2012 – A Year of Reading

It is the dawn of a new year and it is time to take stock of the old year – in my case to think back on books and reading. 2012 was an interesting reading year for me. I wanted to read 70 books. I read around 71 books. (I think I missed out on counting a few books). This is the highest number of books that I have read in any year. Numbers don’t mean much in terms of reading but it still made me happy to read what I had planned.

 

The breakup of my reading was as follows :

 

Fiction

Abridged Classics – 1

Children’s literature – 1

Contemporary Fiction – 2

Classics – 6

Comics – 6

Drama – 2

Fairytales – 1

Fantasy – 2

Gothic Fiction – 1

Historical Fiction – 1

Literary Fiction – 26

Love Story (Literary) – 2

Love Story (Romance) – 1

Popular Classic – 1

Science Fiction – 2

Short Story Collections – 2

Thrillers / Crime Fiction – 6

Young Adult – 3

 

Nonfiction

Books on books / literature – 2

Cinema – 1

Memoir – 1

Sport – 1

I seem to have read a lot of literary fiction this year and some classics, comics, thrillers and nonfiction.

 

I read 55 books written by male authors, 15 books written by women authors and 1 book jointly written by a male and a woman author. The number of books  by women authors that I read has dropped drastically. I should try to redress this in the New Year.

 

I read 40 books written in English, 8 books written in Tamil and 23 which were translations (Arabic 1, French 6, German 12, Italian 2, Norwegian 2). I think this is the first ever time I have read an Arabic novel. Out of the six French books, five were comics And they were all Belgian And they were all L2 translations – books which were originally published in French and then translated into English and from English into Tamil. One of the Italian books I read was also a comic – it was a western and was one of my childhood favourites starring Tex Willer. I also think that I read a Norwegian novel for the first time.

 

My fiction-nonfiction breakup was 66-5 – not good for the nonfiction part of the equation. I should work on that part this year. 

 

I read 63 of my own books, 1 book which I borrowed from my friend, 4 books which I borrowed from the library, and 3 books which were gifts.

 

I also read 37 books recommended by friends and fellow book bloggers which is nearly half of the books that I read. It looks like I am very receptive to recommendations

 

As a reader, for most of the year, I stuck to the Aristotlean Golden Mean – reading mostly books of 300 pages or less. I read 8 novellas (books of around a 100 pages or less) and 6 comics and so that is 14 easy reads. I read one chunkster (‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ by Ann Radcliffe) and one mid-level chunkster (‘Hannibal : Pride of Carthage’ by David Anthony Durham). I think I should move out of my comfort zone and read bigger books in the New Year – making a plan to read ‘War and Peace’ or ‘In Search of Lost Time’ will definitely help.

 

During the course of my reading I (armchair) travelled to different countries – America, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland. I also travelled back in time to Carthage. That is 13 countries. Last year I did 17 – so there is room for improvement here. I should look more closely at Latin America, Africa and East Asia this year.

 

Out of the 71 books I read, I didn’t review 29 books. That is a very high number for me. I normally try to review every book that I read. It looks like I missed that by a wide margin.

I participated in six reading events with fellow bloggers – three readalongs (Prodigal Summer, The Mysteries of Udolpho, A Christmas Carol), Antonio Tabucchi Week, Dickens in December and German Literature Month. Those were a lot of reading events and read-alongs for me. I normally try to do one in a year, because when I am under pressure, my reading goes south. But luckily this year, that didn’t happen and the read-alongs and challenges inspired me to read more as I discovered new wonderful authors and books. I loved participating in these events and I would like to thank my fellow book bloggers who organized these wonderful events.

 

I also read four books for book club. I also did a Science Fiction and Fantasy course in Coursera and read four books for that. I discovered the wonderful ‘Herland’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through this course.

 

I liked most of the books that I read. I am one of those readers who likes all the books he reads – the way children like all sweets. There was one exception, however. I was disappointed by ‘The Weekend’ by Bernhard Schlink. I loved my previous two Schlink novels and so I thought I will give this also a try. Unfortunately, it was a disaster. I hope that Schlink has had his one bad book to ward off bad luck and will be back to his normal game in the others.

 

Which were my favourite books of the year? It is difficult question, when you like most of the books you read. When I looked at the list of books that I read and made some hard decisions and tried to whittle down the list to a list of favourites, the following books came out.

 

Literary Fiction

 

(1) Unformed Landscape by Peter Stamm – Peter Stamm’s beautiful story of a young woman who goes on a quest to discover herself stole my heart and refused to let it go.

 

(2) The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller – Herta Muller’s powerful poetic imagery and lush prose had me riveted to this book though it was about a very serious topic – life in Communist Romania.

 

(3) The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes – I had kept away from this book for so long. I finally got a chance to read it for book club. It was my first novel by Barnes, hopefully the first of many to come. The plot is not much – it is about a man who looks back at his past –  but the rest is awesome.

 

(4) Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes – The second Barnes novel that I read. A love letter to the great Gustave Flaubert. Very infectious, endlessly fascinating and a literature lover’s delight.

 

(5) Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson – Probably my first Norwegian novel. Brings the cold Norwegian landscape to magical life through beautiful prose and atmospheric descriptions.

 

(6) Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – My first Kingsolver book. It is the story of three women and their lives and loves. And a fourth – nature. Her love of nature and wild life is very infectious and I hope to read more of her works.

 

(7) Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy – My first Hardy novel. The ending was tragic, and in my opinion not that great (one of my friends suggested that if you want a happy ending in a Hardy novel, you have to read from the last page to the first), but an exceptional novel otherwise. I don’t understand why he doesn’t occupy the hallowed space in the English literary landscape that is currently occupied by Dickens and Austen. Because he is that good.

 

(8) On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman – A road novel with only a few characters. The main character is an aspiring writer who is trying to explore the meaning of life through his writing and through his travel. A beautiful first novel which deeply resonated with me.

 

Novella

 

(9) Maryam’s Maze by Mansoura Ez Eldin – My first Arabic book. It is a slim book, but has so much packed into those pages – a brief history of modern Egypt, family life in Egypt, a young woman’s quest for the truth behind the illusory façade of reality – all these and more. One of my favourite new discoveries of the year. I can’t wait to read Mansoura Ez Eldin’s next book.

 

(10) The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind – This is my second Süskind book. His story of a simple, anonymous, introverted outsider who tries to get through a normal day peacefully and how everything conspires against him is very beautifully told.

 

YA

 

(11) A Note of Madness by Tabitha Suzuma – Tabitha Suzuma’s ‘Forbidden’ is the one which has been creating waves recently, but her first book ‘A Note of Madness’ is equally good. The story of a young musician who descends into depression is very realistic and extremely scary.

 

Tamil Fiction

 

(12) Vannathu Poochi Vettai (Butterfly hunt) by Sujatha – I read a few books by Sujatha this year, including ‘Yen Iniya Iyandhira’ (My Sweet Machine) and ‘Karayellam Shenbagapoo’ (Magnolias fill the bank), but this was my favourite out of them. ‘Vannathu Poochi Vettai’ is about a young woman who gets married in the traditional Indian way (her parents find her husband) and after the initial honeymoon period she discovers that her husband has secrets and a parallel life. Very scary but with a life affirming ending.

 

Thriller / Crime Fiction

 

(13) Crime by Ferdinand Von Schirach – One of my favourite discoveries of the year. This book is based on actual cases that Schirach worked on. It is an exceptional analysis of and a beautiful meditation on law and its philosophy.

 

Love Story

 

(14) Essays in Love by Alain de Botton – One of my favourite love stories of alltime. It charts the course of the love life of a young man and woman from the time they meet to the time they break it off. The ending is heartbreaking in a very real way.

 

(15) The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson – Another of my favourite love stories and a very unique one at that. It also has one of my favourite short love stories – that of Francesco and Graziana.

 

Nonfiction

 

(16) Talking about Detective Fiction by P.D.James – James’s masterly analysis of detective fiction since the 19^th century. Though it has an Anglo-American focus, the book gives an excellent overview of the genre. Recommended reading for detective fiction fans.

 

(17) Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes – Barnes’s meditation on life and death is deep, poignant and has his vintage dry humour. Barnes was one of the major discoveries of the year for me. I read three of his books and loved all three. That can only mean one thing – he has zoomed up and entered my list of favourite writers.

 

Play

 

(18) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde – I read an Oscar Wilde play finally. It was good, really good. Not good – it was excellent, exceptional. And it made me laugh throughout. I can’t wait to read more of Wilde’s plays. The other play I read this year, ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ by Oliver Goldsmith was a dud. Or should I say ‘meh’ J English literature professors may disagree, but this is what I think.  

 

Comic

 

(19) Western by Jean Van Hamme, Grzegorz Rosinski – A sad, poignant story of a young boy who comes back to the town he ran away from as a kid and falls in love with the girl whose father he killed. We can guess what happens next. It all ends badly for him and his sweetheart and the ending is heartbreaking. The story is wonderful but tragic and the artwork is haunting. By my favourite comic writer Jean Van Hamme, western comic fans will love this.

 

Honourable Mentions

 

I have to talk about a few honourable mentions here. I liked very much the following books too, though I haven’t included them in the above list.

 

(20) The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March – An ode to Meryl Streep and her movies, this book made me think of the movie nights we have with our family with bags of popcorn. Reading the book was like having a conversation with one’s family and friends.

 

(21) Sleeping Patterns by J.R.Crook – A slim novella, but a very inventive one, which challenges the reader and asks questions on what a novel is and what a character is and what is possible within the covers of the book. A fascinating debut by Jamie Crook.

 

(22) Sarah’s Window by Janice Graham – I found this in the ‘Romance’ section in the library. I loved it when I read it. It is the story of a young woman who puts aside her dreams of becoming an artist and works in a restaurant to help out her grandparents. Then she falls in love with a married man. Then we discover that she has a past. I found this a difficult book to classify. It doesn’t fit into the traditional Harlequin romance mould. It is difficult to classify it as literary fiction. I don’t know what it is. But it is good. Janice Graham’s beautiful sentences make one riveted to the book. The story is fast-paced and gripping with perfect twists in the plot and perfect surprises at the right times. I love Janice Graham. I want to read more of her works.

 

(23) Tell Me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar – It is the story of a young girl who is suddenly able to see strange people, her best friend who helps her and he ex-boyfriend who stalks her. The story is gripping, beautiful and atmospheric.

 

(24) Hannibal : Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham – I have heard of Carthage and Hannibal but haven’t read anything about it. Reading this novel was an education for me. Thanks to David Anthony Durham for that. It is also a unique book – this is probably only the second novel on Carthage after Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Salammbô’ and the only contemporary one. It deserves to be read more widely.

So what am I planning to do in 2013? I am hoping to read more. More books. More chunksters. More plays. More essay collections. More short story collections. More comics. More thrillers. More Tamil books. More women writers. One thing I don’t want to do, however, is read a book just because it is slim – it is always tempting to read a slim book and say that I have read one more book. I don’t want to do that.

 

How was your reading year in 2012? I hope you had a wonderful time reading wonderful books and exploring fascinating writers. I can’t wait to hear about your reading year.

 

Wish you a very Happy and Wonderful New Year! Hope your New Year is filled with lots of wonderful books, delightful stories and luscious prose and gorgeous poetry, and beautiful ‘aha’ reading moments Hope you had a wonderful New Year Eve and are having a wonderful first New Year day today

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2011 – A Year of Reading

It is the dawn of a new year and it is time to take stock of the old year – in my case to think back on books and reading. 2011 was an interesting reading year for me. I wanted to read 60 books. I read around 67 books. I say ‘around’ because I am not sure. I might have missed out a few books that I read at the beginning of the year. This is the highest number of books that I have read in any year Numbers don’t mean much in terms of reading – I will come back to this topic in a while – but it still made me happy to read more than what I had planned.

 

The breakup of my reading was as follows :

 

Abridged Classics – 2

Biography / Memoir – 4

Books about Books – 1

Classics – 8

Comics – 2

Essay Collections – 3

Fairytales / Mythology – 2

Graphic Novels – 2

Literary Fiction – 11

Mystery – 7

Romance / Love stories – 3

Philosophy – 1

Poetry – 1

Short Story Collections – 3

Thrillers – 4

YA (Young Adult) literature – 13

 

I seem to have read a lot of literary fiction, YA, mysteries and classics. Interesting!

 

I read 41 books written by male authors, 25 books written by women authors and 1 book jointly written by a male and a woman author. I read 48 books written in English and 20 which were translations.

 

I participated in one reading challenge – ‘Read-a-Myth’ challenge hosted by Jo from ‘Bibliojunkie’ and Bina from ‘If You Can Read This’. I also participated in two read-alongs – ‘The End of Mr.Y’ readalong hosted by Jo from ‘Bibliojunkie’, and the Effi Briest readalong hosted by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life. I also took part in German Literature Month hosted by Caroline and Lizzy. Those were a lot of challenges and read-alongs for me. I normally try to do one in a year, because when I am under pressure, my reading goes south. But luckily this year, the read-alongs and challenges inspired me to read more. I loved German Literature Month, especially, because it introduced me to a lot of fascinating new writers and wonderful works of literature.

 

I liked most of the books that I read. I am one of those readers who likes all the books he reads – the way children like all sweets There were only two exceptions. I was disappointed by ‘River of Death’ by Alistair Maclean and ‘Those in Peril’ by Wilbur Smith. Maclean is one of my favourite thriller writers, but ‘River of Death’ is one of his later books and he seemed to have written it casually and the storytelling was formulaic. The same could be said of Wilbur Smith’s ‘Those in Peril’, though the premise of the novel was quite interesting.

 

Which were my favourite books of the year? It is difficult question, when you like most of the books you read. When I looked at the list of books that I read and made some hard decisions and tried to whittle down the list to a list of favourites, the following books came out.

 

My favourite novels were :

 

When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant

 

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

 

Night Gardening by E.L.Swann

 

Possession by A.S.Byatt

 

Suspicion by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

 

Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink

 

My favourite YA (Young Adult) novels were :

 

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

 

The Gates by John Connolly

 

Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes

 

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

 

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

 

Matched by Ally Condie

 

My favourite novellas were :

 

Immensee by Theodor Storm

 

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist

 

My favourite short story collections were :

 

Nothing But Love : Love Stories from the New Yorker edited by Roger Angell

 

The Greatest Romance Stories ever Told edited by Nancy Butler

 

I also loved some of the stories from ‘Great German Short Novels and Stories’ edited by Victor Lange – especially ‘Immensee’ by Theodor Storm.

 

I read only one book of poetry – ‘Odes to Common Things’ by Pablo Neruda – which was gifted to me by one of my dear friends. I loved the poems, the sketches accompanying them and the beautiful way the book was produced.

 

What about my favourite non-fiction books?

 

I loved ’31 Songs’ by Nick Hornby – it is a beautiful ode sung in the honour of music by a music fan. I loved ‘Reading Like a Writer’ by Francine Prose – especially the books that prose discusses in them. I want to read some of those books. I loved the three cricket memoirs I read. My favourite was ‘What I Love About Cricket : One Man’s vain attempt to explain cricket to a teenager who couldn’t give a toss’ by Sandy Balfour. Unfortunately I haven’t reviewed this book. The description in this book of a catch taken by Paul Collingwood is one of the most beautiful descriptions of a cricket scene that I have ever read. The other two cricket memoirs I read – Malcolm Speed’s ‘Sticky Wicket’ and Matthew Hayden’s ‘Standing My Ground’ were quite interesting too. I also liked Masha Gessen’s ‘Perfect Rigour’ – an account of Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman’s successful attempt to prove the Poincare conjecture.

 

Some of my favourite parts from other books would include the first 120-odd pages of ‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides, which was really wonderful, parts of the romance novel ‘Love Letters’ by Katie Fforde because it is a story about books, writers, novels, bookshops and literary festivals, some of the beautiful passages from ‘The Infinities’ by John Banville (can anyone write more beautiful prose?), some of the beautiful passages from ‘Love Virtually’ by Daniel Glattauer, a novel which is wholly made up of emails, some of the powerful prose of Emily Maguire’s ‘Taming the Beast’, which led me to Maguire beautiful essay ‘Solitude is Bliss’ and which made me want to read other novels of hers and the interesting premise of ‘The Sorrows of Satan’ by Marie Corelli, the literary superstar of yesteryears.

 

One of my favourites which deserves a separate post by itself is the essay ‘Sweets’ by Robert Lynd. I first read this essay in school and loved it. I have since searched for Lynd’s essay collections or this essay but haven’t been able to find them. Even Gutenberg doesn’t seem to have them. Then I found an old anthology called ‘Contemporary English Prose’ (which had extracts and stories which were more than 60 years old – nothing contemporary about it ) and to my great delight this essay was there. I went home and read it and it gave me as much pleasure as it did when I read it the first time. It was like meeting an old childhood friend after many years and discovering that talking with the friend was as delightful as before and continuing our conversation with this friend from where we left off all those years back.

 

As a reader, for most of the year, I stuck to the Aristotlean Golden Mean – reading mostly books of 300 pages or less. There were a few exceptions though – ‘Forbidden’ by Tabitha Suzuma, ‘The Sorrows of Satan’ by Marie Corelli, ‘The Book of Lost Things’ John Connolly, ‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides, ‘Possession‘ by A.S.Byatt, ‘The End of Mr.Y’ by Scarlett Thomas and ‘Nothing But You’ edited by Roger Angell were all 500 pages or above.

 

During the course of my reading I (armchair) travelled to different countries – America, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Russia,  Taiwan,  South Africa, South Korea. Quite an impressive list, isn’t it

 

I hope to read more in 2012. I will try to touch 70 books. I also want to read atleast two chunksters – which according to me are books which are 800 pages above. The chunksters I am looking at are ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy (my fourth attempt), ‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust (my second attempt) and ‘The Pickwick Papers’ by Charles Dickens (my first attempt). I am also hoping that I am not worried about reading more number of books but focus on reading more good books and sometimes choosing a thicker book over a thinner one. I will have to wait and see how my reading pans out this year.

 

How was your reading year in 2011? I hope you had a wonderful time reading wonderful books and exploring fascinating writers. I can’t wait to hear about your reading year.

 

Wish you a very Happy and Wonderful New Year! Hope your New Year is filled with lots of wonderful books, delightful stories and luscious prose and gorgeous poetry, and beautiful ‘aha’ reading moments

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2010 – A Year of Reading

2010 was a normal reading year for me. It was wonderful in terms of the individual books that I read, but it was not wonderful in terms of the number of books I read. But it was not bad either from that aspect. I read more books in 2010 than the previous year (36 books compared to 30) but less than the year before that (I read 50 books in 2008). I looked at the books I read in 2010 and discovered the following interesting things about them

• 81% of the books that I read were fiction and 19% were nonfiction.
• My breakup in fiction was – General fiction – 36%,  Sci-Fi – 14%, Graphic Novel – 14%, Young Adult / Children’s literature – 11%, Thriller – 3%, Historical Fiction – 3%. I rarely read Sci-Fi and so I think it is an area which I have read more last year, without consciously meaning to.
• My breakup of the nonfiction reads was – Memoir – 11%, Essays – 8%
• I seem to have read more women authors (52%) when compared to men authors (44%). I think this has never happened before – I think it is because of the influence of my blog-friends. (One collection of essays which I read was edited by both men and women writers and so I haven’t included it under either category).
• I travelled to many countries last year through books – America, Canada, England, France, India, Israel, Japan. The odd man out among these countries was Greenland, which I ‘travelled’ towards the end of the year, during the freezing winter (in the book ‘Cold Earth’ by Sarah Moss)
• 50% of the books I read were set in America (probably proving that America is  the capital of the literary universe these days or probably that typical readers like me read more books with an American backdrop), followed by England at 11%, France, India and Japan at 6% each, followed by Israel and Greenland at 2.7% each. One of the books I read (David Sedaris’ ‘Me Talk Pretty One Day’) was set partly in America and partly in France.  The Japanese flag was flying high because of one author Yoko Ogawa, whose two books I read last year (‘The Housekeeper and the Professor‘ and ‘Hotel Iris’).
• Only 22% of the books I read were written before 1970, and a whopping 78% of the books I read were written after that year. It looks like contemporary books are occupying a lot of my time.
• I wanted to read one memoir / biography and one collection of essays during the year. I read 4 memoirs and 3 books of essays. It looks like I have far exceeded my goal on this front last year
• I wanted to read one book on sport which I couldn’t. But I read one novel which was based on my favourite sport, cricket - ’24 for 3′ by Jennie Walker.
• I didn’t read any of the specific titles that I had planned to read last year. I started ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy, and finished one part of that book. There are three other parts left which I am hoping to read this year.
• My most favourite books of the year were (in the order in which I read them) – ‘The Housekeeper and the Professor‘ by Yoko Ogawa, ‘Asterios Polyp’ by David Mazzucchelli, ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind, ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog‘ by Muriel Barbery, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, ‘If I Stay’ by Gayle Forman, ‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E.B.White, ‘A Single Man’ by Christopher Isherwood and ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue. That is like 25% of the books I read I am not a very discerning reader and I like most of the books I read and so this is not surprising.

Hope you enjoyed reading my book reviews last year. Hope you enjoy reading them this year too. Hope you have a wonderful year in 2011 – both with respect to reading and otherwise

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