Sunday, January 1, 2012

2011 Reading Recap


Not long ago, my friend, Nyla asked what my non-fiction to fiction ratio was.  I really didn’t know, because I enjoy both, so she put me in the 50/50 category.  Not this year:

24 non-fiction to 40 fiction

My favorite fiction reads were The Help and The Book Thief, followed by Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  Favorite non-fiction was My Life in France and Mornings on Horseback.

The most important thing I read was Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which introduced me to many non-profits doing great work across the globe including Women for Women International.  I am now an active sponsor.

New for me this year was diving into the audio books.  I am going through books much more quickly when I can sit and work on a Project Linus blanket at the same time.  I wonder if that isn’t why I read fewer non-fiction – there are definitely fewer non-fiction books on audio in the library.

I still buy books faster than I read them.  And I don’t do as much on the Kindle as many people.  Here was the final tally (the links are to the appropriate page on Librarything.  If you are interested in my "reviews" you might find the "50 Book Challenge 2011" tag down the right-hand side of the page and scroll through):

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944
Stanley Weintraub

Santa Clawed: A Novel (Mrs. Murphy Mysteries)
Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown

Autobiography of Santa Claus, The
Jeff Guinn


In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story
David McCullough

A Week in December
Sebastian Faulks

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor
Lisa Kleypas

The Christmas Train
David Baldacci

The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir
Ken Harmon

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak

Home for Christmas
Andrew M. Greeley

A Christmas Secret
Anne Perry

Everyman
Philip Roth

Dr. Zhivago
Boris Pasternak

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir
Christopher Buckley

The Lake of Dreams: A Novel
Kim Edwards

Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Graham Greene

Homer & Langley
E.L. Doctorow

The Tortilla Curtain: A Novel (Penguin Ink)
T.C. Boyle

The Castle in the Forest: A Novel
Norman Mailer

Harp
John Gregory Dunne

The Last Dickens: A Novel
Matthew Pearl

What If?: Short Stories to Spark Diversity Dialogue
Steve L. Robbins

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Jamie Ford

True Compass: A Memoir
Edward M. Kennedy

Working for Peanuts: The Project Linus Story
Karen Loucks Rinedollar

Changing the World on a Tuesday Night
Tammi DeVille

The Flanders Panel
Arturo Perez-Reverte

Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam
Zainab Salbi

Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989
Michael Beschloss

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (P.S.)
Lily Koppel

I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel
Tom Wolfe

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer

Thunderstruck
Erik Larson

Neverwhere: A Novel
Neil Gaiman

Einstein: His Life and Universe
Walter Isaacson

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Seth Grahame-Smith

Exiles in the Garden
Ward Just

Run
Ann Patchett

A Spot of Bother (Vintage)
Mark Haddon

Son of a Witch: Volume Two in the Wicked Years
Gregory Maguire

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
David McCullough

The Shack (Special Hardcover Edition)
William P. Young

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic
Joseph J. Ellis

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
John Steinbeck

White Jazz: A Novel
James Ellroy

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
Frances Mayes

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A Book by Patton Oswalt
Patton Oswalt

My Life in France
Julia Child

Unaccustomed Earth: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)
Jhumpa Lahiri

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
Alan Alda

The Help
Kathryn Stockett

Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow
Tom Brokaw

Suite Francaise
Irene Nemirovsky

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Vintage)
Nicholas Kristof

The Poe Shadow: A Novel
Matthew Pearl

THE SECRET ADVERSARY
Agatha Christie

A Separate Country
Robert Hicks

The Child in Time
Ian McEwan

1776
David McCullough

Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse
James L. Swanson

The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession (P.S.)
Paul Coelho

THE EDIBLE WOMAN by Margaret Atwood (Paperback - Jan 1969)
Margaret Atwood

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
Mary Roach

The Witches of Eastwick
John Updike


1 comment:

John W said...

Humblebrag: I clocked 130, which is three short of the record.