Ed's reading list from 2010

Let's see what 2010 brings....

Glad to see you are going to be back with us in 2010!

Welcome back!

1) The Great Mortality covered much the same ground as Zeigler's The Black Death but with a bit more on the underlying biology/zoology/epidemiology of the disease and less on the social history. Looking at the bits on what it could have been if it were not plague Kelly rather too obviously nailed his colours to the mast from the start by referring consistently to Y Pestis; at times his geography seemed weak with Crawley and Southampton put in the wrong counties (though admittedly boundaries do move and he may have been right for the time) and quite why there was so much on persecution of the Jews is beyond me when the summary of that part could be put as "there were horrible things done to them before, during and after the Black Death - if anything nasty happened there was a good chance that the Jews would suffer". Those minor gripes aside, well worth it.

I already had The Great Mortality in the BlackHole, but had not heard of the Ziegler book. I will look for that one as well. Thanks for the mention, Ed.

2) The Last Continent to keep the Pratchett re-read ticking over with a tale of warmer climes - to take my mind off the snow that I see falling at the moment.

3) The Pursuit of Love was prompted by a book club pick last year of the The Mitfords (a collection of some of the letters between the various Mitford sisters. An absolute scream of a book and well worth the read - so much of it is so clearly a patching together of various parts of the life of the sisters that it's easy to see how it produced some family feuding. Definitely leaves me lookng forward to Love in a Cold Climate.

4) Return of the Economic Naturalist is another of my collection of "popular economics" - in this case a collection of newspaper/magazine columns. Very much US orientated and so there was some interesting background bits on the waythe USA works (or not as the case may be) - the contrasts with the UK being particularly interesting. I suppose that the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence is an observation that applies here as in so many other things. The consumption tax was an interesting idea and the bits around costs to society of individual choices and the problem of the commons were also well worthwhile.

5) Carpe Jugulum for a dose of vampires and reverse vampirism (aka being Weatherwaxed).

6) Beowulf: A New Verse Translation is one that I'd been meaning to read for quite a while and was finally prompted into it by it coming up at a book club. The story's a good one and you can divert your self by playing "spot the things Tolkein stole" - but my min reason for wanting to read this one was to see how Heaney approached it and how readable it was. On that score pretty good - I've read a couple of other verse translations and this was way better than the Penguin one and on balance I reckon on a par with Rebsamen's (which doesn't seem to want to come up as a touchstone) nicer phrasing but a bit stilted in parts.

I really liked the Heaney translation as well. It was much better than the version I remember reading in high school.

Yeah, me too. I liked Heaney's translation way better than previous.

And if you want to have some more fun with the story, there's Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead for a different spin!

7) The Science of Discworld brought me to the first of the commentarys on my re-read.

8) Anglo Saxon Attitudes is one that I'd made sevral previous attempts at but not got beyond about half way. Actually I thought I hadn't got that far but kept recalling bits. I can't say it particularly appealed but worth the read - nice idea, well written but I just didn't like the characters.

9) The Fifth Elephant keeps the Discworld re-read ticking over. One of my favourite ones this.

10) Silent Spring I have to say surprised me by being much more restrained and better argued than I'd been expecting. It's certainly stood the test of time pretty well and the scale of the problems there certainly put some of the more modern health scares very much into the background. What would be really fascinating is to know a bit more about what was driving some of the apparently brainless behaviour - a failure of understanding, being locked into a particular paradigm, cynical commercialism/corruption or whatever. It really needs that to serve as the more general warning that we seem regrettably often to need.

I love The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Jessica Mitford's memoir Hons and Rebels draws on some of the same material.

11) Everything is Illuminated was one from the Book Club. A nice idea to intertwine the separate story lines in this way but I can't really say that I see why it's so well regarded. The "main" story I found week and lacking unless it's meant to be a parody of what a young writer learning to write produces - this being what the author (real Foer) presents the "author" (character Foer) as. The bits "by" the Alex also left me puzzled - as they got into the meatier bits the mangled choice of words cured itself. OK, you could argue this as him learning to write better English as the months passed - but I can't help thinking that the author just couldn't remember to keep it up. On the plus side the grandfather's story - now that did work well. In short, a nice idea but not well done.

I seem to have been overdosing a bit on the Discworld in the last few days, though other things are ongoing, they're going a bit slowly.

12) The Truth for a dose of politics and journalism.

13) Thief of Time for the return of the ever delightful Lu-Tze (I feel sure that there's a ghastly pun in that name but I've not gon looking for it).

14) The Last Hero is, strangely, one that I hadn't previously read and found a bit disappointing - really too much of a derivative "bits of".

15) Frankenstein is one that it's been a few years since I read and was definitely worth the re-read. The moral dimensions of the application of science are something that had always been obvious in it but this time I couldn't help wondering whether there is anything in Victor's relationship with his creation that should be seen as a parallel for God's relationship with man - whether as a parallel or as a contrast is a question that I'll leave for later deliberation.

16) Madame Bovary was not what I'd been expecting. The adultary seemed to me far less a part of it, or even the essence of it, than I'd been given to believe. As a study of mid nineteenth centuary provincial life, on the ways people muck each other up (emotional, political, financial family). Yes the adultary comes into this but it's only one of the means to achieve those unfortunate ends - so all in all a pretty depressing book as nobody seems to come out of it well. And the baddy? The only inner of tha prize as far as I'm concerned is Lieuvain, though the pharmacist seems to run him close at the end.

Bit of a quiet period on the reading front of late...

17) Alex's Adventures in Numberland was a diverting tour of some of the more accessible reaches of mathematics. As with a lot of books of this sort, not a huge amount of new stuff, but nicely done and the idea of crochet as a technique in higher mathematics - well, who'd have thought it!

18) The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents to keep the Discworld reread ticking over with a delightfully cynical view of the world.

19) My Name is Red I found frankly a disappointment. Romantic fiction isn't a favourite genre and neither is crime so it was always likely to be a bit of a long shot. The one word reviews on the front of my copy read "Wonderful", "Magnificent", "Sumptuous" and "Unforgettable" - I can't see what prompted the first three and I rather suspect that my views and the Guardian's on why it is unforgettable are rather different (unless of course theatre review tactics have been employed).

#18: Being something of a math nerd, I will have to look for Alex's Adventures in Numberland. It looks too interesting for me to pass up.

The Truth has definitely been my favorite Discworld book thus far...! It's worth a re-read for sure :)

Can't say I'm interested in the math book though... LOL! But, it does sound interesting for someone who likes math (not me!).

Ah, the joys of a Bank Holiday weekend with a bad weather forecast: the being read pile has a chance to get a bit smaller...
20) The Science of Discworld II keeps things moving on that front.

21) A History of Christianity isn't a great one when you're trying to beat 75 for the year as it runs to over 1,000 close set pages (ball park guess 450,000 words). Well worth the effort though as it's readable, informative and gets a decent balance between the theology, its development and the wider historical backdrop. On second thoughts, backdrop is the wrong word because of the role that Christianity has played in shaping out that wider history. A pity though about a couple of MacCulloch's foibles - referring to the British Isles as the Atlantic Isles (despite accepting in his introduction that this will cause confusion) and referring to dates as BCE/CE (as though BC/AD isn't directly relevant to the theme of the book and what else is BCE/CE than a mealy mouthed change of name in the hope of avoiding offending the ignorant - date it from the founding of Rome, Mohammed's move to Medina or whatever but at least have the decency to acknowledge your dating point). But enough of my ranting - a book well worth reading.

#21: It looks like A History of Christianity is one I should invest in buying rather than checking out of the library. Thanks for the recommendation, Ed.

22) Guns, Germs and Steel might well be subtitled "Why history's all about dead white men" - except for the chapter on African (although even that brought some surprises). Some absolutely fascinating stuff which opens as many new questoins as it closes old ones.

23) The Name of the Rose was a second forray into Eco's work and one that I found much better than Foucault's Pendulum (which I read last year and found singularly dull). Almost enough to make me think about re-reading that - but not yet as the pile awaiting my attention for the first time of asking is still rather toolarge to go in for a reread of that.

I have been meaning to read Guns, Germs and Steel for a while now. I must bump it up the stack.

I received Guns, Germs and Steel for Christmas at least 4 or 5 years ago... but haven't read it yet. Oh, the shame...

Hi edrandrew, I'm also rereading the Discworld series, just finished Thief of Time, Night Watch is next !
Also enjoyed The Name of the Rose but did like Foucault's Pendulum.
Thanks for the Beowulf and Numberland reviews, I'll chase them up.
I wouldn't normally admit this publically, but in support of dk_phoenix......I've owned a copy of Guns, Germs and Steel for years and haven't read it....
Cheers !

24) Night Watch keeps the Discworld reread going with another dose of the wisdom of Lu Tze.

25) Accidental Tourist was one read for the bookclub and I didn't particularly enjoy reading it. There was something that jarred and I never quite put my finger on it - but it worked well as a book for a bookclub since the conversation that it sparked was worthwhile. Both from that and from the other views and reviews of it that I've read, opinion was divided on the ending but for me it worked and the fact that it's more an ending of the book than an ending of the story is nice (I'm assuming here that there isn't a sequel lurking which is my normal concern for this sort of an ending). Overall, OK.

26) Our Tragic Universe was another nice one from Scarlett Thomas - less of the fantastic than I'd been expecting but perhaps that was an expectation from The End of Mr Y that was a bit in error. Nice, believable characterisation although a writer writing about a writer having problems writing a book about writing a book is liable to get a bit circular. My only real gripe is that her protagonists here, and in Mr Y and in Popco all read to me like the same person.

27) The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England does exactly what the title implies - just think of the past as another country and if your holiday plans for this summer include the fourteenth centuary this could be justthe guide for you. Readable, informative and entertaining it's an excellent way to do the social history bit, and not bad on some of the economic bits. Similar in many ways to Liza Piccard's series but actually gets out of London for a bit.

28) The Prince of Mist - it's always a bit of a worry when the statement "Author of..." stands out more stongly on the cover than the name of the book itself however this works well enough though I found it hard to place, it left a lot of hows and whys unaddressed and it left me rather disappointed. OK, aimed at the "young adult" audience which perhaps excuses some of that. A good enough way to pass a few hours on the train though.

29) Bad Laws gets stuck into the recent proliferation of pettyfogging, interfering, nanny state legislation that has helped make Britain the basket case that it is today. It does for the social/legal side of government what Squandered did for the financial, though with more acknowledgement that things were starting to go off track before 1997. How much the promises/suggestions/whatever-they-were of the new govenment will make the readerof a few years down the line think this seems a bad dream/fantasy remains to be seen but pulled together into one place it's certainly one of those books that makes you think "Gosh, we have rather lost it here haven't we".

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England looks interesting--I'm putting it on my wishlist.

30) Dr Faustus is one that I.ve had for a long time and newver got round to. I finally got rounto it on account of the overwhelming number of references to Fausts in #31 (below) - but it was no use. Clearly the different versions of the story cover a wide range of varitions around the central theme. Nevertheles, a dverting little thing that plays the story out in a more comic manner than I'd expected.

31) The Master and Margarita I found puzzling. Having ploughed through the detail of the history of the Soviet Union as reported in Gulag Archipeligo it's fairly clear what the author is satirising and how closely he was sailing to the wind (noting that it eventually got published, censored, in '66 ie when the cult of the personality of Stalin was deeply out). Some nice comic pieces and a good dose of the wild fantastic -so good but somehow disappointing.

I have The Master and Margarita set aside to read this year. I am sorry you found it disappointing.

No - there is lots in its favour and I found hugely enjoyable in many ways but I did feel terribly let down by the epilogue, where it all gets written off. If that had been there as the findings of the "official report" into the matter then it would have held the satirical line nicely - but the way it was presented didn't allow for that. Fine, there are political aspects to consider and I rather suspect that things would have gone badly for Bulgarkov if the text had been found in, say, 1937 - but reading it today (and especially if reading it today without a good chunk of background knowledge) the epilogue rather killed it.

#33: I will check to see if my copy has an epilogue. If it does, I will skip it! Thanks for the heads up.

Whoops, I seem to have forgotten about this for a while. Let's see how the memory fares for the last few week's reading...

32) The Language Instinct was a bit too much on the theory of how a sentence makes sense - but the bits on the development of language skills, the biology and brain bits were fascinating. Taken together with the large part of Guns, Germs and Steel that dealt with the evolution and spread of language it works well; read the pair!

33) Transition was the second of Ian Banks' that I've read and it was interesting to see how the critics divided on this one. I liked it and a lot of the things presented as weaknesses didn't bother me. It also gives a nice, off the wall, "reason" for prople acting completely out of character. Good characterisation and a reasonable plot (once you've untangled the way the different narrators are following different timelines). My only gripe is that in tone and general strategy of the plot it did seem remarkably similar toe the other one of his that I've read (The Business) - coincidence?

34) The Road was a disappointment. And the more I think about it the more disappointed I am by it. The scenario is full of holes and doesn't work as a believable world. OK, block that out - just take it as a background to be read as "It's all gone to hell in a handcart" and concentrate on the characters. Oh, well there's two of them and aside from the fact that one of them dies at the end nothing really happens to them - events do, but developments don't seem to. I also found myself thinking that the last 30 odd pages were added at an editor's/publisher's/draft reviewer's insistence for at least a potential for a happy ending. That was the last straw for me.

35) Jane Eyre completely surprised me. A book club I'm in is likely to be reading the prequel so I thought I ought to read this first. It was not what I expected - and was considerably better. Much less of the childhood misery that I'd somehow got the impression was the mainstay of it. OK, some of the happennings were a bit far fetched/coincidental but the story worked nicely.

36) Ape and Essence is one that I've had but not got round to for many years. I got about half way through it twenty some years ago and finally got round to reading the whole. A nice idea of the screenplay within the story and as a post apocalytic much more believable than The Road. Quite a lot of similarities with my memories of The Chrysalids so I think I'll have to reread that.

37) The Princess Bride was an interesting one - aside from the story itself, there was also the story of how the story fitted into Goldman's life. How much of that is strictly autobiographical, how much is just another layer to the story? The base story itself was OK - in the fabulous, fairy tale style of things but the wider story of how it came to be that way is really what makes it in interesting book for me.

Congratulations on making it to the halfway point of the challenge, Ed!

Since I normally have several books on the go at any one time I'll not nit pick on the odd half book, but move swiftly on to...

38) Fatal Attraction provides a bit of the history of scientific understanding of magnetism by looking at the work of 3 individuals of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Four if you count in a brief post script on Faraday. As well as the scientific bits there's also some good stuff on the role of science and the scientist in society and Fara does a good job of setting out how magnetism was seen and understood - always a tricky one when you have the benefit of knowing the "right" answers. A bit more on how magnetism's understanding was moved forward to the modern understanding would have been good and a brief summary of how the pre-enlightenment thought of it would have served well to set the changing views of the period examined in perspective. But that's a minor gripe and arguably would take the book away from the implications of the subtitle.

#39: That one looks interesting. I will see if I can locate a copy. Thanks for the recommendation, Ed.

39) The Angel's Game is the second of Zafon's I've read this year and, like The Prince of Mist it does a nice job of blending reality and the fantastic. I was in two minds about it at the three quarters point but the last part positively flew.

40) Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy - When the references, bibliography and index of a book account for a third of the pages you know you're looking at something pretty thorough. To my mind (biased chemist speaking here) it's not perfect because it doesn't address the problems that had to be addressed in the purification and isolation; even more irritatingly it mentions that there were big problems but doesn't even mention what they were. Aaarghhhh! That said it is very strong on the issues with the fermentation and the biology around antibiotic resistance and the unexpected strength was the political background: both the US/UK issues around the wartime work and around addressing the emergence of antibiotic resistance with the 3 way dust up between the pharmaceutical, medical and agribusiness interests.

I'd recommend Miracle Drug by David Masters to address some of the gaps - but as it was published in 1946 it only covers the early work and is a bit gung ho. Oh and probably rather hard to come by.

#41: I am currently re-reading Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind and hope to get to The Angel's Game soon. I am glad that you enjoyed it.

Cavaliers and Roundheads is one that I've had for a while and finally got round to. A good history of the English Civil War - not much on the politics or origins, but pretty good on the campaigning and the realities of civil war. Read for that the general inhumanity and agruments almost more vitriolic within the parties than between them.

42) The Hunting of the Snark disappointed me by not being as nonsensical as I'd been hoping for.

43) A Little Book of Language continues a developing thread in my reading for this year. Not really sure why how language works has suddenly come to a degree of prominence in my reading matter. This was a nice easy read touching lightly on a wide range of areas.

44) History of Western Science aka Science: A History is another fairly hefty tome but a good read - a nice balance of the ideas, the historical context and potted biography. It's also nice to see some of the ideas that got abandoned such a phlogistan and caloric being given a bit of a run out. Definitely a recommendation.

Too bad A Little Book of Language is not available at my local library yet. I would enjoy that one.

I am also interested in Science: A History and it is not available at the local library yet either. *sigh*

Phew, a lucky escape for your pile of to be reads! Meanwhile...

45) Human Croquet I found disappointing. The time shift device has no relevance to the plot (other than a sign of people loosing their marbles) which just leaves us with a multigenerational story line with the bits mixed up. That and a series of tales of woe and misery just, I assume, to make us feel a bit better about ourselves - rape, murder, incest you'll find them all here in 2 or 3 incarnations. The characterisation though, that worked nicely enough and the relationships seemed to ring pretty true - but to what end?

#47: I feel completely safe in skipping that one! I hope your next read is more enjoyable.

46) Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition. At least I didn't expect the picture of the said body that this book paints: though that's what using Monty Python as an historical authrity does! That Jewishness was seen a a cultural/racial problem is an ideal that has rather obviously recurred and that a few decades after it ceased to be an issue the spotlight swung round onto Islam draws some interesting parallels.

47) The Double Cross System has the somewhat unusual status of being book that started off life as an internal report before being published some 25 years later. A fascinating read, and a rminder of how much stranger the truth can be than fiction - or rather how measured a satire Our Man in Havana is (reminder to myself - I must get reound to finshing that).

#49: The Double-Cross System is a book I have had in the BlackHole forever. Thanks for the mention - I will move it up!

48) Tokyo Vice was an absolute gem, with some fascinating takes on Japan, orgnied crime and journalism. Not a pretty picture but thoroughly engrossing.

49) Excession for a piece of Sci Fi.

Whoops. I appear to have let things slip a bit and this list needs some updating...

50) Molecules of Murder looks at several poisons of a molecular nature (hence the name) - thus ricin, atropine, cyanide, paraquat etc. For some reason polonium also got a mention (presumably because the author had previously done Elements of Murder and Polonium was only a late addition to that arsenal). Anyway, for each some case histories, the chemistry/physiology of how they work and the ways their use is identified. It wears its science side lightly but manages to be an informative read.

51) Pig Island was read for the book club and wasn't worth it. The blurb on the back says "Brace yourself for a terrifying read" - terrible would be nearer the mark. The less said on this the better.

52) The Chemistry of Fragrances gives what seems to an outsider a good introduction to the technical sides of the business - the natural and synthetic materials involved, the challenges of formulation and a brief outline of the product development cycle. Well worth the read - but if you can't cope with a little stereochemistry and a few curley arrows you may find large parts going over your head.

53) I Shall Wear Midnight read suspiciously like a swan song with lots of characters coming out for a final cameo appearance. A good one and doubtless much debated and describeed elsewhere on the Thing.

54) Our Man in Havana is one that I've been reading sporadically over a few months now. I'm not sure why it's taken so long because it's really rather good and (having read Brighton Rock last year) I suspect I'm becomming a bit of a Graham Greene fan. What made it particularly fascinating was having read The Double-Cross System part way through it, it managed be be both farcical and damn close to factual.

#52: Welcome back, Ed!

Molecules of Murder looks like one I would enjoy. Thanks for that recommendation.

As for Graham Greene, I have not read a lot of his books, something I need to rectify. I will have to take a look at Our Man in Havana for sure.

I definitely agree with your comments on Pig Island. I've tried two of Hayder's books now and didn't particularly like either one.

I think I shall wear midnight is definitely a swan song for the Tiffany Aching series, and probably for the witches overall. Unfortunately, the one Pratchett is currently working on is in the Going Postal, Making Money series. While I enjoyed the first, I was underwhelmed by the second, and hope the third can rebound strongly. I dearly hope that Pterry has one more City Watch book in him.

55) A Prison Diary is one that I'd been half meaning to read for a few years having heard Archer speak about his time in jail, but never got round to buying until yesterday morning. Background: Former national politician and top novelist is tried for purjury and convicted. This volume covers his experiences of and thoughts on prison life in the first 3 weeks of his (4 year) sentence and is an absolute cracker. Padded out with the stories and wisdom of other inmates and staff it tells you all you want to know (and a lot you probably don't want to know) about the British penal system. The other two parts have leapt to the top of my next books to buy list.

The (doubtless rather pretentious) thought occurs that in many ways it resembles quite closely the autobiographical sections of Gulag Archipeligo.

56) Fooled by Randomness was a touch disappointing - too dominated by randomness in the world of financial services.

57) The Codebreakers is one that had lodged itself in the back of my mind as potentially worthwhile hould I come across it. I came across it in a second hand book shop - 965 pages of text plus notes so it's not a short book but forthe length it's quite a quck read. Very well done, and my only criticisms are a perhaps overly American slant (well, the author's American so let's redefine that as an observation) and the fact that it predates a lot of the British WWII stuff coming out into the open. So all in all, about as good as it gets,although the last chapter (on communication with extraterrestrials) seemed a bit off the subject (though doubtless bang on for the spirit of the mid '60s).

#57: I have had The Codebreakers on the wishlist for a long time. I really need to get my hands on a copy - although the sound of the last chapter is a bit odd.

#58 - I think the thing to remember is that this was a 1966 edition and it was the way to get modern and high tech and all the rest of the things authors can like to do. Also it allowed him to get off the subject of the cold war and finish on a bit more of an up note.

#59: I wonder if there is a later edition of the book? I will check and see. Perhaps it has been updated and the last chapter deleted.

58) Medieval People looks at the lives of 6 medieval people of the humle to middling sort based on the documentary evidence. Aftr a slightly iffy start with the ploughman (when an historian asks me to imagine something I always get worried) it got into a better stride and finished with a couple of fascinating bits on the international trading networks.

59) Coraline & Other Stories came next, and I realy must get round to seeing the film of Coraline. The other stories saw Gaiman in good form, although a couple of them were not new to me and one was a rewrite of part of The Graveyard Book which really didn't stand up to being a stand alone story.

60) Going Postal for a bit more Pratchett, the reread of his work havng rather fallen into a bit of a slough.

61) The Chrysalids is one that I read at school 30 odd years ago. Having read The Road and Ape and Essence I thought a post-apocalyptic triptych seemed in order. In many ways this reverses the Huxley plot and, like it, has quite a sizeable strand on the role of religion in what comes after. A good one an I'm glad I returned to it.

62) Nocturnes was a book club one for a meeting that I ended up missing on account of the snow last week. My usual concern with short stories is that they're the rejected first chpters and pilots for novels that never made it. This collection didn't suffer too much from that. Definitely encourages me to read some more of his stuff because the characters all worked pretty well.

#62: I read Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids earlier this year and enjoyed it. I will have to look for The Chrysalids too.

63) The Devils of Loudun is one that I got years ago and never made much headway with. But should have persisted with. Short version - parish priest makes a lot of enemies, a bunch of nuns go hysterical and the priest's enemies use the opportunity to get their own back. Power politics ups the ante and things get out of hand: the nuns become celebrities, the priest goes up in smoke (literally) and various of the other people involved go mad. It all goes to show that people don't change: just the names of the institutions.

64) The Consolation of Philosophy was a disappointment. Self justificatory wingeing and an argument more shot full of holes than a colander.

65) Begat was another disappointment as there was no real theme to link the various bits. It rather had the feel of a condensation of bits from a regular column of short "diversions".

66) Nineteen Eighty-Four is one that I've not read for quite a few years and should have re-read a bit more often. If it seemed prescient a few years ago it does so even more now with the spread of CCTV, the internet and political correctness. Why, even the comparatively recent MI5 building seems prefigured in the architecture of the ministries, albeit on a smaller scale.

67) 1984 and all That has no relation to the previous book: think volume 2 of 1066 and all that, although on second thoughts perhaps volume 3 as I recall a sequel of And now all this -which I think I have lurking somewhere.

Ed, the 2011 group is up and running. I do hope you will join us again: http://www.librarything.com/groups/75booksin20111#forums

68) Superwally was another blast from the past (from a box of my books under a bookcase at my parents) and a pleasing diversion. Just a bit of a urprise how unchanged some of the stupidity is.

69) Philology for the last word on this year's theme that has been the development of language. This was an 1891 edition so it hardly represents the last word and presupposes a good education in Greek and Latin - neither of which I have, but it' still an informative extension of the theme as it pays quite a bit of attention to English regional dialects.

70) Wee Free Men is one that I managed to forget to include a while back and only realised when I was updating the collections.

71) The Daughter of Time for a bit of historical mystery - it's one of those feintly worrying books that leaves you unsure where the historically accurate moves off into the fictional and thus unsure of what you can treat as good knowledge. Still - a good read and some interesting themes.

#68: I enjoyed both of those books. Wee Free Men was my introduction to Pratchett.

72) The Plague falls, for me, into the category of good but not great. Believable things, believable people etc, but not enough to make me rave about it. It was one for the book club, so I dare say next week's discussions will leave me with a revised set of views.

73) Lazometrics is a tongue in cheek aproach to embedding exercise into the daily routine. More precisely about how to view the daily routine in the terms of exercise while ignoring the more "profitable" opportunities for exercise lurking an inch away. Reads as a book for today, despite being 45 years old.

There endeth the reading for 2010.

Happy New Year, Ed!