Monday, December 6, 2010

Making the list and checking it twice

Good news list-lovers: A Man Melting made it into The Listener's 'Top 100 Books of 2010'.


If you zoom in really close you can see A Man Melting is even on the cover, along with a bunch of other books. Easier perhaps just to buy your own copy and hold it close to your face. AMM spine-action also on the contents page and there's a cover shot in the actual article so pretty good coverage all-told.

The full list is a great source of Chrissy present ideas for the book-shaped guys and gals in your life, and there's a  good percentage of NZ books represented. Ka pai, The Listener, as usual. Word on the street is there'll also be a summer reading issue... Now if only they'd go back to publishing poems and stories in regular issues!

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Sprinkled amongst the Best Books list are brief 'What I've Been Reading' voxpops with local luminaries. These snippets aren't confined to books that have come out in 2010, as no one ever reads (or should read) exclusively from the new release table. This is definitely true of me. 

Quick tally: I will have read eight books published in 2010 by the end of December (currently reading The Hut Builder and Gifted is next), make that nine if you count the reissue of Sydney Bridge Upside Down. According to my monthly reading posts, I've read 53 books in 2010 (this excludes all the natural history books and lit mags I've read but haven't noted down), which means I read about 17% New Releases. I read 7 books that came out in 2009 (13% of total reading), so I'll surely tick off a few more of The Listener's latest list over the next twelve months (Freedom, I'm lookin' at you!).

Stay tuned for my 2010 Reading in Review extravaganza post. As you may expect, I will unleash my excel skills and supply more interesting statistics. I'll also the list my top ten books I've read this year (much as I did back in 2008). What happened to 2009? I ask myself that quite often.

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