The books of 2009, January
I made a small New Year's resolution: to read at least one good novel every month. Last year was not a good year for reading, for me. The first half of the year was simply chaotic, with a transatlantic move, living with a whole lot of other people, looking after a very young baby, getting married, and wrapping up loose ends from years past. I read less than two books in those six months, South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami, and the later parts of What's Going on in There , which I'd started reading in November or December. 2009 is getting off on a better foot. For a while, I've been wanting to read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I had heard that it was good. The first fifty pages or so were fantastic, and the author's world-building is awe-inspiring, but as the story wore on I started to get bored. By page 200, he hadn't even introduced the main antagonist, and I was so thoroughly bored by the cleverness of it all that I clo