2008's books

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I've decided to do my huge bookpost now because I have the time for it. If it turns out that I'm mistaken and I do get to finish another book within the next 31 hours... I doubt anybody here will notice if I sneak it in ;)

So here goes...

Statistics:
Total number of books: 244
Total number of pages: 61.540
Average number of pages per book: 252.2
Average number of pages a day: 168
Rereads: 36%

Genres: (%)
Chick-lit - 5.5
The Classics - 7
Mystery/Psychologial Thriller - 4.9
Young Adult Fiction - 30.3
General Fiction - 11.1
Historical Fiction - 4.5
Sci-fi/Fantasy - 19.3
Non-fiction/Biography - 10.2
Poetry/Short-stories/Plays - 2.9
Christian Fiction - 4.5

Three Authors That I Fell in Love With This Year:
Kelley Armstrong
Stieg Larsson
Neta Jackson

Three Best New Series:
"The Black Magician" trilogy by Trudi Canavan
"The Yada Yada Prayer Group" by Neta Jackson
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy by Stieg Larsson
(Noticable mention: "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld)

Ten Most Enjoyed Fiction (not counting rereads):
"Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong
"People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks
"Demonglass" by Rachel Hawkins
"The Yada Yada Prayer Group" by Neta Jackson
"Last Chance Saloon" by Marian Keyes
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
"The Host" by Stephenie Meyer
"We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver
"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield

Most Enjoyed Non-Fiction (not counting rereads):
"I Do Again" by Jeff and Carol Scruggs
"So Many Books, So Little Time" by Sara Nelson
"In His Sights" by Kate Brennan

Ten Least Enjoyed:
"The Dark is Rising" - Susan Cooper
"Saras latter" - Ylva Eggehorn
"Down to a Sunless Sea" - Mathias Freese
"Saving Faith" by Patrick M. Garry
"The Poisonwood Bible" - Barbara Kingsolver
"A Jolly Good Fellow" - Stephen Masse
"Evacuation Plan" - Joe O'Connell
"Anatomy of a Boyfriend" - Daria Snadowsky
"The Amateur Marriage" - Anne Tyler
"Robin Hood and His Merry Men" - Unknown

Books I Couldn't Finish
"My Legendary Girlfriend" by Mike Gayle - I read the first 200 pages and then had to give up. The main character was just too sad and pathetic for me to be at all interested in him.
"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov - I really wanted to love this, but I read 100-150 pages and it simply couldn't catch my attention. Life is too short for books I have to force myself to read.
"An Assembly Such as This" by Pamela Aidan - Such a shame, I've been looking for it for ages, and when I finally got hold of it, it couldn't catch my fancy. Fanfiction, and not even all that good fanfiction.
"Dragon in Chains" by Daniel Fox - I feel no guilt about abandoning this one. I read the first 40 pages but couldn't get into it at all. The writing style didn't appeal to me, and the characters weren't likeable nor intriguing enough to keep me reading when the plot didn't capture me.

If you're really curious or want to read reviews, links to all 244 books can be found here.

Comments

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

LOL That's my aim, goal, challenge, hoped for number, etc.

[augustine.livejournal.com]

I can certainly understand...lol.

I have like a million books I need to read (and most of them aren't even by Chesterton!)

So it would be nice if I could read 100 a year....:-)

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

That reminds me. You've inspired me to read something by Chesterton - where should I start?

[augustine.livejournal.com]

I guess where you should start depends on what you're interested in...Let me quote a comment I made to a friend a few weeks ago on that question.
___________________________________

As for Chesterton, er, well, it depends on what you are interested in. He basically wrote in all genres (or so it seems) on every topic. He was one of the most prolific writers ever (with over fifteen million words in print). To give a few examples of his work and their influence, which I document (for the most part) on my list of Chesterton's influence (http://augustine.livejournal.com/7853.html#cutid1), let me note the following, giving only one sample from each category, just to see what you might be interested in. From there, I can give you more detail on any individual category (and I'm missing some categories, no doubt).

Novels: The Man Who Was Thursday

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman dedicated their novel Good Omens to Chesterton because, according to Gaiman, they felt that while writing Good Omens they were, on a very fundamental level, "doing The Man Who Was Thursday".

Short stores: Father Brown detective stories.

Strand Magazine describes Chesterton as the "acknowledged father of the cozy murder mystery"

Poetry: The Ballad of the White Horse

His Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last epic poems in the English language, and was admired by John Galsworthy, W.H. Auden, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Graham Greene, H.L. Mencken, and others (though Tolkien was later critical of its undoubted flaws).

(Chesterton wrote shorter poems as well, including comic ones)

Newspaper articles:

A newspaper article he wrote (he wrote over 4,000) is what first inspired Gandhi to start his movement to end British colonial rule in India

Literary criticism: Charles Dickens

His biography Charles Dickens helped spark a revival in Dicken's work, and was considered by many people the best book ever written on Dickens (for instance, by Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, T.S. Eliot, etc.). And Dicken's own daughter informed Chesterton of how much she liked the book.

Social criticism: Eugenics and Other Evils; What's Wrong With the World

Chesterton's 1922 book Eugenics and Other Evils made Chesterton one of the very few major writers to speak out against eugenics in the early part of the twentieth century.

And, commenting on his book What's Wrong With the World, Michael Crichton wrote:

Chesterton lost the debate about the future direction of society to his contemporaries H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton saw the implications of their vision of twentieth century society, and he predicted exactly what would come of it.

Christian apologetics:

C.S. Lewis credited Chesterton's book The Everlasting Man to have been the most important contemporary book in his conversion from atheism to Christianity, and referred to it as the very "best popular defense of the full Christian position" he knew of.

Economics: The Outline of Sanity

Chesterton's leadership in the distributist movement was also influential. For instance, E.F. Schumacher's book Small is Beautiful grew out of an essay which he originally named "Chestertonian Economics".

(continued in another comment)

[augustine.livejournal.com]

(continued from previous comment)

Hymns: O God of Earth and Altar

Interesting enough, the first verse of his hymn O God of Earth and Altar was used by the heavy metal band Iron Maiden as the first part of their song Revelations on their 1983 Piece of Mind.

Plays: Magic

George Bernard Shaw praised Chesterton's play Magic, and at one point, James Joyce was going to make a production of the play before circumstances prevented him from doing so.

Hagiography: St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox

Arguably the greatest Thomistic scholar of the twentieth century Etiene Gilson described it as the "best book ever written on St. Thomas" and referred to Chesterton as "one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed". Others who thought it the best book ever written on St. Thomas Aquinas include Jacques Maritain and Anton C Pegis.

Theology:

Pope John Paul 2's favorite theologian was Hans Urs Von Balthasar. He, in turn, was a great admirer of Chesterton, and when writing on clerical and lay styles of theology, he gave a short list of the "great ones" he could have written about (besides the three he eventually chose). That list consisted of: "Newman, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, and Bernard" and finally Chesterton.

...and I could go on and on. That's just some of his works and their influence.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! I've noticed The Man Who Was Thursday around, and as I'm mostly into novels anyway, I think I'll start there. Has he written any other literary criticism than Charles Dickens? I've only read one book by CD so far, so though it's a genre I usually enjoy, I'm not too tempted by this one.

The Everlasting Man is going on my to-read list as well.

[augustine.livejournal.com]

Well, he wrote plenty of good novels, as well as other books of literary criticism, which were very popular.

Actually, here's a link you may find helpful:

Bibliography for Beginners (http://chesterton.org/discover/bibliography.html)

For more detail on books, this link also will help:

Chesterton 101 (http://chesterton.org/discover/chesterton101.html)

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll be sure to check it out.

[augustine.livejournal.com]

BTW, I should point out concerning The Everlasting Man that it is not as light of reading as most of Chesterton's work is....

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I started aiming for 50 books, then worked my way up to 100, 150, 200...

Not sure I dare set the goal at 250 next year though... don't want it to be a chore but a pleasure ;)

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Well, when I was in high school I read like crazy--not necessarily "deep" books, but books. And then college and now grad school have sort of put a dent in my reading time. So now my goal is to simply read more books than I did the year before. I'm not sure if I did that this year or not--but I THINK I did, so I'm happy. Next year if I can just read more than this year, that would be great!

Yeah, 250 books a year is a LOT. That's almost a book a day except for those special 100 days (or so) when you can read one book for two whole days. ;-)

I'm so thankful for books! And libraries!

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I read a LOT more now that I have a full-time job than I did when I was a student - it helps to know I'm really "off" when I'm off work, and am able to read with a clear conscience.

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Hehe, that's what I keep telling myself. ;-) And then someone almost always reminds me that some jobs you "still take home with you." Ugh. Haha! :-D

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I'm certain I replied to this comment, but the big black hole of cyberspace seems to have stolen it.

But very true - I'm fortunate in that I hardly ever take my work home with me (I'm an IT consultant, so I often need the customer around), so it hasn't been a huge deal for me. Plus I don't have kids yet. I expect that to make a difference as well.