100 bits of Happiness 20/100
So, I always post the books I've read so far when we get to the end of June. I've bolded particular favorites and italicized books to avoid. I do leave Discworld books out of the favorites running though, because they're all my favorites.
I've included notes below about all the books I do NOT recommend. Bolds are amazing, italics are not recommended.
January:
The Guns of August - Barbara Tuchman
The Peril at End House - Agatha Christie
On Gold Mountain - Lisa See
One and Only: The Untold Story of On The Road - Gerald Nicosia and Anne Marie Santos
Caesar's Gallic Commentaries - Julius Caesar
One Corpse Too Many - Ellis Peters
To Hell and Back - Sidney Loch
The Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman - E.W. Hornung
February:
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer
Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey
My Lady Ludlow - Elizabeth Gaskell
Ten Days in a Mad-house - Nellie Bly
Seizing the Enigma - David Kahn
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Monk's Hood - Ellis Peters
Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
Red in Tooth and Claw - Pu Ning
March:
St. Peter's Fair - Peter Ellis
Outwitting History - Aaron Lansky
Lies My Teacher Told Me - James Loewen
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman
Survival in Auschwitz - Primo Levi
Madame Tussaud - Michelle Moran
Lunatics - Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel
Chocolate Wars - Deborah Cadbury
A Gentle Madness - Nicholas Basbanes
Children of the Alley - Naguib Mahfouz
The Bounty - Caroline Alexander
Soul Music - Terry Pratchett
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
Somebody Owes Me Money - Donald E, Westlake
England's Mistress - Kate Williams
Beer is Proof God Loves Us - Charles Bamforth
April:
The Proud Tower - Barbara Tuchman
Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie
My Lobotomy - Howard Dully
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
A Commonwealth of Thieves - Thomas Keneally
The Endless Steppe - Esther Hautzig
The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
The Frozen Thames - Helen Humphreys
All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot
The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg
The Leper of St. Giles - Ellis Peters
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain - John O'Farrell
Gigi - Colette
Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard
Two Rings- Millie Werber
May:
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
Europe Under the Old Regime - Albert Sorel
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
The Virgin in the Ice - Ellis Peters
Training Tabby - Rilla Savage
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Exorcising Hitler - Frederick Taylor
Appointment with Death - Agatha Christie
Peony - Pearl S. Buck
Forged - Bart D. Ehrman
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil Wars - Gaius Julius Caesar
Soulless- Gail Carriger
The Wolf - Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen
Little Fuzzy - H. Beam Piper
June:
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
The Sex Lives of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Lavinia - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies - June Casagrande
The Dragon Seekers - Christopher McGowan
The Sanctuary Sparrow - Ellis Peters
She-Wolves - Helen Castor
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
The Forgetting River - Doreen Carvajal
Bonk - Mary Roach
Are You My Mother? - Alison Bechdel
Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel
Antigonick - Anne Carson
85 books!
Ten Days in a Mad-House - Nellie Bly -- It's partly that I listened to a really awful audiobook of this, but also that the writing is so "Gee shucks, I'm just a girl, but I think..." I know that's probably how it had to be for lady journalists in this period, but still...
Still Alice - Lisa Genova -- This is one of the most poorly written books I have EVER read. Parts of it make no sense and it doesn't really have an ending. She gets the emotions right, but that shouldn't be enough to make a best-seller! My review on GoodReads.
Beer is Proof God Loves Us - Charleston Bamforth -- This book is basically the author bragging about his career and telling you a lot of boring shit about corporate breweries and the technological side of things. My review on GoodReads.
The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg -- Bragg doesn't give enough basic language information. Here's my review on GoodReads. If you want a fun language book try Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter instead.
The Dragon Seekers - Christopher McGowan -- This book wasn't particularly well-written. It's not horrible, but it needed much tighter editing. Plus the subtitle is about how these early fossil freaks paved the way for Darwin, but it barely focuses on that. Then the author spends the last few chapters talking about all the things he's discovered and named and how nice he is. I don't regret reading it, but Deborah Cadbury, who wrote Chocolate Wars, has a book on the same subject and I think she's a much better writer.
The Forgetting River - Doreen Carvajal -- This book hasn't actually been released yet, I got it through the LibraryThing early reviewers program. It could have been an AMAZING book, a perfect book, but they organized the chapters in the stupidest fucking way possible. My review on GoodReads. What bothered me probably won't bother everyone, it didn't bother other reviewers. Then again, the people defended the god awful writing in Still Alice, so best to take my word for it.
If you want extra details/opinions on any of those titles, let me know. You can also check out my 2012 thread on LibraryThing, where I've written short reviews/blurbs for almost all of those books.
Happy reading!
I've included notes below about all the books I do NOT recommend. Bolds are amazing, italics are not recommended.
January:
The Guns of August - Barbara Tuchman
The Peril at End House - Agatha Christie
On Gold Mountain - Lisa See
One and Only: The Untold Story of On The Road - Gerald Nicosia and Anne Marie Santos
Caesar's Gallic Commentaries - Julius Caesar
One Corpse Too Many - Ellis Peters
To Hell and Back - Sidney Loch
The Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman - E.W. Hornung
February:
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer
Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey
My Lady Ludlow - Elizabeth Gaskell
Ten Days in a Mad-house - Nellie Bly
Seizing the Enigma - David Kahn
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Monk's Hood - Ellis Peters
Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
Red in Tooth and Claw - Pu Ning
March:
St. Peter's Fair - Peter Ellis
Outwitting History - Aaron Lansky
Lies My Teacher Told Me - James Loewen
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman
Survival in Auschwitz - Primo Levi
Madame Tussaud - Michelle Moran
Lunatics - Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel
Chocolate Wars - Deborah Cadbury
A Gentle Madness - Nicholas Basbanes
Children of the Alley - Naguib Mahfouz
The Bounty - Caroline Alexander
Soul Music - Terry Pratchett
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
Somebody Owes Me Money - Donald E, Westlake
England's Mistress - Kate Williams
Beer is Proof God Loves Us - Charles Bamforth
April:
The Proud Tower - Barbara Tuchman
Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie
My Lobotomy - Howard Dully
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
A Commonwealth of Thieves - Thomas Keneally
The Endless Steppe - Esther Hautzig
The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
The Frozen Thames - Helen Humphreys
All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot
The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg
The Leper of St. Giles - Ellis Peters
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain - John O'Farrell
Gigi - Colette
Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard
Two Rings- Millie Werber
May:
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
Europe Under the Old Regime - Albert Sorel
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
The Virgin in the Ice - Ellis Peters
Training Tabby - Rilla Savage
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Exorcising Hitler - Frederick Taylor
Appointment with Death - Agatha Christie
Peony - Pearl S. Buck
Forged - Bart D. Ehrman
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil Wars - Gaius Julius Caesar
Soulless- Gail Carriger
The Wolf - Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen
Little Fuzzy - H. Beam Piper
June:
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
The Sex Lives of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Lavinia - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies - June Casagrande
The Dragon Seekers - Christopher McGowan
The Sanctuary Sparrow - Ellis Peters
She-Wolves - Helen Castor
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
The Forgetting River - Doreen Carvajal
Bonk - Mary Roach
Are You My Mother? - Alison Bechdel
Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel
Antigonick - Anne Carson
85 books!
Ten Days in a Mad-House - Nellie Bly -- It's partly that I listened to a really awful audiobook of this, but also that the writing is so "Gee shucks, I'm just a girl, but I think..." I know that's probably how it had to be for lady journalists in this period, but still...
Still Alice - Lisa Genova -- This is one of the most poorly written books I have EVER read. Parts of it make no sense and it doesn't really have an ending. She gets the emotions right, but that shouldn't be enough to make a best-seller! My review on GoodReads.
Beer is Proof God Loves Us - Charleston Bamforth -- This book is basically the author bragging about his career and telling you a lot of boring shit about corporate breweries and the technological side of things. My review on GoodReads.
The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg -- Bragg doesn't give enough basic language information. Here's my review on GoodReads. If you want a fun language book try Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter instead.
The Dragon Seekers - Christopher McGowan -- This book wasn't particularly well-written. It's not horrible, but it needed much tighter editing. Plus the subtitle is about how these early fossil freaks paved the way for Darwin, but it barely focuses on that. Then the author spends the last few chapters talking about all the things he's discovered and named and how nice he is. I don't regret reading it, but Deborah Cadbury, who wrote Chocolate Wars, has a book on the same subject and I think she's a much better writer.
The Forgetting River - Doreen Carvajal -- This book hasn't actually been released yet, I got it through the LibraryThing early reviewers program. It could have been an AMAZING book, a perfect book, but they organized the chapters in the stupidest fucking way possible. My review on GoodReads. What bothered me probably won't bother everyone, it didn't bother other reviewers. Then again, the people defended the god awful writing in Still Alice, so best to take my word for it.
If you want extra details/opinions on any of those titles, let me know. You can also check out my 2012 thread on LibraryThing, where I've written short reviews/blurbs for almost all of those books.
Happy reading!