Reading List - 2010
Jan. 1st, 2010 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askygoneonfireBooks I've Read This Year.
January - February:
1. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
2. Making Money - Terry Pratchett
3. Nation - Terry Pratchett
4. Once Upon a Time in the North - Philip Pullman; my absolute favourite character throughout the Northern Lights trilogy was Lee and Hester, I cried more for their death than anyone else. This book was a delight as a result.
5. Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
6. The Road - Cormac McCarthy; fascinating narrative technique. Absolutely immersive
March:
7. Looking Backwards 1887-2000 - Edward Bellamy; utopia/dystopia fiction from the Victorian period will never cease to fascinate me.
April:
8. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess; A fascinating exploration in the readers own tolerance of 'ultra-violence' and how quickly your loyalty can be gained by the self confessed and well established villain of the piece. Wonderfully written, my narrative theory inclinations were aroused.
9. Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi; Better than the film
10. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel; oh god it's ike academic graphic novel (autobiography) porn! Describing your own life events in terms of narrative theory? YES.
May - July (inclusive):
11. Moby Dick - Herman Melville; Without a doubt, now one of my favourite Romantic novels. Fascinating to see the Romantic impulse directed to descriptions of 'the Levianthan' (Sperm whales) and the 'iron soul' of man; "Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the first time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul"
July:
12. Snakes & Earrings - Hitomi Kanehara (perhaps in need of a better translation? Very clumpy)
13. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein Brilliant. Much better than expected. Made me reconsider my thoughts about capital punishment and military endeavour which is no small feat.
August:
14. Phonogram: Rue Britannia - Jamie Mckelvie & Kieron Gillen Phenomenal. A leaving gift from a friend in Brighton and all about being a(n obsessive) music fan and, in particular, a Manics fan.
September
15. Phonogram: The Singles Club - Jamie Mckelvie & Kieron Gillen Different in music content than Rue Britannia but I felt the characters were better drawn (narratively speaking, not artistically!)
16. The Outsider - Albert Camus Was still thinking about those 118 pages long after I finished it. Awesome.
October-November
17. The Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry Everything I hate about autobiographies, endlessly ego masturbation, lists of 'celebrity' names and uninspiring 448 pages covering just 9 years? In no detail? 9 years in which NOTHING HAPPENS? Never read a book in such serious need of editing.
December
18. Sherlock Holmes; A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle Finally reading the glorious tome I was given last Christmas and enjoying it ever bit as much as I anticipated. So far it is only the first story I can tick off, but yes, glorious.
19. Y: The Last Man. Vol 1. Unmanned - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra Not brilliant, but certainly very engaging. The dialogue lags in places, but on the whole it works; I'll be buying volume 2, so that says it all really.
January - February:
1. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
2. Making Money - Terry Pratchett
3. Nation - Terry Pratchett
4. Once Upon a Time in the North - Philip Pullman; my absolute favourite character throughout the Northern Lights trilogy was Lee and Hester, I cried more for their death than anyone else. This book was a delight as a result.
5. Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
6. The Road - Cormac McCarthy; fascinating narrative technique. Absolutely immersive
March:
7. Looking Backwards 1887-2000 - Edward Bellamy; utopia/dystopia fiction from the Victorian period will never cease to fascinate me.
April:
8. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess; A fascinating exploration in the readers own tolerance of 'ultra-violence' and how quickly your loyalty can be gained by the self confessed and well established villain of the piece. Wonderfully written, my narrative theory inclinations were aroused.
9. Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi; Better than the film
10. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel; oh god it's ike academic graphic novel (autobiography) porn! Describing your own life events in terms of narrative theory? YES.
May - July (inclusive):
11. Moby Dick - Herman Melville; Without a doubt, now one of my favourite Romantic novels. Fascinating to see the Romantic impulse directed to descriptions of 'the Levianthan' (Sperm whales) and the 'iron soul' of man; "Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the first time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul"
July:
12. Snakes & Earrings - Hitomi Kanehara (perhaps in need of a better translation? Very clumpy)
13. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein Brilliant. Much better than expected. Made me reconsider my thoughts about capital punishment and military endeavour which is no small feat.
August:
14. Phonogram: Rue Britannia - Jamie Mckelvie & Kieron Gillen Phenomenal. A leaving gift from a friend in Brighton and all about being a(n obsessive) music fan and, in particular, a Manics fan.
September
15. Phonogram: The Singles Club - Jamie Mckelvie & Kieron Gillen Different in music content than Rue Britannia but I felt the characters were better drawn (narratively speaking, not artistically!)
16. The Outsider - Albert Camus Was still thinking about those 118 pages long after I finished it. Awesome.
October-November
17. The Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry Everything I hate about autobiographies, endlessly ego masturbation, lists of 'celebrity' names and uninspiring 448 pages covering just 9 years? In no detail? 9 years in which NOTHING HAPPENS? Never read a book in such serious need of editing.
December
18. Sherlock Holmes; A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle Finally reading the glorious tome I was given last Christmas and enjoying it ever bit as much as I anticipated. So far it is only the first story I can tick off, but yes, glorious.
19. Y: The Last Man. Vol 1. Unmanned - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra Not brilliant, but certainly very engaging. The dialogue lags in places, but on the whole it works; I'll be buying volume 2, so that says it all really.