Category Archives: reading

My notes suggest I read 50 books in 2008 (13 fewer than 200) although like a lot of things towards the end of the year I let my notes slip so it is possible I’ve missed a few books. Comparing the list to my favourites books of 2007 there are a couple of things I notice; the books fall into a wider range of genres (not just fantasy), and there are several books that are the same as 2007.  Looking through the full list  unfortunately there were several books I’d looked forward to reading, sometimes for over a year, that did not live up to my expectations.

My favourite books of 2008 (in reading order)

• Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha
• The Millionaire Next Door
• Cast in Shadow (The Chronicles of Elantra, Book 1)
• Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1)
• Green Rider (Green Rider Trilogy Book 1)
• First Rider’s Call (Green Rider, Book 2)
• Persuasion (by Jane Austen)
• Pride and Prejudice (by Jane Austen)

I already know that some of these books will appear on my favourite books of 2009 list as I’ve already reread them this year. Does this mean I’ve got stuck into a reading rut? Do you have recommendations?

I am still working towards my goal of reading 75 books in a year; in 2007 I made it to 63 books, an average of over 5 a month, which I think is an impressive amount. I’ve read 6 books during January and February 2008 a drop in the average to 3 books a month. As I’ve been busy, I’ve wanted to re-read books so I don’t need to think too hard as I read them and I can get plenty of pleasure and comfort from them.

Several books I read in 2007 are on this list of possible rereads and I’m wondering if it is a bit too soon to start them again. Here is a list of my favourite reads of 2007 (in order of reading):

• Camelot’s Honour (Two Ravens Saga)
• The Ring (The Sword, the Ring, and the Chalice, Book 2)
• The Chalice (The Sword, the Ring, and the Chalice, Book 3)
• Veil of Roses
• Green Rider
• First Rider’s Call (Green Rider, Book 2)
• Greatest Knight
• A Sorcerer’s Treason (Isavalta Trilogy)
• Stardust
• The Named (The Guardians of Time Trilogy)

There are many methods of choosing books, but recommendations has been a popular method for a long time. However there are limitations with recommendations because they usually only consider one book and are based on one person’s thoughts so it is easy to be ‘misled’. However through interactive sites, the web is able to provide personalised recommendations based on your own reading habits.

Here are some of my favourite places to get book recommendations

Amazon

Amazon collects trends from the sales made and voting of products to generate several different methods of recommending books, based on many different people’s opinions.

On a product page there are two sections for recommendations that can be useful if you have enjoyed a particular book

At the bottom of a product page you will find a link to Visit the page you made. This takes you to a page where you can see the items you have browsed recently and click through to see recommendations based on those items. This can be useful if you are not sure what you want, but you know you want something on a similar topic or theme to several other books.

I got an email this morning from Amazon.co.uk inviting me to join their Amazon Vine program.  The same program has existed on Amazon.com for a few months. If you haven’t already read about Amazon Vine, here is a quote from the email

As a member of this exclusive community, you’ll have free access to pre-release and new products, as well as the opportunity to be among the very first to review them.

So they want to offer me free pre-release books in exchange for me reviewing them.  I’m okay with that (particularly if I can hold of the third book of The Green Rider series)! I am already registered for a similar program, LibraryThings’s Early Reviewers, but unfortunately it is not currently open to people in the UK so it is great to find a program I am eligible for.

Amazon Vine is an invitation only program so I’m chuffed to have been invitied; although I’m not completely sure if it is because I’m one of their top reviewers (ranked 2616) or because I buy from them on a regular basis.

I have now transferred all my book reviews from my two previous websites and added a few more recent ones.  I’m pleased at the number of hits I’ve had on my reviews as I haven’t included them on the front page or in the RSS feed, so the hits are mainly driven by search engine traffic.

Since adding my reviews, the 14 most popular reviews I’ve written are:

1. Pay it forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

2. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

3. How clean is your house? by Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie

4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

5. Deception on his mind by Elizabeth George

6. Hunting unicorns by Bella Pollen

7. Stark by Ben Elton

7. Wideacre by Phillippa Gregory 

9. Beat stress and fatigue by  Patrick Holford

9. Mister Monday by Garth Nix

9. Persuasion by Jane Austen

9. Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

9. Tales from the secret annex by Anne Frank

9. The five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom 

Perhaps even more than reading books I like shopping for books. There is something about an unread book that holds so much potential, particularly a brand new book. However over the last few years I have learnt the important thing about books is that they should be read as much as possible and the best way to do that is to read them and pass them on to someone else, so I have started to appreciate cheap and second hand books.
Here are some of my favourite places to get cheap book:

AbeBooks (USA, UK)

I love AbeBooks for two reasons, it supports individual booksellers and it is the closest you can get online to browsing for books. I have bought text books and hard to find books from both British and American booksellers and that shows one the great features of Abebooks, they don’t penalise you for where you live as a customer or a seller, but allow you to make the decision of which country to purchase your books.

Reading has been an important part of my life since I was a child. I didn’t go any where without a book (or several books). For instance, in the photograph, we are at a hotel in the Lake District to have lunch with my grandparents and I couldn’t put down my book for the duration of the picture (sorry for the poor quality, it is a scan of a poor quality print, but it is the best I can do until I have access to the original picture).

Reading is such an important part of my life that it is the one area that I have a goal. I want to read 75 books in a year. I formed this goal last year after reading 62 books in 2005 and decided to step it up for 2006. I actually made it to 68 books, so the goal is still there for this year. However this has not been progressing as well as I would like recently, because for some unknown reason I stopped reading near the beginning of May.

The graph shows the books I have read each month since 2005 and as you can see, I seem to be back on form as I’ve read 8 books already in July.