2018 Reading Part 1

 

Year to date 2018, I read 51 books in total: 37 in English and 14 in Chinese. Between now and the end of year, I will probably read another 5-7 books. But now seems to be a good juncture to take an inventory. 

 

English books I read this year fall into the categories listed below. Most of the books are physical copies, though I did read a few books on my Kindle. And there are 2 books that I read on Kindle first and I liked them so much that I bought a physical copy too. A few subjects I (continue to) fixate on: Hemingway, Cuba, book about books. And I read way more fictions this year – I find them more nourishing. The books highlighted in yellow are the ones I particularly enjoyed reading.

 

1. Mysteries/Crimes.

The cozy mysteries used to be my favorite genre with Agatha Christie being an All Time Favorite. This year not so much. Perhaps I've finally grown out of these books? Books read this year:

• Murder must advertise, by Dorothy L Sayers

• Black Orchids / The silent Speaker, by Rex Stout

• The Veiled One, by Ruth Rendall

• Rembrandt Affair, by Daniel Silva

 

2. Biography.

This category is the other side of the coin. Turned out that the time I saved from not reading mysteries I used it to read biographies! And they are GOOD and DELISH.

• One for the books, by Joe Queenan

• Travel with myself and another, by Martha Gellhorn

• Autumn Venice: Earnest Hemingway and his last muse, by Andrea di Robilant

• Diary of a bookseller, by Shaun Bythell

• Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah

 

3. Graphic novels.

Still like these very much but a good one is hard to come by.

·         Going into town: a love letter to New York, by Roz Chast

·         Can’t we talk about something pleasant, by Roz Chast

·         What I hate: from A to Z, by Roz Chast

·         Displacement, by Lucy Knisley

·         Agatha: real life of Agatha Christie, by Anne Martineth

·         The three escapes of Hannah Arendt: a tyranny of truth, by Ken Krimstein

 

4. Fiction, short story collections.

Another category that I don't typically read but this year enjoyed them much.

·         The Frangipani Hotel, by Violet Kupersmith

·         Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

 

5. Fiction, classic.

·         Our man in Havana, by Graham Greene

·         The quiet American, by Graham Greene

·         The moon and sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham

 

6. Fiction, general

·         A sport and a pastime, by James Salter

·         Cube and the Night, by Pico Iyer

·         Dear committee members, by Julie Schumacher

·         Flower for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes

·         On Beauty, by Zadie Smith

·         Lost for words, by Edward St. Aubry

·         Bodega Dreams, by Ernesto Quinonez

·         Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, by Matthew Sullivan

·         A year in the merde, by Stephen Clarke

·         Those pricey Thakur girls, by Anuja Chauhan

·         The uncommon reader, by Alan Bennett

·         Beautiful exiles, by Meg Waite Clayton

 

7. Non-fiction

·         Red lobster, white trash and blue lagoon, by Joe Queenan

·         Queenan Country, by Joe Queenan

·         A small place, by Jamaica Kincaid

·         Havana, by Mark Kurlansky

·         The old man and the gun, by David Grann