Year-ender: Feeding My Mind (Books)

As people who are familiar with me know, I am a voracious reader, and, this year, I continued to explore the world of books. I’ve written about what I’d read by mid year; below are some of the books I’ve read since then.

1.       Unseen Academicals by Terry Prachett - ****

2.       Chew On This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson - ****

3.       Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica - *****

4.       Ghost Story by Jim Butcher - *****

5.       Side Jobs by Jim Butcher - *****

6.       Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholemew - *****

7.       Amelia Rules, Books 6 and 7 by Jimmy Gownley - *****

8.       The Empire series by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts - *****

9.       North and South by John Jakes - *****

10.   Love and War by John Jakes - *****

Still a good number of fantasy books are in the mix, although there are more non-fiction books (Chew On This, Waiter Rant and Pacific Rims) included. There are also two historical fiction books, as I managed to read John Jakes’ wonderful narrative about the American Civil War. I’d been hunting down the second book, Love and War, for the longest time, and finally found it in Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street last November. I’d actually had a complete set of the trilogy, but it mysteriously went missing.

I’m currently reading:

1.       Snuff by Terry Prachett – the newest Prachett book is disappointing so far, since the writing style is so different from Prachett’s previous books. Still, I’m slogging through it, in the hopes that it’ll get better.

2.       Underground  by Haruki Murakami – Murakami’s collected account of the sarin gas poisoning in the Tokyo subways in March 1995 is a powerful read so far. I wish I could understand Japanese to get the more direct account (The English version is translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel).

3.       Feet of Clay, and Thief of Time by Terry Prachett – I think I’m reading these two to balance out Snuff.

Next year, I’m planning to reread, for the umpteenth time, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, plus the Silmarillion and the Hobbit, in anticipation of the release of “The Hobbit” in December 2012. Yes, I know. I’m a geek.

And I’m proud of it.