Books read in 2009

This year’s…unique challenges is reflected in my much, much shorter reading list. There are even one or two books which I did enjoy but whose titles and authors escape me. So it goes. Rereads in italics.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy (Turned me into a Hardy convert although I can readily see why others would be unimpressed.)

Green Days by the River – Michael Anthony (Better than I remembered.)

Cricket in the Road and Other Stories – Michael Anthony (I have yet to read an author better at capturing a child’s perspective.)

Julius Caesar – Shakespeare

Othello – Shakespeare (Wickeeeed)

Romeo & Juliet – Shakespeare

Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier (Excellent actor…not so good writer.)

Jamaican Labrish – Louise Bennett

Songs of Innocence & Experience – William Blake

She’s Gone – Kwame Dawes

Scarlett Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne (Better than I remembered.)

Caribbean Heritage – Virginia Radcliffe

Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood (My first. No longer averse to trying her other novels.)

Got to be Real: Four Original Love Stories – Various Authors (Suffice it to say, I did not read the “Eric Jerome Dickey” contribution. Colin Channer’s was the best by far…soI guess I should get over my bias against him.)

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Mark Twain

Silas Marner – George Eliot (So so so good. Three Eliots under my belt – ready for “Middlemarch”?)

Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie (Whoooooooooooooa)

A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens (Saccharine in parts but still so so good. The ending! It totally got me.)

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China – Jung Chang (I was wary at the start but the author’s measured tone inspires confidence.)

A History of the Diocese of Jamaica – E. L. Evans (An apologist history of the Anglican church in Jamaica.)

Lots of forgettable romances