Tuesday, December 11, 2007

An Accounting of Things Done and Foregone

I know I haven't done a review of my November books but I couldn't resist looking back to see how many books I've read throughout the year. And damn... my reading time has slowed. But then again, I've also been busy as hell this past year.

So far, the count is 50 books taken up and finished. These are:

  1. Glen Cook, The Instrumentalities of Night: The Tyranny of Night
  2. Karen Traviss, Republic Commando: Triple Zero
  3. Christopher Priest, The Prestige
  4. Rich Horton: Best Fantasy 2006
  5. Ted Chiang: Story of your Life and Other Stories
  6. Cherie Priest: Four and Twenty Blackbirds
  7. Lydia Morehouse: The Archangel Protocol
  8. John Scalzi: Old Man's War
  9. Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora
  10. Steven Pressfield: Gates of Fire
  11. C.J. Cherryh: Gate of Ivrel
  12. Leigh Brackett: The Ginger Star
  13. Lisa Goldstein: Walking the Labyrinth
  14. Ken Macleod: Newton's Wake
  15. Gene Wolfe: The Knight
  16. Paul Witcover: Tumbling After
  17. Luis Fernando Verissimo: Borges and the Eternal Orangutan
  18. John Meaney: Bone Song
  19. Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, editors: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2006
  20. Paul Park: A Princess of Roumania
  21. Midori Snyder: The Innamorati
  22. John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, editors: Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology
  23. Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
  24. Jeffrey Thomas: Monstrocity
  25. Neal Asher: The Skinner
  26. Harry Harrison: The Hammer and The Cross
  27. Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling, editors: Salon Fantastique
  28. Tim Powers: Last Call
  29. Liz Williams: Snake Agent
  30. Peter Watts: Maelstrom
  31. Charles Stross: The Atrocity Archives
  32. James Rollins: Amazonia
  33. Chris Roberson: Paragea
  34. Ramsey Campbell: Midnight Sun
  35. John Klima, editor: Logorrhea
  36. Tim Pratt: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl
  37. Elizabeth Bear: Blood and Iron
  38. Tim Pratt: Little Gods
  39. Brandon Sanderson: Elantris
  40. Sarah Langan: The Keeper
  41. Theodora Goss: In the Forest of Forgetting
  42. John Wright: Fugitives of Chaos
  43. Jay Lake: Trial of Flowers
  44. Sarah Monette: Melusine
  45. Joe Abercrombie: The Blade Itself
  46. Alfred Bester: The Stars my Destination
  47. Barry Hughart: Bridge of Birds
  48. Tobias Buckell: Crystain Rain
  49. Richard Garfinkle: Celestial Matters
  50. Patrick o'Leary: The Gift

Update: Seven books I started reading but couldn't finish due to one thing or another. These are:

  1. Justina Robson: Keeping it Real
  2. Thomas Wheeler: The Arcanum
  3. Terry Pratchett: Small Gods
  4. J. Gregory Keyes: Newton's Cannon
  5. Chris Wooding: The Weavers of Saramyr
  6. Kevin Brockmeier: Things That Fall from the Sky
  7. Ray Vukcevich: Meet Me in the Moon Room

These last books are important for me to note since it seems as I grow older and my reading time slows down, I start to feel unforgiving about what I'm reading. Thus, if I feel like I'm not getting anywhere with a certain book, I'm done with it.

(Another point to remember: that's 7 books I've listed that were un-finishable but I know there were a handful or even more that I wasn't able to finish. A look at my book bin will confirm and update this.)

Ah well, that's age for you.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

oh wow... and you say your reading time has slowed this year?

Jego said...

slightly off-topic. Via Manuel L. Quezon III's blog and via Wow Pare is this from the Inquirer.

What is the most popular book read (outside of school) by Filipinos? No, it is not Harry Potter, but the Bible. According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).

Science (I assume, not fiction), and horror and suspense also figured prominently, the article said.

Don said...

I'm interested in the Brockheimer book. Ya wanna sell it to me?

:D

dodo dayao said...

This is a slow year,banzai? I'd be happy to get past half the number of books on your list. :) Good run, man. Next time we bump into each other near alcohol,let me buy you a beer!

banzai cat said...

tessa: Hehe thanks. Yep. For example, this December I've only finished one book, alas, and it's already mid-month.

jego: No surprise there. We were giving out bookmarks at a recent balikbayan fair in market!market! and one kid wanted two bookmarks because they had two bibles at home. *shrugs*

don: Sure. :-) Email or text me.

dodo: Hahaha! Yeah, and I'll buy you one also! ;-)