** Top Reads 2011**

A chance to share your top reads of 2011, perhaps also list your worst reads as well just so we can be warned.

If you want to go further and analyse your reading You may wish to use the following headings (suggested originally by detailmuse I believe) and play the numbers game.

Number of books read
Fiction reads
Non fiction reads
Others
number left on TBR pile
Male authors
Female authors
Authors new to me
More than i work by an author

Country of origin
Publication year

Ratings (number of 5 star 4 star reads etc)

End of the Year Summary

Books Read: 38
Fiction: 18
Non-Fiction: 15
Other (Graphic Novel): 5
Pages: 11,755 + 220
TBR pile: 87

Male Authors: 28
Female Authors: 3
Mixed: 2
New-to-me: 24
More than 1 work: Akira Yoshimura, Carl Sagan, Terry Pratchett

Country of Origin:

U.S.A: 19
UK.: 10
Japan: 5
Spain: 1
Denmark: 1
Norway: 1
Canada: 1

Publication Year:

2010+: 7
2000-2010: 17
1990-2000: 7
1980-1990: 1
Pre-1980: 6

Ratings:

5-star: 3
4.5: 7
4: 7
3.5: 7
3: 7
2.5: 3
2: 3
1.5: 1

Top Reads of the Year:

Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Machine by Peter Adolphsen
Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura

Classic Feynman by Richard Feynman
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing by Richard Dawkins
Eyewitness to America by David Colbert

Biggest Disappointments

Storm Rider by Akira Yoshimura
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara
Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey

2011 Summary

Number of Books Read: 59 – as of Dec 27
Fiction Reads: 54
Non-fiction Reads: 5
Number Left on TBR Pile: 141
Male Authors: 12
Female Authors: 33
Authors New to Me: 33

More than 1 Work: Stieg Larsson, Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Anita Rau Badami, Charlaine Harris, J.K. Rowling
*This is pretty representative of my reading - a mix of classics, contemporary, and comfort reads

Country of Origin

Canada: 12
US: 14
UK: 20
Sweden: 3
Denmark: 1
Russia: 1
Egypt: 1
Japan: 1
South Africa: 1
Germany: 1
Dominica: 1
Zimbabwe: 1
Italy: 1
Argentina: 1

Publication Year

2010s: 22
2000s: 16
1990s: 8
1980s: 2
1960s: 1
1950s: 1
1900-1950: 4
Pre-1900: 5

Ratings

5 stars: 14 (9 of which were rereads)
4.5 stars: 10
4 stars: 17
3.5 stars: 8
3 stars: 4
2.5 stars: 2
2 stars: 4

Top Reads – New

Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck
My Antonia – Willa Cather
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
Just Kids – Patti Smith
Tell it to the Trees – Anita Rau Badami
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Tiger’s Wife – Tea Obreht
O Pioneers! – Willa Cather
From the Land of the Moon – Milena Agus
Gillespie and I – Jane Harris
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? – Anita Rau Badami
Various Positions - Martha Schabas

Top Reads – Rereads

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Harry Potter series

Biggest Disappointments

Snowdrops – A.D. Miller
Sisterhood Everlasting – Ann Brashares
The Diving Pool – Yoko Ogawa
Generation X – Douglas Coupland
The Winter King – Bernard Cornwell
On Canaan’s Side – Sebastian Barry

I think I'm going to hold out until later in December, as I'm hoping to read some more great books between now and then. And I love the idea of listing disappointments too!

>4 rebeccanyc: Same here.

This looks fun, but too early yet. I'll probably post in January.

Like Rebecca, Darryl, and Dan I'm marking this thread to come back to later.

Robert

Hello All,

Here is my summary with my top rated books.

Books consumed (read or skimmed to the end): 78
Books completed: 67
Books started but skimmed to the end: 11
Fiction: 71
Nonfiction: 7
Audio books: 12
Books left on TBR shelf: 48
Books by male authors: 25
Books by female authors: 53

Number of books by Top Ratings

5 stars (8)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2nd reading, audio book)
City of Thieves by James Benioff
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

4.5 stars (4)
The People of the Book by Geraldine Brookes (2nd reading)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (audio book)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (nth reading?)
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

4 stars (16)
The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian
Roses by Leila Meacham
New York: A Novel by Edward Rutherfurd
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Forever by Pete Hamill
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (audio book)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
The Saga: The Sage of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley

Too early for me too, but I know that my best book of the year will be Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O'Neill.

Cait86 - I love that you love Return of the Soldier! One of my all-time favs.

>4 rebeccanyc:, 5 Same here, although I have calculated a few of baswood's suggested stats.

Number of books read: 57
Fiction reads: 38
Nonfiction reads: 12
Others: 7
Male authors: 45
Female authors: 10
Authors new to me: 29

Top reads:

Fiction:
Don Quixote, tr. John Rutherford
Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
Chess by Stefan Zweig, tr. Anthea Bell
Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories by Kōno Taeko
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías

Nonfiction:
Chronicle of My Mother by Yasushi Inoue
On Translation by Paul Ricoeur
Stasiland by Anna Funder
The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson

Play:
The Ubu Plays by Alfred Jarry, tr. Cyril Connolly-Simon Watson Taylor

Biggest disappointments:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
after the quake by Haruki Murakami

I'll come back with some stats (just as soon as I find them!) There's still a few more days, and I have a couple of books yet to read this week, but here is what I have thus far in no particular order:

*Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2011, US, Powerful, character-driven tale of family love set during 10 days leading up to and during Hurricane Katrina)
*Go With Me by Castle Freeman, Jr. (2008, US, Vermont. Modern story of chivalry, told with humor and suspense)
*Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates (1980, US, New York. Epic, satirical family saga)
*The Wedding of Zein by Tayib Shalih (Sudanese,1969, T, more for the novella of the same name, less for the other stories)
*Penwoman by Elin Wagner (Swedish, 1910, T 2009, an oldie but goodie, and amazingly still relevant)
*Embassytown by China Miéville (2011, UK author, intriguing science fiction)
*The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (2007, T 2010 Mauritius, a powerful little book of an unlikely, very brief friendship between two young boys)
*The Last Patriarch by Najat El Hachmi (2010, Morocco, T, powerful, rough story told with black humor of one woman's coming into her own)
*Five Bells by Gail Jones (2011, Australian)(Lyrical tale of love and loss, set near the Sydney opera house)
*Isle of Dreams by Keizo Hino (T. 2010, Japan) Intriguing magical realist story about a middle-aged man seeing another side of the city he loves.
*The House of Mist by Mariá Luisa Bombal (1937, Ecuador) Magical realist tale that's a cross between the Gothic and a fairy tale.
*The Blue Fox by Sjon (T 2008, Icelandic) Fable set in wintry Iceland.
*Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dmitri Verhulst (T 2010, Dutch) Beautiful folktale-like story of love. Fans of Jamilia should enjoy it.

*Living with Complexity by Donald Norman (2011, nonfiction, about design)
*The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone (2011, graphic nonfiction, the history of the American media)

*Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011, US, audio, wet-your-pants funny memoir)

*The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (crime novel, 2011, Scottish, 2nd book in series about cops who investigate other cops)
*The Pyramid by Henning Mankell (crime novel, T 2008, Swedish, early tales of Wallander)
*1222 by Anne Holt (crime novel, T 2011, Norwegian, clear homage to Agatha Christie. Belongs to series but easily read as a stand alone)
Anything by Garry Disher (crime novels, Australian. Fabulous, character-driven crime novels set on the coast near Mebourne, I read all 5 or so this year)

No real stand out poetry collections or anthologies read this year; nor can I list a short fiction collection or anthology as I dipped in and out of many of these this year (but did not read any from cover to cover)

Okay, I think I'm ready to record mine. I might read another book or two, but as of Dec 27, here's where I'm at:

Number of books read - 75
Fiction reads - 55
Non fiction reads - 20

number left on TBR pile - that's classified information. An obscene number. But I did REMOVE 39 books from my TBR

Male authors - 28
Female authors - 44
anthologies - 3

Authors new to me - 50
More than 1 work by an author - I read 4 books by Margaret Atwood and 2 by Roma Tearne

Country of origin -
Canada - 15
UK - 16
US - 28 (and I actually try to NOT read US authors--how's that for cultural imperialism?)
Australia - 2
Sri Lanka - 3
and books by authors from: Russia, Japan, South Africa, India, Somalia, Bangladesh, Columbia, South Korea, Chile, France & Ireland

Publication year - don't track this

Ratings (number of 5 star 4 star reads etc)

My 5 star reads:
Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O'Neill
Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
Some Country Houses and Their Owners, James Lees-Milne
Daisy Miller, Henry James
The Evil Garden, Edward Gorey

My 4.5 star reads:
Funny Boy, Shyam Selvadurai
February, Lisa Moore
The Dark, John McGahern
Sultana's Dream, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Devil You Know, Jenn Farrell
Packaging Girlhood, Sharon Lamb
Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Atwood

and my 1 star reads:

Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto, Anneli Rufus
Please Look After Mom, Kyung-sook Shin
Does My Head Look Big in This?, Randa Abdel-Fattah

It's interesting to look back over the year like this! I didn't feel as if I'd had an especially good reading year, but going through the list I found some real goodies. There were also several books where I was surprised by the score I gave them - I didn't remember them as 5* reads, or conversely I now remember that I liked them better than I actually did at the time.

Anyway, this year - unusually - I have a definite 'favourite book'. In fact, by stretching only a small amount I can present a top three of the year:

1. The Dream Life Of Sukhanov - the beautifully written story of a Russian apparatchik whose world is beginning to fragment
2. The Stone Angel - an elderly woman looks back on a life of cantankerous independence
3. A pairing of Journey Into The Whirlwind and The Betrayal, one fictional and one memoir account of being caught up in the purges of Stalin's Russia (I rated The Betrayal itself 4.5* but I think they would work very well together)

My other 5* reads were:
Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie - Americans at home and bewildered in London
The Singer by Cathi Unsworth - a thriller about the mysterious disappearance of a punk rock star
Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose - a guide to close reading, with great recommendations for good writers to follow up
The Geometry of Pasta - an unusual and very well-designed cookbook

...and 4.5*:
My Name Is Asher Lev - a novel following the early life of a gifted painter as he struggles to balance family and social ties with the demands of his art
Afternoon Of An Autocrat - a marvellously Gothic historical romance
Interesting Women - short stories, mainly about women and the misperceptions and misunderstandings between men and women, Old World and New, black and white
The Strange Case Of The Composer And His Judge - a proudly rational woman tries to smoke out a cult and becomes entangled by its charismatic leader
Samba - journalism, about the role of Samba in Brazilian culture
The Clothes On Their Backs - a novel about a woman and her relationship with her larger-than-life charismatic uncle, and about how they both make their way in a largely hostile world
The Observations - a lightly Gothic novel about a maidservant and her mistress - this was an audiobook and got extra points for the brilliance of its reading by the author, Jane Harris

Two of the 18 4* reads also stand out in my memory:
Los Gusanos - a wide-ranging portrait of Cuban-Americans told through the story of an attempt to take personal revenge on the Castro regime
Every Man Dies Alone - one couple's small but poignant attempt to stand against the regime in Hitler's Germany

As for the worst, I only had one 1* read, Honey Tongues, but the most disappointing reads were all 1.5*:

David Wong Louie in general - I gave up on his book The Barbarians Are Coming and his short story was the worst in Margaret Atwood's selection of Best American Short Stories
The World Without Us (non-fiction, about what would happen to our environment if we weren't here to maintain it) for a great idea and superb opening chapter let down by poor editing and a focus on the less interesting elements of the story
Graham Joyce's Requiem because his previous book (that I read - The Limits Of Enchantment) was so good
The Reluctant Fundamentalist because everyone else liked it so much

There were also several books where I was surprised by the score I gave them - I didn't remember them as 5* reads, or conversely I now remember that I liked them better than I actually did at the time.

I find that over the years . . . I haven't decided what to do with it yet. Somehow I feel I must adjust in retrospect. Some books feel good at the time, but don't later; others are "meh" when you read them, but then they simmer within you and you see something brilliant later on, or maybe it's just a general feeling.

Here is my summary:

Top 5 books
Germinal by Emile Zola
The Story of the Stone (or The Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

Most unique books
The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klima
69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess by Stewart Home

Least favorite books
The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
No More Mr. Nice Guy by Howard Jacobson

Statistics for books read
146 works
124 physical volumes
12 e-books
3 re-reads

121 novels
14 short story collections
5 non-fiction
4 epic verse (including prose translations)
2 drama collections

117 different authors
81 first-time authors
88 male (75%)
26 female (25%)
3 anonymous

Authors with multiple works read
7 Mario Vargas Llosa
7 C. S. Lewis
4 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
4 John Updike
3 Philip Pullman
2 each: Colette, Charles Dickens, Euripides, William H. Gass, André Gide, Witold Gombrowicz, Graham Greene, China Miéville

Works read by author's nationality
31 England
29 United States
17 France
7 Peru
5 Germany
4 each: China, India, Italy, Kenya
3 each: Australia, Greece, Poland
29 other

Works read by original language
79 English
20 French
11 Spanish
6 German
4 each: Chinese, Italian, Russian
3 Greek
2 each: Arabic, Japanese, Polish
1 each: 9 others
46% were works in translation

Works read by date of first publication
2 5th Century BCE
1 4th Century BCE
1 11th Century
3 12th Century
2 13th Century
1 14th Century
1 16th Century
3 18th Century
1 1800s
1 1810s
1 1820s
2 1830s
2 1840s
2 1850s
2 1860s
2 1870s
1 1880s
1 1890s
4 1900s
2 1910s
8 1920s
4 1930s
4 1940s
18 1950s
16 1960s
9 1970s
15 1980s
13 1990s
18 2000s
6 2010s

Rather surprising here that I read a book from every decade since 1800.

Stats of my choice, based on just the novels:

Male/Female authors 50% (crime novels were 72% male, but the other fiction was 65% female)
----
Percentage of translated books 59% (crime novels were 71% translated, other fiction 52%)
----
New authors to me: 40%
----
More than one book: Castle Freeman, Susan Hill, Garry Disher, Håkan Nesser, Anne Holt, Kjell Eriksson
----

Reading by regions:

US 10%, UK 13%, Australia 12%, South America 2%, Asia 2%, Africa & the Middle East 21%, Europe (mostly Nordic countries) 40%
----

Reading by "era"*

2011 23%; 2000-2010 46%; 1990s 15%; 1980s 5%; 1970s 7%; 1930s 2%

*This was difficult because of the translations, but I used the translation date, not the original pub date in these cases.
----

3 books could be considered science fiction. 5 books contain magical realism or fantasy. 7 contain humor (2 satirical, 1 black/dark humor), and 22 could be considered crime novels.
----

Must stop. This is addictive.

US 10%, UK 13%, Australia 12%, South America 2%, Asia 2%, Africa 21%, Europe (mostly Nordic countries) 40%

What, no Canadian books? (Really, not even an Atwood?). Well.

>18 Nickelini: Yeah, surprising, isn't it? it's always interesting to do this for that reason. No Atwood rereads, sorry (I only had one Oates this year, also. She usually ups my US totals).

Wait! I tried to read a Louise Penny but it was a bit too twee for me. 50 pages maybe...

Well, I think I may finish one more book tomorrow, but it won't be a favorite, so I can now post my best of 2011 list. These are more or less in reverse order of when I read them. Analysis coming in a separate post.

Best of the Best (fiction)
In Red by Magdalena Tulli
Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
A Change of Climate and Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel
The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago
The Red Riding Quartet: Nineteen Seventy-Four/Nineteen Seventy-Seven/Nineteen Eighty/Nineteen Eighty-Three by David Peace
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, The Vet's Daughter, and Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

The Best of the Rest (fiction)
God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène
Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono
Once upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Devil on the Cross, A Grain of Wheat, Weep Not, Child, and Matigari by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
They Were Counted/They Were Found Wanting/They Were Divided by Miklós Bánffy
The Adventures of Sindbad by Gyula Krúdy
Red Shift by Alan Garner
Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
The Skin Chairs, Sisters by a River, and The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns
The Prospector by J.M.G. LeClezio
Soul and Other Stories by Andrey Platonov
Favourite Sherlock Holmes Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
She Drove without Stopping by Jaimy Gordon
The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer
Conquered City by Victor Serge

Favorite Non-Fiction
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes
Classic Crimes by William Roughead
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole
The Eichmann Trial by Deborah Lipstadt
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
Just Kids by Patti Smith

My summary of 2011 starts with a list of all my five star reads last year

Medieval Literature
Froissart Chronicles, Jean Froissart
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight both transaltions by Simon Armitage and Maria Boroff
The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meung and Guillaume de Lorris
Arthurian Romances Chretien de Troyes
The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius

Fiction
The God of Small things, Arundhati Roy
The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson
The Comedians, Graham Greene
The Vagabond, Colette
A Room with a View E M Forster
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Vanity Fair W M Thackeray
The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
Porius, John Cowper Powys

Non Fiction
The Autumn of the Middle ages Johan Huizinga
The Story of Art E H Gombrich
The Allegory of Love C S Lewis
Richard II, Michael J Bennet
La France, Photographs by Raymond Depardon

Play
Translations, Brian Friel

And the list of 4.5 star reads:

Medieval Literature
The Book of Margery Kempe

Fiction
2666, Roberto Bolano
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet David Mitchell

Non Fiction
The Perfect King, The life of Edward III, Ian Mortimer
The Greatest Traitor, The life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ian Mortimer
Secrets of the Flesh, A Life of Colette, Judith Thurman
The Discovery of France, Graham Robb
A Distant Mirror Barbara W Tuchman
Suspended Judgements John Cowper Powys

Some stats.

Fiction = 55
Non Fiction = 37

The fiction reads I have broken down into the following genres
Novels = 35
Science Fiction = 8
Medieval Texts = 11
Historical novels = 1
Crime = 1
Poetry = 2
Plays = 1
Essays = 2

Non fiction genres
History = 11
Literary Criticism = 10
Biography = 2
Philosophy = 2
Documentary = 1
Food = 1
Photography = 1
Travel = 2
Art = 1

Male Authors = 75
Female Authors = 17

59 authors were new to me this year
I read 7 books by Graham Greene, 3 by C S Lewis, 3 by Oscar Wilde, and 3 by John Cowper Powys.

Breakdown of starred reads
5 stars = 22
4.5 stars = 11
4 stars = 21
3.5 Stars = 18
3 stars = 13
2.5 stars = 3
2 stars = 2
1 star - 1

Years books first published:
Before 11th century = 1
12th century = 2
13th cebtury = 2
14th century = 6
15th century = 1

1800- 1849 = 1
1850 - 1849 = 3

1900's = 1
1910's = 1
1920's = 7
1930's = 4
1940's = 1
1950's = 3
1960's = 5
1970's = 11
1980's = 6
1990,s = 8

21st century = 30

The Worst Reads

The Junior Officers Reading Club, Patrick Hennessey
Tiger Hills Sarita Mandanna

Hi everyone! I'm Jennifer and I'm new to Club Read but not to LT. I've logged my reading in the 50 book challenge since 2009 and am ready to try something new. Here is my reading summary for 2011.

Total books read: 79
Fiction: 62
Nonfiction: 17
Female Authors: 55
Male Authors: 24
New to me authors: 44

Favorite Books of 2011
Fiction:
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Room by Emma Donoghue
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (reread of one of my favorites)
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Non-fiction:
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Wedlock The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Least favorite Books of 2011:
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

I also like to do silly "awards" - take them or leave them!

Favorite fiction: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Favorite non-fiction: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Most fun reading: Harry Potter series

Proud of myself for getting through and actually enjoying: Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Most disturbing: Room by Emma Donoghue

Can’t believe I waited so long to read: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Felt like the longest book I read: Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Over-rated: Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck

Surprised I liked: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer

Immediately forgotten: The Civilized World by Susi Wyss

Couldn’t put down: The Hunger Games

Most depressing: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Opinion improved upon further thought: Madame Bovary, Journey to the end of the Night

Hated: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

So sad it’s over: Last Chronicle of Barset by Trollope

Really wanted to like but didn’t: Lolita, The Shipping News

Funniest book: Sh*t my Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Hi Jennifer, enjoyed your silly awards section, that just might catch on here.

I want to read all of your favourite books that you have listed apart from Room, which I have read and found it disturbing, but for different reasons than you.

I look forward to reading what you read in 2012.

Here's my year end summary:

Total books read: 166 (the most number of books I've read in a year)
Fiction: 108
Nonfiction: 44
Poetry: 14

Number left on TBR pile: TNTC (a medical abbreviation for "too numerous to count")

Male authors: 115 (69%)
Female authors: 47 (28%)
Other: 4 (two books of anthologies, two art books with multiple contributors) (3%)

Authors new to me: 112 (too many to list here!)
More than 1 work by an author (15):
4 books: Amélie Nothomb, Mario Vargas Llosa
3 books: Javier Cercas, Tove Jansson, Michael Ondaatje
2 books: Julian Barnes, Jean Echenoz, Damon Galgut, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Joy Harjo, Elias Khoury, Hisham Matar, Amos Oz, José Saramago, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Country of origin:
United States: 45
Britain: 30
France: 7
Peru: 5
Spain: 5
Sri Lanka: 5
Belgium: 4
Canada: 4
India: 4
Egypt: 3
Finland: 3
Japan: 3
Portugal, South Africa, Lebanon, Algeria, Colombia, Libya, Palestine, Tanzania, Barbados, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Kenya: 2
Togo, Argentina, Iran, Germany, Norway, Santa Lucia, Martinique, Haiti, China, Jamaica, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Wales: 1

Favorite books of the year:

Fiction:
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (favorite novel published in 2011)
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa (favorite novel of the year)
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
Monsieur Linh and His Child by Philippe Claudel
Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

Nonfiction:
The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt
Colour Me English by Caryl Phillips (favorite nonfiction book of the year)
Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care by Augustus A. White III, M.D.
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey by Izzeldin Abuelaish
An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox by Gareth Williams
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne
The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son by Ian Brown
Real Bloomsbury by Nicholas Murray

Poetry:
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston (favorite work of poetry of the year)
The Broken Word by Adam Foulds

Least favorite books of the year:
No More Mr. Nice Guy by Howard Jacobson
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

Favorite author of the year: Amos Oz
Least favorite author of the year: Stella Rimington, for being the worst Booker Prize chair of judges in the award's history

Best book cover: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes



Worst book cover: The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens

And here's mine. This was a light reading year for me -- coping with life circumstances -- a bad fall by my mother and a 6 week road trip (I can't read in the car).

Total books: 37
Novels: 27
Memoirs: 2
Narrative Poems: 3
Plays: 1
Lit Crit: 1
Local History: 1
Travel Books: 2

Books by Female authors: 24
Books by Male authors: 13
Authors new to me: 18
Multiple books: 4 by Tove Jansson, 2 by Anthony Burgess, 2 by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Translated Books: 9
Countries of origin: USA -- 16, UK -- 7, Finland -- 4, Canada -- 3, Sweden --2, India -- 2, Iceland -- 2, Poland -- 1

Favorite Novels (in order read)
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess
In Red by Magdalena Tulli
Serious Men by Manu Joseph

Favorite Narrative Poem
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

Favorite Non-Fiction
Crossing the Creek by Anna Lillios
Travelling Literary America by B.J. Welborn

Least Favorite
The Wild Girl by Michele Roberts
The Circus of the Earth and Air by Brooke Stevens

I had a very good reading year. I read 137 books which is quite a bit more than I usually do. Since I retired in 2011, that might be the explanation.

In no particular order:

5 stars:

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes;
Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov;
A World for Julius by Bryce Echenique

4 1/2 stars:

August, 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn;
The Red Riding Hood Quartet (Nineteen Seventy-four; Nineteen Seventy-Seven; Nineteen Eighty; and Nineteen Eighty-three)by David Peace;
The Bone People by Keri Hulme;
The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola;
The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna;
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

4 stars:

Gb84 by David Peace
Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Camel Xiangzi by Lao She
His Excellency, Eugene Rougon by Emile Zola
A Burnt Child by Stig Dagerman
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
The Commandant by Jessica Anderson
Under Fire by Henri Barbusse
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates
Voss by Patrick White
Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
The Double by Jose Saramago
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram

I read some wonderful books this year. There were a few duds, but I choose to forget them.

I read from 29 countries other than the US or Great Britain:

Germany, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, France, Australia, Finland, China, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Vietnam, Chile, Brazil, Lituania, Egypt, Peru, Nigeria, Korea, Albania, Israel India, Mexico, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Lebanon, Sweden and Senegal.

I don't pay attention to male v. female authors in my reading choices, and I read only 25 female authors this year. I was really derelict on reading nonfiction as well.

For 2012, I'm going to concentrate on Reading Globally, especially the Classics in Their Own Country., and I'm going to try to finish my reading of Zola's Rougon Macquart series. I've also decided to go back and reread some of my (remembered) favorites from the past and some of the classics I haven't read in years and years. Finally I'm going to do as Francine Prose did inReading Like a Writer--read one story by Chekov each day. To that end I treated myself to a 13 volume set of his complete stories for Christmas!

And now, for the all-important summing-up.

Number of books read: 73

Fiction reads: 36
*Novels: 30
*Short Story Collections: 5
*Graphic Novels: 1

Non-fiction reads: 26

Others:
*Poetry: 5
*Plays: 4
*Memoir: 2

Male authors: 53

Female authors: 8

Authors new to me: 47

More than 1 work by an author: M.H. Abrams, Harold Bloom , Stephen King, William Shakespeare

Ratings:
5 stars: 15
4.5 stars: 10
4 stars: 17
3.5 stars: 8
3 stars: 2
2.5 stars: 1
2 stars: 1

Top Reads 2011:
Fiction:
1. The Best of Gene Wolfe
2. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (for Hadji Murat) – Leo Tolstoy
3. Ghost Light – Joseph O’Connor
4. Brodeck’s Report – Philippe Claudel
5. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
6. Little, Big – John Crowley
7. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (reread)

Non-Fiction:
1. The Visionary Company – Harold Bloom
2. The Mirror and the Lamp – M.H. Abrams
3. Natural Supernaturalism - M.H. Abrams

Poetry:
1. The Changing Light at Sandover – James Merrill

Most Disappointing:
1. Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud – Peter Watson
2. Sunnyside Sal – Anton Krueger
3. The Secret Teachings of All Ages – Manly P. Hall
4. The Fog – James Herbert

OK, my year-end wrap up! Some of the suggested statistics seem like a bit too much work to me, but here's a few relevant facts:

Number of books read: 159
Fiction reads: 85
Non fiction reads: 67
Others: 7 (1 tagged "poetry," 6 tagged "humor")
Number left on TBR pile: 447 (sigh)

For the best/worst books, I'm going by how I rated them immediately after I read them. So...

Best books of 2011 (5 or 4.5 stars)

FICTION:
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Blue Heaven by Joe Keenan
Ready Player One by Earnest Cline
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Locke & Key, Volume 4: Keys to the Kingdom by Joe Hill

NON-FICTION:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin
The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman
The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher
Columbine by Dave Cullen
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World by Carl Safina
The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
No Life for a Lady by Agnes Morley Cleaveland
A Passion for Mars: Intrepid Explorers of the Red Planet by Andrew Chaikin
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

OTHER:
Every Thing on It by Shel Silverstein

Worst Books of 2011 (2 or 2.5 stars)

FICTION:
Flux by Stephen Baxter
Moonstruck by Edward M. Lerner
The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
Ravens by George Dawes Green
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
Timeline by Michael Crichton
Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb
Cable & Deadpool: If Looks Could Kill by Fabian Nicieza
Why New Yorkers Smoke edited by Luis Ortiz
Terraforming Earth by Jack Williamson
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
The House of Doors by Brian Lumley

NON-FICTION:
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities By Stephen Jay Gould
The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David Leavitt
The Top Ten of Everything 2001 by Russell Ash

OTHER:
Z.E.O.: A Zombie's Guide to Getting A(Head) in Business by Scott Kenemore

Hmm, OK, some of those weren't so much bad, as just dull or disappointing. Eh, close enough. And at least I managed to avoid any one-star books. Although maybe that just means I'm too generous.

2011 Summary

Number of books read: 55
Fiction: 10
Non-Fiction: 21
Other: 24 (poetry etc 15, Graphic 7, Juvenile 2)
Pages: 15,141 books read, 17,347 for all recorded reading
Reviewed: 21

TBR stats

Current TBR: 483 (in 2011: 11 read, 52 added, net +41)
Current Wishlist: 473 (in 2011 14 acquired, 17 added, net +3)

Of the books I read in 2011, those
bought in 2011: 23
borrowed: 18 (16 from library)
from pre-2011 TBR: 11
old lit reviews 3
I planned to read in December 2011: 12 (of 14?)

New Books:
---Mine: 87
---wife: 75
---Kids: 148
Borrowed from Library: 220

More stats on 2011 reads

Male authors: 36
Female authors: 12
Anthology: 7
Authors new to me: 34
More than 1 work by an author: 4 (Marjane Satrapi, Keiji Nakazawa, Larry D. Thomas, Bruce Chatwin)

Author’s Country of Origin

USA: 30
UK: 5
Continental Europe: 5 (one each from France, Germany, Greece, Italy & the Netherlands)
Iran: 1
Japan: 1

USA Author’s States

Alaska: 1
Arkansas: 1
California: 1
DC: 3
Florida: 2
Kentucky: 1
Massachusetts: 1
Michigan: 1
Minnesota: 1
Montana: 1
Nebraska: 1
New York: 3
Oklahoma: 1
South Carolina: 1
Texas: 3
Vermont: 1
Virginia: 1
Washington: 2
Wisconsin: 1

Publication year

1596: 1
1920's: 1
1940's: 2
1950’s: 0
1960's: 2
1970's: 4
1980's: 3
1990's: 4
2000's: 17
2010's: 21

Ratings

5 stars: 16
4.5 stars: 2
4 stars: 11
3.5 stars: 2
3 stars: 7
2.5 stars: 1
NR: 16
So bad I didn’t finish: 2

Top Reads of the Year:
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Woman of Rome : A Life of Elsa Morante by Lily Tuck
History: A Novel by Elsa Morante
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Island Fire by Cheryl A. Harstad & James R. Harstad (editors)

best poetry
A Murder of Crows by Larry D. Thomas
Florida in Poetry : A History of the Imagination by Jane Anderson Jones & Maurice O’Sullivan (editors)

best graphic novel
Persepolis I & II by Marjane Satrapi
Logicomix by Apostolos K. Doxiadēs, Christos H. Papadimitriou etc.

Best Juvenile
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

Underappreciated little Gem
Blossom by Donigan Merritt

It is so much fun to read all these lists and I've gotten so many ideas of books to add to my TBR !

>29 dchaikin: Dan, I love your TBR and Wishlist stats!

My favourite reading in 2011- in no particular order- I read 148 books

Fiction

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
The Better Mother by Jen Sookfong Lee
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

Non- fiction

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
Cleopatra : a life by Stacy Schiff
Mordecai:the Life and Times by Charles Foran
Shadow Maker:the Life of Gwendolyn MacEwan by Rosemary Sullivan
The Boy in the Moon:a Father's Search for his Disabled Son by Ian Brown.

Reading Review for 2011

113 books read ( 1 book more than last year)

67.3% fiction (76)
16.8% nonfiction (19)
11.5% children's/YA books (13)
4.4% graphic novels (5)
(Of these 6 were on audio)

55% female authors (62)
45% male authors (51)

34.5% by non American/ British authors (39 books from 25 countries):
Afghani: 2
Algerian: 1
Azerbaijani: 1
Canadian: 1
Czech: 1
Dutch: 2
Ethiopian: 1
French: 4
German: 1
Hungarian: 3
Iranian: 3
Israeli: 1
Italian: 2
Japanese: 1
Korean: 1
Lebanese: 2
Mauritanian: 1
New Zealand: 2
Pakistani: 2
Palestinian: 1
Portuguese: 1
Russian: 3
Sierra Leonean: 1
Sudanese: 1
Ukrainian: 1

98 different authors
73 new-to-me authors
10 rereads

Best Reads of 2011

Top Ten Novels
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Regeneration by Pat Barker
Brodeck by Philippe Claudel
Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov
The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad
The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal
Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell
The Line by Olga Grushin
The Waitress was New by Dominique Fabre

Top Three Nonfiction Books
Gulag: A History by Anne Appplebaum
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Best Graphic Novel
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Best Children's/YA Book
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

29> Thanks, Dan!

Good to see your TBR pile is going the right way Dan.

Reading these lists reminds me of even more books to add to my Hope To Read list for 2012.

Here is a summary of my 2011 year in reading:

Favorite Fiction

The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter
The Good Solder (Norton Critical Edition) by Ford Madox Ford
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Aegypt (The Solitudes) by John Crowley
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
A Night in the Luxembourg by Remy Gourmont
New York Trilogy by Paul Aster
Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Favorite Nonfiction

The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance by Joscelyn Godwin
How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
In the Country of Books: Commonplace Books and Other Readings by Richard Katzev
The Art of Memory by Frances Yates
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates

Biggest Disappointments

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Visation by Jenny Erpenbeck
Illuminations by Walter Benjamin

Reading Stats for the Year 2011

The big surprise here is the number of fiction books read. It's much higher than I was giving myself credit for.

Number of books read: 64
Fiction reads: 25
Nonfiction reads: 39
Begun but not finished: 4
Number left on TBR: Do not ask
Male authors: 50; Fiction: 18
Female authors: 14; Fiction: 5

Authors not new to me: Umberto Eco, Herman Melville, Alberto Manguel, Theodore Sturgeon, Peter Ackroyd, E.M. Forster

More than one work by an author: Paul Auster (3), Cynthia Giles (2), Joscelyn Godwin (3 + 2 as translator), Thomas Mann (2), Walter Pater (2), John Cowper Powys (2), Frances Yates (2)

Top Subjects:
Pagan Influences/Religion/Philosophy/Esoterica – 28
Fiction – 25
History/Biography – 8
Art History – 4
Criticism – 10
Literature/Essays – 4
General Nonfiction – 2

Country of Origin:
US – 33
UK – 20
Germany – 5
France – 2
Latin America – 2
Italy – 1
Greece – 1

Publication Year
2010s - 7
2000s - 18
1990s - 8
1980s - 6
1970s - 2
1960s - 2
1950s - 2
1900-1950 - 8
Pre-1900 - 7

Ratings
5 stars - 7
4.5 - 8
4 - 12
3.5 - 11
3 - 4
unrated - 22

#31/35 - the increasing TBR is a good thing, right? It's positive. (Or, at least I'll balance the TBR-crushers...)

#34 Jane - your book was a clear favorite this year. Just this past week I found myself at a place called Books & Books in Coral Gables and looked up my list of Florida poets that I wanted to find more about based on the selections in your book. I purchased one by Ricardo Pau-Llosa and they had one listed by Enid Shomer, but couldn't find it. Sadly, I couldn't find any others.

#30 Rebecca, I completely agree. These lists are terrific fun to read through.

I am trying to ignore this thread... not very successfully. My TBR is huge as it is.

2011 Recap

Total books finished: 96

Fiction: 35
Nonfiction: 58
Other (poetry, mixed): 3

Female authors: 49
Male authors: 39
Mixed: 8
Authors new-to-me: 69
Authors with more than one book in my 2011 reads: Jo Ann Beard (2), Carrie Fisher (2), James Lileks (2), Keiji Nakazawa (3)

Date acquired
1980s: 2
1990s: 3
2000s: 12
2010s: 79

Original publication date
1800s: 1
1920s: 2
1930s: 1
1970s: 5
1980s: 3
1990s: 11
2000s: 25
2010s: 48

Notable tags:
Audiobook: 11 (more convenient but more difficult for me than reading)
{From}Library: 27 (many luscious illustrated books)
History or historical fiction: 26 (a goal, see below)
Humor: 14 (yay!)
Illustrated: 33 (a pleasure)
LT Inspired: 20 (and that’s while trying to resist inspiration, e.g. this thread :)
Novella: 7 (in 2012, it’s tomes)
Translated: 10 (an unwritten goal)
Workplace: 7 (my favorite setting)

Ratings:
5-star -- (6 books) ******
4.5 -- (10) **********
4 -- (31) *******************************
3.5 -- (26) **************************
3 -- (17) *****************
2.5 -- (3) ***
2 -- (2) **
1.5 -- (1) *
1 -- (0)
0.5 -- (0)
77% are 3- to 4-star (okay to good), which exactly describes my reading year. Next year, I want better.

From my opening to last year's thread:
“In 2011, I want to read a little more history
--success! read 26 books of history/historical fiction--
and a few more classics,
--marginal, with 4--
to pull predominately from my TBRs,
--success! read 38 of 40 I’d set as goal and decreased my TBRs from 291 to 263--
and to log other (non-book) reading.”
--fail, but I'm going at it again in 2012--

2011 Top 10
One novel:
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver -- the fictional biography of a family whose teen son carries out a school shooting; fascinating, disturbing, outstanding.

And nine nonfiction, in alphabetical order:
Alinea by Grant Achatz -- a tour of molecular gastronomy and a phenomenal restaurant; exceeds 5 stars

A Bittersweet Season by Jane Gross -- part memoir, part instruction manual, part expose on eldercare and financing

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace -- mix of entertaining and erudite 1990s essays on the popular culture

Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz -- exploration of why we err and how we feel about being wrong

Blood Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton -- memoir of a woman’s path to chef/restaurateur and writer

The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard -- collection of coming-of-age personal essays, where growing up is as likely to occur at thirty as at thirteen or three.

My Own Country by Abraham Verghese – memoir of a doctor treating early AIDS patients in small-town Tennessee

Radioactive by Lauren Redniss -- nonfiction vignettes that form a biography of Marie Curie and of radiation itself; generously illustrated with art created by “cyanotype printing” that evokes a sense of radiation

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand -- biography of Louis Zamperini: juvenile near-delinquent, Olympic runner, WWII prisoner of war, inspiring human

Honorable mentions:
-- for most comforting: Blue Nights by Joan Didion -- about the death of her daughter and her own aging
-- for most importantly informative: The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser -- how personal data is collected on the Internet and used to filter (i.e. include and exclude) what you then see on the Internet
-- for most interesting: Bomboozled by Susan Roy -- an illustrated history of cold-war fallout shelters in private homes
-- for most fun: Bossypants by Tina Fey, read very fast on audiobook by the author
-- for most purgative: Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach, read on audiobook by Samuel L. Jackson
-- for best literary journal: the semiannual Bellevue Literary Review -- poems, essays and short stories about wellness, illness and caregiving

Dan, increasing the TBR is definitely a good thing. You just can't have too many books. I really don't understand this BOMB stuff. Are people feeling guilty about the number of books they own?

Its all very strange to see a bunch of book addicts desperately trying to stop themselves buying more books. The world has gone mad.

Baswood - let me try to explain where I'm coming at (which may or may not explain anyone else). I'm one of the people who is working at reducing my TBR pile. The reason that this is important to me is because I live in a really small house, and I share it with three other people. So I quite simply do not have the luxury of space for all my books. We try to live with the rule that if something comes in, something else goes out. Well, my TBR increased by at least 150 books in 2011.

I do enjoy being surrounded by my books, but I need to balance it with also reading them. It's easy to acquire things, more difficult to actually do something with them. (Anyone can buy a treadmill, but it's another thing to use it everyday.) If I have any guilt, it's because I'm ignoring all those wonderful books patiently waiting for me while I'm out finding others.

I draw the lines at the BOMB stuff though--that's far to violent for me. I love my TBR and its destruction is not my goal.

Here's my "What I Read in 2011" post, including brief comments on each book, a breakdown of numbers by genre, and my highlights:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-i-read-in-2011.html