Books I Read in 2011

I am sad to report that I did *not* meet my annual goal of 24 books (12 fiction and 12 nonfiction) this year. By my way of counting (where I lump series together if they are easy to digest and I tore through them straight) I read 18 books (9 fiction and 9 nonfiction). Still pretty good, but there were nonreading months this year, clearly.

Hat tip to my friend Zandria who read 27 books this year. (How have I not finished Packing for Mars yet??? Someone sent it to me as a present this year, and I haven't read it yet, for shame. Definitely on the short list for 2012.)

And my friend Rebecca hit my goal (and her goal!) of 24 books for the year. Click her book category to see all the different books.

My previous lists are here: 2010, 2009, 2008.

I list my books in backwards order, so the most recent read first. A star indicates that I read it with my book club. My favorite books were 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13.

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
3. Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life by Karen Maezen Miller
4. Sandman Slim / Kill the Dead / Aloha from Hell by Richard Kadrey *
5. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá *
6. Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
7. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker
8. If Love Is a Game, These Are the Rules: 10 Rules for Finding Love and Creating Long-Lasting, Authentic Relationships by Cherie Carter-Scott
9. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan *
10. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell *
11. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey
12. My Soul to Take (Soul Screamers #1) by Rachel Vincent
13. Bossypants by Tina Fey *
14. American Gods by Neil Gaiman *
15. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell *
16. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker
18. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde *

I should mention that I do follow a bunch more comic books - Buffy, Dollhouse, Orchid, The Guild, House of Night... but it's difficult to list them here the same way I do novels and nonfiction. Y: The Last Man I listed because I literally sat down and read it all from beginning to end, thanks to a very generous friend who gave me all the books. Likewise, I read a fair bit of poetry, a lot of Rumi this year, but I didn't completely finish any poetry books this year.

Did you read anything awesome this year? Did you post a list? Link it up in the comments; I'm looking for 2012 suggestions!

Comments

[Denise]

Hold the phone. I read Sandman Slim - I didn't realize more books had come out. I'd best get along and reserve the others!

Also - I'm amused. My almost 22 year old read Y: The Last Man at exactly this time last year. I was surprised to see it on your list. :-)

[lizriz]

Hi Denise!

The Sandman Slim books get better and better, too. And it's not a trilogy. The third one ends and it seems clear there will be more. Hooray!
Y: The Last Man is SO good. I really loved it and kept thinking, Now there's some movies I'd love to see. A lot of my friends are mid-20s, but it was a film producer who passed them to me. ;)
And OMG Denise, you read like 200 books last year! Now *that's* impressive.

[Zandria]

Thanks for the shout-out, sweetie! I haven't read ANY of the books on your list, and some of them I definitely need to check out. :)

[lizriz]

I haven't read any of the books on your list either! I *definitely* recommend "The Gift of Fear." It's really awesome and well-written.