What I read in 2009

[davidgoldfarb]

As usual, for the new year I'm posting a list of the books I read last year, with occasional comments. In addition to these, there were the weekly new comic books (I don't list them, or book collections thereof), plus subscriptions to Asimov's, Science News, Chess Life, The Bridge World, and The ACBL Bulletin. For next year, Katie is adding to this The Economist.

It's longish, so here's a cut.


January:

Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone
Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus
Mike Lawrence, The Complete Book on Balancing in Contract Bridge
Naomi Novik, His Majesty's Dragon

Wow, did I really only read the Noviks a year ago? It seems like longer.

Naomi Novik, Throne of Jade
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Horizon

Which led directly to...

February:

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Beguilement
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Legacy
Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Ninth Talisman

A re-read, preparing for

Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Summer Palace
Naomi Novik, Black Powder War
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles
Susan Palwick, The Necessary Beggar

March:
Gene Wolfe, The Knight

It happened that I started reading this as I was a little ways into the Aeneid, so I was able to get a reference or two that I might not have otherwise -- for instance, there's a prophetic old woman near the beginning named Parka. The Parcae were the Roman goddesses of fate.

Gene Wolfe, The Wizard
Jo Walton, Lifelode

Dedicated to me! I'm still way chuffed about that. I found the ending worked better for me than when I first read it; partially because of the revisions, partially because I'd had time to get used to the idea of those characters doing that.

Jim C. Hines, The Stepsister Scheme

A loan from a friend who liked it. I found it mildly amusing, but have not been moved to seek out the sequels.

Epictetus, Enchiridion

"Enchiridion" means something like "manual" or "handbook" (quite literally) and this is a handbook of Stoic philosophy. The year before I'd been in an online group reading this, but the group stopped about halfway through, so I went and finished on my own. I will say that when a friend died while I was reading it, I didn't find the philosophy to be of much comfort.

Enchiridion, translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Enchiridion, tr. George Long

Two translations available online for free, that I used to aid my understanding of the original.

John M. Ford, The Princes of the Air

As usual with Ford, brilliant stuff, and I'm not quite sure I understood what happened in the ending.

April:

Walter Jon Williams, Implied Spaces
Robin McKinley, Chalice
Bruce Sterling, Distraction
Patricia McKillip, The Bell at Sealey Head
Patricia Wrede, Thirteenth Child

May:

John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale
Euripides, The Trojan Women
The Trojan Woman, tr. E. P. Coleridge

Not many books in May, because much of my May book-reading time was given over to:

June:

Neal Stephenson, Anathem

Read as a Hugo nominee. Very slow going for me...I enjoyed it ok while actually reading, but I kept putting it down and winding up playing Bejeweled 2 instead of picking it up again.

Stephen King, Duma Key

July:

Sean Stewart, Cathy's Book

Sean Stewart is one of my favorite authors, so when I found out he had a YA trilogy I hadn't heard about, I had to give it a look. I wasn't really impressed, I'm afraid.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

This one didn't quite live up to the hype, but then nothing could.

Sean Stewart, Perfect Circle

Set in Houston, where I now live; I definitely found that knowing the locations referenced added something

Dave Duncan, The Alchemist's Pursuit
Plato, Ion

Maybe a bit short to give it its own entry, but oh well.

Ion, tr. W. R. M. Lamb

August:

Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer
Daniel Abraham, A Betrayal in Winter
Daniel Abraham, An Autumn War
Neil Gaiman, Odd and the Frost Giants
Christopher Paolini, Eragon

A long-ago Christmas present from my mother. As with some other books this year, I was not moved to seek out the sequels.

September:

Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn
Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension
Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
Pat Cadigan, Tea from an Empty Cup
Vergil, The Aeneid
The Aeneid, tr. Theodore C. Williams
Jeff Rubens, Expert Bridge Simplified: Arithmetic Shortcuts for Declarer

I got this one for free because Rubens used a deal that I sent in to The Bridge World in the book. It's an impressive collection of challenging bridge problems, that amounts to a textbook on probability. (At least, probability as it arises in the playing of bridge.) I'd have thought it good value if I'd bought a copy, for free was excellent.

October:

Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

The setting of this one is in some ways quite opposite to that of the Mistborn trilogy: the trilogy is set in a bleak and monochrome world full of brown plants and black volcanic ash; this book is set in a tropical land that trades on colorful dyes, and features magic based on color as well. I wondered if that was deliberate.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia
Jo Graham, Black Ships

I'd been saving both of these till I finished reading the Aeneid...

Sean Stewart, Mockingbird
Sean Stewart, Galveston

These two also are set in the Houston area.

Lev Grossman, The Magicians

I'd like to see someone with a keener eye than I have analyze this book. It's about a university for magicians, which would seem to place it squarely in the fantasy genre...but there's something about the tone of voice, and the pacing, and the way characterization is done which makes it read solidly as mainstream literary fiction. About halfway through, it looks like the book is going to go in one direction, and then immediately after it veers off in another, one which I found much less interesting. It doesn't help that right there the protagonist turns rather feckless. Overall pretty good, though.

Jane Lindskold, Nine Gates

November:

Brandon Sanderson, Elantris
Peter S. Beagle, We Never Talk About My Brother

A story collection I picked up at Worldcon. As usual for Beagle, very good.

Charlie Stross, Wireless
Harry Warner, Jr., All Our Yesterdays
Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

I picked this up because Katie was reading it. When I first read it, I was impatient with Ekaterin for dragging her feet about entering the plainly-predestined romance; this time around it was more clear to me that Miles was being a butthead.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

December:

James Hamilton-Patterson, Cooking with Fernet Branca

A novel parodying travel and cooking books (I'm pretty sure, inspired by Peter Mayle's Provence books among others) -- not the sort of thing I usually read, it had been a gift. I found it a bit overly arch.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring

I was finally able to get this out of the library; they had the first three, but didn't get a copy of the last for a long time.

Diana Wynne Jones, The Lives of Christopher Chant

Another one that I picked up because Katie did.

P. C. Hodgell, Bound in Blood

A new volume in the Kencyr series, much quicker than the last couple took! Yay! I just wish the overarching plot would advance a little faster. But I'll still be around for the next one.

Hugh Vickers, Great Operatic Disasters
Hugh Vickers, Even Greater Operatic Disasters

A couple of slim humor books that I took off the shelf when we were visiting Katie's parents at Christmas.

James Hamilton-Patterson, Amazing Disgrace

A sequel, gifted at the same time as the prior book. I liked it better.

71 books total, down 2 from last year (and at that I'm cheating a bit by counting both the original text of the Greek and Latin works and the translations I used as ponies); I blame Neal Stephenson. 52 science fiction or fantasy, 9 literary or historical fiction, 10 non-fiction.

Comments

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the To Kill A Mockingbird movie? I really like it, but I didn't like the book as well.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't; but then there are a lot of good movies I've never seen.