Friday 21 December 2007

Booking through Thursday
Happy Christmas to all the BTT mob!
This week's question:
  1. What fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007?
    (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t count.)
  2. What non-fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007?
    (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t count.)
  3. And, do “best of” lists influence your reading?
Oh dear — another week when I have very little to say in answer to the question. Apart from the Harry, and Alan Bennett's 'An Uncommon Reader', I don't seem to have read anything that was published this year. Several slightly older books, but nothing really brand-spanking new.

Best-of lists don't have much of an impact. I am frequently amazed at some of the dross included; but then they're usually all about sales.
I prefer to peruse titles recommended in the reading blogs I enjoy, and they invariably lead on to other things.

* I didn't answer last week's question, about online cataloguing, as I have only a few books here in the US; my collection (or what's left of it, after I culled it to move out of our house) is in storage in Australia. I am bereft!
* And I didn't answer the week before, about favourite books that are out of print, as I really don't have any I can think of.

3 comments:

Jodie Robson said...

There seem to be quite a few of us who aren't keeping up with this year's books - I buy and read lots of older books. Don't buy much new at all, so it's often a year or more after they are published that I get round to them, by which time I've read lots of other people commenting on them and know that I definitely want to read them. And you're right, the best-of lists seem to be about sales.

It must be hard, being without your books - suspect I'd be buying second copies of some things!

Laura Jane said...

Ah but then that would mean that Les is thinking of reading a book for a second time - and that rarely happens!! I can't understand it Les, I feel I can't fully take in a book unless I re-read bits of it, or leave it to mull over then reread the whole book months later.

Its one of the dilemmas I have with buying new books - will I be interested in it enough to read it again, and get the cover price worth of entertainment/stimulation from it.

And then there are whole series /authors that I reread almost yearly (Harry, but that may change now that it has come to a most satisfying ending - it was so good to be with you when I did that!) I have truly enjoyed rereading the Time Traveller's Wife again this year. And the Philip Pulman trilogy.

So NEW 2007 books? Hmm, I must say I was immensely moved by 'Monique and the Mango Rains' by Kris Holloway, a book of non-fiction about Kris' time in Africa with the Peace Corps and her friendship with a Malian midwife. Its very big in midwiferey circles, but anyone could get alot out of it.

Felicia said...

Merry Christmas :)