Books you've read in the past year?

[StayGolden]

I read a story on Yahoo! News a few minutes ago that says that 1/4 (adult) Americans read no books at all last year. That got me to thinking...how many books have you read in the past year? What were their titles? Did you discover a new favorite author in the past year?

I haven't really read that many books over the course of the year, as reading everything I can get my hands on is a recent development but so far I think I've read around 20 novels and plays, but my favorite has been Macbeth.

I've discovered quite a few authors whom I love (James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and Fyodor Dostoevsky), but my absolute favorite is, and probably always will be, Shakespeare.

Now, your turn.

[Bakiryu]

You want a list or just a skimming of favorite authors?

[StayGolden]

Whichever you prefer. Just over the past year, though.

[malwethien]

I've read 15 books this year...

Perfume
Harry Potter 7
American Gods
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Sin
Jane Eyre
Wide Sargasso Sea
Neverwhere
The Awakening
Brideshead Revisited
Freakonomics
The Inheritance of Loss
The Golden Compass
My Name is Red

[pellegrino]

I just finished a dissertation so I've read enough through the past year but precious little for pleasure -
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
Legends of the Grail - Folio Press
Omnibus - Roald Dahl
The Inklings - Humphrey Carpenter
Song of Solomon - Tony Morrison
My friends awful dissertation - my friend
La Divina Commedia - (always, always)
I began Don Quixote in Spanish - wondrous
Collected Poems - George Herbert
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

[tudwell]

Hmm... I don't know if I can remember all of them (or exactly when I read some of them), but I'll try.

Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground and The Double
DeLillo: Americana, White Noise, Libra, Mao II, and Underworld
Nabokov: Lolita
Pynchon: V., Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm reading Mason & Dixon at the moment
Heller: Catch-22
Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, The Wild Palms and Go, Down Moses
Steve Erickson: Arc d'X and The Sea Came in at Midnight
Beckett: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Waiting for Godot, Endgame
Dickens: Oliver Twist
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker series
John Irving: The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire
Jack Kerouac: On the Road
Chuck Palahniuk: Haunted
Harry Potter 7
David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-5
Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything is Illuminated
Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Medea
The Aeneid
Kafka: The Metamorphosis
Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Parts of various short story anthologies
Mark Danielewsky: House of Leaves
Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House

That makes at least 49, but I'm sure I'm forgetting some...

I wasn't really disappointed with any of the books, but there are definitely some I like more than others. Nabokov, Pynchon, Faulkner, Beckett, they're miles ahead of the rest. Definitely my favorites (I can't pick just one).

[Virgil]

Pellegrino, welcome to lit net. I think you're going to like it here, based on your reading list. You should introduce and tell us a little about yourself. There is an Introductions thread.

[pellegrino]

Thank you Virgil! Most kind. I do indeed like it here. As you know, its hard to get passionate about Cecco d'Ascoli and Propertius at dinner parties!

[tudwell]

By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

I vote the third one (Prisoner of Azkaban). Once you get to the later ones in the series, the plots are too heavily ingrained with the earlier ones, and of the first three, I definitely like Prisoner of Azkaban best.

[StayGolden]

By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

It's always good to start at the beginning. Otherwise, my favorite in the series was Goblet of Fire.

[pellegrino]

Thanks tay Golden and Tudwell -
I've heard Azkaban bandied about as the holder of the laurels but I'm green to Potter, so I appreciate any input. What about the latest installment?

[tudwell]

The latest would also be the last, and it ties up all the loose ends that the rest of the books left unanswered. If you start there, you'll be utterly perplexed.

[StayGolden]

The latest is the last in the series, and probably best left unread until you read the previous books, otherwise you'll have no clue what's going, why it's going on, etc.

Oops..a bit late. :P But yeah, stick to one of the first books, as they introduce the series and the world JKR created.

[pellegrino]

Thanks friends.
Have either of you read anything by Ugo Tarchetti?

[syiah]

Well, there's no way I can remember everything I've read in the past year, so here are the ones that stuck :

Honey for the Bears - Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Wanting Seed - Anthony Burgess
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Faust - Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Interview With a Vampire - Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice
The Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice
The Devil Memnoch - Anne Rice
Macbeth - Shakespeare
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Sickness Unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
Ivanov - Ivan Chekhov
The Seagull - Ivan Chekhov
Uncle Vanya - Ivan Chekhov
Three Sisters - Ivan Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard - Ivan Chekhov
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Flowers of Evil - Baudelaire
Alphabet of Thorn - McKillips
Apprentice - Feist
Master - Feist
The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzche
Mein Kampf - Hitler
Antichrist - Nietzche
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Juliette - Marquis De Sade
120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade
Philosophy of a Bedroom - Marquis De Sade
Venus in Furs - Sacher-Masoch
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Diary of a Madman - Gogol
Dead Souls - Gogol
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Demons - Dostoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Warriors Don't Cry - Beals
Criminal Defense - Cicero
Digital Fortress - Brown
Angels and Demons - Brown
Twilight - Meyers
Eclipse - Meyers
Genesis
Exodus
Deuteronomy
Numbers
The Odyssey
And I was forced to translate the Illiad in school...>.> That DEFINETLY stuck.

I live in books...
And yes! I did discover a new favorite author: Anthony Burgess.

Ugo Tarchetti? Never heard of him. Sorry.