Chris simpson
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"if you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." 
— Stephen King

Books Read 2017

1/1/2018

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  1. Smashed in the USSR: Fear and Loathing on the Steppes — Caroline Walton & Ivan Petrov  (January)
  2. The Lesser Bohemians — Eimear McBride  (January)
  3. The Sex Lives of English Women — Wendy Jones  (January)
  4. The Lonely City — Olivia Laing  (January)
  5. Nutshell — Ian McEwan  (January)
  6. Grief Is The Thing With Feathers — Max Porter  (January)
  7. The Essex Serpent — Sarah Perry  (February)
  8. The London Train — Tessa Hadley  (February)
  9. On Love — Charles Bukowski  (February)
  10. First Love — Gwendoline Riley  (March)
  11. The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays — Simon Leys  (March)
  12. Remedy Is None — William McIlvanney  (April)
  13. Future Sex — Emily Witt  (April)
  14. Sins as Scarlet — Nicolas Obregon  (June)
  15. Anything is Possible — Elizabeth Strout  (June)
  16. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay — Elena Ferrante  (June)
  17. The Story of The Lost Child — Elena Ferrante  (July)
  18. Backbone Flute — Vladimir Mayakovsky  (July)
  19. A Man in Love — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (July)
  20. The Dying Animal — Philip Roth  (July) (again)
  21. In Gratitude — Jenny Diski  (July)
  22. The Tryst — Monique Roffey  (July)
  23. The Power of Meaning — Emily Esfahani Smith (July)
  24. Trysting — Emmanuelle Pagano  (August)
  25. The Key — Junichiro Tanizaki  (August)
  26. My Name Is Lucy Barton — Elizabeth Strout  (August)
  27. Sabbath’s Theatre — Philip Roth  (September)
  28. On the Suffering of the World — Arthur Schopenhauer  (September)
  29. The Children Act — Ian McEwan  (September)
  30. The Child in Time — Ian McEwan  (September)
  31. Sylvia — Leonard Michaels  (October)
  32. Portrait of a Mother as a Young Woman — Friedrich Christian Delius  (October)
  33. Four Major Plays: A Doll’s House; Ghosts; Hedda Gabler; The Master Builder — Henrik Ibsen  (October)
  34. Venus in Furs — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch  (October)
  35. Bonjour Tristesse — Françoise Sagan  (October)
  36. Christodora — Tim Murphy  (October)
  37. The Shooting Party — Anton Chekhov  (October)
  38. Levels of Life — Julian Barnes  (November)
  39. Dunbar — Edward St. Aubyn  (November)
  40. The Cut — Anthony Cartwright  (November)
  41. Henry and June — Anais Nin  (November)
  42. The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle  (December)
  43. The Kingdom — Emmanuel Carrere  (December)
  44. Tony & Susan — Austin Wright  (December)


Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2016

1/9/2017

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  1. My Universities — Maxim Gorky  (January)
  2. The Zone — Sergei Dovlatov  (January)
  3. Home of the Gentry — Ivan Turgenev  (January)
  4. So Long, See You Tomorrow — William Maxwell  (January)
  5. Clever Girl — Tessa Hadley  (January)
  6. Separate Flights — Andre Dubus  (February)
  7. Adultery and Other Choices — Andre Dubus  (February)
  8. Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreev — Maxim Gorky  (February)
  9. Redeployment — Phil Klay  (March)
  10. Laidlaw — William McIlvanney  (March)
  11. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams — Stephen King  (March)
  12. They Came Like Swallows — William Maxwell  (March)
  13. Fear of Dying — Erica Jong  (April)
  14. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair — Pablo Neruda  (April)
  15. Midwinterblood — Marcus Sedgwick  (May)
  16. My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante  (May)
  17. Patrimony — Philip Roth  (May)
  18. Wonder Boys — Michael Chabon  (May)
  19. Blue Light Yokohama — Nicolas Obregon  (June)
  20. Still Writing:The Perils and Pleasures of the Creative Life — Dani Shapiro  (June)
  21. The Papers of Tony Veitch — William McIlvanney  (July)
  22. Gilead — Marylyne Robinson (July)
  23. Strange Loyalties — William McIlvanney  (July)
  24. Martin John — Anakana Schofield  (July)
  25. At Hawthorn Time — Melissa Harrison  (August)
  26. The Little Red Chairs — Edna O’Brien  (August)
  27. Marie — Madeleine Bourdouxhe  (August)
  28. Seven Brief Lessons On Physics — Carlo Rovelli  (August)
  29. Tampa — Alissa Nutting  (August)
  30. A Summer Affair — Ivan Klima  (September)
  31. The Noise of Time — Julian Barnes  (September)
  32. Gorsky — Vesna Goldsworthy  (September)
  33. Country Girl — Edna O’Brien  (September)
  34. Confessions of a Mask — Yukio Mishima  (October)
  35. I Remember — Joe Brainard  (November) (again)
  36. His Bloody Project — Graeme Macrae Burnet  (November)
  37. The Vegetarian — Han Kang  (November)
  38. The Engagement — Chloe Hooper  (December)
  39. The Story of a New Name — Elena Ferrante  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2015

3/1/2016

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  1. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott  (January)
  2. The Lover — Marguerite Duras   (January)
  3. To Rise Again At A Decent Hour — Joshua Ferris   (January)
  4. Genie and Paul — Natasha Soobramanien  (January)
  5. Ghosting — Jonathan Kemp   (February)
  6. Broken Vessels — Andre Dubus   (February)
  7. Perfect Lives — Polly Samson   (February)
  8. The Russian Master & Other Stories — Anton Chekhov   (February)
  9. Father Sergius — Leo Tolstoy   (February)
  10. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich — Alexander Solzhenitsyn  (March)
  11. The Suitcase — Sergei Dovlatov   (March)
  12. Pushkin Hills — Sergei Dovlatov   (March)
  13. My Childhood — Maxim Gorky   (March)
  14. Eugene Onegin — Aleksandr Pushkin   (March)
  15. The Compromise — Sergei Dovlatov   (April)
  16. Notes From Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky   (May)
  17. Petersburg Tales — Nikolai Gogol   (May)
  18. The Gambler — Fyodor Dostoevsky   (May)
  19. At Night — Alex Quick   (May)
  20. First Love and Other Stories — Ivan Turgenev (June)
  21. Don’t Try This At Home — Angela Readman  (June)
  22. Pimp — Iceberg Slim  (June)
  23. All That Is — James Salter (July)
  24. Old School — Tobias Wolff  (July)
  25. The Ecliptic — Benjamin Wood  (July)
  26. Too Loud a Solitude — Bohumil Hrabal  (July)
  27. Life Drawing — Robin Black  (August)
  28. All Dogs Are Blue — Rodrigo de la Souza  (August)
  29. A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing — Eimear McBride  (August)
  30. Layla — Nina De La Mer  (August)
  31. The Hair of Harold Roux — Thomas Williams  (September)
  32. The Gentleman from San Fran. & Other Edits — Ivan Bunin  (September)
  33. My Apprenticeship — Maxim Gorky  (September)
  34. Dolores Claiborne — Stephen King  (October)
  35. The Palace Thief — Ethan Canin  (October)
  36. The Best British Short Stories — Nicholas Royle ed.  (October)
  37. Revival — Stephen King  (November)
  38. The Prank — Anton Chekhov  (November)
  39. Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy  (December)
  40. Contempt — Alberto Moravia  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2014

3/1/2016

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  1. Knockemstiff — Donald Ray Pollock
  2. A Movable Feast — Ernest Hemingway
  3. Double Indemnity — James M. Cain
  4. A Death in the Family — Karl Ove Knausgaard
  5. Heart of Darkness — Joseph Conrad
  6. Girl with the Pearl Earring — Tracey Chevalier
  7. Severina — Rodrigo Rey Rosa
  8. Unreal City — Michael Smith
  9. Hard Rain Falling — Don Carpenter
  10. The Brothers — Asko Sahlberg
  11. Dirty Love — Andre Dubus III
  12. The Cage Keeper & Other Stories — Andre Dubus III
  13. The Things They Carried — Tim O’Brien
  14. Married Love — Tessa Hadley
  15. J — Howard Jacobson
  16. The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro
  17. The Psychopath Test — Jon Ronson
  18. Orkney — Amy Sackville
  19. A Fighter’s Heart — Sam Sheridan
  20. The Last Samurai — Helen DeWitt
  21. The Blue Room — Hanne Orstavik

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2013

3/1/2016

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  1. Pulp – Charles Bukowski
  2. Ask The Dust – John Fante
  3. Rust and Bone – Craig Davidson
  4. The Devil All The Time – Donald Ray Pollock
  5. Cold Water – Gwendoline Riley
  6. The Last Picture Show – Larry McMurtry
  7. A Street Cat Named Bob – James Bowen
  8. Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
  9. The Beautiful Indifference – Sarah Hall
  10. Books Vs. Cigarettes – George Orwell
  11. Eleven Kinds of Loneliness – Richard Yates
  12. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere – Z Z Packer
  13. Too Much Happiness – Alice Munro
  14. Disgrace – J. M. Coetzee
  15. Cold Spring Harbor – Richard Yates
  16. Clay – Melissa Harrison
  17. The Rachel Papers – Martin Amis
  18. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
  19. Give Me Everything You Have – James Lasdun
  20. Big Ray – Michael Kimball
  21. Magda – Meike Ziervogel
  22. Why I Write – George Orwell
  23. A Sport and A Pastime – James Salter
  24. Ballistics – D.W. Wilson
  25. Sick Notes – Gwendoline Riley
  26. Joshua Spassky – Gwendoline Riley
  27. Zoo Time – Howard Jacobson
  28. A Night in Chile – Roberto Bolano
  29. The Periodic Table – Primo Levi
  30. Shop Talk – Philip Roth
  31. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? – Jeanette Winterson
  32. The Dead Zone – Stephen King

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2012

3/1/2016

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  1. London Triptych – Jonathan King
  2. With The Kisses of His Mouth – Monique Roffey
  3. The Last Holiday – Gil-Scott Heron
  4. Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
  5. Man Without a Country – Kurt Vonnegut
  6. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
  7. Twentysix – Jonathan Kemp
  8. Voices from the Moon – Andre Dubus
  9. Opposed Positions – Gwendoline Riley
  10. The Ghost Writer – Philip Roth
  11. Zuckerman Unbound – Philip Roth
  12. Night Train – Martin Amis
  13. The Pregnant Widow – Martin Amis
  14. Lionel Asbo – Martin Amis
  15. Archipelago – Monique Roffey
  16. The Lighthouse – Alison Moore
  17. Pig Tales – Marie Darrieussecq
  18. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
  19. Ablutions – Patrick DeWitt
  20. On Writing – Stephen King
  21. Beginners – Raymond Carver
  22. Elephant – Raymond Carver
  23. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
  24. MIR 9 – Writer’s Hub
  25. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
  26. Drown – Junot Diaz
  27. Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney
  28. Once You Break A Knuckle – D. W. Wilson
  29. The Old Man & The Sea – Ernest Hemingway
  30. The Bellwether Revivals – Benjamin Wood
  31. Seven Years – Peter Stamm
  32. Swimming Home – Deborah Levy
  33. Charles Bukowski: Locked In The Arms of a Crazy Life – Howard Sounes
  34. South of No North – Charles Bukowski

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2011

3/1/2016

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1. “Portnoy’s Complaint” - Philip Roth
2. “The Farewell Symphony” - Edmund White
3. “Mrs. Dalloway” - Virginia Woolf
4. “Deception” - Philip Roth
5. “ Taming The Beast” - Emily Maguire
6. “Sunstroke” - Tessa Hadley
7. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. “Bluesman” - Andre Dubus III
9. “Love Me” - Gemma Weekes
10. “Mud” - Michele Roberts
11. “Seize The Day” - Saul Bellow
12. “The Sound Of My Voice” - Ron Butlin
13. “Kalooki Nights” - Howard Jacobson
14. “City Boy” - Edmund White
15. “The Good Psychologist” - Noam Shpancer
16. “Light Fell” - Evan Fallenberg
17. “The Women Who Got Away” - John Updike
18. “Townie” - Andre Dubus III
19. “Disturbing The Peace” - Richard Yates
20. “The House of Sand & Fog” - Andre Dubus III
21. “Lord of the Flies” - William Golding
22. “The Last Weekend” - Blake Morrison
23. “Teach Us To Sit Still” - Tim Parks
24. “Going Buddhist” - Peter J. Connradi
25. “Goodbye Columbus; And Other Stories” - Philip Roth
26. “The Idle Parent” - Tom Hodgkinson
27. “Come On In!” - Charles Bukowski
28. “How To Be A Woman” - Caitlin Moran
29. “Hollywood” - Charles Bukowski
30. “Tales of Ordinary Madness” - Charles Bukowski
31. “Brooklyn Follies” - Paul Auster
32. “Giovanni’s Room” - James Baldwin
33. “The Slap” - Christos Tsiolkas
34. “The Nose” - Nikolai Gogol
35. “Away From Her” - Alice Munro
36. “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” - James Frey
37. “The Maples Stories” - John Updike
38. “A Christmas Carol” - Charles Dickens 

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2010

3/1/2016

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1. “Netherlands” - Joseph O’Neill
2. “Envy” - Kathryn Harrison
3. “An Education” - Lynn Barber
4. “The Diving-Bell & The Butterfly” - Jean-Dominique Bauby
5. “The Dying Animal” - Philip Roth
​6. “Strangers” - Anita Brookner
7. “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” - Andre Dubus
8. “The Garden Of Last Days” - Andre Dubus III
9. “On Chesil Beach” - Ian McEwan
10. “The Humbling” - Philip Roth
11. “Must You Go?: My Life With Harold Pinter” - Antonia Fraser
12. “The Kiss” - Kathryn Harrison
13. “The Buddha Of Suburbia” - Hanif Kureishi
14. “The Spend Less Handbook” - Rebecca Ash
15. “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” - Moshin Hamid
16. “Death Of A Lady’s Man” - Leonard Cohen
17. “The Postman Always Rings Twice” - James M. Cain
18. “The Bridges Of Madison County” - Robert James Waller
19. “Homage To Catalonia” - George Orwell
20. “The Monk” - Matthew Lewis
21. “Apples” - Richard Milward
22. “Indignation” - Philip Roth
23. “Wetlands” - Charlotte Roche
24. “The God Delusion” - Richard Dawkins
25. “Exit Ghost” - Philip Roth
26. “A Jew Must Die” - Jacques Chessex
27. “The Finkler Question” - Howard Jacobson
28. “In Praise of Older Women” - Stephen Vizinczey 29. “Invisible” - Paul Auster
30. “Black Coffee Blues” - Henry Rollins
31. “American Pastoral” - Philip Roth
32. “No More Mr Nice Guy” - Howard Jacobson
33. “Intimacy” - Hanif Kureishi
34. “The Act of Love” - Howard Jacobson
35. “Room” - Emma Donoghue
36. “The Dwarfs” - Harold Pinter
37. “The Taxi Queue” - Janet Davey
38. “The Breast” - Philip Roth
39. “Becoming Strangers” - Louise Dean
40. “The Easter Parade” - Richard Yates
41. “Nemesis” - Philip Roth
42. “Young Hearts Crying” - Richard Yates
43. “The Fifth Child” - Doris Lessing
44. “The Prague Orgy” - Philip Roth
45. “Push” - Sapphire

Books in bold were particularly good.
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Books Read 2009

3/1/2016

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1. “Notes Of A Dirty Old Man” - Charles Bukowski
2. “Slaughterhouse Five” - Kurt Vonnegut
3. “Revolutionary Road” - Richard Yates
4. “The Reader” - Bernard Schlink
5. “Blind Faith” - Ben Elton
6. “The Witch Of Portobello” - Paulo Coelho
7. “Midnight All Day” - Hanif Kureishi
8. “South Of The Border, West Of The Sun” - Haraki Murakami
9. “Confessions Of A Pilgrim” - Juan Arias
10. “Factotum” - Charles Bukowski
11. “Gods Behaving Badly” - Marie Philips
12. “Songs Of Innocence, Songs Of Experience” - William Blake
13. “Hardcore Zen” - Brad Warner
14. “Zen Wrapped Up In Karma Dipped In Chocolate” - Brad Warner
15. “Utopian Dreams” - Tobias Jones
16. “Women” - Charles Bukowski
17. “Success” - Martin Amis
18. “A Heart Shaped Bullet” - Kathryn Flett
19. “In Between The Sheets” - Ian McEwan
20. “Lolita” - Vladimir Nabokov
21. “Palm Sunday” - Kurt Vonnegut
22. “The Death Of Bunny Munro” - Nick Cave

Books in bold were particularly good.
0 Comments

Books Read 2008

3/1/2016

0 Comments

 
1. “How To Be Idle” - Tom Hodgkinson
2. “How To Be Free” - Tom Hodgkinson
3. “Buddhism: Plain and Simple” - Steve Hagen
4. “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” - Haruki Murakami
5. “Get A Life! The Little Red Book of White Dot” - David Burke/Jean Lotus
6. “The Game” - Neil Strauss
7. “The Idler” magazine Issues 38 - 41.
8. “The Pilgrimage” - Paulo Coelho
9. “The Favourite Game” - Leonard Cohen
10. “Eleven Minutes” - Paulo Coelho
11. “Like A Flowing River” - Paulo Coelho
12. “Before Night Falls” - Reinaldo Arenas
13. “The Road” - Cormac McCarthy
14. “Breakfast Of Champions” - Kurt Vonnegut
15. “After Dark” - Haraki Murakami
16. “The Zahir” - Paulo Coelho
17. “The Fifth Mountain” - Paulo Coelho
18. “Brida” - Paulo Coelho
19. “The Valkyries” - Paulo Coelho
20. “The Man In The High Castle” - Philip K. Dick
21. “Flashman: Papers One” - George MacDonald Fraser
22. “Wilt” - Tom Sharpe
23. “A Clockwork Apple” - Belinda Webb
24. “Are You Experienced?” - William Sutcliffe
25. “God Is Dead” - Ron Currie Jr.
26. “Cake” - Sandra Newman
27. “Ham On Rye” - Charles Bukowski
28. “Who Moved My Blackberry?” - Lucy Kellaway
29. “The Average American Male” - Chad Kuttgen
30. “Armageddon In Retrospect” - Kurt Vonnegut
31. “Bluebeard” - Kurt Vonnegut
32. “Memories Of My Melancholy Whores” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
​33. “Queer” - William Burroughs
34. “The Most Beautiful Woman In Town” - Charles Bukowski
35. “Post Office” - Charles Bukowski
36. “Hocus Pocus” - Kurt Vonnegut
37. “Kasamakura” - Natsume Sasaki 

Books in bold were particularly good.
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