State of the Blog: Part Two, the Authors

Four times a year, I do a review of the books I've read so far.  In January, that review covers all the books I read the last calendar year.

This is the second of my quarterly blog assessment posts.  This one takes a look at my author lists over in the right-hand column. The first part addressed my lists. Part Three will deal with the challenges I joined this year.

NOTE: If you are systematically reading the books of any of these authors, please leave a comment here or on the post for the author's list (click on the title below or in the right-hand column) and leave a link to any related post. I will add the links on the author's list post.

I recently split my author list into two parts: General favorites and Mystery favorites.  See here for discussion.

In 2011, I read 40 books by my favorite authors.  For the list of all 116 books I read in 2011, go here.

GENERAL FAVORITES

Kingsley Amis

• The Crime of the Century
• The Anti-Death League(reviewed here; a Burgess favorite; read for the Birth Year Reading Challenge.

Maeve Binchy

• Evening Class (1996)

William Boyd

• Brazzaville Beach (reviewed here; read for my 2011 Battle of the Prizes, British Version, challenge);
• Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (reviewed here) 

Nick Hornby

• Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Elinor Lipman

• Then She Found Me

David Lodge 

• Therapy (reviewed here)

Ian McEwan

• Solar

Philip Roth

• The Human Stain (reviewed here)

C. P. Snow

• George Passant (originally titled Strangers and Brothers) (reviewed here)

Anne Tyler

• Breathing Lessons (reviewed here; read for my 2011 Battle of the Prizes, American Version challenge)

John Updike

• Beck: A Book (reviewed here)

P. G. Wodehouse

• The Indiscretions of Archie; 
• The Girl on the Boat

MYSTERY FAVORITES

Kate Atkinson

• When Will There Be Good News?
• Started Early, Took My Dog (reviewed here)

Lee Child

• Gone Tomorrow
• 61 Hours 
• Worth Dying For (reviewed here)

Dick Francis

• 10 Lb. Penalty
• Bolt
• Banker (reviewed here)
• Knockdown
• Break In
• Decider

P. D. James

• A Mind to Murder
• Unnatural Causes
• An Unsuitable Job for a Woman 
  

Donna Leon

• Death in a Strange Country

John Lescroart

• A Plague of Secrets (reviewed here);
• Treasure Hunt

Helen MacInnes

• The Hidden Target

Ian Rankin

• Strip Jack
• Knots and Crosses
• Hide and Seek
• Tooth and Nail 
  

Dorothy L. Sayers

• Clouds of Witness (reviewed here)
• Unnatural Death 

Julia Spencer-Fleming

• One Was a Soldier (2009) (reviewed here)

Opening Sentence of the Day: Side Trips From Cowboy

It's July 9, about half-way through the process of writing this book and nearly a year since Margetty and I went to the Big Hole and retrieved the black amulet.

-- Side Trips from Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and the Western American Myth, by Sandy Compton.  That's an opener to catch my attention, although the title already did that.

Compton is the author of the novel, Archer MacClehan & the Hungry Now, sort of a contemporary Western adventure, and Jason's Passage: From the Blascomb Family Chronicles, a collection of three related short stories.




A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday.  The event is open for the entire week.