And now, yet another post about books

Some people were wondering what I thought of this, that or the other book that I read last year so I thought I would do a quick summary of that.  I'll post in greater detail about some of the other books at another time.

These are the books that I read new last year, enjoyed and will read again:

1. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
2. The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
3. Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling 
4. The Little Princess - Francis Hodgson Burnett
5. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
6. Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong
7. A Feast for Crows - George R.R.Martin
8. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde
9. The Gathering Stom - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (RR)
10. Towers of Midnight - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
11. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
12. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
13. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
14. The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
15. Broken - Kelley Armstrong
16. The End Of Food: The coming crisis in the world food industry - Paul Roberts

These are some of the books I will probably or definitely reread again.  But possibly only once more.  Perhaps I wasn't entirely sure I enjoyed them, didn't quite "get" them but think they're worth another try or possibly feel obliged to give them another try.  For whatever reason, I haven't gotten rid of them yet:

1. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
5. The Pearl Diver - Jeff Talarigo
6. One Day - David Nicholls
7. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
8. A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry
9. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
10. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
11. The Book of Dave - Will Self
12. Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes 
13. The Witch of Hebron - James Howard Kunstler
14. The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel

And here are some that I thought were mostly just rubbish with apologies in advance since I know that at least one of these has some fans among my small reader base:

1. Bear Island - Alastair MacLean  - a freebie from the box in the canteen near work.  Thriller set in early cold-war period, it hasn't aged well.
2. A Woman of Our Times - Rosie Thomas  - I can't remember much about this except that I found it intensely irritating. 
3. Nemesis - Philip Roth - bored me.
4. A Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde  - one of those books that you feel you could probably have written better yourself.  I do know that I'd be a terrible novelist but you still do get that feeling sometimes.  Bought purely on impulse because the author is a big fan of Georgette Heyer (one of the blurbs on lots of the new reprints is from her)
5. Goldfinger - Ian Fleming - have you heard people claim before that James Bond is a misogynistic, sexist pig and not a terribly nice guy.  Well that's from people who've read the books.  A certain amount of comic value but overall just annoying.  And boring.  Unless you're a fan of golf (which I'm not) and wouldn't mind reading a long description of a game.  And of, Pussy Galore isn't really a rabid feminist and lesbian, she's just "never met a real man before, James". 
   
6. The Cry from Street to Street - Hilary Bailey - I had given this to my sister years ago, still had my name on it.  I didn't remember it at all, the writing was terrible, plot implausible and I can't believe I ever thought it was good enough to pass on to someone else.
7. Into the Woods - Jean Hegland - a post-fall type book.  An annoyingly dysfunctional family pre-fall get more annoying post-fall. 
8. My Last Duchess - Daisy Goodwin - just not very good. Romance novels need to make you like at least one of the protagonists because otherwise who cares if they make it through to their 'happily ever after'.
9. Rabbit Run - John Updike - bored me silly.