Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Year in Books

I read 19 books in the first half of the year, which is a decent total for someone who was working two jobs and taking 6 credit hours in addition to having a family. My book habits have changed over the past almost 2 years, when I began utilizing the library. I have been able to read more books and keep more current with my reading than in years past.

That point was drive home when I read a list of the year's best books so far over at Omnivoracious (Amazon's books blog). I have read 2 of their overall Top Ten - Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead and The City & The City by China Mieville. In addition, I am on the request list at the library for a third - Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I liked both books very much.

Furthermore, I have read a book on their Fiction Top Ten - Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower - and have another on my shelf waiting to be read after Stephen Baxter's Flood (Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr.).

When I look over my reading list for the year, I see that 11 of the books I've read were published this year and the rest were either published or reissued last year. I'm much more current than I ever realized.

Of course, I haven't read nearly as many books as I've wanted to. I do still have 5 weeks left of summer, so I should be able to knock out at least 5 more before all the craziness of the school year starts up again.

I won't go back and review any of the books I've read up until now (I'll save some of that for my year-end list) but here's what I've read so far this year...

1. Prince of Stories by Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden, and Stephen R. Bissette
2. The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford
3. Memoranda by Jeffrey Ford
4. The Beyond by Jeffrey Ford
5. End of the Century by Chris Roberson
6. The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
7. The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko
8. Midwinter by Matthew Sturges
9. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
10. The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay
11. The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips
12. Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
13. Walking Dead by Greg Rucka
14. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
15. Busted Flush edited by George R.R. Martin
16. Stalking the Unicorn by Mike Resnick
17. The Women by T.C. Boyle
18. Stalking the Vampire by Mike Resnick
19. The City & The City by China Mieville

No comments:

Post a Comment