Following on from the 'How many books do you read in a year ?' thread - A first quarter review

[Wheelybug]

Following Poseys thread at the start of the year, some of us decided to keep a record of what we read. So, at the end of the first quarter how many have you read and how does it compare to your estimate (extrapolated of course !).

I said about 50 nowadays.

So far this year I have read 9. So extrapolated that would only make approx 40.

These were:

Can Any Mother Help Me ? Jenna Bailey
Gates of Fire Stephen Pressfield
Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfield
On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan
The Mitford Girls Mary S. Lovell
Playing With The Moon Eliza Graham
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive A McCall Smith
The Virgins Lover Phillipa Gregory
Daughter of Fortune Isabel Allende

Anyone else been a saddo like me ?

I also estimated 50 and am on my 6th I think so that would extrapolate to only 24 but I always read loads on holiday so will increase my number. I can't remember all I have read - may re-visit this thread at home.

What I can remember:
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
Love and Mr Devon Alan Titchmarsh
Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy

The other books I have read have been inconsequential easy reading types from the library but following on from that thread I did start to keep a list. I am obviously also a saddo.

Only the two of us then?

spot the saddos in the library corner .

Anyway, fellow sad book-counter - I like the variety of your list. Its actually quite interesting to see my own list to see what sort of variety there is.

My last book was a book club read so am now going to read a couple of trashy books I have sitting on the shelves before the next book club one is announced tomorrow night and i've had time to get it (that should bump my numbers up ).

There must be others out there .... Suedonim at least - she led me to buy the book journal from lakeland so she must be keeping a list.

I am rather surprised to discover that I have read 24 books so far this year (25 if you count Suite Francaise, which technically I only finished this year, having read most of it last autumn), and am partway through a further 2 (soon to be 4!). Would have expected that to be a much smaller number.

I think it's the effect of doing more reading than working on the train of late - have just been too whacked for work most of the time.

Quite a few kids/crossover books, more thrillers than I was expecting, not as much 'literary fiction' as I would have liked to see...

I'd really like to read that Jenna Bailey - was it good?

I read Stephen King's 'On Writing' last year - he said he reads 80-100 books a year, which made me want to weep, as I only managed 25 books last year and reading is one of my great passions Mind you, we got married, moved house, I had a m/c - it was a tough year!

So far I've read 9 novels:

Maeve Binchy 'This year it will be different' (collection of fairly crap short stories, actually)
Danny Scheinmann 'Random Acts of Heroic Love'
Doris Lessing 'The Grass is Singing'
Doris Lessing 'The Cleft'
Doris Lessing 'The Golden Notebook'
Margaret Atwood 'Alias Grace'
Anne Enright 'The Gathering'
Zora Neale Hurston 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'
Samuel Selvdon 'The Lonely Londoners'

I'm currently reading Graham Greene's 'Our Man in Havana', starting Lessing's 'The Fifth Child' next.

Oh god, at least one a week, and often 2-3 a week.

I only started keeping my list half way through March and so far it has six reviews in it (my "book journal" was a 59p notebook from Home Bargains!). I reckon I read between 2 and 3 books every week but some of these are teenage fiction and some are re-reads.

Of the six reviews I've written, I only liked one of the books. I've read two others this week and haven't written them up yet.

Books I read bebfore half way through March and DID like included:

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Egg Dancing by Liz Jensen

But to be honest, I haven't been really bowled over by anything so far this year.

killing of the tinkers by Ken Bruen
the mcdead by Ken Bruen
pies and prejudice by Stuart Maconacie (sp)
blitz by Ken Bruen
the state counsellor by Boris Akunin
the coroners lunch by Colin Cotterill
friend of the devil by Peter Robinson
chinatown beat by Henry Chang
bad traffic by Simon Lewis
one man, one murder by Jakob Arjouni
saladin murders by Matt Rees
left hand of darkness by Ursula Leguin
the spoke by Friedrich Glauser
eye of jade by Diane Lei Wang
chourmo by Jean Claud Izzo
lorraine connection by Dominique Manotti
ashes to ashes by Kathy Reichs
the one from the other by Philip Kerr
chatelet apprentice by Parot
red mandarin dress by Xialong
song as it is sung by Justin Cartwright
pretty dead things by Barbara Nadel
diamond dove by Adrian Hyland
dragon tattoo by Stieg Larsson.
taming the alien by Ken Bruen

OK just checked what I missed and they were:

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Baker Towers by can't remember who

So that is actually 7, nearly 8.

I am keeping a record but my note book is 3,000 miles away! I can let you know at or just after the weekend when we go back to Nigeria. I've read John Buchan's 'The 39 Steps' this week and am now reading Madam Bovary, which I've been intending to do since holidaying in the area in which it is set some three or more years ago.

Ah so there were a few more out there .

Flossie - Can Any Mother Help Me ? was a great read. It was fascinating and so like Mumsnet (there was even someone who couldn't type very accurately ). I recommend it - I would have thought it would soon be out in paperback too.

Am v. impressed by people reading 2-3 a week. I used to read a lot more when commuting but probably more like 1-2.

Suedonim - look forward to hearing your list on your return. The 39 steps was the very first book I read in secondary school English Lit. It doesn't hold v. happy memories.

My wife's BIL is a Buchan fanatic - he is trying to collect first editions of everything Buchan ever wrote. He is a member of the John Buchan Society. I must read the 39 Steps one day....

I'll post my book list when I get a chance.

Thanks, Wheelybug. The paperback is definitely out. I actually bought it for my nana for Christmas as she loves "real life stories" that are not misery memoirs.

While we're talking about lists, have you guys come across LibraryThing? Adding books can be a bit laborious without their recommended barcode scanner, but the social angle is interesting - seeing what other people who have your books in their libraries have also read.

Cannot remember what I said on original thread,usually manage 2-3 a week.
So far this year-
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
Agent Zigzag
The House of lost souls
The one from the other by Philip Kerr(excellent)
The thirteenth tale
Strachan's War
The American Boy
A model Occupation
My Enemy's Cradle
Island Madness
Zoo Station and Silesian Station (thrillers set in 1939 Berlin)by David Downing
Day by AL Kennedy
The Kommandant's Girl
Suite Francais
Can't remember any more,but am heavily into second world war fiction at t he moment.

Oh dear, mine's a very poor list - just 11 books so far. BUt one of them was ve-r-r--ry long so maybe it counts as three or four books!

Purple Hisiscus
Stalingrad
The 39 Steps
The Electric Michelangelo
India a History - this was ve-r-r--ry long so maybe it counts as three or four books!
Astonishing Splashes of Colour
Aberdeen Curiosities
News from No Man's Land (that could be Aberdeen....
Digging to America
In Siberia

My list seems to have a rather geographical flavour, no??

Meantime, I'm still reading Madam Bovary, which my 20yo daughter has condemned as 19th Century smut, hehehe!

So far at least(though haven't kept a tally):

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
The Book Thief
Random Acts of Heroic Love - Danny Scheinmann
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver
Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver
Pushkin's Button - Serena Vitale
Four Stories - Alan Bennett
Don't you know who I am? - Piers Morgan
A Real Boy - Christopher Stevens
The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
Restless - William Boyd
The Witness - James Jauncey
Germinal - Zola (two-thirds of the way through)
The Right Attitude to Rain - Alexander McCall Smith
And lots of children's books including "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", "The Doll's House", "Marianne Dreams" and "The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy".

So not counting the children's books that's 16, although some are tosh. So extrapolating that would be about 74. Have a John Updike short story volume to go next and some short stories by Susanna Clarke.

Not sure if I can really remember them although there aren't many of them this quarter:

A fine balance - Rohinton Mistry - A+

Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale - B++

Cutting Up Playgirl - Carrie someone. Needs it's own thread actually. A++ for me as it really resonated.

Then we came to the end - Joshua Ferris - C-
Couldn't be bothered wth it and gave up.

Great lists everyone !

Sue - 11 is better than mine (although did boost mine up to 11 over the weekend by reading 2 v. trashy books - I was recuperating from flu is my excuse). The problem with keeping a list, I find is that I begrudge reading books that are too long/take too long because I'm not adding to my list . Not that its a competition !! Anyway, as I say, boosted by 2 easies and then my bookclub book is a Paulo Coelho so won't take long ... but then I'm going to read (just started it actually but going to break to read my bookclub book) Georgiana which might take a little longer.....

Love your scoring M&J ! I score out of 5 for both readability and content (so a score out of 10) - its how we do it at our bookclub ! My winner so far is the mitford girls biog (I think it has 9.5 !).

My DH didn't get on with Patrick O'B and he loves all that sort of 'stuff' (she says making a sweeping generalistic statement). My Mum, however, loved it.

Don't expect that helped you much

Hmm... I am going to make my list tomorrow. Are re-reads allowed?

Psycho...I would just see the movie instead. It was rather good.

Of course FFtoo. Providing you haven't just read the same book over and over this year , otherwise i shall be adding:

12. Angelina Ballerina
13. Angelina Ballerina
14. Angelina Ballerina ad infinitum...

So far this week (since Saturday)

GITC Review (Volume VII Number 1)
Lord Peter Views the Body
The Gathering

I will get another couple in by Friday night at least

Ooh I don't keep a journal but so far this year have read

messiah
mephisto club
the wise
killing floor
serial killers club
disturbia
the surgeon
dead simple
killing for company
the killing kind
black angel
2 val mcdermid books I can't remember the name of

And others which my addled brain can't remember, so thats at least 13 which isn't bad. I'm sure I hav read some non horror/serial killer books but I'm buggered if I can remember what they are