Your Reading Year So Far

[Heather]

I have read 20 books so far

[Mia]

I think my tally is well down on normal. I just haven't had the time with sorting out the house buying etc. Also to blame are the TV programmes I like that are currently on in an evening! The only reading time I get is on the train on my commute to work, and the books I read tend to be James Patterson or Tami Hoag novels - easy reads and not too heavy to carry! Jonathan Strange... has been on my TBR pile for a good few years now, but there's no way I'm lugging that on the train (big hardback that weighs a ton!)

 

Hopefully when I'm settled into my new home I'll have time to read on an evening (providing the TV programmes aren't that good!).

[Heather]

This is the first time I haven kept a tally of how many books I read in a year so it will be interesting to see how many I can read in the year. I carry a book with me when traveling back and forth to work and on at the side of the bed.

[Angel]

I've read 32 so far this year

[Kirstykat]

I am on my 9th book to date, which is very slow for me. It is because I am so busy at work - too busy to sit and read for half an hour at lunchtime. With the better weather, I am going to make sure I take my hour and sit in the sun with my book!!

 

My favourites so far are:

 

Marley & Me by John Grogan

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

 

Currently reading 'The Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro.

 

[supergran71]

I've read 32 so far this year

That's amazing Angel. How have you managed that? You must read in your sleep:lol:

[Kylie]

I've read 24 books so far this year, which is really good for me. I usually aim for 1 per week (52 per year).

 

I've had a really good reading year so far, with a fair few books receiving 9 or 10 out of 10. I've only had one mildly disappointing book, which was Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea.

 

My highlights include:

 

John Banville: The Book of Evidence

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

George Orwell: Animal Farm

 

Honourable mentions to:

 

Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility

AB Facey: A Fortunate Life

Graham Greene: The Third Man & The Fallen Idol

Richard Matheson: I am Legend

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

[madcow]

My favourites so far are:

Marley & Me by John Grogan

 

Did you cry? I know I cried buckets but it was a lovely book.

[Inver]

That's amazing Angel. How have you managed that? You must read in your sleep:lol:

LOL

[Guest]

I've read 56. No, really...I have. I keep a record of 'em all. It would have been more but for that time I had a stomach virus and communing with God on the Great White Phone was more of a pressing need than keeping my nose in a book. And all those migraines...

 

How do I do it? I read everywhere. On the bus, walking along the street, in the littlest room ()...every. Spare. Minute. And I read fast. Plus, I hardly ever watch the tellybox - except for the snooker of course.

 

33 fiction and 23 non-fiction.

[happyanddandy]

I've read 14 - I am not a fast reader and I knit so that takes up reading time

 

Highlights are;

Rumours of a Hurricane - Tim Lott

South of the River - Blake Morrison

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber

[Kirstykat]

Hi Madcow!

 

I cried RIVERS!! I am a real animal lover and I also get soppy over the Disney Cartoons (eg The Lion King). As it is a true story, my husband couldn't even comfort me by saying that it was on a story. This book and this amazing,kind dog will stay with me forever (especially the part where he stays with John's wife when she came home from her miscarriage and just her cry into his fur.....) I have like that.

 

Got to go, I can feel myself welling up......

 

Edited May 11, 2008 by Kirstykat
Was meant as response to Madcow, not Happy and Dandy!! Would not want to call anyone but 'Madcow' by that name...!!!

[madcow]

KirstyKat - did you know they are making a film of Marley & Me starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. I think it's due out Feb next year.

I'm stocking up on kleenex already It certainly tugs the old heart strings doesn't it?

[Kate]

I've read 56. No, really...I have. I keep a record of 'em all. It would have been more but for that time I had a stomach virus and communing with God on the Great White Phone was more of a pressing need than keeping my nose in a book. And all those migraines...

 

How do I do it? I read everywhere. On the bus, walking along the street, in the littlest room ()...every. Spare. Minute. And I read fast. Plus, I hardly ever watch the tellybox - except for the snooker of course.

 

33 fiction and 23 non-fiction.

 

I am so impressed you have read that many books! And not all fiction, that is incredible

[Guest]

No kids, part-time voluntary work...my time's my own really. And like I said, I'm not much of a tellybox watcher. Which is just as well, 'cause you can take a book on the bus but not a television!

[Freewheeling Andy]

Numbers Schmumbers, that's what I say.

 

It's better to read two brilliant books than to read 50 mundane ones.

 

Edit: Not that, necessarily, anyone has been reading mundane books. But the idea that the number of books you've read is important just seems a bit weird to me.

[Kylie]

Numbers Schmumbers, that's what I say.

 

Absolutely. So long as we're all enjoying what we're reading it doesn't matter how much we read! That said, I like seeing how many books everyone has read. It's amazing how far-flung the numbers are this early in the year.

[Freewheeling Andy]

If I was stuck on a desert island and allowed to have, say, Mason&Dixon by Thomas Pynchon and War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy, it would take me 10 times as long to read those two books as to read 50 formulaic crime thrillers, say. And I would get far more from them. But then I'd rather read one formulaic crime thriller that I enjoyed than 20 long, deep, serious novels by Henry James or Thomas Mann.

[Guest]

And of course, it has to be said that reading a lot does not make one a shallow reader. Speed and quality are not mutually exclusive.

[kelly2008]

Iv only read 22 but Ive enjoyed most of them so im very happy

[Welshman]

Not sure how many I have read this year to be honest, but I would guess about 40. There have been a number of highlights during that period that I particularly enjoyed:

 

Ben Elton - The First Casualty

Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong

Benjamin Zephaniah - Face

Melvyn Bragg - The Soldier's Return

 

On my shelf and looking promising future reads:

 

A.L. Kennedy - Day

Peter Carey - The Illegal Self

[Janet]

There have been a number of highlights during that period that I particularly enjoyed:

 

Ben Elton - The First Casualty

Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong

Melvyn Bragg - The Soldier's Return

I enjoyed each of those too.

[Guest]

You seem very keen on First World War stories, Welshman - as am I, and of course the poetry of the time, too. (In particular Owen and Sassoon).

[scottishbookworm]

my booky wooky russell brand

drop dead beautiful Jackie collins

a mighty heart mariane pearl

home to big stone gap adriana trigiani

you drive me crazy carole matthews

chart throb ben elton

tasmina perry- gold diggers

[Welshman]

Hi Prospero - Totally agree about Sassoon and Owen and yes, I love the War poets generally. In fact, one of my best buys was a book called 'Minds at War'. It was edited by David Roberts and included poems by the above as well as Brooke, Graves, Kipling etc.

 

I am usually drawn to books about war if they describe their brutality. I don't like novels (or poems) filled with macho **** that somehow suggests the soldiers were all having a gay old time killing 'Jerry'.