2015: Year in Review

On one hand, I'm having a hard time believing this year is finally coming to an end. On the other hand, this year has felt like its been two or three times as long as usual so I'm eager to get on with a new year! My house project is finally done so maybe I can get back to whatever it was I used to do before we started. Blogging perhaps?

Biggest success this year?  Reading what I felt like, when I felt like. Letting go of most of my reading goals ended up being a good thing.

Biggest goal for 2016? Apart from being more involved in my blog, (I've resolved to write more this year in general,) I'd like to focus on reading titles from my shelves now that I finally have my books all in one place.

84 books read in 2015 - More than the last two years, color me surprised!

• 21.5% NONFICTION (18 books) 4.5% up from 2014
• 45% ADULT FICTION (38 books) 9% down from 2014
• 21.5% JUNIOR/TEEN FICTION (18 books) 14.5% down from 2014
• 12% CLASSICS (10 books) 3% up from 2014

20 books WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN
12 books WRITTEN THIS YEAR
9 "CHUNKSTERS" (450+ pages)

TOP FIVE of 2014:
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (funny, complex characters and vivid setting)
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (wonderfully told history)
The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (introspective and evocative of person and place)
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (perfectly told Civil War history)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (atmospheric and captivating)

    

TOP RATED BOOKS BY GENRE:
Nonfiction:
5 stars:
  - The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
  - Being Mortal, Atul Gawande
  - The Landmark History of the American People, Vol. I, Daniel Boorstin
4.5 stars:
  - The Lexicographer's Dilemma, Jack Lynch
  - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo
  - Dead Wake, Erik Larson

Classics:
5 stars:
  - Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
  - Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell
4.5 stars:
  - The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty

Adult Fiction:
5 stars:
  - We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
  - The Edge of Sadness, Edwin O'Connor
  - The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
4.5 stars:
  - The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
  - Wolf Winter, Cecilia Eckback
  - The Martian, Andy Weir

Junior/Teen Fiction:
5 stars:
  - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
4.5 stars:
  - Tuesdays at the Castle, Jessica Day George

2014 in Review (the BIG post!)

Even though 2014 was crazy, it wasn't nearly as stressful as 2013.  14yo daughters are better than 13yo daughters, and renovating a house without a contractor is better than renovating with one...at least in these particular instances.  Looking back, there were good things about being too busy to blog.  I read what I wanted to read, for the most part (the exception being the classics that I didn't have the mental fortitude to conquer.) I do like having goals and challenges, but—as with most things—there needs to be balance and moderation.

Biggest success this year?  Two things: This was the year of really solidifying an appreciation for audiobooks.  This also [inadvertently] became a year of re-reads.  Not in the traditional sense necessarily, although there were a few titles that I'd read before. But I also read multiple books by new-to-me authors, and multiple books on the same subject, and found it to be rewarding.

Biggest goal for 2015? To enjoy pulling my books out of storage and revisiting all those old friends, to continue to chip away at reading books from my shelves and at the same time to continue to support my local independent book shop.

I read fewer books this year than I have since 2007, and yet I'm not dissatisfied.  I do hope to fit in more classics next year, but if the number is low again next year I don't think I'll mind so much.

I felt a lack of nonfiction and classics this year, but it looks like my nonfiction was on par—only my classics count was low.  My other stats are comparable to previous years, looking at the percentages, with one of the most interesting (to me) being the fact that my best reading months center around April, and my worst happen at the end of the year.  Makes sense, now that I think about it.

How many books read in 2014?
69 (10 less than last year, and 26 less than 2012...but there's always next year!)

Genres? 
NONFICTION -  17% (12 books)  [14% (11 books) last year]
FICTION -  83% (57 books)  [86% (68 books) last year]

• CLASSICS - 9% of Fiction (5 books) [18% (12 books) last year]
• JUNIOR / TEEN - 37% of Fiction (21 books) [22% (15 books) last year]
• ADULT FICTION - 54% of Fiction (31 books) [60% (41 books) last year]

Male/Female authors?
FEMALE - 52% (36 books) [52% (41.5 books) last year]
MALE - 48% (33 books) [48% (37.5 books last year]

Old/New?
OLDEST? Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, 1811
NEWEST? Nora Webster by Colm Toibin, October 2014
# WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN? 14 [28 last year]
# WRITTEN THIS YEAR? 14 [8 last year]

Length?
Longest book read? Cloudsplitter by Russel Banks @ 758pp
Shortest book read? The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman @ 96pp
Number of "chunksters" (450+ pages)? 11 [8 last year]
Any in translation? 2 (4 last year)


Best/Worst Reading Month?
Best—March - 9 books [April & May last year w/11]
Worst—May - 3 books [June, November, & December last year w/4]

TOP FIVE of 2014: (I only had four 5-star books, and eight 4.5-star books, so this wasn't very difficult to figure out.  I didn't include Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, since it isn't new to me...it is an all-time favorite, though, a cherished reread that I highly recommend!)

The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye (stunning setting, wonderfully full characters)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (fascinating history of quickly changing time/place)
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (sweet first love, complex story)
I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe (Civil War...the only book that made me cry)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (beautifully written, unique perspective on WWII)

    



and a comparison chart just for the fun of it--

So, it looks like my NonFiction reading and my Junior/Teen Fiction is right on par with where it has been, but my Adult Fiction and Classics are down.  I wish I'd been able to fit in a few more classics but overall I'm pretty happy with my reading year.

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING:

Nonfiction: 17% (average rating 3.36)  [last year's average rating was 3.91]
5 stars:
  -
4.5 stars:
  - The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
4 stars:
  - 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
  - MFA vs. NYC, ed. Chad Harbach
  - What We See When We Read, Peter Mendelsund
  - Jane Austen Cover to Cover, Margaret C. Sullivan
3.5 stars:
  - Under the Overpass, Mike Yankoski
  - Seven, Jen Hatmaker
3 stars:
  - Loving Our Kids on Purpose, Danny Silk
2.5 stars:
  - Judging a Book By Its Lover, Lauren Leto
2 stars:
  - Half-Broke Horses, Jeannette Walls
  - The Souls of All Living Creatures, Vint Virga

Classics: 9% of Fiction(average rating 3.9) [last year's average rating was 3.96]
5 stars:
  - Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen
4.5 stars:
  - Free Air, Sinclair Lewis
4 stars:
  - All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
3 stars:
  - Oil!, Upton Sinclair
  - Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

Adult Fiction: 54% of Fiction (average rating 3.89) [last year's average rating was 3.64]
5 stars:
  - The Lighthouse Road, Peter Geye
  - All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
4.5 stars:
  - The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
  - The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer
  - I Shall Be Near to You, Erin Lindsay McCabe
  - The Road From Gap Creek, Robert Morgan
  - Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
  - Nora Webster, Colm Toibin
4 stars:
  - Lexicon, Max Barry
  - The Dog Stars, Peter Heller
  - The Moon Sisters, Therese Walsh
  - The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt
  - Cloudsplitter, Russel Banks
  - The Sisters Mortland, Sally Beauman
  - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
3.5 stars:
  - Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler
  - Mrs. Queen Takes the Train, William Kuhn
  - The Dinner, Herman Koch
  - The Position, Meg Wolitzer
  - Flora, Gail Goodwin
  - The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, Susan Jane Gilman
  - Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
  - The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
  - The Best of McSweeney's, ed. Dave Eggers
  - One Plus One, Jojo Moyes
  - Wake, Anna Hope
3 stars:
  - Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  - Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
  - Longbourn, Jo Baker
  - Ade, Rebecca Walker

Junior/Teen Fiction: 37% of Fiction (average rating 3.83) [last year's average rating was 3.83]
5 stars:
  - Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
4.5 stars:
  - The Children of Noisy Village, Astrid Lindgren
4 stars:
  - Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo
  - The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
  - Folk of the Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
  - The Yellow Phantom, Margaret Sutton
  - Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
  - The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, Stephen Collins
  - More Than This, Patrick Ness
3.5 stars:
  - The Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare
  - The Impossible Knife of Memory, Laurie Halse Anderson
  - The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman
  - Master Cornhill, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
3 stars:
  - Along Came a Dog, Meindert DeJong
  - Please Ignore Vera Dietz, A.S. King
  - King Dork, Frank Portman
  - The Gate in the Wall, Ellen Howard
  - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne
  - Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
2 stars:
  - We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

2013: Full List and Stats

2013 was a crazy year, mostly due to having a 13yo daughter and being stuck in the middle of a major renovation, and I must admit that 2014 is already looking to be much better (both major items are making major progress).  Even with severe constraints on my time and mental capacity, I somehow managed to read more books than I thought I would.

Biggest success this year?  I read a lot more short stories than I ever have before.  Last year I made an [unsuccessful] attempt to love poetry, this year I focus on short stories and have really come to love them.  Yay!

Biggest goal for 2014? I'd really like to pull back into blogging, both for the social aspect and for how it lets me think through the books I read.  I miss you all—seeing what you are reading and talking about our observations and opinions.  I miss read-alongs.

I felt a lack of nonfiction and classics this year, but it looks like my nonfiction was on par—only my classics count was low.  My other stats are comparable to previous years, looking at the percentages, with one of the most interesting (to me) being the fact that my best reading months center around April, and my worst happen at the end of the year.  Makes sense, now that I think about it.

How many books read in 2013?
79 (16 less than 2012.  My goal is always to break 100, which I haven't done for the last couple of years, but it's still a good number!)

Genres? 
NONFICTION -  14% (11 books)  [15% in 2012, 14% in 2011]
FICTION -  86% (68 books)  [85% in 2012, 86% 2011]

• CLASSICS - 15% (12 books) [18% in 2012, 30% in 2011 (novellas!)]
• JUNIOR / TEEN - 19% (15 books) [21% in 2012, 20% in 2011]
• ADULT FICTION - 52% (41 books) [46% in 2012, 36% 2011]

Male/Female authors?
FEMALE - 52% (41.5 books) [51% in 2012, 48% in 2011]
MALE - 48% (37.5 books) [49% in 2012, 52% in 2011]

Old/New?
OLDEST? Jane Austen's Persuasion, 1817
NEWEST? Guests on Earth by Lee Smith, late 2013
# WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN? 28 [24 in 2012, 51 in 2011]
# WRITTEN THIS YEAR? 8 [9 in 2012, 20 in 2011]

Length?
Longest book read? Ireland by Frank Delaney @ 651pp
Shortest book read? Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl @ 81pp
Number of "chunksters" (450+ pages)? 8 [12 in 2012, 10 in 2011]
Any in translation? 4 (2 modern, 2 classic)


Best/Worst Reading Month?
Best--April and May @ 11 books each [2011: March and April w/13 books each]
Worst--June, November, and December @ 4 books each [2011: September and October w/2 books each]

TOP FIVE of 2012: (I only had four 5-star books, and ten 4.5-star books, so this wasn't very difficult to figure out.  I didn't include Jane Austen's Persuasion, since it isn't new to me...it is an all-time favorite, though, a cherished reread that I highly recommend!)

The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Van Booy (breathtakingly beautiful and imaginative)
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (wonderful, captivating nonfiction)
Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb (better than Grapes of Wrath for sure)
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (real, intimate, honest, and simply complex)
The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler (quirky yet insightful)

    



and a comparison chart just for the fun of it--

Again, the most notable change in my reading in the last 5 years is the shift between Junior/Teen Fiction and Adult Fiction.  This is mostly because I'm homeschooling only one kiddo now.  The other [unfortunate] change is a decrease in classics and nonfiction.  I miss it dreadfully.  One of the side-effects of kiddos growing older is that they stay up later, thus infringing on my quality reading time (boo).  That is compounded by our house renovation that sucks time (and life) out of me.  (The good news is that our house should be complete by summertime.  Yay! THEN, I'll be able to unpack my books into their permanent home.  It'll be fabulous.)

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING:

Nonfiction: 14% (average rating 3.91)  [2012 average: 3.76, 2011 average: 3.56,2010 average: 3.74]
5 stars:
  - The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan
  - Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
4.5 stars:
  - Below Stairs, Margaret Powell
4 stars:
  - The Famine Plot, Pat Coogan
  - The Water is Wide, Pat Conroy
  - Flapper, Joshua Zeitz
  - Fate is the Hunter, Ernest K. Gann
3.5 stars:
  - Two Guys Read Jane Austen, Chandler & Hill
  - Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
  - Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man, Richard Stengel
2 stars:
  - Wild, Cheryl Strayed

Classics: 15% (average rating 3.96) [2012 average: 3.97, 2011 average: 3.74, 2010 average: 4.04]
5 stars:
  - Persuasion, Jane Austen
4.5 stars:
  - The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  - My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather
  - The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
  - Whose Names are Unknown, Sanora Babb
4 stars:
  - The Professor's House, Willa Cather
  - The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis
3.5 stars:
  - Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw
  - The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
  - A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
3 stars:
  - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  - Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin

Adult Fiction: 52% (average rating 3.64) [2012 average: 3.80, 2011 average: 3.81, 2010 average: 3.38]
5 stars:
  - The Illusion of Separateness, Simon Van Booy
4.5 stars:
  - River of Earth, James Still
  - Benediction, Kent Haruf
  - The Secret Lives of People in Love, Simon Van Booy
  - Mudbound, Hillary Jordan
  - The Beginner's Goodbye, Anne Tyler
4 stars:
  - The Death of Bees, Lisa O'Donnell
  - The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
  - Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym
  - The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent
  - The Last Runaway, Tracy Chevalier
  - Queen of the Big Time, Adriana Trigiani
  - A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
  - State of Wonder, Anne Patchett
  - Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Lorrie Moore
  - Heat Lightning, Helen Hull
  - Kindred, Octavia E. Butler
  - Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro
3.5 stars:
  - Running the Rift, Naomi Benaron
  - Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver
  - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
  - Annie Dunne, Sebastian Barry
  - The Chaperone, Laura Moriarty
  - Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler
  - Bobcat and Other Stories, Rebecca Lee
  - Mary Coin, Marisa Silver
  - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin
  - The Prisoner of Heaven, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  - Possession, A.S. Byatt
  - The Childhood of Jesus, J.M. Coetzee
3 stars:
  - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
  - New Irish Short Stories, various authors
  - Ireland, Frank Delaney
  - Hikikomori and the Rental Sister, Jeff Backhaus
  - Follow the River, James Alexander Thom
  - An Unfinished Score, Elise Blackwell
  - When She Woke, Hillary Jordan
  - Guests on Earth, Lee Smith
2 stars:
  - Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, Emma Straub
  - The Midwife of Hope River, Patricia Harman

Junior/Teen Fiction: 19% (average rating 3.83) [2012 average: 3.65, 2011: average rating 3.5, 2010: average 3.64]
4.5 stars:
  - The Wheel on the School, Meindert DeJong
  - The Enchanted Wood, Enid Blyton
4 stars:
  - Little Pear, Eleanor Francis Lattimore
  - Toothpaste Millionaire, Jean Merrill
  - Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren
  - The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness
  - Coraline, Neil Gaiman
  - The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
  - Pippi Goes on Board, Astrid Lindgren
  - Good Masters, Sweet Ladies, Laura Amy Schlitz
  - The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness
3.5 stars:
  - Emily's Runaway Imagination, Beverly Cleary
3 stars:
  - Gib and the Gray Ghost, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  - The Story of Doctor Dolittle, Hugh Lofting
  - Black Horses for the King, Anne McCaffrey

Rethinking Challenges for 2013 (and stats for 2012)

I simply am not wanting to try to meet expectations in my reading life right now.  I have so many other things going on that I feel like I'm failing at (or not managing up to my standards) that I need to find a way to let go of some of the guilt-weight, and this seemed like the best place to start.

Between designing and keeping on top of our house project, and homeschooling a 3rd and 11th grader (not to mention getting 2 other kiddos through middle school and trying to keep the house clean etc) my non-scheduled, non-disciplined self is being challenged enough already.  Add to that some new news—we inadvertantly sold the house we just moved into, which means we now need to look for a new place to live (that is hopefully big enough for us, close to our remodel project, and preferably still within walking distance of our friends who just moved close to us) and get to repack all the things we just unpacked— and I've certainly got enough on my plate.

Last year I focused on my own personal challenges more than group challenges, and I'm taking that urge to be free from commitments a step further in 2013.  Instead of making lists of books that I want to get through, and crossing them off as I go, I am going to read how the mood strikes and keep track of how they might fit into my goals.

Generally speaking, the areas that I'll be keeping track of are similar to what they were before:

• Books from my Wishlist
• Books that have been on my shelf FOREVER
• Classics
• Non-Fiction
• Pulitzer Prize Winners
• Newbery Medal Winners
• Willa Cather [Chronologically]

These will be tracked on my Challenge page, as before, and continuing on the sidebar (bar graph) as well.  We'll see how this all works out!

Now, to look at how I did on my 2012 goals. Overall, I think I did fine.  Mostly, I didn't reach my goals, but since they were largely personal goals, I'm okay with it.  I am looking forward to guilt-free reading in 2013 though!

• Willa Cather Chronologically: I wanted to read 4 books, and I ended reading 5.  Yay me!  I'm currently about halfway through her books, and some good ones to come!
• Reading the Newbery Medal Books:  I wanted to read 5 books, and I only read 4...although I did read half of Gaiman's Graveyard Book before quitting, so I've crossed 5 off the list anyhow.  Maybe someday I'll give that one another go. I've currently read 36 of the 91 books.
• Reading the Pulitzer Prize Winners:  My goal was to read 5 books, and I only read 4.  I've currently read 18 of the 85 books.
• Reading from my Shelf: I wanted to get 10 of these out of the way, but only read 4.  :(  The hard part here is that some of the books weren't even ones I selected myself.  Might be time to weed through the shelf.
• Reading Poetry and Short Stories: I wanted to read 3 collections of each, in order to build an appreciation for these forms.  I ended up loving the stories I found, and will continue on that end.  I had a harder time with poetry.  I don't know if I'm just picky or what, but much of it says nothing to me.
• Reading from my Wishlist: ...because I'll never get to them otherwise.  I wanted to be reading one a month, but that petered out.  I ended up reading 7, which is still better than none.
• Back to the Classics Challenge: I read 7 out of 9 on my list, but linked up even fewer reviews than that, which is why I didn't sign up for 2013.  I am still keeping track of my Classics Club, though.
• Spring into Junior Fiction Challenge:  a personal challenge to get through some of my JF...I wanted to read 10 but only made it through 8 on my list (although I did read other JF.)  

2012: Full List and Stats

A major reading slump this autumn has made a dent in reaching my reading goals, but I'm gaining speed and refocusing now—albeit with slightly different priorities (but that discussion will have to wait for another post.  I'll be talking about goals and all that stuff soon.)  One thing that is always a priority with me is the list and the stats.  I love stats.

How many books read in 2012?
95 (30 less than 2011! Largely due to reading slumps and no novellas.  My goal is always to break 100, so I still came pretty close.)

Genres? 
NONFICTION - 14 (15% of total) [18/14% in 2011]
FICTION - 81 (85% of total) [107/86% 2011]

• CLASSICS - 17 (21% of fiction) [37/30% in 2011 (novellas!)]
• JUNIOR / TEEN - 20 (25% of fiction) [26/20% in 2011]
• ADULT FICTION - 44 (54% of fiction) [45/36% 2011]

Male/Female authors?
FEMALE - 48 (51%) [48% in 2011]
MALE - 47 (49%) [52% in 2011]

Old/New?
OLDEST? Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, 1818 (it was all right)
NEWEST? The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon (it was wonderful)
# WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN? 24
# WRITTEN THIS YEAR? 9

Length?
Longest book read? 11/22/1963 by Stephen King @ 849pp
Shortest book read? Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde @ 69pp
Number of "chunksters" (450+ pages)? 12--2 more than 2010 & 2011
Any in translation? 1 (What??? That's it???? Pitiful.)


Best/Worst Reading Month?
Best--March & April @ 13 books each
Worst--September & October @ 2 books each

TOP FIVE of 2012: (excluding recent re-reads, notably Song of the Lark, and determined by the very un-scientific method of deciding which ones loomed largest in my memory.)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (all around wonderfully done)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (incredible story-telling)
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (fascinating biography!)
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (heartbreaking characters and setting)
Hell and Ohio by Chris Holbrook (incredible, deceptively simple writing)

    



and a comparison chart just for the fun of it--

The most notable change in my reading in the last 5 years is the shift between Junior/Teen Fiction and Adult Fiction.  This is due to 2 factors:  first, my kiddos are getting older so I have more available brain cells to be able to handle more complex literature; and second, I'm not homeschooling as many of kiddos now, and so I don't need to be doing the amount of pre-reading and reading-aloud that I was doing before.

Other than that big difference, I am also showing a slight decline in Non-Fiction reading (although it should be noted that 2008 Non-Fiction was mostly on the Junior level).  This explains why I've been craving it more!

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING:

Nonfiction: 16% (average rating 3.76)  [2011: 14% (average rating 3.56)] [2010: 21% (average rating 3.74)]
4.5 stars:
  - Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
  - Lincoln: A Photobiography, Russell Freedman
  - Last Call, Daniel Okrent
4 stars:
  - Up and Down Stairs, Jeremy Musson
  - The Complete MAUS, Art Spiegelman
  - Eating the Plates, Lucille Recht Penner
  - Quiet, Susan Cain
  - The Famine Plot, Tim Pat Coogan
3.5 stars:
  - Newspaper Blackout, Austin Kleon
  - 1776, David McCullough
  - Rascal, Sterling North
  - The Children's Blizzard, David Laskin
3 stars:
  - Q's Legacy, Helene Hanff
  - One and Only, Gerald Nicosia
  - George Washington: Our First Leader, Augusta Stevenson

Classics: 18% (average rating 3.97) [2011: 30% (average rating 3.74)] [2010: 10% (average rating 4.04)]
5 stars:
  - Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
  - The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
4.5 stars:
  - Night, Elie Weisel
  - How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn
4 stars:
  - My Antonia, Willa Cather
  - One of Ours, Willa Cather
  - Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar Wilde
  - The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
  - The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
  - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
  - Watership Down, Richard Adams
3.5 stars:
  - The Warden, Anthony Trollope
  - Youth and the Bright Medusa, Willa Cather
  - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
  - On the Road, Jack Kerouac
  - A Lost Lady, Willa Cather
3 stars:
  - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Adult Fiction: 22% (average rating ) [2011: 36% (average rating 3.81)] [2010: 30% (average rating 3.38)]
5 stars:
  - Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
  - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
4.5 stars:
  - On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
  - 11/22/1963, Stephen King
  - So Big, Edna Ferber
  - The Hand that First Held Mine, Maggie O'Farrell
  - The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
  - The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
  - Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
  - Hell and Ohio, Chris Holbrook
  - Good Behaviour, Molly Keane
  - Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O'Nan
  - The Colour of Milk, Nell Leyshon
4 stars:
  - The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
  - Dance Lessons, Aine Greaney
  - Love and Summer, William Trevor
  - The Frozen Thames, Helen Humphreys
  - Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser
  - Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
  - Dreams of Joy, Lisa See
  - The Lola Quartet, Emily St. John Mandel
  - Lizard, Banana Yoshimoto
  - Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson
  - Familiar, J. Robert Lennon
  - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
3.5 stars:
  - Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones
  - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
  - The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
  - An Irish Country Doctor, Patrick Taylor
  - Shanghai Girls, Lisa See
  - An Invisible Sign of My Own, Aimee Bender
  - A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
  - Moloka'i, Alan Brennert
  - Into the Blue, Robert Goddard
  - The Kitchen House, Kathleen Grissom
  - Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
  - Up From the Blue, Susan Henderson
3 stars:
  - DragonQuest, Donita K. Paul
  - Cross Currents, John Shors
  - The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker
2.5 stars:
  - Mr. Churchill's Secretary, Susan Elia MacNeal
  - The Bird Saviors, William J. Cobb
  - She Who Remembers, Linda Lay Shuler
1 star:
  - The Last Time I Saw Paris, Lynn Sheene

Junior/Teen Fiction: 21% (average rating 3.65) [2011: 20% (average rating 3.5)] [2010: 39% (average rating 3.64)]
5 stars:
  - A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
4 stars:
  - The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick
  - The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
  - Princess Academy, Shannon Hale
  - Mary, Bloody Mary, Carolyn Meyer
  - Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo
  - Homer Price, Robert McCloskey
  - Toliver's Secret, Esther Wood Brady
  - Eli the Good, Silas House
3.5 stars:
  - The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich
  - Fairest, Gail Carson Levine
  - A Lion to Guard Us, Clyde Robert Bulla
  - Catherine, Called Birdy, Karen Cushman
  - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken
  - Shiloh, Phyllis Reynold Naylor
  - The Shakespeare Stealer, Gary Blackwood
3 stars:
  - Pedro's Journal, Pam Conrad
  - Pocahontas and the Strangers, Clyde Robert Bulla
  - Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson
2.5 stars:
  - The Matchlock Gun, Walter D. Edmonds

Top 5 Books: Mid-Year Report

I love how blogging helps me digest and reflect on the books I read.  The end of June seems as natural a time to reflect on my goals as does the end of the year, and a Top 5 felt in order.  First, a few challenge stats: (I'm doing (obviously) much better in some challenges than others, but I think it balances out.)

• Books read as of 6/30: 66 [feels pretty good!]
• Reading Willa Cather Chronologically: 3 out of 4 (75%) [this one's in the bag]
• Reading the Newbery Medal Books: 4 out of 5 (80%) [I can do it!]
• Reading the Pulitzer Prize Winners: 2 out of 5 (40%) [no 2012 winner = I don't care]
• Reading from my To Be Read Shelf: 3 out of 10 (30%) [oh...books on my shelf? oops.]
• Reading Short Stories and Poetry: 4 out of 6 (67%) [duty calls...must.read.poetry.]
• Reading from my Wish List: 4 out of 12 (34%) [this one is fun. how'd I get behind?]
• Back to the Classics Challenge 2012:  6 out of 9 (67%) [loving me some classics this year.]
• Spring into Junior Fiction Challenge: 8 out of 10 (80%) [hrm.  may acknowledge defeat.]
• Art of the Novella Challenge: 0 out of 18 (0%) [August will be here WAY too soon...]

AND...my Top 5 of 2012 [so far]

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese

This book was so AllTheRage when it was released that I pretty much decided not to read it.  But then Emily loooved it, and I started revising my opinion (I trust that girl's opinion!)  Finally, it was chosen for my book club, and I was entranced from the first page.  I haven't talked about it much because I don't know where to start.  It's one of those books that is so special that I simultaneously want to buy it for every person on earth, and hide every copy under my mattress so I never run out.  It was beautifully written, with beautifully real & complex characters and themes.  Highly recommended.

A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness

I talked about this book here, and I highly recommend reading Heidi's opinion on it (she has the insight of first-hand experience - well worth reading her thoughts!)  This is another book that hooked me from the beginning.  The writing, accompanied by beautifully fitting illustrations, allowed an incredible understanding of the emotional confusion inside a child coming to terms with an impending tragedy.  I don't think I've ever seen such an intimate issue portrayed so well.  (And, just in case you are wondering, my 11 year-old daughter fell in love with it too, so it's not just for biggies, and not just for littles.)

11/22/1963, Stephen King

Admittedly, when I picked this up I was in the mood for a cracking good read, something that has been more difficult for me to find the more I read.  The trip back to the late 50s/early 60s was so much fun for me.  More than just the JFK story, this is a comparison of the times in which we live and of those gone by.  And without the threat of freaky horror happenings, it is a book that I'm glad to recommend to a wide variety of people.  It's a chunkster, but it's Stephen King...which means that the story is the show and you needn't worry about getting bogged down.

The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham

What a terrific surprise my first Maugham book was!  I bought this on a whim, partially because the author had been mentioned at book club, and partially because it was short and had a good cover.  (what? those sound like good reasons to me!)  It instantly felt like a guilty pleasure: too much fun to be any good.  But it was good.  I adored every word of this book, I think, and can't wait to add more Maugham to my shelf.  I almost bought The Razor's Edge instead, and now I'm wondering if I'll like that one just as much...I've heard it was a departure for him.
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

I almost didn't include this one because it was a re-read, but I love it so much I couldn't leave it out.  I feel like this is my book.  It describes the intimate nature of the creative spirit like I've never before experienced.  Being one of Cather's "prairie" novels, you should expect a good dose of atmosphere here as well, although it doesn't all take place on the prairie.  You get some city and southwest mixed in there too, each subsequent place as tangible as the one before it.  The choices that Thea makes lands her in an unenviable place, which is a bit sad to see since it is also the thing she deemed more important than anything else.

2011: Full List and Stats

Stats and graphs are just part of the fun here. This is also where I list all the books I read by [general] genre, and declare my Top 5 reads of the year. I may be silly, but I looove this stuff. :)

How many books read in 2011?
126 (6 more than 2010, but only because I decided each novella is a whole book)

Genres? 

• 18/126 - nonfiction (14%)
• 107/126 - fiction (86%)
• 37/126 - classics (30%) (three cheers for classic novellas!)
• 26/126 - junior/teen (20%)
• 45/126 - adult fiction (36%)

Male/Female authors?

• 61/126 – female (48%) 
• 65/126 – male (52%) 

Old/New?

• OLDEST? the bible, then Miguel de Cervantes: The Dialogue of the Dogs, 1613
• NEWEST? Jeffrey Eugenides: The Marriage Plot, 2011
• WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN? 51 (23 more than last year, and 18 were 100+ years before I was born)
• WRITTEN THIS YEAR? 20 (9 more than 2010)

Length?

• Longest book read? the bible (1613pp) and then Gone With the Wind at 959pp
• Shortest book read? The Duel by Heinrich Von Kleist at 50pp
• Number of "chunksters" (450+ pages)? 10 (same as 2010)
• Any in translation? 16

Best/Worst Reading Month?

• Best--August @ 30 books! (gotta love those novellas)
• Worst--December @ 3 books (it was an insanely busy month)

TOP FIVE of 2011: (excluding recent re-reads, notably O Pioneers! and Persuasion)
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry (beautiful language)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (fabulous insight and philosophy)
Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin (what a storyteller!)
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (vivid writing)
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald (evocative setting)


and a comparison chart just for the fun of it--notice how much more balanced my reading is becoming! yay me!  I'd like to fit a bit more NonFiction in next year, but pretty happy otherwise.

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING: (except for the bible, because how do I categorize that??)

Nonfiction: 14% (average rating 3.56) [2010: 21% (average rating 3.74)]
4.5 stars:
  - If There is Something to Desire, Vera Pavlova
  - The Illustrated Elements of Style, Strunk & White
4 stars:
  - At Home, Bill Bryson
  - The Stolen Village, Des Ekin
  - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
  - The Story of Christianity Vol. 1, Justo Gonzalez
  - The Western Lit Survival Kit, Sandra Newman
3.5 stars:
  - Nine Horses, Billy Collins
  - The Boat and the Sea of Galilee, Lea Lofenfeld Winkler
  - Tattoos on the Heart, Gregory Boyle
  - Leavings, Wendell Berry
  - Townie, Andre Dubus III
  - Choosing to See, Mary Beth Chapman
3 stars:
  - The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, Myra Calvani
  - Beautiful & Pointless, David Orr
2.5 stars:
  - A Kidnapping in Milan, Steve Hendricks
2 Stars:
  - Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen

Classics: 30% (average rating 3.74) [2010: 10% (average rating 4.04)]
5 stars:
  - Persuasion, Jane Austen
  - Villette, Charlotte Bronte
  - Mathilda, Mary Shelley
  - Tales of Belkin, Alexander Pushkin
  - The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy
  - O Pioneers! Willa Cather
  - Anna Karenina
4.5 stars:
  - Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
  - The Duel, Heinrich Von Kleist
  - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4 stars:
  - The Dialogue of the Dogs, Miguel de Cervantes
  - The Duel, Giacomo Casanova
  - Lady Susan, Jane Austen
  - Michael Kohlhaas, Heinrich Von Kleist
  - Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville
  - The Eternal Husband, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  - The Devil, Leo Tolstoy
  - The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett
  - The Duel, Joseph Conrad
3.5 stars:
  - The Troll Garden and Others, Willa Cather
  - Alexander's Bridge, Willa Cather
  - First Love, Ivan Turgenev
  - The Lifted Veil, George Eliot
  - The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, Mark Twain
  - The Horla, Guy de Maupassant
3 stars:
  - Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, Samuel Johnson
  - Adolphe, Benjamin Constant
  - The Girl with the Golden Eyes, Honore de Balzac
  - How the Two Ivans Quarrelled, Nikolai Gogol
  - A Simple Heart, Gustave Flaubert
  - A Sleep and a Forgetting, William Dean Howells
  - The Lesson of the Master, Henry James
  - The Awakening, Kate Chopin
  - Lolita, Vladamir Nabokov
2 stars:
  - Benito Cereno, Herman Melville
  - The Beach at Falesa, Robert Louis Stevenson
  - Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Adult Fiction: 36% (average rating 3.81) [2010: 30% (average rating 3.38)]
5 stars:
  - Safe From the Sea, Peter Geye
  - The Lover's Dictionary, David Levithan
  - Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, Winifred Watson
  - Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
  - The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
  - A Long Long Way, Sebastian Barry
4.5 stars:
  - The Road, Cormac McCarthy
  - Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
  - The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry
  - Ten Thousand Saints, Eleanor Henderson
  - Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb, George Rabasa
  - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
  - On Canaan's Side, Sebastian Barry
4 stars:
  - True Grit, Charles Portis
  - Remarkable Creatures, Tracy Chevalier
  - The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Melissa Banks
  - How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
  - After Hours at the Almost Home, Tara Yellen
  - Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor
  - Beloved, Toni Morrison
  - The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, Eva Rice
  - The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
  - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
3.5 stars:
  - Great House, Nicole Krauss
  - C, Tom McCarthy
  - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
  - Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
  - Wench, Dolen Perkins-Valdez
  - The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard
  - That Night, Alice McDermott
  - Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
  - Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, Lise Haines
  - Hotel Angeline, asstd. authors
  - Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante
  - The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
  - The Sea Captain's Wife, Beth Powning
  - After the Quake, Haruki Murakami
3 stars:
  - The Bride's House, Sandra Dallas
  - Tapestry of Love, Rosie Thornton
  - Bright Before Us, Katie Arnold-Ratliff
  - The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown
  - Bright's Passage, Josh Ritter
2.5 stars:
  - Expiration Date, Sherril Jaffe
  - The Ballad of Tom Dooley, Sharon McCrumb
1 star:
  - Remember Me, Deborah Bradford (I should really have stopped reading this right after I read this sentence: Sam was so hungry he could eat a bear!  My mistake.  Lesson learned.)

Junior/Teen Fiction: 20% (average rating 3.5) [2010: 39% (average rating 3.64)]
4 stars:
  - Dragon Flight, Jessica Day George
  - Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
  - Dragon Spear, Jessica Day George
  - Elske, Cynthia Voigt
  - Newes From the Dead, Mary Hooper
  - The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne
  - The Giver, Lois Lowry
  - The Trumpet of the Swan, E.B. White
  - Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick
3.5 stars:
  - The School Story, Andrew Clements
  - Flipped, Wendelin Van Draanen
  - Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray
  - The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
  - From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
  - If I Stay, Gayle Foreman
  - Journey to Jo'burg, Beverly Naidoo
  - The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman
  - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Betty MacDonald
3 stars:
  - The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli
  - Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Cohn & Levithan
  - Magic in the Park, Ruth Chew
  - Dragonspell, Donita K. Paul
  - Dolphin Treasure, Wayne Grover
  - The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
  - Nothing But the Truth, Avi
2.5 stars:
  - The Iron Dragon Never Sleeps, Stephen Krensky

Wow that list sure seems long, doesn't it?  Too long for me to even dream about linking to my reviews--sorry about that!  Thank you so much for making 2011 a year full of wonderful book discussion.  Let's do it again, shall we?

End-of-Year Bookish Survey

Finally I have access to a computer!  I always seem to forget that my kiddos dominate the computers when we are away from home.  December seemed so non-bloggy...hoping January is different!

For some reason, when scrolling through this year's list of books I've read, I felt rather ambivalent. I'm hoping that will change as I begin to answer some of these questions. I know I read some incredible ones...

2011 in Review: 125 books read

Best book?  Without a doubt, A Long Long Way (Sebastian Barry).  One of the best books of all time.  In total, I rated 11 books as 5 stars (9%) and another 12 books as 4.5 stars (10%) for a total of 19% amazing reads.

Worst book that I actually finished?  Remember Me (Deborah Bradford) Why oh why did I read the whole thing??  I thought I'd learned better than that. It was a standout though, since I only finished 6 books that I ended up rating 1 or 2 stars (5%).

Most disappointing? Lord of the Flies! I thought this was a classic...meaning I'd be able to find something to appreciate, right???  Yeah, no. This is one of the 5% I was just talking about.

Most surprising (in a good way!) Apart from many of the classic novellas I read in August, I'd say either The Art of Fielding (Harbach--a sports book enjoyable? amazing!) or The Sea Captain's Wife (Powning--for a book that took place mostly on the ocean, this was surprisingly pleasant)...or maybe The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (O'Farrell--I was expecting standard fare and got something written in a unique, effective voice.)

Favorite new authors I discovered? Sebastian Barry, Maggie O'Farrell, Alexander Pushkin.  I want to read more of all of them.

Most thrilling, unputdownable book? Tales of Belkin, Alexander Pushkin.  There were more, of course, but this one actually had me out of breath a some points!

Favorite Cover?  I can't pick just one, I like the modern stuff and the vintage stuff...

Most memorable character? My first reaction was to say Christy Moran and Willie Dunne from A Long Long Way, but I also loved Mike Schwartz from The Art of Fielding, of course Anna Karenina was filled with them, and then what about Miss Pettigrew when she lived for a day?

Most beautifully written? A Long Long Way (Sebastian Barry) Incredibly amazing.  Filled to the brim with beautiful language.

Book that had the greatest impact on me? A Long Long Way (Sebastian Barry) Like I said, incredibly amazing.

Book I can't believe I waited until 2011 to read? The Giver probably wins this award.  Everyone seems to have read it when they were young except me.

Book that had a scene in it that had me reeling? A Long Long Way (Sebastian Barry) In a book that basically kept me reeling throughout, there were a few stand out scenes as well.

Book by an author who should be more well-known? Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates)  While the characters may be frustrating, his writing is fresh and unique, even decades after it was first published.

How many re-reads? 4: Persuasion, O Pioneers! Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby

Book I read in 2011 I'd be most likely to re-read in 2012? Safe From the Sea (Peter Geye) and  A Long Long Way (Sebastian Barry).  The first because I feel like I read it too fast the first time, and the second because it has taken me weeks to get over the feeling that it was the only book I ever wanted to be reading.

Most books read by one author? 3: Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture, A Long Long Way, On Canaan's Side and Leo Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilych, The Devil, Anna Karenina, and also Willa Cather: April Twilights, The Troll Garden and Others, O Pioneers!

Favorite Passage/Quote?  Serious? WAY too many!  But since I've been gushing about A Long Long Way, (and goodness just re-reading the quotes is making me teary!) here's a taste of that beautiful writing:

Like an old ash-tree he feared he would slowly hollow out, the rot taking him inwardly ring by blackened ring, until the winter wind came and blew him down.

and one more from the same book:

Since the things he had wished for were no more, he wished for nothing. He breathed in and out. That was all. That was where the war had brought him, he thought.

Where My Books Come From

Here we are at the end of the year, with all the fun stats and surveys that entails.  Last year I divided up my year-end stuff into 3 posts, and I think I'll do that again: #1 for a look at why I pick up (and read) the books I do, #2 for a little survey action, and #3 for all the stats and lists that I like to have on record.

What compelled me to read this year's books?

I did this last year, inspired by Jay, and found it to be eye-opening.  It actually inspired me to keep better track of the reason I chose to read each book of 2011.  I'm on the never-ending quest for balance, so let's see how this year compared to last year.

Total Books (so far!): 125 (111 in last year's stats)

Book Club: 9 (+2 I didn't finish = 3 less than 2010)
Some were great, some I didn't finish (*cringe) but I always love meeting with my groups and talking books. My favorite was The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (picked by me, recommended by you, and yet to be reviewed).

Read-Aloud to my Kiddos: 13 (11 less than 2010)
I'm not homeschooling as many kiddos this year (just 1 of my 4) so many less read-alouds this year.  Most of these weren't incredibly enjoyable for me, but the kiddos liked them, which is what counts, right? My [perennial] favorite was Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White.

ARCs: 13 (4 more than 2010)

A couple of these were really terrible, which prodded me to adopt stricter personal guidelines for accepting a book for review.  I can't choose my favorite: I loved both The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach and Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb by George Rabasa.

Interest/Mood:  23 (9 more than 2010)
Comprised of my highest rated books of the year (except for Lord of the Flies--yuck) My favorite? A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry (actually my favorite read this year over all).

Recommendations  (from many different sources): 17 (1 more than 2010)
I always have mixed luck with these, but most of them were enjoyable.  My favorite was recommended by a bookshop in Clifden, Ireland: The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry.

Challenges  (all qualifying books): 51 (31 more than 2010!)
First, most of these books I was interested in -- it isn't as if they were all a chore.  At some point I think I decided that this category preempted the others.  Second, most of these were the novellas I read in August...otherwise the number would have been about the same.  Picking a favorite here is hard--I had a lot of wonderful classics, including a favorite I re-read (O Pioneers!) and a couple of terrific read-alongs (Villette and Anna Karenina) but I think that I'm in the mood to pick the Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin.

Conclusion:
  - Last year I decided to try to let go of obligations, and focus on reading more books for challenges, recommendations, and interests.  I think I did a good job with that.
  - I'm pretty happy with how these categories balanced out this year, though I wouldn't mind amping up the number of books I read just because I want to read them.

Up Next:
the handy dandy survey!

The Rest of the Year-End Stuff

This is my last end-of-year post, promise!  This is the official Top Five and Complete List for future reference sake, with a few more stats and percentages thrown in for good measure.

When the year was half through, I posted about the top five books of the first half of 2010.  Now with the year complete, those choices have changed somewhat.  These books were so good that I'll be reading more from that author in 2011.  In no particular order:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (will be reading Joy in the Morning in 2011)

Star of the Sea (will be reading Redemption Falls in 2011)

The Lacuna (will be reading either Prodigal Summer or The Bean Trees in 2011)

Mansfield Park (will be re-reading Persuasion in 2011)

Slaughterhouse-Five (still figuring where to go after this one...? Breakfast of Champions?)

First come the percentages (thanks to Brenna at Literary Musings for the inspiration):

Books read in 2010: 120
Average number read per month: 12
Total number of "chunksters" (450+ pages): 10
Pages read in 2010: 32,715
Average number of pages per book: 273
Percentage of male authors read: 43%
Percentage of "new to me" authors: 69%
Percentage of books read that are older than me: 28%
Percentage of books read that were published this year: 11%

Percentage of books read that were read for book club: 13%

LISTED BY GENRE/RATING:
Nonfiction: 21%

84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff--5 stars

The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls--4.5 stars

Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis--4.5 stars

Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt--4.5 stars

Black Potatoes, Susan Campbell Baroletti--4.5 stars

Dumbing Down Our Kids, Charles J. Sykes--4 stars

And the Word Came with Power, Joanne Shetler--4 stars
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation, Noah Lukeman--4 stars
All New Square Foot Gardening, Mel Bartholomew--4 stars
Skin, Lori Bergamotto--4 stars
Thunderstruck, Erik Larson--4 stars
Deconstructing Penguins, Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone--4 stars
A Girl From Yamhill, Beverly Cleary--4 stars

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties, Jonathan Leaf--3.5 stars
No Plot? No Problem! Chris Baty--3.5 stars
The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life, Noah Lukeman--3.5 stars
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan--3.5 stars
Crap. Zest Books--3.5 stars
The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby--3.5 stars
Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle, Kris Vallotton--3 stars
Catching Their Talk in a Box, Betty M. Hockett--3 stars
Writing Christian Fiction, Ron Benrey--3 stars
Anne Bradstreet, D.B. Kellogg--3 stars
In the Dark Streets Shineth, David McCullough--3 stars
Fitness Illustrated, Brian Sharkey--2.5 stars


Classics: 10%
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen--5 stars
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith--5 stars
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut--5 stars
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck--4.5 stars
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens--4.5 stars
Precious Bane, Mary Webb--4 stars
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov--4 stars
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou--4 stars
Dubliners, James Joyce--3.5 stars
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll--3 stars
Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll--3 stars
April Twilights, Willa Cather--3 stars


Adult Fiction: 30%
Star of the Sea, Joseph O'Connor--5 stars

The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver--4.5 stars

The Help, Kathryn Stockett--4 stars
Prayers for Sale, Sandra Dallas--4 stars
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford--4 stars
Random Harvest, James Hilton--4 stars
Keeping the House, Ellen Baker--4 stars
Little Bee, Chris Cleave--4 stars
Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrell--4 stars
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel--4 stars
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby--4 stars
Tinkers, Paul Harding--4 stars
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood--4 stars
Sweetie, Kathryn Magendie--4 stars
Room, Emma Donoghue--4 stars
When the Elephants Dance, Tess Uriza Holthe--3.5 stars
Resurrection in May, Lisa Samson--3.5 stars
The Samurai's Garden, Gail Tsukiyama--3.5 stars
The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff--3.5 stars
Prisoners in the Palace, Michaela MacColl--3.5 stars
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak--3.5 stars
The Piano Teacher, Janice Y. K. Lee--3 stars
The Friday Night Knitting Club, Kate Jacobs--3 stars
Sixteen Brides, Stephanie Grace Whitson--3 stars
Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende--3 stars
Time Among the Dead, Thomas Rayfiel--3 stars

The Kitchen Boy, Robert Alexander--3 stars

Masquerade, Nancy Moser--3 stars
Whitethorn Woods, Maeve Binchy--3 stars
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender--3 stars

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom--2.5 stars
The Double Bind, Chris Bohjalian--2.5 stars
Flower Children, Maxine Swann--2.5 stars
Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon--2 stars
The Alchemist, Paul Coelho--1.5 stars

Gods in Alabama, Joshilyn Jackson--1 star

Junior/Young Adult Fiction: 39%
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson--5 stars

Dragon Slippers, Jessica Day George--4.5 stars
Matilda, Roald Dahl--4.5 stars
Red Sails to Capri, Ann Weil--4.5 stars

The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook, Joyce Lankester Brisely--4 stars
Abel's Island, William Steig--4 stars
The Underneath, Kathy Appelt--4 stars
Dragon Flight, Jessica Day George--4 stars
Dragon Spear, Jessica Day George--4 stars
Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff--4 stars
Al Capone Does My Shirts, Gennifer Choldenko--4 stars
The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan--4 stars
Detectives in Togas, Henry Winterfield--4 stars
Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray--4 stars
The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare--4 stars
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine--4 stars
Ramona Forever, Beverly Cleary--4 stars
Princess of the Midnight Ball, Jessica Day George--4 stars
Flame Over Tara, Madeleine Polland--4 stars
Strawberry Girl, Lois Lenski--4 stars
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Laura Amy Schlitz--4 stars
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie--4 stars
Smile, Raina Telgemeier--4 stars
Dragon Slippers, Jessica Day George-4 stars
Rabbit Hill, Robert Lawson--3.5 stars
Criss Cross, Lynne Rae Perkins--3.5 stars
Mystery of the Roman Ransom, Henry Winterfield--3.5 stars
Lily's Crossing, Patricia Reilly Giff--3.5 stars
Stardust, Neil Gaiman--3.5 stars
Black Horses for the King, Anne McCaffrey--3.5 stars
The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale--3.5 stars
Henry Huggins, Beverly Cleary--3.5 stars
Family Under the Bridge, Natalie Savage Carlson--3.5 stars
Gray Horses, Hope Larson--3.5 stars
The Return of the Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, Nancy McArthur--3 stars
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary--3 stars
The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan--3 stars
The Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan--3 stars
The Bread Winner, Arvella Whitmore--3 stars
Olive's Ocean, Kevin Henkes--3 stars
The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner--3 stars
Ginger Pye, Eleanor Estes--3 stars
The Light at Tern Rock, Julia L. Sauer--3 stars
The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder--3 stars
Tales of Robin Hood, Tony Allan--3 stars
Whittington, Alan Armstrong--2.5 stars
Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher--2 stars


And a little comparison chart from the last couple of years:

I must note that the Non-Fiction read in 2008 includes a large portion of Junior Non-Fiction, (all Non-Fiction has been lumped together,) thereby resulting in a huge percentage of Junior level reading that year--mostly kiddo/school related.  The only stat that I'm not so happy with based on this chart is that my Classic consumption is down from last year (even though my quality Adult Fiction was better).  I'm hoping to correct that somewhat in 2011.


So long 2010, it's been great fun.  Here's to more good times!