Brian's Reading List - 2015

[Brian.]

Aims & Targets.

 

2014 was a poor year for me with regards to my reading. For a large part of the year I was studying having started a degree course in 2013. This took up far more time than I had anticipated and I didn't really feel like reading during my down time. After taking account of a lot of different things, two being time required and cost, I decided to shelve the study and work on some other things instead going into 2015. For the first time in a long time I feel like I have direction and a plan to my life and even if it doesn't work out as planned there are only positives to come from it. It should take 12 - 18 months for things to come together, a large part of this being downsizing everything and that ties into my reading plans for 2015.

 

The TBR lists below are what I have as physical books on my bookshelves. It's my intention that these make up the main part of my reading this year. I don't plan on buying any more physical books unless absolutely necessary and will opt for ebooks instead. An other alternative is to make use of my local library as I have in the past. I have loads of ebooks on my TBR but I haven't listed them as I really don't want to go through them.

 

I have thought a lot about whether I want a target this year or not and I'm still not sure. For ease, I'm going to plump for 50 books or 20,000 pages as I have in previous years but it's not a hard and fast target. There are a few other things that I want to get done this year and they are;

• Finally finish The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. I have attempted to read this 3 times in past and never finished it. I haven't been able to come up with a reason for this as I enjoyed reading it during the times I attempted it.
• Read at least one big book. I'm think of something like Atlas Shrugged or War & Peace.
• Knock off another 10 - 15 books off of the '1001 Books' list.
• Knock at least 5 books off of my 'Round the World' challenge.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Brian.

[Brian.]

Fiction To Be Read.

01 - The Acid House - Irvine Welsh

02 - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

03 - The Age of Reason - Jean-Paul Satre

04 - All That I Am - Anna Funder

05 - American Gods - Neil Gaiman

06 - Archangel - Robert Harris

07 - The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

08 - Backwards to Britain - Jules Verne

09 - Beach Boy - Ardashir Vakil

10 - The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

11 - The Bhagavad Gita - Anonymous

12 - Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

13 - The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy

14 - Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

15 - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera

16 - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

17 - Brick Lane - Monica Ali

18 - The Budapest Protocol - Adam Lebor

19 - Burmese Days - George Orwell

20 - Cancer Ward - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

21 - Candide & Zadig - Voltaire

22 - Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

23 - Christ Stopped at Eboli - Carlo Levi

24 - Cloud Atlas - David Michell

25 - Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

26 - Cold Comfort - Quentin Blake

27 - Contact - Carl Sagan

28 - The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

29 - Dark Spring - Unica Zurn

30 - Delta of Venus - Anais Nin

31 - The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac

32 - Dirty Havana Triology - Pedro Juan Gutierrez

33 - Dispatches - Michael Herr

34 - Dracula - Bram Stoker

35 - Dubliners - James Joyce

36 - The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami

37 - Enigma - Robert Harris

38 - Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev

39 - Final Testament - James Frey

40 - Flats & Quake - Rudolph Wurlitzer

41 - The Following Story - Cees Nooteboom

42 - For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

43 - Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

44 - Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

45 - The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

46 - Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

47 - The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

48 - The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

49 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

50 - Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski

51 - Hawthorn & Child - Keith Ridgway

52 - Headhunters - Jo Nesbo

53 - The Help - Kathryn Stockett

54 - The Hypnotist - Lars Kepler

55 - Icebound - David Axton

56 - Icebreaker - John Gardner

57 - Island - Aldous Huxley

58 - Last Evenings on Earth - Roberto Bolano

59 - Life of Pi - Yann Martel

60 - Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

61 - Maggie Cassidy - Jack Kerouac

62 - Man in My Basement - Walter Mosley

63 - The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

64 - Miami Blues - Charles Willeford

65 - Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

66 - My Apprenticeship - Maxim Gorky

67 - My Childhood - Maxim Gorky

68 - Nausea - Jean-Paul Satre

69 - No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay

70 - Octopussy - Ian Fleming

71 - On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

72 - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

73 - Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

74 - Out - Natsuo Kirino

75 - The Paradise Trail - Duncan Campbell

76 - Pompeii - Robert Harris

77 - Popcorn - Ben Elton

78 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

79 - The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli

80 - Put Out More Flags - Evelyn Waugh

81 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy

82 - Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

83 - Room - Emma Donoghue

84 - Salvation of a Saint - Keigo Higashino

85 - Smack - Melvin Burgess

86 - A Sorrow Beyond Dreams - Peter Handke

87 - The Samurai Inheritance - James Douglas

88 - To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee Harper

89 - Too Close to Home - Linwood Barclay

90 - Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

91 - Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

92 - Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka

93 - The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

94 - We Are All Made of Glue - Marina Lewycka

95 - We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

96 - A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks

97 - Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster

98 - A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami

Edited July 7, 2015 by Brian.

[Brian.]

Non-Fiction To Be Read.

01 - 59 Seconds - Richard Wiseman

02 - All Hell Let Loose - Max Hastings

03 - Arnhem - Lloyd Clark

04 - Bad Pharma - Ben Goldacre

05 - Berlin Soldier - Helmut Altner

06 - Berlin - Antony Beevor

07 - The Big Fight - Sugar Ray Leonard

08 - The Boys From Baghdad - Simon Low

09 - A Brief History of Thought - Luc Ferry

10 - A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

11 - Buddha Standard Time - Lama Surya Das

12 - Buddha's Little Instruction Book - Jack Kornfield

13 - Buddhism for Dummies - Jonathan Landaw

14 - The Chimp Paradox - Steve Peters

15 - China Shakes the World - James Kynge

16 - The Code Book - Simon Singh

17 - Comfortable with Uncertainty - Pema Chodron

18 - Death in Perugia - John Follain

19 - The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank

20 - Endurance 50 - Dean Karnazes

21 - Espionage - Ernest Volkman

22 - Extreme Rambling - Mark Thomas

23 - Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers

24 - Fermat's Last Theorem - Simon Singh

25 - Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

26 - Generation Kill - Evan Wright

27 - The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking

28 - Hitler's Henchmen - Guido Knopp

29 - How England Made the English - Harry Mount

30 - In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

31 - Incognito - David Eagleman

32 - Instant Confidence - Paul McKenna

33 - Introducing Buddha - Jane Hope

34 - Introducing NLP - Joseph O'Connor

35 - It's So Easy - Duff McKagan

36 - The Jain Path - Aidan Rankin

37 - The Killing Season - Miles Corwin

38 - Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl

39 - The Language of Letting Go - Melody Beattie

40 - Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Ranulph Fiennes

41 - Meditation for Dummies - Stephan Bodian

42 - Meditation for Life - Martine Batchelor

43 - Merckx - William Fotheringham

44 - The Mindful Way - Mark Williams

45 - The Mitrokhin Archive - Christopher M. Andrew

46 - Moondust - Andrew Smith

47 - The Music of Primes - Marcus de Sautoy

48 - The Negotiator - Gershon Baskin

49 - The New Rulers of the World - John Pilger

50 - Nothing Special - Charlotte Joko Beck

51 - The Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin

52 - Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

53 - The Paleo Diet for Athletes - Loren Cordain

54 - People Who Eat Darkness - Richard Lloyd Parry

55 - Perfect 10 - Richard Williams

56 - The Places That Scare You - Pema Chodron

57 - Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You - Marcus Chown

58 - The Quantum Universe - Brian Cox

59 - Rage Against the Machine - Paul Stenning

60 - Red Plenty - Francis Spufford

61 - Relentless Forward Progress - Bryon Powell

62 - Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War - Ernesto Che Guevara

63 - Rotten - John Lydon

64 - Russian Roulette - Giles Milton

65 - Salt, Sweat, Tears - Adam Rackley

66 - Selling Hitler - Robert Harris

67 - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

68 - Six Easy Pieces - Richard P. Feynman

69 - Soccernomics - Simon Kuper

70 - Start Where You Are - Pema Chodron

71 - Storm Front - Rowland White

72 - Teach Yourself To Meditate - Eric Harrison

73 - The Terminal Spy - Alan S. Cowell

74 - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - Sogyal Rinoche

75 - Ugly Americans - Ben Mezrich

76 - What is Zen? - Alan W. Watts

77 - When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chodron

78 - Why Does E=MC2? - Brian Cox

79 - Writing Fiction for Dummies - Randy Ingermanson

80 - Your Best Year Yet! - Jinny Ditzler

81 - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki

Edited July 7, 2015 by Brian.

[Brian.]

Books Read.

 

January.

01 - The White Lioness - Henning Mankell

02 - No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay

03 - Smack - Melvin Burgess

04 - The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami

05 - Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

 

February.

06 - The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

07 - Adventure Travel - William Gray

08 - Last Evenings on Earth - Roberto Bolano

09 - An Illustrated History of the Gestapo - Rupert Butler

10 - Octopussy & the Living Daylights - Ian Fleming

11 - Dark Spring - Unica Zurn

12 - The Career Break Book - Charlotte Hindle

13 - Gap Years: The Essential Guide - Emma Jane Jones

14 - Fathers & Sons - Ivan Turgenev

15 - The Four Hour Body - Tim Ferriss

 

March.

16 - The Big Trip - George Dunford

17 - Cold Comfort - Quentin Bates

18 - Happiness is Easy - Edney Silvestre

19 - Ajax Penumbra: 1969 - Robin Sloan

20 - The Man in My Basement - Walter Mosley

21 - Perfect 10 - Richard Williams

22 - The Power of Less - Leo Babauta

23 - My Childhood - Maxim Gorky

24 - A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby

25 - The Final Testament - James Frey

26 - Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It - Geoff Dyer

27 - Pompeii - Robert Harris

 

April.

28 - Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski

29 - The Bhagavad Gita - Unknown

30 - The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

31 - The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

32 - Hunters in the Sea - Robin White

33 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau

34 - Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

35 - Man v Fat - Andrew Shanahan

36 - Popcorn - Ben Elton

37 - Great Gambling Scams - Nigel Goldman

 

May.

38 - Buddha Standard Time - Lama Surya Das

39 - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

40 - The Big Fight - Sugar Ray Leonard

41 - Flash Boys - Michael Lewis

42 - Berlin Game - Len Deighton

43 - Pattaya Girls - Johnny Thai

44 - Miami Blues - Charles Willeford

45 - The Following Story - Cees Nooteboom

 

June.

46 - Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

47 - The Sixteen - John Urwin

48 - Burmese Days - George Orwell

49 - My Autobiography - Guy Martin

 

July

50 - A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami

51 - Relentless Forward Progress - Bryon Powell

 

August.

 

September.

 

October.

 

November.

 

December.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Brian.

[Brian.]

Thunderbirds (or this thread) are go!

[Athena]

I wish you a great reading year in 2015, Brian !

[bobblybear]

You've got some good ones on your list, Brian.

 

Ones that I have particularly enjoyed are:

 

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Contact - Carl Sagan

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

 

I couldn't get on with Brick Lane (by Monica Ali) or Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), so hopefully you will enjoy them more than I did.

 

Also on my list is All Hell Let Loose (Max Hastings). You have a lot of heavy reading on your non-fiction. My non-fiction list seems to grow longer, as I mostly read fiction, and sometimes have to psych myself up for some of the non-fiction books I have.

 

I hope 2015 is a good reading year for you.

 

[Brian.]

I wish you a great reading year in 2015, Brian !

 

Thanks, you too.

 

You've got some good ones on your list, Brian.

 

Ones that I have particularly enjoyed are:

 

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Contact - Carl Sagan

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

 

I couldn't get on with Brick Lane (by Monica Ali) or Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), so hopefully you will enjoy them more than I did.

 

Also on my list is All Hell Let Loose (Max Hastings). You have a lot of heavy reading on your non-fiction. My non-fiction list seems to grow longer, as I mostly read fiction, and sometimes have to psych myself up for some of the non-fiction books I have.

 

I hope 2015 is a good reading year for you.

 

I often find reading heavy non-fiction easier going than fiction depending on my mood. I go through spates of devouring fiction and then at other times I just can't getting going with anything I pick up.

[Brian.]

I've decided to construct a complex mathematical algorithm to pick what fiction book to read next in 2015. I present, the TBR pot. Since I only have less than 100 books on my fiction TBR I thought I'd give this a go. I have considered it in the past but always had far too many books on my list for it to be practical.

Edited December 27, 2014 by Brian.

[Alexi]

Love that idea Brian! Will be following your log with interest - lots of books either on my TBR or wish list on your pile.

[Athena]

That's great, Brian ! I hope you'll randomly pick some great reads .

[Brian.]

Love that idea Brian! Will be following your log with interest - lots of books either on my TBR or wish list on your pile.

 

 

That's great, Brian ! I hope you'll randomly pick some great reads .

 

I'd love to claim that the idea was mine but I saw it somewhere on the internet a few years ago.

[frankie]

I wish you good luck with The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. And your 2015 reading year in general I hope you come across some great novels! 

 

 

I've decided to construct a complex mathematical algorithm to pick what fiction book to read next in 2015. I present, the TBR pot. Since I only have less than 100 books on my fiction TBR I thought I'd give this a go. I have considered it in the past but always had far too many books on my list for it to be practical.

 

Dude. That is so cool and random and randomly cool! Let's see where it takes you... 

[Little Pixie]

Best of luck with your 2015 reads !  I like the look of the Pema Chodron book. 

[Anna Begins]

lol @ Frankie.

Have a great reading year and Happy 2015! 

[chesilbeach]

Hope you have a good reading year in 2015, Brian - looking forward to seeing how the scientific process for picking your next book works out!

[julie]

Happy Reading this year

[frankie]

lol @ Frankie.

 

? What I do?

[Nollaig]

The TBR Pot! I laughed so hard hehehe brilliant idea! It's adoreable, in a weird way - possibly because a little pot of TBR titles is so tiny compared with the actual TBR pile most of us have XD

Edited January 3, 2015 by Nollaig

[Anna Begins]

? What I do?

This:

 

Dude. That is so cool and random and randomly cool!

Just so cute- you make me lol all the time, Frankie, in a good way

 

*Sorry Brian    *

[BSchultz19]

You've got some great reads on your TBR this year!

I hope you have a great reading year and that it's better than your 2014 was   

[frankie]

This:

 

Just so cute- you make me lol all the time, Frankie, in a good way

 

Oh, right I had no idea what you meant  

[Brian.]

The White Lioness by Henning Mankell



Synopsis
In 1992, in peaceful Southern Sweden, Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Wallander and his team are called in to investigate. As Inspector Wallander is introduced to this missing person's case he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela has made his long walk to freedom, setting in train the country's painful journey towards the end of the apartheid. Wallander and his colleagues find themselves caught up in a complex web involving renegade members of South Africa's secret service and a former KGB agent, all of whom are set upon halting Mandela's rise to power.

Faced with an increasingly globalised world in which international terrorism knows no national borders, Wallander must prevent a hideous crime that means to dam the tide of history.
(taken from Goodreads)


My Thoughts

After constructing my TBR list for this year I realised I had a stray book on the wrong shelf, The White Lioness by Henning Mankell. I really enjoy Scandinavian crime fiction and the previous Wallander books had me hooked so I decided to grab this. Technically I started reading this in 2014 but as I usually do, this will count towards my 2015 book list.

 

There are two stories in this book, one in Sweden and one in South Africa and fate has them converge. I found a few parts of the South African story slowed the story down a little but on the whole it worked. The book develops at a good pace and there are enough twists and turns along the way. There is some action along the way but none of it is beyond reason which is something I really appreciate. I find it difficult to go along with a crime story if the detective has the fighting skills of a ninja. Wallander makes some very questionable decisions in the book but ultimately for the right reasons and there is some real compassion shown by his colleagues in the face of some difficult circumstances.

 

I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to the next in the series when I get round to it.

 

4/5 (I really liked it).

[Brian.]

I just drew a book from the pot of randomness and my next read is No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay.

[Kylie]

I hope you have a great reading year, Brian. Is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying a difficult read? I've had it on my TBR pile for quite a while and I'm quite daunted by the thought of reading it. To be honest, it's languishing somewhere near the bottom of my pile.