2010: That Was The Year That Was

Another year has slipped by all too quickly and it's been an up and down year for me but punctuated by some great reads which I want to briefly recap here.

This was the year that I read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, and absolutely loved it.  I wanted to wear the beautiful kimono that he described so brilliantly.

This was the year I discovered Fyodor Dostoevsky, reading Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.  I thoroughly enjoyed both, they had such wonderful and profound characterisations.

This was the year that I journeyed through South America and travelled to Cuba with Che Guevara.  I thought his biography A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson was simply awesome.  I could not get enough of 'Che', reading his Motorcycle Diaries and his Bolivian Diary and even dipping into Guerilla Warfare. What an amazing man, but whose life could have been so different had he not met Castro.

This was the year I fell in love with the amiable twit Bertie Wooster.  P G Wodehouse's humour just hits the nail on the head with me.  What a laugh I have had with Bertie and Jeeves.

This was the year I read about bicycles in The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.  A bizarre vision that is very funny in it's absurdity. Definitely one of my favourite reads this year.

This was the year I met the tragic Madam Bovary and Therese Racquin and finished the Harry Potter series.  I went North & South with Elizabeth Gaskell and even travelled to Edwin A Abbott's Flatland.  I went back to the Dark Ages in England with Ivanhoe and then on to Paris in the Middle Ages with Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Then I finished my travels with a little Australian novel called The Celtic Dagger and by crikey I wished I had one to put me out of my misery whilst reading it.  I reviewed it for Good Reads and tried to be as objective as possible but between you and me I have to query whether the author Jill Paterson had ever read a book prior to embarking on her literary career.  It has to be possibly the worst novel I have ever read (as in literary style) possibly on a par with the pretty much unknown Cuckold Conspiracy, of which the author's name at present has escaped me, but which I promised to read and review for his feedback via my bookclub.  But, as I always remind myself when I'm in these critical moods "they're published and I'm not, so there".

Xmas Dinner

My book list is ready for next year, with the first book being Opposing Energies by J W Collier.and I will endeavour to finish Adam Bede and Pride and Prejudice - I was so looking forward to my break to catch up on my reading but I have barely had time to read anything!

Oh, I nearly forgot this is also the year that I bought my first brand new car, a velvet red diesel  Holden CD Cruze   I take delivery on Friday so that does end my year on a high note which makes up for the extremely wet Chrismas Day we experienced (as you can see by the photo our planned picnic took place in the lounge!)

Finally, as this is my last post for 2010 I just want to wish everyone who views this a Happy and Safe New Year, and if you are an author of any book I review please accept that I say it as I see it and I do admit to having a half written novel of which I will never finish as my own literary style is pretty ordinary at best :)