My 2003 Reading Summary

[kittiwake]

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.