(no subject)
Oct. 16th, 2010 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI was thinking the other day, "I have this big pile of books I need to add to my 50 Books 2010 list reviews." Well, I'm looking at my tags, and I appear never to have *started* my 50 Books 2010 list. Ooops!
Well, I certainly don't have time to review them all, but I'll list the ones I have to hand and try to get to them soon. If there're any in particular you'd like to see me write on, comment and I will do those first.
First off, my iPod Touch helped me out by giving me a pocket library wherever I went. I don't know how many lunches I spent sitting with a salad and my trusty mobile device. I still far prefer reading an actual, physical book. Among other things, the near impossibility of going back a chapter or two to find a passage of speech or the introduction of a character or a specific event is maddening. That said, it's better than nothing.
iPod reading
1. Pride and Prejudice (the first time I've read it all the way through, really!)
2. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
3. Emma, Jane Austen
4. The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas
5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
No audio "reading" this year; I switched jobs in the spring and don't have regular access to the office library that had all the good books on CD. At least I listen to the news more...
reading the way It Was Meant To Be Done
6. Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, Arthur Conan Doyle
7. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susanna Clarke
8. The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brian
9. No Comebacks, Frederick Forsyth
10. The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier
11. Jihad, Ahmed Rashid
12. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Hugh Greene (ed.)
13. Cosmopolitan Crimes, Hugh Greene (ed.)
14. The Gandalara Cycle, Garrett and Heydron
15. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
16. Dolly and the Starry Bird, Dorothy Dunnett
17. Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, A.E. Moorat
18. The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
19. Tales from Gavagan's Bar, De Camp and Pratt
20. Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers
21. Dolly and the Nanny Bird, Dorothy Dunnett
22. The Serpent Garden, Judith Merkle Riley
23. A Vision of Light, Judith Merkle Riley
24. The Last Enchantment, Mary Stewart
25. Letters from Hamnavoe, George Mackay Brown
26. Orkneyinga Saga, Palsson and Edwards (trans.)
27. The Continent Makers, L.S. DeCamp
28. The Fortunes of War, Patrick O'Brian
I have 15 other books (yes, fifteen) on my bedside table or elsewhere in a state of partial having-been-read or about-to-be-read; mostly they're novels I started and wasn't grabbed by, so I put them down until such time as I need something different and they seem likely to grab me. A couple are travel books that I pick up, read a bit of, and put down again. One is a book of essays on writing and related topics by Michael Chabon that I'm currently reading and enjoying very much (so much that I've reread a couple of chapters); of all of them, that one will be finished soonest. I finally purchased The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I have an aversion to books that are too popular--in this case I think it did me a disservice); that and POB's The Surgeon's Mate are the about-to-be-read portion of the stack. There are also a couple of books that I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg and started reading but haven't figures out how to port over to my iPod so I can carry them around and read them properly.
I've read (in my off-time from skimming textbooks) mostly fiction this year, and I've re-read a lot of books I've read many times before. I think that's a sign that, at one point or another during the year, I've been somewhat depressed and needed something familiar and comforting.
That said, I've purchased probably close to 100 books this year, most of which I have not yet read. More than half of those came from the personal and professional library of a friend who died, so it was rather a large lump at once. But the proportion of read to unread on my nonfiction shelves is far too low, and I need to remedy that. Ironically, one thing that would help increase the time I have for reading (besides not finding things like Friday Night Lights...) would be moving back to Virginia so I didn't have to spend between two and four hours a day simply getting to and from work. But the idea of packing up all these books (and everything else) and shifting them only to pack them up again a few months later is too fatiguing.
Well, I certainly don't have time to review them all, but I'll list the ones I have to hand and try to get to them soon. If there're any in particular you'd like to see me write on, comment and I will do those first.
First off, my iPod Touch helped me out by giving me a pocket library wherever I went. I don't know how many lunches I spent sitting with a salad and my trusty mobile device. I still far prefer reading an actual, physical book. Among other things, the near impossibility of going back a chapter or two to find a passage of speech or the introduction of a character or a specific event is maddening. That said, it's better than nothing.
iPod reading
1. Pride and Prejudice (the first time I've read it all the way through, really!)
2. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
3. Emma, Jane Austen
4. The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas
5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
No audio "reading" this year; I switched jobs in the spring and don't have regular access to the office library that had all the good books on CD. At least I listen to the news more...
reading the way It Was Meant To Be Done
6. Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, Arthur Conan Doyle
7. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susanna Clarke
8. The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brian
9. No Comebacks, Frederick Forsyth
10. The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier
11. Jihad, Ahmed Rashid
12. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Hugh Greene (ed.)
13. Cosmopolitan Crimes, Hugh Greene (ed.)
14. The Gandalara Cycle, Garrett and Heydron
15. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
16. Dolly and the Starry Bird, Dorothy Dunnett
17. Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, A.E. Moorat
18. The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
19. Tales from Gavagan's Bar, De Camp and Pratt
20. Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers
21. Dolly and the Nanny Bird, Dorothy Dunnett
22. The Serpent Garden, Judith Merkle Riley
23. A Vision of Light, Judith Merkle Riley
24. The Last Enchantment, Mary Stewart
25. Letters from Hamnavoe, George Mackay Brown
26. Orkneyinga Saga, Palsson and Edwards (trans.)
27. The Continent Makers, L.S. DeCamp
28. The Fortunes of War, Patrick O'Brian
I have 15 other books (yes, fifteen) on my bedside table or elsewhere in a state of partial having-been-read or about-to-be-read; mostly they're novels I started and wasn't grabbed by, so I put them down until such time as I need something different and they seem likely to grab me. A couple are travel books that I pick up, read a bit of, and put down again. One is a book of essays on writing and related topics by Michael Chabon that I'm currently reading and enjoying very much (so much that I've reread a couple of chapters); of all of them, that one will be finished soonest. I finally purchased The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I have an aversion to books that are too popular--in this case I think it did me a disservice); that and POB's The Surgeon's Mate are the about-to-be-read portion of the stack. There are also a couple of books that I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg and started reading but haven't figures out how to port over to my iPod so I can carry them around and read them properly.
I've read (in my off-time from skimming textbooks) mostly fiction this year, and I've re-read a lot of books I've read many times before. I think that's a sign that, at one point or another during the year, I've been somewhat depressed and needed something familiar and comforting.
That said, I've purchased probably close to 100 books this year, most of which I have not yet read. More than half of those came from the personal and professional library of a friend who died, so it was rather a large lump at once. But the proportion of read to unread on my nonfiction shelves is far too low, and I need to remedy that. Ironically, one thing that would help increase the time I have for reading (besides not finding things like Friday Night Lights...) would be moving back to Virginia so I didn't have to spend between two and four hours a day simply getting to and from work. But the idea of packing up all these books (and everything else) and shifting them only to pack them up again a few months later is too fatiguing.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 06:09 pm (UTC)Then, any Austen book, because I like her a lot (apart from Northanger Abbey)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 06:40 pm (UTC)What do you not like about NA? Do you find it a little too arch and satirical?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 06:57 pm (UTC)Satire is not my cup of tea. I tend to read everything straight.
library
Date: 2010-10-17 02:49 pm (UTC)Support your local library :)
Re: library
Date: 2010-10-17 05:17 pm (UTC)Indeed, my local (Montgomery County) library does have a good selection of recorded books. It's just easier when I can go downstairs at work to get them. :-)