SF:
"Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett
"A Second Chance at Eden" by Peter F. Hamilton
"The Hope" James Lovegrove
"The Heaven Makers" by Frank Herbert
"Limit of Vision" by Linda Nagata
"Archer's Goon" by Diana Wynne Jones
"Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman" by Walter M. Miller
"A Mirror for Observers" by Edgar Pangborn
"Reality Dust" by Stephen Baxter/"Making History" by Paul J. McAuley.
"The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
"Nova" by Samuel R. Delany
"Probability Moon" by Nancy Kress
"Fatherland" by Thomas Harris
"The Ogre Downstairs" by Diana Wynne Jones
"The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" by Terry Pratchett
"Penumbra" by Eric Brown
"A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge
"Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman
"Watching Trees Grow"/ "Tendeléo's Story"
"Power of Three" by Diana Wynne Jones
"Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm
"Walk in Hell" by Harry Turtledove
"Hexwood" by Diana Wynne Jones
"Who Censored Roger Rabbit" by Gary Wolf
"Silverheart" by Michael Moorcock, Storm Constantine
"Smoke and Mirrors" by Neil Gaiman
"Forever Free" by Joe Haldeman
"The Last Hero" by Terry Pratchett
"Manifold: Origin" by Stephen Baxter
"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville
"Web Site Story" by Robert Rankin
"A Deepness In The Sky" by Vernor Vinge
"The Phoenix and the Carpet" by E. Nesbit
"Silmarillion" by Tolkien
"Schild's Ladder" by Greg Egan
"Year of the Griffin" by Diana Wynne Jones
"Wild Cards" (re-read series edited by George R.R. Martin)
"The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant", by Stephen Donaldson (re-read series)
"A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
"On" by Adam Roberts
"The Colour of Magic" by Terry Pratchett
"The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad
"Fevre Dream" by George R.R. Martin
NON-SF FICTION:
"Bad Chili" by Joe Lansdale
"If Not Now, When?" by Primo Levi
"Porno" by Irvine Welsh
"The Man Who Fought Alone" by Stephen Donaldson/Reed Stephens
"Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
"The Man Who Killed His Brother" by Stephen Donaldson/Reed Stephens
"Enigma" by Robert Harris
"Archangel" by Robert Harris
"Canteen Culture"by Ike Eze-anyika
"Dulcie Goes Native" by Sue Limb
"Alexander at the World's End" by Tom Holt
"Bridge on the River Kwai" by Pierre Boulle
"The Man Who Tried to Get Away" by Stephen Donaldson/Reed Stephens
"Olympiad" by Tom Holt.
"The Bottoms" by Joe Lansdale
"Three Men on the Bummel" by Jerome K. Jerome
"Bone in the Throat" by Antony de Bourdain
BIOGRAPHY:
"Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld"
"Paul: the Mind of the Apostle" by A.N. Wilson
"Ho Chi Minh : Legend of Hanoi"
"The Shah's Last Ride" by William Shawcross
"The Bride of Science: a Life of Ada Lovelace"
"My Name Escapes Me" by Alec Guinness
"Savage: the Life and Times of Jemmy Button"
"Harry Houdini"
"Alec Guinness: Master of Disguise" by Garry O'Connor
"Blessings in Disguise" by Alec Guinness
"Summer of a Dormouse" by John Mortimer
"Churchill"
"The Lost Boy" by Dave Pelzer
"Spitfire on my Tail" by Ulrich Steinhilper
"I Knew I Was Right" by Julie Burchill
"A Positively Final Appearance" by Alec Guinness
NON-FICTION:
"The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible"
"Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee
"Bad Land" by Jonathon Raban
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weight Training"
"It Ain't Necessarily So" by Richard Lewontin
"The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age"
"The Mystery of Capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else"
"Studying Poetry"
"1700: Scenes From London Life"
"Rebuilding the Matrix" by Denis Alexander
"How Wars End" by A.J.P. Taylor
"The Second World War" by John Keegan
"Stoics Without Pillows : A Way Forward for the Somalilands" by John Drysdale
"Black Hawk Down"
"A Blood-Dimmed Tide: Dispatches from the Middle East" by Amos Elon
"The Korean War" by Max Hastings
"Afghanistan: Inside a Rebel Stronghold" by Mike Martin
"The Last Camel: True Stories of Somalia" by Jaime D'Haem
"Origins of the Second World War" by A.J.P. Taylor
"Philosophy of Religion" by Mel Thompson
GRAPHIC NOVELS:
"Skizz" written by Alan Moore, drawn by Jim Baikie.
"Maus 1" by Art Spiegelman.
"Ethel and Ernest: a true story" by Raymond Briggs
"Batgirl: a Knight Alone" by Kelley Puckett
ABANDONED BOOKS (MISC):
"The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro
"Jung and Tarot"
"Truth Vibrations: From TV Celebrity to World Visionary" by David Icke
"Byzantium: the Imperial Centuries"
"The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History" by Erik Durschmied.
"Life's Lottery" by Kim Newman
"The Week France Fell"
"The Last Jet-Engine Laugh"
Thoughts
Got most of these by going back through my "What I'm Reading"
diaries for this year. Added a few more by hand: probably a
few still missing.
It's about what I expected. I thought there'd be a bit less SF / Fantasy: a lot of those books are either very short, fast reads or re-reads, so it feels like less.
Abandoned books: the only one I feel I ought to have persevered with is "Byzantium: the Imperial Centuries". Most of the others were library books I picked up on impulse. I like the way libraries let you experiment with new areas like that.
This might seem a lot of books, but I don't have a job right now, so I've got time to read like I used to. Also I don't play computer games and only watch a few hours TV per week. Plus I read pretty fast. It's annoying watching Futurama or the Simpsons with flatmates now, whenever some funny text flashes past they ask me to repeat it. No, I don't "speed-read". Reading is like mental arithmetic (which I'm utterly crap at) in that some people are just able to do it both faster and more accurately than others. Life is unfair that way.
The Best
Best of the bunch then...
SF: two explosively brilliant books; the lyrical "Nova" by Samuel R. Delany, and the virtuoso hard-SF masterpiece "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge.
Fiction: The cynical, gritty, touching "Alexander at the World's End" by Tom Holt. "Remains of the Day" we all know about.
Biography: "Savage: the Life and Times of Jemmy Button", "Spitfire on my Tail" by Ulrich Steinhilper; both of which take you into familiar areas from a strange new angle.
Non-fiction: "The Mystery of Capital..." is a brilliantly insightful discussion of the failures of capitalism in the third world, which everyone with a vote ought to read. "The Korean War" by Max Hastings is an incisive, even-handed study of a conflict everyone would love to forget.
Comic: the best one is "Ethel and Ernest: a true story", Raymond Briggs's extraordinarily moving biography of his very ordinary parents.
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