Your favourite Books you read this year 2011

Monkeybonkers

Didn't get around to reading it last year. Must check it out this year

Denerick

I haven't had much time to read in the last couple of months (Slowly making my way through Middlemarch - also simultaneously started Cosmos by Carl Sagan over the weekend, just to try something completely different) but some of the better books I've read over the last year:

George R.R. Martin - The Song of Ice and Fire series. Got into this after watching the HBO tv show. Truly excellent. Not everyone's cup of tea but in my opinion its the apex of the fantasy novel. Absolutely wonderful, with lots of things to say about high politics, intrigue, jealousy, love, redemption, loss, destiny (or lack thereof) - the full gamut of the human experience really.

Bram Stoker - Dracula. The original horror novel. Wasn't particularly scary, but highly absorbing.

Conor Cruise O'Brien - States of Ireland. A timely critique of Irish republicanism (Written in the 70s) His observations on this militant cult are timeless and still as relevant today in post troubles Ireland. Should be mandatory reading for all leaving cert students.

Umberto Eco - Focoult's Pendelum. A confusing book that parodises Dan Brown and the Da Vinci code before it was even written. Every conspiracy theorist should read this and reflect on how silly they are.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (sic) - Crime and Punishment. The original novel about the human conscience. This book will stay with me until the day I die.

Robert Graves - I, Claudius & Claudius the God. In his own words, these two books are wonderful potboilers. Compulsive page turners. Breathes life, glory, honour and cowardice into Imperial Rome.

mickoregan

Denerick wrote: »

Bram Stoker - Dracula. The original horror novel.

Hmmmm, I think not. Just to name two, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde preceded Dracula.

Grievous

Denerick wrote: »

Robert Graves - I, Claudius & Claudius the God. In his own words, these two books are wonderful potboilers. Compulsive page turners. Breathes life, glory, honour and cowardice into Imperial Rome.

Is Botboiler still a perjorative term in the arts?


I, Claudius and its sequel are great literature. I know Graves wasn't fond of how successful they became (He was a poet afterall), and wrote them for a paycheck back all those years ago.
Regardless, Robert Graves the poet still wrote them and wrote them really really well. He couldn't write bad if he tried to.

Grievous

Denerick wrote: »

Umberto Eco - Focoult's Pendelum. A confusing book that parodises Dan Brown and the Da Vinci code before it was even written. Every conspiracy theorist should read this and reflect on how silly they are.

I read this last year. It's a great history lesson and this should be no surprise as Eco is an historian himself, but I don't like how time moves in this novel.
Our narrator relates to us an awful lot of information in such a short period of time. I don't buy it.

It's wonderfully written, though.

Denerick

mickoregan wrote: »

Hmmmm, I think not. Just to name two, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde preceded Dracula.

Don't take me too literally, I have a tendancy for the hyperbolic. Consider me the strange uncle who gets drunk at family occassions.

mickoregan

Denerick wrote: »

Don't take me too literally, I have a tendancy for the hyperbolic. Consider me the strange uncle who gets drunk at family occassions.

Love your comic, BTW.

Hoofball

Of the books I read in 2011 (that I can remember):

Best
Stephen King 11.22.63
Giorgio Faletti I Kill
Gregg Hurrwitz The Survivor
Joe Hill Horns

I think 11.22.63 is one of the better books that King has written in at least the last 10 years. The other books are just ones that I thought were somewhat original and interesting.


Worst
Tom Clancy Dead or Alive
John Grisham Theodore Boone: The Abduction
WM Paul Young The Shack

Tom Clancy - an official sellout IMO. I have two more of "his" books on my to-be-read shelf but I'll have to be very stuck to pick them up to read. I had heard a lot about the shack so decided to buy it on spec, a mildly interesting read but massively pretentious. Was just a bit of a damp squib.

Brian?

Irish Aris wrote: »

A dear friend introduced me to the world of Haruki Murakami.

The Wind Up Bird Chronicles was the book I enjoyed most this year!

I read 3 of his books this year, including The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, an absolutly brilliant book. Kafka on the Shore is great as well, Norweigan Wood ditto.

I have IQ84 lined up to read next.

Other highlights were:

The Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, don't normally read crime thriller fiction but I really enjoyed this one.
American Pastoral by Phillip Roth
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Can't argue with Hemingway.

I must have read 30 books this year, but I cannot for the life of me remember many more than that.

Oh, the latest George RR Martin was good.