Reading Summary, 2008

This is my wrap-up of all the reading I did in 2008. Being able to do this is pretty much the sole reason I used my blog at all in 2008. I did not, unfortunately, write serious reviews of more than a handful of these books, although if you look at my reading logs for each month, there are some comments there.

If anyone has questions about any particular book, please feel free to ask in the comments--I'll be glad to share my thoughts on any of it. Tomorrow, I plan to post which, among this lengthy list, were my favorite books from 2008--and perhaps I'll take a swipe or two at my least favorites. Without further ado--

Grand Total of Books Read in 2008: 92 books read in entirety.

Ninety-two! (Of which, 17 were re-reads.)

Now here is the woeful part:

Non-fiction: 9 (I had purposed to read 2 non-fiction books per month, which would have been 24. This is a serious short-coming.)

Books on philosophy/culture: 3
Books that were essentially either biographies or memoirs: 6

Fiction: 81

Audio books: 23, every one courtesy of Librivox.
Classics: 14
Mysteries: 17
Literary Fiction: 26 (i.e. Louis Auchincloss)
Popular Fiction: 15 (i.e. Jodi Picoult)
Crime/Spy Fiction: 4
Youth/Young Adult Literature: 4
Science Fiction: 3
Short Story Collection: 1

(Obviously, there is some overlap in these categories.)

Books by Male Authors: 36
Books by Female Authors: 56
Books in translation: 1, and some short stories
Multiple books by the same author: 13 authors (Orson Scott Card, Kazuo Ishiguro, P.G. Wodehouse, P.D. James, Jane Austen, Jodi Picoult, Lilian Jackson Braun, John Grisham, Edith Wharton, C.S. Lewis, Mindy Starns Clark, Baroness Orczy, and Carson McCullers)

In addition to the list below, I read part of, but abandoned, three books:

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Daughter of Jerusalem by Sarah Maitland
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

I read some additional short stories:

"A Provincial Guy," "Holobutow," "Very controversial discussion with God," and "A Nihilist" by Adam Zielinski, translated from German

"Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling
"The Man That Was Used Up" by Edgar Allen Poe
"Laura" by Saki

I also read about one-third of Nowe Przygody Mikolajka in Polish, translated from the French.

And finally, the complete list, in more or less chronological order.

The List

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Dear Enemy by Jean Webster
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse
Original Sin by P.D. James
Persuasion by Jane Austen (twice--read once, listened to audiobook once)
Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander
The Undomestic Goddess by Sophia Kinsella
The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult
Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Hale
Old Hall, New Hall by Michael Innes
Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
The Cat Who Played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Fortieth Door by Mary Hastings Bradley
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
False Scent by Ngaio Marsh
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Catheart and Daniel Klein
Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun
Emma by Jane Austen
The Lost Boy by David Pelzer
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Small Island by Andrea Levy
They Met in Moscow by Rosemary Timperley
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Remains of the Day by kazuo Ishiguro
Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borokowski
A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katharine Green
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin
Howard's End by E.M. Forster
Summer by Edith Wharton
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
The Dark House by George Manville Fenn
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Cinema Murder by E. Phillips Oppenheim
A Penny for Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark
Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels by Mindy Starns Clark
Dime a Dozen by Mindy Starns Clark
A Quarter for a Kiss by Mindy Starns Clark
The Buck Stops Here by Mindy Starns Clark
A Promise to Remember by Katherine Cushman
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Daffodil Mystery by Richard Horatio and Edgar Wallace
Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy
Jean and Johnny by Bevery Cleary
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Carmilla by Joseph Faridan LeFanu
El Dorado by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
The Swoop by P.G. Wodehouse
The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Lilian Jackson Braun
Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
The Partners by Louis Auchincloss
The Latecomers by Anita Brookner
The Van Dreison Affair by Holly Roth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Colors of Space Marian Zimmer Bradley
Mary Emma and Company by Ralph Moody
Sanditon by Jane Austen and Another Lady
Over the Gate by Miss Read
The Hampstead Mystery by John R. Watson and Arthur Rees
The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Broker by John Grisham
The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
Innocent Blood by P.D. James
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Tiger's Child by Torey Hayden

If you read or even scanned that formidable list--congratulations! I hope it won't sound like heresy if I say that I hope next year's list is somewhat shorter and meatier!