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Destroying thought in order to save it
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| My book-reading fiscal year ends April 30. Here is my report, submitted for your approval.
This year I completed 40 books. It would've been more, but the fiscal year ended when I was in the middle of three, and I had to put them all aside to get a fourth read by an interlibrary loan due date. So those will all end up on next year's accounts.
For the third year in a row, a pretty great set of books. I'm still catching up, really, from many years spent in college and grad school, when recreational reading was nigh impossible. So my "to-read" list is still miles long, and contains many books I am very eager to get through. Nor does the list really shrink, so it threatens to remain incomplete even as death grows ever closer.
My favorite new read of the year was probably Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware. It's a graphic novel, but it counts. I'm happy to have done some RE-reading this year, which I hadn't done in a while. I re-read Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed and Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and I'm pleased to report they are both still awesome. Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon cemented him as one of my favorite writers, but the man has serious logorrhea. As much as I like him, it's hard to imagine actually undertaking his Baroque Cycle books, which clock in at about 2700 pages. I mean, when it's that or like nine other books, you know?
I ticked off six more Hugo winners from the list. (Le Guin and Asimov were winners but they were re-reads, so already tallied.) I've got aboout 30 to go, and seem to get through about 5-7 a year. So I think I'm going to have to postpone the Hugo Award Winner completion party until probably early 2013. I'll let you know.
( The list )
Oh yeah, if any of you are on GoodReads, hit me up on the friend-o-matic. | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment   |
| My book-reading fiscal year ended April 30. Here is my report, submitted for your approval.
List of completed titles posted here.
I'm incredibly stingy with the bold of favorite titles, which is to say, I really liked a lot of these books even though I didn't mark them that way. My favorites of the year were 100 Years of Solitude and Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. I'll probably read the latter again this year, as well as more LeGuin. I've read three books of hers now and really dug them all, so I don't know why I'm sitting here typing this when I could be reading more. Maybe because I'm a little reticent to delve into more of her fantasy titles (a genre I generally don't care for much) but then, I like A Wizard of Earthsea, so I have no credibility as a fantasy-not-liker.
Overall, finished a few more than I did last year, but essentially read at the same pace. Next year will be a bit of an experiment: I'm planning to tackle some longer titles (notably, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon) so may not read as many books overall, but have also been better about making time to read, largely by avoiding the computer in the evening. However, there's also now a Wii in my house. It hasn't been a detrimental time sink yet but I'm not promising anything.
Hugo Winners: as you may know, I'm trying to read all Hugo award-winning novels. I believe I knocked off seven this year. One is in progress, which will leave something like 32 to go, i.e., maybe four years' worth. Please consider attending my "I've just read all the Hugo winners" party in late 2011. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| My book-reading fiscal year ends April 30. Here is my report, submitted for your approval.
This year I finished 33 books, plus whatever I've forgotten, minus stuff I read portions of, but gave up. I don't consider any particular number high or low, good or bad, as a universal standard. Too variable on the time one has to read recreationally and what you choose to read. I feel B-plus-ish about my effort. Mostly satisfied, but still wasted a lot of energy I could have used for other books. I include graphic novels. I do not include academic articles, even if they took longer and caused more pain than any novel.
Anyway, it was probably the best year of reading ever for me, in both quantity and quality. Yet I still don't consider it "great", which gets me excited for coming years. It's certainly true that I have never read so much in my adult life, ironically because I have spent nine of the previous ten years in school. It was a good mix of things I've been waiting to read for a while and things I picked up on the spur of the moment. In the next year I may try to work in a little more nonfiction or classics, in which I am criminally under-read.
( The list of titles ) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
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Destroying thought in order to save it
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