Thursday, January 1, 2009

Books Read In 2008

2008 was not a particularly good year for me (more later) and this is reflected in how few books I managed to complete. Yeah, I started a bunch and maybe got a third of the way through before I lost focus, set them aside, and went on to other things. Call it a strange form of literary ADD I hope will vanish in 2009. I still spent hours reading shitloads of other stuff, mostly online--blogs, discussion forums, and the like; the occasional magazine--but that was more like constant snacking.

Anyway, in 2008 I read:

1. 3/Jan/08--The Sign of the Book by John Dunning (2005).
2. 4/Jan/08--Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006). *****
3. 9/Jan/08--The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (2003). *****
4. 11/Jan/08--Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (2007).
5. 16/Jan/08--New Orleans Noir ed. by Julie Smith (2007).
6. 22/Jan/08--Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob Andelman (2005).
7. 24/Jan/08--JPod by Douglas Coupland (2006).
8. 27/Jan/08--Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006).
9. 28/Jan/07--If You Liked School, You'll Love Work by Irvine Welsh (2007).
10. 26/Feb/08--The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (2006).
11. 28/Feb/08--Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman (2004).
12. 5/Mar/08--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005).
13. 11/Mar/08--The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (1990).
14. 14/Mar/08--Shockingly Close To the Truth!--Confessions of A Grave-Robbing Ufologist by James W. Moseley & Karl T. Pflock (2002).
15. 21/Mar/08--Novel by George Singleton (2005).
16. 26/Mar/08--R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (2004).
17. 5/Apr/08--Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology ed. by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel (2007).
18. 8/Apr/08--State of Fear by Michael Crichton (2004).
19. 11/Apr/08--The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver (2003).
20. 17/Apr/06--Voices From the Street by Philip K. Dick (2007).
21. 22/Apr/08--Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick (1964).
22. 24/Apr/08--The Blue Moon Circus by Michael Raleigh (2003). *****
23. 24/Apr/08--Me and Orson Welles by Robert Kaplow (2003).
24. 28/Apr/08--Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand (2007). *****
25. 29/Apr/08--Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (1973). *****
26. 5/May/08--Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008).
27. 13/May/08--The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (1994).*****
28. 21/May/08--The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2007).*****
29. 10/Jun/08--The New Weird ed. by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (2008).
30. 19/Jun/08--Steampunk ed. by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (2008).
31. 17/Jul/08--Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999).*****
32. 18/Jul/08--Tank Girl--Armadillo! by Alan C. Martin (2008).
33. 22/Jul/08--Yellow Dog by Martin Amis (2003).
34. 19/Aug/08--Created By by Richard Christian Matheson (1993).
35. 26/Aug/08--Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton (2004).
36. 1/Oct/08--The Coin Collector's Survival Manual by Scott A. Travers (2006).
37. 2/Oct/08--Glasshouse by Charles Stross (2006).
38. 13/Dec/08--Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein (1984).
39. 24/Dec/08--Next by Michael Crichton (2006).

***** indicates books I particularly enjoyed.

5 comments:

Cathy VanPatten said...

Wasn't Fortress of Solitude just GREAT?? Man, I loved that book!

G. W. Ferguson said...

Ya know, I wasn't sure about Fortress of Solitude when I bought it, but the more I read the more I liked! Jonathan Letham is an amazing writer!

Capcom said...

Wow! That's a lot of books! Hmm, I used to read like that before I got chemo, now I can't seem to concentrate on reading for very long. I must make "read more" one of my top shelf New Year's Resolutions. Thanks for the inspiration! :-D

Cathy VanPatten said...

Jeff insisted I read Fortress of Solitude after he went on a Letham binge. Years ago he read his first novel and didn't like it much (the name escapes me), but then he picked up Motherless Brooklyn from the Marfa Book Company (amazingly good book store for a town of 2,100!), and he was hooked. I haven't read that one, but it is on my list.

G. W. Ferguson said...

@Cath:

Was that Gun, With Occasional Music? 'Twas okay, but I found it nowhere near as gripping as Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn.

@Capcom:

A lot of books? Naah, I usually read at least twice that many (check out the archives), but in 2008 I had a hard time focusing on any one thing for any prolonged period of time, which is damned weird given my usually obsessive nature.