Reading List 2013

After skipping a couple of years, in 2012 I once again started to record a summary of the books I had read over the previous twelve months, using my handy Goodreads account (not that I ever use the site for anything else).

Looking back, this year seems a paltry amount compared to last, although I suppose the fact that I undertook a literature history course in 2012 skewed the results somewhat. I’m not going to bother splitting the fiction list up into fiction/fantasy this time due to the shortness of the list; any links are to my reviews blog.

Fiction

  • Ed the Happy Clown (Chester Brown)
  • The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
  • Apocalypse Nerd (Peter Bagge)
  • Player One (Douglas Coupland)
  • The Dispossessed (Ursula Le Guin)
  • Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
  • The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)
  • Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
  • Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card)
  • The Shambling Guide to New York City (Mur Lafferty)
  • A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
  • The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
  • Sweet Tooth (Ian McEwan)
  • The Bloody Red Baron (Kim Newman)
  • Mentor (Tom Grimes)
  • Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
  • Stoner (John Williams)
  • Redshirts (John Scalzi)
  • Bring Up The Bodies (Hilary Mantel)

As per usual the start of the year was dominated by Christmas presents, including a set of three Hemingway novels; I greatly enjoyed A Farewell To Arms, and still have For Whom The Bell Tolls to read next year. I also finally read Ender’s Game, just in time to not bother going to see the movie, and finished the year with Hilary Mantel’s pair of Booker prize-winning novels about Thomas Cromwell.

Non-fiction

  • Don’t Forget To Write (Pam Hobbs)
  • Getting Things Done (David Allen)
  • The Stranger’s Long Neck (Gerry McGovern)
  • The Naked Jape (Jimmy Carr, Lucy Greeves)

This list is a bit of a fib to be honest, since I finally finished the first two books which had been in a partially-read state for years. The one book I read for work, The Stranger’s Long Neck, was thought-provoking for anyone involved in UX.

Highlights

Out of the 23 books I managed to read, I think I’d have to put the pair of Mantel novels near the top of the pile. Despite their provocatively misleading style, they are beautifully written. Stoner is the other book I would recommend anyone pick up if they haven’t read it (and it seems to be one of those “best book you’ve never read” kind of hidden gems).

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