2005: the book post
Dec. 31st, 2005 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaBooks this year: 344.
Started but not finished: 29. This does not count the one I'm still reading today. This is books abandoned. This number is up from last year, which is up from the year before and so on: I didn't used to abandon books ever. I would read things that made me just miserable, but I would by God finish them. I no longer feel that this is a virtue. I have not been to the library this calendar year (and the reason is named![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dd_b), and my library list is five closely written pages and needs an update. There is absolutely no reason why I am a Good Kid for finishing books that aren't any good or aren't hitting me right at the moment. So I don't.
Notable rereads: I finished rereading the Vlad Taltos books and the Miles Vorkosigan books. Now I want more. Also I got Helen Cresswell's Ordinary Jack to read for the first time in almost two decades, so that was a happy thing. Oh, and Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, a-hey-hey. Also the annual-ish reread of Tam Lin, which has lost nothing except a bit of structural integrity -- the physical object, I mean, not the narrative.
I also reread the first six Anne of Green Gables books for the first time in years, and in some ways they held up well, and in others...not as well, I guess. Anne is a bit of a Mary Sue from time to time, and my reason for liking Emily of New Moon better still holds: Emily's best friend Ilse is not a sidekick but a best friend. Neither of them would have ever stood for being a sidekick. Anne's best friend Diana, on the other hand, could not be more of a sidekick if her parents had died in a highwire accident.
Recommended: Colin Cotterill's Thirty-Three Teeth, for mystery readers, those interested in Southeast Asia, or just Book People.
Bradley Denton's Laughin' Boy, for people with somewhat sick senses of humor
Dorothy Dunnet's books, probably for people with somewhat sick senses of humor as well, but not in the same way as Laughin' Boy
Tony Griffith's Scandinavia: At War With Trolls, hilarious Scandinavian history that touches on sometimes-obscure points of life and culture in the era dealt with (that is, post-Napoleonic) -- probably a good read even for non-Scandophiles
Bernd Heinrich's The Mind of the Raven, for those who are interested in brain and social stuff
Gwyneth Jones's Bold As Love, for the all-out way she hits the future
Janet Kagan's books if you can find them, for people who like SFnal ideas that go whirrrrr
Robin McKinley's Sunshine, even if you think you don't want to read another vampire novel
The entire Patrick O'Brian series, even if you think you don't care about boats, because there are a million other things going on there, and they are well-written and funny (and get better and funnier after the first few)
Juha Pentikainen's Kalevala Mythology iff you are a Finnogeek
The entire Anthony Price series, even though I started it last year, because they are what spy novels ought to be
Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth series if you can find them and are not attached to books only doing one thing at a time
Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace if you're up for dealing with Holocaust-related fiction
Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden, also for SFNal ideas that go whirrrrr
Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Enigma if you are feeling patient -- it's a brick, but a worthwhile brick
Gordon Welchman's The Hut 6 Story if you're feeling less patient but still want to hear about Enigma stuff
matociquala's and karentraviss's trilogies, though I still have the last volume of each left to go, and truepenny's Mélusine if you're willing to wait between volumes, and scalzi's Old Man's War
Started but not finished: 29. This does not count the one I'm still reading today. This is books abandoned. This number is up from last year, which is up from the year before and so on: I didn't used to abandon books ever. I would read things that made me just miserable, but I would by God finish them. I no longer feel that this is a virtue. I have not been to the library this calendar year (and the reason is named
dd_b), and my library list is five closely written pages and needs an update. There is absolutely no reason why I am a Good Kid for finishing books that aren't any good or aren't hitting me right at the moment. So I don't.Notable rereads: I finished rereading the Vlad Taltos books and the Miles Vorkosigan books. Now I want more. Also I got Helen Cresswell's Ordinary Jack to read for the first time in almost two decades, so that was a happy thing. Oh, and Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, a-hey-hey. Also the annual-ish reread of Tam Lin, which has lost nothing except a bit of structural integrity -- the physical object, I mean, not the narrative.
I also reread the first six Anne of Green Gables books for the first time in years, and in some ways they held up well, and in others...not as well, I guess. Anne is a bit of a Mary Sue from time to time, and my reason for liking Emily of New Moon better still holds: Emily's best friend Ilse is not a sidekick but a best friend. Neither of them would have ever stood for being a sidekick. Anne's best friend Diana, on the other hand, could not be more of a sidekick if her parents had died in a highwire accident.
Recommended: Colin Cotterill's Thirty-Three Teeth, for mystery readers, those interested in Southeast Asia, or just Book People.
Bradley Denton's Laughin' Boy, for people with somewhat sick senses of humor
Dorothy Dunnet's books, probably for people with somewhat sick senses of humor as well, but not in the same way as Laughin' Boy
Tony Griffith's Scandinavia: At War With Trolls, hilarious Scandinavian history that touches on sometimes-obscure points of life and culture in the era dealt with (that is, post-Napoleonic) -- probably a good read even for non-Scandophiles
Bernd Heinrich's The Mind of the Raven, for those who are interested in brain and social stuff
Gwyneth Jones's Bold As Love, for the all-out way she hits the future
Janet Kagan's books if you can find them, for people who like SFnal ideas that go whirrrrr
Robin McKinley's Sunshine, even if you think you don't want to read another vampire novel
The entire Patrick O'Brian series, even if you think you don't care about boats, because there are a million other things going on there, and they are well-written and funny (and get better and funnier after the first few)
Juha Pentikainen's Kalevala Mythology iff you are a Finnogeek
The entire Anthony Price series, even though I started it last year, because they are what spy novels ought to be
Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth series if you can find them and are not attached to books only doing one thing at a time
Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace if you're up for dealing with Holocaust-related fiction
Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden, also for SFNal ideas that go whirrrrr
Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Enigma if you are feeling patient -- it's a brick, but a worthwhile brick
Gordon Welchman's The Hut 6 Story if you're feeling less patient but still want to hear about Enigma stuff
matociquala's and karentraviss's trilogies, though I still have the last volume of each left to go, and truepenny's Mélusine if you're willing to wait between volumes, and scalzi's Old Man's War
