11 November 2021

It's true that there's no prize when you die... (updated)


... but I do keep track of all the books I've read.   I rate them on a scale of 0-4+, so that when I get old(er) and (more) demented, I'll know which ones to re-read.

For the past 25 years, here are the 92 books I've rated 4+ (to be honest, it also includes a fair number of 3.5s), out of a total of 700+.

Year
Author
Title        
1990 ( of 26)
Ludlum
The Bourne Identity

Ludlum
The Parsifal Mosaic
1991 (52)
Colin Watson
Hopjoy was Here

Gerrold
The Man Who Folded Himself

Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude
1992 (63)
Boyer&Nissenbaum
Salem Possessed

Weisman
Witchcraft, Magic and Religion in 17th century Massachusetts.

Frederic
The Damnation of Theron Ware

LeCarre
The Secret Pilgrim

Warren
Brother to Dragons

Clarke
Childhood's End
1993 (39)
None
1994 (44)
None
1995 (38)
Dickson
And So To Murder

Paulson
Winterdance

Kersten
The Jesus Conspiracy

Huyghe
Columbus Was Last

Holand
Norse Discoveries & Explorations in America 982-1362
1996 (28)
Bester
The Stars My Destination

Fowles
A Maggot

Guthrie
The Big Sky
1997 (8)
None
1998 (13)
Krakauer
Into Thin Air

Wahlgren
The Vikings and America
1999 (16)
Jewett
The country of the Pointed Firs

Faulkner
Absalom Absalom (turgid and gloomy)

Hardy and Shaffer
The Wicker Man
2000 (4)
Teale, Edwin Way
A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm
2001 (8)
Ryan & Pittman
Noah's Flood

Lansing
Endurance

Mowat
The Alban Quest
2002 (19)
None
2003 (36)
Brown
Angels and Demons

Hosseini
The Kite Runner

Warren
All the Kings Men
2004 (49)
Menzies
1421 The Year China Discovered America

Wodehouse
Bertie Wooster Sees It Through

Brown
Da Vinci Code

Hoffer
The True Believer
2005 (45)
Whitaker
The Mapmaker’s Wife

Woodham-Smith
The Reason Why [Crimea, Light Brigade]

Ferguson
Naked to Mine Enemies, Volumes 1 and 2

Lapham
Gag Rule.  On the suppression of dissent

Powell
Bring Out Your Dead
2006 (35)
Grogan
Marley and Me

Hanson
Confident Hope of a Miracle

Bamford
A Pretext for War

Needham
Science and Civilisation in China, Vol IV: 3

Wright
The Looming Tower; Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Ryan
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
2007 (29)
Harris
Letter to a Christian Nation

Setterfield
The Thirteenth Tale

Kinzer
Overthrow. America’s Century of Regime Change (skimmed)

Fothergill
Planet Earth

Shorto
The Island at the Center of the World [Manhattan]

McCarthy
The Road

Smith
When the Cheering Stopped

McCarthy
No Country for Old Men
2008 (30)
Hitchens
God is Not Great

Nouvian
The Deep

Ballesta & Deschamp
Planet Ocean

Corrie
Let Me Stand Alone

Marent
Butterfly

McCarthy
Blood Meridian

Weiner
Legacy of Ashes

Winchester
Krakatoa; the Day the World Exploded

Schooler
Last Shot
2009 (31)
Wilson
How Jesus Became Christian

Ehrman
Misquoting Jesus

Keys
Catastrophe

Zuckerman
Society without God

Nasrecki
The Smaller Majority (nature photos)
2010 (49)
Pears
An Instance of the Fingerpost

Nicholls
Paradise Found: Nature in America at the time of discovery

Van Allsburg
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

Ludlum
The Bourne Identity

Lester
The Fourth Part of the World

Gilder
Heavenly Intrigue [Kepler and Brahe]

Grann
The Lost City of Z

Holmes
The Age of Wonder

Bergreen
Over the Edge of the World [Magellan]
2011 (21)
Meldahl
Hard Road West

Gaiman
Coraline

Winchester, Simon
The Alice Behind Wonderland

Severin
The Brendan Voyage

Seuss
The Bippolo Seed and Other Stories

Bryson
The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way

Cohen
The Tree Army; a pictorial history of the CCC, 1933-1942
2012 (18)
Mann
1491

Millard
Destiny of the Republic [bio James Garfield]

Menzies
1434; The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy…

Moon
Blue Highways

Feldman
When the Mississippi Ran Backwards
2013 (21)
Peskov
Lost in the Taiga

Mitchell
Cloud Atlas

Mitchell
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet
2014 (21)
Faulkner
As I Lay Dying             

Sometimes I post reviews in the recommended books category of this blog.

Please feel free to chime in with a comment about your favorite books.

Addendum November 2021:


(can't remember how I created a table in the post 7 years ago, so I'll just copy/paste the updated info)

23 comments:

  1. From a mostly-lurker: Last month I went to Portland for vacation. I visited Powell's and asked a worker there for a fiction book that, upon finishing, I would not feel I wanted to return to the library. She suggested a few, and I chose The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller. It's a post-apocalyptic novel written by a poet and amateur pilot. Recommended.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A number of years ago I started a blog featuring reviews of books I read and other bookish items that interest me. As an afterthought I began a second blog that is more eclectic. The book blog gets hits in the double digits. The afterthought blog has a hundred times as many readers.

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  3. Hah! When I was in high school I started a list of books to read, that eventually ran on to several pages, though I did manage to get to most of them in college. Nowadays I use Goodreads.com, which is another good way to keep track of what you've read or want to read. But that cartoon sure cuts to the quick.

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  4. I'm so glad you like Mitchell! Two of my fave books right there. I'm reading Ken Follett's 'Fall of Giants'. It's quite good. He also wrote 'Pillars of the Earth'.

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  5. I enjoy your blog. I've kept a record of all the books I've read since 2006, and have them recorded on the website GoodReads.com I noticed that there are quite a few on your 4-star list that I've either read or have on my to-read list.

    Have you read "The Closing of the Western Mind" by Charles Freeman?

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/7728855-craig-evans?shelf=read

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  6. Your list will add to mine- I keep a small notebook with me to jot down recommended books. I've gotten to an age where I am a bit sad when I enter libraries and bookstores. So many choices and not enough years to read them all. It is also a problem that I am distracted by lighter fare when I should be tackling more edifying tomes.

    "The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way" by Amanda Ripley. It follows three US exchange students as they head to Korea, Poland and Finland. The author shares research as to why those three countries' students perform so well.

    "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls". David Sedaris never fails to entertain.

    "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. Her cancerous cells touch all our lives.

    "The Book Thief". Markus Zusak The film did not do this work justice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ecclesiastes 12:12 - Wise King Solomon

      Delete
    2. Skloot's book was an important topic, but was poorly (and fawningly) written.

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  7. I started keeping a list two years ago. It helps me keep track of what I've read and haven't read if I'm going through series. It also disciplines me to keep reading.

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  8. Have you read any Murakami? David Mitchell was influenced by him, I think Mitchell actually wrote Number9Dream as a "Murakami homage". The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a good one.

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  9. Just finished reading IQ84 by Murakami - strangely addictive read! And I too list books I have read albeit belatedly (being listing only for the last 5 years). I was finding I was reading quite a few books that about a third to half way through I would realise I had already read before!

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  10. I'm bookmarking this list. The reason? I was reminded of a book you mentioned some time ago that I wanted to read (Paradise Found: Nature in America at the time of discovery), and there is a lot of good history books on here, some that I loved, and some that I haven't read.

    I, too, keep a list. As I was looking over this year's books, I realized there was a lack of history and biography. I did read "The Fourth Part of the World" this year, and I agree - absolutely phenomenal. Still time to add some good ones!

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  11. May I suggest the Hyperion trilogy by Dan Simmons? Unless you've already read it and rated. Or another by Simmons, The Crook Factory, a work of historical fiction based tightly on events surrounding Hemingway in Cuba during the late 30's and early 40's.

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  12. I use Goodreads for tracking my read booklist now. Glad to see Childhood's End on there. Magnificent book. Highly recommend reading 'Eastern Approaches' by Fitzroy Maclean (autobiography). http://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Approaches-Fitzroy-MacLean/dp/0140132716

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  13. not my usual fare, I would highly recommend Anne Patchett. State of Wonder or Bel Canto are 2 tremendous novels. Normally I prefer science fiction, but always interested in a good read

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  14. Dan Brown: PTAH!
    P. G. Wodehouse: Huzzah!
    No Joe R. Lansdale?

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  15. Wow, "The Stars My Destination" takes me back. Sci-Fi at its best.

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  16. * The Aubriad. Start with Master and Commander. you have to like military nautical themes of the Napoleonic era.
    * Sharpe. Light reading, but an interesting view into land fighting of the Napoleonic era.
    * Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. I do not know how this will read in a decade, but for current events (the Theranos trial), the book is fascinating.
    * Gods and Generals. I never understood the American civil war (tactics) before reading this book. Not quite as good, but a view into WW-One is found in To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War.
    * Browse Quammen, recently Spillover. The Tangled Tree is an interesting story but I found it was burdened by the story-telling.
    * A Brief History Of Everyone Ever Lived. An interesting view into genetics and the human genome.
    * I saw a trace of science fiction, thus: The Forever War by Haldeman. This will lead you to Scalzi.
    * The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen. This explains why businesses fail and are reborn.
    * Rounding the Horn by Dalas Murphy, being a story of williwas and windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaires and Natives - A Deck's Eye View of Cape Horn.
    * I tried - but failed - to find a book I thought was called Dragon Bones. It is the memoir of a young man teaching English in a Chinese school (university?), albeit a remote one. Perhaps someone else recalls the name - he does trips on the river, eats in a noodle shop, the students gradually open to him, he does a backpacking trip.
    * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila. Zen is the first part of a journey to understand "quality".
    * Build the New Instant Boats, Dynamite Payson. Good on a first-read, not sure how it would do on a re-read.

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  17. oooo data! Who retired in 2002?:
    (1997) 08 13 16 04 08 || 19 36 49 45 35 (2006)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2000 actually. It takes a while to move and get resettled. :-)

      Delete
  18. I keep a book list as well and have a star rating system.

    Our Souls at Night Kent Haruf
    We Were The Lucky Ones Georgina Hunter
    The Testaments Margaret Atwood
    Spent Saints Brian Jabas Smith
    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind William Kamkwamba
    Kindred Octavia Butler
    Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart
    Hamnet Maggie O'Farell
    every day David Levithan
    They Called Us Enemy George Takei

    My list goes on. The shelves in the library and the bookstore go on and on but I know time is finite. I can't read fast enough to get through my other list, the one of all the books I want to read.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Were you aware of Art Garfunkel's list? https://www.artgarfunkel.com/library.html

    ReplyDelete

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