One of the books I read was a big hit here in Canada this year, Kathleen Winter's 'Annabel'. For me, I thought the concept was interesting and the character Treadway was one of the most complex and relatable I've ever read. However, I thought the execution could have been better; the story starts off with a bang but tapers at the end.
The best book I read this year was Anita Diamant's 'The Red Tent'. I just couldn't put it down, I read it in two days (for which I apologize to my daughter - she probably watched more cartoons than she should have :S) It was some of the best storytelling I've ever read.
What was your favourite read of 2010? Was it a new book, a classic? What book impacted you the most? Is there a book you're looking forward to reading in 2011?
I read a lot of books this year, but three really stuck out: finally got around to reading Barney's Version by Mordechai Richler and it was as good as everyone preached. Think I'll read more Richler in 2011.
Also liked Rawi Hage's DeNiro's Game, set in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil war, full of potent action, great dialogue, solid character.
In non-fiction, reading about the world's most influential social network in The Facebook Effect gave me new insight into this start-up. Learned a lot about entrepreneurship, Internet advertising, obstacles to biz success and more. Definitely a must read for anyone interested in digital media.
I read Richler's 'The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz' this past year; it was my first taste of his work (a bit late I know). 'Barney's Version' definitely does have the hype and I'm looking forward to reading it, but I think I'll wait until after I see the movie. The movie looks great and is getting great reviews, but a movie is rarely as good as the book
.
Certainly the best book I read all year was Dostoevsky's "House of the Dead." A wonderful depressing, enlightening and crepuscular read. Definitely in my top 3 Dostoevsky novels.
Also read a lot of Arthur Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre and Balzac. I read a few history and political books such as Aristotle's "The Politics" and John Cornwell's "Hitler's Scientists."
I'm hoping to catch up on the latest WW2 and biographical books, including "Hitler's First War" and an in-depth book on Ayn Rand.
Unfortunately, crossword puzzles have taken over the free time that I have. I'm hoping that goes away so I can go back to reading.
One book I read this year that sticks in my mind is Acid Row, by Minette Walters. It takes place on a run-down estate where violence erupts as a young doctor is there visiting a patient. Some terrible things happen but the events bring forth good qualities in some people.
I enjoyed re-reading The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, which is set in a strict world where those who are different are considered abominations and are driven away.
I also re-read The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, which tells of a bright young woman with mental health issues who tries to kill herself and is “treated” with electroshock.
Many of the non-fiction books I read were about animal health, behaviour, welfare and rescue.
I enjoyed re-reading The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, which is set in a strict world where those who are different are considered abominations and are driven away.
I also re-read The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, which tells of a bright young woman with mental health issues who tries to kill herself and is “treated” with electroshock.
Many of the non-fiction books I read were about animal health, behaviour, welfare and rescue.
I started to wonder what other people are actually reading, How do other readers find new books to read? Is it word of mouth? Do you go through the who's who of a specific genre or style? Do you make your way through a section of the library, grabbing what sounds interesting? Do you read the book reviews and pick from there? Do you read new books at all or do you prefer to stick to classics? Maybe you like the comfort of a specific magazine or journal?Personally, I find books in all those ways, but do cling more to short stories and Canadian writers and some of the classic Russian writers. My 'to read' list is so long, I'll probably never read all that I want to read. Currently I'm reading 'Light Lifting', a short story collection by Alexander MacLeod.I'm curious so I've decided to go out into the (cyber)world and ask these questions. How do you find reading material? What are you reading right now?
I'm reading Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. It's the original American advertising bible, written at the turn of last century, and still quoted by advertising gurus to this day. I'm also reading the US Army combat manual, and recently finished David Bodanis Passionate Minds, the story of Voltaire and Emilie Du Chatelet, the woman who put Newton's gravity equation on track and set the scene for E=mc2.I think that means that I find a way of using one of Voltaire's books as a weapon or form of advertising, I'm getting somewhere
.
Just realized that I didn't actually address your questions about how I find reading material. A lot of my reading material is used as reference material for books, and I hardly ever read fiction. Seems unfair, really, that I can inflict so much of my own material on other people, and then get so picky about what I read. On the other hand, who said there was any justice in literature?
At the moment, I''m re-reading Milan Kundera's "Immortality." Prior to that I read, Thomas Moore "Care of the Soul," D.H. Lawrence "Women in Love," and Victor Hugo's "Les Misereables," which moved me to tears.I try to stay away from Canadian novels, especially anything written after 1990 for I can't stand reading any book which is too self conscious in regards of being politically correct.How, do I come across books? Interestingly enough, they seem to find me.
I have three books on the go at the moment, Marco Polo by Keith Miles and David Butler, The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly and an audiobook Sick Puppy & Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen - this last, highly recommended for gridlock-ease. I've recently developed an addiction toward audiobooks. There is some terrific stuff out there. Many are performed rather than merely read - some, even, with sound effects.
At the moment a book called Small Wars by Sadie Jones. It's about an army officer stationed in Cyprus in the '50's. His family move there with him. It's set during the time called 'The Emergency' when the EOKA began a terrorist campaign against British rule. I'm only a few pages in so no more for the moment.Having looked up De Niro's Game to find out more about it, I'm just about to order it after I click Add Comment
.
i've recently been reading Henning Mankell, who has been writing a series of Swedish detective stories for a number of years, with his main character being Detective Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander. the books are amazingly well written in my view, although i must admit i'm reading translations as i can't read Swedish.he portrays the Sweden of the 90's in most of his books about Wallander, with an excursion into the early 70's to catch up on Wallander's start in the police business.excellent books.also read Stieg Larsson's three books about that "girl"...Lisbeth Salander, also in translated english from Swedish. they are excellent, amazingly excellent books, although a bit scary in places, and gory here and there, when crimes are committed....you know the series...."the girl with the dragon tattoo", "the girl who played with fire" and "the girl who kicked the hornet's nest"....all excellent.i started reading Wallander because of the English TV series with Kenneth Branagh playing Wallander which appeared on PBS a while ago. i was quite taken with the stories, and looked them up on Amazon.ca....the same goes for the Larsson books, i had heard of them, and "looked inside" the books at amazon, and was HOOKED immediately.Also have been treating myself at times Raymond Chandler's detective stories which i obtained online for free from the "burgomeister's books". Raymond Chandler deserves his amazing reputation as given by the literary giants of the 20th century. Reading his writing is like tasting and enjoying a gourmet meal, with delicious champagne or something equally delicious.........it's incomparable i think...his adjectives, his way of putting things is just jaw dropping at times and very funny too, in an hardboiled detective kind of way...Philip Marlowe is quite the interesting character, not to mention all the slim thugs with guns and saps, and the hollywood girls, hooked on gin, and ether....and the doctors, who go around giving the alkies a shot so they don't wake up screaming....and there's the casinos, and gambling and all that colourful stuff....a lot like some of the movies, with Humphrey Bogart...in fact he starred in one of Chandler's stories made into a movie.."The Big Sleep"... i don't think any one has ever matched Raymond Chandler's writing. he stands in a class by himself, an american raised in England, so he has such an amazing command of the language...he also used to write screenplays for Hollywood.here's a little taste of Chandler from his "Collected stories":"Shorty got out of the car, slammed the rear door, started to say something, then walked fast across the sidewalk into the store.De Spain jerked the car into motion and hit forty in the first block. He laughed deep down in his chest. He made it fifty in the next block and then began to turn in and out of streets and finally he pulled to a stop again under a pepper tree outside a schoolhouse.I got the gun when he reached forward for the parking brake. He laughed dryly and spat out of the open window."Okay," he said. "That's why I put it there. I talked to Violets M'Gee. That kid reporter called me up from L.A. They've found Matson. They're sweating some apartment house guy right now."I slid away from him over to my corner of the car and held the gun loosely between my knees. "We're outside the limits of Bay City, copper," I told him. "What did M'Gee say?""He said he gave you a lead to Matson, but he didn't know whether you had contacted him or not. This apartment house guy--I didn't hear his name--was trying to dump a stiff in the alley when a couple of alcoholics jumped him. M'Gee said if you had contacted Matson and heard his story you would be down here getting in a jam, and would likely wake up sapped beside some stiff.""I didn't contact Matson," I said.I could feel De Spain staring at me under his dark craggy brows. "But you're down here in a jam," he said.I got a cigarette out of my pocket with my left hand and lit it with the dash lighter. I kept my right hand on the gun. I said: "I got the idea you were on the way out down here. That you weren't even detailed on this killing. Now you've taken a prisoner across the city line. What does that make you?""A bucket of mud--unless I deliver something good.""That's what I am," I said. "I guess we ought to team up and break these three killings.""Three?""Yeah. Helen Matson, Harry Matson and Doc Austrian's wife. They all go together.""can't you just hear Bogart's voice in that? as the detective? not the cop, de Spain.
85% of my reading is done online and it is mainly centered upon news and news analysis, mostly to do with politics and geopolitics. (Oh, no-one wanna marry me anymore lol?)Most of my professional life involves reading and translating so I don't really have much time and inclination for reading books in my spare time any more. The few I do read are autobiographies and - again - books dealing with political subjects. I almost never read fiction and I rarely feel the need anymore to re-read any of the many classics I have read.That may read very depressing to some but I really enjoy my "reading life" these days - as much as ever in fact - as it teaches me a lot about things I'm very interested in. Do I wish things were different in some kind of nostalgic way? Not really. It's a bit like wishing one was rich - a pointless and self-flagellating exercise.The book I am reading at the moment is a present from a friend in America. It's an attempt to explain why many people leave the church and organized religion (as I did many years ago.) I am reading it in an open-minded manner to see if there are any aspects of my perceptions of religion which either need updating or may have become irrelevant over the years. And are there?
I'm reading Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. It's the original American advertising bible, written at the turn of last century, and still quoted by advertising gurus to this day. I'm also reading the US Army combat manual, and recently finished David Bodanis Passionate Minds, the story of Voltaire and Emilie Du Chatelet, the woman who put Newton's gravity equation on track and set the scene for E=mc2.I think that means that I find a way of using one of Voltaire's books as a weapon or form of advertising, I'm getting somewhere
.
Just realized that I didn't actually address your questions about how I find reading material. A lot of my reading material is used as reference material for books, and I hardly ever read fiction. Seems unfair, really, that I can inflict so much of my own material on other people, and then get so picky about what I read. On the other hand, who said there was any justice in literature?
At the moment, I''m re-reading Milan Kundera's "Immortality." Prior to that I read, Thomas Moore "Care of the Soul," D.H. Lawrence "Women in Love," and Victor Hugo's "Les Misereables," which moved me to tears.I try to stay away from Canadian novels, especially anything written after 1990 for I can't stand reading any book which is too self conscious in regards of being politically correct.How, do I come across books? Interestingly enough, they seem to find me.
I have three books on the go at the moment, Marco Polo by Keith Miles and David Butler, The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly and an audiobook Sick Puppy & Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen - this last, highly recommended for gridlock-ease. I've recently developed an addiction toward audiobooks. There is some terrific stuff out there. Many are performed rather than merely read - some, even, with sound effects.
At the moment a book called Small Wars by Sadie Jones. It's about an army officer stationed in Cyprus in the '50's. His family move there with him. It's set during the time called 'The Emergency' when the EOKA began a terrorist campaign against British rule. I'm only a few pages in so no more for the moment.Having looked up De Niro's Game to find out more about it, I'm just about to order it after I click Add Comment
.
i've recently been reading Henning Mankell, who has been writing a series of Swedish detective stories for a number of years, with his main character being Detective Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander. the books are amazingly well written in my view, although i must admit i'm reading translations as i can't read Swedish.he portrays the Sweden of the 90's in most of his books about Wallander, with an excursion into the early 70's to catch up on Wallander's start in the police business.excellent books.also read Stieg Larsson's three books about that "girl"...Lisbeth Salander, also in translated english from Swedish. they are excellent, amazingly excellent books, although a bit scary in places, and gory here and there, when crimes are committed....you know the series...."the girl with the dragon tattoo", "the girl who played with fire" and "the girl who kicked the hornet's nest"....all excellent.i started reading Wallander because of the English TV series with Kenneth Branagh playing Wallander which appeared on PBS a while ago. i was quite taken with the stories, and looked them up on Amazon.ca....the same goes for the Larsson books, i had heard of them, and "looked inside" the books at amazon, and was HOOKED immediately.Also have been treating myself at times Raymond Chandler's detective stories which i obtained online for free from the "burgomeister's books". Raymond Chandler deserves his amazing reputation as given by the literary giants of the 20th century. Reading his writing is like tasting and enjoying a gourmet meal, with delicious champagne or something equally delicious.........it's incomparable i think...his adjectives, his way of putting things is just jaw dropping at times and very funny too, in an hardboiled detective kind of way...Philip Marlowe is quite the interesting character, not to mention all the slim thugs with guns and saps, and the hollywood girls, hooked on gin, and ether....and the doctors, who go around giving the alkies a shot so they don't wake up screaming....and there's the casinos, and gambling and all that colourful stuff....a lot like some of the movies, with Humphrey Bogart...in fact he starred in one of Chandler's stories made into a movie.."The Big Sleep"... i don't think any one has ever matched Raymond Chandler's writing. he stands in a class by himself, an american raised in England, so he has such an amazing command of the language...he also used to write screenplays for Hollywood.here's a little taste of Chandler from his "Collected stories":"Shorty got out of the car, slammed the rear door, started to say something, then walked fast across the sidewalk into the store.De Spain jerked the car into motion and hit forty in the first block. He laughed deep down in his chest. He made it fifty in the next block and then began to turn in and out of streets and finally he pulled to a stop again under a pepper tree outside a schoolhouse.I got the gun when he reached forward for the parking brake. He laughed dryly and spat out of the open window."Okay," he said. "That's why I put it there. I talked to Violets M'Gee. That kid reporter called me up from L.A. They've found Matson. They're sweating some apartment house guy right now."I slid away from him over to my corner of the car and held the gun loosely between my knees. "We're outside the limits of Bay City, copper," I told him. "What did M'Gee say?""He said he gave you a lead to Matson, but he didn't know whether you had contacted him or not. This apartment house guy--I didn't hear his name--was trying to dump a stiff in the alley when a couple of alcoholics jumped him. M'Gee said if you had contacted Matson and heard his story you would be down here getting in a jam, and would likely wake up sapped beside some stiff.""I didn't contact Matson," I said.I could feel De Spain staring at me under his dark craggy brows. "But you're down here in a jam," he said.I got a cigarette out of my pocket with my left hand and lit it with the dash lighter. I kept my right hand on the gun. I said: "I got the idea you were on the way out down here. That you weren't even detailed on this killing. Now you've taken a prisoner across the city line. What does that make you?""A bucket of mud--unless I deliver something good.""That's what I am," I said. "I guess we ought to team up and break these three killings.""Three?""Yeah. Helen Matson, Harry Matson and Doc Austrian's wife. They all go together.""can't you just hear Bogart's voice in that? as the detective? not the cop, de Spain.
85% of my reading is done online and it is mainly centered upon news and news analysis, mostly to do with politics and geopolitics. (Oh, no-one wanna marry me anymore lol?)Most of my professional life involves reading and translating so I don't really have much time and inclination for reading books in my spare time any more. The few I do read are autobiographies and - again - books dealing with political subjects. I almost never read fiction and I rarely feel the need anymore to re-read any of the many classics I have read.That may read very depressing to some but I really enjoy my "reading life" these days - as much as ever in fact - as it teaches me a lot about things I'm very interested in. Do I wish things were different in some kind of nostalgic way? Not really. It's a bit like wishing one was rich - a pointless and self-flagellating exercise.The book I am reading at the moment is a present from a friend in America. It's an attempt to explain why many people leave the church and organized religion (as I did many years ago.) I am reading it in an open-minded manner to see if there are any aspects of my perceptions of religion which either need updating or may have become irrelevant over the years. And are there?
Gemma says: "I have been reading the Wallander books by Henning Mankell too and I really enjoy them but when it comes to reading Mankell's other novels I'm struggling."i haven't tried any of his other books yet...i wish that he'd write a dozen or so more Wallander books....For those who like historical fiction, Patrick O'Brian wrote a large number of books (around 20) about a fictional Naval Hero's career in the Napoleonic Wars, who was in the British Royal Navy, by the name of Jack Aubrey, and his best friend, the surgeon/physician Stephen Maturin. They are some of the best written books i've ever seen. They read as if the author had just stepped out of 1815. The New York Times praised them as the greatest historical novels ever written. By the time you've managed to wade through all 20 of the books, you've learned very much more than you thought you would, of British society in the Napoleonic Wars period, as well as the operations of the British Navy at that time, and too, the infinite details of sailing a large three masted ship of the Line.fascinating stuff.if one is interested in stories of the Sailing Age, there are a number of histories which cover this era, as well as some editions of Captain's log books from the early exploration voyages. For example Captain Cook's log books which were written up into books suitable for sale to the public. They are quite interesting if you are interested in middle 18th centurey life on board ship, on the way to places exotic like Tahiti, New Zealand, Autstralia, Indonesia, Hawaii, the north Pacific along B.C.'s coastline and up into the waters around Alaska, looking for the north east passage (well north east from his position in the Pacific.Joseph Banks also wrote an interesting journal during his voyaging with Captain Cook around the world, to Tahiti, so that he could do some astronomical measurements of Venus transiting the Sun back in 1769. Banks was a rich young naturalist who brought along a couple more scholars and an artist. His journal is interesting also. and you can get it online. Patrick O'Brian wrote a biography of Mr. Banks which is also very interesting. Banks was a friend to the Crown, George III,i mananged to get a copy of CG Jung's RED BOOK a while back, but have not been able to seriously get into it yet..
没有评论:
发表评论