Readings to be cheerful, part 1

[davywavy]

Something I try to do is keep a list of the stuff I read every year; it's kinda sad of me, I know, but at least it gives me something to look back on. Sometimes I look at lists from previous years with a midly quizzical expression and think to myself "I read that? Really? When?", so it's a useful aide memoire at least.
The other purpose it serves is to remind me that I don't read enough books, and that's precisely what this year's list has done:

Poul Anderson - Tau Zero
Michael Crichton - The lost World
China Mieville - Kraken
Mark Kermode - It's only a movie
Yamamoto Tsunetomo - The Hagakure
Xenophon - The Persian expedition
Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow
Harry Houdini - Deception
Nancy Mitford - Wigs on the green
George McDonald Fraser - Flashman and the tiger
Jrr Tolkien - The Hobbit
Josephine Tey - The daughter of time
Josephine Tey - Miss Pym disposes
Martin Gardner - Fid Adam and Eve have navels?
Scott lynch - The lies of Locke Lamora
John Romer - The history of Egypt from the first farmers to the first pyramid
EA WAllce Budge & John Romer - The Egyptian book of the dead
Boris Akunin - The he-lover of death
Boris Akunin - The death of Achilles
Guillermo del Toro - The strain
Nick Hurst - Sugong, the life of a shaolin master
Michel Faber - The crimson petal and the white
Terry Pratchett - Snuff
Terry Pratchett - Going Postal
Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
Pg Wodehouse - My man Jeeves
Giles Milton - White gold
Susan Wittig Albert - The tale of Briar Bank
Susan Wittig Albert - The tale of Apple Beck Orchard
Jack Vance- Lyonesse
Michael Moorcock - The stealer of souls
Stephen Smith - Underground London
Jack vance - The Gray Prince
Steven Johnson - Emergence
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Neil Macgregor - A history of the world in 100 objects
Gaie Sebold - Babylon steel
CJ Sansom - Sovereign
Amelie Nothomb - The book of proper names.
Greg Bear - Strength of stones.
Arthur C Clarke - The city and the stars
Alberto Soliotti - A guide to the valley of the kings.
Jaromir Malek - Discovering tutenkhamun
Penelope Lively - Jacaranda, Oleader
David Gemmell - Wolf in Shadow

Anyway, there's a few things to take away from that list; first, that Cormac McCarthy is unreadable and I wouldn't wish him on anybody so Lord knows why he's got such a great repoutation, second, that I retain a love of slush fantasy and sci-fi, third, and I've been reading a lot about Egypt recently (for reasons that I hope to become clear later this year), and fourth that I'm just not reading enough.

When I put together a list back in 2001, it had over 100 books on it. This year I didn't even manage one a week. Yeah, some of them were quite long, but that's no excuse. The joy of slaughtering pixellated ne'er-do-wells by the score on my computer has more than halved the amount of reading I do, and that's just not good enough.

So there's my new year resolution: read more. And, to help me in that, I'm asking for recommendations of things to read. What would you suggest, oh readers?

Comments

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I'd heartily recommend the The Dresden Files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files), short books but well written. A wizard PI in the modern age. I finished the first one and immediately got myself the second.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Heartily second this - have been hooked on the audio books. I'll also add 'Magic for Beginners' by Kelly Link - weird and wonderful short stories.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

The Egyptian by Mika Waltari, in case you haven't already.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"Widely condemned as obscene"

Straight into the amazon basket.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

You're missing a few Pratchetts: I take it they're already on the "must read" list? Don't bother with "The Long Earth", though. "Dodger" is excellent. "A blink of the screen" is sitting in my "to read" pile as supplied by Santa, so I can't comment for or against yet.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm slowly losing my interest in Pratchett - Unseen Academicals was terrible, and I felt awful reading it and thinking that because I couldn't help wondering if the loss of quality was as a result of his illness. Snuff was a bit better, but not much. He's not the writer he was, and I'd rather re-read the oldies than risk upsetting myself with the new ones, to an extent.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

That's a thought, I must put "Snuff" on my re-read list. I was disappointed in it when I first read it, but it was the first time I'd read Pratchett on Kindle rather than in hard-copy, and I was seriously ill at the time. Either of those might have give me an unfair impression of it.

I thought "Dodger" was good - it might be worth your while risking it. It seems possible to me that the problem with both "Snuff" and "Unseen" is simply that he's running out of things to say in the Discworld, and the move to Victorian London woke him up.

Going back a bit, the Tiffany Aching series is utterly brilliant, and if haven't read it, you should. This was a year ago:
http://janewilliams20.livejournal.com/218903.html

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Are you up to date with Lois McMaster Bujold? (That's a thought - I'm not.)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

"Blue Moon Rising" would be a good place to start.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I second "Blue Moon Rising", an excellent read.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

http://www.jainefenn.com/
And
http://maeve-the-red.livejournal.com/116577.html
I'd suggest starting with the first book, though, rather than the latest.

[(Anonymous)]

Orbitsville Departure, if it hasn't gone in the bin

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are a wag.

Amazon rejected my review of it. I wonder why?

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

you did better than me, I read all of three books this year and I didn't finish one of those.
I think I've gone wrong...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

rreed mor buks!

Oh, and come to London.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

I went to see Death the other day, actually (I had a day of seeing every friend within travelling distance of London so it was a bit hectic!). Have you seen it? I quite enjoyed it. Lots of goggly skellingtons.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I didn't; I'm a little lary of viewing dead stuff as entertainment so I usually taker some convincing to go to exhibitions like that.

That said I love the British Museums Egypt section, so I'm aware of the hypocrisy of thinking like that.

[(Anonymous)]

So it's alright as long as they've been dead for long enough?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It would seem so, wouldn't it? I wouldn't go and see Bodyworlds, but I do go and look at Mummies.

I make no claims as to consistency.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Bodyworlds is a complicated one. On the one hand, I think Von Haagens has rather jumped the shark with his "our insides as entertainment", on the other, I can't debate his technical virtuosity nor the illustrious anatomical heritage he boasts. I also think that un-taboo-ing things like death and your innards is rather a good thing - keeping things hidden away leads to them becoming monsters and inexplicable monsters don't belong to an age of reason.

Bodyworlds also has the advantage that explicit consent has been obtained from the erstwhile possessors of the artefacts in question. Though nobody likes a show-off, right?

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Ah, there are no actual dead things in the exhibition - it's about the relationship between death and the living and is pretty upbeat (with notable exceptions - Goya and Dix). There is a Peruvian mummy in the Medicine Man permanent collection upstairs though...

I am slightly more leery of ancient Egyptian stuff, as it's been pilfered and pretty much the definition of non-consensual. Although you could argue that display is akin to immortality, so they got what they wanted via us, I suppose.

Also I suppose that I have a professional interest in the diseased and dead, though whether or not it's a bonus to find them aesthetically pleasing is a moot point!