Posts under ‘Reading List’

Now that 2008 is officially over, it’s time to pick the best books of the year! Golly gum golly, it was quite the year of reading for me. Here follow my picks for the best books I read last year (not necessarily published last year), month-by-month.

A note on the many, many links embedded here: Month names link to my full monthly book summaries, book titles link to Amazon, and author names link to either the author’s personal blog or website, or Wikipedia — whichever was more appropriate and/or extant.

March:

Veterans: thank you.

This morning I had the honour of participating in my university’s Remembrance Day ceremony — my choir sang an arrangement of In Flanders Fields and also led the congregation in a few hymns and the national anthems. I’ve participated this way as long as I’ve been in the choir. We get a good sized crowd out every year, standing quietly in the cold, but every year there are fewer and fewer veterans.

Canada has one remaining World War One veteran. He is a hundred and eight years old.

Which October books? Those ones. Over there. Them what I did got read.

The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis. This is a longstanding personal favourite, because it is both splendidly written and extremely useful. The Screwtape Letters is a collection of letters “from a senior to a junior devil”, pertaining largely to matters of sin and temptation, and touching on most of the general ares of human existence, both carnal and spiritual. It is good.

Na na na na Na na na na na Na na na na Na na na na September Books!

*Halting State, by Charles Stross. The plot of this book was a wee tad confusing, but the writing was fascinating. There are three main characters. They all speak in Scottish dialect. And it’s narrated in the second person. Whoa-oh-oh-oh! Go on, read it. I dare you.

*Story of the Sand, by Mark B. Pickering. This wasn’t very good… (reviewed)

*In the Land of Invisible Women, by Qanta Ahmed. … but this was. (reviewed)

I find these monthly book summaries simultaneously stimulating and dreadful. Stimulating because I like to see how many books I’ve read, and to look at how the month was shaped as a whole, at least as far as literature is concerned. I find them dreadful because the task falls to me of not only remembering what I’ve read throughout the month, but finding something to say about each book. Let me tell you, for some months that’s a lot harder to do than for others.

Books! In July! I read ‘em! It was, in fact, a particularly excellent month in terms of my reading, especially as regards things I’d never read before (marked, as always, with an asterisk).

Here are the goods:

*V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore. My brothers had been bothering me to read this for a good while now. And so I read it, and enjoyed it. It’s dark and gritty and graphic; I thought that the premise/world was exceedingly interesting. I discussed V for Vendetta in a little more detail here.

Happy Canada Day! We just ate our Canada Day lunch: back-bacon on buns, roasted asparagus, corn on the cob, and lemon cake and fresh strawberries for dessert.

And now I’m all happy and full and thinking back over the last month. I read approximately seven thousand books in June. Well, it was actually 26, but it sure felt like more. Definitely in excess of my normal intake, anyway. Since there were so many (and because it’s fun) I’m going to six-word reviews this time:

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi. Spawned new love for graphic novels.

Coming home from vacation is nicer when you come home to this (click to embiggen):

Here’s the breakdown:

Mooched:

• Letters to Karen, by Charlie W. Shedd
• Letters to Philip, by Charlie W. Shedd
• Priceless Weddings for under $5000, by Kathleen Kennedy

Sent from Phenix & Phenix:

• Runaway, by Steve Simpson
• Castaway Kid, by R. B. Mitchell
• Genuine Men, by Nancy Bruno
• The Last Plague, by Glen E. Page
• It Starts with You!, by Julia J. Austin

Sent from Bloomsbury Press:

• The Power Makers, by Maury Klein