Dec 28, 2014

2014 Year in Review...Books

Read 33 Books
Read 57 Short Stories
Abandoned 5 books

This year I finished my Fitzgerald reading project.  I would like to do dome analysis on them, but not sure when that is going to happen.

I have branched off and started reading some more current fiction, and still trying to narrow down what exactly I like in a book, so I am better able to make selections.  I really did enjoy "Never Let Me Go" and "After Dachau".  Those 2 books would be the ones I would recommend to others.

As for the future of my reading?  I do not plan on making any lists on what I will read, but I am sure that when all the challenges start popping up, I will want to join in.  So we will see.  I am just hoping to get more books read in 2015.

Book 53: The Unconsoled by Kazou Ishiguro

So where to start on a review of this book... I decided to continue reading some of Kazuo Ishiguro's works, and this was the next book I decided to read.  And to be perfectly frank, I do not feel I am up to the task of criticizing it.  This book almost ended up in my abandoned book pile, but it was only saved because of the author.  I want to see if Ishiguro can be listed as a favorite author or if he is merely the author of one of my favorite books.

I did not enjoy reading this book, nor did I understand it, but I won't say it was a bad book.  It is written in a surreal manner and filled with metaphor and analogies.  I really was not up to figuring out what the author was really talking about.  Even with all of that, I was pulled to keep reading about the characters.  I think I wanted to know what happened between Mr. Ryder and his son August.

I may revisit this book... or not, only time will tell.

Abandoned Book 5: J by Howard Jacobsen

 I had very high hopes for this book.  The snippet had me hooked and seemed to be right in my reading sweet spot.  Check out the blurb...

Set in the future - a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited - J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying.

Two people fall in love, not yet knowing where they have come from or where they are going. Kevern doesn't know why his father always drew two fingers across his lips when he said a world starting w...
The reality was I really did not care about the love story or the characters, and the story of the history that is not talked about did not seem like it would be revealed.  I got about 75% of this book read and finally gave up because I was not having fun.