Star's Reads 2011

[Star_Anise]

January
Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

February
The Stone Key, number something or other of the Obernewtyn Chronicles, Isobelle Carmody
Zombie Haiku, Ryan Mecum
A little bit marvellous, Dawn French

March
The Post-birthday world, Lionel Shriver
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

April
Serenity: The Shepherd's tale, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon and Chris Samnee
Fashion and Fetishism: Corsets, tight-lacing and other forms of body sculpture, David Kunzle

May
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

June
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett

October
The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch

November
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Summer Rain, Marguerite Duras

Reading in December
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy

[Star_Anise]

One 1000-page book down for the year - if nothing else I finished The Stone Key, and will not be wondering about when the next comes out. Just hoping it's shorter.

[Star_Anise]

The Scientist brought home The Shepherd's Tale, and being a graphic novel, it was a quick read. With a number of answers, and some more questions. I am still not a convert to graphic novels, but the style and progression of this one was enjoyable enough. I'd rather a novel, or better yet, a TV episode...

[Star_Anise]

I'm onto the appendices of Fashion and Fetishism, so I considered it read. What a page-turner for an academically-f-ramed text. Very enjoyable, and not sure I can really review it, only relate my experience of it. My major criticism would have to be that the final chapter, added 20 years after the original publication, had too strong an undertone of condemnation for the intervening developments in fashion. It almost seemed like Kunzle disapproved of the adoption of explicit fetishism into the mainstream...which is an interesting position in itself, but the why was never explicitly discussed.

On to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which is proving enjoyable, but not yet living up to its title!

[Star_Anise]

I have so far loved all the Tiffany Aching books from Terry Pratchett, and I certainly enjoyed I Shall Wear Midnight. Pratchett was hitting his stride in terms of language, ideas, characters and humour, although I found the story a touch simple, for want of a better word. Mostly because we really only followed Tiffany over a rather short period of time, there weren't many asides to flesh out the central story.

[Star_Anise]

After finishing Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, I think I am going to end up reading all of his novels...off to look over the BOM thread next.