Books & Films / December 2003

Books Read

Making History - Stephen Fry
Snow White, Blood Red - ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
The Best of John Wyndham
Z for Zachariah - Robert O'Brien
The Last Magician - Janette Turner Hospital
Single & Single - John Le Carré
Poor Things - Alasdair Gray

Here are my first , second and third posts to 50bookchallenge this month.


Cinema Trips

Belleville Rendez-Vous

Just the one film this month due to weekend overtime and not being in the mood for the cinema. Odd really since I was looking forward to The Matrix 3, LOTR 3 and Master & Commander, but haven't got round to seeing any of them.

But anyway, back to the film I did see. Belleville Rendez-Vous is a French animated film with so little dialogue that it didn't need subtitles. A quiet little boy lives with his grandmother, who gives him a puppy and a bike. When he grows up he is a racing cyclist with his grandmother as his trainer, and when he gets kidnapped during a race, she is soon on the trail of the criminals. Very endearing story with an interesting animation style.

My 2003 Reading Summary

cross-posted from 50bookchallenge.

I made it to 50 books and carried on reading, managing a total of 72 books for the year. Only 8 were re-reads so I read more than 50 new books too.

My top five, in the order I read them:

The Sea Road - Margaret Elphinstone
The first book I read in 2003 - a retelling of the Greenland & Vinland Sagas.
The Quincunx - Charles Palliser
A pastiche Victorian mystery - quite a brainteaser.
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabakov
Funny & sad - the clues to what is actually happen gradually unfold throughout the book.
The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J Stanley & William D Danko
Don't keep up with the Jones if you want to be a millionaire.
Who Killed Palomino Molero? - Mario Vargas Llosa
The Peruvian setting makes this a murder mystery with a difference

My bottom five, in the order I read them:

The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
Just not as good as the others of hers that I have read
Wasp, Where is Thy Sting? - Florence King
Probably Americans would get this more
From the Four Corners - Jan Morris
I don't like her tone of voice
One More for the Road - Ray Bradbury
Not terribly interesting short stories
The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carré
Went on and on and on (yawn).

Full List of Books Read in 2003:

1 - The Sea Road - Margaret Elphinstone
2 - I, Lucifer - Glen Duncan
3 - Little Altars Everywhere - Rebecca Wells
4 - Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
5 - The Complete Plays of Joe Orton
6 - The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
7 - Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
8 - The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America
9 - The Persistence of Vision - John Varley
10 - The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury
11 - Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
12 - The Best of Saki - edited by Tom Sharpe
13 - The Quincunx - Charles Palliser
14 - Eggs, Beans and Crumpets - P.G. Wodehouse
15 - Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen
16 - Child of Happy Valley - Juanita Carberry with Nicola Tyrer
17 - White Mischief - James Fox
18 - Dancing with the Virgins - Stephen Booth
19 - South From Granada - Gerald Brenan
20 - I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
21 - Egil's Saga
22 - The Poetic Edda
23 - The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
24 - Call for the Dead - John Le Carré
25 - A Murder of Quality - John Le Carré
26 - The Spy who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carré
27 - The Looking-Glass War - John Le Carré
28 - Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
29 - Tea with the Black Dragon - R. A. MacAvoy
30 - The Joy of Sleep - Shirley Motter Linde & Louis M. Savary
31 - Falling Sideways - Tom Holt
32 - The Difference Engine - William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
33 - Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
34 - Wasp, Where is Thy Sting? - Florence King
35 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
36 - Introduction to Buddhism - Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
37 - Bodhinyana: A Collection of Dhamma Talks - Ajahn Chah
38 - Kings of Albion - Julian Rathbone
39 - Johnny and the Dead - Terry Pratchett
40 - Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett
41 - Breakfast in the Ruins - Michael Moorcock
42 - Coraline - Neil Gaiman
43 - 1984 - George Orwell
44 - In the Wake of the Plague - Norman F. Cantor
45 - The Sandman: Book of Dreams - ed. Neil Gaiman & Ed Kramer
46 - Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabakov
47 - Stupid White Men - Michael Moore
48 - Ex Libris - Anne Fadiman
49 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
50a - From the Four Corners - Jan Morris
50b - Slow Trains to Simla - Paul Theroux
51 - Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
52 - One More for the Road - Ray Bradbury
53 - Stardust - Neil Gaiman
54 - The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J Stanley & William D Danko
55 - 1066 and All That - WC Sellar & RJ Yeatman
56 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
57 - The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carré
58 - Smiley's People - John Le Carré
59 - Who Killed Palomino Molero? - Mario Vargas Llosa
60 - The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
61 - Cheap Date: Antidotal & Anti-fashion for a Secondhand State of Mind - Kira Jolliffe
62 - Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
63 - The Richest Man in Babylon - George S Clason
64 - Death in the Andes - Mario Vargas Llosa
65 - Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa
66 - Making History - Stephen Fry
67 - Snow White, Blood Red - ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
68 - The Best of John Wyndham
69 - Z for Zachariah - Robert O'Brien
70 - The Last Magician - Janette Turner Hospital
71 - Single & Single - John Le Carré
72 - Poor Things - Alasdair Gray

Reading Analysis:

1) By Book Category:

novels - 41.
short stories - 10.
plays - 1.
sagas - 4.
non-fiction - 16.

2) By Subject Matter:

Fiction
historical - 3.
fantasy - 17.
sagas - 4.
science fiction - 9.
humorous - 5.
family saga - 2.
detective/thriller - 5.
spy stories - 7.
literary fiction - 4.
I have arbitrarily decided to count norse sagas as fiction rather than non-fiction.

Non-Fiction
true crime - 1.
memoirs - 3.
sleep - 1.
humour - 2.
religion - 2.
history - 1.
politics - 1.
books - 1.
travel - 2.
personal finance - 2.
I did a rather better with non-fiction in the second half of the year than in the first half, but I intend to read even more in 2004.

3) Other:

Inspired by 50bookchallenge posts - books 20, 33, 42 & 48.
Read for the Motley Fool Book Club - books 2, 7, 14, 28, 35, 38, 60 & 71.
BookCrossing swaps and RABCKs - books 3, 27, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50a, 51, 56, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 & 71.
Re-Reads - books 10, 11, 12, 17, 24, 30, 43 & 69.

Best & Worst Films 0f 2003

And in the same vein as my book post, here are the best and worst films I've seen at the cinema this year. However I'm only including new films, as I've seen some fantastic older films at Broadway this year, and I'd never be able to keep it down to five favourites if I included them.

My top five, in the order I saw them:
Pirates of the Caribbean
Johnny Depp & Orlando Bloom in a tale of pirates, gold and ghost ships
Goodbye Lenin!
Poignant German film
Down with Love
Funny sixties pastiche
Spirited Away
Very pretty Japanese anime
Cypher
Futuristic industrial espionage thriller

My bottom five, also in viewing order:
Final Destination 2
A bad case of sequelitis - and it didn't make sense
DareDevil
Too much back-story - not enough plot
Heart of Me
Too sad for my tastes - all the characters are unhappy (sob)
Russian Ark
Just boring - nearly sent me to sleep
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
Another case of sequelitis

New Addictions in 2003 . . .

. . . were mostly book related.

I discovered the The 50bookchallenge community at the end of January and have used it to keep track of my reading this year. Reading reviews by other members has also meant that my Amazon wish list has dramatically increased in size. I'm currently reading "the Devil in the White City: Murder, Madness and Magic at the Fair That Changed America", having been lured by reviews by politzania amongst others.

Although I joined Book Crossing at the end of 2002, my interest has increased since I joined the BookCrossingUK Yahoo Group and started swapping books with the other members. Apart from book trading, the group's main interests appear to be doing quizzes, posting pictures of their pets, organising unofficial meet-ups and teasing the Americans on The Other List. All good fun.

Unfortunately the project I am currently working on at work is very demanding and has meant lots of working late and at weekends. As well as cutting down on cinema visits and trips to the gym, it has meant that I've missed the last eight Wednesday evening meditation and Buddhism sessions, mostly because I've been overtired from work and couldn't face anything except a bit of TV & the Internet when I finally got home.

I must make more of an effort in the New Year, as I really feel in need of addressing both my physical and spiritual sides. More about that in another post. I think I'll go and have a cup of coffee and finish writing my New Year Resolutions now as I'm getting back-ache from sitting at the computer for too long.