Back in January, I set up a series of reading lists, based largely on my unread books list on LibraryThing. I’ve now been working this for three months, and it’s time for some major changes.
a) sf, in order of entry onto my LibraryThing catalogue:
- Raven’s Gathering, by Keith Taylor
- The Enchanted Isles, by K.C. Flynn
- Misspent Youth, by Peter F. Hamilton
- Sacred Visions, edited by Andrew M. Greeley
- The Prisoner of Chillon, by James Patrick Kelly
b) sf, in order of popularity on LibraryThing as a whole:
- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
- The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
- Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
- Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett
- The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
c) sf, as owned by me before start of this year and previously read by you here:
- Elric, by Michael Moorcock
- Stormbringer, by Michael Moorcock
- The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay
- Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
- On the Beach, by Nevil Shute
d) fiction other than sf, in order of entry onto my LibraryThing catalogue:
- The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
- Sunset at Blandings, by P. G. Wodehouse
- Cities of Salt, by Abd al-Rahman Munif
- Chronicle in Stone, by Ismail Kadare
- With the Light, by Keiko Tobe
e) fiction other than sf, in order of popularity on LibraryThing as a whole:
- Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
- The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
- The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
f) fiction other than sf, as owned by me before start of this year and previously read by you here:
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy (currently reading)
- To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
- Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
- Les Liaisons Dangereuses, by Choderlos de Laclos
- Black and Blue, by Ian Rankin
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers
g) non-fiction, in order of entry onto my LibraryThing catalogue:
- On the place of Gilbert Chesterton in English letters, by Hilaire Belloc
- The lost heart of Asia, by Colin Thubron
- The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea
- Hotel Rwanda, by Terry George
The Bessarabian Question in Communist Historiography, by Wim Van Meurs (missing) - England’s Troubles, by Jonathan Scott
h) non-fiction, in order of popularity on LibraryThing as a whole:
- Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller
- Survival In Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
- The Problems of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
- The Stuff of Thought, by Steven Pinker
- Diplomacy, by Henry Kissinger
i) non-fiction, as owned by me before start of this year and previously read by you here:
- Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
Galileo’s daughter, by Dava Sobel (missing) - The Problems of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
- On Liberty and Other Essays, by John Stuart Mill
- Survival In Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
- Queen Elizabeth I, by J. E. Neale
And then I’m keeping some of the lists from my January efforts:
j) (previously a) books I have already read but haven’t reviewed on-line, ranked by LT popularity (NB first two are swapped in order for obvious reasons):
- Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, by J.K. Rowling
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling
- The hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
k) (previously i) Hugo-award winning novels which I haven’t previously reviewed on-line, in order of winning the award:
- The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
- This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein
- Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny
- Stand on Zanzibar, by John Brunner
l) unread Doctor Who books, in order of internal continuity:
- Sands of Time, by Justin Richards
- Imperial Moon, by Christopher Bulis
- Doctor Who: The Nightmare Fair, by Graham Williams
- Doctor Who: Mission to Magnus, by Philip Martin
- Doctor Who: The Ultimate Evil, by Wally K. Daly
m) unread New Series Doctor Who books, in order of LT popularity (nearly finished!):
- The Deviant Strain by Justin Richards (currently reading)
- The Last Dodo, by Jacqueline Rayner
- Wooden Heart, by Martin Day
n) Shakespeare’s plays, in supposed chronological order (also nearly finished!) :
- Cymbeline (currently reading)
- The Winter’s Tale
- The Tempest
- Henry VIII
- The Two Noble Kinsmen (end of the traditional chronological ordering of the plays)
- Edward III (if I am really keen)
- Double Falshood (if I am really really keen)
o) books owned only by me on LT, in order of entry into my catalogue (NB several have since picked up other owners):
- EU Accession Dynamics And Conflict Resolution: Catalysing Peace Or Consolidating Partition In Cyprus? by Nathalie Tocci
- How to Make Good Decisions and be Right All the Time: Solving the Riddle of Right and Wrong, by Iain King
- How to Make School Make Sense: A Parents’ Guide to Helping the Child with Asperger Syndrome, by Clare Lawrence
- The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt, by A. Jeffrey Spencer
- Young people in post-conflict Northern Ireland The past cannot be changed, but the future can be developed, by Dirk Schubotz and Paula Devine
p) books by PoC, in order of entry into my catalogue:
- Cities of Salt, by Abd al-Rahman Munif
- So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, by Nalo Hopkinson
- With the Light, by Keiko Tobe
- Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
- Black Juice, edited by Margo Lanagan
Well, we’ll see how long this system lasts!
Mmm, a good way of putting it!