Reading Daphne’s blog (yes, that Daphne of The Star) reminded me that I have yet to post up any entry about books in a long while.
And the irony is, I’ve been munching and guzzling books – academic and non-academic – in tonnes this year.
While I thought I had no preferences about books (anything goes), I realised that I disliked chic lit a lot. To me, it’s frivolous and it gets annoying after the first 2 pages. I tried. I did. I tried reading Kathy Lette’s Dead Sexy but maybe I am a married woman, or that I have a short fuse when it comes to women who try so hard but fail and flop on their faces. Whatever it was, I refused to turn the page. I realised also that I am starting to get tired of the types of Asian books which go on and on about the world war, their ancestors, etc. Too many Catherine Lims, I suppose.
Anyway, this isn’t a book gripe so here are my good reads for 2005 (fiction and non-fiction). If you have some great books to recommend (no chic lit please!), let me know. [* indicates non-fiction.]
1. Mort by Terry Pratchett
2. The Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
(Thanks to Eyeris for introducing to me the mad, eccentric, incomprehensibly comprehensible world of Pratchett’s imagination.)
3. When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguoro
4. Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
5. Business As Unusual by Anita Roddick*
6. Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin*
7. Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells
(Thanks to John for this book. Now I can go and watch the Ya-ya Sisterhood VCD I have stashed somewhere in my room.)
8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger
9. The Idea Fisher by Marsh Fisher*
10. Getting All You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham*
11. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
12. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
13. Telling Tales edited by Nadine Gordimer
14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Plus a host of intriguing PDF reads over at www.changethis.com.
Books which I am dying to get my hands on:
1. Talk to the Hand by Lynn Truss
2. The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
4. Logic Made Easy by Deborah Bennett
5. The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio (think phi, think 1.61830)
Tell me, what were your top reads for 2005?
Ay!! No matter how hard I try to avoid them, I still find myself walking down the chic lit aisle. I am married (with kids too!) but some chic lits DO rock while others are ….such big flops.
But self-help books, on the other hand, bores me to tears!!
🙂
wah, I read so many books, hard to tell which is best. haha. Pratchett’s Thud! and Hobb’s Shaman’s Crossing top MY list. 😀