[books 2011] Neverwhere

80. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Last book I finished in 2011.

Despite having already been a Neil Gaiman fangirl for many years when the TV series came out, I hated it.  It has many elements that meant I should have loved it, but I did not grow up watching Doctor Who and other BBC children's series with zero production budget, so do not feel comforted by the crappy production values they were harking back to.  Plus it was too whimsical and Just Didn't Make Sense.

So I wasn't even interested in the book till Gaiman finally brought out a version that he was happy with.

There's a lot to like about it - the writing style is absolutely gorgeous and fantastic, there's real humour and real tension, but there's a lot about London Below that I just wasn't able to buy into.

[freecycle] Exercise bike

Local(ish) people:

I've decided to get rid of the exercise bike.  I don't use it any more and if I ever find myself in need of home exercise equipment again, I'd go with a cross trainer.  

So, before I put it up on Freecycle, does anybody want it?

Reading in 2011

I read 80 books in 2011, which is 5 more than my previous record (so far as I recall and I can't be bothered to check).  Considering how much time I spent not working, it should have been a lot more, but as it turns out, being emotionally fragile doesn't lead to a lot of constructive activity of any sort.

The year was dominated by reading nearly the whole of the Dresden Files series, in which I am way too emotionally invested.  Otherwise the fiction I read was largely detective novels (supernatural or otherwise), though I did manage a few more literary selections as well.  

Fiction-wise, I'd say my favourite book last year was Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Non-fiction wise, I think my favourite was The Many-Headed Hydra.  This would appear to be the year that I broke my rule about never reading celebrity autobiographies, and I've spent the latter half of the year listening to a lot of Rolling Stones songs on the back of having read Keef's autobiography. 

As to my goals for the year, I failed to halve the size of the to-read pile, though if Jo hadn't had a free book bonanza and I hadn't bought all the Dresden Files books (and the other books that I bought by accident when I went to pick up my copy of Ghost  Story), I probably would have been more successful.  I also failed to read as much poetry as intended, though I have read some at least.  I'm never happy with the amount of non fiction I get through, but when the brain is too fried to take in More Facts, there's not much I can do about it.

So my goals are the same for the coming year: read more poetry, halve the size of the to-read pile, read more non-fiction.

You'd think that, not having money to buy books, halving the size of the to-read pile would be manageable, but you should see the list of books I've reserved from the library instead of buying...