Is it too late to post this? I’m not sure, but I wanted to all the same to document the books I’ve read that would otherwise get little mention here.

Some time in January 2009 I made a resolution, to read more. I had hardly read for the past few years, a handful of books at the most, and I wanted to change that. As a child I’d been a bookworm.

Every summer since 2006 I’ve read Lisa Jewell’s new release, but apart from those and a couple of historical fictions I excluded myself from the world I once loved. That needed to change.

I had an awkward start as I chose a heavy-going factual book on Tudor history. Although I enjoyed it immensely it took a good couple of months to finish as I started to get bogged down and count down pages until the end. I read 27 books of which many were short. I never set myself a goal, though somewhere around the 15 mark I pressed myself for 20, then 25. I’ve set a goal of 40 for 2010.

I kept a database of the books I read with details of page numbers and genre. Late in the year I also started making a note of the dates I begun and finished them. As before I’ve linked those reviewed to their pages.

Non-Fiction

Alison Weir: The Six Wives Of Henry VIII – An in-depth look into an area of the monarch’s life he’d probably rather we’d forget. Very interesting and informative.

Alison Weir: Children Of England – The personal lives of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, and Elizabeth I (up until her sister’s death). Fascinating but frustrating, as the print is far too small.

Lorna Byrne: Angels In My Hair – The autobiography of a woman who has seen angels since birth. Contains thought-provoking concepts.

Fiction

Adele Parks: Love Lies – A woman runs off with a popstar after her boyfriend fails to propose but soon starts to realise that money doesn’t buy happiness. A good moral for wannabes but very predictable.

Alison Weir: The Lady Elizabeth – Queen Elizabeth I’s life from birth to coronation. Little in the way of fiction, falls back too much on factual information. Weir should stick to factual books.

Celia Rees: Pirates! – The upper-class daughter of a trading merchant is sent to the Caribbean where she escapes her betrothal by running away with her servant-girl in tow. Whether this is really suitable for teenage readers I’ve yet to decide.

Elizabeth Chadwick: Shadows And Strongholds – A boy is educated to be a squire and later on marries his guardian’s daughter. Not quite the romantic novel described, more about border-control, but good nonetheless.

Freya North: Secrets – A bankrupt single parent flees the city to become a house-sitter. It’s not a spoiler to say she gets together with its owner, it’s chick-lit after all. The book is good until the formally cool and savvy woman becomes weak and ditzy.

J R R Tolkein: The Hobbit – Some dwarves, a wizard, and a hobbit travel to the mountains to claim the castle back from the dragon. Surprisingly under whelming for all the praise.

Jennifer Donnelly: A Gathering Light – A promising writer seeks freedom from the burdens placed upon her by lack of money and her mother’s death. It’s a good read, but don’t be bought by the murder mentioned on the back, it doesn’t get much airtime and is only a subplot. Titled “A Northern Light” in America.

Lesley Downer: The Last Concubine – An ordinary citizen is plucked from her village by a princess who takes her to live in the Shogun’s palace. She must escape when civil war begins and find her way back home. Worthy of throwing across a room, the book is mostly full of journeying and constant flash backs you’ve already read about. The ending is gushy and damsel-like.

Lisa Jewell: The Truth About Melody Browne – A hypnotist awakens memories a woman had long forgotten and she sets out to discover who she is and where she came from. Not bad but not Lisa. Contains jarring errors which suggest Lisa Jewell should immerse herself in culture for a while.

Marian Keyes: This Charming Man – Four women live their lives all with the shadow of an Irish politician hanging over them. This book shocked me the most, which is surprising for a chick-lit.

Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist – A young boy travels to distant lands to seek the treasure he has discovered lurks there. Revolves around faith and spirituality without the oft-used religious pressure. Potentially life-changing.

Paulo Coelho: Eleven Minutes – A Brazilian woman goes to Switzerland as a dancer but turns to prostitution. She finds herself questioning what makes people happy through the various experiences she has. High on sex and very different to The Alchemist.

Philip Pullman: The Ruby In The Smoke (Sally Lockhart Quartet) – Sally is on the hit list of someone she doesn’t know, for reasons she’s unsure of. It seems many want her dead. She takes cover with an unlikely bunch of friends while researching her father’s life. I read this as a teenager and reading it years later I found it not as compelling, though that’s likely an issue of age.

Philip Pullman: The Shadow In The North (Sally Lockhart Quartet) – A good mystery that’s unfortunately bogged down with financial phrases too high-brow for the teenage target audience. Tends to drag heavily.

Rani Manicka: Touching Earth – A boy becomes engrossed by a dream and as an adult invites people to join him in a drug den, thinking it will please the goddess created from that dream. People who were once happy become despairing. Beautiful descriptions but there are an incredible amount of spelling and grammar errors in this book, so much so that at times fluent speakers speak broken English.

Sadie Jones: The Outcast – A young man arrives home from jail after setting fire to the village church. His family life is wretched but perhaps not as much as that of the girl who’s waiting for him. Full of angst but incredible.

Sadie Jones: Small Wars – A soldier posted to Cyprus becomes affected by the oft-unnecessary violence around him, causing his family pain in the proceedings. Pales in comparison to The Outcast.

Sheila O’Flanagan: Someone Special – A traveller goes back to Ireland to look after her mother and has to fend off sibling rivalries while trying to determine how she feels about her best friend. Quite long for a chick-lit.

Simon Montefiore: Sashenka – A rebellious Jewish teenager finds hope in Marxism, and grows up to be hunted, eventually losing everything because of it. The backdrop wasn’t introduced well enough for anyone unaccustomed to Russian history.

Stephenie Meyer: Twilight – A human falls in love with a vampire who’s often on the verge of killing her despite trying to be a “vegetarian”. Good writing, many damsel moments, much better than the film.

Stephenie Meyer: New Moon – A whole book of filler material seemingly designed to keep the saga in the charts.

Stephenie Meyer: Eclipse – Another book of filler material seemingly designed to keep the saga in the charts.

Stephenie Meyer: Breaking Dawn – A much drawn out but equally compelling end to the saga. Induces yawning and speed-reading alternatively.

Terry Pratchett: Sourcery – The eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son steals the arch chancellor’s hat and goes on a rampage. Humour in heavy doses, sometimes too much.

My favourite book of the year was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, it was so different to anything I’d read before, both in written style and subject. Worst was The Last Concubine by Lesley Downer. I know many loved it but I was so glad when it was over, though it did provide beautiful descriptions of the landscape. Love Lies by Adele Parks provided the quotation “But I do believe in myself, except when I don’t” and Sourcery by Terry Pratchett introduced the idea of libidos having a vocal opinion on the genital dereliction of wizards.

All in all I’m pleased with what I achieved from such a loosely set resolution. It is in fact the only resolution I’ve ever kept.