My list of 'Best of Books read in 2009'

Looks like I read 74 books this year. Thought I read more, but I think I forgot to list them on Goodreads. Well, that's the way it goes.

Books I liked the best:

1. Year of the Flood by Marget Atwood
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
3. Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood (you can tell I'm a fan of this great writer)
4. Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
5. The Thing around Your Neck by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie
6. Tinkers by Paul Harding
7. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
8. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
9. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
10. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I also read A Wild Sheep Chase, which I thought I had read several years ago, but it didn't seem familiar in a Murakami kind of way. So after I read Dance, Dance, Dance I read A Wild Sheep Chase. Love Murakami's writing. Also re-read Norwegian Wood. I kinda put these separate, as any list that I compose, which includes Murakami, would mean that the books by Murakami would come out on top, as far as I'm concerned.

2010 recommendations: Just be the Best I can be!

At this time of the year, blog posts focus on the best and worst of the past year. Even more amazing, there are many articles on the best and worst of the decade. I can't believe that we've gotten through the first ten years of the millennium. And I've spent them all in Laos.

Along with looking back over the year or decade, everyone posts their resolutions for the new year, or why they don't believe in resolutions and won't post any resolutions. At a new year's party last night, I asked some of my Lao staff if they had resolutions. At first, they were confused because the word 'resolution' is translated as mat-tii , meaning 'law' or 'decree.' So I explained that in this context, it was like a personal law or decree for what they would like to change or try out in the new year. They all laughed and told me that they always want to do the best they can so why do they need to make their own laws?

Well, I was hoping that one of them would say something like, "I'd like to write better quarterly reports and get them in on time." Sigh. I just know that they will continue to do the best possible...

For myself, I really don't make resolutions. My situation is always changing so if I say, "I resolve to write 2,000 words/ day" or "I resolve to run 5 miles/ day," if I don't do it, then I feel bad. So I prefer to make recommendations for myself, such as:

Writing 500,000 words this year. Three years ago, I tracked my writing. I felt my writing was improving and I had the time and energy to keep at it. I discovered that if I wrote a lot, it became easier and my writing grew better. At the end of 2006, I had written about 370,000 words. So, I recommend to myself to write 500,000 words and see what happens.

Train for a half-marathon, whether I end up running in one or not. I always think a lot while I'm running and it frees my mind.

Read as much as possible this year. I always try to read one hundred books/ year which includes lighter reading as well as massive books which have won Booker or other literary awards. I still have a backlog of books, so I'm participating in the 'TBR challenge'.

Try to be patient and be a better boss. That also means handing over more work to my staff so I'm not left with it, which makes me feel crabby and uncreative.

Travel more in the region. I recently found out that I have frequent flier miles on Thai Airways that I have to use. It looks like I'll be doing some work in Nepal in February/ March so I'm going to travel a bit there (someplace safe as the political situation there is always changing).

Strive for quality and not quantity in these recommendations and don't get upset if I don't always live up to them. Just live a good and meaningful life, that's my main resolution.

The Worst Books of the Decade!

Well, if there's going to be a list for the best, there should also be a list for the worst. Actually, it's weird - the Davinci Code is on both the best and the worst lists! I haven't read any of these books, though I did try to start Vernon God Little. Although it did win the Booker Award in 2003, I found it hard to get through because the main character is just so unlikable.

Anyway, about this list - I can you can say that it's the 'best of the worst of the decade.'

The post is rising to the challenge of National Blog Posting Month. This month's challenge at NaBloPoMo is to post daily about "The Best of...."

The best Books of the Decade!

I've been reading all sorts of "Best of Lists". No only do we have to go through our memories for the best of 2009 but also the best of the decade.

The Times of London list of the best 100 books of the decade is fun. I've read 25 of the 100 books, which includes the last Harry Potter book (although I've read only one of the previous books).

The books I have read on the list were:

1 The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
7 Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002)
9 Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
14 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003) - I was so impressed with this book when I read it the first time, as part of a group read in the old Barnes and Noble Book Groups. The discussion was led by Azar Nafisi herself. I really felt I got to know the author. I read and re-read some of the books they had discussed such as the Great Gatsby and Lolita.
17 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (2007)
19 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
20 White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)
24 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) - speculative fiction at its finest.
25 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (2003)
29 The Accidental by Ali Smith (2005)
30 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003)
32 Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
46 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
55 Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2007) - This is the real story in Iraq. I plan to re-read it some time and review articles on the some of the events he discusses.
56 If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (2002)
60 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (2005)
62 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002) - loved this book - incredible descriptions and plot twists.
66 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004) - one of my favorite books. I've read it twice already.
72 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2001)
73 Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (2005) - Great collection of Murakami's stories.
80 The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008)
84 Unless by Carol Shields (2002)
96 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda's Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (2006)
97 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)
98 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie(2007) - another one of my favorites.

Books I have but haven't read but promise to read this year:
2 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
5 Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (2006)
6 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
12 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000)
13 Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald (2001)
15 The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006)
21 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)
28 The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (2007)
39 Runaway by Alice Munro (2005)
41 The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (2008)
44 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2005)
48 A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (2003)
54 Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (2003)
61The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
69 My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (2001)
94 Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta (2005)
83 This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008)

This month is NaBloPoMo's challenge - "The Best of...."