Monday, January 6, 2014

2013: A Year In Review (Part 1)


None! I blogged about food but I didn't post any of my own recipes. That will change this year - I have a few up my sleeve that I'd like to share.

List of Recommended Books

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read The Great Gatsby in April and didn't recommend anything else since. But I did read quite a few books! Here's my list of books I read in 2013:

  • The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
  • The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling
  • The Vinland Sagas, Norse Sagas
  • The Man from St. Petersburg, Ken Follett
  • The Secret Keeper, Kate Morton
  • Silver-Tongued Devil, Jennifer Blake
  • Midnight Waltz, Jennifer Blake
  • The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood (re-read)
  • Arrow to the Heart, Jennifer Blake
  • Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
  • The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
  • Orphans of Eldorado, Milton Hatoum
  • The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King
  • Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Dubravka Ugresic
  • The Ghost Brush, Katherine Govier
  • The Diamond Hunters, Wilbur Smith
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman
  • A Dangerous Fortune, Ken Follett
  • Tender Betrayal, Jennifer Blake (the 4 Blake novels were a digital package, for something light)
  • Absolution (short story), F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Douglas Notebooks, Christine Eddie
  • The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  • The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
  • Of Bees and Mist, Erick Setiawan
  • The Housemaid's Daughter, Barbara Mutch
  • Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
  • The Rise of Ransom City, Felix Gilman
  • The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (started a couple years ago)
  • A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
  • When Like Minds Collide, Ashful (on Wattpad)
  • Under the Dome, Stephen King
  • Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
  • Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
  • Who Has Seen the Wind, W.O. Mitchell
Total = 36
Total new novels started in 2013 = 33

Plus, I started Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) at the end of November and have been powering through it, though I'm still not done.

Not a bad list. I didn't reach my goal of 50 books, but I did dip into some older literature, especially in the second half of the year, which I found to take considerably longer to read than contemporary novels. Older books are just written differently - the sentence structure and word choices require one to slow down a bit to catch their meaning. 

I did make a bit of a dent in my "own but haven't read" list though. However, I do need to update that list since I went shopping at a used book store over the holidays and left with no less than eight "new" books... oops! I'm pretty sure I've vowed more than once not to buy new books before I finish that list. As if!

OK, that's it for now - my next 2013 in review post will include photos, I promise!

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