Books I've read in 2009

[vilakins]

I got this idea from shinyjenni: the list of books I've read in 2009. Actually, it's more accurately the list of books I've borrowed from the library as they provide a handy reading history which I've just copied and pasted. I've read a few more, but can't be brothered trying to remember them. Feel free to ask me about any.

66 books

Carpe jugulum - Terry Pratchett
Hangman's holiday - Dorothy L Sayers
An assembly such as this - by Pamela Aidan
Gaudy night - Dorothy L Sayers
Sherlock Holmes: the missing years - Jamyang Norbu
The Earthsea quartet - Ursula Le Guin
Kim - Rudyard Kipling
The last continent - Terry Pratchett
Last tango in Aberystwyth - Malcolm Pryce
Fatherland - Robert Harris
Over sea, under stone - Susan Cooper
Conrad's fate - Diana Wynne Jones
Busman's honeymoon - Dorothy L Sayers
The fifth elephant - Terry Pratchett
Enigma - Robert Harris
The lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch
Pompeii - Robert Harris
The truth - Terry Pratchett
The dark is rising - Susan Cooper
Thief of time - Terry Pratchett
Greenwitch - Susan Cooper
Duty and desire - by Pamela Aidan
Alexandria - Lindsey Davis
Imperium - Robert Harris
Red seas under red skies - Scott Lynch
The last hero : a discworld fable - Terry Pratchett
Perdido Street Station - China Miéville
Night watch - Terry Pratchett
Gifts - Ursula K Le Guin
The good husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
The miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Voices - Ursula K Le Guin
The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents - Terry Pratchett
Mr Midshipman Hornblower - CS Forester
The wee free men - by Terry Pratchett
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie - Alan Bradley
A million open doors - John Barnes
Monstrous regiment - Terry Pratchett
Powers - Ursula K Le Guin
The unbearable lightness of being in Aberystwyth - Malcolm Pryce
Pride and prejudice and zombies - Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
The grey king - by Susan Cooper
A hat full of sky : a story of Discworld - Terry Pratchett
The scar - China Miéville
Appointment with Venus
Going postal - Terry Pratchett
Silver on the tree - Susan Cooper
The other wind - by Ursula K Le Guin
Thud! - Terry Pratchett
Tea time for the traditionally built - Alexander McCall Smith
The thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The children of Green Knowe - LM Boston
Tom's midnight garden - A Philippa Pearce
The eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Making money - Terry Pratchett
Bellwether - Connie Willis
The Queen of Attolia - by Megan Whalen Turner
Uncharted territory - Connie Willis
Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett
The lilac bus - Maeve Binchy
The king of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner
Psion - Joan D Vinge
Darwinia - Robert Charles Wilson
The divide - Robert Charles Wilson
Blind Lake - Robert Charles Wilson (in progress)

Comments

[zoefruitcake]

I loved the first Malcom Pryce, but I've not read any more. I should remedy that :0)

[vilakins]

I think there's at least one more for me to read.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Oooo...what a lovely assortment. I know some - I love D.Sayers, A.McCall Smith and L.Davies but I have never managed to get into T.Pratchett - apart from his The Unadulterated Cat (heeeee...).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Was that The Amazing Maurice? The talking cat and all the mice?

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, you may be interested to know that I got Le Guin's Gifts for Christmas... And promptly went and ordered the other two books in the trilogy, figuring I might want to read them all together. I really ought to read the last Earthsea book first, though.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's a wonderful trilogy, each one quite different, yet connected. I'd be very interested in your reactions.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

It may take me a while to get around to them. We'll see!

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

What, what, you've read Locke Lamora books and Sayers. *glee* I love them too!

That is some pretty impressive list. Also something very funny now you've read The King of Attolia: The King of Legottolia (http://community.livejournal.com/sounis/50507.html)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can't wait for the next Gentleman Bastards book! Maybe we'll even finally meet Sabetha.

LOL, that's brilliant! And now I've finished the book, I can join that comm. [does so]

Did you read my Yuletide Thief fic?

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

I know! I absolutely loved them. And there's an anthology of short stories coming out too. I thought when I read the sequel it couldn't be as good as the first one but it surprised me being better. I read the prologue on Scott Lynch's website/lj? and Sabetha's a great character. I was a bit worried she'd turn out to be...mary-sue-ish really annoying.

Oh the comm's being all fun what with the fancy dress New Year's Party. I was tempted to bring Vila as my guest but I'm glad I didn't now because then who would you bring? I'm going as Chloe (Irene's tactless attendant) who would bring Ivan Vorpatril along just to watch his expressions as he compares Gen's plotting to Miles's...

I did read it! *glomps*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, Ivan is perfect, and would fit into that courtly world beautifully, even though he's always pretty much as he seems. Now if you'd brought Miles...

And anyway, 1) you were meant to bring a character from a book, and Vila isn't, and 2) I'm too new and shy to go to the party, and 3) I don't own the books so I can't consult them. I'll have to see if I can by them here. I should be able to since the library had them. Anyway I think I'll take some time to get used to the comm as you all seem to know each other so well. :-)

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

1) pssssh. Vila is from a book. Your books. :P I would have snuck him in anyway.
2) Awww, yeah I was at first. We shall make you feel welcome :P
3) Me neither actually! I left them at my uni room :-) I'm quite impressed I was able to do that. I used to take my battered copy of The Thief wherever I went.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

1) But Ivan fits into that world so much better than our Vila, who would be befuddled by all the courtliness (but probably charm a few ladies anyway). Ivan would be in his charming element!

2) How long have you been there?

3) I will have to buy the books. I can remember them pretty clearly now, but I'd like to reread them with the knowledge I have now, even if I did suss things like Gen taking the stone and putting it in his hair (well signalled) and the fact that he loved Irene from the time he saw her dancing. I did not pick up on his depression and sulking hiding other things though. :-P

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

1) Awww, true. *huggles Vila* Psh to courtliness *gleefully breaks the rules*

2) 3 and a half years. There were only 15-20 members when I joined, I think. It's huuuge now.

3) Yay for books. I have a spare copy of KoA and will mail it to you if you like :-)

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

also Checkers did this crackfic-like-one for me: http://costis.livejournal.com/1122.html#cutid1

Ohio is where Megan used to live and Patagonia is because we used to joke we'd flee there after embarrassing ourselves/saying something tactless. The colossal squid was invented by Willow to eat chauvinist males.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You guys are fun and seem to know each other so well! What a cool gift!

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

Yes! It is tremendous fun. I want to win the lottery so I can spend my days making legofics. I saw some B7 lego the other day and LOL-ed so much.

Also that is the randomest icon ever. What's the story behind it?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

:-D I actually own this cow! There's this thing where artists all over the world paint huge life-sized cow statues--I've seem 'em here--and this was a small version I found on my birthday. I posted about it here. (http://vilakins.livejournal.com/275396.html) It's the right size for mu Roman gladiator action figures too! I even posted a picture of one with it! I put links at the bottom to the whole cow thing. Mine was called Russell Cow, but she's a girl so I've called her Maxima.

[Edit] It works better with the proper link. :-P

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

awww that's cute and funny.

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

I see you've read the third of the Aberystwyth novels - the Unbearable Lightness of...

I was given the first two by miss-next and while I loved the first, I found the second one rather irritating. The author seemed to hit a reset button, and cancelled the changes he'd made at the end of the first book, and dragged back the same villains from the first book, no matter how improbably. I felt it undid the sense of satisfaction from the hero's choices and actions at the end of the first book.

Does the third one progress at all ?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Things are certainly different in that one, but Pryce does have a liking for bringing old villains back in unlikely ways, and I'd say the satisfaction of book 1 isn't there. It's an interesting ride though.

The gratuitous killing of cats, as a completely unnecessary-to-the-plot aside, in the second or third (can't remember which) upset me. Aberystwyth certainly seems very much the same as it was in book 1, and you'd think it would have changed a lot.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I see that we've read 16 of the same books (mostly not in 2009 in my case, though): 14 by Terry Pratchett and two by Ursula Le Guin (or four, if you treat the original Earthsea trilogy as three books rather than one).

I hope that you enjoyed the three Tiffany Aching books as much as I did. Even by Pratchett's high standards, I think that they are exceptional. So much of the best fantasy seems to have originally been written for children.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love the Tiffany books! I think they're better than quite a few of the adult ones, and have as many observations on the world as the best of them. I also really liked The Amazing Maurice, which is a riff on the Pied Piper story: talking cats and rats (there's a cause, which probably explains Gaspode) who have as much character and eccentricity as any of the humans, Like the Tiffany books, it's a YA one, but just as good as most of the adult ones (and better than a few of them).

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I think that the only way of telling that the Tiffany books are written for children or "young adults" is the age of the protagonist. Pratchett doesn't make the slightest concession to the age of his audeiencem let alone write down to them. Ursula Le Guin is just the same in the Earthsea trilogy, of course. (By the fourth book, my impression is that she is aiming at an adult audience.)

I haven't read the Maurice book yet.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's worth it, even though there are no characters from the other books. Ankh-Morpork is mentioned though. I think it's a YA book because of the talking animals and the boy who travels with them, but the story has as much punch and issues as any adult book.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

BTW, speaking of A-M, the morpork in that is a NZ owl, the morepork, and we have at least one in our garden. :-)

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Cool! I bet you don't have any Ankh, though. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Nope. Or even a river!

[luinielle.livejournal.com]

How did you like 'Pride and prejudice and zombies'? I saw it at quite a number of bookstores while in London, but I never got around to picking it up to read.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a joke that went on far too long, but I know others liked it.

[luinielle.livejournal.com]

Well then I guess it's a good thing I didn't spend my money to buy it. :o)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I got it from the library. I'm amazed it's as popular as it is because it's mainly Austen prose with a lot of samey zombie stuff added. Some scenes are fun, but really, they don't sustain a whole novel.