So it seemed like a mental and unfulfillable task at the beginning of last year but I set myself the mountain to climb of reading 52 books by the end of the year. I read 53.
The question I’ve most been asked online is “HOW??” and, honestly, it’s just reading a bit before bedtime, sitting in on Sundays reading for the day if the schedule allows, taking nights here and there and not turning on the TV ’til late and reading instead…
People were interested in seeing the list, I hope it gives you some ideas.
I’ve categorised them loosely…
The Best Books I Read In 2013
Truman Capote – Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Iain M. Banks – The Player Of Games
Haruki Murakami – 1Q84 Books 1, 2 and 3
Paul Lynch – Red Sky In Morning
Kevin Barry – The City Of Bohane
Ciaran Carty – Intimacy With Strangers
Colum McCann – Transatlantic
Cormac McCarthy – The Road
Horace McCoy – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Albert Camus – The Outsider
Barbara Demick – Nothing To Envy
Stephen King – Dr. Sleep
Julie Otsuka – The Buddha In The Attic
Neil Gaiman – The Ocean At The End Of The Lane
Art Spiegelman – Maus
Nate Silver – The Signal And The Noise
Laurent Binet – HhHH
Daniel Keyes – Flowers For Algernon
Alan Moore – From Hell
Books I Would Highly Recommend
Lee Child – Killing Floor
Will Storr – The Heretics
Arthur C. Clarke – The Sentinel
E.H. Gombrich – A Little History Of The World
Christopher Hitchens – Arguably
Janet Cameron – Cinnamon Toast And The End Of The World
Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast And Slow
Hugh Howey – Shift
Hugh Howey – Dust
Jean-Dominique Beauby – The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
Robert Levine – Free Ride
Brendan Behan – Brendan Behan’s New York
David Sedaris – When You Are Engulfed In Flames
Mikhail Bulgakov – A Country Doctor’s Notebook
Neil Gaiman – Don’t Panic – The Official Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Companion
Decent
Alain DeBotton – How Proust Can Change Your Life
Andrew Kaufman – The Tiny Wife
Gore Vidal – The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Harlan Ellison – From The Land Of Fear
Tao Lin – Taipei
Various (ed. Harlan Ellison) – Dangerous Visions
Books That Disappointed Me
Roddy Doyle – The Guts
Mitch Albom – The Time Keeper
David B. – Epileptic
David Wong – John Dies At The End
Karrie Franshman – The House That Groaned
Books I Was Reading Again That I’d Read Before
Noam Chomsky – Media Control
George Orwell – 1984
F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Terry Southern – The Magic Christian
Didn’t Finish
Ernest Hemingway – The Short Stories Of…
Karen Russell – Swamplandia
4 thoughts on “The Books I Read in 2013”
Wow – that’s a big list alright.
Player of Games is one of my favourite books. Think I might have mentioned that to you on Twitter before.
I loved 1Q84. There was a strange logic to the whole story. It took me a few books to really get into Murakami. This was definitely his best.
I found it very hard to get into City of Bohane even though I can appreciate what’s good about it.
Hhhh didn’t really do it for me even though it was book of the year from one of my favourite book reviewers.
I’ll check out some of your recommendations.
Here’s my top 10 of the year:
http://www.johnbraine.com/2014/01/my-10-favourite-books-of-2013.html
I’m surprised you didn’t enjoy ‘The Guts’, I got it as a Christmas present and really enjoyed it. I’ve never been a fan of the way Doyle writes but I found it actually worked quite well with the story.
Still – doesn’t make me any less suspicious to try out some of your other recommendations!
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