What I read during 2005

[johan]

From darnia:

January
Fritiof Nilsson Piraten: Bombi Bitt och jag - A classic that still holds up, happy to have read it.
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - A fantasy novel like no others, very good.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri: Ett öga rött - OK book, but not as good as I had been led to believe.

February
Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots - Still a bit fun, but not as good as the previous ones.
Edith Unnerstad: Kastrullresan - Nostalgia. Still OK, I guess.
Iain Banks: Raw Spirit - A disappointment. Would have worked for a fanzine, but unfocused.

March
Guy Gavriel Kay: The Last Light of the Sun - Kay is as good as usual. Moving and well written.
Italo Calvino: The Nonexistent Knight - Superb.
Eric Lundqvist: Ingen tobak inget halleluja - Better than I remembered it. Great book.
John Crowley: The Translator - Good, satisfying book. Lacked something, but I don't know what.

April
Italo Calvino:  The Cloven Viscount - Exquisite.
Ken MacLeod: Newton’s Wake - Well written and intelligent.
Charles Stross: Singularity Sky - Intriguing, but a little unpolished.
Jean Ray: Malpertuis - Unusual baroque novel.

May
Georg & Lena Gedin: Lena och Georg - en brevväxling om kärlek - Of varying quality, but interesting insights in the minds of the correspondents.
Trezza Azzopardi: Remember Me - Quite good.
Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows - Adorable classic, a lot of fun.
Charles Stross: Iron Sunrise - Good intelligent entertainment, but I had expected a little bit more.

June
Charles Stross: The Family Trade - Good fun, but I had hoped for more.
Iain Banks: The Algebraist - Picked up after half the book, but too thick and a disappointment.

July
Cordwainer Smith: Norstrilia - Classic stories that still hold up. Must have been a sensation when they first were published.
Ian McDonald: The River of Gods - Really, really good. I must start reading ianmcdonald again.
Maeve Gilmore: A World Away - Excellent Peake bio.

August
Fletcher Pratt: The Well of the Unicorn - Light-weight but lovely late-pulp-era romp.
Colm Tóibín: The Master - Really good biographical fiction.

September
Tim Powers: Strange Itineraries - Excellent collection.
José Saramago: The History of the Siege of Lisbon - Adorable, witty, engaging, imaginative, down-to-earth book.
Charles Stross: The Hidden Family - Good fun, but I had hoped for more.

October
Erik Granström: Svavelvinter - Good, but would have needed a stern editor to reduce the number of subplots.
Michael Ende: Momo, a.k.a. The Grey Gentlemen - Too moralistic, but it caught my interest nevertheless.
Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy - The first part is excellent, the latter two very good as well.

November
Cory Doctorow: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Good fun, but won't stand the test of time.
William J. Maryson: Unmagician - For being a stereotypical y.a. fantasy it's quite good, but no more than that.
Walter Moers: Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures - Wonderful, excellent book in a brilliant translation.

December
Joe Haldeman: The Forever War - This classic still holds up, even though it's a bit dated.
Håkan Nesser: och Piccadilly Circus ligger inte i Kumla - OK read, nothing spectacular.
Graham Joyce: The Tooth Fairy - Very challenging, good book. I'm still not sure of what happened in it.
Terry Pratchett: The Truth - Pratchett is consistently good these days, but a bit predictable.
Joe Haldeman: Mindbridge - Good, short novel. Nothing spectacular.

(Yes, I saw the light and put it behind a cut.)

Comments

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks for reminding me that I have got to read myself some more Saramago and Calvino! Happy New Year, and wow, you're a fast reader!

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year yourself!

I'm glad you think I'm a fast reader, because it jars with my self-image. I have so many people around me who seem to read a hundred book a year, easily, so I see myself as a rather slow reader. But it's all relative.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

you call 4 books a month slow?? (unless they are skimpy little pamphlets)
I suspect you, like me read most of your stuff in English...and yeah, I would call that pretty fast. On the other hand, I only have time to do recreational reading 1/2 hour to 1 hour each evening before bedtime nowadays...

[jophan.livejournal.com]

It's about three books a month, plus the books I and jlms read aloud to each other before going to sleep. I do virtually all my reading on the bus, moving out to Storvreta meant a lot. The two years when I wasn't commuting at all, my pleasure reading went down by more than 50%.

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

So, Stross was a bit of a disappointment all round, was he? ;-)

I have that GGKay on my shelves a couple of months now, the lack of any hype or oncover endorsements at all had me thinking I may have made a mistake in buying it. But now I'll give it a try.

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a little bit, but that's only compared to what I was expecting. Iron Sunrise, Family Trade, and Hidden Family were all fast-paced, well-written, inventive and absorbing books. Good fun! I liked them quite a lot, I had only expected something a little less entertaining and more food-for-thoughtish, if you see what I mean.

[krfsm.livejournal.com]

Thingy about The Family Trade, as I'm sure you know, is that it's the first half of what was to be one novel (with The Hidden Family as the second half), but, due to the whims of distributors, it had to be split quite late in the production cycle. As I understand it, anyway.

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know, that's why I gave them both the same comment.