The Books Which I Read Last Year.

I meant to make this post last week.....

Here's the embarrassingly short list of books which I read in 2009, I think that thirteen is the least ever. 

1. Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale
2. Glittering Images by Susan Howatch
3. Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch
4. A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer
5. Daughters of Jerusalem by Charlotte Mendelson
6. Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Giles Brandreth
7. The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
8. World without End by Ken Follett
9. Dissolution by CJ Sansom
10. The Chimneysweep's Son by Barbra Vine
11. Dark Fire by CJ Sansom
12. Emma by Jane Austen
13. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Some of these were great, most notably the Ken Follett which was a storming sequal to The Pillars of the Earth, and my enjoyment of CJ Sansom's Shardlake books continued, I believe there's a new one out this year.  The Susan Howatchs' were re-reads of the first two of a much loved series of six, perhaps I'll dig the others out this year.  2009 saw me read my first Barbra Vine, it was mainly on the plane coming home from Crete (one of my favourite reading environments) in the summer after picking it off the very well stocked shelves in the little hotel where we stayed, I loved her writing style and it's nice to know that there's plenty more of her work out there to explore.  The Sarah Waters was an oddly unsatisfying read, the book didn't really resolve itself in my mind, there was too much gloom and doom really, I like the way she writes, and I loved the period details, but this no way lived up to the spellbinding Victorian novels of her early years.  Emma was much as it always is, a pleasure to read especially after an unsatisfying and irritating new television adaptation.  There was some drivel, notably, the Giles Brandreth and the Jeffrey Archer, but none the less, enjoyable drivel!  The Daughters of Jerusalem was strange, small and disturbing, but I liked it very much - I cannot recall where it came from, I certainly didn't buy it, but I'm glad that it turned up on my shelf.

Back in the good old Live Journal days when I used to read for hours and hours I regularly read up to forty odd books every year.  I spend so much more time in front of the computer now (Etsy, Facebook, Blog, Twitter, Flickr), I can't believe that I spent so much less time in front of the computer back then, LJ was a major obsession and passion to me for years, perhaps there's just so much more to do online these days.....It's not just a computer based distraction causing my lack of reading, there's the fact that I've been going out working with mum for two full days a week for seven months or so, meaning no computer or anything but driving and drawing on those days.  I don't really recall reading in the evening all that much either in the past, if we're at home together in the evening, we'll watch the telly together and I like to listen to the radio in bed, so I think bedtime reading was negligible back in the day too.  There's so much more telly now, that I think when I wanted a break, in the past, I'd pick up a book rather than give into that sort of passive aggressive knowledge of all those hours and hours of television I've painstakingly recorded for moments of boredom.  I can appreciate that I'm just busier these days, but thirteen books is pathetic and I must do better this year!