Freewheeling Andy Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 So, in anticipation of lots of Books of the Year type thread, I'll get in first. I've not actually read that many books, so this should be easy. All the books are ones I've read, rather than ones published in 2007: Book I'm Most Proud To Have Read: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Ace History of The Year That Was So Good It Got Me To Read The Above: 1812 by Adam Zamoyski Really Good Modern Novel: The Road by Cormac McCarthy Most Frustratingly Overrated Pile of Garbage: Atonement by Ian McEwan (with competition from Inheritance of Loss and Life of Pi) Autobiog of the year (easy one, this, as it's the only one I've read): The Autobiography of Malcolm X Best post on Book Club Forum: The one that got the Free Penguin Classics so I could read the above Political stirring of the year: Murder in Samarkand by Craig Murray Other books I've really enjoyed this year: Dance, Dance, Dance and After Dark by Haruki Murukami; Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey; All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque; The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 I had an outstanding reading year this year, and I expect another bumper year in 2008! Here are my picks for the past 12 months: Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Bram Stoker: Dracula Following closely on the heels of these books, I gave the following books 9/10: Jane Austen: Emma (really deserves a 10/10, but I love Pride and Prejudice just a little bit more!) Charles Dickens: Great Expectations George Grossmith: Diary of a Nobody Jack Kerouac: The Town and the City Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men Hunter S Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (sooo close to being in the 10/10 category!) Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5 My bombs for the year were: Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist DH Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover Anna Sewell: Black Beauty Roll on 2008! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 I'm still reading, but I've slowed right down as my reading mojo is on the fritz again (I think it's all the stress of the run-up to the festivities that does it every year). However, I've been really very lucky with excellent reading material this year: 10/10 Ronia, The Robber's Daughter - Astrid Lindgren The Plucker: An Illustrated Novel - Brom Stuck in Neutral - Terry Trueman The Stand - Stephen King 9/10 The Prestige - Christopher Priest The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnelly Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong Broken Skin - Stuart MacBride The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith 8/10 Chart Throb - Ben Elton The Eagle in the Sand - Simon Scarrow Adept - Robert Finn The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory The Debt - Simon Kernick Black Dog - Stephen Booth The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho Deception - Randy Alcorn Karma - Holly A Harvey Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen The Pirates! In an Adventure with Whaling - Gideon Defoe Perfume - Patrick Süskind The Rosary Girls - Richard Montanari Pride & Prejudice- Jane Austen The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Margaret O'Farrell Wideacre - Philippa Gregory Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - John Cleland Emlyn's Moon - Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier - Jenny Nimmo The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin - Maurice Leblanc Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards Another Time and Place - Sam Grosser Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte The Messenger - Andrew E. Shipley Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte The Identity Factor - James Houston Turner Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier A Room With a View - E. M. Forster Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs Boy A - Jonathan Trigell Clunkers & unfinished Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Márquez – 3/10 The Man Who Knew Too Much – G K Chesterton - UNFINISHED A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka – 4/10 The Bell Jar - Syliva Plath – 2/10 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - 4/10 Candide – Voltaire (audio) - UNFINISHED The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy – 4/10 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark – 3/10 Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 5/10 - UNFINISHED The Sooterkin - Tom Gilling - UNFINISHED So, as you can see, I've read a wide range of genres by both classic and contemporary authors. I've enjoyed some more than others, but overall, i thnk this has been a pretty good year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 What's the significance of the blue titles, Kell? I'm sure it's something blindingly obvious but I had to get up at 3am for work today so I think my brain has seized! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 It's just that they were originally linked to the reviews and when I took the links out I couldn't get the colour to change back to black. Strangely, i've just managed to rectify it now. Hmmm! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny_Shovel Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Only four 5 star books this year, but lots of others that were well worth reading: Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin Bleak House by Charles Dickens Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz Wonderful Fool by Shusaku Endo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nici Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 My books of the year? That's easy! Stephen King - The Stand Raven Hart - The Vampires Seduction Raven Hart - The Vampires Secret And I am sure Raven Hart - The Vampires Kiss will go on the list when I get it on the 27th December! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Andrea~ Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 My favourite reads this year: Ugly - Constance Briscoe The other side of nowhere - Daniella Westbrook Flatland - Edwin Abbot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echo Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 My favorites this year were: The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien I have some more to read, though! Maybe I'll update this list! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purple95 Posted December 25, 2007 Share Posted December 25, 2007 I enjoyed Settling Accounts: In At The Death by Harry Turtledove. The last book of a long series about a continuing civil war in North America. Another "find" was On Hitler's Mountain by Emgard A. Hunt. This is a NF book of the life and times of a young girl growing up in Germany prior to and during WWII. Excellent read! And, as always, some great stuff by Stephen King: Carrie Blaze The Colorado Kid I posted this list in another thread but it also fits well here. Merry Christmas dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Butter Posted December 26, 2007 Share Posted December 26, 2007 As I have the attention span of a retarded gnat, I can't remember half the books I've read this year (I've heard it said that some people keep lists of the books they read, but I find that hard to believe ). But you'd have to go some to beat the most recent book I've read - Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom. Finished it on Christmas Eve, and it's really made an impression on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudyB Posted December 26, 2007 Share Posted December 26, 2007 As I have the attention span of a retarded gnat, I can't remember half the books I've read this year (I've heard it said that some people keep lists of the books they read, but I find that hard to believe ). But you'd have to go some to beat the most recent book I've read - Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom. Finished it on Christmas Eve, and it's really made an impression on me. This was one of my 5 star reads. A lot of us are listing our reads on LibraryThing - it's been great for keeping track and it's a very attractive list as it displays the book covers. By using tags you can see which you've read in 2007. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosegarden Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett Gone For Good - Harlan Coben Empress Orchid - Anchee Min I also discovered Janet Evanovich this year and really enjoyed both One For The Money and Two For The Dough - I'm looking forward to reading more of Stephanie Plum's adventures in 2008 Carole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deirdre Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 Off all the books that I read in 2007 these were my absolute favorites: The Intruders - Michael Marshall The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield Immoral - Brian Freeman Every Dead Thing - John Connolly And my big discovery for 2007 were the Pendergast novels by Preston & Child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louiseog Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 My top ten for the year: 1. The Book of Lost Things John Connolly 2. The Instance of the Fingerpost Iain Pears 3. Birth House Ami McKay 4. The Crimson Petal and the White Michael Faber 5. Water for Elephants Sara Gruen 6. Kite Runner 7. Sunday by the pool in Kigali Gil Courtemanche 8. Nineteen Minutes Jodi Piccoult 9. The Last Witchfinder James Morrow 10. Red Dust Gillian Slovo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angerball Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 My best reads of the year would have to be (excluding re-reads): The Swarm - Frank Schatzing The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell After You'd Gone - Maggie O'Farrell Atonement - Ian McEwen I haven't had that many disappointments, though there have been a lot of books that I've had to leave unfinished. I don't feel like I've read enough 'really good books' this year, though. Hopefully things will look up, next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbwun_Lily Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 My top three: The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett Standard of Honor - Jack Whyte The Religion - Tim Willocks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renniemist Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 My favourite reads 2007 1. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving 2. Atonement by Ian McEwan 3. The Sea by John Banville 4. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everydayxangels Posted January 9, 2008 Share Posted January 9, 2008 15. Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson 14. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls 13. Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson 12. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher 11. Run by Ann Patchett 10. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan 9. The Best American Essays of 2007 edited by Wallace 8. Away by Amy Bloom 7. Crashing Through by Robert Kurson 6. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 5. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 4. The Hours by Michael Cunningham 3. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard 1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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