Favorites of 2011

It's that time of the year again, to round up my favorite reads of the past year! To try to keep the list manageable, I am not counting rereads. Here, then, are the books that stood out to me most this year in no order whatsoever (with links to my reviews):

Fiction

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Nonfiction

• The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede
• So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson
• Strength to Love by Martin Luther King
• My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
• Little Princes by Conor Grennan

Children's/Young Adult

• Coming on Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson (picture book)
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Dark Emperor and Other Poems of Night by Joyce Sidman
• Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Musings
I read 150 books this year, more than last year (!) even though I have been working full-time hours all year. My lowest number of books in a month was June, with seven, not surprising since I was traveling a lot that month. The most was August with 18!

I meant to keep good statistics in 2011 to keep track of the number of children's, young adult, and adult books read, but I ran out of steam in the end. I can tell you that my ratio of library books to my own books read was abominable (something like 10/1?), and I'm going to try to rectify that this year.

My reading goal for 2012 is simply to read as many of my own books as library books. I'm keeping a simple counter on my LibraryThing 75 Book Challenge Thread that I will (hopefully) keep updated throughout the year.

What were your favorite reads of 2011?

2010 in Retrospect

In 2010, I read 135 books, including audiobooks and chapter books for children, teens, and adults. This is less than last year (156), but I was also working significantly more hours for the second half of the year, so all in all I'm pleased with that number.

I also kept track of picture book reading, which totaled 61.

Here are some of my memorable reads for the year, with links to my reviews (month finished in parentheses):

Fiction

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Feb)
• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Mar)
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonsen (Apr)
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Aug)
• Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (Sep - this entire series was a standout for me, but this was the of the best)
• Savvy by Ingrid Law (Oct)
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Oct)
• Persuasion by Jane Austen (Nov)

Nonfiction

• The Lexicographer's Dilemma by Jack Lynch (Apr)
• At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman (Jun)
• The Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White (Aug)
• The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel (Sep)

Poetry

• Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Apr)

I feel like I should at least mention that this is my only poetry book of the year, but even so it would still make my memorable reads list. Clearly I should be reading more poetry, but in all honesty picking a book of poetry and reading it intimidates me more than Shakespeare's plays.

Because I Want To Awards:
Most memorable but not best loved - Montana 1948 by Larry Watson (Aug)
Left me panting for the next one - Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (May)
Most surpassed my expectations - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (Oct)
Most fun to recommend - Soulless by Gail Carriger (Mar)

Musings

I half expected most of my memorable reads to be early in the year, and be sort of the early great reads that I used as a measuring stick for the rest, but the numbers do not bear that out at all. April and October are tied for most-memorable-reads-in-a-month, with three a piece. Interestingly, January, July, and December reads did not make the cut. I'm not surprised by January: I only finished four books that month. The others are a bit of a mystery to me.

Here's to even more great reading in 2011! I'll be trying to keep clearer stats this year to determine how many children's, teen, and adults books I'm reading as well as the total, and posting monthly sum-ups as well.

YA Through the Decades Challenge Wrap-Up

Way back in December 2009, I signed up for the YA Through the Decades Challenge hosted by Youth Services Corner. I said I would read one YA book from every decade from 1930s (or earlier) to the 2000, with an additional book in 2010.

Until today, I thought I had not completed the challenge because I had a book from the 1980s left. But when I was looking through my blog posts from 2010, I realized that I had read a YA book from the 80s and had forgotten I could include it because my original intention was to go without rereads. So here is the list (finally) of my completed challenge with links to my review of each book:

• 1930s or before - Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (1912)
• 1940s - Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freeman (1942)
• 1950s - Fifteen by Beverly Cleary (1956)
• 1960s - The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (1967)
• 1970s - Summer of My German Soldier by Betsy Greene (1973)
• 1980s - Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (1986 - the late found re-read)
• 1990s - Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta (1999)
• 2000s - Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman (2006)
• 2010 - Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (I was surprised to see how many "current" books I read in the past year; this just happened to be the first)

All in all, this was quite an interesting experience. I was most struck with how situations changed while much of the characteristics remain the same: dealing with difficult issues, coming-of-age/growing up themes, regular use of first-person or close third-person accounts are all common throughout the decades. Humor and play could be found in the 2000s or the 1960s, and issues like prejudice are still present in the 1990s, not relegated to the past. At the same time, some stories such as Fifteen, are rooted very much in their times can come across as dated or quaint, making them feel like a much younger story for kids of today or nostalgic parents rather than teens. What an interesting mix it turned out to be!

Some Changes on YALSA Book Lists and Awards

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is making some changes to their books lists, such as the Best Books for Young Adults, and the Alex Awards. YALSA has provided more information on the updated FAQ page.

I'm looking forward to seeing an extended list of the Alex Awards and will be interested in how they look for/receive teen feedback on the awards.

(Found via Youth Services Corner.)

Best YA Books You Haven't Read

Kelly over at YAnnabe.com wanted some of us bloggers who also LibraryThing to blog about some of our favorite YA books that just don't get a lot of notice. So here's my list of some of my favorite under-the-radar teen reads:

• Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings
  When a few boys play a "harmless" prank that turns deadly, thirteen-year-old Brady has to decide if he's going to stay silent or have the courage to tell the truth. This is a great recommendation for boys looking for a fairly short and fast-paced story, which also has enough meat to it for a book group or school assignment.
  
• Fall of a Kingdom by Hilari Bell
  Farsala is in danger of attack. High Commander Merahb sends his daughter Soraya into hiding when the priests tell him that only his daughter's sacrifice will save their country. Jiaan, the commander's peasant-born son and Soraya's half-brother, thirsts to prove himself. And Kavi, peasant and thief, just wants to get by when he's roped into service he never asked for. Interspersed between the points of view of Soraya, Jiaan, and Kavi are mysterious writings about Sorahb, apparently a brilliant leader who aided his country in a time of need. A wonderful retelling of a Persian myth with adventure and magic and thoughts on how legends are made, if you like this you'll want to read the rest of the story in Rise of a Hero and Forging the Sword.
  
• Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor
  Do you like fantasy, but want something different than the same-old? Look no further than the Dreamdark series - of which Blackbringer is the first - featuring faeries and crows. Magpie Windwitch is not a sweet faerie - she's a hunter finding demons that stupid humans let out of their bottles thinking they'd get three wishes. Then she comes across one that doesn't leave death and destruction in its wake. It leaves...nothing, which is completely unsettling. Can Magpie and her band of crow brothers defeat the "snag" that has been let loose?
  
• Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova
  Christie and her friends go to a manga and anime convention, hoping to get exposure for a work she's co-created with a friend, as well as meet some of the authors and illustrators that have inspired them. This is Christie's first con, and she's unprepared for the wild ride - especially when a really cute but standoffish guy turns up. This was my first introduction to manga, and it might be a good one for folks that are interested but intimidated by trying to read right-to-left, as this was originally English (the author lives in Canada) and reads left-to-right.
  
• The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable
  In the world of Tremaris, people work magic by singing "chantments" - iron workers sing low, ice workers in a high pitch, for example. Most people only have ability in one, sometimes two. Calwyn in an ice chanter, and she lives with the women who reinforce a wall of ice every year. Then Darrow shows up, on the run from a mysterious man who wants to master every chantment and become the Singer of All Songs. I love Calwyn and Darrow's characters, and had fun discovering the world and fantasy Constable creates. The Waterless Sea and The Tenth Power round off the trilogy.
  
• The Hollow Kingdom by Clare Dunkle
  If you're looking for an original fantasy that doesn't have the same old magic and vampires and quasi-Middle Ages feel, look no further than The Hollow Kingdom. In Victorian England, Kate and her sister Emily move to Hollow Hill, a place that has a bit of a sinister history of women disappearing. Marak, the goblin king, shows up and tells Kate that she must become his bride. Though part of a trilogy, each story stands separately. This is Kate and Marak's story, while Close Kin focuses on Emily and In the Coils of the Snake takes place a generation later.
  
• Born to Rock by Gordon Korman
  Leo Caraway is as strait-laced as they come: senior, Young Republicans member, straight-A student and Harvard bound, he figures his life is set. Then he meets his biological father, King Maggot, a rock star and about as anti-Leo as you can get. Add one hilarious summer road trip with father and son, and you've got a rocking good read.
  
• Princess Ben by Catherine Murdock
  She had me at the first sentence: "Having for many decades been forced to endure ever more ridiculous tales of the circumstances surrounding my coming of age, holding my tongue through each long-winded narrative for fear that my cautious interjections would only prolong the blather, I now in the solitude of my dotage at last permit myself the indulgence of correcting the erroneous legends and embroidered falsehoods that to this day expand, heady as yeast, across the land." Princess Benevolence has lost her parents, become heir to the throne, and is going to be forced into a marriage she doesn't want, but she's not going to take it lying down. I absolutely loved her as a main character and narrator.
  
• Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
  As the winner of the 2009 Printz Award, it's a shame that Jellicoe Road isn't better known. Taylor Markham is the school leader in the "territory wars" between the school, the Townies, and the Cadets. Taylor's present-tense narration is interspersed with writings of events that happened about 20 years before, a story that seems completely unrelated but slowly begins to reveal more information about people Taylor knows, as well as the history of the territory wars. Taylor has a lot more than the war to worry about however, when Hannah, her foster mother for the last six years, suddenly disappears. Holding two story lines straight is complicated for both author and reader, but if you're willing to press on, it's worth it to see everything come together. This is one of those teen books that might only appeal to some teens, but that I could easily recommend to adults who think that "YA" means "simple." The story line is intricate, and left me thinking about the characters long after I finished the book.
  

If you're looking for more recommendations, be sure to check out Kelly's list and her round-up of all the "best books" highlighted by LibraryThing YA readers and bloggers.

My Completely Subjective "Best Books" List

The start of a new year means it's time to reflect on last year's reading! I finished a total of 156 books, plus 78 volumes of manga, graphic novels, and comics.

Here are my top five books read in 2009 (with links to my reviews, when I have them):

• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
• Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
• Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1 edited by Philip Gourevitch

Those that were in my top ten were pretty much impossible to narrow down. Here's a list of "honorable mention" contenders that could have been even longer:

• Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman
• The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby
• The Pleasure of Reading edited by Antonia Fraser
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

It's fascinating that as I look back on my top reads of the year, the books that stand out aren't always the ones that I rated the highest right after finishing. Instead, they're books that for whatever reason made an impact on me, that I kept thinking about long after I'd finished them and would be reads that I would willingly revisit. I've updated my list in the widget to the right to reflect a "top 20," so there are a few titles there that I didn't include there.

What are some of your favorite books discovered in 2009? What makes them stand out to you?

What I'm Reading Now

I'm always intrigued by a glimpse at someone's immediate "read" list. It's a sort of slice of life that lets me see a snapshot of someone's interests at the moment. So I thought I'd share my own current reads and (hopefully) soon-to-be-reads:

The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1 edited by Philip Gourevitch
The book I started most recently. A bit unfairly, I started thinking "I've barely read any of these authors, so maybe I will want to abandon it soon and I'll get some of these library books home." But no, even the author of a book I dislike was extremely interesting in his interview. I've been so enjoying the collection that I've spaced it out and have only read about one or two interviews a day. So much for decreasing the library pile.

Made in America by Bill Bryson
The subtitle succinctly sums it up: "An Informal History of the English Language in the United States." I love books about language and I love Bill Bryson's humorous writing style, so this one is right up my alley.

13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks has been the audiobook on my MP3 player for the past few days. It's enjoyable and fairly light science in comparison to some of the books I've read this year (Brief History of Time, I'm looking at you).

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
I've been meaning to read this ever since I read and loved The Moonstone as a college student. I finally decided it was time, as well as being an appropriate October read. Strangely, it's the only fiction I'm reading at the moment.

A few more books are on my nightstand calling out to me, hoping not to get returned to the library before I read them, but I'll have to finish at least two of these first.