2010 reading meme

[meganbmoore]

It's the "what have I read this year that you've ever read" poll!

Books read: 194
Manga/Manhwa read: 115 volumes

The books are skewed by quite a few “quick reads” (I’d say about 40-something [probably more] of the books are ones that can each be read in 2-3 hours, or less). I’m pretty sure that, last year, I said I was going to read as much as I could of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Georgette Heyer, Terry Pratchett, and Agatha Christie. I succeeded on the last with 17 Agatha Christie books, but I read 1 Austen, no Gaskells, 4 Heyers, and one Pratchett. We’ll see how it goes this year.

I also completely failed at 50 Books POC, and forgot to crosspost a bunch of them. *sad*

Both of these were affected by my having a major attack of the nostalgia bug, though it really isn’t an excuse. As such, a fair number of these are technically rereads, but they’re books I haven’t read in at least 10 years.

My manga reading, I think, was strongly affected by losing Go! Comi and CMX, resulting in my not following favorites as much, and just trying…random things. I also kinda had an aversion to reading the final volumes of some CMX series that were released due to the whole thing where the rest will never make it to the US. Before starting any new series, I need to read those, as well as the final volumes of several series where I have the last few volumes, but…uhm…don’t want them to end.

For the most part, I listed every book individually, with 2 exceptions. I included Nancy Drew but didn’t list the books in a bout of laziness because I kind of…think most people view the original books as more of an entity, and the individual ones don’t stand out as much? Then with L.J. Smith, I listed most by series because they’re currently available in the omnibuses, but also because most were meant to be read together. For manga, I stated the volumes I read this year, but voting should go by any of the series in general.

I also think I did manage to post on more than I originally thought? But there are still some things I would have thought I’d post on but didn’t. Most were read earlier in the year. Which is when I was reading Nancy Drew, so I probably went “I can post on this now, or I can read some more Nancy Drew, and post on it later! And then didn’t post on them.)

poll at lj


Some of the books I enjoyed the most/had the most fun with. (Expect cringing on certain fronts if you read the older books for the first time.) Urm…my entertainment does not necessarily guarantee high quality. Though it sometimes does.

Jane Austen: Pride & Prejudice
Elizabeth Chadwick: The Greatest Knight &The Scarlet Lion
Agatha Christie: Tommy & Tuppence books
Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
Georgette Heyer: Lady of Quality & Sylvester
Jim C. Hines: Princess series
Fuyumi Ono: The Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn
Elizabeth Marie Pope: The Sherwood Ring
L.J. Smith in general.
Noel Streatfeild’s shoes books
Gail Tsukiyama: Women of the Silk &: The Language of Threads
Winifred Watson: Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day
Patricia C. Wrede: Snow White and Rose Red

Also, though not on the above list, here are a few YA that I liked a lot that seem to be completely unknown. (Or at least, I’ve never seen anyone else mention them.)

Susanne Dunlap: The Musician’s Daughter
Mette Ivie Harrison: The Princess and the Bear
Nicola Morgan: The Highwayman’s Footsteps
Marlene Perez’s “Dead Is…” books

I started a lot of manga/manhwa this year, and, strangely, didn’t read much in the way of my favorites. But here are some of the more fun/interesting ones I read some of this year:

After School Nightmare
Bamboo Blade
Ooku
Pig Bride
Recipe For Gertrude
Sailor Moon
Sarasah
Young Magician

And as light novels get far less attention than anime and manga, I also want to point out the Spice and Wolf and Book Girl series. Also, I want to kinda…wave my hand in the general direction of Yen Press’s shoujo (Ok, wrong word, but I never remember the right one?) manhwa. Most of the ones I’ve read are pretty good, and while they mostly fall into the “romantic comedy” and “romantic fantasy” categories, I think there’s also a decent variety there.

And obviously, the books mentioned above are no where near all the things I read that I’d recommend, much less that I liked.

The viewing version of this will hopefully be up to day or tomorrow.