I have always enjoyed other bloggers' reading lists. So much so, that I was inspired to keep my own reading and listening list this year. I'm including audiobooks because I seem to have gotten through more of these than paper books. Weaving, knitting, mending, sewing, and mundane tasks like shelling seeds or snapping green beans lend themselves to listening to books!
Mine is not a fancy list. No reviews, no links, no pictures of book covers. Just a list. But I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has them.
Paper Books
- Queen Isabella by Alison Weir
- All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
- Killer's Wake by Bernard Cornwell
- Crackdown by Bernard Cornwell
- Wildtrack by Bernard Cornwell
- Babe The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith
- How To Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
- Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking by Kate Downham
- Never Grow Up by Jackie Chan
- Tying Up the Countermarch Loom by Joanne Hall
- Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
- How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis A. Schaeffer
- A Dyer's Garden by Rita Buchanan
- The Stowaway by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
- The Ark on Ararat by Tim La Haye and John Morris
- Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell
- Uthred's Feast by Bernard Cornwell with Suzanne Pollak
- Weave Classic Crackle & More by Susan Wilson
- A Crackle Weave Companion by Lucy M. Brusic
- The Last White Rose by Alison Weir
- People of the Wolf by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear
- Wideacre by Phillipa Gregory
eBooks
- A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe by Tom Findlay
- Permaculture Thorns by Paul Wheaton
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Audiobooks
- The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan
- History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
- A Daughter of the Land by Gene Stratton-Porter
- The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
- Putting the Most Into Life by Booker T. Washington
- In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
- Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
- All in the Day's Work by Ida Tarbell
- Vagabond Adventures by Ralph Keeler
- The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
- Across the Plains in 1844 by Catherine Sager Pringle
- The Backwoods of Canada by Catharine Parr Traill
- Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman
- By Ox Team to California by Lavinia Honeyman Porter
- The Autobiography of a Clown by Jules Turnou
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Rez Life by David Treuer
- Fathers of Biology by Charles McRae
- Scott's Last Expedition Vol. 1, The Journals of Robert Falcon Scott by Robert Falcon Scott
- The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the Fram, 1910-12 by Roald Amundsen
- Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America by Herbert Spinden
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Artemis by Andy Weir
- Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
- Peaks of Shala by Rose Wilder Lane
- Across Asia on a Bicycle by Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
- The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, volumes 1 & 2, by Marco Polo as told to Rustichello da Pisa
- The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
- Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- The White Princess by Philippa Gregory
- The King's Curse by Philippa Gregory
- The Saga of the Greenlanders, author unknown, translated by Arthur Middleton Reeves
- The English Governess at the Siamese Court by Anna Harriette Leonowens
- Lucretia Borgia by Ferdinand Gregorovius
- Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
- Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
My selections were random, i.e. whatever struck my fancy at the time. But I like that it's a relatively eclectic collection. I think by keeping the list, I made a more concerted effort to read. But also, by using my evenings for weaving instead of poking around the internet, I was able to listen to all those audiobooks (a more productive use of my time!) I plan to keep a reading list for 2025 too.
Does anybody else keep a reading list?
My 2024 Reading List © December 2024
20 comments:
I don't keep a list but I do keep a stack which gets given away once a year to a friend who uses them in his free library on a post in front of his house. Thus he now has a reputation of having one of the best little free libraries with non-fiction books.
I counted somewhere around a handful but less than two, of books in your list that I have read over the years. For awhile, artic exploration was a subject of heavy interest and I became an Amundsen the explorer fan. I have long been a David Grann the author fan too.
I have a notebook that I made into a "reading" journal. I write down the books I read with the date finished. It has come in handy when I was purging books, to see if I had read them or not ha h! Boy you listen to a lot of audio books. Do you use a tablet or computer to play them? Our library has them, but not sure what form they come in (if they are downloads or on tape or something). You have inspired me to keep track of it on my blog now as well.
Ed, that's a really neat system. Especially the part about the free library. That is such an ingenious idea. I wish we lived in a place that accommodated foot traffic because I'd likely make one.
I'll have to look at my library for more books by David Grann. Killers of the Flower Moon was excellent and I really liked his style.
Kristina, yes, lots of audiobooks! Some of them I check out as CDs from the library, and Klara and the Sun was borrowed from the library online as an audiobook. I listen on my desktop computer.
Most of those audiobooks, however, I found at librivox.org, which has close to 20,000 public domain audiobooks. They are all recorded by volunteers and are all free to download or listen to online. Being public domain means they are older publications, but there is a lot of really excellent stuff to listen to.
Eclectic was exactly the word I had in mind, then you said it! I like quite a few of your choices, Weir and Gregory I like on Kindle rather than audio. But I agree that a lot of tasks go well with audio.
I don't list them, though, but I do mention ones I've liked on my blog with pictures so people can identify them -- a lot of titles seem to be used by several books, confusing. And then there are books with one title for the UK, a different one in the US, arghgh.
Liz, something I learned is that titles cannot be copyrighted. And it is indeed confusing, both for books and movies.
Why they give books different titles in the US and UK is puzzling and the logic of it escapes me. They ought to be the same, especially now that we have broader contacts via the internet. For books, I want to know what to look for, when I get a good recommendation!
My favorite of your list (the ones I have read in your list, that is) is "How Should We Then Live" by Francis Schaeffer. That book literally knocked my socks off. Francis Schaeffer sure was a prophet of sorts. Amazing. I like your varied interests - that is how I am also.
Susan, there are so many interesting books out there!
Francis Schaeffer was an amazing man with a gift of explaining things well. I'd say he was a philosopher of sorts. His perspective on history is unique, but I think accurate.
Libby keeps the list of what I've checked out and listened to; now you've made me curious at how many I've listened to this year! I'm ending one at the moment while plying my Advent spins, and will surely listen to another one or two before the end of the year. Sounds like a good future post...
Michelle, if it helps, I get ideas orf books to look for from other peoples' reading lists and recommendations.
I love your list. I think that it could be mine if I had the time. I love your use of audio books and less internet. I should follow your example.
Donna, time is always the thing, isn't it? I didn't think I had much time for reading until I took a look at what I was doing and what I wanted to do. The audio books are especially nice, because I can do two things at once!
I don’t keep a reading list, but you have inspired me to do so. Your list was WOW! So large. I have no idea how many books I have read but I definitely am now curious!
RT, it's fun to watch the list grow. When I was into writing more, I did a lot of research, but rarely actually read books. Once I started weaving again, I found the time to listen to books, plus take breaks to read paper books.
Sending hugs your way.
www.rsrue.blogspot.com
Thank you Regine!
Loos like we have similar tastes in books to be honest! I've not read any Bernard Cornwell for a long time but maybe I should go back. I used to love the sharpes ones (and the TV series).
Kev, I've read everything of Cornwell's except the Sharpe's series! But Dan gave me the first book in the series for Christmas, so that's fixin' to change. :)
I keep a list of what I read every year and have done so since 2007. What was it like to listen to Anna Karenina and how long did it take? I read it in college and as I recall it was over 1000 pages. I think I would find it challenging for it to keep my attention if I were going to listen to it.
Bob, that's a great tradition. I wish I'd started listing earlier, but then, for a long time I didn't have much time to read so they would have been short lists. :)
I don't recall how long it took to listen to Anna Karenina - weeks! I was was weaving every evening, so I would get a fairly good chunk of listening time every day. I did keep a list of characters, since Russians tend to call everyone by first plus second names. It was just one of those classics I felt I should read.
Post a Comment