Reading List 2007

Dec 31 2007

At the start of 2007 I set myself a goal of reading one book a week—a not unachievable ambition, given my hour-long train ride on the commute to work every day. Unfortunately a few mammoth volumes contrived to put me a little behind that 52-book target, but I’m still pretty pleased with the final tally of forty-four.

The List

Here are the eventual details, broken down into random categories of my own devising.

New experiences

This year I made a conscious effort to read the sort of books that I felt I really should get round to reading, plus one epic poem that I enjoyed much more than one would expect. Oh, and Harry Potter, of course:

Old favourites

In between the worthy classics and modern stuff, I revisited some favourite books. You can pretty much guarantee that I will read some Coupland, Kay, and Heinlein at some point in any given year:

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I also read a lot of books that formed series’ this year, for some reason:

Geekout

And for both professional reasons and reviewing purposes, I read more web-dev books than ever before this year:

Top Picks

What did I enjoy reading the most this year, you ask? It’s a tough call. His Dark Materials was good (and inspired me to finally read Paradise Lost straight after it, which was an incredible read but very demanding); Joe Abercrombie’s ‘The First Law’ series is a non-stop fantasy cliche but with beautifully written characters; and Vernon God Little and Battle Royale were both very good; but I’d have to say that the best book I’ve read this year was Memoirs of a Geisha—for a work of fiction to feel so much like an auto-biography is an incredible testament to Golden’s talent.

On the pile for 2008

So, next year. I’m going to try to finally get around to reading some Dickens, and I also have a copy of War and Peace that’s been on my shelf since I was a student, but other than that, I’m open to suggestions…

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Comments

Gareth Rushgrove
185 days ago

Over the last year I’ve taken to reading a lot of non-fiction; some tech history, the occasional biography, some science, bits of politics and the odd book on sociology.

I’d heartily recommend; Hackers and Painters, Dreaming in Code, The Long Tail, Feakonomics, The Search and Just for Fun and probably a few others.

#1
Matthew Pennell
185 days ago

I’ve never really gotten the taste for non-fiction, although I can’t say it’s ever top of my list when given the choice. Freakonomics is on my ‘to read’ list, definitely—I’ve added a few of those others to my Wish List after reading the Amazon writeups, good stuff. :)

#2
Adam
185 days ago

A few books that I read this year were:

‘As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade’ by Mark Thomas. Excellent work on the corruption of the suited and booted Western Arms Dealers.

‘God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’ by Christopher Hitchens. Worthy partner book to Dawkin’s superb ‘God Delusion’.

I also went back and read the complete Sherlock Holmes, which I haven’t done in years.

#3
Gareth Rushgrove
184 days ago

It was only last year I really got into reading non-fiction. In 2008 I’ll probably try and mix it up a little more.

#4
Hamish M
181 days ago

This is a great idea! I think I’m going to have to steal it.

#5