I managed to restrain myself from making charts and graphs. Barely.

[sophia_sol]

Last year I made a new year’s resolution to record every single book I read that year. And I actually succeeded! (The first new year’s resolution I’ve ever actually kept, but SHHH)

So for posterity’s sake, here’s a listing. I have bolded the ones I adored (for whatever reason, whether because of the brilliance of the book or because of the immense comfort-read-ness of the book), left in plain text the ones I liked, italicised the ones that were meh, and crossed out the ones I disliked. Ones with an asterisk were rereads. Ones that are underlined are nonfiction.

January:

What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
The Case Against Perfection by Michael J. Sandel
*Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling

February:

The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land by Diana Wynne Jones
Arabella by Georgette Heyer
The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer
Brainiac by Ken Jennings
Winds of the Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis

March:

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

April:

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
*Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C Wrede
*Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

May:

Nation by Terry Pratchett
Wild Orchid: A Retelling of the “Ballad of Mulan” by Cameron Dokey
Chalice, by Robin McKinley
The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia C Wrede
House of Many Ways, by Diana Wynne Jones
*Smoke and Mirrors, by Tanya Huff
Wake, by Robert J Sawyer
*Persuasion, by Jane Austen
Thirteen Orphans, by Jane Lindskold
The Princess and the Bear, by Mette Ivie Harrison

June:

The Raven in the Foregate, by Ellis Peters
Austenland, by Shannon Hale
The Nonesuch, by Georgette Heyer
*Smoke and Ashes, by Tanya Huff

July:

Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale
I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed, by Kyria Abrahams
The Actor and the Housewife, by Shannon Hale
Shadow of the Templar Book One: The Morning Star, by M. Chandler
Shadow of the Templar Book Two: Double Down, by M. Chandler
Shadow of the Templar Book Three: With a Bullet, by M. Chandler
Shadow of the Templar Book Four: High Fidelity, by M. Chandler
Strange Bedpersons, by Jennifer Crusie

August:

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton
37
Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz
*Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C Wrede
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith
The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew – Three Women Search for Understanding, by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, Priscilla Warner

September:

Mirror Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Julie and Julia: 364 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, by Julie Powell
Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama
The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, by Phyllis Tickle
Jesus: A New Vision, by Marcus J Borg
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
*Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome
*Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

October:

*Shadow of the Templar Book One: The Morning Star, by M. Chandler
*Hunted, by James Alan Gardner

November:

Manhunting, by Jennifer Crusie
Runaways, by Brian K. Vaughan

December:

Survive!, by Les Stroud
Cycler, by Lauren McLaughlin
The Spymaster’s Lady, by Joanna Bourne
Crocodile On The Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters
Memoir of a Teenage Amnesiac, by Gabrielle Zevin
Ethan of Athos, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Deep Secret, by Diana Wynne Jones
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Master & Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
The Beacon at Alexandria, by Gillian Bradshaw

Overall I read 62 books, which is well over a book a week. A very respectable number. Of these books, only 11 were rereads, which impresses me – I felt like I had done a lot more rereading than that. In terms of month breakup, you can definitely tell which months were busy ones in school. And you can tell which ones were the end of term.

By genre, I read 26 SFF books, 5 historical fiction, 15 romance, 3 mystery, 5 thriller, 9 nonfiction, 20 YA, and 6 lit. More or less; it’s hard to categories books for sure into one genre or another.

I’m pretty happy with my genre choices too. Although I keep feeling like I ought to read more nonfiction, I did read a goodly number, and I think more than I usually do in a year. I also feel like I should read more classic literature (and not just rereading old favourites of the classic children’s lit. What Katy Did Next might be hugely enjoyable but quality literature it is not). But I wasn’t as exclusively SFF as I’m sometimes afraid I am – less than half the books I read were SFF!

And the number of romance shouldn’t surprise me, given how much I enjoy reading romantic fanfiction, but somehow it still does. I guess I have this perception of myself as being above such a “tawdry” genre, and I need to GET OVER MYSELF because it’s NOT. And I do enjoy it (even if not the stuff that’s marketed as straight-up romance-and-nothing-else), and there’s worthwhile stuff in it. I think my problem is that I was raised in a far too academic household that had no use for romance, and this affected my biases while growing up. I’m still working on this!

I’d say my favourite book I read this year was Mirror Dance, because it hit some of my relatively bulletproof storykinks REALLY HARD. And was well-written and witty on top of that. (Ethan of Athos, by the same author, was also well-written and witty and I really enjoyed it, but...it didn’t get me where I live in NEARLY the same way).

My favourite book this year that is a favourite for slightly more universal reasons would be The Beacon At Alexandria. That book was brilliant, yo. Set in the fourth century, in the Roman Empire, a time-period that is not often explored in fiction. It does an AMAZING job of capturing a feel of the time, and of the places. I really liked the main character, I believed in the romance, the background characters were all great too, and it had a totally believable girl-dresses-up-as-boy (MUCH more well done than it so often is). I loved it to bits.

Except Nation might also be my favourite book for the year, because it was Pratchett (who’s always brilliant) at top form. It asked really interesting questions and answered them well, within a very engaging story. And characters that were believable and likeable. And it was AWESOME, okay?

Except the Shadow of the Templar books might also be my favourite, because, dude, I read ALL FOUR OF THEM within two days (two days when I had eight-hour work days, so it’s not like I was reading on and off all day). I stayed up most of the night to finish the third one. On a night when I had work the next morning. THAT is how engaging they were, okay?

My least favourite book, on the other hand, is much easier to pick out. It’s the one and only book that I marked as not liking: The Spymaster’s Lady. But I’ve talked about this one before

Anyways, I’ve probably tl;dred at you for long enough, so I’ll end here.

Comments

[yakbites.livejournal.com]

Mirror Dance is my favorite Bujold book. Damn. I love it so much.

[yakbites.livejournal.com]

I have been spamming you so much. Sry sry. I just wanted to say. MIRROR DANCE.

[sophia-sol.livejournal.com]

Not spamming, SQUEEING. TOGETHER. It is a good thing!

and YES MIRROR DANCE IT WAS SO AMAZING. You have no idea, I wrote paragraphs and paragraphs about it in an email to a friend. I just couldn't get over how AWESOME it was. Because it was AWESOME.

(And it was the first Bujold book I'd ever read, too! Clearly this is evidence I need to read EVERYTHING SHE'S EVER WRITTEN)

[yakbites.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't love any of her books as much as I love Mirror Dance, but they are all pretty great, so I'd suggest you go nuts. You can't really go wrong with the Lois.

[sophia-sol.livejournal.com]

Eeexcellent.

(Except, oh noes, I already have far too much on my to-read pile! The dilemma of having too much good stuff to read!)