I think I’ll probably end the year with a list of everything I read in 2007, but before that, here’s a little ‘meme’ to give you a few hints and teasers… I shan’t tag any other blogs, but if anyone else wants to have a go, it’s good fun – leave a link in the comments!
In the parlance of newspapers, all this was true at the time of going to press! Who knows how much I’ll have read by the end of the year… three good days left!
-How many books read in 2007?
87 (so far!)
-Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
63 Fiction/14 Non-Fiction, mostly letters
or literary biography
-Male/Female authors?
27 male, 57 female, 3 where there were mixed or anonymous contributors
-Favourite book read?
Top ten listed here…
-Least favourite?
Don’t think that’s very fair to say… nothing this year which I’ve really loathed. And I tend to only blog criticism about the ones which are either a)by authors now dead or b)dead rich! Either way, they won’t much care if I don’t like their work.
-Oldest book read?
That would be the Bible – though the oldest book I read in English (well, I read the Bible in English, but obviously it’s a translation) was Pearl. Or whichever of the Pearl/Cleanness/Patience/Sir Gawain and the Green Knight manuscript was first written. Or MS Cotton X Zero or something… whatever we’re supposed to call it.
-Newest?
That would be Claire Wigfall’s very excellent The Loudest Sound and Nothing which I read before it wa
s published!
-Longest book title?
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J. K. Rowling, actually. If I include subtitles, then it’s The Bookshop at 10 Curzon St.: Letters Between Nancy Mitford & Heywood Hill 1952-73 – ed. John Saumaricz Smith.
-Shortest title?
Sylva by Vercors.
-How many re-reads?
I was surprised to discover that I re-read six books this year, given that I thought I rarely re-read anything. Miss Hargreaves, a couple of Harry Potters, Reading Groups by Jenny Hartley, Fair Play by Tove Jansson (re-read almost immediately) and Aphra Behn’s The Rover.
-Most books read by one author this year?
The ‘Pearl-poet’, or ‘Gawain’poet’ if you prefer, comes in top with four. Next up, step forward Monica Dickens,
William Shakespeare and J. K. Rowling on three each.
-Any in translation?
Yep, 6. The Bible, A Winter Book and Fair Play by Tove Jansson, Sarrasine by Balzac, Sylva by Vercors, The Wonderful Years by Reiner Kunze.
-And how many of this year’s books were from the library?
Erm, (shamefacedly) none… That’s not quite true, actually – three came from University libraries. But I haven’t used a public library in some years… which will probably be the topic of another post sometime…