Book Lists - Part II

So I read a ton of books from that list and felt all happy and satisfied. For a while. A very small while. Here's what the list looked like after I totted up what I'd read:

Book List 2008

1. A Cloistered War - Maisie Duncan
   
2. A Field Guide To Writing Fiction - A.B. Guthrie Jr.
   
3. A History of Malaysia - Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Andaya
   
4. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
   
5. A History of Selangor - J. M. Gullick
   
6. A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton
   
7. A Place Where The Sea Remembers - Sandra Benitez
   
8. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
   
9. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
   
10. A Tagore Reader - Amiya Chakravarty
    
11. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
    
12. Abraham's Promise - Philip Jeyaretnam
    
13. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
    
14. Anthology of Japanese Literature - Donald Keene
    
15. Art & Fear - David Bayles & Ted Orland
    
16. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
    
17. Baba Nonnie Goes To War - Ron Mitchell
    
18. Bang Bang in Ampang - Norman Cleaveland
    
19. Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers - Vendela Vida, Ed.
    
20. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
    
21. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
    
22. Buffalo Gals - Ursula K. LeGuin
    
23. Burglars can't be Choosers - Lawrence Block
    
24. Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy Sayers
    
25. Captives of Shanghai - David H. & Gretchen G. Grover
    
26. Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
    
27. Chinese Blue and White - Ann Frank
    
28. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
    
29. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
    
30. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
    
31. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
    
32. Early Views of Indonesia/Pemandangan Indonesia di Masa Lampau - Annabel Teh Gallop
    
33. Encyclopedia of China - Dorothy Perkins
    
34. Fantasies of the Six Dynasties - Tsai Chih Chung
    
35. Faster - James Gleick
    
36. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
    
37. Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
    
38. From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
    
39. Fu Lu Shou - Jeffrey Seow
    
40. Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers
    
41. Golden Boy and Other Stories from Burma - Saw Wai Lwyn Moe
    
42. Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
    
43. Glory - Vladimir Nabokov
    
44. Have His Carcase - Dorothy Sayers
    
45. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
    
46. How To Write A Damn Good Novel - James N. Frey
    
47. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
    
48. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
    
49. In the Midst of Death - Lawrence Block
    
50. Kempeitai, Japan's Dreaded Military Police - Raymond Lamont-Brown
    
51. Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
    
52. Kim - Rudyard Kipling
    
53. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
    
54. Kranji - Romen Bose
    
55. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
    
56. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
    
57. Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
    
58. Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
    
59. Malay Folk Beliefs - Mohd Taib Osman
    
60. Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
    
61. Malaysia - R. Emerson
    
62. Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
    
63. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
    
64. Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers
    
65. Night Butterfly - Tan Guan Heng
    
66. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
    
67. Old Filth - Jane Gardam
    
68. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
    
69. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
    
70. Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
    Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
    
71. Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
    
72. Prehistory of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago - Peter Bellwood
    
73. Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
    
74. Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
    
75. Rhymes of Li Yu Tsai - Chao Shu Li
    
76. Robert van Gulik - Janwillem van de Wetering
    
77. Rosie - Anne Lamott
    
78. Rouge of the North - Chang Ai Ling
    
79. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
    
80. Shantung Compound - Langdon Gilkey
    
81. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
    
82. Sisters and Strangers (Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills) - Emily Honig
    
83. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
    
84. Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
    
85. Strange Tales of Liao Zhai - Tsai Chih Chung
    
86. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
    
87. Strong Poison - Dorothy Sayers
    
88. Taming the Wind of Desire - Carol Laderman
    
89. Tao Te Ching - Ursula K. LeGuin
    
90. That Fellow Kanda - AUPE
    
91. The Age of Diminished Expectations - Paul Krugman
    
92. The Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgman
    
93. The Art of Fiction - John Gardner
    
94. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
    
95. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
    
96. The Bafut Beagles - Gerald Durrell
    
97. The Beatitudes - Lyn LeJeune
    
98. The Book of Tea - Okakura Kazuko
    
99. The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster
    
100. The Burglar In The Library - Lawrence Block
     
101. The Burglar In The Rye - Lawrence Block
     
102. The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling - Lawrence Block
     
103. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
     
104. The Crippled Tree - Han Suyin
     
105. The Death of Woman Wang - Jonathan D. Spence
     
106. The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
     
107. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Silkin, Eds.
     
108. The End of the War - Romen Bose
     
109. The Family: They Fuck You Up - Granta
     
110. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
     
111. The Grand Guignol - Mel Gordon
     
112. The Life of an Amorous Woman - Saikaku Ihara
     
113. The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki
     
114. The Malay Archipelago - Alfred Russell Wallace
     
115. The Malayan Union Controversy, 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
     
116. The Marquis - A Tale of Syonan-To - S.J.H. Conner
     
117. The Nanking Massacre - M.E.Sharpe
     
118. The Nine Tailors - Dorothy Sayers
     
119. The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Iriye Akira
     
120. The Other Side of War - Zainab Salbi, Ed.
     
121. The Pacific War - Ienaga Saburo
     
122. The Plague - Albert Camus
     
123. The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
     
124. The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
     
125. The Sabahan: The Life and Death of Tun Fuad Stephens - P.J. Granville-Edge
     
126. The Singapore Grip - J.G. Farrell
     
127. The Sins of the Fathers - Lawrence Block
     
128. The Situation and The Story - Vivian Gornick
     
129. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
     
130. The Unabomber Manifesto - Ted Kaczynski
     
131. The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
     
132. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
     
133. The World of the Shining Prince - Ivan Morris
     
134. Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
     
135. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
     
136. Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
     
137. Totto-chan - Kuroyanagi Tetsuko
     
138. Travels in Siam - Henri Mouhot
     
139. Tripmaster Monkey His Fake Book - Maxine Hong Kingston
     
140. Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry - Nguyen Huy Hong
     
141. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
     
142. Woman of the Inner Sea - Thomas Kenneally
     
143. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
     
144. Women of China - Bobby Siu
     
145. Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Kalpana Bardhan
     
146. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
     
147. Writing Fiction - A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
     
148. Writing Past Dark - Bonnie Friedman
     
149. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
     
150. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley
     
151. A Choice of Evils - Meira Chand
     
152. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
     
153. King Rat - James Clavell
     
154. Murder on the Verandah - Eric Lawlor
     
155. No Dram of Mercy - Sybil Kathigasu
     
156. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
     
157. Singa, Lion of Malaya - Gurchan Singh
     
158. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
     
159. Sinister Twilight - Noel Barber
     
160. Sold For Silver - Janet Lim
     
161. Syonan - My Story (The Japanese Occupation of Singapore) - Mamoru Shinozaki
     
162. The Fall of Shanghai - Noel Barber
     
163. The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
     
164. The War Of The Running Dogs - Noel Barber
     
165. You'll Never Get Off The Island - Keith Wilson

Not too shabby, wouldn't you say? In some eight months or so of dedicated reading, interspersed with film, writing, and beratement of beasties? Cooking? Gardening? Cleaning house? Visiting parental units, even. Not too shabby. We start out with 165 books (an idiot's hopeless dream by any standards), read 83 of them and end with 82:

Book List 2008, Revised

1. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
   
2. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
   
3. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
   
4. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
   
5. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
   
6. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
   
7. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
   
8. Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
   
9. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
   
10. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
    
11. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
    
12. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
    
13. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
    
14. From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
    
15. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
    
16. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
    
17. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
    
18. Kempeitai, Japan's Dreaded Military Police - Raymond Lamont-Brown
    
19. Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
    
20. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
    
21. Kranji - Romen Bose
    
22. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
    
23. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
    Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
    
24. Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
    
25. Malay Folk Beliefs - Mohd Taib Osman
    
26. Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
    
27. Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
    
28. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
    
29. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
    
30. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
    
31. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
    
32. Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
    
33. Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
    
34. Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
    
35. Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
    
36. Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
    
37. Rosie - Anne Lamott
    
38. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
    
39. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
    
40. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
    
41. Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
    
42. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
    
43. Taming the Wind of Desire - Carol Laderman
    
44. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
    
45. The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
    
46. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Silkin, Eds.
    
47. The End of the War - Romen Bose
    
48. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
    
49. The Malayan Union Controversy, 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
    
50. The Nanking Massacre - M.E.Sharpe
    
51. The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Iriye Akira
    
52. The Pacific War - Ienaga Saburo
    
53. The Plague - Albert Camus
    
54. The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
    
55. The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
    
56. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
    
57. The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
    
58. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
    
59. Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
    
60. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
    
61. Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
    
62. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
    
63. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
    
64. Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Kalpana Bardhan
    
65. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
    
66. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
    
67. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley
    
68. A Choice of Evils - Meira Chand
    
69. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
    
70. King Rat - James Clavell
    
71. Murder on the Verandah - Eric Lawlor
    
72. No Dram of Mercy - Sybil Kathigasu
    
73. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
    
74. Singa, Lion of Malaya - Gurchan Singh
    
75. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
    
76. Sinister Twilight - Noel Barber
    
77. Sold For Silver - Janet Lim
    
78. Syonan - My Story (The Japanese Occupation of Singapore) - Mamoru Shinozaki
    
79. The Fall of Shanghai - Noel Barber
    
80. The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
    
81. The War Of The Running Dogs - Noel Barber
    
82. You'll Never Get Off The Island - Keith Wilson

But are your hosts at this fine blog happy and satisfied with that? Hell, no. What, you ask, did the stupid buggers do?

What else but add another fucking mountain of books to the list. By way of excuse, I offer the following: there really is a gigantoshitload of books in this fucking house and it's getting really tiresome having to wend one's way between them. And furthermore: I really do get rid of some of them, sell, donate, give away, and like that, so there actually is a possibility that I will, someday see my floor.

But, on to the next piece of self-excoriation.