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02 January 2009
What is/was/will be your first book of 2009? →[More:]
I wasn't too fond of my first, The Archivist, but I'm very much enjoying The Gargoyle at about a third of the way through.
Well, I finished Farthing yesterday (enjoyed it immensely. It was perfect for reading in the ski lodge while everyone else was still going up and down) and will start Ghost Map today.
I'm reading The War of the Flowers, but I started that a few weeks ago and kept putting it aside to read magazines, so it won't be my first complete 2009 book. Next on my list is The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick.
Started "The World Without Us" on New Years Eve. My first book purchase of the year is "Not Always So" by Suzuki (for a buck in the used bin at the grocery store).
Started "The Witches of Eastwick" but tempted to abandon it. Normally I read a lot over the holidays but it's been a bit poor this time... all the books have been a bit disappointing (Dark Tower books 4 & 5, "The Hundred Days" by Patrick O'Brian)
Once I finish The Pale Blue Eye, which for some reason is taking forever, I'll be starting on John Ralston Saul's A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, which Dad bought us all as our improving book for xmas. Looks like a good read, and I think he's keen for at least one of us to finish it so he can discuss it with us.
I started a really terrible fantasy epic yesterday - Dragonlance, Dragons of a Fallen Sun. Whooeee! It's horrible! I think I'll throw it across the room soon! And to think I just finished a terrible overly long fantasy saga - Kate Elliott, Crown of Stars, plodded through all seven bloody books in the interests of having something to read - and I thought, naively, that there was little worse out there. I was wrong! I was going to take those seven books to the used bookstore today and trade them for something decent but my car is fucked, hello 2009, it's not good that it's starting with car trouble, and so I'm out of stuff to read completely. Bah, because I want to go on a Philippa Gregory kick, having recently finished both the Other Boleyn Girl and the Virgin's Lover and now I want more steamy Tudor sex scenes among the farthingales.
2666! Apparently distribution rights in Canada are a gong show and nobody has any idea when more will come in, so I snagged a hardcover which turned out to be a first edition (always nice, really).
after that, I have Consider The Lobster, Tatyana Tolstaya's White Walls collection of short stories, The Rest Is Noise, The Cellist of Sarajevo, and Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance.
Once I get through those, I'll only have time for the required reading for an American Lit class I am in and the odd lighting/photography book, though I am likely to borrow A Day at El Bulli and Annie Leibovitz At Work from work* to pore over on lunch breaks.
I got bit by the knitting bug and my only lament is now the times that I used to spend reading (on the couch on lazy weekends or quiet weeknights, commuting to/from work on the train) I now spend knitting.
I love love love my new hobby but I do miss reading.
I have so many new things to read!
I am halfway through Eat My and also halfway into Bellow's The Theft, and I also have another one of his short novels, but I might move on to one of the graphic novels I got from the new bf for Chanukah or to another new novel i got from my friend who is visiting.
So many choices!
I'm close to finishing up The Rum Diary. I have several books lined up next and I don't know which one I will read.
misskaz - if you knit long enough you will eventually get to the point where you can read and knit at the same time. Although I don't reccomend this on the train...
Currently reading Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller. For tomorrow however, I have three to choose from, and they're all equally grabbing right now:
- Koji Suzuki - The Ring
- Peter Hoeg - The Quiet Girl
- Kim Edwards - The Memory Keepers Daughter.
It's toss-up, and it'll come to a battle of the appeal/prettiness of the covers and my mood at the time. And ej - do get the Persephone edition of Miss Pettigrew (as you linked to) - if it's your first Persephone book you'll be hooked for life. They are beautiful.
And - check out the price from Perspehone itself before you order from Amazon - they are £12 including postage, all going to the local, feminist publisher without Amazon fees!
And Persephone books are great gifts regardless, for lost pre- and between-war English fiction for anyone in your life!
My first book of the year was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. (illustrated by Eric Carle) It's my one-year old nephew's favorite book right now. You see, he gave me a bad cold for Christmas so I decided to stay at my parents' house through the new year, and instead of a righteous party or a Chuck Berry concert in NYC, I had a quiet time in Maryland and started my year with a chuckling toddler on my lap.
My other nephew, the six-year old, borrowed The Masterpiece, by Elise Broach, from the library, and after he described a little of it to me, I read it last night once he went to bed. Today we walked the dog around the lake and talked about how funny and interesting it is (he's only halfway through). It's about a boy and his friend, an artistic beetle, who get embroiled in an art theft in New York.
The first book of real interest to me for this year was given to me by my parents: The History of My Life, by Giacomo Casanova. Of course, it's been abridged to about 1,200 pages, but I'm not complaining. I like big books almost as much as I like licentious exposés. Plus he's totally amoral, which is refreshing to read in this Puritan America.
I also received a book of Joan Didion's collected nonfiction called We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live and a book of George Orwell's collected essays. Looks like fun.
taz: If you like Bayard, do get The Pale Blue Eye. I think it's taking so long because I'm so tired when I go to bed I only manage a couple of pages, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
Being a fan of antique books, I just picked up (and am currently reading) "Our Family" by Thomas Hood, printed in 1861. Subtitled "Comic Miscellanies and Autobiographical Papers". I'm only on the second chapter, but I'm enjoying it immensely.
Oh, hey, goo, I really enjoyed The Quiet Girl, but then I'm a big Peter Høeg fan, though I didn't like The Woman and the Ape. It's funnier than most of his other work, though that could be due to the clown protagonist. Høeg incorporates some of the mystic suspense and obscure intrigue of Smilla's Sense of Snow with the deep understanding of childhood loneliness he exhibits in Borderliners in a complex near-mess of a novel. It's beautiful, though, and ultimately satisfying.
Whether you read it now or later, I hope you enjoy it. I did.
I'm currently in the middle of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I'm reading because of AskMe recommendations. It's really great so far. Next up is going to be some Pratchett, probably, and maybe finally getting past page 10 of A History of the Siege of Lisbon.
I'm reading (or am supposed to be reading -- I'm a bit behind) Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles, which I like very much, along with my AP seniors. When I assigned it, one incredibly bright but sometimes pouty young man when it comes to school work announced that I had "ruined Christmas." Indeed. But they need their 19th century literature.
I usually assign Hardy's Jude the Obscure, which I love (and has the added advantage that I've read it several times before), but the books went missing at my school over the summer, dang nabbit.
After, I may go back to Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which jon bought me last summer, and I like so far.
I started Sebald's Austerlitz at the very end of 2008, but I'll finish it in 2009. First book I've started in 2009 is Boris Akunin's Death on the Leviathan.
goo - yes, it's the Persephone edition, in the original typeface with original illustrations. Knowing my luck, I'll get on the plane on Thursday with my book all ready to read and find that it's the main movie or something.
I got manymanymany books for Christmas, and before I knew that I was getting those, I requested like 10 books via interlibrary loan, so I'll be busy for several months, methinks.
Anyway, I'm reading "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House"
Oooh, matteo, I'd be interested to know what you think of that one -- I'd like to get it for mr. init if it's good.
Incredibly cheesy pop-lit-y of me to say so, but Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb... listen, I can't stop reading her work because I think I want to identify with her Eve Dallas character so much.
A friend of mine said recently that books you read over and over again contain touchstones for you and when I consider that for much of 2008, I threw over perfectly "legit" fiction like Further Tales of the City or "new" books by Jonathan Gash or David Gemmel I just picked up for freaking J.D. Robb, Watership Down and To Ride Pegasus (which I now realize is very poorly written and Anne McCaffrey should be kneecapped for having written it) I have to wonder where my brain is at.
Maybe with the new apartment and having space and a couch, I can go back to reading good books again.
I finished re-reading A Lick of Frost while partying at my friend's place for New Years, so my first new book of 2009 will probably be the next in the series (Swallowing Darkness).
Of course, I read a lot of fluff and still have 3 other books on my nightstand (1,2, and 3.) because I am a slacker. (And I've got my eye on another book order as soon as I attempt to go sell the 6 boxes that are sitting next to bookcase #1.)
I'm halfway through "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. I'm liking it.
Think the first one I technically finished (though it might have been the last one last year) was "Polo" by Jilly Cooper.
I couldn't get into "This Charming Man" Jan... I did like her last one though, and have read most of them. If you want good chick lit - have a look for some Eva Ibbotson books. I think that her stuff has been re-released as children's books. And they are sweet and innocent, but they weren't originally meant as children's books... except for the ones that were. Anyway... they remind me of Amelie - or rather, Amelie reminded me of Eva Ibbotson's books, and they are BEAUTIFUL.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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