2009 Reading List

Number of books read in 2009: 103
New reads: 100

Number of books read in 2008: 99
Number of books read in 2007: 85
Number of books read in 2006: 64
Number of books read in 2005: 56

Average read per month: 8.58
Average read per week: 1.98

Number read in worst month: 5 (April)
Number read in best month: 12 (March and July)

Female authors: 48
Male authors: 34

Fiction: 87
non-fiction: 16  (marked *; 2008: 12, 2007: 10, 2006: 4, 2005: 2)

Scifi/fantasy: 24
Mystery/crime: 20
Literature/fiction: 35
Graphic novels: 2
Horror: 2
YA: 2
Poetry: 0 (A few individual poems read but no complete collections/works)

Languages
Malay: 1
Chinese: 0

January
Union Street by Pat Barker
The golem’s eye by Jonathan Stroud
Ptolemy’s gate by Jonathan Stroud
Spoken here: Travels among threatened languages by Mark Abley*
The fire engine that disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Epileptic (part one) by David B.*

February
The little friend by Donna Tartt
Don’t sleep, there are snakes: Life and language in the Amazonian jungle by Daniel Everett*
Outliers: The story of success by Malcolm Gladwell*
Half of a yellow sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Anne Marie Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

March
Special topics in calamity physics by Marisha Pessl
The chalk circle man by Fred Vargas
The valley of horses by Jean M Auel
The mammoth hunters by Jean M Auel
The plains of passage by Jean M Auel
The shelters of stone by Jean M Auel
The abominable man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown
Six moon dance by Sherri Tepper
Handling the undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist
The good women of China by Xinran*
Inner eclipse by Richard Paul Russo

April
Resilience by Anne Deveson*
The left hand of darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Edith’s diary by Patricia Highsmith
The man on the boulevard by Georges Simenon
Coonardoo by Katherine Susannah Prichard

May
Living with a man who is dying by Jocelyn Evans*
The 19th wife by David Ebershoff
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
A jar of dreams by Yoshiko Uchida
The memory game by Nicci French
Break no bones by Kathy Reichs

June
The way of a boy by Ernest Hillen*
Hanna’s daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
The zookeeper’s wife by Diane Akerman*
The Diamond Anchor by Jennifer Mills
The piano teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee
The city and the city by China Mieville
Food, sex & money by Liz Byrski
Sweet Bamboo: A memoir of a Chinese American family by Louise Leung Larson*
The vampire tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

July
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry
Sacred hunger by Barry Unsworth
Fall on your knees by Ann-Marie McDonald
The kingdom by the sea by Robert Westall
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Simon and the oaks by Marianne Fredriksson
MotherKind by Jayne Anne Phillips
Death of a red heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
The locked room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Cop killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Original sin by P.D. James

August
How I live now by Meg Rosoff
Nervous conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Letter to my daughter by Maya Angelou*
The reluctant fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Darkness visible by William Styron*
The charioteer by Mary Renault

September
Shame by Karin Alvtegen
Dead until dark by Charlaine Harris
Living dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Dead to the world by Charlaine Harris
Dead as a doornail by Charlaine Harris
Definitely dead by Charlaine Harris
All together dead by Charlaine Harris
The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures by Anne Fadiman*
From dead to worse by Charlaine Harris
Beautiful boy by David Sheff*

October
Gang of four by Liz Byrski
World made by hand by James Howard Kunstler
Girl with the pearl earring by Tracy Chevalier
Year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The time traveller’s wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Dead and gone by Charlaine Harris
The girl with the dragon tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Oath breaker by Michelle Paver
Truth by Peter Temple
The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson
Orang jauh by A. Samad Ismail

November
The girl who kicked a hornets’ nest by Stieg Larsson
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
The ballad of the sad cafe by Carson McCullers
Tell me I’m here by Anne Deveson*
American journeys by Don Watson*
Oracle bones by Peter Hessler*
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

December
We are all made of glue by Marina Lewycka
Ten thousand miles without a cloud by Sun Shuyun*
The road by Cormac McCarthy
A judgement in stone by Ruth Rendell
The feud by Thomas Berger
The safe house by Nicci French
U is for undertow by Sue Grafton
Sleepwalking by Julie Myerson
Burnt shadows by Kamila Shamsie
The merry-go-round in the sea by Randolph Stow

This is the first time the number of books I’ve read has exceeded the Magic Number, 100.  Lots of enjoyable reads this year. Looking back over the list I think I can safely say that much of my reading this year has fallen into the category of Sheer Escapism. Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mystery series definitely fits this category, as do many of the crime titles. I have needed the distraction this year, I think.

Most surprising:
Sacred hunger by Barry Unsworth
My copy of this book is a secondhand, huge, hardback edition that has sat intimidatingly on my shelf for some years. I just picked it up one day in June, and found I couldn’t stop reading. A very well-written story of the slave trade and how it degraded (degrades) all involved.

Burnt shadows by Kamila Shamsie
Bought this on impulse (thanks, Book Depository, for making it so easy to buy!) after glancing at a positive review online. When it arrived I looked at it again and on reading the blurb, thought: “How is this novel going to work?”

1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka takes in the view of the terraced slopes from her veranda. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love withthe man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost.

Searching for new beginnings, she travels to Delhi to find Konrad’s relatives, and falls in love with their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from who she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history – personal, political – are cast over the entwined worlds of two families as they are transported from Pakistan to New York in the novel’s astonishing climax.

It does work, though. I basically read it in one sitting. I will have to re-read it more slowly. I love the way the author depicts cultural differences.

I can’t really say there are any books I didn’t enjoy. There were a few books I started and didn’t finish, and I had no qualms about setting them aside.

I’m pleased that I’ve read a few more non-fiction titles this year – they seem to have been either travelogues or biographical works.  I suspect that this year I will be reading a number of titles on management, leadership and libraries (currently reading three titles!). I’m not going to set any particular reading goals this year. It’s going to be a busy one and I’ll just see how I go.