January 2011: Books read

I have been trying (again) to keep a list of books I have been reading this year. Google Docs is very handy for this because I usually have a Gmail tab open on my browser. According to my list I have only read five books so far; one of which I did not finish. 

Here's the guilty list here:

1. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
2. A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks
3. Isabel Dalhouise: The Lost Art of Gratitude  - Alexander McCall Smith
5. The Election - Tom Percotta
6. Dead White Men and other Important People - Ralph Fevre and Angus Bancroft (DNF)

Currently I am chomping my way through Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I confess to being a reading snob and assumed that Boyd's writing catered for a certain market. The covers of his books seemed a tad glossy and I thought they may have been an upmarket blokey version of chick lit. I am glad to report that I am wrong. Any Human Heart follows Logan Mountstuart as he travels through the 1920s at Oxford, 1930s working as a writer, 1940s as his time in the Royal Navy and 1950s/60s working at an art gallery in New York. The novel is written in a journal format and it works very well. At times I almost forget that I am reading a work of fiction.

Need to get back into the habit of writing reviews more often. My OU course encourages this and has a nice little checklist of things to think about. I may not do this for every book but it's a good start.