Books, 2015

Quotation du jour ~ Anthony Powell: Books do furnish a room.

I've written before that i'm a list freak. Usually at the end of each calendar year i publish a list of all of the books i read that year, and indicate my faves. This past January, however, the problems i was having with my passport application along with work-related exhaustion had created a weltschmerz or apathy in me to the point that i didn't really want to do anything.

Optimistically hoping that late is better than never, though, i present herewith the list. Titles with an asterisk (*) are books i read for the first time.

Jan. 8: Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason

Jan. 16: Fredric Brown – Honeymoon In Hell

Jan. 23: Fredric Brown – The Lights In The Sky Are Stars

Feb. 7: Nicolas Freeling – Some Day Tomorrow

Feb. 13: Charlie Brennan – Amazing St Louis*

Feb. 23: Cormac McCarthy – Outer Dark*

Feb. 24: Paul McFedries – Microsoft Windows 7 Simplified*

Mar. 4: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – The Abominable Man

Mar. 20: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – Roseanna

Apr. 4: Erik Larson – Dead Wake*

Apr. 16: Cormac McCarthy – The Orchard Keeper*

Apr. 26: Erik Larson – Isaac's Storm*

May 11: Ian Rankin – Bleeding Hearts

May 22: Erik Larson – Lethal Passage*

Jun. 8: Mick Houghton – I've Always Kept A Unicorn: The Biography Of Sandy Denny*

Jun. 24: J.R.R. Tolkien – The Silmarillion

Jul. 5: Chris Kyle with Jim DeFelice and Scott McEwen – American Sniper: The Autobiography Of

The Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. History*

Jul. 22: J.R.R. Tolkien – The Fellowship Of The Ring

Aug. 6: J.R.R Tolkien – The Two Towers

Aug. 13: Lin Carter – Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord Of The Rings

Aug. 24: Ian Rankin – Beggars Banquet

Sep. 5: Andy Weir – The Martian*

Sep. 17: David Lagercrantz – The Girl In The Spider's Web*

Oct. 9: Paul Schneider – Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History*

Oct. 26: Kevin Kwan – Crazy Rich Asians*

Nov. 24: Elvis Costello – Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink*

Dec. 8: Ian Rankin – Even Dogs In The Wild*

A pretty shabby reading list, at least numerically. Before i bought my first computer, back in, oh, 1965 or thereabouts, i would read around two books a week. Nowadays, sometimes, i don't even manage two a month. As a friend once said, the Internet is TV for people who read.

Oh, and favourite non-fiction (of the schtuff i'd never read before): Erik Larson's “Dead Wake,” the story of the Lusitania, and in fiction, i don't know, it's a tough call, but probably Ian Rankin's “Even Dogs In The Wild” with Kevin Kwan's “Crazy Rich Asians” a very close second.

(The worst book, without question, was “Microsoft Windows 7 Simplified.” Oh, it was simplified all right. I bought a Windows 7 PC in 2015 and thought it might prove useful but i think its target audience was either (a) people who'd never used any kind of computer before or (b) the mentally challenged. I learned very little from it and a lot of it was just plain wrong!

Anyway, enough of my literary divagations. Here's the latest playlist (just a short one):

The Sutherland Brothers & Quiver -- Beat Of The Street

Wishbone Ash -- Front Page News

Steeleye Span -- All Around My Hat

Jethro Tull -- Stormwatch

Be+Bop Deluxe -- Electrical Language