2007 Reads and other time wasters

This has been a busy-ish year, what with being enrolled in a Practical Legal Diploma course that ran from 9-5, Monday to Friday then finding a temp job a week after the course wrapped. The last 2.5 weeks have been the only ones where I've had actual time to myself to catch up on reading, bake, hang out at farmer's markets and clean the permanently and incorrigibly dusty apartment I live in.

However, in between figuring practical legal work and other things in between, I did manage to get through some pretty cool reads

The Books

Hmm, 2007 would be the year I went on a fantasy kick again I think. Went off the murder mystery, P.D James and Dorothy Sayers genre that I was on last year. I mean, what with winter being particularly bitter and glum, I sort of wanted some daydreaming type lit.

Confessor by Terry Goodkind
Finally finished off the annoyingly long winded Terry Goodkind series that began with Wizard's First Rule and thankfully ended with Confessor. Umm..nothing to say except that I needed to know the ending and it wasn't badly written enough to not finish it but not so well written that I would relish paying for another of his books. Next time, I think I just won't start. Much like Terry Brooks who just keeps going on with those Shannara books that never seem to end.

P.S I love you By Cecilia Ahern.
I stupidly bought and read and then returned this book.Yes, I am aware it has been made into a major motion picture starring Hilary Swank which hopefully means that the movie has some chance of being watchable. The book was such a waste of time, badly written, whiny,full of worn out, saccharine cliches that set my teeth on edge. I'm everlastingly grateful that Myer department store let me return the book.

Equal Rites, Carpe Jugulum, Hogfather and Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Rediscovering the other Terry. In this case, Pratchett gave me some of the more fun reads of the year.All rather satisfyingly fun and yet with that darker edge to it that I relished. In the case of Hogfather, I rather liked the reference to older forms of folklore and magic. He brought up a common piece of folk magic that I didn't even realise I knew. That most people, at the back of their minds somewhere would know as well. Funny how these old bits of folk lore sneak through our urbanized generations. Read the first two in the thick of winter and they were nice snuggle down in bed with hot milo next to me type reads.

Hyperion saga (4 books) by Dan Simmons
Finished all of the Dan Simmons Hyperion saga which was rather good in its scope and ideas and I liked the Keats references. But honestly, if Simmons could say something in paragraph that would take most writers one line, he would. But the most fun bit was watching the Catholic church take over the universe by working together with cybernetic computer minds that had perfected the technique of resurrection.


Dune by Frank Herbert
This was lovely. Interesting in scope and concept and quite well written. Had me repeating the mantra "Fear is the mindkiller" all year which isn't a bad mantra to have, come to think of it.

There are others, most notably a massively boring and repetitive Eddings series which I bought when sick with a chest infection and regretted and the last Potter book which I assume most people would have read as well. Oh an I think I read a couple of Ishiguro books at the beginning of the year when I still had time. But overall this hasn't been a good year for reading. Mainly lacked time and energy. It was about all I could do to read the newspapers most days and have a long slow read of the Saturday papers.

Happy new year people! And may you stick to your new year resolutions!