ravenous.reader's 100 Books in 2009 Challenge

Books read in 2009

1. Cold Mountain, Charles Frasier
2. Wicked, Gregory MacGuire (re-read)
3. Son of a Witch, Gregory MacGuire (re-read)
4. A Lion among Men, Gregory MacGuire
5. The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
6. The Brass Verdict, Michael Connelly
7. Peony in Love, Lisa See
8. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield (re-read)
9. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
10. Salamander, Thomas Wharton
11. Bonk, Mary Roach
12. The Blind Assasin, Margaret Atwood
13. The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
14. The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales, Edgar Allan Poe (re-read)
15. The Strange Files of Fremont Jones, Dianne Day
16. Irene at Large, Carole Nelson Douglas (re-read)
17. Fire and Fog, Dianne Day
18. The Bohemian Murders, Dianne Day
19. Dogs and Goddesses, Jennifer Crusie
20. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig (re-read)
21. The Masque of the Black Tulip, Lauren Willig (re-read)
22. The Deception of the Emerald Ring, Lauren Willig (re-read)
23. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose,Lauren Willig (re-read)
24. The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, Lauren Willig
25. Fool, Christopher Moore
26. Resistence, Owen Sheers
27. Blindness, Jose Saramago
28. Fluke, Christopher Moore
29. Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore
30. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
31. You Suck, Christopher Moore
32. Dracula, Bram Stoker (reread) *audiobook
33. The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (re-read)
34. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
35. Possession, A. S. Byatt (reread) *audiobook
36. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett
37. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
38. The Third Angel, Alice Hoffman *audiobook
39. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
40. The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (re-read)
41. Brimstone, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (re-read)
42. The Dance of Death, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (re-read)
43. The Book of the Dead, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (re-read)
44. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (re-read)
45. The Maltese Manuscript, Joanne Dobson (re-read)
46. The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl
47. Company of Liars, Karen Maitland *audiobook
48. The Fall of Troy, Peter Ackroyd *audiobook
49. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
50. The Birth House, Ami McKay
51. She's Not There, Jennifer Finney Boylan
52. A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
53. In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross
54. The James Joyce Murder, Amanda Cross
55. Poetic Justice, Amanda Cross
56. The Theban Mysteries, Amanda Cross
57. A History of U.S. Feminisms, Rory Dicker
58. The Question of Max, Amanda Cross
59. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
60. Death in a Tenured Position, Amanda Cross
61. Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
62. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
63. Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare
64. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
65. Codex, Lev Grossman
66. Boy with Flowers, Ely Shipley
67. Bellocq's Ophelia, Natasha Trethewey
68. Dante's Numbers, David Hewson
69. Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, Dorothy Allison
70. The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
71. The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
72. Jokes and The Unconscious, Daphne Gottlieb and Diane DiMassa
73. The Haunted House, Charles Dickens
74. Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare
75. Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
76. Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg
77. King Lear, William Shakespeare
78. Othello, William Shakespeare
79. The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
80. How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America,Christina Page

Hello all- I am transferring mid-year (well, quarter-year) to the 100 book challenge from the 50 book challenge. I think I'll finish the 50 sometime next month, and then WHAT would I do for the remainder of the year? :)

This is my first excursion into tracking my reading- I keep forgetting to add finished books to the list, and then having to rack my brain to remember what I was reading last week.

I'm a member of two book clubs. The first is through my local library. We are reading American Crime stories: last month we read Edgar Allan Poe (Dupin), this month we are reading Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe) and then finishing up with a month respectively on Hammett and Chandler. I enjoyed re-reading the Poe, but Stout hasn't quite hooked me yet. (Although I'd better get on the ball as we meet next week! ) I'm really looking forward to both Hammett and Chandler- I'm a sucker for the hard-boiled detective stories.

My second book club is an online affair to which I was invited by a friend of a friend. Alternating people choose the books, so there is not really an over-arching theme. This month we are discussing Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Last month (my first) we read and discussed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. (It isn't on the above list as I finished it in December.) I'm loving the choices in this book club so far- from looking at the group's archieves they seem to tackle a bit of everything.

This year my goal is to read what I already own and haven't read (at least a hundred books) rather than continuing to keep my local Barnes and Noble in business.

This morning I finished American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. This is definitely the best book I've read so far this year, and possibly in quite a few. I realize the term best is (at best) somewhat vague. For me it means a good story. I'm a sucker for a good story- I don't read for themes or symbolism or agendas, I read for plot. The story, the characters, and yes, even the themes, in American Gods kind of took over my brain for the last two days. (The fact that I read it, during midterms (!) in two days should further emphasize my fascination. and my foolishness.)

The book is somewhat impossible to classify- the story-telling style reminds me a bit of Stephen King's non-horror stuff (like Rose Red or parts of the Dark Tower series) with some of Susan Cooper mixed in for good measure. There is a dream-like (and occasionally nightmarish) quality that kept me going back for just one more chapter every time I turned out the light. Add in an ex-con hero on a quest, a bunch of gods from the old world (Odin, Isis, Horus, etc. ) fighting for survival against the more modern gods of the new world (sex, media, technology, and so on) a dead wife, a glass of mead and a few live sacrifices and ... yes, definitely the best book so far this year.

I've been wanting to read American Gods - I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan (although I really only "discovered" him last year). Have you read Fragile Things? There is a short story in it starring Spider.

Welcome to the group! You have a lot of great reading under your belt so far this year.

No- American Gods was the first of his books that I'd read. I'll definitely check out Fragile Things. But yeah, get American Gods, really great book.

A sequel of sorts--not a continuation of that story, but at least one character is common to both--that I actually think is better than American Gods is Anansi Boys. So I would recommend that highly as your next Gaiman.

Welcome to the group!

Thanks for the welcome :)- both Fragile Things and Anansi Boys are now on my TBR list. Have you read Stardust? I think that is going to go on the TBR shortlist as well. I liked the movie, but thought at the time it probably, like most fantasy, would be better read than watched.

I just finished a reread of Dracula (which I hadn't read since high school) and The Historian (which I read, too quickly, when it came out). I enjoyed both immensely. The things I remembered disliking about Dracula in high school (length, epistolary style) didn't bother me this time around- although I did keep seeing Mina as a mix between Winona Ryder and Peta Wilson.

The Historian, of course, is wonderful. This is the perfect book for a long dreary weekend- it's complex and vast and takes you from fifteenth century Bulgaria to Oxford to Cold War Europe. Like Dracula, a large portion of the story is told through discoved journals and correspondence, but Kostova intersperses these with enough straight story-telling to keep it from getting confusing. (I believe that is my main gripe with Dracula- I never can keep all the second tier characters straight.)

It was very interesting to go back to the origins of the Dracula story considering the current popularity of vampires. It's odd that a dessicated scavenger could, over the course of century, become a teenager that *ahem* sparkles. (I blame facebook- no other way I would know that!)

I've just read Dracula for the first time for the same reasons as you really - to go back to the 'original' and see how it all started as I've been reading quite a lot of vampire lit lately and find the different writers' approaches to vampiric lore quite interesting. I was especially taken with Elizabeth Knox's vampires in Daylight.
It's been a couple of years since I read The Historian but I remember enjoying most of it. In fact lots of your current reading I've either read recently or have on my tbr list, I'll have to check out your 50 books thread.
How did you enjoy Neverwhere? I like all the Neil Gaiman that I've read so far - I still have American Gods and Anansi Boys on my tbr pile.

Favorite (new) books of the year, not in order:

The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
Fool, Christopher Moore
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl
Company of Liars, Karen Maitland
Dante's Numbers, David Hewson
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson