Saturday, January 1, 2011

Books Read 2010

I definitely read more in 2010 than I have in recent years, but that is by number of books, not by page number. I haven't added them up this year. The few books in italics were re-reads. Below each section I'll indicate my favorites of the year!

Fiction - General and Literary
Allen, Sarah A. - The Girl Who Chased the Moon (269 pgs)
Atwood, Margaret - Oryx and Crake (376 pgs)
Atwood, Margaret - The Year of the Flood (434 pgs)

Baker, Nicholson - Room Temperature (116 pgs)
Bloom, Amy - Away (240 pgs)
Bloom, Amy - Love Invents Us (205 pgs)
Bolaño, Robert - 2666 (898 pgs)
Bolaño, Robert - Monsieur Pain (134 pgs)
Bratenberg, Gerd - Egalia's Daughters (269 pgs)
Byatt, A.S. - The Children's Book (675 pgs)
Bynum, Sarah - Ms. Hempel Chronicles (193 pgs)
Calvino, Italo - If On a Winter's Night a Traveler (260 pgs)
Carey, Peter - Parrot & Olivier in America (380 pgs)
Catton, Eleanor - The Rehearsal (312 pgs)
Clifford, M. - The Book (302 pgs)
Coetzee, J. M. - Diary of a Bad Year (229 pgs)
DeLeeuw, Brian - In This Way I Was Saved (294 pgs)
DeLillo, Don - Point Omega (117 pgs)
DeLillo, Don - White Noise (310 pgs)
Donoghue, Emma - Room (321 pgs)
Egan, Jennifer - A Visit from the Good Squad (274 pgs)
Ferris, Joshua - Then We Came to the End (385 pgs)
Forster, E.M. - Howard's End (352 pgs)
Franzen, Jonathan - Freedom (562 pgs)
Galgut, Damon - In a Strange Room (180 pgs)
Galloway, Steven - The Cellist of Sarajevo (235 pgs)
Giordano, Paolo - The Solitude of Prime Numbers (288 pgs)
Greene, Graham - Our Man in Havana (242 pgs)
Hegarty, Ciara - The Road to the Sea (304 pgs)
Hely, Steve - How I Became a Famous Novelist (322 pgs)
Highsmith, Patricia - The Talented Mr. Ripley (295 pgs)
Hoffman, Alice - The Story Sisters (325 pgs)
Hornby, Nick - Juliet, Naked (406 pgs)
Isherwood, Christopher - A Single Man (186 pgs)
Jacobson, Howard - The Finkler Question (307 pgs)
Jeter, John - The Plunder Room (295 pgs)
Kafka, Franz - Metamorphosis (76 pgs)
Kerouac, Jack - On the Road (307 pgs)
Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon (274 pgs)
Kostova, Elizabeth - The Swan Thieves (565 pgs)
Krauss, Nicole - Great House
Langer, Adam - The Thieves of Manhattan (259 pgs)
Larsson, Stieg - The Girl Who Played With Fire (503 pgs)
Larsson, Stieg - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (563 pgs)
Le Carre', John - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (379 pgs)
Mackie, Emily - And This Is True (346 pgs)
Mahajan, Karan - Family Planning (264 pgs)
Mawer, Simon - The Glass Room (405 pgs)
McEwan, Ian - The Comfort of Strangers (153 pgs)
McEwan, Ian - Solar (304 pgs)
Mendelsohn, Jane - American Music (237 pgs)
Mitchell, David - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (479 pgs)
Mohamed, Nadifa - Black Mamba Boy (280 pgs)
Niven, Jennifer - Velva Jean Learns to Drive (404 pgs)
Petterson, Per - Out Stealing Horses (258 pgs)
Rachman, Tom - The Imperfectionists (272 pgs)
Russo, Richard - That Old Cape Magic (261 pgs)
Sackville, Amy - The Still Point (307 pgs)
Seth, Vikram - An Equal Music (484 pgs)
Shaw, Ali - The Girl with Glass Feet (287 pgs)
Shteyngart, Gary - Super Sad True Love Story (334 pgs)
Stewart, Leah - Husband and Wife (344 pgs)
Stockett, Kathryn - The Help (451 pgs)
Stuart, Julia - The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise (304 pgs)

Best of fiction: Phew, great year. The Krauss, Kerouac, Petterson, Rachman, Seth, and Mitchell were all great. So was the Stockett, and the Atwood were even better the second time through.


Fiction - Science Fiction and Fantasy

Abbot, Edwin A. - Flatland (239 pgs)
Abercrombie, Joe - The Blade Itself (529 pgs)
Bacigalupi, Paolo - The Windup Girl (359 pgs)
Bradley, Darin - Noise (222 pgs)
Doctorow, Cory - Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (208 pgs)
Gibson, William - Zero History (404 pgs)
Heinlein, Robert - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (383 pgs)
LeGuin, Ursula - The Left Hand of Darkness (286 pgs)
LeGuin, Ursula - The Dispossessed (387 pgs)
Mieville, China - The City and the City (312 pgs)
Priest, Cherie - Boneshaker (416 pgs)
Sawyer, Robert - WWW:Wake (356 pgs)
Swirsky, Rachel - A Memory of Wind (no pgs)
Swirksy, Rachel - Eros, Philia, Agape (no pgs)
Tepper, Sheri S. - A Plague of Angels (560 pgs)
Tregillis, Ian - Bitter Seeds (352 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - Palimpsest (367 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - The Grass-Cutting Sword (129 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - Yume No Hon (149 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - The Orphan's Tales, vol. 1: In the Night Garden (483 pgs)
Wilson, Robert C. - Julian Comstock (413 pgs)
Yu, Charles - How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (239 pgs)

Best of science-fiction and fantasy: This is the year I fell in love with Catherynne Valente, and Palimpsest was probably my favorite book all year.

Fiction - YA
Bacigalupi, Paolo - Ship Breaker (323 pgs)
Collins, Suzanne - The Hunger Games (374 pgs)
Collins, Suzanne - Catching Fire (391 pgs)
Collins, Suzanne - Mockingjay (400 pgs)
Erskine, Kathryn - Mockingbird (235 pgs)
Myers, Walter Dean - Lockdown (256 pgs)
Williams-Garcia, Rita - One Crazy Summer (218 pgs)


Fiction - Graphic Novels

Doxiadis, Apostolos Logicomix (352 pgs)
Kindt, Matt - Revolver

Nonfiction including travel writing and memoirs

Apple, Sam - Schlepping through the Alps (288 pgs)
Carr, Nicholas - The Shallows (276 pgs)
Dunn, Jancee - Why is my Mother Getting a Tattoo? (208 pgs)
Feldman, Jessica, ed. - What Should I Read Next? (282 pgs)
Katz, Vincent - Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art (328 pgs)
Harris, Mary E. - The Arts at Black Mountain College (315 pgs)
Horowitz, Joseph - Artists in Exile (458 pgs)
Janzen, Rhoda - Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (221 pgs)
Johnson, Marilyn - This Book Is Overdue! (272 pgs)
Mahoney, Rosemary - Down the Nile (304 pgs)
Medina, John - Brain Rules (299 pgs)
Reardon, Joan - As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto (432 pgs)
Riotte, Louise - Carrots Love Tomatoes (224 pgs)
Shonagon, Sei - The Pillow Book (268 pgs)
Watkins, Glenn - The Gesualdo Hex (384 pgs)
Williams, Jonathan - A Palpable Elysium: portraits of genius and solitude (175 pgs)
Wilson, Edward - The Future of Life (229 pgs)

Best of non-fiction: The Nicholas Carr was just excellent, as were the letters of Julia Child.

Poetry
Bird, Caroline - Watering Can (82 pgs)
Budy, Andrea (ed) - When She Named Fire (409 pgs)
D.A., Adebe - Ex Nihilo (72 pgs)
Fenton, Elyse - Clamor (77 pgs)
Graber, Kathleen - The eternal city (74 pgs)
Hayes, Terrance - Lighthead (95 pgs)
Kilalea, Katharine - One Eye'd Leigh (53 pgs)
Loy, Mina - The Lost Lunar Baedeker (236 pgs)
Malech, Dora - Shore ordered ocean (93 pgs)
Masters, Edgar Lee - Spoon River Anthology (248 pgs)
Morse, Drew (ed) - The 2007 Rhysling Anthology (131 pgs)
O'Sullivan, Leanne - Cailleach: the Hag of Beara (82 pgs)
Parisi, Joseph - 100 Essential Modern Poems by Women (282 pgs)
Pastan, Linda - Queen of a Rainy Country (77 pgs)
Pastan, Linda - PM/AM (112 pgs)
Pushkin, Alexander - Selected Lyric Poetry (204 pgs)
Ryan, Kay - The Best of It (270 pgs)
Sandburg, Carl - The Complete Poems (797 pgs)
Strand, Mark - Selected Poems (152 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - Apocrypha (121 pgs)
Valente, Catherynne M. - Oracles (82 pgs)
Youn, Monica - Ignatz (69 pgs)

Best of poetry: Adebe and Valente. This reminds me that I want to go back and read more of Mina Loy.


Short Stories

Barth, John - Lost in the Funhouse (201 pgs)
Baxter, Charles - A Relative Stranger (223 pgs)
Bloom, Amy - A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You (163 pgs)
Bloom, Amy - Where the God of Love Hangs Out (201 pgs)
De Lint, Charles - Muse and Reverie (350 pgs)
Diaz, Junot - Drown (208 pgs)
Donaghue, Emma - Touchy Subjects (278 pgs)
Eisenberg, Deborah - Twilight of the Superheroes (225 pgs)
Fowler, Karen Joy - What I Didn't See: Stories (208 pgs)
Franco, James - Palo Alto (197 pgs)
Homes, A. M. - The Safety of Objects (173 pgs)
Johnson, Denis - Jesus' Son (133 pgs)
Lahiri, Jhumpa - Unaccustomed Earth (333 pgs)
Meloy, Maile - Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It (219 pgs)
Munro, Alice - Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories (323 pgs)
Munro, Alice - Too Much Happiness (304 pgs)
Orringer, Julie - How to Breathe Underwater (226 pgs)
Tolstoy, Leo - Tolstoy's Short Fiction (510 pgs)

Best of short stories: Denis Johnson, Maile Meloy, and Amy Bloom.

4 comments:

  1. I am so jealous of your impressive reading accomplishments of 2010 and your organizational skills! A lot of the books you list are on my bookshelf waiting, this encourages me to bump them up on the list a bit.
    At the beginning of your post you mention that you haven't added up the number of pages you've read this year. If you added all of these books on goodreads under 2010, it will do it for you! Go to your profile, and under your bookshelves, click on "stats" (next to "cloud"), then look at 2010 and change the setting from number of books to number of pages, then share the number with us! LOL :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had no idea!! GoodReads says I read 46,288 pages this year. That is about 1000 pages high because it counts the books I started but then abandoned. Still, about 7000 pages more than last year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, this is an impressive list.

    Cape Carnaveral is definitely high up on my honeymoon wish list. There's just so much to see though! Charleston and Savannah are also musts, if only because I love "Gone with the Wind" :P

    When I get things arranged I would definitely love some independent book shop recommendations!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting the Reading Envy blog and podcast. Word verification has become necessary because of spam.