Books of 2007

[brigdh]

Happy New Year! It has been a very good year.

But now it's January , which clearly means I need to get started on all those year-round-up posts. First off, books!


Unfortunately, I accidentally overwrote my file early in the year, so I'm missing January and most of February. Like last year, this only counts books I read from cover to cover, which means a lot of things I read for school aren't on here, being just articles or chapters or whatever. Also, Swordspoint isn't on the list, because I got tired of counting it in 2006, but feel free to add three or four reads of that into here as well.

Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith 02/25/07
Local Exchange and Early State Development in Southwestern Iran - Gregory Johnson 02/26/07
The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective - Gregory Possehl 02/27/07
Maurice - E. M. Forster 02/27/07
Indus Civilization in Saurashtra - Gregory Possehl 02/28/07
Wild Magic - Tamora Pierce 03/01/07
Gorgeous Carat: Volume One - Higuri You 03/03/07
Wolf-Speaker - Tamora Pierce 03/04/07
Gorgeous Carat: Volume Two - Higuri You 03/04/07
Gorgeous Carat: Volume Three - Higuri You 03/05/07
Gorgeous Carat: Volume Four - Higuri You 03/07/07
Gorgeous Carat Galaxy - Higuri You 03/10/07
Eridu - Fuad Safar, Mohammad Ali Mustafa, Seton Lloyd 03/13/07
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson 03/24/07
I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore - Ethan Mordden 03/25/07
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton 03/29/07
Buddies - Ethan Mordden 03/30/07
The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer 04/01/07
The Vintner's Luck - Elizabeth Knox 04/04/07
Swords and Deviltry - Fritz Leiber 04/07/07
Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt - Niloofar Haeri 04/14/07
Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson 04/30/07
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 05/05/07
The Phoenix Guards - Steven Brust 05/10/07
Dune - Frank Herbert 05/21/07
Cyprus Before History: From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the Bronze Age - Louise Steel 05/26/07
Litany of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe 06/10/07
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 07/01/07
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Lawrence Durrell 07/06/07
Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures - Deborah M. Pearsall 07/13/07
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky 07/14/07
The Late Romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest) - William Shakespeare 07/21/07
These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer 07/26/07
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters 07/30/07 (reread)
The Nanny Diaries - Emma Mclaughlin, Nicola Kraus 08/03/07
Epiphany of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe 08/08/07
The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden - Catherynne M. Valente 08/12/07
The Ruins - Scott Smith 08/13/07
The Porcelain Dove - Delia Sherman 08/17/07
The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales - Eds: Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling 08/18/07
Changeling - Delia Sherman 08/23/07
Cities - John Reader 08/24/07
The Black Moth - Georgette Heyer 08/25/07
The Bermudez Triangle - Maureen Johnson 08/27/07
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch 09/02/07
The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman 09/04/07 (reread)
The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman 09/07/07 (reread)
The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman 09/08/07 (reread)
Finding Forgotten Cities: How the Indus Civilization Was Discovered - Nayanjot Lahiri 09/12/07
Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown 09/14/07
Making Money - Terry Pratchett 09/22/07
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 09/29/07
The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society - Rita Wright 09/29/07 (not yet published)
The Nonesuch - Georgette Heyer 10/05/07
Excavations at Harappa: Being an Account of Archaeological Excavations at Harappa Carried Out Between the Years 1920-21 and 1933-34 - Mado Sarup Vats 10/08/07
Thomas the Rhymer - Ellen Kushner 10/09/07
The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to gender, age, status, ethnicity and religion - Margarita Diaz-Andreu, Sam Lucy, Stasa Babic, and David N. Edwards 10/17/07
Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 10/28/07
Archaeologies of Social Life - Lynn Meskell 10/30/07
Craft and Social Identity - Eds: Cathy Lynne Costin and Rita P. Wright 11/02/07
We, Robots - Sue Lange 11/04/07
Self-Decoration in Mount Hagen - Andrew and Marilyn Strathern 11/04/07
I Am America (And So Can You)! - Stephen Colbery 11/10/07 Audiobook
Archeaological Approaches to Technology - Heather M-L Miller 11/11/07
Household and State in Upper Mesopotamia: Specialized Economy and the Social Uses of Goods in an Early Complex Society - Patricia Wattenmaker 11/15/07
Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States - Eds: Janet Richards and Mary van Buren 11/18/07
Swords Against Death - Fritz Leiber 11/22/07
Empire of Ivory - Naomi Novak 11/24/07
Swords in the Mist - Fritz Leiber 11/24/07
Ancient Jewellry - Jack Ogden 11/29/07
Swords Against Wizadry - Fritz Leiber 12/06/07
The Waterworks - E. L. Doctorow 12/09/07
Emperor Mage - Tamora Pierce 12/09/07
The Archaeology of Rank - Paul Wason 12/11/07
Cotillion - Georgette Heyer 12/15/07
The Swords of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber 12/23/07
The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie 12/28/07
Maledicte - Lane Robbins 12/30/07
The Onion: Our Dumb World, Atlas of the Planet Earth - (lots of editors) 12/31/07

Total: 79. It's hard to tell, given that I'm missing Jan and Feb, and that last year I didn't start counting until July, but I think I read much less this year. I blame this on a combination of Cyprus and TA'ing. I read a lot of a few authors, particularly Georgette Heyer and Fritz Leiber, which is cool. I haven't really gone through a whole author's collection since I was in high school and had more free time. There were a lot of books I really loved this year, including Cryptonomicon, The Orphan's Tales, The Idiot, but far and away the book I liked the least, one may even say hated, was Kite Runner. (The movie is much better, by the way.)

As I'm too lazy to blog about books, feel free to ask me anything about these.

Comments

[chiasmus.livejournal.com]

What was it about Kite Runner you didn't like? *is curious -- most people I know liked it*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I thought the main character was an asshole who really needed to be punched in the face. I found him reallllllly unsympathetic, so pages and pages of him feeling sorry for himself did not endear me to the novel. Also- I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it or seen the movie, but the main plot involves him deciding to redeem himself for something bad that happened when he was a child. Except that he never seems to realize that the bad thing was Not. About. Him. It was about the person it actually, you know, happened to, and maybe if the main character could pull his head out of his ass for five minutes and instead acknowledge other people's importance, he could do some good, instead of just whining about how the bad thing made him feel. And then he- supposedly a competent, newly redeemed adult- causes a child to attempt suicide. Basically because the main character is lazy and an idiot, but the reader is supposed to feel bad for him.

[lost-romanov.livejournal.com]

ME TOO.

Sorry to butt in, but I am so freaking glad someone else felt the same way about that book. I couldn't stand the main character and could barely finish the book, but everyone else seems to just love it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm really glad you agree.

[annoyedwabbit.livejournal.com]

Cryptonomicon is quite a good book, and actually a readable length (as opposed to other Neil Stephenson tomes, like Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World, which go on for approximately forever, even though nothing happens. >_<) Have you read other Stephenson stuff? Snowcrash is cool, and has bastardized ancient religions...

[annoyedwabbit.livejournal.com]

whoops, knew I had forgotten something- What kind of stuff does Fritz Leiber write? The titles look promising, and I'm desperately in need of new authors.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

He wrote sort of Silver Age pulp sword-and-sorcery fantasy type stuff. All the books listed here are part of his series about The Grey Mouser and Fafhrd, who are sort of the two archetypal anti-heroes of city rouge and barbarian stories. The books are very funny- surprisingly self-conscious for when they were written- and I like them a lot.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I liked his Baroque Cycle too, actually, though I know a lot of people didn't. But I really enjoyed all the random history tangents. I've also read his Snowcrash (awesome!), and The Diamond Age (really good).

[annoyedwabbit.livejournal.com]

i just couldn't get through the third book of the Baroque cCycle, partially because I'd read the second book so long before I was rather fuzzy on all the minor plot points. Oh well. It's one of those books I always mean to finish. Never read Diamond Age, but I should. Big U was weird but kinda cool, and Zodiac was the book that convinced my friends that every book Stephenson writes has samurai swords in it somewhere.

[gen50.livejournal.com]

good collection of books.
i find myself sadly poor reading books in comparison.
and therefore feeling a bit envious of your reading material.

blame it to not wanting to buy new books although i did buy some.
neil gaiman's anansi boys for example but due to exigencies of this year have not been able to finish it.

with this year's requirements on medical expenses i find myself not willing to spend more on books. i do have a few friends i can borrow from, and i am sure they will be more than willing to lend me, given current circumstances.

i did read a few of jkr - well, she ended her potter series, and i find myself unable to not complete reading, having read the first one and all throughout.

i wonder if i can find some free online books (now, that would be a fine idea! and maybe some of my friends can send me - i read a book of Dan Brown's that way)

of your set, i am curious about ancient jewelry, swords in the mist (leiber sounds familiar)& the other works of same author, i like fantasy tales (hence my fascination with AD&D). and the empire of ivory.

i also like whodunnits having read most of fr. brown's, hercule poirot's and the inestimable sherlock holmes (my absolute whodunnit favorite), got any to recommend on that genre?

alas i am most hopeless on titles and authors - most authors stick in my mind because of their serial work that i've read.

thank you for sharing your list and letting me run on quite a bit.
i got carried away.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, there's always libraries! I'm lucky enough to live around several great used book stores, so most of the books I buy I only pay .50 or a dollar for them. Also, do you know about Book Mooch (http://bookmooch.com/)? Free books will be mailed to you, as long as you're willing to mail out some old copies of your own.

I know a ton of people who adore the Harry Potter series, though I haven't read them myself.

'Ancient Jewellery' is a book I was reading for research for my MA thesis; it's a very short summary of several styles of jewelry (almost all from the Classical- Greek, Roman, Egyptian- period) and different scientific methods of analyzing it. It wasn't very helpful to me, though, because what I'm planning at looking at is from a much earlier time period and mostly not made out of the precious metals.

Fritz Leiber's books are all part of one series, about the Grey Mouser and Farfherd the barbarian. It's from the pulp magazine era of sci-fi and fantasy, but is kind of awesome and funny regardless. They're swords-and-sorcery stories starring anti-hero rouges.

The Empire of Ivory is the latest book in Naomi Novak's Temeraire series. They're really fun and well-written, about the Regency period/Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons. The Empire of Ivory features the main characters needing to go to Africa to find a cure for a disease that's killing all the dragons.

Mystery novels, hmmm. I don't really read a lot of mystery, actually. The one series I have read recently is the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. They're set in Botswana, and are very cute and fun. I enjoy them as sort of popcorn novels.

[miep.livejournal.com]

i am determined to keep track this year, but I can tell you right off that I didn't read nearly so many books. maybe 20. it's a very sad count.

I should include all the children's books I read this year, though. I get to read-aloud some fantastic stuff!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I just keep an Excel file and add the title whenever I finish a book, so it's easy to keep track.

But children's books count! They're awesome.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Do keep a list! It's easy and fun.

A lot of people liked Kite Runner, but I so didn't. The movie is much better though, since they skipped some of the really aggravating parts.

Hmmm, let's see...
If you haven't read His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman, you totally must. Everyone must.
Otherwise, I think you'd really like The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson. YA with a lesbian couple; it's totally cute and fun and I really enjoyed it.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I spent most of Christmas rereading all of my Tamora Pierce collection, mostly the Immortals and the Protector of the Small quartets. I'd forgotten how deeply ingrained in me those books are, and I kind of wish I hadn't forgotten to include them in my to-write Yuletide list.

I've read Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I enjoyed a lot and gave my copy to my aunt for Christmas (mostly due to needing to round off her gifts and not wanting to give her chick lit, rather than any scroogeness on my part). I don't want to read The Kite Runner, though, mostly because I believe the hype is working against it by now. Not really bothered about seeing the film, either.

(Also, randomly, what did you think of the latest Temeraire book?)

I've decided this year to start making book posts, so to speak, so I can keep track of the amount of books I read in a year and because I need incentive to actually read them, rather than simply adding more to my to-read pile. I'll be making a post fairly soon of books I read towards the end of 2007 and moving from there.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I was obsessed with the Alanna quartet when I was little, but I never read the others. Possibly they weren't written yet (I know I dressed up as Alanna for Halloween when I was in first grade, which would have been probably 1991, and Wild Magic was published in 1992), or my library didn't have copies, or I never heard about them. I reread the Alanna quartet last year, and realized that there were all this other books set in the same world that I'm really excited about. I can't wait to get to the Protector of the Small ones, because I think I'm love it, but I wanted to read them in chronological order.

I really liked the new Temeraire book. I was impressed by how she handled the issue of writing about Africans from the perspective of Regency-era characters, because that would be really hard to do without seeming either racist or unbelievable, and I thought it was done very well. And I thought the ending was awesome; I can't wait to see where the next book goes. Have you read it yet? What did you think?

Another friend of mine posts her list of books-read monthly, so you could do that instead.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

I got the first Alanna book when I was... eleven?, I think, and I loved it! It was the first time I'd ever read about any kind of female knight, but I didn't get my hands on the others book for another few years when they got reissued (I have two copies of the first book, now, because I'm one of those anal people who like their series book all to match. I loathe cover reissues). And then I found the third Daine book in my library by accident and was all, "OMG! She writes more!" (This was before my family had internet and back then it was almost impossible to order books through the US without family members involved. Man, how did we live before the internet?) And then I followed her religiously from there.

The Protector of the Small books are the ones with the most spinal cracks in them. :D The first one holds up a lot better on a reread than it did the first time I read it, but I dislike the size of the font used, so I was possibly prejudiced against that or something.

I adore the Circle books, too, for entirely different reasons, especially when she revealed specific backstory about some of the characters in the recent Circle book.

I think Pierce is having some problems with her UK publishers, though, as there's a huge lag between her US and UK publication dates, so I get all of her books online now. It's horrible because she had a huge UK readership in the '90s and the problems with her publishers are affecting her sales over here: I've only been able to find her books in one store in Dublin, and we don't get them in anymore because they just don't sell. I was almost in tears a few weeks ago when a girl came in asking for her books and we didn't have them. :(

I liked it for pretty much the same reasons (also Harcourt's pregnancy was handled really well, too). The one quibble I have is that I'm getting a little tired of the cliffhangers Novik is dumping right at the end of each book. It wasn't so bad in the first three because they were published so close together, but the cliffhangers in the last two books have started to annoy me. I can't remember the last series I read where such major cliffhangers have been dumped right at the end of the book, even with plot threads resolved throughout the book itself. That said, however, it doesn't make me want the next book any less.

The monthly book post seems like a great idea! I think I'm going to steal it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm really looking forward to reading all of them. I'll have to start on the Circle of Magic books once I finish the Tortall ones.

It's disappointing that she's having trouble with the UK publishers, though. I'd offer to send you copies, but I suppose you can order your own online, and it'd be hard to send enough to supply your bookstore! That is sad, though. It drives me crazy when I can't find a book I want because of random publication problems.

Ah, I see. I don't mind cliffhangers much, because I usually forget about the problem until I read the next book, but Novak's books would be enough to make people crazy with impatience.