timjones in 2010

Here's my complete list of the books I've read in 2010.



1. The Temple Down The Road by Brian Matthews - nonfiction/history (3.5/5) (reviewed below)
2. Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson - novel/science fiction + historical (3.5/5) (see review link below)
3. Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer (4.5/5) (see review link below)
4. Smiley's People by John Le Carre - novel/thriller (4.5/5)
5. Speak Softly, She Can Hear by Pam Lewis - novel/thriller (3.5/5)
6. Sappho: A Garland, translated by Jim Powell - poetry collection with translator's notes (review below) (4.5/5)
7. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov - novella (4/5)
8. Etymology by Bryan Walpert - poetry collection (4/5)
9. Spinners by Anthony McCarten - novel (4/5)
10. This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin - nonfiction - science/music (4.5/5) (review below)
11. Ithaca Island Bay Leaves by Vana Manasiadis - poetry collection
12. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat by Jane Espenson and others (graphic novel) (4/5) (review below)
13. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute - novel (3/5)
14. Selected Prose and Prose-Poems by Gabriela Mistral (review forthcoming in Belletrista)
15. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by larssonbystieg::Stieg Larsson - novel/thriller (4/5)
16. The Girl Who Played With Fire by larssonbystieg::Stieg Larsson - novel/thriller (4.5/5)
17. Cornelius & Co by John O'Connor - poetry collection (review below) (4.5/5)
18. Alternate Means of Transport by Cynthia Macdonald - poetry collection (3/5) (review below)
19. The Ice Museum : In Search of the Lost Land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna - nonfiction/travel (3.5/5) (review below)
20. The Chanur Saga by C J Cherryh - novel/science fiction (4.5/5). (This comprises books 1-3 of a 5-book series. I'll review the series as a whole when I've finished it.)
21. Leaving the Tableland by Kerry Popplewell - poetry collection. An extremely good debut collection.
22. The Norse Atlantic Saga by Gwyn Jones - nonfiction/history+ georgraphy (4/5)
23. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by larssonbystieg::Stieg Larsson - nonfiction/thriller (4/5)
24. Chanur's Homecoming by C J Cherryh - science fiction/space opera (4.5/5)
25. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks - science fiction/space opera (3.5/5)
26 4312439::Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin - novel/historical (5/5) (reviewed below)
27. Magnetic South by woottonsue::Sue Wootton - poetry collection (4.5/5)
28. 8891553::Jane Bites Back by fordmichaelthomas::Michael Thomas Ford - novel/Austenia (3.5/5)
29. 9463886::Ephraim's Eyes by Bryan Walpert - short story collection (3/5)
30. 7460285::Spark by emmaneale::Emma Neale - poetry collection (4/5)
31. 81159::Chanur's Legacy by cherryhcj::C. J. Cherryh - novel/space opera (4/5)
32. 4804325::Unforgiving Years by sergevictor::Victor Serge - novel/historical fiction/political fiction (4/5) (reviewed below)
33. 48021::The Loneliness of The Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe - fiction/short stories (4/5)
34. 9019119::The Word Book by miekokanai::Kanai Mieko - fiction/short stories (4/5) (review to follow for Belletrista)
35. 8717214::Digging for Spain by toddpenelope::Penelope Todd - nonfiction/memoir (4/5)
36. 5996376::Whoops! by John Lanchester - nonfiction/economics (4.5/5)
37. 10238641::Bartering Lines by stevenmichael::Michael Steven - poetry collection (review link below)
38. 10238693::Daybook Fragments by stevenmichael::Michael Steven - poetry collection (review link below)
39. 8705864::Prosperity Without Growth by jacksontim::Tim Jackson - nonfiction/economics (3.5/5)
40. 10379429::'A Tingling Catch': A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems, edited by Mark Pirie - poetry/sport/anthology (4.5/5) (review to follow)
41. 5276341::The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - fiction/novel (3.5/5)
42. Lonely Planet: Greenland & The Arctic - nonfiction/travel (4.5/5)
43. 46665::Heading North by rickerbyhelen::Helen Rickerby - poetry/chapbook (4/5)
44. 8608170::There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by petrushevskayaludmil::Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - fiction/short stories (5/5) - review to follow in Belletrista
45. Out Of It by olearymichael::Michael O'Leary - fiction/novella (4/5)
46. 3818091::Capitol Offense by dooganmike::Mike Doogan - fiction/thriller (3.5/5)
47. 10287660::Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight - graphic novel/horror - (4/5)
48. 478814::McGrotty and Ludmilla by grayalasdair::Alasdair Gray - novella/satire (4/5)
49. 222143::This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich - nonfiction/travel (4.5/5)
50. "Barefoot" by comptonjennifer::Jennifer Compton - poetry/collection (4.5/5)
51. 637581::After Dark by Haruki Murakami - fiction/novel (4/5)
52. Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller by joneskathleen::Kathleen Jones - nonfiction/biography (review below)
53. Elementals by A. S. Byatt - fiction/short stories (3.5/5)
54. A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson - nonfiction/memoir/travel (3.5/5)
55. The Game by Lee Pletzers - fiction/thriller (3/5) (review to follow)
56. Time Traveller by Robin Fry - poetry/collection (4/5)

I have blogged about what I read in 2009 here:

http://bit.ly/5gDbBC

and selected my favourites of the year here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/78444#1688661

1. The Temple Down The Road by Brian Matthews.

Every summer, I look forward to the cricket test match that starts on Boxing Day each year at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Brian Matthews' book isn't an official history of the MCG; rather, it's a series of snapshots of famous events at the ground, many of them attended by Matthews himself. Many of the anecdotes are wonderful, but the structure of the book means that it's hard to put them into context.

Despite the ground's name, many Melburnians think of the MCG first and foremost as an Australian Rules Football ground. The heavy focus on Aussie Rules in this book would delight readers interested in the sport, but didn't do much for me.

So, if you're a Melburnian or a big Aussie Rules fan, you should find this book fascinating. For me, it flared into life from time to time, but was somewhat frustrating overall. (3.5/5)

2. Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson.

See the review on my blog at

http://bit.ly/7dNHsO

>2 timjones: Tim, dukedom just picked this one up the other day though I don't know when he plans to read it. I'll let him know about your review, though don't know if he'll read it beforehand:-)

I hope my review doesn't put him off - it may not be Robinson at his best, but it is still well worth reading.

>2 timjones:, Tim, while your review of Galileo's Dream doesn't make the book sound particularly appealing, I am going to check out The Years of Rice and Salt after your mention of it. How intriguing.

Thanks, fannyprice - I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

Having finished my review book for Belletrista - which I thought was very good, and about which I will say more once the review appears - I read John Le Carré's Smiley's People for my book group; I'd only read his The Spy Who Came In From The Cold previously, and that was many years ago, so I was surprised how much I enjoyed Smiley's People..

I need to finish reading a poetry collection, Etymology, and read the short story collection Ephraim's Eyes, by Bryan Walpert, an author I'm interviewing for my blog, but first I took a further excursion into thrillers by reading Speak Softly, She Can Hear, by Pam Lewis, billed as a literary thriller in the tradition of The Secret History. I enjoyed the writing and the characters, but a key element of the plot seemed implausible to me, which limited its effectiveness as a thriller.

6. Sappho: A Garland, translated by Jim Powell

Sappho is a great poet, and I enjoyed this book a lot. As translated by Jim Powell, Sappho is a poet who speaks directly to modern sensibilities, which many other poets of the ancient world, however great their achievement, do not.

There is nothing a translator can do about the fact that so many of her poems are missing or incomplete, except make the best job of presenting what remains - and in both his translations and the notes that accompany them, Jim Powell does just this. (4.5/5)

3. Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer.

My review of this fine - novel? collection of linked stories? - appears in Issue 4 of Belletrista:

http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue4/reviews_8.php

I'm giving it 4.5/5!

10. This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel J. Levitin

I thoroughly enjoyed - and learned a lot from - this study of how music affects the human brain. The author's background as a musician and record producer who became a cognitive neuroscientist means that he is well placed to write about the intersection of music and the brain, and I also enjoyed the range of musical examples - from punk through classical - he uses. My only gripes are some annoying typos, and that the book is too short. (4.5/5)

12. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat by Jane Espenson and others.

I have been somewhat disappointed by Volumes 4 and 5 of Buffy Season 8, but this 5-issue "Retreat" arc was a lot more satisfying. Buffy and her crew attempt to give up magic under the relentless pressure of Twilight (and no, for non-fans, Kristen Stewart has nothing to do with it), and enlist the aid of people with expertise in the matter; but in the end, the magic finds them ill-prepared.

The previous two volumes were frustratingly bitty and unfocused. With a full five-issue arc, Retreat can tell its story in a way which lets character development be shown through characters' actions, rather than haphazardly. If this upswing continues over what will (I believe) be the final two volumes, the series should finish as strongly as it started.

Oh, I hadn't realized volume six of the Buffy comic was out yet! That's immediately going on the to-buy-soon part of the wishlist!

Following your Buffy adventures with interest. My daughter and I are coming off of a two year Joss Whedon binge--Buffy, Angel, and Firefly/Serenity. We haven't looked at the graphic novels yet, though I would imagine she will get to them eventually as she is a big graphic novel/manga fan.

#14, bragan; #15, theaelizabet: I'm definitely going to collect the rest of this season, then I'll decide whether I'll do likewise for Season 9. Each 5-volume set of Season 8 costs NZ $35, so cost is definitely a factor!

NZ TV have been showing all 7 seasons of Buffy, one episode per night, and we've been introducing our 13-year-old son to them that way. He likes the action and the humour, and doesn't mind the horror aspects, but covers his eyes when things get romantic!

13. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

There is a lot to like about A Town Like Alice, notably the protagonist, Jean Paget. But the clumsy framing story and, especially, the appalling racism towards the Aboriginal characters in the last third of the book - racism which was very much of its time, but uncritically reflected in the novel - prevents me from giving it more than 3 out of 5 stars.

18. Alternate Means of Transport by Cynthia Macdonald

Every so often I read a book which I can see, objectively, has many merits, but which fails to connect with me. Such is the case with "Alternate Means of Transport". The poems in this collection are sophisticated and technically accomplished. They are very New York, urban, urbane.

But though there are many poems here to sit back and admire, very few moved or excited me. I will say that I enjoyed the collection more as it went along: I couldn't get into the title sequence at all, with its puzzling obsession with hats, whereas I found the love poems in the last sequence much more engaging.

The little extract below was one I did enjoy, and it shows the wit and craft of Cynthia Macdonald's poetry to best effect:

But this is Hungary. Here M. and I live in Buda,
Looking at Pest across the river. Ginsberg
Came through last month and proclaimed himself the former,
But all the poets here agree that, sitting on a chair atop
A table, instructing them on instant meditation, he was
The latter.
(from "Letter to Richard from Budapest")

Cynthia Macdonald is a very accomplished poet, so don't let me put you off. But what can I say? This collection just didn't grab me. (3/5)

17. Cornelius & Co by John O'Connor

I reviewed this fine collection on my blog here: http://bit.ly/9RK3kt

19. The Ice Museum : In Search of the Lost land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna

In this book, Joanna Kavenna writes about places that are of great interest to me - Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, and others - but in a way I frequently found off-putting. Her brief is to search for Thule, the mythical northern land of the ancients, but her musings on the Thule myth frequently prevent her from writing about the fascinating people and places that pass before her eyes. Only in the final chapter, about Svalbard, does she integrate her thoughts about Thule effectively into the narrative.

If you are interested in these countries, or in the legend of Thule, then this book is worth reading, but it could have been a whole lot better with a clearer focus. (3/5)

#17, I need to keep up with your thread better! I recently read A Town Like Alice too and enjoyed it, though the first half was much more gripping. The racism didn't overwhelm the story for me, though I can see how others may find it more intrusive. And I agree, Jean is a great heroine. But what did you think of her sexual passivity? I found it very surprising.

>22 atimco:, wisewoman: Thanks! I find it nigh-on impossible to keep up with everyone's individual threads, so I tend to post on the "What Are We Reading In {month}" threads, and link back to reviews on this thread. That said, thank you for visiting this thread!

Re Jean's sexual passivity - particularly as exhibited on the island they go to on holiday (I don't have the book in front of me, and can't remember its name): I don't think its realistic, but it doesn't surprise me in a book by a "middlebrow" male author, written in about 1960, set just after WWII. "Nice gels just wouldn't do that sort of thing!"

True. I guess I just found Shute so intelligent about the other aspects of his characters that it surprised me to find such a big blind spot. I don't think it's particularly complimentary to the man or the woman... the woman's a passive participant, almost a victim, while the man is just a ravenous beast who can scarcely control himself.

>24 atimco:, wisewoman: When our book group discussed "A Town Like Alice", I think all of us found this scene unconvincing and/or offensive.

I liked that poem in >19 timjones: very much!

Witty!

>26 tomcatMurr:, tomcatMurr: I think you would like that collection. I don't think it was a bad book - it just didn't appeal to me very much. The Buda/Pest puns were the best thing in it in my opinion!

oh dear, two puns does not a collection make, right?

>28 tomcatMurr:, tomcatMurr: I felt a little inadequate at times reading this collection, so there may be other, more sophisticated puns that I missed!

Hi Tim - I'm just now catching up. I've added Kalpa Imperial to by wishlist based on your review. Also, I really enjoyed your review of "Cornelius & Co." (post #20)

>30 dchaikin:, dchaikin: Thank you!

Some preliminary thoughts on Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, which I've just finished:

* I found these books gripping.

* Nevertheless, I thought they had quite a few flaws in their execution.

* Considered purely as detective novels/crime thrillers, these books aren't strikingly original.

* Some aspects of the plot (I won't say what, to avoid spoilers) struck me as highly implausible.

* Characters (with the exception of the most important character) tended to be divided into "goodies" and "baddies", with few occupying a middle ground.

* I wasn't always impressed with the translation, particularly of the first novel.

BUT

* Lisbeth Salander is a superb character. It's very rare for an author to create a character whom one can both fear for, and fear.

* Because I wanted to know what would happen to her next, and how she would react, I could set aside the books' flaws.

* The more she acts, rather than is acted upon, the better the books are. Therefore, I thought the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is the best.

* The other thing that lifts these books out of the ordinary is their unflinchingness in depicting sexism and its consequences.

* It's sad that Stieg Larsson died after writing the first three books - but, from a literary point of view, I'm not sure that further books about Salander and Blomkvist would have added much.

I may try to write these notes up more coherently for my blog, but that's my initial reaction.

>32 timjones:: timjones,

"Ouch" was my initial reaction on your last bullet point. For an author, the second part is perhaps sadder than the first.

BTW, does a thriller count as "nonfiction"? I never quite understand how genres are defined.

>32 timjones: I think you have accurately described pretty much any thriller. I'm not a big reader of the genre although I found them easy to listen to while driving when I had a long commute.

>33 booksontrial:, booksontrial: Maybe I came across more negatively than I intended, because I enjoyed these books a lot, with occasional periods of hand-over-eyes reading. I certainly didn't want Stieg Larsson to stop writing - I just felt the Salander-Blomkvist double-headers had run their course. Also, there are few loose ends by the end of Book 3, although there is one major matter unresolved which could have sparked another book.

>34 avaland:, avaland: I couldn't imagine listening to these while driving. I'd have been off the road on several occasions. I'm glad this isn't a problem for you!

Salon's Laura Miller says similar things to me about the Millennium Trilogy, but more eloquently (warning: some spoilers):

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/201...

I've been away from here for a while - reading, but busy. I've enjoyed the last three books I've read:

Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin - here's my brief review:

This is an outstanding novel. Ursula Le Guin takes a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid and gives her and her marriage to the Trojan hero Aeneas life. Ursula Le Guin's superb, and superbly unobtrusive, prose style is the perfect vehicle to tell this story, which I recommend to ... well, to everybody. (5/5)

Magnetic South by Sue Wootton, a New Zealand poet - an excellent collection, which Joanna Preston does a fine job of reviewing here:

http://jopre.wordpress.com/reviews/magnetic-south/

Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford - due to the aforementioned busy-ness, I was looking for something light & lively, and succumbed to this rather charming contribution to the Austen craze. In this novel, Jane, having been sired as a vampire by another well-known literary figure, is now a bookseller in upstate New York - and having a lot of trouble getting her 200-year-old novel published.

The book both contributes to and satirises the current Austen industry. It's not quite a vampire novel, not quite a literary thriller, not quite a satire - but it's still a lot of fun.

To go way back to Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov, check out his short stories. Except for LMM, he's known for his satire. Highly recommended. The Steel Flea, for instance.
There's also a film version of LMM by Andrzej Wajda which is excellent.

>38 tros:, tros: Thanks for this recommendation - though the TBR pile totters above me, I will endeavour to get round to checking these stories out.

>37 timjones: good to know about the recent Le Guin, it's been sitting around the house for a quite a while now (along with another several hundred books I haven't read). Though, I've always found her reliably good.

>40 avaland:, avaland: She's one of my favourite authors (and I've read many more books by her than appear in my library). She has written the occasional book that hasn't done much for me - The Lathe of Heaven, for example - but even in these, I have enjoyed the way she tells the story.

A short holiday at my Dad's place allowed me to get through several books that had been on the pending pile for a while.

Though I thought Bryan Walpert's poetry collection "Etymology" was very good, his short story collection Ephraim's Eyes didn't grab me to the same extent. The stories are very well written, but I felt that, too often, the plots of the stories were contrived for an emotional payoff, rather than arising organically from the premises (usually interesting, and sometimes science-fictional) from which the stories begin.

I should clarify that: stories are contrived, or else they wouldn't be stories, but the contrivance got in the way for me with several of these stories.

So they weren't quite my cup of tea, but other readers and reviewers speak highly of this collection - it is definitely worth checking out.

I finished "Spark", a poetry collection by Emma Neale, who's a New Zealand poet whose work I like a great deal. The first part of the collection, about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, was extremely good - and there was a lot this father could identify with. The second half of the collection didn't resonate with me as strongly, though they are still fine poems.

I also finished the final volume of C. J. Cherryh's "Chanur" series - this final volume, Chanur's Legacy, is something of a pendant to the preceding volumes, but still very good. This is space opera done right: fascinating settings, engaging alien characters, thought- and feeling-provoking questions of identity and morality.

Last in this little burst, I've just finished Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge. My reaction to it is akin to my reaction to Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago: both are fascinating, but flawed, novels. I'll review it shortly.

31. Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge

This novel, set among disillusioned Soviet agents before, during and after World War II, reminded me in many ways of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. It has Zhivago's strengths: depth of character study, memorable set pieces, delicate painting-in of the political background. It also has that novel's weaknesses: choppy, episodic, too many long sections in which nothing much happens.

Yet there are some truly memorable scenes here which make it worth persisting through the rough patches, especially the portrayals of Leningrad under siege, and of some disillusioned agents' attempts to escape history in Mexico. Recommended. (4/5)

I liked Unforgiving Years a lot too, but I didn't think it was as good as Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev. Have you read that?

>46 rebeccanyc:, rebeccanyc: Thanks for your comment. I haven't read "Tulayev"; what makes it a better novel than Unforgiving Years, do you think?

Tim, I read them both several years ago, so I don't have them fresh in my mind, and I read Tulayev first and was really impressed, so maybe it's just that I didn't feel UY measured up. Tulayev was a really chilling portrait of the Stalinist purges, although in some ways horrifyingly humorous, and was less episodic than UY.

Thanks, Rebecca. I shall try to check Tulayev out.

My review of C J Cherry's five-volume Chanur series is now up at:

http://bit.ly/bZvj6T

I reviewed Michael Steven's collections "Bartering Lines" and "Daybook Fragments" on my blog: http://bit.ly/cyfnvD

They are both hardback poetry collections, and things of beauty!

I know Wellington wasn't severely affected from current reports, but I thought of you after hearing about the quake this evening (my time) and hope you and all yours are well and safe.

Thanks for thinking of me, Richard. I didn't even feel the quake, and Wellington wasn't affected. My Dad and stepmum, who live in Christchurch near the epicentre of the quake, are both fine, and the writers I've been in contact with in Christchurch are fine too. There has been a lot of property damage there, but no reported fatalities, thank goodness.

Tim Jones, did you just write a guest essay for io9?

>45 timjones:, fannyprice: Indeed I did! (To be more precise, I wrote a guest post for Helen Lowe's blog, and it was reprinted by io9: http://bit.ly/bqyzth)

Thanks for noticing!

Here's my review of Kathleen Jones' new bio of New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield, which I gave 4.5 stars out of 5:

http://www.librarything.com/work/10330459/reviews/67836454

Interesting notes on the Mansfield, Tim. Happy Holidays.

Thank you, Lois, and Happy Holidays to you!

Thumbs-upped your very concise review, Tim!

Thanks, Richard!

To round out the year, here is my "What I Read In 2010" blog post, including my favourites in fiction, nonfiction and poetry:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-i-read-in-2010.html