highlander: The Captive Soul by Josepha Sherman
49. The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day
50. Revenge by Mark Young
51. Ireland (Little-Known Facts about Well-Known Places) by David Hoffman
52. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
53. Jennifer Government by Max Barry
54. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
55. Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Books Listened to in 2011:
1. Spook by Mary Roach
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. Don’t Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
4. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult
5. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
6. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
7. The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
8. Dune by Frank Herbert
9. Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
10. Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith
11. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
12. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
13. Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules edited by David Sedaris
14. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
15. I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
16. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
17. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
18. Divergent by Veronica Roth
19. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
20. The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
21. The Collectors by David Baldacci (abridged)
22. The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov
23. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
24. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
25. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
26. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
27. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
28. Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
29. Specials by Scott Westerfeld
30. Extras by Scott Westerfeld
31. Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life by Douglas T. Kenrick
32. Trackers by Deon Meyer
33. Horns by Joe Hill
34. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
35. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Books Started but not Finished:
* Creative, Inc. by Joy Deangdeelert Cho and Meg Mateo Ilasco (just didn’t interest me)
* Fractured Time by Michael D’Ambrosio (I just…couldn’t.)
* Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (Had too much trouble following the story)
* Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (Couldn’t understand it and didn’t care enough to try)

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2011 TBR Pile Challenge – check in

Posted by melydia on June 22, 2011 None comments


2011TBR

Adam from Roof Beam Reader popped by the other day to remind me about the 2011 TBR Pile Challenge I’d signed up for some 6 months ago. It’s a good thing he did, because I’d forgotten all about it. Let’s check in, shall we?

  1. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
  2. Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
  3. Adventures by Mike Resnick
  4. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  5. Jennifer Government by Max Barry
  6. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
  7. Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes
  8. As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto
  9. Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions by John F. Burnett
  10. Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell
  11. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
  12. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

My alternates:

  1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
  2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Hmm. Well, I did manage to read The Graveyard Book but nothing else so far. I also did a major sweep of my TBR pile and got rid of Suburban Safari, Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions, and A Walk in the Woods. I guess that means I’ve failed the challenge already.

The truth is, I’ve been spending so much time reading and reviewing new books that I haven’t been making any progress whatsoever on my existing TBR pile. Perhaps I’ll be able to get caught up (somewhat) during my current hiatus…but no promises.

Books Won Reading Challenge 2010 – recap

Posted by melydia on January 7, 2011 1 comments

Back in December of last year, I joined the Books Won Reading Challenge. I managed to read 7 of the books on my list:

1. Heresy by S.J. Parris
2. Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh
3. The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight by Gina Ochsner
4. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
5. Absolute Power by David Baldacci
6. Juliet by Anne Fortier
7. The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide by John McNally

This qualifies me for a “silver” medal, and in fact I tied for most books read according to the final standings. That’s kind of nifty. I’m not signing up again this year but it was a fun way to get some of the newer books off the shelf.

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