?

Previous Entry | Next Entry

What to read next year?

In the last couple of years I've been tremendously helped by the start-of-year poll asking which books from my unread shelf you all have read. I guess my logic for this is that I basically trust the literary judgement of my friends and other readers, and am interested to know what in particular from my sagging shelves I might look at next. (I also have been using two other mechanisms for choosing in each of the three categories below, popularity among LibraryThing users and longevity on my shelves). So I will once again be grateful to any and all who fill in this poll.

Apologies in advance to editors listed below as authors, or co-authors and co-editors whose names are omitted; this is scraped from my LibraryThing catalogue so some important details do get lost. Any miscategorisation, however, is entirely my fault and cannot be blamed on software.

This poll is closed.

Which of these 122 sf works have you read?

Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast Trilogy
39(5.8%)
Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne
25(3.7%)
Alastair Reynolds: Chasm City
8(1.2%)
Nora Roberts: Heart of the Sea
4(0.6%)
Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
12(1.8%)
Jacqueline Carey: Kushiel's Justice
5(0.7%)
Christopher Tolkien: The Lays of Beleriand
7(1.0%)
Eric Flint: 1632
11(1.6%)
Robert Holdstock: Mythago Wood
22(3.3%)
Tim Powers: Last Call
19(2.8%)
Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher, And Other Stories
38(5.6%)
Lori Handeland: Any Given Doomsday
2(0.3%)
Christopher Tolkien: The Shaping of Middle-earth
8(1.2%)
J. R. R. Tolkien: Letters from Father Christmas
15(2.2%)
Philippa Pearce: Tom's Midnight Garden
29(4.3%)
Jacqueline Carey: Kushiel's Mercy
4(0.6%)
China Mieville: Looking for Jake and Other Stories
12(1.8%)
Eoin Colfer: And Another Thing ...
4(0.6%)
Lois Mcmaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife: Passage
18(2.7%)
Muhsin Mahdi: The Arabian Nights
3(0.4%)
Terry Pratchett: I Shall Wear Midnight
17(2.5%)
Maureen F. McHugh: China Mountain Zhang
21(3.1%)
Alastair Reynolds: Galactic North
9(1.3%)
Iain Banks: Transition
14(2.1%)
Paul Park: A Princess of Roumania
6(0.9%)
J.R.R. Tolkien: Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun
3(0.4%)
Selma Lagerlof: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
7(1.0%)
Lois Mcmaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife: Horizon
15(2.2%)
Jacqueline Carey: Godslayer
2(0.3%)
Elizabeth Hand: Waking the Moon
10(1.5%)
Ysabeau S. Wilce: Flora Segunda
14(2.1%)
John Updike: Toward the End of Time
1(0.1%)
Lisa Carey: The Mermaids Singing
1(0.1%)
Katherine Kurtz: Dagger Magic
4(0.6%)
Ursula Le Guin: Powers
9(1.3%)
Peter Dickinson: Eva
7(1.0%)
Lucy Hawking: George's Secret Key to the Universe
0(0.0%)
Jo Walton: Ha'penny
15(2.2%)
Clifford D. Simak: Shakespeare's Planet
5(0.7%)
Greg Bear: City at the End of Time
4(0.6%)
Jack McDevitt: Cauldron
1(0.1%)
Poul Anderson: There Will be Time
10(1.5%)
James Tiptree: Up the Walls of the World
11(1.6%)
Ismail Kadare: The Palace of Dreams
1(0.1%)
Robert Silverberg: Thorns
8(1.2%)
Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction 24 (2007)
4(0.6%)
Kim Stanley Robinson: Galileo's Dream
1(0.1%)
Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction 25 (2008)
2(0.3%)
Bill Willingham: Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover
4(0.6%)
Molly Gloss: Wild Life
3(0.4%)
Ian Mcdonald: Cyberabad Days
7(1.0%)
C.E. Murphy: The Queen's Bastard
4(0.6%)
Cornelia Funke: When Santa Fell to Earth
0(0.0%)
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough: The Godmother's Apprentice
3(0.4%)
Marcel Theroux: Far North
4(0.6%)
Jack London: Star Rover
0(0.0%)
Diana Wynne Jones: Stopping for a Spell
11(1.6%)
Theodore Roszak: The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein
0(0.0%)
Gwyneth Jones: White Queen
11(1.6%)
Geronimo Stilton: De piraten van de Zilveren Kattenklauw
0(0.0%)
Gillian Cross: The Demon Headmaster
13(1.9%)
Jo Walton: Half a Crown
13(1.9%)
Kage Baker: The Empress of Mars
1(0.1%)
George Mann: The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 2007
1(0.1%)
Suzy McKee Charnas: Motherlines
7(1.0%)
Andrew M. Greeley: The Magic Cup
3(0.4%)
Guy de Maupassant: Contes Fantastiques Complets
2(0.3%)
David G. Hartwell: Year's Best SF 12 (2007)
2(0.3%)
Ian Watson: The Jonah Kit
5(0.7%)
Ian Watson: The Martian Inca
7(1.0%)
David Marusek: Mind Over Ship
2(0.3%)
Clamp: RG Veda Volume 3
2(0.3%)
Fumi Yoshinaga: Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 2
3(0.4%)
Charles Sheffield: Putting up Roots
0(0.0%)
Brian Aldiss: Moment of Eclipse
0(0.0%)
Gwyneth Jones: North Wind
3(0.4%)
Ian McDonald: Speaking in Tongues
6(0.9%)
Richard Burton, Sir: Tales from the Arabian Nights
6(0.9%)
Paul Hazel: Yearwood
1(0.1%)
Ian Watson: Miracle Visitors
4(0.6%)
Lucy Hawking: George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt
0(0.0%)
Charles Coleman Finlay: The Prodigal Troll
0(0.0%)
Gwyneth Jones: Phoenix Cafe
5(0.7%)
Alan E Nourse: The Universe Between
4(0.6%)
James Patrick Kelly: The Secret History of Science Fiction
1(0.1%)
Terry Carr: The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4
3(0.4%)
Juliet E. McKenna: Western Shore
1(0.1%)
Kingsley Amis: Spectrum: A Science Fiction Anthology: No. 4
5(0.7%)
Morgan Llywelyn: Irish Magic II
2(0.3%)
Roger Zelazny: This Mortal Mountain - Volume 3: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny
2(0.3%)
Peter Haining: Irish Tales of Terror
0(0.0%)
Christopher Evans & Robert Holdstock: Other Edens: No. 1
4(0.6%)
Valerius Flaccus: Argonautica
0(0.0%)
Roger Zelazny: Last Exit to Babylon - Volume 4: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny
3(0.4%)
Rich Horton: Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2007
1(0.1%)
Paul Brandon: The Wild Reel
0(0.0%)
Gwyneth Jones: Spirit
6(0.9%)
Charles Barnitz: The Deepest Sea
0(0.0%)
The Mahabharata
5(0.7%)
Colin Harvey: Winter Song
2(0.3%)
John Clute: 2nd Interzone Anthology
2(0.3%)
Mike McCormack: Crowe's Requiem
0(0.0%)
Editors of Playboy: Transit of Earth
1(0.1%)
Jerry Sohl: The Time Dissolver
0(0.0%)
Peter Emshwiller: The Host
1(0.1%)
Christopher Evans & Robert Holdstock: Other Edens: No. 2
3(0.4%)
Ian Watson: Oracle
1(0.1%)
James Weldon Johnson: Daystar and Shadow
0(0.0%)
Rich Horton: The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010
1(0.1%)
Shaun Hutson: Hybrid
0(0.0%)
Charles Ryan: Starry messenger: The best of Galileo
0(0.0%)
Michael Armstrong: The Hidden War
0(0.0%)
Blaine Anderson: Heartspell
0(0.0%)
Brian Hayles: Moon Stallion
2(0.3%)
Joyce A. Tyldesley: Stories from Ancient Egypt
1(0.1%)
Rebecca Levene: Anno Mortis
0(0.0%)
Lucian of Samosata: Trips to the Moon
0(0.0%)
Sara Maitland: Far North & Other Dark Tales
1(0.1%)
Paul Kincaid: British Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twenty Years, Two Surveys
4(0.6%)
Gerald Whelan: Out of Nowhere
0(0.0%)
Joann Sfar: Le Chat du Rabbin, Tome 1 :
0(0.0%)
Simon Petrie: Rare Unsigned Copy
0(0.0%)

Which of these 82 non-sf works of fiction have you read?

Jostein Gaarder: Sophie's World
28(4.4%)
Mary Ann Shaffer: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
8(1.2%)
Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain
16(2.5%)
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
16(2.5%)
Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot
18(2.8%)
Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
8(1.2%)
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
19(3.0%)
D. H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover
36(5.6%)
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin
22(3.4%)
F.Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night
9(1.4%)
Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe
26(4.1%)
D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
20(3.1%)
Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron
24(3.8%)
Stendhal: The Red and the Black
12(1.9%)
Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones
20(3.1%)
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
56(8.8%)
Franz Kafka: The Castle
17(2.7%)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
13(2.0%)
Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders
17(2.7%)
Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky: The Devils
7(1.1%)
DBC Pierre: Vernon God Little
8(1.2%)
Marilynne Robinson: Housekeeping
3(0.5%)
Tracy Chevalier: The Lady and the Unicorn
2(0.3%)
Honore Balzac: Old Goriot
9(1.4%)
Thomas Mann: Death in Venice
15(2.3%)
Meg Cabot: The Princess Diaries
16(2.5%)
Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks
5(0.8%)
Katherine Paterson: Jacob Have I Loved
11(1.7%)
Henry James: Washington Square
6(0.9%)
Pat Conroy: Beach Music
2(0.3%)
Knut Hamsun: Hunger
3(0.5%)
Gustave Flaubert: A Sentimental Education
5(0.8%)
Rumi: Essential Rumi
0(0.0%)
Charles Lamb: Tales of Shakespeare
15(2.3%)
Patrick O'Brian: Desolation Island
17(2.7%)
Leo Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
6(0.9%)
Cynthia Lord: Rules
1(0.2%)
Italo Svevo: Confession of Zeno
2(0.3%)
Nikos Kazantzakis: Zorba the Greek
3(0.5%)
Kate Grenville: The Secret River
1(0.2%)
Ernest Hemingway: Islands In The Stream
3(0.5%)
Charlotte Bronte: The Professor
10(1.6%)
Marilynne Robinson: Home
1(0.2%)
Halldor Laxness: Independent People
0(0.0%)
Michelle Magorian: Goodnight Mister Tom
17(2.7%)
Mika Waltari: The Egyptian
4(0.6%)
Luther Blissett: Q
2(0.3%)
Ernest Hemingway: Across the River and into the Trees
1(0.2%)
Dorothy Dunnett: Niccolo Rising
13(2.0%)
Anita Shreve: Resistance
1(0.2%)
Aldous Huxley: Eyeless in Gaza
9(1.4%)
Siri Hustvedt: The Sorrows of an American
0(0.0%)
The Onion: The Onion's Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth
6(0.9%)
Alan Hollinghurst: The Folding Star
1(0.2%)
Dorothy Dunnett: The Spring of the Ram
11(1.7%)
Ian Rankin: A Good Hanging and other stories
4(0.6%)
Herta Muller: Land of Green Plums
1(0.2%)
Rudyard Kipling: The Light That Failed
7(1.1%)
Willem Elsschot: Cheese
2(0.3%)
Joanna Trollope: Brother and Sister
1(0.2%)
J. M. G. Le Clezio: Desert
1(0.2%)
Scott Adams: Lichaamstaal wordt banaal (When Body Language Goes Bad)
0(0.0%)
Tove Jansson: The True Deceiver
1(0.2%)
Jacqueline Wilson: Girls in Love
5(0.8%)
Roald Dahl: Rhyme Stew
4(0.6%)
Mitali Perkins: The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen
0(0.0%)
Freya North: Home Truths
1(0.2%)
Bessie Head: Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales
0(0.0%)
Jane Haddam: Quoth the Raven
1(0.2%)
Jef Geeraerts: The Public Prosecutor
1(0.2%)
Jane Haddam: Dear Old Dead
1(0.2%)
Andrew M. Greeley: Wages of Sin
2(0.3%)
Heinrich Boll: Children are Civilians Too
0(0.0%)
Luis Leante: See How Much I Love You
0(0.0%)
Dennis Pepper: The Oxford Book of Christmas Stories
1(0.2%)
Gaius Valerius Catullus: From Bed to Bed
3(0.5%)
Sibylline: Eerste keer
0(0.0%)
Barbara Stok: Barbaraal tot op het bot
0(0.0%)
Joann Sfar: Le Chat du Rabbin, Tome 1
1(0.2%)
Anton Chekhov: The Undiscovered Chekhov
0(0.0%)
David Walliams: Billionaire Boy
2(0.3%)
Maureen O'Brien: Every Step You Take
0(0.0%)

And which of these 92 non-fiction books have you read?

Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War
19(17.6%)
Frederick Douglass: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
11(10.2%)
Stephen Jay Gould: Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
5(4.6%)
Mark Halperin: Race of a Lifetime
0(0.0%)
Maryanne Wolf: Proust and the Squid
0(0.0%)
Karen Armstrong: The Bible: The Biography
3(2.8%)
Stephen Jay Gould: Questioning the Millennium.
8(7.4%)
Ammon Shea: Reading the Oxford English Dictionary
2(1.9%)
Gunter Grass: Peeling the Onion
1(0.9%)
Diarmaid MacCulloch: A History of Christianity
0(0.0%)
M. I. Finley: The Portable Greek Historians
2(1.9%)
Graham Farmelo: The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
0(0.0%)
Joanna Russ: How to Suppress Women's Writing
18(16.7%)
John E. Wills: 1688: A Global History
0(0.0%)
Katherine Ashenburg: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing
2(1.9%)
Ronald Hutton: Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
1(0.9%)
Michael Ignatieff: Isaiah Berlin: A Life
0(0.0%)
Kate Adie: The Kindness of Strangers
0(0.0%)
David Day: A Guide to Tolkien
2(1.9%)
Van Wyck Brooks: The Flowering of New England-1815-1865
1(0.9%)
Lyn Davies: A is for Ox
0(0.0%)
Jane Hirshfield: Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry
0(0.0%)
Sara Maitland: A Book of Silence
0(0.0%)
John D. Rateliff: The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins v. 1
0(0.0%)
Philip Mansel: Constantinople
0(0.0%)
Van Wyck Brooks: The World of Washington Irving
0(0.0%)
Christopher Chabris: The Invisible Gorilla
0(0.0%)
Ian Rankin: Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey
1(0.9%)
John Rateliff: The History of the Hobbit: Return to Bag-End v. 2
0(0.0%)
Brigid Keenan: Diplomatic Baggage
1(0.9%)
Anne Chambers: Granuaile
0(0.0%)
Neil D. Isaacs: Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism
0(0.0%)
Diagram Group: How to Hold a Crocodile
0(0.0%)
Ruth Padel: 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem
1(0.9%)
Stuart Maconie: Adventures on the High Teas: In Search of Middle England
0(0.0%)
J. B. Black: The Reign of Elizabeth 1556-1603
1(0.9%)
C. Haigh: Elizabeth I
0(0.0%)
Richard Berleth: The Twilight Lords
0(0.0%)
James Long: The Plot Against Pepys
0(0.0%)
Lynne M. Thomas: Chicks Dig Time Lords
5(4.6%)
Julia Keay: Alexander the Corrector
0(0.0%)
Michael White: Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction
0(0.0%)
Christopher Haigh: The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland
0(0.0%)
Sean O'Faolain: The Great O'Neill
1(0.9%)
Dave Rogers: Prisoner
0(0.0%)
Adam Jacot de Boinod: Toujours Tingo
0(0.0%)
Joseph Perez: History of the Spanish Inquisition
0(0.0%)
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: A History of Anthropology
1(0.9%)
Stephen Baxter: Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time
0(0.0%)
Daniel Jaffee: Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival
0(0.0%)
Farah Mendlesohn: Diana Wynne Jones
3(2.8%)
Mary Wollstonecraft: The Rights of Woman - and - On The Subjection of Women (Everyman's Library No. 825)
9(8.3%)
Ian Hislop: Private Eye Annual 2008
2(1.9%)
Roger D. Woodard: The Ancient Languages of Europe
0(0.0%)
Daria Price Bowman: Presentations
0(0.0%)
Anthony Giddens: Politics of Climate Change
1(0.9%)
Nicholas Canny: Making Ireland British 1580-1650
0(0.0%)
Cyril Falls: Elizabeth's Irish Wars
0(0.0%)
Brian M. Fagan: The Complete Ice Age
0(0.0%)
William Leith: Bits of Me are Falling Apart: Dark Thoughts from the Middle Years
0(0.0%)
Judith Cook: Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O'Malley, 1530-1603
0(0.0%)
Alison Plowden: Elizabeth I
1(0.9%)
John Pinder: European Community: The Building of a Union
0(0.0%)
Stuart Murray: Representing Autism
0(0.0%)
Michael Grosvenor: Green Living for Dummies
0(0.0%)
Paul Kincaid: British Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twenty Years, Two Surveys
3(2.8%)
T. W. Moody: A New History of Ireland, Volume III: Early Modern Ireland 1534-1691: Early Modern Ireland 1534-1691 v. 3
0(0.0%)
Ciaran Brady: Interpreting Irish History: The Debate on Historical Revisionism 1938-1994
0(0.0%)
Vince Cable: Free Radical
0(0.0%)
Rosamond McKitterick: Edward Gibbon and Empire
0(0.0%)
Stephen Schwartz: The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony
0(0.0%)
Jeffrey Mazo: Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it
0(0.0%)
Brian Lunn: The Charm of Belgium
1(0.9%)
Constance Wright: Fanny Kemble and the lovely land
0(0.0%)
Peter C. Bayley: Spenser's The Faerie Queen - A Selection of Critical Essays
2(1.9%)
Anna Robertson: No Going Back To Moldova
0(0.0%)
Charles-James N. Bailey: Essays on Time-based Linguistic Analysis
0(0.0%)
Graham Watson: Liberal Language: Speeches and Essays 1998-2003
0(0.0%)
Janusz Bugajski: Expanding Eurasia
0(0.0%)
Karin Arts: International Law and the Question of Western Sahara
0(0.0%)
Alexandros Lordos: A People's Peace for Cyprus
0(0.0%)
Costas M. Constantinou: On the Way to Diplomacy
0(0.0%)
Twigs Way: Virgins, Weeders and Queens: A History of Women in the Garden
0(0.0%)
Laura Raynolds: Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization
0(0.0%)
Graham Watson: The Case for Global Democracy: Advocating a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly
0(0.0%)
BBC Northern Ireland: Legacy: A Collection of Personal Testimonies from People Affected by the Troubles in Northern Ireland
0(0.0%)
Patrick J. Devlieger: Between structure and No-thing: An annotated reader in Social and Cultural Anthropology
0(0.0%)
Michalis Stavrou Michael: Resolving the Cyprus Conflict: Negotiating History
0(0.0%)
Richard Werly: Travel Green Thailand: An ecotourism journey
0(0.0%)
Maurna Crozier: What Made Now in Northern Ireland
0(0.0%)
Twigs Way: A Crocodile in the Fernery: An A-Z of Animals in the Garden
0(0.0%)
Brendan Bradshaw: The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century
0(0.0%)


As ever, particular recommendations of what to read (or avoid) very welcome in comments.

Comments

( 39 comments — Leave a comment )
Page 1 of 3
<<[1] [2] [3] >>
girfan
Dec. 30th, 2010 12:59 pm (UTC)
I ticked Castle of Otranto but don't recommend it. It was a book club selection that I really disliked.
bellinghman
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:04 pm (UTC)
You have presumably read Jo Walton's Farthing, so Ha'Penny and Half a Crown should be pushing themselves to the front.

(And I did like Queen's Bastard. mizkit getting an almost GGK voice.)
communicator
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:17 pm (UTC)
China Mountain Zhang and Goodnight Mr Tom are my recommendations from that list - humane books
mscongeniality
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:17 pm (UTC)
There's a lot more of those books on my 'To be Read' pile than I've actually read. There are few enough of them, so here's my thoughts on the ones I checked:

Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne Not his best, but a decent historical fantasy.

Fumi Yoshinaga: Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 2 I love this series and cannot recommend the available volumes enough. I think Volumes 2-3 were awesome. Vol 4 was also excellent, but had a slightly different focus.

Editors of Playboy: Transit of Earth As with any short story collection, a mixed bag. I really did enjoy this over all, possibly more than I was expecting for such a slim collection, and it was a great reminder that Playboy used to publish the best science fiction.

Peter Emshwiller: The Host Not a great book, but there were some interesting ideas in there.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin Excels as abolitionist propaganda but for me, a bit less successful as a novel. I think it was mainly because I tire of getting preached to very easily. It is, on the other hand, entirely worth reading.

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes I've recently picked this back up and been making my way through it again in between other things. My father is also re-reading it for the first time in years. Definitely worth the time.

Katherine Paterson: Jacob Have I Loved I was probably 13 or 14 when I read this and remember it as being dark and melodramatic. I don't know if it actually is those things, or if it's worth reading as an adult.

Frederick Douglass: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Probably the best of the slave narratives that I've read, certainly the one with the most authentic authorial voice.
strange_complex
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:18 pm (UTC)
I read and reviewed The House of the Seven Gables a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it. Otherwise, I've read so few of these that I can't really help very much I'm afraid!
sunnytyler001
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:18 pm (UTC)
Old Goriot is a pure work of art... but SO SAD! :(
(Deleted comment)
bibliofile
Jan. 13th, 2011 12:51 pm (UTC)
I've started Galileo's Dream but didn't finish it, possibly because I was hoping for more SF and less historical (a time traveler visits Galileo and drops lots of hints). I intend to go back to it, though.

seawasp
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:26 pm (UTC)
I haven't read hardly anything new since 2003 -- when I became a writer, officially.

Of the few I ticked, I've read everything by Kafka because I had to proof an edition of his complete works (with commentary), and if you're looking for something depressing and hopeless, he's your man. I personally would rather watch the Star Wars Holiday Special again than go through that.

1632 was great fun, and so was its first sequel; I haven't had the time to read the continuations.

Mythago Wood simply failed to grab me. I think I got about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through and said the Eight Deadly Words and shut the book. I remember almost nothing else about it, which is fairly unusual for me.

I've read and loved Holmes since I was a little kid; I in fact read the complete Sherlock Holmes stories to my son as bedtime stories when he was about 9 or so.
bellinghman
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:34 pm (UTC)
I thought 1632 was great fun, and 1633 was OK. I'm not particularly grabbed by the thought of reading the rest of the series. I imagine they've fallen into the trap that each book needs to cover a year, no more, no less, which can be problematic. (c.f Harry Potter.)
(no subject) - seawasp - Dec. 30th, 2010 02:41 pm (UTC) - Expand
(no subject) - bellinghman - Dec. 30th, 2010 03:14 pm (UTC) - Expand
(Deleted comment)
(no subject) - seawasp - Dec. 30th, 2010 02:44 pm (UTC) - Expand
rmc28
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:30 pm (UTC)
I ticked the Gormenghast trilogy but didn't like it much (was lent it by a young man I rather liked at school), and have never felt any inclination to reread it.

I enjoyed the Jacqueline Carey Banewreaker/Godslayer duo very much; I assume you have already read Banewreaker. I only discovered Carey this year (the first Kushiel trilogy) and have been working my way through the library stock.

Tom's Midnight Garden was a childhood favourite but I've not read it in 20 years.
raycun
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:39 pm (UTC)
I'd recommend Gormenghast and China Mountain Zhang, definitely.
Powers is ... I don't quite want to say minor Le Guin. Events are on a smaller scale than in some of her other books, and this is obviously deliberate. Does this mean the stories have less impact?
Invisible Man and Thucydides I find hard to rate. They are exactly what they are.
Thorns and Uncle Tom's Cabin I read too long ago to remember much of.
Vernon God Little I hated, threw it against the wall in record time.
chickenfeet2003
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:40 pm (UTC)
I really enjoyed The Mahabharata
chess
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:44 pm (UTC)
The Demon Headmaster is very definitely a children's book but I still remember it (and the rest of the series) fondly.
nickbarnes
Dec. 30th, 2010 01:59 pm (UTC)
I ticked a number of not-particularly-good books in this poll.

My recommendation, as always, is to read O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books.

Happy New Year!
marnanel
Dec. 30th, 2010 02:28 pm (UTC)
This sort of poll always makes me feel the very reverse of well-read. :(
kulfuldi
Dec. 30th, 2010 02:29 pm (UTC)
Of the very few I've read,I particularly recommend the Decameron (surprisingly entertaining and readable, though a little bit repetitive in the end) and The Devils, and I unrecommend The Idiot (for me, Dostoyevsky is either absolutely amazing or really awful, and this is the latter - though I know there are those who love it) and Death in Venice (only grim determination made me finish, and it's short). Also, I liked 'Diplomatic Baggage' - should be required reading for diplomats, and I'm sure you know the husband.
steve_mollmann
Dec. 30th, 2010 02:57 pm (UTC)
My only comment is that Buddenbrooks was my favorite novel of my teenage years, and rereading it as an adult showed me that I was entirely justified in that claim. I'd reread it every year if I had the time.
Page 1 of 3
<<[1] [2] [3] >>
( 39 comments — Leave a comment )

Latest Month

April 2023
S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Tags