evelyn_b: (Default)
[personal profile] evelyn_b
I read some books in 2018, most of them Sue Grafton (as you can see below). This is numerically more books than last year, but the count is inflated: many of these are novellas or even chapbooks. On the other hand, I finished a few hefty ones this year, including Ulysses and The Life of Samuel Johnson (both highly recommended). I started out keeping track of a bunch of variables, then gave up. There are about 70 non-fiction books, 147 fiction, 24 poetry, and 25 miscellaneous - but I doubt those numbers are exact and I doubt I'll feel like counting again. Most of the books I read this year were good. The biggest disappointments were probably To Say Nothing of the Dog, which couldn't live up to its title or its premise, and Reality and Dreams, which wasn't terrible but was way below expectations for Muriel Spark.

Best book of 2018: I'm going to go ahead and say Gilgamesh the Hero, a stunning child-friendly adaptation by Geraldine McCaughren.



January

1. Home Comforts - C. Mendelsohn
2. The Mask of Anarchy - S. Ellis
3. Emigration to Liberia - M.F.K. McDaniel
4. Dorothy Dale and Her Chums - M. Penrose
5. The Last 4 Things - K. Greenstreet
6. Marthe - trs. F. Brown
7. The Devil Finds Work - J. Baldwin
8. SPR 7 - various
9. Going Postal - T. Pratchett
10. City of Spades - C. Macinnes
11. Language in Action - S. I. Hayakawa
12. Absolute Beginners - C. MacInnes
13. The Pocket Muse - M. Wood
14. The Assistant - B. Malamud
15. SPR 6 - various
16. Taking Detective Stories Seriously - DLS
17. To Say Nothing of the Dog - C. Willis
18. Appointment With Death - A. Christie
19. Mr. Love and Justice - C. Macinnes
20. King Lazarus - M. Beti
21. Nutshell - I. MacEwan
22. The Golden House - S. Rushdie
23. Poetry April 2011 - various
24. The Valley of Bones - A. Powell
25. Old Hickory Rev. 1989 - various
26. The American Scholar Autumn 2013 - various


February

27. Brutus: The Noble Conspirator - K. Tempest
28. The Pirate King - L. R. King
29. The Bell - I. Murdoch
30: Six to Sixteen - Ewing
31. The Trickster's Hat - N. Bontack
32. SHR Fall 1980 - various
33. Norman Mailer: A Double Life - J. M. Lennon
34. Homecoming - C.P. Snow
35. The Golden Virgin - H. Williamson
36. To Shape the Dark - various
37. Arete: A Journal of Sport Literature (1983) - various
38. The Conscience of the Rich - C. P. Snow
39. Virgin - A. Sotelo
40. The Soldier's Art - A. Powell
41. Selected Letters of Cicero
42. A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake - W. Y. Tindall
43. And Then There Were None - A. Christie
44. Poetry March 2018
45. The Military Philosophers - A. Powell
46. Decline & Fall - E. Waugh
47. Empires of Print: Adventure Fiction in the Magazines, 1899-1919 - P.S. Belk
48. Books Do Furnish A Room - A. Powell
49. Tarka the Otter - H. Williamson
50. Color Blind: A White Woman Looks at the Negro (1943) - M. Halsey
51. Falstaff - R. Nye
52. The Long March & In the Clap Shack - W. Styron
53. The Antioch Review 57 no. 8 (Spring 1999)
54. Free Lunch no. 3 and 6 (1989 and 90)
55. C is for Corpse - S. Grafton


March

56. Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
57. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia - E. Catte
58. Stardoc - S. L. Viehl
59. The Dream Sleepers and Other Stories - P. Grace
60. ETC. v. 23 n. 1 (March 1966) - various
61. Love and the Loveless - H. Williamson
62. Rife - S. Marks
63. Writing in America - E. Caldwell
64. No Nature - G. Snyder
65. The Novel and the Reader - K. Lever
66. Hula - L. Shea
67. A is for Alibi - S. Grafton
68. ETC. vol. 1 no 2 1964 - various
69. Poetry May 1989 - various
70. Blue Highways - W. L. Heat-Moon
71. Without Rime or Reason - J. E. Marker
72. Little Letters on the Skin - various
73. Unleashing Feminism - ed. I. Reti, various
74. Samsara - E. Anzalone
75. The Movable School Goes to the Negro Farmer - J. M. Campbell
76. Michigan Quarterly Review Fall/Winter 1980-81, "The Automobile and American Culture" -various
77. Murder is Easy - A. Christie
78. Rabbit, Run - J. Updike
79. The Female Quixote - C. Lennox
80. Against Tomorrow - various
81. Small World - David Lodge
82. Modern Fiction Studies vol. 19 no 4 w. 1973-74 - various
83. First Book of Physiology and Hygiene (1908) - W. O. Krohn
84. Whiter than Snow and Little Dot - Mrs. O. F Walton
85. The Regatta Mystery - A. Christie
86. If I Were God - W. J. Robinson
87. Literary Culture and Female Authorship in Canada 1760-2000 - F. Hamill
88. A Turkish Dictionary - A. Wessels
89. The Four of Hearts - Ellery Queen
90. Dispatches from the Rust Belt - various
91.The Woman in the Water - C. Finch
92. Aphra Behn: The English Sappho - G. Woodcock
93. The American Scholar Autumn 2002 - various
94. Kissing the Bee - L. Gularte

April

95. The Blazing World - M. Cavendish
96. Pessoa & Co - F. Pessoa, trs. Richard Zenith
97. The Pocket University Guide to Daily Reading - W. R. Benet and various
98. Black Warrior Review, spring/summer 2011 - various
99. Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us - P. Lichman
100. Happy Never After - K. H. Trochek
101. The Reading Group Handbook - R. W. Jacobson
102. Girl, 20 - K. Amis
103. Chicago Review - Kenneth Rexroth retrospective - various
104. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - C. Moore
105. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - A. Sillitoe
106. Facial Justice - L. P. Hartley
107. The Gospel According to the Son - N. Mailer
108. Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation 1860-1865 - J. Frank
109. The Affair - C. P. Snow
110. Flunk. Start - S. Hall
111. The Days of Abandonment - E. Ferrante
112. Two and Two - D. Duhamel
113. Inspector Cadaver - G. Simenon
114. The Mansion - W. Faulkner
115. Making Shapely Fiction - J. Stern
116. Notes from Underground - F. Dostoevsky
117. The British at the Seaside - G. Marsden

May

118. The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
119. Witches Abroad - T. Pratchett
120. Lords & Ladies - T. Pratchett
121. To Die in Italbar - R. Zelazny
122. B is for Burglar - S. Grafton
123. Too Many Cooks - R. Stout
124. Poetry May 2018 - various
125. Watermelon Wine - F. Gallard
126. First Grade Manual - various
127. The Martian - A. Weir
128. D is for Deadbeat - S. Grafton
129. Goldfinger - I. Fleming
130. E is for Evidence - S. Grafton
131. F is for Fugitive - S. Grafton
132. The Inheritors - W. Golding
133. G is for Gumshoe - S. Grafton
134. Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes - S.J. Gould
135. Beyond Varallan - S. I. Viehl
136. Poetry June 2018 - various
137. Annie on My Mind - N. Golden

June

138. In This House of Brede - R. Godden
139. The Superlative and Other Essays - R.W. Emerson
140. H is for Homicide - S. Grafton
141. I is for Innocent - S. Grafton
142. Faulkner at the University - W. Faulkner and various
143. Inquiry Feb. 1979 - various
144. Pnin - V. Nabokov
145. A Great Deliverance - E. George
146. Poetry July/August 2018 - various
147. Monstrous Regiment - T. Pratchett
148. Payment in Blood - E. George
149. Sylvester - G. Heyer
150. The Dollmaker - H. Arnow

July

151. Death of a Cad - M.C. Beaton
152. O Crime Exige Propaganda - DLS
153. The Common no. 14 - various
152. St. Petersburg Review n. 8.5 - various
153. Lucky Jim - K. Amis*
154. On Sal Mal Lane - R. Freeman
155. Writing Ourselves Whole - J. Cross
156. O Falcao do Malta - D. Hammett
157. The Common no. 15 - various
158. A Game of Thrones - G.R.R. Martin
159. Eye of Cat - R. Zelazny

August

160. Freedom Riders - 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice - R. Arsenault
161. Bell Lap - L. Winberg
162 The Inside Room - L. Andrews
163. Artists in Crime - N. Marsh
164. Snobbery With Violence - C. Wilson
165. Mr. & - J. Fitzpatrick
166. Jitterbug Perfume - T. Robbins
167. The Hamlet - W. Faulkner
168. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - K. Edwards
169. The Book of Three - L. Alexander
170. J is for Judgment - S. Grafton
171. Murder on Girl's Night Out - A. George
172. The Black Cauldron - L. Alexander
173. The Castle of Llyr - L. Alexander
174. Taran Wanderer - L. Alexander
175. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin - T. Hayes
176. The High King - L. Alexander
177. Sad Cypress - A. Christie*
178. How To Read Donald Duck - A. Dorfman
179. K is for Killer - S. Grafton
180. The Balkan Trilogy - O. Manning
181. Gilgamesh the Hero - G. McCaughren (il. David Perkins)
182. Poetry Sept. 2018

September

183. The Life of Samuel Johnson - J. Boswell
184. Ulysses - J. Joyce
185. The Masters of Capital - J. Moody
186. Witchery - E. Hodges
187. Marriage - S. Ferrier
188. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - B. Traven
189. Catch-22 - J. Heller
190. The Danger Tree - O. Manning
191. The Battle Lost and Won - O. Manning
192. The Sum of Things - O. Manning
193. Temporary Kings - A. Powell
194. All About Asset Allocation - R. Ferri
195. Hearing Secret Harmonies - A. Powell
196. Gay Power: An American Revolution - D. Eisenbach
197. Notes of a Native Son - J. Baldwin*
198. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Trade - W. Johnson
199. The Thirties and After - S. Spender
200. The Mighty and Their Fall - I. Compton-Burnett
201. A Different Woman - J. Howard
202. The Blessing Way - T. Hillerman
203. The Left Hand of Darkness - U.K. LeGuin
204. Black Panther and the Crew: We Are the Streets - various
205. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vols. 1 and 2 - various
206. New York's Nooks and Crannies: Unusual Walking Tours in All Five Boroughs - D. Yardon
207. Little Women - L. M. Alcott
208. Great Short Stories by American Women - various
209. The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography - P. Roth

October

210. Corridors of Power - C. P. Snow
211. From Middle England - P. Oakes
212. Salvage - O. Patrick
213. A Natural History of Latin - T. Jansen
214. Man and His Gods - H. W. Smith
215. PrairyErth - W.L.H. Moon
216. Another Way Home - J. Thorndike
217. Did You Say Chicks?!? - ed. E. Fresner
218. Reality and Dreams - M. Spark
219. The Sleep of Reason - C. P. Snow
220. Snapshot - B. Sanderson
221. Invisible Cities - I. Calvino
222. Working Women of Collar City - C. Turbin
223. The Magic Mountain - T. Mann
224. A Wind in the Door - M. L'Engle
225. As You Like It - W. Shakespeare*
226. The Veiled One - R. Rendell
227. Poetry Oct. 2018 - various
228. A Midsummer Night's Dream - W. Shakespeare*
229. No Signposts in the Sea - V. Sackville-West
230. What Was Literature? - L. Fielder
231. The Unveiling of Timbuctoo - G. Welch
232. Evolution - "W.A."
233. A Test to Destruction - H. Williamson

November

234. The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal
235. Anastasia Again! - L. Lowry
236. Confessions of a Young Man - G. Moore
237. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying - D. Georgakas and M. Surkin
238: Enlightenment Now! Why Everything Is Actually Totally Fine - S. Pinker
239. Guilty Pleasures: Popular Novels and American Audiences in the Long Nineteenth Century - H. McIntosh
240. Gormenghast - M. Peake
241. The 50/50 - various
242. Stories in Stained Glass - W.D. Hughes
243. Birds of a Feather - M. Carache and S. Scott
244. The Ten Commandments Twice Removed - D. Shelton and S. Quinn
245. How to Lie With Statistics - D. Huff
246. More Damned Lies and Statistics - J. Best
247. The History of the Standard Oil Company - I. Tarbell
248. The Old Men at the Zoo
249. Love: A Suspect Form - J. Infante
250. Hungry Hearts - F. Prose
251. City of Dreadful Delight - J.R. Walkowitz
252. Maud Martha - G. Brooks
253. Riders in the Chariot - P. White
254. L is for Lawless - S. Grafton
255. M is for Malice - S. Grafton

December

256. Titus Alone - M. Peake
257. Manliness & Militarism - M. Moss
258. N is for Noose - S. Grafton
259. O is for Outlaw - S. Grafton
260. The Fox in the Attic - R. Hughes
261. P is for Peril - S. Grafton
262. Q is for Quarry - S. Grafton
263. Poetry December 2018 - various
264. R is for Ricochet - S. Grafton
265. T is for Trespass - S. Grafton
266. Nobody Knows My Name - J. Baldwin
267. The Charioteer - M. Renault

I did do a lot better on impulse book buying and clearing off my shelves this year. A lot of these books are either from the library or books I already owned; most of the ones I owned I've since given away. Some of the titles are still on my shelf (often in spite of intentions to the contrary): Gormenghast, The Life of Samuel Johnson, PrairyErth, Maud Martha, The Balkan Trilogy. I might have kept Hungry Hearts, because it was delightful, but it fell apart in my hands, poor thing.

Date: 2019-01-03 02:16 am (UTC)
osprey_archer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] osprey_archer
One of my friends fell in love with Connie Willis's books back in high school and begged me to read them, and I read To Say Nothing of the Dog and The Doomsday Book and Lincoln's Dreams and probably one or two others, and they were all disappointing. Surprisingly memorable for such disappointing books - I still recall a lot of things about them - but nonetheless disappointing.

Date: 2019-01-03 10:07 am (UTC)
littlerhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] littlerhymes
I love Geraldine McCaughrean but wow I did not even know she'd done a Gilgamesh - she's so prolific!

That is many many books and I am impressed.

Date: 2019-01-04 12:40 pm (UTC)
littlerhymes: (Default)
From: [personal profile] littlerhymes
She writes basically 3 types of book as far as I can tell -
1. whimsical almost-magical-realism children and young adult's novels,
2. historical/mythological retellings (Gilgamesh obvs), and
3. adult historicals.

Mostly, I read from category 1 with a smattering of 3! From 1, I really liked Stop The Train (the building of a railway in the wild west!) Gold Dust (gold mining in Brazil), and The Death Defying Pepper Roux (1900s France).

She's probably most famous for Peter Pan in Scarlet (an authorised sequel) and The White Darkness (quite interesting YA about a girl obsessed with Artic exploration). And I have a tag! Ok this is a lot of info I'll stop lol.

Date: 2019-01-03 06:21 pm (UTC)
liadt: by <user name=semyaza> (Book eyeballs)
From: [personal profile] liadt
Wow, you know how to read books!

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