Reading lists, second half of 2010

1. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
2. Visions of Wonder edited by David G. Hartwell
3. Thunderbirds Bumper Storybook by Dave Morris
4. Analog vol 6 edited by John W Campbell
5. Earth Logic by Laurie J. Marks

b) unread sf in order of LibraryThing popularity - this expanded in the course of buying a few books that sneaked to the top of the list, and brought me thus to Reaper Man, The Wee Free Men, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, Quidditch Through the Ages (again), The Wandering Fire, The Darkest Road, and Kushiel's Scion. Next up are:

0. Faust, by Goethe - rather struggling with this one at present
1. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (God help me!)
2. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
3. The Book of Lost Tales 1 by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. Heart of the Sea by Nora Roberts
5. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

1. Diaspora by Greg Egan
2. A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane
3. Ten Thousand Light Years From Home by James Tiptree Jr
4. The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (again)

1. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
2. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
3. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
4. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
5. The Onion's Our Dumb World: 73rd Edition: Atlas of the Planet Earth

e) unread non-sf fiction, in order of LibraryThing popularity - this brought me A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Book Thief, My Sister's Keeper, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Mansfield Park was also on the list but higher up list f). Next up are:

1. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (again)
2. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
3. The Dubliners by James Joyce
4. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
5. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

0. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
1. The Dubliners by James Joyce (again)
2. Silas Marner by George Eliot
3. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
4. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
5. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

1. Faith in Europe? by Bob Geldof et al
2. The Great Tradition by F.R. Leavis
3. The Case for Global Democracy: Advocating a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly by Graham Watson et al
4. The Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens by Deborah Cadbury
5. Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass

h) unread non-fiction, in order of LibraryThing popularity - brought me The Origin of Species, Dreams from My Father, The Koran and On the Nature of the Universe. Next are:

0. The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
1. The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
3. Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould
4. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
5. Race of a Lifetime, by Mark Halperin

1. Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia by David Day
2. The IRA: A History by Tim Pat Coogan
3. Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North by Stuart Maconie
4. Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain by Ronald Hutton
5. The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker (again)

1. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
4. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

1. A Fire upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
   (Doomsday Book reviewed here)
2. Green Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson (will probably reread Red Mars first)
3. Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
4. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
5. Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

0. Highest Science by Gareth Roberts
1. The Pit by Neil Penswick
2. Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans
3. Lucifer Rising by Andy Lane
4. White Darkness by David McIntee
5. Shadowmind by Christopher Bulis

1. Longest Day by Mike Collier
2. Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel
3. Dreamstone Moon by Paul Leonard
4. Seeing I by Jonathan Blum
5. The Placebo Effect by Gary Russell

n) other unread Doctor Who books, in order of LibraryThing popularity - got me Wooden Heart, The Pirate Loop, Forever Autumn, Wetworld and Sick Building. Next are:

1. Wishing Well by Trevor Baxendale
2. Martha In The Mirror by Justin Richards
3. The Story of Martha by Dan Abnett
4. The Many Hands by Dale Smith
5. Short Trips ed by Stephen Cole

0. Dead Souls
1. Set in Darkness
2. The Falls
3. Resurrection Men
4. A Question of Blood
5. Fleshmarket Close

1. Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
2. With the Light... Vol 2 by Keiko Tobe
3. Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
4. With the Light... Vol. 3 by Keiko Tobe
5. The Mahabharata

1. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton
2. For Noble Purposes: The Autobiography of Richard Porter, Surgeon and Evangelist by William Porter
3. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
4. A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
5. Brave New Kosovo: A World of Transformation and Imagination by Dirk-Jan Visser

1. Unfinest Hour by Brendan Simms
2. Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict edited by Mark Anstey
3. Garden Designer by Robin Williams
4. Science and the Garden: The Scientific Basis of Horticultural Practice edited by David S. Ingram, Daphne Vince-Prue and Peter J. Gregory
5. The Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge

I'm going to add three more reading lists, one of which won't start for a couple of months.

s) Most recently acquired books by women (retrospectively edited). Obviously this gets revised every time I acquire a book by a woman, but for the moment the most recent such additions to the bookshelf are:
 

1. The King's Dragon by Una McCormack
2. Every Step You Take by Maureen O'Brien
3. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
4. Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing by Katherine Ashenburg
5. Chicks Dig Time Lords edited by Tara O'Shea and Lynne Thomas

1. The Book of Lost Tales 1
2. The Book of Lost Tales 2
3. The Lays of Beleriand
4. The Shaping of Middle-earth
5. The Lost Road and Other Writings

u) Books on the Elizabethan period, probably in order of acquisition, which would be:

1. A Viceroy's Vindication? Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of Service in Ireland, 1556-78
2. Shakespeare Handbook by Robert Maslen
3. Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1447-1603: English Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule (2nd Edition) by Steven G. Ellis
4. Mistress Blanche: Queen Elizabeth I's Confidante by Ruth E. Richardson
5. Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History by Lytton Strachey