2010 was such a great year for me, books-wise. I’d been setting a goal for 50 books every year since 2008 (which was when I went to the States for summer, and was mostly alone in my thoughts and unbotherable because of a book), and I’ve only done it successfully then and in 2010. In 2009, I read nearly 40 books, which isn’t a bad number, but I wanted to challenge myself more.
This year, I read a total of 54 books (including five re-reads), and read and abandoned/didn’t finish at least 13 books. I count this as an accomplishment, because most of the time, I really didn’t feel like reading. I was finishing up with school and I was busy with the nuances of the life of employment as well, so I fell into a sort of slump from time to time… Keeping a book blog really motivated me to read faster and to look at the text more closely. I really spent time piecing my thoughts together and figuring out why I liked or disliked a book, instead of just going by feelings.
I wanted to chart and graph books comparatively (how many YA books I read vs. poetry etc, written by women/males, etc.) and present them visually, but I got a bit lazy.
So, a few of my favorite reads:
- “Odd and the Frost Giants” by Neil Gaiman
- “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger
- “Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- “The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- “Scott Pilgrim” Vol. 1-6 by Bryan Lee O’Malley
- “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” by John Green and David Levithan
- “This Is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper
- “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card
- “Any Easy Intimacy (Of Us)” by Jeffrey Brown
- “Wonder Boys” by Michael Chabon
- “The Cheese Monkeys” by Chip Kidd
- “Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It” by Maile Meloy
- “Talking To Girls About Duran Duran” by Rob Sheffield
- “Meditations in an Emergency” by Frank O’Hara
- “Atlas” by Katrina Vandenberg
- “Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold” by C.S. Lewis
- “Tree of Codes” by Jonathan Safran Foer
- “The Lazarus Project” by Aleksandar Hemon
And, a few of the ones I didn’t really like so much:
- “Juliet, Naked” by Nick Hornby
- “Less Than Zero” by Bret Easton Ellis
- “13 Little Blue Envelopes” by Maureen Johnson
To signal the coming of 2011, I’ve decided to start with Nicole Krauss’ “Great House,” which was given to me by my best friend, Isa, for Christmas, along with Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.” So far, so good.
(Since I wrote this draft, I’ve already actually finished reading “Nine Stories” by J.D. Salinger, which was given to me by Raymond, and also Adam David’s “The El Bimbo Variations,” which is amazing and can be downloaded over here in PDF form.)
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