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I miss commuting by tube! Losing nearly 2 hours a day on the tube severely dented my reading time this year, just 31 books and quite a few were young adult or short media tie in books that weren't exactly award winning. There were a couple of really impressive works in there though.
Fiction
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Taltos 11 - Jhegaala by Steven Brust*
Criminal Minds: Jump Cut by Max Allan Collins
Criminal Minds: Killer Profile by Max Allan Collins*
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Runemarks by Joanne Harris
A Cure for All Diseases by Reginald Hill*
The Affinity Bridge by George Mann*
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Vol 1 by Alan Moore
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Temeraire 5: Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik*
The Age of the Pussyfoot by Frederik Pohl
Jem by Frederik Pohl
Nation by Terry Pratchett*
Truckers by Terry Pratchett
Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar by Steven Savile*
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
The End of Mr Y by Scaralett Thomas
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Non-Fiction
Brilliant Project Management by Stephen Barker and Rob Cole
Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain by John O'Farrell
Tribes by Seth Godin*
As You Do by Richard Hammond*
How They Started: How 30 Good Ideas Became Great Businesses by David Lester
By the Numbers
31 books in total
29 books that were new to me, I re-read the first Temeraire and Truckers
27 authors
24 fiction
23 male authors
19 good
18 British authors
15 new authors
11 SF
9 American authors
8 middling
8 2008 books
7 non-fiction
7 fantasy
4 books for children (ish)
4 bad
4 female authors (wow that's terrible!)
3 SF Masterworks (Jem, Star Maker, Day of the Triffids)
1 Hugo winner (Gods Themselves)
Best book of 2007 - Terry Pratchett's Nation
I've been waiting a long time for Pratchett to write this book and I didn't realise it until about 50 pages from the end when I realised what a stunningly brilliant piece of writing it was. I've always enjoyed Pratchett books, but rarely have I been able to say that they are great pieces of literature. Nation however is a really wonderful piece of writing.
Worst book of 2007 - Seth Godin's Tribes
Not really worthy of the descriptor 'book' as it's really just a collection of potential blog postings or random thoughts in a notepad with no coherence and the faint impression that you're being persuaded into a cult.
Best non-fiction - Yvon Chouinard's Let My People Go Surfing
Well I only read 7 non-fiction (although at 22% that's a better percentage than last years 17%). The best of the lot was Yvon Chouinard book about the foundation and running of the outdoor equipment company Patagonia. The way he runs his business is inspirational and the book does an extremely good job of verbalising his ethics and attitudes. It's one of those books that could feasibly change your life.
Miscellaneous Awards
"Read the Book Skip the Film" - The Princess Bride, personally I didn't like the film, but the book was absolutely lovely and completely bizarre
"Skip the Film and the Book" - League of Extraordinary Gentleman - love the
concept, unimpressed with the storytelling
"Should Have Read it Ages Ago" - Watchmen was brilliant, Day of the Triffids was a lot of fun and I Capture the Castle would have been even better when I was 14.
"Too Much Thought Required" - Starmaker and The End of Mr Y both were a little more intellectual than I was prepared for.
"Lured by the Shiny Covers" - Affinity Bridge and End of Mr Y were both pulled off of Waterstone's 3-for-2 tables because they had pretty covers and turned out to be quite enjoyable random reads.
"Cool Title and a Cool Book" - The Android's Dream is a great title and a really good book to back it up. |