Monday, December 25, 2006

Reading list for 2006

After breaking my ankle earlier this month, I suddenly find myself completely bed-ridden with copious amounts of time on my hands.

To that end, I find myself writing again, rummaging through old letters, documents, and computer files long forgotten. Making lists happens to be one of those activities where I almost feel productive while exerting little effort. Such is life under the influence of Percocet.

Below, I've managed to compile, from memory, a list of books that I have read in the past year. They are listed in no particular order. The nice surprise, for me, is that I somehow managed to read about one book every two weeks. I guess all that time spent commuting on the bus paid off in some small way. I'm sure that I have left a few off of the list. One of my New Year resolutions will be trying to keep better track of my reading choices.



Book List for 2006:

  1. Apathy and other small victories by Paul Nielan
  2. Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) by Neil Stephenson
  3. Heathern by Jack Womack
  4. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
  5. The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
  6. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
  7. I Promise to be Good: the Letters of Arthur Rimbaud by Arthur Rimbaud & Wyatt Mason
  8. The Trial of Gilles de Rais by Georges Bataille
  9. Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare: A Biography by Alice Goldfarb Marquis
  10. Dylan Thomas: A New Life by Anderew Lycett
  11. A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English by Anthony Burgess
  12. Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris
  13. Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
  14. A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire by Amy Butler
  15. I am Legend by Richard Matheson
  16. Post Office by Charles Bukowski
  17. David Bowie's Low (33 1/3) by Hugo Wilcken
  18. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century by Greil Marcus
  19. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad
  20. On Poetry and Poets: Essays by T.S. Eliot

Useless trivia:
Percentage of non-fiction books: 70
Percentage of female authors: 15
Percentage of books that were on the NY Times Best Seller List in 2006: 0

I thought, for about a second, of writing my own little, witty reviews for each one of the books on my list. But, then, I decided that I wasn't feeling very witty, and just linked to the books' listing on Amazon, instead. I will have to say, however, that "Apathy and Other small victories" has to be one of the funniest books I have ever read.

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