Best Of 2008: Books and Games (And More)

31 Dec

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Film: “North and South” – My Second Take

Books

I read (= recorded as read) 101 books this year. I know there are some I didn’t catch (mostly non-fiction) and nearly 40 of the books are category novels, but all in all, and thanks to the huge effort in December, I managed to read over 100 books. Yeah!

My favorite reads by grade:

Top Ten of Books read in 2008:

  • Meljean Brook – Demon Bound
  • Kresley Cole – Dark Needs at Night’s Edge
  • Jennifer Crusie – Manhunting
  • Meredith Duran – The Duke of Shadows
  • Susan Fromberg Schaeffer – The Madness of a Seduced Woman
  • Laura Kinsale – The Prince of Midnight
  • Lisa Kleypas – Sugar Daddy
  • Kathleen O’Reilly – Sex, Straight Up
  • Brandon Sanderson – Mistborn
  • Linnea Sinclair – Shades of Dark
  • Special Mention:
    – Joanna Bourne (for the writing)
    – Kristin Hardy
    – Caroline Linden
    – Sherry Thomas

My favorite novel 2008:

This is really difficult because you’re comparing apples to oranges and depending on mood and day and whatnot, this changes but anyway, here goes:
I was a really close decision between Meredith Duran’s The Duke of Shadows and Laura Kinsale’s The Prince of Midnight, with Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire a close third. In the end, I decided on

kinsale-laura-prince-of-midnight

Laura Kinsale – The Prince of Midnight

The fact that decided it was that I didn’t think I would like The Prince of Midnight all that much before I started to read it (the cross-dressing heroine).

This makes
Meredith Duran’s The Duke of Shadows
my favorite of the books published in 2008
(that I read).

Additional thoughts:

  • I had to read my comments about Karen Rose’s You Can’t Hide again. I didn’t remember…
  • I also don’t remember much about Jennifer Crusie’s Manhunting. But I gave it a 5/5 so it’s on the list.
  • I got really into category novels this year. I like that they are fast to read and focused on the romance – a good way to fix my contemporary romance cravings. But most of all, I really appreciate how authors manage to turn out good stories with all the constraints on this format.
  • The most pleasant surprise: that I like Kresley Cole’s “Immortals After Dark” series after all.
  • Looking at all the books and the grades, I have really a lot of books graded in the 4/5 range. Maybe I’m too generous, I don’t know, but grading is probably something I have to think about (once more).

~ * ~

Games

I finished 4 games:

and started/played ? number of others, most notably Civilization IV (PC), Divine Divinity (PC), Spell Force (PC), Puzzle Quest (PS2), and some Diablo 2 (PC) and Civilization III (PC).

My favorite game:

Okami (PS2)

okami

It’s one of my most favorite games on the PS2. It’s beautiful and original.

Music

Usually, this is not part of my end-of-the-year post, but this year, there are two CDs I listened to a lot:

  • James Blunt – Back to Bedlam
  • Any MacDonald – This Is the Life

I already wrote about the significance of James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam so I want to conclude this year with a video by Amy MacDonald. I really like every song on her album This Is the Life, and since I already linked my favorite of her songs, Let’s Start a Band, I chose the title song of her album, This is the Life, as the last thing to post this year:

Amy MacDonald – This Is the Life

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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