Sunday, 23 October 2011

Reaching 50

As some readers will know, a couple of years ago I had a target of reading 50 books over the year. I fell frustratingly short at 49 after I didn't finish reading the last book by New Year's Day. The nice old lady in Wales was part of the reason!


This year I've had more time to read, both when I've been travelling around and generally in Wellington. I just finished what I thought was my 50th book. It actually turns out to be number 51, as I failed to mark one as complete earlier in the year. There's plenty more books I'm planning to read this year, it's just nice to hit this milestone along the way.


The full list is below for those who are interested. They're roughly in the order I finished them in. First, here are a couple of things:

  • I use Shelfari to keep track of what I'm reading. It's a really handy website and I've now got nearly three years of books on my bookshelf. I've just added a widget to the right hand side of my blog that shows the latest things I've added
  • Political books, particularly NZ politics feature pretty heavily in the list
  • I read too many really trashy thrillers, although my list isn't quite as damning as I thought it would be on this front
  • Lots of the books are recommendations from friends, colleagues, etc. Please keep these coming as they're gratefully received
  • The worst books were definitely Londongrad (No. 17) and The Weight (No. 31) they're the kinds of book that make me wish I could leave a book half read
  • It's harder to say what I consider the best books. I particularly enjoyed One Day (No. 1), Armadillo (No. 12) and Freedom (No. 51), which I've just finished




  1. One Day by David Nicholls
  1. The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers 
  1. A Journey by Tony Blair 
  1. The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry 
  1. The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne 
  1. The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy 
  1. Restless by William Boyd 
  1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown 
  1. Hard Landing by Stephen Leather
  1. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
  1. Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope 
  1. Armadillo: A Novel by William Boyd 
  1. The Sand Café by Neil MacFarquhar 
  1. Redemption by Lee Jackson 
  1. Bullshit, backlash & bleeding hearts : a confused person's guide to the great race row by David Slack 
  1. The Dark Art of Politics by Simon Carr
  1. Londongrad by Reggie Nadelson
  1. Two titans : Muldoon, Lange and leadership by Jon Johansson 
  1. Moral Hazard: A Novel by Kate Jennings
  1. Pipeline: A Novel of Suspense by Peter Schechter 
  1. Helen Clark : a political life by Denis Welch
  1. Long Stay in a Distant Land: A Novel by Chieh Chieng
  1. An Accidental American: A Novel by Alex Carr 
  1. Our Game by John le Carré
  1. Tomorrow's Schools 20 years on                                                             
  1. Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  1. 61 Hours (Jack Reacher Novels) by Lee Child
  1. The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King 
  1. The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth 
  1. The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland 
  1. The Weight by Andrew H. Vachss 
  1. Depths by Henning Mankell
  1. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  1. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell 
  1. We the Living by Ayn Rand 
  1. Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward 
  1. The Night Killer by Beverly Connor 
  1. Hellfire by Ed Macy 
  1. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult 
  1. The Hollow Men by Nicky Hager 
  1. The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum
  1. Political Animals: Confessions of a Parlimentary Zoologist by Clifton Jane
  1. Final Approaches: A Memoir by G. C. Hensley 
  1. After-heat : a novel by Keith Stewart 
  1. Cut Out by Patrick Lennon 
  1. God's Own Country by Hugh Ross 
  1. Seeing Further by Bill Bryson 
  1. Any Human Heart by William Boyd 
  1. A film by Spencer Ludwig by D. L. Flusfeder 
  1. The Larnarchs by Owen Marshall
  1. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
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4 comments:

  1. Rose25 October 2011 at 14:58

    Well congratulations from one 50 book challenger to another. And you're well ahead of the pace, it does seem to be quite a bumper year! I've enjoyed One Day and Freedom as well this year, but we've not got much overlap otherwise...

    How do you find shelfari? I'm a LibraryThinger myself...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard M29 October 2011 at 02:36

    Thanks Rose. I'm guessing your rate has taken a hit with the new job?

    Shelfari is pretty good. The interface looks nice, but it can be quite slow to load. I've always been able to find a book in the catalogue, even obscure ones. Now I've been using it for a couple of years it's a good archive of what I've been reading.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AlexandTory25 November 2011 at 11:26

    Thinking, fast and slow. Daniel Kahneman. Do it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Richard M25 November 2011 at 19:47

    Thanks for the tip Al, just loaded in onto my kindle. I'll let you know what I think.

    ReplyDelete

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