Pyat's Readin' List

[pyat]

For those who care, here is a list of books I have read and listened to (via Librivox.org) since January 1st. My goal was to read 52 books this year. I'm unlikely to meet that goal, unless you count in the audiobooks. I don't know, though. They seem almost like cheating.

The basics - 45 books read, 10 listened to. It takes longer to listen to them, because I only do so on the ride into work. Often, I fall asleep after a couple of chapters. The Old Curiosity Shop, for example, is 73 chapters long, and I rarely heard more than 10 a week.

The oldest was written in 1813, and the most recent in 2007.

23 were written before WWII, 16 were written before WWI, and nine were written before 1900.

The ones that suprised and gripped me most were Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

The only book on this list I don't recommend is Weird Ontario Places, which had no photos, no detailed information, and included such amazing places as "That one house in Hamilton the author was afraid to walk by when he was 10" and "That street in Niagara Falls with the museums," as well as "Church Street in Toronto, because of the Gays."

It was written in a weirdly smug and condescending voice I find hard to quantify, but which annoyed me immensely. Imagine Corky St. Clair from Waiting for Guffman, except conscious that he's writing something corny and "safe" for the rubes and being smug about it. So, it's neither well-written nor earnest.


Print Books
01. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (1933)
02. Thank You, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse (1934)
03. The World Peril of 1910 by George Griffith (1906)
04. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe (1954)
05. The Little Emperors by Alfred Duggan (1951)
06. Masada (aka The Antagonists) by Ernest K. Gann (1971)
07. The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E Von Vogt (1951)
08. Dream-Carver, by Erin van Hiel (2007)
09. Psmith in the City, by P.G. Wodehouse (1910)
10. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813)
11. Much Obliged, Jeeves!, by P.G. Wodehouse (1971)
12. The Beckoning Lady, by Margery Allingham (1955)
13. HMS Surprise, by Patrick O’Brian (1973)
14. Farewell Summer, by Ray Bradbury (2006)
15. Post Captain, by Patrick O’Brian (1972)
16. The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O’Brian (1977)
17. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami (1997)
18. Bedlam, by Greg Hollingshead (2004)
19. Summer Moonshine, by P.G. Wodehouse (1937)
20. That Hideous Strength, by C.S. Lewis (1946)
21. The Humanoids, by Jack Williamson (1948)
22. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, by Russell Hoban (1973)
23. The Alienist, by Caleb Carr (1994)
24. Summer Lightning, by P.G. Wodehouse (1929)
25. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (1906)
26. The Physician, by Noah Gordon (1986)
27. Making Money, by Terry Pratchett (2007)
28. Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis (1938)
29. Murderers and Other Friends, by John Mortimer (1993)
30. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
31. Flashman on the March, by George Macdonald Fraser (2005)
32. The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester (1999)
33. The Star’s Tennis Balls, by Stephen Fry (2000)
34. The Scientific Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Hugo Gernsback (1915)
35. King Solomon’s Mines, by Sir. H. Rider Haggard (1885)
36. Bored of the Rings, by the Harvard Lampoon Society (1969)
37. The Night Land, by William Hope Hodgson (1912)
38. Flashman, by George Macdonald Fraser (1969)
39. The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester (1956)
40. Weird Ontario Places, by Dan de Figuereido (2006)
41. Edison’s Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss (1898)
42. Who Goes Here? By Bob Shaw (1977)
43. Flashman in the Great Game, by George Macdonald Fraser (1975)
44. Agent of the Terran Empire, by Poul Anderson (1965)
45. Spock, Messiah!, by Theodore R, Cogswell and Charles A. Spano, Jr. (1976)

Audiobooks
01. Tom Swift and the Land of Wonders, by Victor Appleton (1917)
02. The First Men in the Moon, by H.G. Wells (1901)
03. Little Wars, by H.G. Wells (1913)
04. At The Back of the North Wind, by George Macdonald (1871)
05. The Princess and the Goblin, by George Macdonald (1872)
06. The Princess and Curdie, by George Macdonald (1873)
07. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (1865)
08. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll (1871)
09. Peter and Wendy, by J.M. Barrie (1911)
10. The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens (1840)

Comments

[relee.livejournal.com]

But golly Mr. Mouse, with all the reading that you do, where do you find time to run six-hour dungeon raids in World of Warcraft?

Actually now that I think of it, that would be an interesting time to listen to Audiobooks.