Books I Have Read In 2010

Legend:
O - from own collection (either already had, sent from OZ VBB or RABCK)
L - library
B - bookring or bookray
W - borrowed
C - can't remember

JANUARY
1. Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and The Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club - Ralph 'Sonny' Barger with Keith and Kent Zimmerman (W)
2. Under The Dome - Stephen King (L)
3. "G" Is For Grafton: The World Of Kinsey Millhone - Natalie Hevener Kaufman & Carol McGinnis Kay (L)
4. Affection - Krissy Kneen (L)
5. The Confession of a Unrepentant Lesbian Ex-Mormon - Sue-Ann Post (L)
6. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger (B)
7. Truth - Peter Temple (L)
8. Brief Encounters: Stories of Love, Sex and Travel - Michelle de Kretser (ed) (O)
9. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (O) ** 1001 list **
10. The Divide - Nicholas Evans (O)
11. The Road - Cormac McCarthy (O)
FEBRUARY
12. Turtle - Gary Bryson (O)
13. Untamed (House of Night Novel Book 4) - P.C. and Kristin Cast (O)
14. Hunted (House of Night Novel Book 5) - P.C. and Kristin Cast (O)
15. The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl - Shauna Reid (O)
16. The Pianist - Wladyslaw Szpilman (B)
17. Bowie - Marc Spitz (W)
18. Trixie Belden #6 Mystery In Arizona - Julie Campbell (L)
19. The Book Of Tomorrow - Cecelia Ahern (L)
20. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen (L) **1001 list **
21. Wolf Island (The Demonata Book 8) - Darren Shan (L)
22. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (L)
23. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (O) **1001 list **
24. The Pied Piper of Hamelin - Robert Browning (L)
25. The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault - Neil Philip, Nicoletta Simborowski (L)
26. Fallen - Lauren Kate (L)
27. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll (O)
MARCH
28. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (O) **1001 list **
29. Bec (The Demonata Book 4) - Darren Shan (L)
30. Blood Promise (Vampire Academy Book 4) - Richelle Mead (L)
31. Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea - Chelsea Handler (O)
APRIL
32. His Illegal Self - Peter Carey (B)
33. Don't Be That Girl: Your Foolproof Plan To Get That Man - Travis L.Stork with Leah Furman (O)
34. Killing Floor - Lee Childs (O)
MAY
35. Quiet Please: Dispatches From A Public Librarian - Scott Douglas (O)
36. Tempted (House of Night Novel Book 6) - P.C. and Kristin Cast (O)
37. A Dull Roar: What I Did On My Summer Deracination 2006 - Henry Rollins (O)
38. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova (B)
39. Breakfast At Tiffanys - Truman Capote (O)
JUNE
40. Nice Work - Jana Wendt (L)
41. Reading By Moonlight - Brenda Walker (L)
42. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (O)
JULY
43. Mystic Medusa's Astroscape 2010 - Mystic Medusa (O)
44. Thirty-Something And Over It - Kasey Edwards (L)
45. Bonk - Mary Roach (B)
46. Strange Places: A Memoir Of Mental Illness - Will Elliott (O)
AUGUST
47. Tales of a Female Nomad : Living At Large In The World - Rita Golden Gelman (B)
48. Things Your Mother Never Told You - Marion McGilvary (W)
49. The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner - Stephenie Meyer (O)
50. The Lost Book Of Salem - Katherine Howe (B)
51. Tomorrow, When The War Began - John Marsden (O)
52. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (O) ** 1001 list **
SEPTEMBER
53. Sweet Poison - David Gillespie (W)
54. Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need To Know - Gordon Livingstone M.D. (O)
55. Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia (O)
56. Hush Hush - Becca Fitzgerald (O)
57. Dating Makes You Want To Die.. But You Have To Do It Anyway: Getting Through The Absurdity Of Dating With Your Soul Intact - Daniel Holloway & Dorothy Robinson (L)
58. A Date With Sarah Beeny: Mysinglefriend.com's Guide to Dating and Dumping, Flirting and Flings - Sarah Beeny & Amanda Christie (L)
OCTOBER
59. Who Moved My Blackberry? - Martin Lukes with Lucy Kellaway (B)
60. The Good Girl's Guide To Bad Girl Sex - Barbara Keesling (O)
NOVEMBER
61. Sleeping Around: A Couch Surfing Tour Of The Globe - Brian Thacker (O)
62. We Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson (O)
63. Zombie - Joyce Carol Oates (O)
DECEMBER
64. The Sweet Poison Quit Plan - David Gillespie (O)
65. The Day I Shot Cupid - Jennifer Love Hewitt (O)
66. There's A Bear In There (And He Wants Swedish) - Merridy Eastman (O)
67. Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris (W)
68. Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris (W)
69. Club Dead - Charlaine Harris (W)
70. Dead To The World - Charlaine Harris (W)
71. Dead As A Doornail - Charlaine Harris (W)
72. Definitely Dead - Charlaine Harris (W)
73. All Together Dead - Charlaine Harris (W)

Book-related Goals For 2010

• read 12 books from the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die' list (1 a month)
• read all of Jane Austen's novels
• read 104 books total for the year (will change to 52 for the year if I end up going back to uni to do my postgraduate study this year)

How To Build The Perfect Action Hero

Found in an old edition of Empire Magazine (July 2002) - I found it amusing, so reposting it here.

• 86% of action heroes are male
• 74% are white
• The average height of an action hero is 5'8"
• 61% work for the government
• 43% are considered "loose cannons" by their boss
• 21% of action heroes sport a mullet
• 35% have chest hair
• 50% wax their chest to be more aerodynamic
• 52% will strip down to their vest in hazardous situations
• 1 in 2 action heroes works with a partner
• 4 out of 5 of those partners will not make it to the closing credits
• average time spent grieving for dead partner: 27 seconds
• 34% have unresolved sexual feelings towards their partner
• only 13% of action heroes are married
• 17% wear a hat
• 57% of action heroes get to kiss anyone, and of those, 9% kiss more than one person
• 17% have recently lost a member of their family
• the family member most likely to die is the hero's wife

Chances are an action hero's nemesis will be:

• criminal mastermind 22%
• non-human 17%
• ex-colleague 13%
• terrorists 13%
• the Germans 13%
• smugglers 9%
• psycho 9%
• the Police 4%
• 1 in 5 will be double-crossed
• 
• The average action hero uses two different vehicles
• 53% favour a sports car
• 17% prefer a motorbike
• a thrifty 11% catch the bus
• on average, an action hero will destroy one building and three vehicles
• this leaves 126 people unemployed, 48 homeless, and 2 women late for a haircut
• the action hero will defuse a bomb three seconds before explosion
• 1 in 5 is a smoker
• 1 in 3 drinks
• 1 in 4 suffers from some form of psychotic episode
• 26% of action heroes will appear partially naked at some point in the movie
• none of these nude appearances will advance the plot
• 1 in 4 will wear a disguise
• 7 out of 10 action heroes will get a sequel
• the sequel will be 38% worse than the original
• 4% of action heroes favour explosive chewing gum
• action heroes use an average of three different weapons. Most popular are:
• 70% handgun
• 35% knife or sword
• 24% shotgun
• 41% rifle
• the average action hero kills a massive 15 people
• but only wounds 7
• this leaves 24 henchmen's children without a father
• 1 in 4 action heroes are wanted by the police
• 1 in 3 will be captured by the enemy
• all will escape (of course)
• on average, an action hero will trade seven deadpan one-liners with the enemy
• three of these will be funny
• 1 in 4 speaks a foreign language
• the favoured foreign destination of action heroes is Russia (13% will visit)
• Prague is a near second with 9%
• 57% prefer to stay at home

• Likelihood of sustaining a cosmetic injury on:
• either cheek 26%
• forehead 3%
• eye 13%
• nose 9%
• lip 4%
• The most popular target areas for an action hero to aim for are:
• 24% head
• 11% neck
• 6% shoulder
• 30% chest
• 16% stomach
• 10% leg
• and a craven 3% aim for the back
• 21% wear sunglasses (especially indoors or at night)
• 2 out of 5 action heroes do not swear
• the favourite swear word of the other foul-mouthed 60% is "shit"
• only 1 in 4 ever utters the obscenity "fuck"
• 37% complain that they are "getting too old for this shit"
• of those, 76% will continue being too old for this shit until the cinemagoing public tell them otherwise

(Numbers based on close viewing of the following sources: Speed, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Predator, GoldenEye, Dirty Harry, Rambo, Escape From New York, The Lord Of The Rings, Under Siege, Rush Hour, Hard Boiled, Universal Soldier, Face/Off, Con Air, Blade, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Mission: Impossible, Tomb Raider, The Dirty Dozen and Men In Black).