In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 23/52

Six books last week; that is 13th to 20th January.  One audiobook - Liar - and two books which I'd been reading over Christmas.  Three library books.

I enjoyed Liar.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of it afterwards, so I read the TV Tropes page, which helped.  I actually read the book because of Justine Labalestier's blogpost regarding the cover. As a woman of colour - a mixed race woman of colour - seeing mixed race women represented in fiction is important to me.

That's one thing Scott Pilgrim's pretty bad at, incidentally.  Dealing with people of colour.  I saw the movie years ago and picked up the graphic novel because it was in the library.  It's not brilliant or particularly well-drawn, though it is slightly less racist than the movie if only because it avoided giving the one Indian character a Bollywood number.  I very much agree with this post on the movie.

I very much enjoyed Funny Girl.  I read it in one night; I didn't mean to, I just didn't want to stop.  It's about the TV industry in the '60s.  It's fictitious but includes real photographs from the decade; if it wasn't fiction the characters would easily slip into reality.

I've been reading American Wife since before Christmas.  The library only had the large print version, which made it a 900 page tome.  I eventually just gave in and bought the damn thing for the Kindle just so I didn't have to lug it around any more.  I enjoyed the book; it's a fictionalisation of the life of a first lady.  It's mostly inspired by Laura Bush, which is fair enough; unless you want to write a total alternate history you'd have to at least loosely base it on of the three women who've held the role over the last twenty years.

Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body is a book on self-experimentation, with specific things that Tim Ferriss has found to work on himself.  It's a pretty interesting read.  The most interesting point he made is that a calorie is literally a unit of energy; people think of it only as something that can be stored (as fat) or converted into work (exercise) but you can also lose it thermodynamically or as matter (ie, shivering and shitting).  Thermodynamics is the easiest one to manage, without indulging in some unhealthy habits.  That's why swimming takes so much energy; you're also letting off heat, since the water's fairly cool.

Finally, Four Past Midnight.  I need to write a longer post about that.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 22/52

Only two books last week - 7 January to 14th January 2015.  Once Upon a Time is a book of short stories that I've been working on for a while.  They're all pretty great, I just don't often read physical books any more.  Some of them are just okay while some are beautiful.  Authors include Isaac Asimov and Terry Brooks, so it's a pretty esteemed collection.  I particularly liked the story by Katherine Kurtz.

Kind of Cruel is the 7th in the Spilling CID series.  I quite enjoyed it; I remembered the key details but not the exact denouement.  I last read the book in 2012.  There's not a huge amount of re-listen value if you do remember all the details.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 21/52

 

Seven books this week - 30th December to 6th January.

Both The Visitor's Book and Something Untoward are collections of Sophie Hannah's short stories.  There are four in the former and six in the latter; both are quite creepy, so god only knows why I read them together.

Marionette focuses on a lesbian teenager who has recently tried to commit suicide; it's a little bit about things going better but also, surprisingly, a little bit mafia.  I enjoyed it.

Lasting Damage is the 6th book in Sophie Hannah's Spilling CID series.  I don't yet have the next one, Kind of Cruel, which is why I've listened to three other audiobooks this week.  The odd thing about the audio of Lasting Damage is the fact that there are two readers; one male and one female, one for the main narrative and one for the first person bits.  Why bother?  The main character in the narrative is Charlie (a woman) anyway, and one female reader sufficed for all the previous books.  It worked in Rose Madder because the two characters were male and female and in direct opposition.  Also because the male reader was the author, which was an interesting novelty by itself.

Anyway; I also listened to Modern Romance, The Girls and The Tales of Max Carrados, the last of which was a loyalty gift from Audible.  Apparently Max Carrados' popularity rivalled that of Sherlock Holmes at the time of printing.  The story was okay, but my Homles stage was twelve years ago and I worked it out of my system then.  Sorry Carrados.

I did like Modern Romance, though Aziz Ansari does occasionally tell you off for making him read it to you.  It's non-fiction, focusing on romance in the modern world (duh).  Ansari has spoken to focus groups of varying ages to get an idea of how romance has changed, as well as speaking to various experts.  He observed that most people who are pensioners now typically married someone who lived near them at the age of 23-24.  Today, most people meet online - more than meet through friends or university - though many are still embarrassed to admit that.  I found it really interesting.

Finally, The Girls.  It was an okay ride; I've been walking a lot recently, which is why I finished it so quickly. 

Pretty early on, you're given an obvious suspect for the crime.  That suspect remains obvious - so obvious that there's no mystery to it at all - until the last minute, when the real culprit gets away scot free.  I am genuinely concerned about Lisa Jewell's children, considering how often she's writing about them getting away with despicable and selfish behaviour.  Speaking of Lisa Jewell's children, one of the readers for this book is her daughter.  She can read well for a nine-year-old, but I really dislike London accents so that was quite off-putting.

In Which We Discuss 2015

This year, I read the following268 books.

 

The following 179 books were completely new to me;

...and I bought a total of 123 books this year.

In theory, that should mean my unread pile dropped by 56.  That's not actually the case.  Some of the new books were gifts, some were library books and so on.  That said, I am going to try to limit the number of books I purchase in 2016.  I'm thinking a total of sixty over the entire year.

Finally, here is my unread pile so far;

That leaves my unread pile at 65 for the end of 2015, down from 104.  I'll try to get it to below 15 by the end of the year.  I'll try to read at least one or two per week.