2015 Book List
2011 Book List - total 19
2012 Book List - total 30
2013 Book List - total 9 (shameful!)
2014 Book List - total 16
1) Small Favour - Jim Butcher
2) Turn Coat - Jim Butcher
I'm clumping these together because I basically read them straight through back-to-back. Shit is hotting up INSANELY in the Dresden-verse and I'm now very invested. It's become un-put-down-able. Which is why I had to force myself to stop after Turn Coat to go read something else or I'd have only read Dresden all year and I'm pretty certain that's not healthy. On the plus side, my desire to read more Dresden is making me read the other books more quickly so I can get back to it!
3) Yes, Please - Amy Poehler
I've not seen much with Amy Poehler in, compared to Tina Fey, but I enjoyed her book much more than Bossypants. I enjoyed Bossypants, but I got uncomfortable with Tina Fey's constant references to race and sexuality of the people around her, it was weird. Amy Poehler's book was more whimsical, more self-reflective. It was really nice, and really made me want to try watching Parks and Rec again.
4) How to Train Your Dragon - Cressida Cowell
J got me this as a stocking filler for Christmas - funnily enough I already had the second book in the series which mariana_oconnor got me as a joke birthday present in high school, I wonder if my mum still has it. The books are TOTALLY different from the films, clearly aimed at getting 10-year-old boys to read, with characters named "Dogbreath the Durbrain" and drawings and stuff like that. But they are good fun, and nice to chill along with. I have no doubt they get more complex and involved as the series goes on, but I'm not sure I'm invested enough to buy them. I supposed I could get them from the library, but we'll see!
5) Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes
This book was really good, a darkly funny, but verging more on dark than funny. It is about Hitler coming back in modern day Berlin and everyone believing him to be a Hitler impersonator, and his becoming a Youtube sensation. The more I've seen of Donald Trump's election campaign, the more frequently this book and its themes have come back to me.
6) The Berlin Stories - Christopher Isherwood
This was an odd book. A collection of short stories set in Berlin during the depression in the 30s, from the point of view of an Englishman living there teaching English. It seemed oddly...disconnected? Detached? I dunno, they were more vignettes than stories themselves, or sketches.
7) The Teleportation Accident - Ned Beauman
The last of the books that were a souvenir from our trip to Germany, this is another book set before the 2nd World War, in the late 20s early 30s with a man struggling to cope with the social transition from hedonism and debauchery to depression, and who basically follows a woman around the world because he wants to shag her. It's really quite funny, and less dark than Look Who's Back, but full of far fewer sympathetic characters.
8) The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. It was excellent, but something of a difficult read at times. Oddly plodding, probably because there was no real plot. I think I need to re-watch the film to see how it lives up to the book.
9) On Liberty - Shami Chakraborty
I was not a politically engaged teenager. In fact, I actively worked to be the opposite. I've become a lot more politically active in the last few years, but was hampered by a lack of knowledge of recent political history (last fifteen years or so). This book was one I struggled to understand, despite being a book for laymen, but highlighted a lot of the major incidents within British politics through my high school years. J wasn't able to get through it, he found it very dry, but he was a more politically aware teenager than I was, so it perhaps would not have given him anything to have read it. I think it was worthwhile my reading it.
10) A Blink of the Screen - Terry Pratchett
A collection of his short stories, but if I'm honest I think it was more based on who wrote them than their quality? Some were good, but perhaps I just don't like his short story style. His comedy is wordy, and you can't be wordy in a word limit.
11) Changes - Jim Butcher
12) Ghost Story - Jim Butcher
13) Cold Days - Jim Butcher
14) Skin Game - Jim Butcher
I clumped these together again because I just went on a bit of a binge midway through the year and finished off all the Dresden books. I have no words - shit went bad, and then I don't think the books addressed all I wanted them to in the time they had? It's not that I don't think it was done well - it was! But man I just wanted ONE really badass moment and resolution to one of the earlier themes by the end of Skin Game and it hadn't happened and nuts but there's no release date for the next one yet. BAH.
15) Storm Front - Jim Butcher
I was so fidgety after finishing all my Dresden that I decided to start again from the beginning because I was at a loose end. The difference between this book and the ones which follow is pretty huge, it's very much a first book and a by-numbers affair in terms of characters. I enjoyed it, but I could see why J got a bit grouchy when he read it on my recommendation. He's not read any of the later ones yet, I think he was put off. Oh well!
16) Silver - Andrew Motion
This was basically where the latter quarter of my year of reading went. I wouldn't let myself read anything else until I had finished this because I promised J I would read it, but dang I struggled. The first third is really really dense, and whilst it was good and I could see that it was good, I had no motivation to pick it up again after I put it down. It picked up a bit once they reached Treasure Island, but it was a much darker story than its predecessor, and I'm not sure how I feel about the paranormal themes that seemed to run through it? Like it seemed to be very mystical in a lot of elements and I'm not sure how well that worked for me.
17) Sleigh Bells in the Snow - Sarah Morgan
Amazon let me have a free Kindle book because I'd bought some books as Christmas presents, and this was the only stand-alone one on there. It was a terrible awful romance, and honestly I think a lot of the wordcount was made up of repeated sections, but I blitzed through it in the first two days of my Christmas holiday and it was just the perfect thing to help me relax and unwind for Christmas, and turn my brain off. Just found out it was published by Mills and Boon. Literally everything is now explained.
2012 Book List - total 30
2013 Book List - total 9 (shameful!)
2014 Book List - total 16
1) Small Favour - Jim Butcher
2) Turn Coat - Jim Butcher
I'm clumping these together because I basically read them straight through back-to-back. Shit is hotting up INSANELY in the Dresden-verse and I'm now very invested. It's become un-put-down-able. Which is why I had to force myself to stop after Turn Coat to go read something else or I'd have only read Dresden all year and I'm pretty certain that's not healthy. On the plus side, my desire to read more Dresden is making me read the other books more quickly so I can get back to it!
3) Yes, Please - Amy Poehler
I've not seen much with Amy Poehler in, compared to Tina Fey, but I enjoyed her book much more than Bossypants. I enjoyed Bossypants, but I got uncomfortable with Tina Fey's constant references to race and sexuality of the people around her, it was weird. Amy Poehler's book was more whimsical, more self-reflective. It was really nice, and really made me want to try watching Parks and Rec again.
4) How to Train Your Dragon - Cressida Cowell
J got me this as a stocking filler for Christmas - funnily enough I already had the second book in the series which mariana_oconnor got me as a joke birthday present in high school, I wonder if my mum still has it. The books are TOTALLY different from the films, clearly aimed at getting 10-year-old boys to read, with characters named "Dogbreath the Durbrain" and drawings and stuff like that. But they are good fun, and nice to chill along with. I have no doubt they get more complex and involved as the series goes on, but I'm not sure I'm invested enough to buy them. I supposed I could get them from the library, but we'll see!
5) Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes
This book was really good, a darkly funny, but verging more on dark than funny. It is about Hitler coming back in modern day Berlin and everyone believing him to be a Hitler impersonator, and his becoming a Youtube sensation. The more I've seen of Donald Trump's election campaign, the more frequently this book and its themes have come back to me.
6) The Berlin Stories - Christopher Isherwood
This was an odd book. A collection of short stories set in Berlin during the depression in the 30s, from the point of view of an Englishman living there teaching English. It seemed oddly...disconnected? Detached? I dunno, they were more vignettes than stories themselves, or sketches.
7) The Teleportation Accident - Ned Beauman
The last of the books that were a souvenir from our trip to Germany, this is another book set before the 2nd World War, in the late 20s early 30s with a man struggling to cope with the social transition from hedonism and debauchery to depression, and who basically follows a woman around the world because he wants to shag her. It's really quite funny, and less dark than Look Who's Back, but full of far fewer sympathetic characters.
8) The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. It was excellent, but something of a difficult read at times. Oddly plodding, probably because there was no real plot. I think I need to re-watch the film to see how it lives up to the book.
9) On Liberty - Shami Chakraborty
I was not a politically engaged teenager. In fact, I actively worked to be the opposite. I've become a lot more politically active in the last few years, but was hampered by a lack of knowledge of recent political history (last fifteen years or so). This book was one I struggled to understand, despite being a book for laymen, but highlighted a lot of the major incidents within British politics through my high school years. J wasn't able to get through it, he found it very dry, but he was a more politically aware teenager than I was, so it perhaps would not have given him anything to have read it. I think it was worthwhile my reading it.
10) A Blink of the Screen - Terry Pratchett
A collection of his short stories, but if I'm honest I think it was more based on who wrote them than their quality? Some were good, but perhaps I just don't like his short story style. His comedy is wordy, and you can't be wordy in a word limit.
11) Changes - Jim Butcher
12) Ghost Story - Jim Butcher
13) Cold Days - Jim Butcher
14) Skin Game - Jim Butcher
I clumped these together again because I just went on a bit of a binge midway through the year and finished off all the Dresden books. I have no words - shit went bad, and then I don't think the books addressed all I wanted them to in the time they had? It's not that I don't think it was done well - it was! But man I just wanted ONE really badass moment and resolution to one of the earlier themes by the end of Skin Game and it hadn't happened and nuts but there's no release date for the next one yet. BAH.
15) Storm Front - Jim Butcher
I was so fidgety after finishing all my Dresden that I decided to start again from the beginning because I was at a loose end. The difference between this book and the ones which follow is pretty huge, it's very much a first book and a by-numbers affair in terms of characters. I enjoyed it, but I could see why J got a bit grouchy when he read it on my recommendation. He's not read any of the later ones yet, I think he was put off. Oh well!
16) Silver - Andrew Motion
This was basically where the latter quarter of my year of reading went. I wouldn't let myself read anything else until I had finished this because I promised J I would read it, but dang I struggled. The first third is really really dense, and whilst it was good and I could see that it was good, I had no motivation to pick it up again after I put it down. It picked up a bit once they reached Treasure Island, but it was a much darker story than its predecessor, and I'm not sure how I feel about the paranormal themes that seemed to run through it? Like it seemed to be very mystical in a lot of elements and I'm not sure how well that worked for me.
17) Sleigh Bells in the Snow - Sarah Morgan
Amazon let me have a free Kindle book because I'd bought some books as Christmas presents, and this was the only stand-alone one on there. It was a terrible awful romance, and honestly I think a lot of the wordcount was made up of repeated sections, but I blitzed through it in the first two days of my Christmas holiday and it was just the perfect thing to help me relax and unwind for Christmas, and turn my brain off. Just found out it was published by Mills and Boon. Literally everything is now explained.