Because it's the 20th anniversary of the Hottest 100, Triple J are doing another Hottest 100 of all time.

But you can only vote for 10 songs. This is almost impossible for me to do, because, for anything that I like, I don't have a definite favourite, or even two or three things that I prefer above all others. I like loads of different stuff, and my favourite this week is almost certainly not going to be my favourite next week, or even tomorrow.

Nevertheless, I am trying to come up with some sort of list. I started by making a list of bands that could possibly have songs in my top ten, and without even thinking too hard, I've come up with over 30. If I start looking through all my music, that will expand exponentially. This is gonna be difficult.

Anyway, it's been a few months since I posted the list of books that I've been reading, so:

APRIL
Conjugal Rites - Paul Magrs
The Chronicles Of Blarnia - Michael Gerber
Tintin In America - Herge
Cigars Of The Pharoahs - Herge
Dearly Devoted Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
The Dark Tower: The Drawing Of The Three - Stephen King
The Book Of Lost Things - John Connolly
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Napoleon - Gideon Defoe

6 of those books I read for the first time. It didn't occur to me until I was actually reading Tintin In America that I was rereading it, and that it had broken my record of 7 months of reading new books. Oh well, that's still a very long time for me to go without rereading anything!

MAY
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands - Stephen King
Doctor Who: The Eyeless - Lance Parkin
Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone: The Romantic Movement, Rock & Roll and The End of Civilisation as We Know It - Craig Schuftan
The Blue Lotus - Herge
Dexter In The Dark - Jeff Lindsay

I didn't read very much last month, I just couldn't motivate myself to do it, even though I was reading some very good books. The Waste Lands took me two weeks to read, and Hey Nietzsche!, I started in April. BTW, I loved Hey Nietzsche!. I reccommend it very highly, but I'm no good at putting things into to words, so this will tell you about it.

Wow, that brings me very neatly back to what I was talking about before, as Craig Schuftan works on Triple J, and you can listen to podcasts of his segments here. Check out the one about My Chemical Romance and Wordsworth - it's very short, but gives you a good idea of what the book is like (but the book is much more detailed). He also made his own top ten list for the Hottest 100 of all time.

Books read in March:

Something Borrowed - Paul Magrs
On The Edge: My Story - Richard Hammond
Tintin In The Congo - Herge
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - Stephen King
Serenity: The Official Visual Companion - Joss Whedon
The Dresden Files: Welcome To The Jungle - Jim Butcher
Doctor Who: The Story of Martha - Dan Abnett, et al
The Adventures of Tintin Reporter for "Le Petit Vingtieme" In The Land Of The Soviets - Herge
Death of a Transvetite - Ed Wood, Jr
Doctor Who: Beautiful Chaos - Gary Russell

That's 10 books (all of them read for the first time - 7 months!), with 2 non-fiction books and 3 graphic novels.

Total so far this year:
29 books - 6 non-ficion (I think that's some kind of record for this early in the year!)

There's a lot of things I could be putting here, like my Soundwave photos, or talking about how pissed off I am at bastard customers, but I'm going to see Dad's greyhound race in a little while, so I'll just post the list of books I read last month.



FEBRUARY
Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
Book Of The Dead: The Complete History Of Zombie Cinema - Jamie Russell
Nation - Terry Pratchett
Doctor Who: Revenge Of The Judoon - Terrance Dicks
Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
I Am America (And So Can You!) - Stephen Colbert
Postern Of Fate - Agatha Christie
Never The Bride - Paul Magrs
The Amory Wars: The Second Stage Turbine Blade, Volume 1 - Claudio Sanchez
The Toyminator - Robert Rankin

So, that's 10 books, all of which I read for the first time.

I loved Never The Bride, and I finshed reading the sequel, Something Borrowed, a few days ago. Highly reccommended. Classic books that are true stories in this world: Dracula, Frankenstein, War Of The Worlds and some others that I can't think of at the moment.

So, guess who's going to start watching Firefly tonight? Well, I suppose since I'm the one asking the question, it's kinda obvious that's it's ME!

I've been hearing about it for so long, but I never got off my butt to find it until I saw Serenity on TV a few weeks ago. Then there was the waiting around to get it from the library, and now I can see it! It's actually quite good timing too, seeing as I've run out of Supernatural to watch, because I can't find the damned 3rd season anywhere.

Also, it has been 6 months since I re-read a book. I was kinda amazed when I found out, since yesterday I thought "I wonder if I could make it to 6 months", then I did some calculations and realised that it had already happened! And it's likely that I'm going to keep reading new books for a while longer, since I still have some library books to read, and the first part of my order of cheap books arrived yesterday. The Amory Wars has been shipped, and another book that I ordered months ago and had given up on seems to be on it's way too. I'm quite excited!

Since everyone else seems to be posting their reading lists monthly, or whenver they feel like it, I thought maybe I would too, since it's much easier than wading through them at the end of the year.

So then, January. I read 8 books, 2 of which were non-fiction (both autobiographies of comedians).

JANUARY
Doctor Who: The Doctor Trap - Simon Messingham
A Lion Among Men - Gregory Maguire
One Flew Into The Cuckoo's Egg: My Autobiography - Bill Oddie
Small Favor - Jim Butcher
The Tales Of Beedle The Bard - J. K. Rowling
Dear Fatty - Dawn French
Doctor Who: Shining Darkness - Mark Michalowski
Doctor Who: Ghosts Of India - Mark Morris

So far this month, I have finished 4 books, but 2 were incredibly short, and another I have been reading since November, so I thought it was bloody well time that I finished it! So, up till today:

FEBRUARY
Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
Book Of The Dead: The Complete History Of Zombie Cinema - Jamie Russell
Nation - Terry Pratchett
Doctor Who: Revenge Of The Judoon - Terrance Dicks

I'm currently reading I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert and Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.

For the last few years, I've aimed to read 100 books each year, but in 2008 I decided to do something different. I have a long list of books that I own but haven't read yet, books that I would like to reread, or just books that I really want to read. So I decided to read as many of those books as I could. The trouble is, because I keep buying books, or finding new ones to read, this list keeps growing.

I started the list in October 2007, and by the end of 2008, I had read over half of them (33 out of 61), which I was quite happy with.

( They were: )

As well as that, I did make it to 100 books last year (108 to be exact). 87 of them I read for the first time, and 15 were non-fiction, both of which are the most I have done since I started keeping lists in 2003. So, here's the list of everything I read last year.

( 2008! )