December/End of 2010

[sweet_sparrow]

Hi, all! I hope everyone's been having a good month and that those who celebrate anything this month have had a wonderful time with their respective feasts too! I also hope I'm not offending one with the phrasing here. Please let me know how to do it better?

I know it's not quite the end of December yet, but I won't be getting any more books finished before the end of the year. (At least I'm pretty sure of this. Any reading in these coming few days that I aim to do is The Tale of Genji and seeing how I'm not even half-way through that and getting this far took me almost the entire year... No way I'll finish before the end of 2010.)

What've you been reading in December? Have you had time to read? What have your favourites of the month or year been? (I was actually considering making another post for the best-of-2010 sometime in early January. Thoughts?) Do you think you'll finish another novel before 2011 and do you have any plans for next year's reading?

I'm still at least knee-deep in finishing my essays for university, but I got a surprising amount of reading done. Nineteen books or thereabouts! I've only managed to review six of them, though. I've also abandoned more books this single month than I've managed to do in the entire year, I think.

My favourite of December was After by Amy Efaw. It hit just the right note for me and I thought it was incredibly powerful. My biggest disappointment was A Concise Chinese-English Dictonary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. I just didn't get along with the characters at all, so the story fell apart.

- Highway Robbery by Kate Thompson
– War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
– Beastly by Alex Flinn
– Bang, Bang, You’re Dead! by Narinder Dhami
- The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson (dnf)
- Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri & Dina Nayeri (dnf)
- Aurelia by Anne Osterlund (dnf)
- Death by Darjeeling by Laura Childs (dnf)
- The Description of Wales by Geraldus Camenbrensis
- Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (dnf)
- Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (dnf)
- Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki
- The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
- They Called it Passchendaele by Lyn MacDonald
- Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip (reread)
- The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (reread)
- An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton (reread)
- Dark Lord Seeks Friendship, Maybe More by Elisa Viperas (dnf)
- Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

For 2011, I've made a stack (well, two) of books that I'd like to try and get read. We'll see how it goes. I'll probably get distracted, but the stack is there at any rate.

Lastly, is anyone interested in end-of-year book polls? I used to post them yearly on LJ when I could make polls there and had a blast with them. For those unfamiliar with the idea: you make a ticky box poll of all the books you've read in the year and see how many people you've never met have read the same books (at some point in their life or that year, but the former seems more popular). It's like a big, interactive meme basically. (Mine for this year is here if you'd like to see how the poll can work. Apologies for the mini-plug, but I've no idea how to give an example without it.^-^; ) If people are interested, we could perhaps either all share links to our polls or make a post that collects them all in the comments or some such?

Hope everyone is well and having a great time! Soon another year'll be over. O_O Where did it go?!

Comments

[existence]

Let's see! I'm trying to remember what I read this month, and mostly I think I read books for Yuletide-related research, so they have to remain redacted for a few more days, which is too bad, there were a few I really enjoyed that I want to talk about. I did read Blameless by Gail Carriger (not as sharp as the first book still, but interesting character development for the side characters/plot, but i found themain characters less likeable), Mob Rules by C. Haley (thoroughly intrigued by the worldbuiding, not sure about the characterization). And other then that, there was a lot of "books I normally reread once a year", so. There may or may not be something I'm forgetting here, because it felt like I read more.

I'm not quite sure what the best thing I've read this year is, although I am intriuged at the idea of the book poll even if I would be pants at remembering every last book properly because my listmaking is so sporadic.

[sweet_sparrow]

Ooooh... That sounds really intriguing! Do talk about the research-books when you can! ^-^

Mmm... Might be it's the lack of definite list that makes you feel like you're forgetting something? That always makes me wonder whether I forgot anything anyhow.

You could always make a poll for the books you remember. Lots of people do that too, I'm sure. My own listmaking is... reasonable at best. I have a pretty, colourful spread-sheet, but when I cross-checked with my GR 'read in 2010' shelf I discovered I'd managed to forget to add at least 10 to my spreadsheet. I'm sure I've still managed to forget a couple.

[ellarien]

While I was waiting for the snow to go away, I finished off my Vorkosigan series re-read with Miles in Love and Diplomatic Immunity., and started on a reread of Trollope's Phineas Redux, which is pretty boring so far (even for Trollope) and also in ridiculously large print on my e-reader.

Then my household effects --- including about 1300 books -- finally arrived, and I've been too busy unpacking (and sorting) to read much at all, though I have started on Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals for a bedtime treat. I might finish that by the end of the year, but maybe not.

I have a backlog of about 100 unread books around the place, not counting non-fiction and e-books. I really hope I can make some inroads on that lot in 2011, and read more non-fiction than I have the last couple of years.

[sweet_sparrow]

Did the snow go away? I'm assuming that it did, but... I hope the unpacking is going well and that you'll find that the Trollope picks up and becomes a more entertaining read!

[archersangel]

What've you been reading in December?
^four queens: the provencal sisters who ruled europe by nancy bazelon goldstone
^the essential bond: the authorized guide to the world of 007 by l. pfeiffer & d. worrall
the family vault by charlotte macleod
^four seasons in rome by anthony doerr
^magical worlds of harry potter by david colbert
^the fossil trail: how we know what we think we know about human evolution by ian tattersall (gave up part-way through)
Have you had time to read?
yes
What have your favourites of the month or year been?
i'm leaning towards four seasons in rome
(I was actually considering making another post for the best-of-2010 sometime in early January. Thoughts?)
i say go ahead
Do you think you'll finish another novel before 2011 and do you have any plans for next year's reading?
no. i just started caesar's women by colleen mccullough, so unless i read for 24 hours a day it's not happening.
i won't be keeping track of my books next year like i did this year. too much of a bother.

[scifisentai]

Butting in, sorry, but how was Four Queens? I have it on my to-read list and I'm curious as to what you thought of it.

[sweet_sparrow]

But- but- Conversation is good! ^-^ By all means butt in anywhere you like. ^-^

(And I have to say that book sounds quite interesting. *makes note*)

[archersangel]

i liked it. it's interesting, i think, to see how women could influence history despite having little power themselves. if that makes ses.ne

[sweet_sparrow]

Sounds like a high focus on non-fiction. I hope you've enjoyed it and found them worth your time! ^-^

How've you been keeping track of your reading this year? I keep track in a spreadsheet myself. Or I try to anyway. ^-^

[holyschist]

Mostly I've been rereading Tamora Pierce obsessively this month and picking apart the world and characters to see how they do (and don't) tick. It's really educational, since I think there are some things Pierce does really well as an author, and others she does very badly, and it's also driving home to me what I would like to see more and less of in fantasy.

Also read some pop linguistics--although not as many books as I checked out of the library.

*reread

92. Cryoburn, by Lois McMaster Bujold (SF, adult)

I was pretty disappointed by this one. The Japanese felt pasted on and the plot felt weak, and it pretty much lacked all my favorite characters.

93. Alanna: The First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce* (fantasy, ya)
95. In the Hand of the Goddess, by Tamora Pierce*
96. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, by Tamora Pierce*
98. Lioness Rampant, by Tamora Pierce*

I grew up on these books, but this was the first time I reread them in a while. The writing struck me as much more first-novel-y now that I am older and more critical, and there are some pretty big worldbuilding and characterization issues, but I still love these books to distraction. They are kind of rushed (perhaps because they were originally intended to be a single adult novel), and so they gloss past all kinds of fascinating things. I love the openness of the world, before she started filling it in (sometimes in contradictory ways).

94. Introducing Linguistics: A Graphic Guide, by R.L. Trask and Bill Mayblin (nonfiction)

This was a pretty nice introduction to some basic linguistic concepts, although I didn't always feel the choice of retro clip-art was appropriate (Plains Indian guy talking about Diné language? Um).

97. First Test, by Tamora Pierce* (fantasy, ya)
99. Page, by Tamora Pierce*
100. Squire, by Tamora Pierce*

I was going to reread in chronological order, but this is my other favorite set besides Song of the Lioness, so I skipped to it because I have no self control. I love these books so much, and have far fewer problems with them on their own than SOTL--but they also contradict SOTL on many points, which bugs me. Still, love. And Pierce's writing did get MUCH better. Lady Knight next!

101. Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, by David Wilton (nonfiction)

I'm ambivalent about this. The style can't seem to decide whether to be dry or casual, and sometimes it just rubbed me the wrong way--but it was nice to have mostly-concise debunking of a lot of linguistic myths in one place.

My favorite this month is Squire--it's one of my comfort rereads, mostly for the character interaction.

---

End-of-the-year book polls sound interesting! Best of post--go for it!

I don't have formal reading plans for next year. Normally it would be to read all the books I own but haven't read, but I might be temporarily moving (and leaving most of my books with the boyfriend). What I read is likely to be largely limited by the libraries I have access to. If I end up getting an ereader, I might tackle more public-domain books...and I still plan to read Genji one of these days.

[sweet_sparrow]

I hope you'll have an easier time with Genji than I'm having with it whenever you get to it! ^-^

Oooh. Sounds like fun with the Tamora Pierce books! I'm curious what your picking apart resulted in. ^-^ I've only read SotL, though. They were meant to be a single book aimed at adults? O_O I never would've guessed... Wow! I hope you'll have fun with Pierce's other books too! ^-^

Good luck with the potential move! I hope whatever way life goes, it'll treat you well!

[valley]

Wow, everybody's lists this month are so much more impressive than mine! I am proud of myself though, as I finally finished Pride and Prejudice (after four years of trying) and finished the last books in the Chronicles of Narnia series, which I've been working on since March or April. P&P was a disappointment but I loved Narnia and will probably end up re-reading it sometime next year.

I'm going to try to participate in a Goodreads.com bookclub so I'm going to start reading Crime and Punishment and The Lord of the Rings in January. Other than that I don't have any big plans for the new year; ideally I'd like to read all of the unread books I own, but I think I'll just go with the flow for a while.

[sweet_sparrow]

That sounds like something to be proud of indeed! I think I'd trade my reading this month for accomplishments like that in a jiffy! ^-^ I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the Narnia books. ^-^ Will you be reading more C.S. Lewis, you think? (I liked his Out of the Silent Planet quite a bit. It's preeeetty once it gets going. ^-^)

Oh, wow. I hope you'll have fun with the chunksters! I avoid them because of my shoulders, but I'm hoping I can get a few of them read this year. (They're public domain and I have an ereader now.)

[angrboda]

I've been listening to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke on audiobook. I'm not even halfway yet, but I'm enjoying it a lot. It's definitely recommendable.

I have also just started yesterday on The Red Pyramid yesterday by Rick Riordan which I've borrowed from a flister over at LJ. I like that one too so far, and I suspect it'll be a quick read.

[sweet_sparrow]

Oooh. How does the audiobook handle the footnotes? I'm curious.

I hope you'll enjoy it as it continues! ^-^

[marshtide]

Hum, well! Let's see.

Feminism and science fiction by Sarah Lefanu
Queer Universes: sexualities in science fiction edited by Wendy G. Pearson
Alien to femininity: speculative fiction and feminist theory by Marleen S. Barr

Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton ("The story of Karl-Bertil Jonsson's christmas eve") by Tage Danielsson

Andromeda Stories v2 by Takemiya Keiko
A drunken dream and other stories by Hagio Moto
Ooku v4 by Yoshinaga Fumi

& I'm pretty sure that by the end of the year I'll have finished at least a couple more - Familjen i dalen by Boel Westin and A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. The former is an analysis of Tove Jansson's moomin books, and the latter is a giant (giant!) volume of autobiographical manga. I've tried to read a few novels this month, but my brain hasn't been in the right place, so it's been non-fiction and manga. Litterary theory has been popular; of the three lit theory books I read on sci-fi I found the first two really interesting though they contained a lot of stuff about books I would not actually want to read (god am I ever over the utopian vision of women in harmony with nature through their inherent womanliness wot men can never comprehend), and the third frustratingly written - probably didn't help that it covered a lot of the same ground as the first so I wasn't really willing to fight that hard with it.

Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton is a short picture-book which is not particularly aimed at children, and which parodies more or less everything indiscriminately. I thought it was hilarious, as was the TV adaptation (shown on christmas eve).

Andromeda continues. I enjoy it but I'm not convinced by it so strongly as I have been by some of Takemiya's other works.

A drunken dream and other stories is the most beautiful volume of manga I have basically ever seen. It's a really gorgeous edition, it contains coloured pages which work extremely well, it has an interview with Hagio Moto and some information about the context of her work. I feel like someone has done something really really right when it comes to releasing this sort of manga; it isn't and shouldn't be a standard volume trying to compete with Naruto. Different market. Thanks! It's a volume of short stories, and while I thought that the title story actually would have worked better with the stories in A, A', a collection of Hagio Moto's sci-fi stories where it would have gained helpful context, there was some really great stuff in there. My personal favorite was Iguana Girl, which is either a story about animals that most people can't tell aren't human or a story about an abusive family and the complex psychology of a messed up situation. I know which my money is on.

Ooku continues to be a wonderfully interesting exploration of gender roles.

[sweet_sparrow]

Nothing wrong with focusing on non-fiction and manga. Especially not if you've enjoyed them!

I love the sound of A Drunk Dream and Other Stories! (I'm not a very visual reader, so I find manga and graphic novels quite difficult to read, but even so.)

[akk]

I didn't get to read much in December, I'm afraid. What time I had left beside my job was pretty much gobbled up by completing the (admittedly novel-sized) story I was writing since 2006.
Reading will definitely resume in 2011, though (otherwise, I'd risk being buried by the stack of books piling up beside my bed). :)

[sweet_sparrow]

Ooooh! Congratulations on getting the story finished!

Any books you're looking forward to from your TBR stack?

[scifisentai]

I haven't had as much time to read as I would have liked, thanks to rl descending on me like a hammer, but I have been making my way slowly through The Age of the Five by Trudi Canavan, but I'm finding them a lot slower going than her Magician's Guild series. A friend just gave me Deception by Jonathan Kellerman though, so I'll probably switch to that and have better luck. I'm also reading She Wolves by Helen Castor, about the women who ruled England before Elizabeth I.

My to-read list, however, is considerably longer, as is usually the way. :D

Fiction

The Years of Salt and Rice by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Jewel of St. Petersburg by Kate Furnivall
The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
Heart of Light & Soul of Fire by Sarah Hoyt
Rebels and Traitors by Lindsey Davis
Dragongfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark and The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee
Heaven's Net is Wide by Lian Hern
The entire Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher
Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce

Non-fiction

Revolution by Time Harris
Four Queens by Nancy Goldstone
...the entirety of the shelves with history books on them that I have yet to read. >.>

I keep telling myself I don't need to buy anymore books but that never seems to work out for some reason.

[sweet_sparrow]

I hope the Kellerman book will work better for you than the Canavan you're reading at the moment! (Or that the latter picks up. Or both! Both would be awesome.) Is She Wolves any good? It sounds utterly fascinating. ^-^

Oh! Oh! I've read one of the books on your TBR pile! Heart of Light. I enjoyed it, though not enough to rush out and get the rest of the series/trilogy. It sounds like a fun list, though1

(I've discovered that running out of physical space to put books in is a good way to cut back on buying them. Maybe that'd help?)

[holyschist]

I'm also reading She Wolves by Helen Castor, about the women who ruled England before Elizabeth I.

Oooh, that sounds interesting! Is it good?

[quackaquacka]

I got a bit behind in posting it online but here's the books I read from October-December 2010.

http://quackaquacka.dreamwidth.org/18926.html?#cutid1

I don't think I'll be keeping track in the same way again! It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it - wanted to see how many books I read in a year. I didn't think it would be that many, so that's a surprise, and it's definitely uncovered some reading habits I didn't know I had (lots more books about vampires than I thought, and very few non-fiction books).

[quackaquacka]

I was also very surprised to realise that I always finished a book I started. There was only one book in the whole year I gave up on (forced sex trope so I stopped after page 25). I don't know if this indicates a more in-depth weeding out process in the original picking stages or what, really, but I thought it was interesting to note.

[sweet_sparrow]

With the amount of books you've read this year, I'm not surprised you're rethinking keeping track! That is a lot of books. O_O And I'm even more impressed by the fact that you enjoyed the majority of them enough to finish them all too! (I want your reading speed, I really, really do. Or just half of your reading speed.)

I hope you'll have a wonderful reading year next year as well! ^-^ Do you think you might use some other way to track your books this year?