Sunday, March 30, 2008

22books



Many thanks to everyone who responded to my request for reading recommendations - I've just made my 185th Amazon purchase (!) and now have far more than a week's worth of holiday reading winging it's way to me from their Marston Gate warehouse.

A couple of comments referenced the pile of books I'd used to illustrate the post - whilst it does contain a few of my favourites, it was more of a reflection of the volumes that were nearest to hand (I have an annoying habit of evangelically forcing my most cherished books onto my friends who are then forced to use them as door stops / paperweights and smile politely whenever I inquire as to how they are enjoying them).

A while back I came across 22books - a modest little site "dedicated to the creating, sharing, and viewing of book lists". Created by James Avery, initially to detail all 22 of the late Kurt Vonnegut's published books (hence the name), the site is a little light on functionality at present, offering commenting and embedding and not a whole lot else. That said, I'm increasingly favouring single-function sites (e.g. Flickr for photos, Twitter for status updates) over the everything-but-the-kitchen sink, all-your-base-are-belong-to-us behemoth that is Facebook.

Anyway, rather than construct my list of favourite novels using the more obvious choice of Amazon's Listmania, I thought I'd give 22books a whirl. Unfortunately I can't get their embed code to work with Blogger so I've cut-and-pasted the list below (don't worry James - I've left your Amazon affiliate code in tact :) You can view the list in situ here.

22 of my favourite novels:

412y3qjrjrl 1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
210rard2yql 2. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
51qwd6jfcfl 3. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
4183ppg0gzl 4. Air & Fire by Rupert Thomson
115brqk11yl 5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
51nm852x9ml 6. The Insult by Rupert Thomson
01e73hqarql 7. Atonement by Ian McEwan
11zmm8sfbgl 8. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
41w8a61sfrl 9. The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson
71g21n1tsfl 10. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
01tv3wqa6nl 11. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
01s8fsj0cul 12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
41czgbe4aal 13. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
51pgg6vyfgl 14. Number9Dream by David Mitchell
417s4bsg07l 15. Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
01526x6a3fl 16. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
513rnc8n3el 17. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
11ervchgvjl 18. Saturday by Ian McEwan
51vajxf5x9l 19. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
01qqst3x6dl 20. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
5141n7k89gl 21. The Five Gates of Hell by Rupert Thomson
51k6th69v1l 22. Black Out by John Lawton

2 comments:

James Avery said...

Sorry to hear that about the embed code, I am working on a flash object that should work with all blogging engines. The current one uses script which some blogging engines have trouble with.

And if you want you can actually plug your associates tag into your account on 22books. (under edit account) :)

Thanks,
James

Dan Taylor said...

Thanks James :)