Healingmagichands started a page last year to list all the books she read in 2007, which I meant to copy emulate but didn’t get round to doing. And so I thought I’d try it this year because I think it would be nice to have a record of what I’ve read. So it will be on this page , which can also be found in the top right hand corner.
I’ll be updating it here from time to time. Usually on a monthly basis or else whenever I need a quick post to keep up with my blog 365 commitment.
casa azahar 
Hey, getting lots of good comments on the book page – thanks everyone!
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Where do you get your reading recommendations? Mostly from friends, or from a book review section or some other periodical?
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Mostly from seeing what’s available here in the bookshops, Ben. And happily there are a lot more books in English available than when I first came to Sevilla 15 years ago.
I will look for things that have been recommended by friends and then order them from Amazon if I can’t find them here. But more often than not I look for authors I know, or else pick up a book from a totally unknown author and give it the ‘first page test’ … if I’m not grabbed by the book by reading the first page then I don’t bother. The very best books I’ve ever read have grabbed me in the first paragraph!
I also check out who has won the Man Booker this year and give them a go if it looks interesting. But I don’t read book reviews much.
How about you?
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^5 on the 365 blogging! i signed up for that yesterday because at the moment i’m chock full of great posting ideas. we’ll see how far i get.
also congrats on the listing of books … i wonder if … if i started a list i’d actually read a bit more. i put book reading on a hiatus last year as a flippant neener-neener act towards finally having finished university. i think i need to get back to it and clean out the cobwebs in the ol’ noggin.
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Hi AlieMalie and welcome 🙂
Don’t tell me you are another lunatic doing the 365 blog thang!
These days I mostly read in bed, that quiet time before I fall asleep … and then wake up four hours later with the bedside light still on and a book in my hand (and a cat on my head).
Every now and then I get a cosy afternoon or evening when I curl up on the sofa (with cats) and just read to my heart’s content without worrying about falling asleep in mid-sentence.
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… and only az is allowed to clean out noggin’s cobwebs 😉
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huh?
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Oh, jokes never work if you have to explain them… end of AlieMalie’s message.
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Oh right … duh.
I always thought jokes were supposed to be funny! 😛
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I’ve kinda swiped the blog book recording idea too. I’ve always done it in a notebook and then passed the notebook on at the end of the year to another reader.
but this year I’m saving the trees! no more notebooks. I’m putting my movies up on a blog page too…..
(as a virgo I get tragically excited about record keeping. thanks for making my life even more tragically exciting azahar 🙂
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Glad to help out. 😉
I see you’re doing movies too … good idea!
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Maybe I should make a page on how many blogs I’ve forgotten to comment on?
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You mean a guilt page, Ashish? 😉
My problem is when nothing immediately springs to mind to say upon first reading a post and I tell myself I’ll get back to it later. Sometimes I do, but more often than not I get swept away by the next day’s posts, and then the day after that day’s posts, until my good intentions are thwarted and I have to resort to the ‘mark as read’ button.
Meanwhile, I was thinking about doing a film page too but it would have to be mostly older stuff on dvd as we get very few original films at the cinema here.
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I’m in a period right now where I’m much more open to new movie experiences than to new authors. There are certain styles and techniques I’m curious about, so I’m looking at the techniques of writers like Anne Tyler (thus re-reading both If Morning Ever Comes and Searching for Caleb) and Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene — I’m reading mostly to see how authors constructed things, I guess.
Colette was recommended by the blogger Litlove, so I read Claudine in Paris the last couple weeks during my commute, and I was impressed with the emotional palette she used for her protagonist. (Claudine’s wicked, selfish instincts are surprisingly seductive, I thought.)
Beyond that, people have recommended things like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which was impressive, even though his writing seemed hyperbolic at times. And I’ve read a couple historical collections focused on America before World War 2 (The Aspirin Age) and in the 30’s and 40’s Part of Our Time) that were fascinating on how progressive America was then–despairing to see how fearful and conservative we have become since. I hate to think the middle third of the 20th century might have been the high point of our social policies.
Excuse my prattling on. What I’m flailing to say is that my reading choices have sort of curled in on me. And as I’m working so much lately, I’m kind of jealous of what little time I have for it. As for new ideas and stories, I’m seeing many more documentaries and movies — a bunch of good things from Spain this last year, for example.
(Except that those Spanish peope have a different word for everything … 🙂 )
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Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant is my favourite Anne Tyler book. I used to really like her a lot but lately I’ve kind of gone off her stuff.
And speaking of Spanish (which btw only has different words for almost everything) I’ve yet to finish the novel I started last year La Sombra del Viento (The Shadow of the Wind) … I’m just too lazy at the end of the day to struggle with reading in another language. But one of my students gave me a book of short stories in Spanish, so that might be less daunting.
Oh, and feel free to prattle away anytime. 🙂
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I’ve added my own opinion to each book posting now – under the info blurb. At the moment I’m in the middle of Terry Pratchett’s latest (birthday prezzie to myself) and hoping to get a bit of quiet time this afternoon to curl up and read more than half a dozen pages …
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