Now that the July 4th holiday is behind us, it really does feel like the year is half over. Which means it's a good time to look back at my reading for this year, and take stock.
So far in 2008, I've read thirty books. I know that doesn't sound like a lot to all the Wonder Readers out there who go through that many in a week (god, how I admire and envy you guys). But that's several more books than I read in all of 2007, so it represents a great improvement for me. If I can keep going at this rate, I should definitely be able to read sixty books by the end of the year. And if I step it up a bit, I could even do a little better than sixty.
Anyway, here's the list to date:
2010: Odyssey Two. Arthur C. Clarke
Betsy-Tacy. Maud Hart Lovelace [Review]
Chatterton. Peter Ackroyd [Review]
Civil To Strangers. Barbara Pym [Review]
Crewel World. Monica Ferris [Review]
Deadly Nightshade. Cynthia Riggs [Review]
Emma. Jane Austen [Review]
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. E.L. Konigsburg [Review]
Granny's Wonderful Chair. Frances Browne (re-read) [Review]
Greenwitch. Susan Cooper [Review]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. J.K. Rowling [Review]
Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Review]
Miss Rumphius. Barbara Cooney [Review]
Mrs. Malory and Death By Water. Hazel Holt [Review]
Mrs. Malory and Delay of Execution. Hazel Holt
Mrs. Malory and the Silent Killer. Hazel Holt
My Fantoms. Theophile Gautier [Review]
Over Sea, Under Stone. Susan Cooper [Review]
Practical Magic. Alice Hoffman [Review]
The Bookman's Wake. John Dunning
The Concord Quartet. Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr. [Review]
The Dark Is Rising. Susan Cooper [Review]
The Fires. Allen Cheuse
The Flanders Panel. Arturo Perez-Reverte [Review]
The Grand Complication. Allen Kurzweil [Review]
The Grey King. Susan Cooper [Review]
The House Behind the Cedars. Charles W. Chestnutt
The Lace Reader. Brunonia Barry [Review]
Twig. Elizabeth Orton Jones [Review]
Wish You Were Here. Rita Mae Brown
The list includes quite a few children's and young adult titles, mainly because of a couple of challenges I've been involved in. Also, it's rather heavy with mysteries because – well, just because I love a mystery (so there!).
I also seem to be reading the same authors over and over. There again, reading challenges have something to do with that. But challenges aside, it's not uncommon for me to read multiple titles by a single author – when I find something I like, I stick with it.
Even so, I have made some very pleasant discoveries this year. Alice Hoffman is a writer I want to read more of in the future. And Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising books have been a really exciting find for me – I'm looking forward to reading the last novel in the sequence now. It's interesting that I tried reading the series years ago, and they didn't really grab me. But they certainly have this time, so maybe I just wasn't ready for them when I was younger. (I guess, as Bob Dylan says, "I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now"!)
Monday, July 07, 2008
3 comments:
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30 books for 2008, good work!
ReplyDeleteThat's a good list. Isn't it fun keeping track and talking about them too?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds wonderful to me. I'm at about the same level that you are. I like your idea of running down what you've read so far this year. I may have to do that myself. :)
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