For several years now, when I finish a book, I note it on that day on my calendar. Then at the end of the year I go through my calendar and make a list of all the books I've read that year. This year I'm posting the list here. Since I never post anything personal, this might be my most personal blog post ever.
All the links lead to Amazon. If you click on the Stephen King link, you'll likely be profiled as Stephen King fan and the next time you're on Amazon, they'll recommend his books to you. I know this because one time a friend emailed me about a book she was reading for work, didn't mention the title, just included the link. I clicked. It was an SAP book. Next time I got on Amazon, they had chosen a bunch of other SAP books for my reading pleasure.
The List
1. Just After Sunset -- Stephen King
3. Knit Two -- Kate Jacobs
4. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- Stieg Larsson
5. One Fifth Avenue -- Candace Bushnell
6. The Camel Bookmobile -- Masha Hamilton
7. Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers -- Xiaolu Guo
8. The Associate -- John Grisham
9. The Women -- T.C. Boyle
10. Dewey -- Vicki Myron
11. Tell Me Where it Hurts -- Nick Trout
12. Beach Book (short stories)
13. The Little Stranger -- Sarah Waters
14. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane -- Katherine Howe
15. Shanghai Girls -- Lisa See
16. The Strain -- Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan
17. The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet -- Reif Larsen
18. The Lost Symbol -- Dan Brown
19. Where Men Win Glory -- Jon Krakauer
20. The Frozen Thames -- Helen Humphreys
21. The Piano Teacher -- Janice Y. K. Lee
22. The Girl Who Played with Fire -- Stieg Larsson
The Analysis
I usually manage to read about 26-28 books per year, about one every two weeks. I read fewer this year. Did I read thicker books? Or did I spend more time knitting and less time reading?
This year I read predominantly fiction. The italicized books are nonfiction and they were few and far between this year. Usually there are quite a few more! Oh, I should mention that there are no knitting books or cookbooks on this list. Even though I often read them like novels, for the purposes of my list I don't count them.
I also read no "food" books. In years past I've read a bunch of biographies of chefs (like My Life in France by Julia Child) or books with food as the main subject (Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen or Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee).
Next Year
I predict the list for 2010 will start out much like the list for 2009. I am currently reading the latest Stephen King book, Under the Dome. (Yeah, I'm a long time fan, been reading him since I was 14, nearly 30 years. Did I also mention I'm getting old?) That book must weigh 5 pounds so it stayed here during my Christmas vacation. I read 2009 Best American Short Stories instead. It was much more portable.
We'll see what interesting things I find to read in 2010.
4 comments:
I've never thought to keep track of my book reading but it's a pretty cool idea. I wonder though, if I want to know how much trash (my possible taste in reading) gets fed into my brain.
I love that idea! Since I have an extra little calendar, I think I'm going to "steal" your tracking method and aspire to read more next year... or at least be able to track what I read, since clearly, GoodReads isn't working for me...
Great idea! I know I need to find time to read more... I have so many books piled up here, but I usually find myself reaching for my knitting over reading...
Wow, I'm impressed. Looks like you do a lot of reading and knittting if you ask me.
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