The books that booted the year 2012 for me

Audiobooks, I am still an addict! Since summer of 2009 I have added 99 (yes, ninety-nine) of them to my library. Majority of them are from Audible subscription, next biggest chunk comes from public library cd:s and the rest from other services. I wonder which book should be the 100th, any suggestions? I still have couple books I have not listened to so I have some time before making the decision.

While thinking about that here's the recap of the books which I have listened since new year:

Reamde by Neal Stephenson: Another brick of a book from one of my most listened author. Reamde delivers in good storytelling but suffers from its length, it would be much better book some of the plot branches would be just trimmed of. I was pleased that the few technical details of infosec and computer technology were accurate and up-to-date. Recommended.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi is actually a remake and modernization of The "Little Fuzzy" story by H. Beam Piper (1962). The original was included as the second part of this audiobook. To be honest I did not listen the original story at all but I did like the remake.

Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick and William L. Simon was a must read even though many have said Mitnick has already written (and cashed out) enough about his hacking before the famous arrest and time in prison. The book was a pleasant surprise. it was a coherent story well told, and it added a lot to the picture I had on the Mitnick and the thinking behind a archtype hacker. The story resembled a lot "the kingpin" by Kevin Poulsen, even though the motives behind the action, and also the books themselves are different. If you are to read only one of the Mitnicks books, read this. Recommended.

DarkMarket by Misha Glenny tries to do something similar than Poulsens "The Kingpin" mentioned above. It just does not get the story together and falls at the same time to unevenness in the storytelling and style. I was outright annoyed after some passages where the author tried to paint a overly dramatic picture of the ways of criminals using the internet technologies. Not recommended unless you are really interested to get the couple of new angels to the history of the carding crime industry.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre was picked only because the movie made from the book was in the news. That, and the playful title. I loved this one even though it must be quite a standard spy novel (not much experience there). I have to get to see the movie also.

Then I went for Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This book lied on my library quite a while because I was a bit afraid to the sheer size and alleged complexity of it. I was wrong on both of those aspects: As an audiobook the "brick" was easily listened through and only somewhat complex thing was to keep the names of the characters in order in my mind. I do not know Russian at all, so I don't really have the ear for the complex Russian names either. I did enjoy the storytelling and the way how the main characters thoughts were slowly drawn to the listeners minds. Truly a classic, recommended.  

Zero Day by David Baldacci was a recommendation by audible, or some book review service I browse once in a while. Even though I did not have huge expectations this book was bit of a disappointment.  The characters were shallow and the plot wasn't really very deep either. Not recommended.

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo was almost guaranteed success for me after I did love "The Snowman" so much last year. In contrast to the Zero Day the characters and the story were so much more gripping and enjoyable. It might be something to do with the story being located to Norway with Scandinavian characters and atmosphere. Recommended!

The next book I just started is Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton which was another one which had been on the library already a while. The pair of books is good 80 hours long so I hesitated with it a bit, especially as the first ten or so minutes weren't That interesting the last time I tried to begin with it. Now - helped by the fact I have still two weeks until the next audible credits are due - I have given it a second chance.