Every book I read in 2010 reviewed

This is a list and short review of every book I read this year - mostly on trains, tubes and planes. Each review was mostly written a few days after I read it and has only been touched up slightly here. Some books got reviewed on this blog during the year and I have linked to them as and where relevant. I had hoped to reach 50, after last year managing 52, but fell just short - probably because I read some very long books this year

This list is not meant to be any sort of bragging or anything about 'how many books I read' but more an interesting insight into the books I have read, what I thought of them and possibly as a helpful series of mini-reviews of well-known and lesser known-books out there that a real person has read and had a reaction too (me) that may help other real people decide whether or not to read that book.

1 Focoults Penduleum: Incredibly detailed historical comedy taking the piss (sort of) out of holy grail stories and other such nonsense.

2 Harry, Revised: Disappointingly bland book about a rich doctor who cheats on his wife, causes her to have unnecessary breast surgery that leads to her death that we're supposed to root for. Rubbish.

3 Old Patagonian Express: For many years had I wanted to read Mister Paul's book of travelling south, and I did, and it was worth the wait. Funny, insightful, angry and rude, everything you'd want from a travelogue

4 Ghost: Second of Banville's Frames trilogy, equally as dense and wordy as the first, can't claim to be a fan but for some with wordy aspirations will be a must read.

5 Invisible: Paul Auster's (at the time) newest work ploughs themes he's covered throughout his life. Good read and interesting, but nothing new to rave about.

6 Rites of Passage: Disappointingly labourious read of a ship's crew heading for Oz in the 1800s. Lots of social and religious issues.

7: 39 steps: RUBBISH (read my full review of why the 39 Steps is rubbish here).

8 Never Let Me Go: I re-read this and it's still one of the saddest, most moving and well put together books I have read. Film out early next year.

9 The Great Railway Bazaar: Mr Paul does it again with this his classic, fame finding book of travelling across half the world by train in the 1970s. A must read for anyone with a passing interesting in travel writing

10 Midnight's Children: Finally picked up this tome to see what all the fuss was about and man was it worth it! Read reviews by me here for more...

11 Remember Me: Hugely disappointing Melyvn Bragg effort. Full review here.

12 Artist in the Floating World: A very enjoyable (as all Ishaguro's are) piece detailing post WWII Japan and society coming to terms with the defeat, through the eyes of an artist (hence the title...obviously)

13 Buddha of Suburbia: Fun and different book of life growing up in London with a strange family of misfits and weird friends too, worth the read.

14 Waterland: A very, very good book. sad, profound, moving, touching and all put together with tremendous panache and style. Swift's best that I've read.

15 Born to Run: Very interesting book about running (something I know a bit about) that fuses a fascinating history of a Mexican running tribe with the rise of ultra running races. Recommended to runners

16 Brighton Rock: Disappointed by this book, way too much catholic nonsense towards the end and hard to really believe any of it in 2010.

17 Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: Theroux re-trace's his steps of Great Railway Bazaar some 30 years later and the results are equally as compelling and amusing. Definitely worth reading if you've read the first. Don't let thought of retrace put you off.

18 Orwell Diaries: Full review here.

19 Wolf Hall: A big read! very complex, hard to keep with if mind fliting around, but full of wit, character and style.

20 Ever After: Swift does it again with a sad, moving tale combining history and education (seems to be his style it turns out)

21 The Noughties: A dull book really. lists of things that happened in various segments of the world in the noughties.

22 The English Patient: Set in Tuscany and I read it in Tuscany, which was a nice coincidence, this was a gift from my girlfriend and nice one at that. highly romantic and yet set among the horrors of war (ohhh, such juxtaposition!) it was a moving tale that I gather is a popular film too

23 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Some sci-fi now, a gift from little bro, this was an enjoyable tale, a ripping yarn if you may, about robots and sheep and humans in a future planet where all is not as it seems...worth reading if your a non sci-fi fan but just want to try something a bit different etc.

24 Birdsong: Ohh, so much is said about Birdsong, namely, "You aven't read Birdsong deary? My word, lar de dah and fancy that." I enjoyed it and the first world war is always a moving setting for any dramas of the heart and the head (my god what a stupid war), but I found it to be nothing more than a satisfactory read. I felt Faulks has somehow been overplayed as some literary great when, on this book alone admittedly, he seemed just perfectly ordinary.

25 The Art of Travel: Du Botton gets heavy on a plane. We've all had thoughts sitting in plane window seats staring down at the earth below of, "Argghhh, what the hell am I doing up here". But Du Button applies some philosophical grounding to this and dissects what it is about travel that is so good for the soul, man. He then goes off about art for a bit.

26 The Kingdom by the Sea: Theroux returns with vengeance. He attacks all things British, the seedy seaside camps, the crap B&Bs, the British take on the ongoing Falklands war, popping in to see artists and writers on the way. Miserable and not trying too hard to write all that brilliantly (but still being somewhat brilliant anyway), I really enjoyed this.

27 The Five People you meet in Heaven: Saccharine sentimental schtick that tries to hard to make people feel wonderfully wonderful about everything and everyone, not really worth reading, but it's so short I managed it in a day

28 Persopolis: A comic, sorry, graphic novel here now (Isn't that Stephen King's forte?) this is a fantastic tale of the pathetic Iranian revolution in which a free thinking state of liberalism and mixed schools become a stupid backward country run by men who fear everything for no good reason (I am basing this polemic on the book alone, pretty much). It seemed to lose it's way somewhat in the middle as the girl's story of adolescence and finding herself seemed to get too convoluted, but overall a fantastic read.

29 All my Friends are Superheroes - A short, fun read about a man who's not a superhero but all his friends are. one of the books that's worth reading but if you paid £6.99 for it you'd feel a touch ripped off.

30 Essays in love - Back to Botton and we're in love this time - not me and him, obviously - but he is talking, in great, minutiae, about what it's like to be in love. quite interesting throughout, although with one or two moment that felt a bit silly, this is otherwise a worthwhile read if you're predisposed to overly analytical readings of life.

31 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - A short, sharp shock of a read about a kid deciding to defy authority, through the medium of running. yes, it can be done.

32 Stewart Lee -How escaped my certain fate: Mr Lee explains all his jokes from his last three shows in the form of footnotes on transcripts of the shows from the live DVDs. If you're a fan, it's a must read.

33 Light of Day: I like old Swifty and this is my third read of his, but it was undoubtely the least good (Note, still good) of the three. sad, tragic and full of the same themes again as his other works, this one lacked and final push in the final-third/quarter to really raise it up to the same heights as Waterland (which really is stunning).

34 I Believe in Yesterday - I was told Moore was good so got the first (only) book of his I found in the library. I should have waited as while this was perfectly good to read the subject matter is just not me - historical reenactments, bleugh.

35 Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4: I've never read this so got it from the library. Fun, silly, and short, great. Man in the library gave me a funny look when I handed back in. The cheek.

36 The Perfect Fool: Lee's only novel is a fantastically wordy world of weirdos and winos all converging on the Holy Grail - I am sure Lee was challenging the spirit of Dan Brown when he wrote this book, a man he has oft criticised, so perhaps this was why he chose this subject.

37 Flat Earth News: see review.

38 The Mango Orchard: An enjoyable tale of a man setting off to find his lost family in Mexico.

39 Sex and Bowls and Rock and Roll: one of those books of a man being A Bit Useless at Everything in his life, yet somehow having a perfect life and a wife who supports him. Enjoyable enough but not worth the time.

40 Wuthering Heights: I had a an ereader so started reading this Bronte classic and actually really enjoyed it. Longer post here.

41 Superfreakeconomics: I saw the two authors talk on stage about this book and a friend lent it to me about two weeks later. Very interesting, one of those books you read and think "Wow, I'll remember all these facts and impressive people on this hot topic debates like global warming" and then promptly forget everything a day later.

42 All at Sea: A book about a man who rowed acros the English Channel in a bath. Fun and at times a bit funny but also a bit linear narraitve - what did I expect though, eh?

43 Do Not Pass Go: I lost this book after two chapters, but I was enjoying it a lot more already than I Believe in Yesterday, so it gets on the list. I had to pay a fine of £8 from Putney Library for the privilege too. Damn it.

44 Kawlang Tong: Paul Theroux's first fiction work for me and a very enjoyable jaunt through Hong Kong during the run up to the handover back to the Chinese it was too.

45 Washing Dishes in Hotel Paradise: A series of short stories set in Argentina that were nicely evocative but also a bit hard to really get in to in much detail due to their very nature and the slightly dream-like way characters flitted in and out of stories.

46 White Tiger: A sort of poor mans Midnight's Children. A rag to riches tale, showing up the huge dichtomoies that exist in India, and how it's changing as Western influences, namely technology enter the nation, but it was a bit linear and somewhat light on detail of some of the characters, which made it hard to really care or hate anyone. Still, not bad overall.

47 Give Me a Chance: A woman (the author, funnily enough) recounts her eight-day stay with the Lennons in their bed-in in Montreal. Short and sweet and I think purposefully written in a 16-year-old girl tone of voice (Which she was at the time), it gives a brief and quite interesting insight into the people she comes across and of course the Lennons themselves. Perhaps just a bit sparse on vivid descriptions of the room, the people, the Lennons, but for a short jaunt through an amazingly random life experience it was enjoyable.

Some film thoughts

A lazy, lazy Sunday (in which my main activity was a walk to the local Oxfam book shop where I bought The Kingdom by the Sea for £2.50), was complemented by a few films watched.

Johnny English. Is this film good? I can't decide. I've seen it before, of course, and only watched the last 45 minutes of this before I headed out (as mentioned, lazy day, hungover and very tired from much sport playing on Saturday). It's sort of funny, and Malkovitch is brilliantly over the top . But then some of it is so over the top and stupid and obvious that it seems quite lazy. I guess it doesn't matter really.

Brighton Rock (original). I thought this was terrible. I know it's from a loonnnggg time ago (maybe 50 years!) but I just didn't get it. There was so much random cackling from characters, often weirdly out of sync with their lips (it seemed to me), the acting was mostly pretty lame and I still don't buy the plot (book or film) of lame thugs and stupid girls. The remake is out later this year, so I look forward to seeing if that makes an improvement. 

Frequently Asked Question about Time Travel: Strange one this. Some of the plot was quite clever and nicely linked together, but then again some of the piece were really stupid ( the future party of people dressed like them / the "editors" who come back and kill people). A pretty cheap film, the kind of film that in 30 years will have the same heavily dated, cheap British film look that 1970s films have to us know.

Also, I finished Birdsong last week. I enjoyed it, but also thought it was a touch overrated. It has such a high standing in literature from the last twenty years, and Faulks is seemingly so revered, but I found the writing pretty average, but in a good way. It wasn't bad, but I had imagined it to be better. Still, it was a strong narrative, but then again anything about WWI is always moving. It really was the most ridiculous war, in which human's really did show their innate stupidity through and through (at least from behind the front lines). I digress.

Catch up

Hello, been too long since something was entered here.

Tennis. 70-68! Where to begin; tennis is sometimes unfairly maligned by people, believing it not to be a hard sport, not tiring, not exhausting, but any sportsman that can play a game, hurling their body around for almost ten hours is clearly some sort of athlete. What's more you have to do it while battling moments of calm, reflection in between points, and then pull of incredible shots, often under immense pressure of 'one mistake and I'm out'.

I've been reading Wolf Hall (still -it's very long...) but it is also very good, in places, which is hard to fully explain, but it's just that in some places the story really picks up and rattles along, and with a little historical knowledge, some of the asides, or hints at the future are very well handled ("You know she's a witch," says one character of Anne Boleyn before she marries Henry, and we all know how that turned out...).

While I am enjoying it I am looking forward to finishing it too, before I go away on holiday next week, as it's a massive book, even in paperback, and quite a tough read, requiring full concentrate; not that I can't concentrate mind you.

I finally got a smartphone too, after months of writing about the things, and it is very nice having a such a sleek piece of tech, that enables me to bring up maps, email and the internet as and when required. That's all really.

The World Cup is coming to life too, although I've not been disappointed with it at all. It always starts a little slow as teams try not to lose, but come the end of the group stages, you often see enthralling end to end games as teams suddenly have to win, as evidenced today with Italy's somewhat surprising loss to Slovakia.

Er...the weather's nice isn't it?

The age of Auster

In September both my housemates urged me to read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. So I did. And thoroughly enjoyed it; a strange, hyper-meta-fiction work that subverts the crime fiction genre, while also being very compelling and confusing in equal measures. A cheap airport thriller it is not. After that I read Man in the the Dark, also lent by my housemate, and enjoyed that too.

Glancing down a list of other books by Auster I spied one called Music of Chance. I went into a book shop and, not only found it straightaway, but next to it was another Auster called Leviathan - it was clearly a sign. I read both of these while on my flights to and from Slovakia (see post below) and returned home eager for more. I found The Brooklyn Follies for £2 in a charity shop, and then bought Mr Vertigo, Timbuktu, Moon Palace, and The Book of Illusions from Amazon, while someone at work lent me Travels in the Scriptorium. I finished the last of these - Moon Palace - last night. Ten Auster's in two months.

Of these my favourites were Timbuktu, Mr Vertigo, Leviathan and Music of Chance. Timbuktu is told from the perspective of a dog, Mr Vertigo is about a boy who can fly - what's not to be intrigued about? Travels in the Scriptorium was my least favourite - a poor man's New York Trilogy - and the rest a mixture of the very good and some slightly flater moments - The Book of Illusions, for instance, starts off very strongly but fades off somewhat towards the end.

There are a lot of reoccurring themes, motifs and plots elements in a lot of these works. Many character come into money in different ways (inheritance mainly), eliminating Auster having to worry about what his character do to get by, instead having them spend time in long, strange periods of isolation, often retelling, or writing, stories, or spending time sat in rooms writing in notebooks. In both Moon Palace and Book of Illusions the central character spends a great deal of the novel - almost a third or a half - hearing the life story of another central character - thus the books are essentially two stories bound up in one.

Furthermore character names and historical figures crop up all the time too - Zimmer, Blume, Quinn, while Nathaniel Hawthorne and other Hawthorne family members are frequently referenced. There is always a section in which a character either goes to live in France, or has lived in France in the past - something Auster himself did - while they are almost always set exclusively in and around New York. Lots of characters start off intending to destroy themselves - "I was looking for a quiet place to die" - first line, The Brooklyn Follies - only to find themselves in a strange, quirky story which ultimately saves them - not in a Hollywood happy-ever-after way, more in a dark, life-goes-on way. Sometimes these repetitions of plot are irritating, and other times they are not. It's hard to explain that but although each time it happens it's easy to reference to the other book(s) where it happens it's more important when read within the context of the book and the story as to how noticeably it sticks out as another Austerism.

Auster's writing style is one thing I am a great fan of. There are some wonderful descriptions in each and every book - some sentence are so intriguing or well-written it make you stop and re-read them; often they are so evocative as to conjure up another entire story, as if they could be the first line of another complete novel. He has an uncanny ability to philosophise on ideas of chance and fate (in his characters voices') without it sounding trite or clichéd but fresh and original. There is also a great emphasis placed on detail for details sake, rather than merely to fill paragraphs with descriptions. Indeed, since reading Auster I have rediscovered my creative writing bug and written one short story - and put online here - and have a couple of others bubbling away on my Google Documents.

So yeah, Paul Auster. There you go.

What'd I miss?

Hello. I've been oh so busy lately. I can't even remember what I've done recently that I could blog about. I'm trying so hard to update this thing daily - why I've no idea, I don't get paid and barely anyone reads it - but I can't tear myself away.

I'm reading Moby Dick. It's good, although written in ye olde English so harder going than most books. Still, good to have said you've read one of the classics right? And what I don't know about whales and whaling now...well, it's not worth knowing.

He literally exploded

The rise of the overuse of the term literally is nothing new, but last night David Pleat (never one to worry the lexicographers) claimed that Andorra had 'literally parked the bus in front of their goal'. Someone should have a word.

In other news, there was one of the greatest pieces of fielding in the Twenty20 game between Sri Lanka and West Indies yesterday; watch below.



I've also learnt my brother has regular paid gig slots at a local bar in our hometown, which is cool. You can watch some of his musical talent here.

Over the hill

So, yesterday, 19.7 miles. Nineteen point seven miles. Let's just let that sink in shall we?

I remember back in October when six miles was deemed a success. I remember in January when 11.6 miles was impressive. Now, such distances seem luxurious, a mere stroll in the park. Not only was it our longest run, it is also the last long run we will do before the big day. We now enter Taper Time. This is, to the uninitiated among you, the period when you decrease your training before the big day so your muscles recover some sufficient strength and you are nicely fresh for the big day.

I can see now why they tell you to do this. After just one hour yesterday my muscles felt tired and ached, not from the one hour of running, but from the accumulation of so many miles in the last three weeks, which, roughly, has been about 60/70 miles. Not only this but the running route we follow to build up these miles is forever up or downhill, especially up on the return. This means at 1:40, as you're reaching around half way, you're faced with four miles of continuous uphill. This is hard.

However, this week, unlike last, although on finishing my legs ached with an intensity I've never quite felt before, the state of tiredness and pain that such a distance created wasn't as disorientating or strange as last week, when I felt something akin to waking up at 5am after a heavy night of drinking that ended at 3am, and being in a state of semi-consciousness and semi-trance.

Still though, the fact this is the training zenith, and from here it's all an ease off before the big day, is a big psychological boost. Not only this fund-raising has passed £1,200 which really is a big motivation to push on through. On the big day let's hope the crowds, the preparation, the weather, the food intake and, most importantly, the legs, all converge to create perfect conditions for running my first ever marathon and I can smash the four hour mark and get as close to 3.30 as is possible.

But, ultimately, it's all about getting around, and if that means nine-minute miles for 24 miles before a mad dash (read: hobble) down Birdcage Walk and The Mall to sneak in at 4 hours, so be it.

Christmas Reading

The Christmas break is over. Shame. Still, it was a good chance for some reading. Here's an overview and some thoughts (well I did do English Literature):

Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You - Marcus Chown: Yes it bloody can. My mind was straining itself all the time (and space) trying to fathom the concepts here. However, despite this, it was a very interesting and enjoyable read and look at the world of the very small - atoms etc, and the very large - space / time / timetravel that took me back to my GCSE physics lessons.

The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger: A clever idea concerning time travel (coincidence with the above) as a disease that fell short of pulling everything together into a coherent novel. The main character was too inconsistent to care about. Prime example: he travels forward at one point and while there decides to win $8 million on the lottery to help him and his wife find their dream house. However, he does nothing to stop 9/11, despite knowing it will happen. Eh?

Coming Up For Air - George Orwell: A classic Orwell, full of sparkling descriptions that evoke memories and feelings within yourself without ever making you conscious of it doing so. As a book it was concerned with trying to recapture the past, and specifically, youth, and covered familiar ground from many novels of a similar ilk - The Great Gatsby the best example. As it was set in 1938 there were also very interesting views (no doubt direct from Orwell) examining the build up to war, and most interestingly thoughts on the "after-war", parts of which would become eerily accurate.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday: Very enjoyable, funny book following the main character through the inception, realisation and the end of the 'madcap' scheme, masterminded by a Yemeni sheikh to bring Salmon finishing to Yemen. Written entirely through the use of various forms of documentation - emails, letters, diaries, newspaper reports etc - and told with a deft hand, and a with a nice level of pastiche of labour spin (without being heavy-handed) it's definitely worth a read.

Photos

There's lots of Photography of 2008 sections on news sites at the moment, but these from The Boston Globe, are some of the best I've seen. Some really stunning stuff.

An All Encompasing Umbrella Blog

Owing to the joys of dial-up internet I am going to try and cover several topics in one go as I cannot tolerate the long loading times it would take to post these separately

I'm back in Cornwall, the weather is amazing, the sailors have been freed, and journalism is going well so life is just ticking along nicely.

I passed my Public Administration exam with a good mark (71 - it was on Council Tax, Ombudsmen and Homelessness Provisions...), I spent a very enjoyable and useful week working at Cornwall Today, and have several pieces going in over the next few issues, including some with my own photography which I am most pleased with.

The world of television is continuing to pedal telephone vote shows, which I am most displeased with, and I still don't get The Apprentice. I just can't enjoy a bunch of arrogant, opinionated morons telling us how amazing they are and then displaying total ineptitude at the simplest problem. (Except the blonde female who went to my old school, she's alright).

ITV surprised me by producing a genuinely enjoyable and moderately intelligent show in the form of Mobile. Meanwhile American TV continues to grow with Lost really hitting its stride with some brilliant writing and plot twisting. Where the show will end I, and almost everyone else, have no idea.

The cricket world cup is starting to get interesting for the right reasons, not Bob Woolmer's death, which, tragic as it was, is still no reason to stop an international tournament, it would be like giving in to terrorism.

Crowd trouble is flaring up again on the European stage and I feel undecided as to my stance. I'm sure the fans are correct when they always say the police react "heavy-handedly", but then, reasoned and intelligent debate is best saved for the WI, not for drunken football supporters. And I doubt many of them speak Italian or Spanish. But it does take two to tango, so I can't believe it is entirely the fault of the fans either. The only certainty here is that UEFA will handle the situation about as badly as they can.

I am off to BBC History magazine on Tuesday which should be another very interesting and useful experience. A real chance to put many skills into use and be part of the top end of the magazine industry - for a short while at least.

I will end now as I doubt many people will read all of this - I'm hardly adhering to my own "less is more" mantra regarding blog posts.

When broadband returns to my life, blogging should return to normal.

P.S. - the picture was just meant to draw you in, it has no relevance.

A Weekly Round Up

Almost a week since the last entry seems too long. So a few brief sentenes on some of the events making the news:

Snow: I like that the country still struggles with a bit of snow. Something endearing that in this 21st Century of non-stop 24 hour techno jargon we still get a bit hampered by some snow. And passing snow(men/people) on the street always raises a smile.

Football: The demise of the arrogance and hype surronding the England football team since the world cup has been a joy. Watching McClaren try to justify yet another pitiful excuse for a performance as "Yeah I think we learnt some useful lessons from the game," has become something of a farce. Only one man has said what no-one else seemed capable of doing - and he's anonymous. Drop Lampard please...

Rugby: Not much left to be said about Jonny Wilkinson. Simply outstanding. If the over-payed Prima donnas who play football had the same level of desire and heart we might have at least made a good effort at the World Cup.

Bird Flu: Hmmm. Well we were scared by it last year. And then it just went away. So when it came back the attempts at hyping it up again fell a bit flat. Still would be darkly humerous if the docile and beleaguered turkey was to cause a mass outbreak of illness of plague like proportions.

There were plenty of other news stories, obviously, but these were the ones that I found most interesting. On an unrelated note I was ill this week. It was not fun. Not really news but it's my blog so I can break the rules if I want...