2007
Re-reads are in italics; the most stand-out reads are in bold.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim – David Sedaris
Amongst Women – John McGahern (read it, read it, read it)
Becoming Abigail – Chris Abani (ditto)
The Flower Beneath the Foot – Ronald Firbank
My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk (Not sure what to think of it yet but everyone should read a book like this)
House Rules – Heather Lewis (read it, read it, read it)
Rules of Seduction – Madeline Hunter (Mmmmm…eh)
Prince of Ice – Emma Holly (Back in form for this one, thank goodness)
The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story – David Treuer (My best read of the year. I know it’s only January but at the moment I cannot imagine its equal.)
The World of Christopher Robin – A. A. Milne (When We Were Very Young is leagues above Now We Are Six.)
The Italian – Ann Radcliffe (Mmhhhhmm!)
Artemisia – Anna Banti, translated by Shirley D’Ardia Caracciolo
Dark Lover – J.R. Ward (Yuck.)
Sugar Daddy – Lisa Kleypas
The Open Curtain – Brian Evenson (Wtf (in a good way).)
Ysabel – Guy Gavriel Kay (eh.)
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë (It’s the best book in the world!)
Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (one of the best)
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature – Wilfred L. Guerin et. al (not bad!)
Moravagine – Blaise Cendrars, translated by Alan Brown (Amaaaazing)
Winter Rose – Patricia McKillip (I found a new favourite winter read)
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
The Wedding Jester – Steve Stern (Graywolf Press is out-of-control: it’s given me my second best book of the year.)
Lady Fortune – Anne Stuart (First half great, second half terrible)
The Good Solider: A Tale of Passion – Ford Madox Ford
Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf (Ambrosia!)
The Land of Spices – Kate O’Brien (Read it!)
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki, translated by Edwin McClellen (Whoa)
The House at Pooh Corner – A. A. Milne (The real Eeyore is so much better than Disney’s.)
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye – A. S. Byatt (Fairly excellent collection of “fairy stories”. The titled story is the best one.)
Born in Death – J.D. Robb (meh)
Listen, the Wind and Other Stories – Roger Mais (Uneven collection but fascinating for Roger Mais fans)
Sleepless Nights – Elizabeth Hardwick (Endlessly fascinating)
Alphabet of Thorns – Patricia A. McKillip (Never before have I read a book where the ending it so heroically.)
Blankets – Craig Thompson (My first “graphic novel”.)
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
Goldberg: Variations – Gabriel Josipovici (This one was quite the adventure. Read it.)
Mercy Among the Children – David Adams Richards
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel
The Haunted Hillbilly – Derek McCormack
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling (Not bad. Not bad at all.)
Children of Húrin – J.R.R. Tolkien (Favourite story from the First Age)
Edge of Midnight – Shannon Mckenna (Predictable but her over-the-top style managed to make it entertaining.)
Eight Days of Luke – Diana Wynne Jones (Her books are always a lot of fun.)
Flight Volume Four – Various artists (If you want to be convinced of the “legitimacy” of the graphic format, bypass all those NYT reviewed tomes and pick this baby up.)
The Amulet of Samarkand – Jonathan Stroud (August appears to fulfil the requirements of “summer reading”, yes?)
Golem’s Eye – Jonathan Stroud
Ptolemy’s Gate – Jonathan Stroud (Final verdict? Waaaaaaaaay better than Harry Potter.)
Flight Volume Two – Various artists
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master – Denis Diderot translated by Michael Henry (So much bawdy, clever, thoughtful fun.)
Saint Joan – George Bernard Shaw
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy – Various authors
Averno – Louise Glück (Excellent poetry collection. Everyone should read it, even if you think you don’t like poetry. It’s such a slim book too.)
The Good Fairies of New York – Martin Millar (It was all right. Pretty funny.)
Breton Folktales (Unusual entertainment)
Fairyville – Emma Holly
A Quality of Violence – Andrew Salkey
Flight, Volume One – Various Artists (Not quite as good, overall, as the vol. 2 & 4, but still contains a few stunning gems.)
Emma – Jane Austen (The book that’s confirmed my opinion that Austen, at least morally and on issues of gender, was firmly a woman of her time, no matter what the movies say.)
The Ides of March – Thornton Wilder (Quite a surprise, this one: I actually enjoyed it.)
Flight, Volume Four – Various (Fantabulous, as usual!)
Od Magic – Patricia A. McKillip (Almost good! Almost, almost…it wasn’t bad but it’s no Winter Rose.)
Lessons of Desire – Madeline Hunter (I can’t help but think there’s a more distant air in her most recent romances.)
Mine Till Midnight – Lisa Kleypas (Aaaaaaah. So nice.)
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien (This has put me into a Tolkien mood now. I shall have to reread The Silmarillion.)
The People of Paper – Salvador Plascencia (You should probably read it just to find out how you’ll react.)
Beowulf – Anonymous, translated by Michael Alexander (Totally awesome, although I admit it was “The Wanderer” that fully converted me to the merits of Old English poetry.)
The Pornographer – John McGahern
The Owl Service – Alan Garner (Wtf? In a good way. Sort of. It’s not bad. It’s pretty ambitious in some ways.)
My Christina and Other Stories – Mercé Rodoreda, translated by David Rosenthal ( So good, so fresh, so modern, you’d never guess it was written in the 1960s. Another Graywolf prize!)
Mulligan Stew – Gilbert Sorrentino
Maus I & II – Art Spiegelman (It was all right. Pretty darn good. Pulitzer, though?)
Trading in Memories – Barbara Hodgson (Really enjoyed it.)
Red Shift – Alan Garner (See comment on previous Garner novel.)
Breakfast With the Ones You Love – Eliot Fintushel
The Virgin of Flames – Chris Abani (Eeeeehh. Kinda. At times.)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg (Eeeeeexcellent.)
Mélusine – Sarah Monette (Ugh! Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh. After years of careful selection I fell into one of those damn cheesy sword & sorcery nonsense. Just…uuuuugh.)
Grab Bag: Two Stories – Derek McCormack (Hilarious, disturbing, poignant, absurd, stylish — definitely one of my favourite 2007 discoveries.)
15 Responses to "2007"

Where Was I? Oh ya, Mesopotamia!
Happy Easter everyone! I had a wonderful Easter Triduum and feel like I’ve just come back from a great vacation, rested and renewed. In a sense I really have been away from my regular life for some time due to


I just won “My name is red” in a contest. Now you’ve made me even happier about it. 🙂


Dayum!
That is a lot of reading l’il sis!
peace,
Villager (do books-on-CD or -tape count?)


Okay – near impossible, but if you had to pick ONE book from this list to recommend (besides HP, Jane Eyre, Pooh Corner, or Fun Home), which would it be? I need one more book for my reading challenge and I’ve barely read any of these.


[…] Books read in 2007 […]

March 14, 2007 at 2:14 pm
You’ve done well so far this year! Keep it up!