Reading Roundup 2008
Even though we're halfway through January, I wanted to take a few minutes and tally up the books I read in 2008 to see how it compares with 2007 (see this post). In 2008 I only read 73 books, as contrasted with the 100 or so in 2007. That doesn't count any of the critical readings or the plays I read for my classes in Fall quarter, so I probably spent even more time reading in 2008 than in 2007.
I read 42 books that were fiction and 31 that were nonfiction. Fiction books included 2 short story collections, and the nonfiction included a variety of memoirs and a few essay collections as well as general nonfiction.
This year I substantially increased the number of books by Mormon authors that I read, and I managed to include a few books that were written before the twentieth-century. I didn't do so well on including books originally written in languages other than English.
I read 35 books by women and 48 by men, which is interesting because last year my count of books by female authors outnumbered the male authors two-to-one.
Here are some of the books I enjoyed most this year:
Fiction
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
March by Geraldine Brooks
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Bound on Earth by Angela Hallstrom
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
On the Road to Heaven by Coke Newell
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Nonfiction
A Bright, Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
Making Peace: Personal Essays by Eugene England
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Here if You Need Me by Kate Braestrup
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Greely
Poster Child by Emily Rapp
I also watched 66 movies this year, which is quite a lot more than the year before. I guess it was technically 64 movies because two of the things I had listed were actually TV shows. But that's still a lot of movies; at least I had the excuse that many of them were for school. Here are some of my favorites:
Princesas
El mar adentro
Into the Wild
The Dark Knight
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Refugee All Stars
Juno
Ed Wood
I read 42 books that were fiction and 31 that were nonfiction. Fiction books included 2 short story collections, and the nonfiction included a variety of memoirs and a few essay collections as well as general nonfiction.
This year I substantially increased the number of books by Mormon authors that I read, and I managed to include a few books that were written before the twentieth-century. I didn't do so well on including books originally written in languages other than English.
I read 35 books by women and 48 by men, which is interesting because last year my count of books by female authors outnumbered the male authors two-to-one.
Here are some of the books I enjoyed most this year:
Fiction
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
March by Geraldine Brooks
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Bound on Earth by Angela Hallstrom
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
On the Road to Heaven by Coke Newell
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Nonfiction
A Bright, Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
Making Peace: Personal Essays by Eugene England
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Here if You Need Me by Kate Braestrup
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Greely
Poster Child by Emily Rapp
I also watched 66 movies this year, which is quite a lot more than the year before. I guess it was technically 64 movies because two of the things I had listed were actually TV shows. But that's still a lot of movies; at least I had the excuse that many of them were for school. Here are some of my favorites:
Princesas
El mar adentro
Into the Wild
The Dark Knight
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Refugee All Stars
Juno
Ed Wood
Comments
Do you own Bound on Earth?
I don't think I even watched six.