The Bookish Girl

Thar she reads – 2006 ~ 2007-01-30

Posted in Thar she reads by Bookish Wendy at 7:46 am.
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The annual wrap-up for my reads during the last year. All books were finished in the month they are listed.

January

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke
2. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

February

3. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

March

4. Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc
5. Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
6. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
7. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

April

8. Dewey Decimated by Charles A. Goodrum
9. What’s a girl gotta do? by Sparkle Hayter
10. Watermelon: a novel by Marian Keyes
11. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
12. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez **

May

13. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood **
14. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
15. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
16. Little Children by Tom Perrotta

June

17. Heat by Bill Buford
18. I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb **
19. The Eight by Katherine Neville

July

20. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
21. Eventide by Kent Haruf
22. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
23. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl **

August

24. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
25. The Grave Maurice by Martha Grimes
26. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett **
27. The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

September

28. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom **

29. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David EggersOctober

October

31. My Life in France by Julia Child

November

32. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
33. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

December

34. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett **

The total number of books read is somewhat on par with last year’s accomplishment – 33 books. In 2006 I finished 34 (you can see all of them as a group here), this calculates to about 2.75 books/month. I am a bit surprised that I didn’t plow through more as I always have an audio book going. However, I also read a crap load of pregger’s books that I did not keep track of. So, in reality I have upped the ante a bit. I also have made a habit of not counting knitting books as “reads”. There were many of them digested in 2006.

I read a bunch of 1/2 books. Books that I read half of and just could not keep it up. Bee Season was one of these, Some Lie and Some Die another. My approach to reading is pretty organic. I cannot work off of a list, if I am not into a book I just can’t read it. No ifs ands buts about it. Sometimes there are great books that I just never get off the ground. Other times they are not great and I will never tackle them again. Either way I have taught myself not to feel bad about it. For surely, it is not my responsibility to allow every book into my head!

Of those listed above the titles I would call “Highlights” are:

- Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc

- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

- Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

- A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (audiobook)

- Eventide by Kent Haruf

- The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Happy Reading in 2007

** = books read for bookclub. If there isn’t a title for a month than it means I hated it and didn’t read it. ;)

Related posts:

  1. Thar She Reads – 2007
  2. Reader Wrap-Up
  3. Booking It.

15 Comments »

  1. Devon says:

    I love that you keep a list of the books you read. I also do that. I have a spread sheet with the date I start and the date I finish all of the books. For 2006 I read 76 books (mostly because I was commuting from Providence and had a 2 hour train ride everyday). I’m glad I’m not the only one out there that keeps track of out books!

    All the Best,

    Devon

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 8:06 am

  2. maya says:

    I kept a list like this for a couple years, but then I feel off the wagon. I should really get back on.

    Love in the Time of Cholera and A year of magical thinking are currently on my must-read “list” (it’s not really a list, more like a spotty memorybank), and this just makes me want to read them more. Too bad school gets in the way of my pleasure reading. :-(

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 9:02 am

  3. kmkat says:

    Count me among the book-counters. Every year I started a new Word document with the list of author, title, a comment or not, and the month. Then late last year I discovered LibraryThing.com, which I have co-opted so as to have a list of the current year’s books read in my sidebar.

    Yay, reading! And if I could find a way to read, knit, and sleep simultaneously I would die a happy woman.

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 9:06 am

  4. maryse says:

    i don’t think i finished a book last year. i don’t read anymore. why is that? i used to read all of the time. this makes me sad.

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 9:29 am

  5. janette says:

    What a great idea! I never thought to track the books I’ve read through the year. I’m definitely going to do this for 2007.

    Have you seen http://www.paperbackswap.com? It’s saved me quite a bit of money (and storage space).

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 10:18 am

  6. JulieFrick says:

    What a fun list! I’m thinking of doing a photo a month of the books I read that month, which means mine’s due (gulp) tomorrow. You know, The Year of Magical Thinking is a bit of a mystery to me. I read it because my group of friends recently suffered a great and sudden loss. We all decided to read the book and it left some of us- myself included- cold. I thought her research into grief was fascinating, but I found her very difficult to relate to. That and the constant name-dropping bothered me a bit. I suppose on such a subject that it’s hard to speak to everyone.

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 2:05 pm

  7. Peeve says:

    Wasn’t Alias Grace just magic?? I also loved The Historian…

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 4:16 pm

  8. Laurie says:

    I kept a list, but can’t find the first half. I think I got the Historian from your blogpost, and just finished it: excellent.

    Comment - January 30, 2007 : 7:17 pm

  9. KnittingPainterWoman says:

    I made a summary… I didn’t think to count how many there were… and I only based it on what I blogged. I don’t think I wrote about ANY of our book club books. (And I didn’t read many.) I’m planning on posting about my reads (high brow or low; liked or disliked) and doing a compilation at the end of this year. In fact, I’ll even post my 2006 summary. Hope you are well… and still nimble.

    Comment - January 31, 2007 : 2:25 am

  10. Brenda says:

    Thanks for being so diligent with the list. I’m so bad about keeping track of the books I read. But I’m always looking for some new titles, especially when it’s my pick for my bookgroup. There’s a few titles on there that I’ve been wanting to read so I’ll make sure to suggest them.

    Comment - January 31, 2007 : 8:25 am

  11. Kellee says:

    Oh…..The Historian. I’m considering reading that again soon, just because I can.

    And ‘A Walk in the Woods’ was one of the few books I’ve ever read that made me laugh out loud in a public place. As someone who has done a fair bit of hiking/backpacking/camping(and once had delusions about through-hiking the AT), and not always with the most prepared of companions, many of those stories made me laugh my a** off…..possibly even when they shouldn’t have.

    Comment - January 31, 2007 : 8:33 am

  12. Monica says:

    I seem to read only kids books these days. Good ones, but still…

    Comment - January 31, 2007 : 11:54 am

  13. Carol says:

    That’s a whole lotta reading momma! I miss reading stories. Some day…

    Comment - February 1, 2007 : 6:58 pm

  14. knitting bandit says:

    Thanks for sharing your list. WE had several books in common which is great beacuase I’ve been looking for a good book to really sink my teeth into and I’ll be able to pick a few from your list with confidence that I’ll probably like it. I’ve been stuck in a slow book for awhile! Yuck.. Have you read The Life of Pi ? or The Kite Runner? Both good books.

    Comment - February 2, 2007 : 7:33 am

  15. Miss Scarlett says:

    Hey what a great idea – that was fun to read through. We seem to share a similar taste in books. I am going to have to start a list of my own. Thanks for the great idea.

    Comment - February 5, 2007 : 9:26 am

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