The Dangerous Book for Boys

by Con Igguden & Hal Igguden

This was actually one of my Christmas presents to the Romgi. We’ve skimmed through it before but I thought with the Bwun coming it would be handy to have our own copy.

The book makes me wish I’d had a more adventurous childhood, or that I’d known the Romgi when we were kids and I could have explored the creek with him. It’s a great instruction manual and guide for being an awesome little boy, so I have great hopes of the Bwun growing up well. Maybe we’ll even end up back east for a few years and he can roam around the countryside at our summer home (ha!).

Definitely recommended; if you don’t have boys, try The Daring Book for Girls.

reading list 2008

New books: 37 ( 12,914 pgs )

Longest book: The Count of Monte Cristo (1,461 pgs)
Shortest book: Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1) (122 pgs)
Oldest book: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
Newest book: I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter (May 2007)
Best book: tie – Fahrenheit 451 / The Book Thief
Best children’s/YA book: Speak
Worst book: Seven Daughters and Seven Sons
Most disappointing book: The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope
Lemony Snicket, The Miserable Mill
Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy
Jeanette Winterson, Tanglewreck
Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound
Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator
Lemony Snicket, The Vile Village
Phillip Pullman, I Was a Rat
Patricia C. Wrede, The Grand Tour
Patricia C. Wrede, Mairelon the Magician
Jack Weatherford, Savages and Civilization
Jessica Day George, Dragon Slippers
Dave Barry, Peter and the Starcatchers
Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
Roald Dahl, The BFG
Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
Steven Brust, The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Patricia Reilly Giff, Pictures of Hollis Woods
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy, Seven Daughters and Seven Sons
Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express
Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World
Leonie Swann, Three Bags Full
Dave Barry, Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Jeanne Birdsall, The Penderwicks
Mary Norton, Bed-Knob and Broomstick
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
E.L. Konigsburg, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Ursula LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Lynn Cullen, I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
R.L. Stine, Welcome to Dead House
R.L. Stine, The Ghost Next Door

Yes, I cheated at the end by reading a couple Goosebumps books. But only because I really wanted to beat my previous record of 12,843 pages.

Previous: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

Recommended

I can’t remember why I first started this list, but if I’m asked for books I would recommend, this is usually what I give people.

Classic that won’t take 3 years to read: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzcy

Fiction you can analyze to death: Watership Down by Richard Adams (but it really is just about rabbits)

Everyone should probably read: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Children’s to make you swear never to have kids: The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit (obviously it didn’t work for me)

Non-fiction you can use for trivia: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Children’s read-aloud: A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck

Excessively surreal and obscure: Under Plum Lake by Lionel Davidson

One of my favorites: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

YA fiction to make you appreciate teenage hormones: Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

YA fantasy: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (and then read Inkspell)

After you read Hamlet again: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Underappreciated classic: Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Complete emotional drain: Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip

Bestseller: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (recommended with hesitation, see my blog post about it)

Science fiction, I suppose: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

If you’ve never read C.S. Lewis: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

One of my other favorites: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (recommended with caution that there is a bit of swearing)

On a grouchy day: Judy Moody by Megan McDonald

Movie adaptation: K-PAX by Gene Brewer (it’s ok to see the movie first)

Because I don’t know what genre you like: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

…and there you have it. The world according to me.