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 closed the book and moved on to the next one.

I had actually started reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, early in December, before our trip to the US, but I picked it up again as soon as I shelved Locke Lamora.  It took me a while to get into the style -- very short chapters punctuated by bullet-point-like asides -- but after a few chapters I was well into the flow of the story.  It's an excellent book. I highly recommend it, and I don't feel like recounting the plot since I just finished it and I'm still a bit teary-eyed.

I don't know what I'll read next, but I'm thinking that I might go for an older book this time.

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