the book I read...

Perhaps for the first time since he sang a song about some rabbits [warning - do not click this link unless you are prepared for tears], I have been somewhat inspired by Art Garfunkel. It turns out that Garfunkel has been keeping a list of all of the books that he has been reading since 1968. Book 1 was "The Confessions" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and was finished in June 1968, and Book 1023, the most recent, was "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington. Inbetween he's read all kinds of things, although most of them sound very serious indeed (Goethe, Jung, Darwin, Proust... stuff like that).

I'm going to start my own list.

I've already got a list of the gigs that I attend around here somewhere, which I originally started partly out of a sense of regret that I had long since thrown away the concert tickets that I had been collecting since I saw the Cult at Wembley Arena in about 1988. Those tickets provided solid, documentary evidence of all those ropey metal gigs I attended in my youth, and at some point I chucked them all away....

Anyway.

Keeping a list of the books that I read is something else that I've been meaning to do for ages and have never quite got round too (I've not found Shelfari terribly satisfactory in this regard). This isn't going to be the next Alphabeticon or anything like that, and I'm certainly not about to wander around my bookshelves detailing what I've read. This isn't going to be retrospective, it's simply going to be an ongoing list of the books that I've currently got on the boil.

I'm afraid it's not going to be as highbrow as Mr. Garfunkel's list by any stretch of the imagination, but I think my reading tastes may be as broad a church as my musical tastes.... perhaps broader.

So, here we go, listed by the date when I started them.

#	Dates:	Title:	Author:	Pub.
	TBR
59	October 2009	Resurrection Men	Ian Rankin	2002
58	September 2009	The Falls	Ian Rankin	2001
57	September 2009	Set in Darkness	Ian Rankin	2000
56	August 2009	Last Seen Wearing	Colin Dexter	1976
55	August 2009	Last Bus To Woodstock	Colin Dexter	1975
54	July 2009	Dead Souls	Ian Rankin	1999
53	July 2009	Goldfinger	Ian Fleming	1959
52	July 2009	Beggar's Banquet	Ian Rankin	2002
51	June 2009	The Hanging Garden	Ian Rankin	1998
50	June 2009	Wisden 2009	Scyld Berry (ed.)	2009
49	May 2009	The God Delusion	Richard Dawkins	2006
48	May 2009	Black and Blue	Ian Rankin	1997
47	April 2009	Let It Bleed	Ian Rankin	1996
46	April 2009	Dr No	Ian Fleming	1957
45	March 2009	Mortal Causes	Ian Rankin	1994
44	March 2009	The Black Book	Ian Rankin	1993
43	March 2009	Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part In Its Downfall	Luke Haines	2009
42	Feb 2009	Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough	Duncan Hamilton	2007
41	Feb 2009	Strip Jack	Ian Rankin	1992
40	Feb 2009	Tooth and Nail	Ian Rankin	1992
39	Jan 2009	Hide and Seek	Ian Rankin	1991
38	Jan 2009	Knots and Crosses	Ian Rankin	1987
37	Dec 2008	The Art of Conversation	Catherine Blyth	2008
36	Dec 2008	Britain in Revolution 1625-1660	Austin Woolrych	2002
35	Nov 2008	Wolverine: Origins	Bill Jemas, Paul Jenkins, Joe Quesada	2001-2
34	Nov 2008	The New Avengers 2: Sentry	Brian Michael Bendis	2005
33	Oct 2008	The Graveyard Book	Neil Gaiman	2008
32	Oct 2008	Kingdom Come	Mark Waid & Alex Ross	1996
31	Oct 2008	The New Avengers 1	Brian Michael Bendis	2005
30	Oct 2008	Weapon X	Barry Windsor-Smith	1991
29	Oct 2008	Ultimate Marvel Team Up Ultimate Edition	Brian Michael Bendis	2001/2
28	Oct 2008	World War Hulk	Greg Pak, John Romita Jr	2007
27	Oct 2008	Planet Hulk	Greg Pak	2006
26	Oct 2008	Snuff	Chuck Palahniuk	2008
25	Sept 2008	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall	Anne Brontë	1848
24	Sept 2008	Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories	Ian Fleming	variously from 1960
23	Sept 2008	Sandman: Fables & Reflections	Neil Gaiman	1991,92,93
22	Sept 2008	Sandman: A Game of You	Neil Gaiman	1991/92
21	Sept 2008	Sandman: Seasons of Mists	Neil Gaiman	1990/91
20	Sept 2008	Sandman: Dream Country	Neil Gaiman	1990
19	Sept 2008	Sandman: The Dolls House	Neil Gaiman	1989/90
18	Sept 2008	Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes	Neil Gaiman	1988/9
17	August 2008	Batman: Dark Knight Returns	Frank Miller & Klaus Janson & Lynn Varley	1986
16	August 2008	Civil War: Front Line (vols 1 & 2)	Paul Jenkins	2006/7
15	August 2008	Civil War	Mark Millar	2006/7
14	August 2008	Civil War: Road to Civil War	Brian Michael Bendis & J. Michael Straczynski	2007
13	August 2008	Batman: Killing Joke	Alan Moore & Brian Bolland	1986
12	August 2008	Batman: Dark Victory	Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale	1999/2000
11	August 2008	Batman: Long Halloween	Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale	1996/7
10	August 2008	Batman: Hush (vol 1 & 2)	Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee	2003
9	August 2008	Daredevil: Yellow	Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale	2002
8	July 2008	Batman: Year One	Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli	1987
7	July 2008	No Country for Old Men	Cormac McCarthy	2005
6	July 2008	The Road	Cormac McCarthy	2006
5	July 2008	Once Upon a Time in the North	Philip Pullman	2008
4	June 2008	You're Not the Only One (you can buy it here - it's for Charity and everything)	Sarah J Peach (ed)	2008
3	May 2008	Devil May Care	Sebastian Faulks as Ian Fleming	2008
2	April 2008	Wisden 2008	Scyld Berry (ed.)	2008
1	March 2008	Life: A Users Manual	Georges Perec	1978

Um. And that's it for now. Nothing else to see here for now. I'll just add this to my sidebar and keep it updated, for my own entertainment if for nobody else's.

Excellent.

That's another pointless list started then.