List the Books You Read in 2012, and Rate Them

[ave d]

I would like to join in.

Jan.1, 2012 - present I've read...

1. Hello Americans, the second (and last-published, so far) part of Simon Callow's ambitious 3-part biography of Orson Welles. Articulate, sympathetic, filled with obscure information and details about Welles' fascinating life and career in the 1940s (from just after Citizen Kane through his film of Macbeth). The chapters on his time in Brazil and the filming of It's All True were my favorite part and it has a lot of stuff that's not in the 90's documentary on that film.
9/10 for an addictive and even-handed read about one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century (probably in my top 10-15).

2. The Island of the Day Before - Umberto Eco. I loved the first half of this, but it didn't quite hold my interest in the more bizarre later parts. I've already half-forgotten the ending.
6/10 for swashbuckling and scholarly eccentricity.

3. Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic world, 1400-1800 by John Thornton.
I'd say the difficulty level is about a 6 or 7/10. The narrative of people and events is secondary to Thornton's complex braid of causal arguments drawn from his comprehensive engagement with the primary and secondary literature. I rate the book itself a 7.5/10 because although it took a fair amount of concentration and time to get through the densely footnoted text, the arguments are careful and draw a number of surprising conclusions about the slave trade and cultural influence. I have to qualify this rating by saying that I'm not very well read on the subject, so I don't have a lot to compare this book to outside of what's "common knowledge" and the detailed historiography presented by the book itself.

4. Ambient by Jack Womack.
4/10 (below average) - for a twisted and somewhat funny apocalyptic view of Manhattan, but the ideas and satire are all pretty blunt and obvious, and if you're well-versed in sci-fi or hard-boiled cliches I don't think this will stand out all that well.

5. Wuthering Heights. I liked the surprisingly low-key ending but for 4/5 of its length I could not get past the "waiting for something to happen" stage of reading or engage with any point of view in the story.
5.5/10 (average-ish).

6. The Sea and Poison. Shusaku Endo's short novel about the guilt and moral failure of a group of Japanese doctors and nurses who perform live vivisections on POWs during WWII.
6/10 for engaging the subject at all and maybe another 0.5/10 for doing it pretty thoughtfully.

7. Casualties of War. The (true) story of a group of American soldiers who abducted, raped and murdered a civilian in Vietnam, told mostly from the point of view of a soldier who didn't participate and eventually turned his comrades in. The book is very short and was originally published as an article in The New Yorker in 1969.
6.5/10 for powerful (but distressing) war journalism.

8. World Hunger: 12 Myths by Frances Moore Lappe et al.
6.5/10 For doing a good job of hitching strong arguments to both direct experience and thorough research. Not really a fun read at all but worth the effort. For now here's my only complaint (of sorts): I found it somewhat difficult to follow the drift of some of their arguments because it sometimes seems every other sentence directs you to an end-note at the back of the book, so I don't think the authors were completely successful in their goal of "not presenting their story as just a list of facts and numbers". The upshot is that the obsessive end-notes and list of sources makes their research very transparent. Worth reading.

9. The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy Volume 1 by David Pears.
I've read the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus and Philosophical investigations and Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein. Thankfully I don't have to rate TLP or PI because I did not understand them (especially the Tractatus) well enough to do them justice, I don't think. The bulk of this book attempts an exegesis of Wittgenstein's early system (the TLP), and it raises many questions and leaves their answers incomplete or difficult to obtain. This makes the book very difficult (I would rate the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus 10/10 for difficulty, and think this is still a 7.5 or 8/10). I had to concentrate a lot while reading it and would often start reading in my normal/fiction attention span for a couple pages only to realize that I'd missed or forgotten the entire point. I think the author himself summarizes this difficulty well: "we find it hard to hold two things in our minds at once, the solution and the original problem." In spite of that difficulty Wittgenstein is worth engaging with because I still find myself almost daily puzzling over some of his ideas ever since I first read Philosophical Investigations a year ago. One of which is his "doctrine of showing" -- i.e. that some things in language can be shown but not said. It's so hard to understand what he means by "showing" and "saying", making it seems like a paradox. Pears sums it up in this passage: "When Wittgenstein made his selection from his copious exploratory notes and put the Tractatus together, his leading idea was that we can see further than we can say. We can see all the way to the edge of language, but the most distant things that we see cannot be expressed in sentences because they are the pre-conditions of saying anything." (and then he goes on to complicate that picture with his analysis). I would rate volume 1 of The False Prison very highly because I do feel I understand the Wittgenstein's philosophy a good deal better now that I've read it (and that it's worth trying to understand), and that the author makes the most honest and unpretentious choice in always trying to clarify a problem, even if that means he sometimes has to be circuitous and not try to misrepresent the ideas' difficulties by boiling them down to simple explanations.
Vol.1 rating: 8/10

10. The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, vol.2).
I find it hard to rate Tennessee Williams, because I just love his language, even at his most flowery/pretentious. If I'm being perfectly objective, this is probably one of my second-least favorite play by him that I've read so far (Orpheus Descending - 9/10, Suddenly, Last Summer - 8.5/10, A Streetcar Named Desire - 8.5/10, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 8/10, The Glass Menagerie - 7/10, Battle of Angels - 5/10), so it's only fair to give it a low rating: 5.5/10.

[Paulclem]

1. The Departure by Neal Asher. A solid sci fi about an overcrowded dystopian earth that has become ruled by a world government - with frequent references to the Eurozone - which has decided to annihilate a large portion of the billions who would die anyway. Our hero, Adam Saul, has developed an organic interface to computers and implanted it in his brain in order to overcome the military backed bureacracy. Pacy beginning to a new series. 7/10
2. The House of the Dead by Doestoyevsky. A brilliant depiction of life in a Siberian jail in the 19th century. The characterisation, the relentless drudgery described, the themed chapters that veer away from a chronological account, the events that punctuated the years in jail and the pathos of the men and animals all combine in to a life of slow horror. 10/10
3. The Battle for Crete by Anthony Beevor. An interesting and comprehensive account of the fall of Crete in WW2 when the Germans launched their first and only parachute invasion. It charts the dithering and incompetence of the British command, and how they lost a battle they nearly won. 8/10
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip Dick. Set in a dystopian, nuclear future, a Bounty Hunter is charged by the police department to "retire" 6 new androids produced by a shady corporation. It examines the relationship of man to living and non-living beings in an autopsy of empathy. A good, though provoking read. 8/10
5. Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett. This concerns the time travels and trials of Commander Vimes in Ankh-Morpork. It's a great plot, and an enjoyable read. The thing with Pratchett's books is the weak humour, often based upon tired stereotypes such as the "Aunties" that patrol certain streets and are reputedly deadly with an umbrella. We've seen this kind of thing with the Grannies in Monty Python. Nevertheless a good read. 7/10
6. Embassytown by China Mieville. You never know quite what you're going to get with Mieville's work, as the blurb never does justice to the story. I had a space opera preconception about this book, but was surpried to find it being about language - the hosts of an alien planet have a unique way of communicating with humans - which may prove to be an allegory about the failure of human cultures to speak and understand one another. There's political intrigue, exotic aliens and landscapes, and a story that is both surprising and interesting. 8/10
7. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. This book has everything, love, death, betrayal, hermits, ghosts, giant hands, helmets and feet, murder, corsairs, a lost child, a discovered son, a mad Lord, sentences of death, usurpers, piety, familial love, tragedy, coincidence, melodrama, imprisonment, escape. divine justice... For a book written over 200 years ago, it has it's qualities and flaws. It is plot driven with little development of character or a sense of place, but, as one of the first gothic novels it deserves a whirl. 6/10

[Paulclem]

Nope, that's his recent series, which I'm currently hunting down. I've now picked up a standalone novel of his also: Fallen Dragon. I'm definitely a fan now.

The Night's Dawn trilogy consists of The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God.

Got the Reality Dysfunction the other day. Very good so far.

You might like Iain M Banks and Neal Asher.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 8.5/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?
8. The City and The City by China Meiville -- 8/10. This is an author I've been meaning to read for some time,*and he didn't disappoint. The story was good, the world well built and original, and the writing nice and fast-paced. Just a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be checking out more of his work.
9. The Aeneid by Virgil -- 8/10. This was surprisingly enjoyable (I never have high expectations when going reading epic poetry, enjoyment wise). It was an excellent adventure story and quite fast paced. Plus, I loved the gory battle scenes. Movies like 300 really aren't far off the mark, it seems.

P.S. I'm done listing the comics. I read them so fast (one comic takes about 15 minutes) it's a pain keeping track of them.

[lawpark]

People! It is only early March ... and you have read so many big books already!

My list this year - mostly small books, and it is a fast first 2-3 months for me (because of a couple of long flights):

1. The Vision of God - Vladimir Lossky. 7/10. About Orthodox theology, written middle of last century. Vladimir is a Russian theologian living in the emigre community in France; his father N.O. Lossky is a philosophy who has written a History of Russian Philosophy with the last section covering his own son Vladimir.

2. Pathways of Modern China - Ray Huang. 8/10. Chinese book. A refresher for me about Ray Huang's view on history. I find it more authentic than last I read him (about a decade ago), as he is honestly trying to interpret Chinese history in the 20th century such that the sacrifices of his fathers' and his own generation are not all wasted.

3. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Volume 1- Jeroslav Pelikan. 8/10. A 5-volume classic completed in 1970's. Trying to account for doctrinal development in a somewhat "objective" style.

4. Sophocles I / Three Tragedies - 9/10. This the Grene / Lattimore edition of the 3 Theban Plays. I find myself liking them a lot - mostly because the plays are quite fast-paced. Among the three, I personally like Oedipus the King the most.

5. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization - by Fukuzawa Yukichi. 9/10. Written in 1875. I read the Chinese translation. Actually very impressed by this pragmatic visionary (he is truly that, despite the apparent contradiction in the phrase). What he write over 130 years ago still strikes me as true and right direction if we were put back to 1875 again. This dude deserves to have his face printed on 10,000 Yen bills!

6. Lectures on Divine Humanity - by Vladimir Solovyov. 7/10. Lectures in 1878-1811. Most interesting is his "Sophiology" - but he didn't expound much on it actually. Vs. Fukuzawa (they wrote at around the same time), he was clearly the idealistic visionary who got things wrong. The first half building up as to why Christianity is more true / advanced than other religions are quite hopelessly out-of-date, even though they are still somewhat treated in similar way a century later by leading theologians like Hans Ur von Balthasar.

7. Toynbee on Toynbee - A Conversation between Arnold J. Toynbee and G. R. Urban. Book was published in 1974 based on a radio conversation when Toybee was 83 years old. The two parts of this small book shows how a) the world of historiography (i.e. the fundamental issues faced with doing / writing history) really has not changed that much (despite post-modernization or globalization), while b) the world itself has changed quite a bit (at the time of the conversation, clearly the intellectual interest of history was still revolving around how the U.S.S.R. and Marxism would evolve. [note: added on Mar 10]

[OrphanPip]

1. Aphra Behn - History of the Nun - 6/10, I get a lot of enjoyment out of how ridiculous early prose stories can be.
2. Aphra Behn - The Fair Jilt - 7/10. This one is more ridiculous than the other, and thus better in my book.
3. Eliza Haywood - Love in Excess - 6/10. Not big on amatory fiction really, but this is one of the 3 best selling novels of the 18th century.
4. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist - 9/10. Not really one of Dickens' best, but it's one of his funnier novels, and who can forget Fagin, Mr. Bumble, or Sikes.
5. Lynn Breedlove - One Freak Show - 7/10, a transcription of lesbian/trans man musician and comic Lynn Breedlove's show One Freak Show, essentially a series of humorous anecdotes about her life and the status of trans people in the LGBT community in the United States. Some parts of it are not that great, but it's a short breezy read, so the bad parts are easy to overlook.
6. Richardson - Pamela - 5/10. This is a painful read but a very influential book, the first part is much better than the "how to be a good housewife" manual that forms the final part of the novel.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle - Sign of Four - 8/10. Campy, fun Sherlocke Holmes novel that is terribly racist in parts.
8. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey - 9/10. Probably Austen's funniest novel, we all know a girl like Isabella Thorpe.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 9/10. This is a re-read, but it's always a fun light read.
10. Craig Thomson - Habibi - 8.5/10. Wonderful graphic novel, but a bit long in parts. I particularly like the tongue and cheek retelling of the Noah's arc story. I don't think it's as powerful a comment on how people relate to religion as Blankets, maybe because of the lack of personal depth that Thomson's earlier work had.
11. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews and Shamela - 7/10. A fun read. To get the most out of Shamela you have to read Pamela first.
12. Daniel Defoe - Journal of the Plague Year - 5/10. I thought I had included this since I read it in January, but oh well. It's an OK read, a lot of it is terribly boring reprinting of death statistics and Defoe's meandering philosophizing on the best way to handle a plague, but it is occasionally spiced up with Defoe's clever little "slice of life" stories. Defoe's Rebecca is a much better novel, I read it last year and it was a lot of fun.
13. Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto - 6/10. Bizarre novel that opens with someone being mysteriously crushed by a giant helmet that appears out of nowhere.
14. Henry James - The Aspern Papers - 8/10. There's something special about this that's hard to place a finger on.
15. Michael Adams - Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Multiculturalism in Canada - 8/10. Great book that addresses a lot of the misinformation and media hysteria about immigrants with actual empirical evidence. Pollster Michael Adams doesn't shy away from waxing philosophical on ideas like Canadian and Quebecois national identity, which is probably the weakest part of his book when he tries to explain why the data is as it is. However, the data he gathers itself is compelling evidence that multiculturalism has not failed, but has been successful and is continuing to be even more successful as a strategy of integration for a just and liberal society.
16. Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 6/10. Some of the short stories from this collection are better than others, but there's a definitely recognizable formulaic tendency that makes many of the less original "cases" a little boring. Although, plenty of the fun campy nonsense of Holmes.
17. Margaret Harkness - In Darkest London - 7/10. Mixed feelings about this admittedly poorly constructed novel, but there is a certain power in the stark depictions of the impoverished East End of London in the 1880s. Reminiscent of The Jungle.

[Desolation]

1. The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth - 9/10...This was my first exposure to Roth, and it definitely made me want to keep going through his catalog.
2. Post Office by Charles Bukowski - 6/10...Reading Bukowski is nice because it makes me feel like a better human being. Otherwise, he kind of annoys me.
3. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - 7/10...Kind of hard to make heads or tails of it. I've heard it frequently said that this is the most accessible of Pynchon's books, but I think they meant "shortest." It seems to me that Pynchon works better when he has more space to spread his wings.
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - 8/10...I liked it a lot. It was even very difficult to put down.
5. Watt by Samuel Beckett - 9/10...Kind of like speeding down a highway in reverse on LSD with a low quality mash-up of Black Flag and Mozart blasting at top volume.
6. White Noise by Don DeLillo - 10/10...Funny, angry, creative, compelling. I couldn't find any fault with it.
7. Mercier and Camier by Samuel Beckett - 7/10...Not quite up to par with Watt, but still entertainingly disorienting.
8. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy - 9/10...Tolstoy shows about as much power and insight here in 50 pages as he did with 1,200 pages in War and Peace.
9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - ?/10...Sometimes, a good book needs to stir a while in your head before you can say whether or not you actually enjoyed it. Woolf's an incredibly powerful writer, I can at least say that much.
10. Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth - 8/10...I kind of wish that I had read Portnoy's Complaint first, as it seems that it would've greatly informed this reading. Still very good, though.
11. V. by Thomas Pynchon - 10/10...What a book! Long, rambling, hard to follow, almost perfect from start to finish. A perfect example of the word "Difficult" being thrown around callously at truly captivating novels.
12. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes - 8/10...A remarkable study of destructive desire rendered in beautifully poetic prose.
13. The Recognitions by William Gaddis - 10/10...For two weeks, every single drop of energy and mental faculty that I could muster has gone into reading this gigantic novel. It really took a lot out of me, but it was well worth it. In just under 1,000 pages Gaddis manages to stuff in themes ranging from the nature of reality/authenticity, religious satire, the creative process, and so much more. There's a new truth bursting from every page.

[Paulclem]

9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - ?/10...Sometimes, a good book needs to stir a while in your head before you can say whether or not you actually enjoyed it. Woolf's an incredibly powerful writer, I can at least say that much.

Agreed. To The Ligthouse had a profound effect on me by introducing Stream of Consciousness writing.

I am as yet unsure why this was so, at a time when I was pretty well unaware, being quite young, of formal descriptions of the mind beyond a little Freud.

It is fruitless to speculate too much, but suffice to say I later gained an interest and practice in Buddhism, which is very much a discipline of the mind. Reflecting now, it throws up an interesting implication - but you never know. Perhaps one day I'll find out.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 8.5/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?
8. The City and The City by China Meiville -- 8/10. This is an author I've been meaning to read for some time,*and he didn't disappoint. The story was good, the world well built and original, and the writing nice and fast-paced. Just a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be checking out more of his work.
9. The Aeneid by Virgil -- 8/10. This was surprisingly enjoyable (I never have high expectations when going reading epic poetry, enjoyment wise). It was an excellent adventure story and quite fast paced. Plus, I loved the gory battle scenes. Movies like 300 really aren't far off the mark, it seems.
10. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -- 10/10. This is a a semi-autobiographical book of (connected) short stories about the Vietnam war. I found it to be an amazing read; it's beautifully written; at times funny, horrifying, sad, and always poignant; a wonderfully quick paced read; and a non-heroic look at the Vietnam war. And don't think it's a book just for people interested in war--it's themes are universal. I seriously could not find a single flaw in this book. I give it a 10/10.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.

2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.

3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.

4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.

5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.

7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 8.5/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?

8. The City and The City by China Meiville -- 8/10. This is an author I've been meaning to read for some time,*and he didn't disappoint. The story was good, the world well built and original, and the writing nice and fast-paced. Just a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be checking out more of his work.

9. The Aeneid by Virgil -- 8/10. This was surprisingly enjoyable (I never have high expectations when going reading epic poetry, enjoyment wise). It was an excellent adventure story and quite fast paced. Plus, I loved the gory battle scenes. Movies like 300 really aren't far off the mark, it seems.

10. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -- 10/10. This is a a semi-autobiographical book of (connected) short stories about the Vietnam war. I found it to be an amazing read; it's beautifully written; at times funny, horrifying, sad, and always poignant; a wonderfully quick paced read; and a non-heroic look at the Vietnam war. And don't think it's a book just for people interested in war--it's themes are universal. I seriously could not find a single flaw in this book.

11. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins -- 6.5/10. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, though I found some inconsistencies with the main character and a particularly annoying plot turn near the end. All in all, though, and enjoyable read. Read my review here.

[Paulclem]

1. The Departure by Neal Asher. A solid sci fi about an overcrowded dystopian earth that has become ruled by a world government - with frequent references to the Eurozone - which has decided to annihilate a large portion of the billions who would die anyway. Our hero, Adam Saul, has developed an organic interface to computers and implanted it in his brain in order to overcome the military backed bureacracy. Pacy beginning to a new series. 7/10
2. The House of the Dead by Doestoyevsky. A brilliant depiction of life in a Siberian jail in the 19th century. The characterisation, the relentless drudgery described, the themed chapters that veer away from a chronological account, the events that punctuated the years in jail and the pathos of the men and animals all combine in to a life of slow horror. 10/10
3. The Battle for Crete by Anthony Beevor. An interesting and comprehensive account of the fall of Crete in WW2 when the Germans launched their first and only parachute invasion. It charts the dithering and incompetence of the British command, and how they lost a battle they nearly won. 8/10
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip Dick. Set in a dystopian, nuclear future, a Bounty Hunter is charged by the police department to "retire" 6 new androids produced by a shady corporation. It examines the relationship of man to living and non-living beings in an autopsy of empathy. A good, though provoking read. 8/10
5. Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett. This concerns the time travels and trials of Commander Vimes in Ankh-Morpork. It's a great plot, and an enjoyable read. The thing with Pratchett's books is the weak humour, often based upon tired stereotypes such as the "Aunties" that patrol certain streets and are reputedly deadly with an umbrella. We've seen this kind of thing with the Grannies in Monty Python. Nevertheless a good read. 7/10
6. Embassytown by China Mieville. You never know quite what you're going to get with Mieville's work, as the blurb never does justice to the story. I had a space opera preconception about this book, but was surpried to find it being about language - the hosts of an alien planet have a unique way of communicating with humans - which may prove to be an allegory about the failure of human cultures to speak and understand one another. There's political intrigue, exotic aliens and landscapes, and a story that is both surprising and interesting. 8/10
7. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. This book has everything, love, death, betrayal, hermits, ghosts, giant hands, helmets and feet, murder, corsairs, a lost child, a discovered son, a mad Lord, sentences of death, usurpers, piety, familial love, tragedy, coincidence, melodrama, imprisonment, escape. divine justice... For a book written over 200 years ago, it has it's qualities and flaws. It is plot driven with little development of character or a sense of place, but, as one of the first gothic novels it deserves a whirl. 6/10
8. Archangel by Robert Harris. A very good thriller set in post Glasnost Russia. Fluke Kelso, a hisorian whose specialism is Stalin, is drawn into a political intrigue that takes him to the heart of Russian politics laced with murder, insanity and power. 9/10

[lawpark]

1. The Vision of God - Vladimir Lossky. 7/10. About Orthodox theology, written middle of last century. Vladimir is a Russian theologian living in the emigre community in France; his father N.O. Lossky is a philosophy who has written a History of Russian Philosophy with the last section covering his own son Vladimir.

2. Pathways of Modern China - Ray Huang. 8/10. Chinese book. A refresher for me about Ray Huang's view on history. I find it more authentic than last I read him (about a decade ago), as he is honestly trying to interpret Chinese history in the 20th century such that the sacrifices of his fathers' and his own generation are not all wasted.

3. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Volume 1- Jeroslav Pelikan. 8/10. A 5-volume classic completed in 1970's. Trying to account for doctrinal development in a somewhat "objective" style.

4. Sophocles I / Three Tragedies - 9/10. This the Grene / Lattimore edition of the 3 Theban Plays. I find myself liking them a lot - mostly because the plays are quite fast-paced. Among the three, I personally like Oedipus the King the most.

5. An Outline of a Theory of Civilization - by Fukuzawa Yukichi. 9/10. Written in 1875. I read the Chinese translation. Actually very impressed by this pragmatic visionary (he is truly that, despite the apparent contradiction in the phrase). What he write over 130 years ago still strikes me as true and right direction if we were put back to 1875 again. This dude deserves to have his face printed on 10,000 Yen bills!

6. Lectures on Divine Humanity - by Vladimir Solovyov. 7/10. Lectures in 1878-1811. Most interesting is his "Sophiology" - but he didn't expound much on it actually. Vs. Fukuzawa (they wrote at around the same time), he was clearly the idealistic visionary who got things wrong. The first half building up as to why Christianity is more true / advanced than other religions are quite hopelessly out-of-date, even though they are still somewhat treated in similar way a century later by leading theologians like Hans Ur von Balthasar.

7. Toynbee on Toynbee - A Conversation between Arnold J. Toynbee and G. R. Urban. 8/10. Book was published in 1974 based on a radio conversation when Toybee was 83 years old. The two parts of this small book shows how a) the world of historiography (i.e. the fundamental issues faced with doing / writing history) really has not changed that much (despite post-modernization or globalization), while b) the world itself has changed quite a bit (at the time of the conversation, clearly the intellectual interest of history was still revolving around how the U.S.S.R. and Marxism would evolve.

8. Gita Govinda. original by Jayadeva in Sanskrit, translated into English by Lee Siegel. Part of the now bankrupt Clay Sanskrit Library series. 8/10. Dual theme of erotic love and bhakti devotion to Krishna, written in poem / song form. Actually quite similar to several books I read in the second half of 2011 (Kalidasa's Birth of Kumura (about Shiva, 10/10), Nammalvar's poems (about Vishnu, 9/10), and Hala's Sattasai, 10/10) in its themes about love, intermingled with the vast ocean of mythologies at the background. Somehow, at least this translation I read, I do not feel it is as good as the others I have read several months ago.

9. Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction - written by Steven Grosby. 6/10. One of the Oxford pocketbooks. The book itself is actually not bad, my low ratings just reflect my lack of interest in the subject. It is one of the few VSI's that I wish is actually shorter. I read the first half of the book last year, and finished the second half in several hours. One argument (which I buy) is nations exist in pre-modern world (Israel, Sri Lanka, Japan and Poland was used as examples to illustrate the formation of nations with myths, history, legal codes, power center, religion and language). The supposedly provoking question is why do human beings identify themselves with imagined communities, and why sometimes the priority of this identify becomes so high to be destructive? Of course, no clear answers (except that biological explanations are discredited) emerge. [Added on April 1, 2012]

[Babyguile]

I'm not going to rate them I just want to keep track of what I've read.

Nothing To Envy: Real Lives in North Korea Barbara Demick

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Frederick Douglass

Singing the Master: The Emergence of African American Culture in the Plantation South Roger D. Abrahams

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.

1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.

2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.

3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.

4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.

5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.

7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 8.5/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?

8. The City and The City by China Meiville -- 8/10. This is an author I've been meaning to read for some time,*and he didn't disappoint. The story was good, the world well built and original, and the writing nice and fast-paced. Just a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be checking out more of his work.

9. The Aeneid by Virgil -- 8/10. This was surprisingly enjoyable (I never have high expectations when going reading epic poetry, enjoyment wise). It was an excellent adventure story and quite fast paced. Plus, I loved the gory battle scenes. Movies like 300 really aren't far off the mark, it seems.

10. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -- 10/10. This is a a semi-autobiographical book of (connected) short stories about the Vietnam war. I found it to be an amazing read; it's beautifully written; at times funny, horrifying, sad, and always poignant; a wonderfully quick paced read; and a non-heroic look at the Vietnam war. And don't think it's a book just for people interested in war--it's themes are universal. I seriously could not find a single flaw in this book.

11. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins -- 6.5/10. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, though I found some inconsistencies with the main character and a particularly annoying plot turn near the end. All in all, though, and enjoyable read. Read my review here.

12. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson -- 6/10. A good read with some pretty obvious flaws. It's a bit long-winded, often giving more backstory than the reader wants or needs, and the climax comes way to early. Salander, (the character referenced to on the title) is an excellent character, though.

[Desolation]

1. The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth - 9/10...This was my first exposure to Roth, and it definitely made me want to keep going through his catalog.
2. Post Office by Charles Bukowski - 6/10...Reading Bukowski is nice because it makes me feel like a better human being. Otherwise, he kind of annoys me.
3. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - 7/10...Kind of hard to make heads or tails of it. I've heard it frequently said that this is the most accessible of Pynchon's books, but I think they meant "shortest." It seems to me that Pynchon works better when he has more space to spread his wings.
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - 8/10...I liked it a lot. It was even very difficult to put down.
5. Watt by Samuel Beckett - 9/10...Kind of like speeding down a highway in reverse on LSD with a low quality mash-up of Black Flag and Mozart blasting at top volume.
6. White Noise by Don DeLillo - 10/10...Funny, angry, creative, compelling. I couldn't find any fault with it.
7. Mercier and Camier by Samuel Beckett - 7/10...Not quite up to par with Watt, but still entertainingly disorienting.
8. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy - 9/10...Tolstoy shows about as much power and insight here in 50 pages as he did with 1,200 pages in War and Peace.
9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - ?/10...Sometimes, a good book needs to stir a while in your head before you can say whether or not you actually enjoyed it. Woolf's an incredibly powerful writer, I can at least say that much.
10. Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth - 8/10...I kind of wish that I had read Portnoy's Complaint first, as it seems that it would've greatly informed this reading. Still very good, though.
11. V. by Thomas Pynchon - 10/10...What a book! Long, rambling, hard to follow, almost perfect from start to finish. A perfect example of the word "Difficult" being thrown around callously at truly captivating novels.
12. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes - 8/10...A remarkable study of destructive desire rendered in beautifully poetic prose.
13. The Recognitions by William Gaddis - 10/10...For two weeks, every single drop of energy and mental faculty that I could muster has gone into reading this gigantic novel. It really took a lot out of me, but it was well worth it. In just under 1,000 pages Gaddis manages to stuff in themes ranging from the nature of reality/authenticity, religious satire, the creative process, and so much more. There's a new truth bursting from every page.
14. Malone Dies by Samuel Becket - 10/10...The best Beckett I've read so far. His long, winding internal monologue reaches a natural apex in the corner of a dark room.
15. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - 8/10...It was a very beautiful book. Sometimes it sank, but the moments when it grabs one by the frontal lobe and pulls them streaming down the river with it make it an wonderful read.
16. Dubliners by James Joyce - 7/10...I'm used to reading novels, so I had trouble deciding how to approach this collection of short stories. One of the chief advantages was being able to simply skip a story if I didn't care for it and move onto the next (I only did this twice, with "Counterparts" and "A Mother"). Not all of the stories were great, but there were a few real knockouts. "Little Cloud" was stupendous in particular. But, naturally, it was "The Dead" that really, really stood out (on its own, it would be a 10, surely).