Reading 2008

Lost the notebook with my list early in the year and never started a new one, so this list is a reconstruction to the best of my memory, done while browsing the family's bookshelves.

Looks like I read more this year than I thought I did, since it seems like I spent an awful lot of my free time learning French this year, getting through all three levels of The Learnables and almost finishing level one of Pimsleur. Those are both good programs, by the way.

Asterisk denotes re-read.

NOVELS

Austen, Jane -- all are excellent, of course, and highly recommended
* Emma
* Mansfield Park
* Northanger Abbey
* Persuasion
* Pride and Prejudice
* Sanditon and Other Stories
* Sense and Sensibility

Buchan, John
* Thirty-Nine Steps, The -- fun adventure

Chesterton, G.K.
Man Who Was Thursday, The -- subtitiled, A Nightmare, it starts off slow, gets laughing-out-loud funny in the middle and then turns into a bizarre nightmare with wild chase and strange characters, and then the man wakes up and everything's normal

Christie, Agatha
* Dead Man’s Folly
Death in the Air
Murder at the Vicarage, The
Mystery of the Blue Train, The
N or M?
Sad Cypress -- I think Mrs Christie admired Dorothy Sayers; this book reminds me of the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane stories with Unnatural Death thrown in for good measure
* Towards Zero
What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
(Actually, given what a Christie fan I was in high school, I've probably read all of these, but I only remember these two.)

Godden, Rumer
Battle of the Villa Fiorita, The -- good

Jones, Diana Wynne -- Beware of letting your kids read Jones. When she's good, she's very very good, but when she's bad, she's horrid. My favorites of hers are still Howl's Moving Castle and Dogsbody.
Cart and Cwidder
Game, The -- so-so
Hexwood -- pretty good
Homeward Bounders, The -- can't remember what I thought of it


Lewis, C.S.
* That Hideous Strength -- excellent

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaimon
Good Omens -- lousy

Sayers, Dorothy -- all her books are wonderful, of course!
* Busman’s Honeymoon
* Nine Tailors, The

Tey, Josephine
Daughter of Time, The -- interesting; makes her case very convincingly
Shilling for Candles, A -- the book on which the Hitchcock movie Young and Innocent is based, very different from his movie, but interesting

Tolkien, J.R.R. -- excellent
* Lord of the Rings, The

~*~

POETRY AND DRAMA

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
* Idylls of the King -- lovely

Chesterton, G.K.
* Ballad of the White Horse, The -- everyone should read this!

Goldsmith, Oliver
She Stoops to Conquer -- funny but puzzling; maybe I'm looking too hard for a moral

Shakespeare, William -- Excellent, of course. I've seen these as plays but I think it's the first time I've ever read them right through.
Henry V
The Tempest

~*~

BIOGRAPHY

Chisholm, Anne
Rumer Godden: A Storyteller’s Life -- very interesting; before reading this I only knew her as a children's author, but it turns out Godden wrote her children's stories in-between her literary novels as a way to relax

Day, Clarence
Life with Father -- funny

Keller, Kate Van Winkle and Charles Cyril Hendricskson
George Washington: A Biography in Social Dance -- love this kind of stuff; knowing how differently from us other people thought makes history much easier to understand

~*~

NON-FICTION

Bartholomew, Mel
All New Square-Foot Gardening -- helpful

Belloc, Hillaire
Servile State, The -- Wow. Must reading for those interested in economics.

Berthold-Bond, Annie
Clean and Green -- very helpful; I have several favorite recipes I use all the time now that work just as well as store-bought products and don't stink up the house

Carlson, Alan
Third Ways -- Another good read for those interested in economics. Capitalism and Socialism really aren't the only two options.

Chesterton, G.K.
What’s Wrong with the World -- It's Chesterton. Of course it's good.

Flemer, Carl F., jr.
Four Centuries of Little Known Washington Parish History -- very interesting history of the area right around where I live now

Gokhale, Esther
8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back -- it works!

Hazlett, Henry
Economics in One Lesson -- reviewed at my regular blog, I was more frustrated with this book than anything

Leithart, Peter
* Miniatures and Morals -- very helpful insights

Lewis, C.S.
* Abolition of Man, The -- I read somewhere that That Hideous Strength was written with the ideas in this book in the back of Lewis's mind, so I reread it first before tackling this book again and it really made a difference -- helped me realize what he was getting at. Very important work.
Four Loves, The -- Need to read this one again. VERY GOOD!

Pitchford, Paul
Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition -- very helpful

Wilson, Douglas and Douglas Jones
* Angels in the Architecture -- still good

Wilson, Nancy
Our Mother Tongue -- not as good as I'd hoped it would be