Reading in 2007
Though of you who know me personally know that I have just a touch of obsessive compulsive tendencies. (HEY! I HEARD THAT SNICKER!)
One of the ways that this manifests is that every book I finish, I write down in the back of my journal: date, title, author, number of pages, and place (primarily) read.
To paraphrase a certain NPR show, let's do the numbers:
total pages: 13,279
total books: 32
(I'll spare you opening the calculator: that's an average of 414.9 per book)
countries books were read in: four
longest book: 1382 pages, War and Remembrance. (Notably, it was the mass market paperback edition, while other editions are as few as 1042 pages. I enjoyed it, but no, it didn't make me run out and get Winds of War which War and Remembrance is written to follow.
shortest book: 98 pages, Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for life after gridcrash by Aric McBay.
A little more qualitatively:
Best books: probably Coming into the Country by John McPhee, and A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Though to be honest, it was kind of a slim year for good books, since many of my books came from a free lending library (read: books other people discarded.)
Best non-fiction book: The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice
by David Rose.
Worst book: hands down, with almost no real competition: The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. In fact, it's certainly in the top five worst books I've ever finished, and could make a good solid run for the top spot in that list. (As my mom told me in the seventh grade, and I've repeated many times since to many people, I firmly believe that life is too short, and there are too many great books out there, to finish crappy books.) The Informers made the potential runners up for "Worst book" look like pinnacles of great literature, including such horrific, formulaic pap as Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler, Code of Honour by Harold Coyle, and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal by by Eric Van Lustbader.
I mean, in any reasonable year, The Bourne Betrayal should absolutely be the worst book I'd finish. But didn't I tell you it was a tough year for me and good books?
Though of you who know me personally know that I have just a touch of obsessive compulsive tendencies. (HEY! I HEARD THAT SNICKER!)
One of the ways that this manifests is that every book I finish, I write down in the back of my journal: date, title, author, number of pages, and place (primarily) read.
To paraphrase a certain NPR show, let's do the numbers:
total pages: 13,279
total books: 32
(I'll spare you opening the calculator: that's an average of 414.9 per book)
countries books were read in: four
longest book: 1382 pages, War and Remembrance. (Notably, it was the mass market paperback edition, while other editions are as few as 1042 pages. I enjoyed it, but no, it didn't make me run out and get Winds of War which War and Remembrance is written to follow.
shortest book: 98 pages, Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for life after gridcrash by Aric McBay.
A little more qualitatively:
Best books: probably Coming into the Country by John McPhee, and A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Though to be honest, it was kind of a slim year for good books, since many of my books came from a free lending library (read: books other people discarded.)
Best non-fiction book: The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice
by David Rose.
Worst book: hands down, with almost no real competition: The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. In fact, it's certainly in the top five worst books I've ever finished, and could make a good solid run for the top spot in that list. (As my mom told me in the seventh grade, and I've repeated many times since to many people, I firmly believe that life is too short, and there are too many great books out there, to finish crappy books.) The Informers made the potential runners up for "Worst book" look like pinnacles of great literature, including such horrific, formulaic pap as Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler, Code of Honour by Harold Coyle, and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal by by Eric Van Lustbader.
I mean, in any reasonable year, The Bourne Betrayal should absolutely be the worst book I'd finish. But didn't I tell you it was a tough year for me and good books?
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