... 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)
Addendum November 2024:
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.
ReplyDeleteA 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.
ReplyDeleteHah! 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.
ReplyDeleteI'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'.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteHave you read "The Closing of the Western Mind" by Charles Freeman?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/7728855-craig-evans?shelf=read
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.
ReplyDelete"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.
Ecclesiastes 12:12 - Wise King Solomon
DeleteSkloot's book was an important topic, but was poorly (and fawningly) written.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteHave 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.
ReplyDeleteJust 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!
ReplyDeleteI'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.
ReplyDeleteI, 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!
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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
ReplyDeletenot 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
ReplyDeleteDan Brown: PTAH!
ReplyDeleteP. G. Wodehouse: Huzzah!
No Joe R. Lansdale?
Wow, "The Stars My Destination" takes me back. Sci-Fi at its best.
ReplyDelete"Vorga, I kill you filthy."
Delete* The Aubriad. Start with Master and Commander. you have to like military nautical themes of the Napoleonic era.
ReplyDelete* 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.
oooo data! Who retired in 2002?:
ReplyDelete(1997) 08 13 16 04 08 || 19 36 49 45 35 (2006)
2000 actually. It takes a while to move and get resettled. :-)
DeleteI keep a book list as well and have a star rating system.
ReplyDeleteOur 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.
Were you aware of Art Garfunkel's list? https://www.artgarfunkel.com/library.html
ReplyDeleteIt started with a CD list of all the CD I owned when I moved across the ocean. Good thing I dd because of course half of them "fell off the boat".
ReplyDeleteThen I started a book list, just to keep track of my hundreds of books. And now I'm adding every book I'm reading, because I just can't keep track, especially with a lot of the series one ends up reading. I don't care too much about reading them in order, but it's frustrating to get a book from the library and then decide after reading chapter 4 that, no really, I've read this one.
I don't keep ratings. Too mood dependent. I remember the good and bad ones. The rest, I have the list for.
Recommendations in random order, and trying to be off the beaten path:
Satan, Jeremy Leven
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christopher Moore
The Lion of Flanders, Henrik Conscience
Rhinoceros, Ionesco (for current affairs value and because recommending 1984 is getting cliche)
Stark, Ben Elton (also for current affairs value)
The Dinner, Herman Koch (haven't read it, but it's very hard to find English translations of Dutch books (in print), and I can't leave Dutch out. Koch is ok, but well translated, there's better stuff - He also made hilarious tv, by the way. Intranslatable, but hilarious nevertheless)
Tintin series Herge
Asterix and Obelix series, Goscini and Uderzo
And why not the Dirk Pitt series from Clive Cussler
Yeah, I only do fiction. Reality is raw enough, don't need more than that.
Can not accept recommendations, regretfully, my library wish list is growing faster than I can read.
Our library has 42 copies of The Dinner. I thought perhaps I could just watch the movie, but it's only 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a comment that the "strong ensemble isn't enough to overcome a screenplay that merely skims the surface of its source material's wit and insight." I've requested the book.
DeleteI didn't know there was a movie. I need to pay more attention.
DeleteI have a pet-peeve with streaming services. In the EU, they are required by law to make local content. Sadly, they don't share that local content worldwide, so I'm losing touch with what all gets made at home.
There should be a good business case in US media for including all that "foreign" content, considering that about a third of US families have some foreign connection.
(The same is true, BTW for Olympic coverage, where NBC refuses to broadcast anything that does not include Americans, despite a large part of their (potential) audience (also) cheering for non-Americans. I understand that Olympic coverage is nationalistic by nature, but that does not mean that they have to ignore just great sports because no American is involved)
Nepkarel, for content consisting of non-American non-Hollywood material, may I suggest the Criterion Collection -
Deletehttps://www.criterion.com/Criterion Channel -
or the Criterion Channel -
https://www.criterionchannel.com/
They have an enormous amount of material, supplemented by informative blurbs and analysis/commentary/interviews relevant to the films.
Cool! Thanks. I'm gonna see if I can get that on my 20-year old tv through some app.
DeleteBecause I'm a nerd I'm gonna add the utterly irrelevant count of my book list: 1700 items.
DeleteThis is books we own, with the addition of what we've read from the library. It's not complete nor exhaustive, but a best attempt at keeping track of what we own and have read. This is handy for insurance reasons as well as gift suggestions.
Nepkarel, also check your library. I just discovered that I can search my library archives for DVDs using the "Criterion Collection" as a search term. The search yielded 900+ movies that are non-BluRay.
DeleteFor a very eclectic shared list that goes back to 1998, with reviews by many disparate contributors, see https://mcios.pathetech.com/move.pl?26 [I'm Simons Mith]
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the scale well enough to do math on it, but I'm surprised that only 92/700 ish are good enough to qualify for special mention. Are you a hard grader or an undiscriminating in what you choose to read? I ask not to judge in any way, but because I find myself with the opposite problem, and don't know if I don't grade hard enough, or I'm just doing an excellent job of picking which books to read.
ReplyDelete:Perhaps I can indicate the "scale" parameters in words. 4+ books are ones I enjoyed, would recommend to others with similar interests, and would like to read again someday. 3+ was a good read, but not planning to reread. A 2+ book is "o.k." but otherwise unimpressive - lots of these are reference books, histories, etc. If I rate something 1+ it's a warning to me not to waste time on it in the future. There aren't a lot of those because I typically don't continue reading to the end. I grade hard for myself because I can't reread everything, so only the besties get the 4+.
DeleteThanks!
DeleteYou have The Bourne Identity down twice.
ReplyDeleteAnd the real reason for this post - I read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir this summer and enjoyed the heck out of it.
I read it twice (1990, 2010) - twenty years apart - and still rated it 4+ the second time. I'm currently facing a recurrent dilemma as to whether to reread some old 4+ ratings that I've partially forgotten, or to continue to explore new stuff. Not an easy choice. So many books, so little time...
DeleteJust as a general comment, y'all need to read more women.
ReplyDeleteChristie, Fadiman, Woodham-Smith, Kingsolver, Post, Christie again, Patchett, Gaydos, Fadiman again, Wunsch, Winkler, Tuchman, Starkey.
DeleteThose are just from the last two addenda. I suspect there are lots of women writers whose names you don't recognize.
Based just on your highly rated books that's a mere 8.3%. Unless your total read list is much higher on women authors (like at least 30% more) you definitely need to read more women authors. It's not that hard.
DeleteYou may be good at reading, but you're not good at math. The names I listed above are the authors I know to be female (there may be others) taken from the last two addenda (November 2021, November 2024). There are 15 books in the first group, 23 in the second, for a total of 38. Of those I know 13 to be women Now try doing the math again.
Deleteyou definitely need to read more women authors. It's not that hard.
DeleteWhile I appreciate the feminism, and encouragement, the judgypantsness of your comments are striking.
Quite frankly, Stan needs to read nothing. And yet he can read whatever the hell he wants to. And little of that influences how much of a feminist he is or isn't.
Stop judging people when you know you have incomplete information.
Thank you for doing this! Have read a pile of super interesting books because of your blog.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
ReplyDeletePeter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria [Wiley: 1964]. NB. Political, not racial; the period primarily examined is roughly the second half of the 19th Century. Historical context that I have not found elsewhere. (I just checked and the Internet Archive still has two copies.)
ReplyDeleteLOL, I came and read this post just after adding an entry into my file of personal book reviews. I write them just for myself (occasionally sharing them with my son) as a way of sorting out my response. It also serves as bit of a goad, if I notice that I haven't been reading books lately, and instead wasting time here on the internet.
ReplyDelete