2010 Read list

Max Brooks, World War Z. Realistic, really well-written. A

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Considering I didn't like Crime and Punishment, I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed Brothers. I think C&P was too short, where Brothers is long enough for you to get a feel for Dostoyevsky's writing. A

Umberto Eco, Baudolino. Cute, entertaining, but I liked The Name of the Rose better. B

Kate Furnivall, The Russian Concubine. I actually wrote a long, scathing piece for this book that I was going to publish. It reads like it's written by a sixth grader: unrealistic love story, repetitive language, a kind of insulting treatment to the Chinese characters in the story, and you can tell that some of the subplots were too complex for her to keep up with, so she just dropped them mid-way. D

Neil Gaiman, American Gods. (reread) Better than I remembered it. A

Neil Gaiman, Anasi Boys. (reread) Still my favorite. A

Stieg Larsson, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Ugh, the fucked-up plotness helps to make up for the unrealistic and one-dimensional characters, and the shitty dialogue... but not good enough. However, like The Da Vinci code, it's a book that's fast and fun and easy and that's why everyone on the train is reading it. If you read, y'know, real books... I don't recommend wasting your time. C

Debbie Macomber, 8 Sandpiper Way. This was recommended by a coworker, and she was insistent that I read it, so don't hate. As you can imagine, it was boring, and unlike the Furnivall book, it didn't even have a great setting. Little town, where no one does anything truly bad and all the older single people were once married, but lost their spouses due to tragic deaths (seriously, there are, like, three cases of that in the book) -- apparently, messy divorces don't exist here. It's a wonder she could find any conflict to fill a book with. Can you believe that there's a series of these? D

William Manchester, A World Lit Only By Fire. Long, long ago reading assignment for AP European History that I never fully read. It's great, but if Manchester isn't an atheist, I'll eat my hat. Scathing history of the church's early centuries -- not that it's easy to find nice things to say about the Vatican back then -- but a really entertaining and educational read. B+

Chuck Palahniuk, Pygmy. Not my favorite, but I really liked it. Same ol' Palahniuk. A-

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This was pretty interesting when it wasn't being INSANELY BORING. Too much recitation of other people's philosophy, to the point of me wondering how much of this book is actually Pirsig's work. The interesting parts truly are interesting, though, and I think if I had read this in a class, I'd really enjoy it. Without that assist, though... B-

Seth Grahame-Smith (& Jane Austen), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Someone told me that you have to read Pride and Prejudice to really get the hilarity of this book. Well, I'm here to tell you: not so. It helps to know the basics of the plot, though. B+

Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy. A biographical/historical fiction based around the life of Michelangelo. This was amazingly written, and you can tell the man did his research. You learn a lot about the history of the time through the eyes of an artist. (I.e., the Medici's = not so bad). Super, super recommended. A

Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind. Excellent plot, excellently written, in the way only a Spaniard can. A