This year my goal was to read more books than any previous year. By my best reckoning I read 24 books in 2008, only 16 in 2009. I decided to round up and try to read 50 books this year. That comes out to four (and some change 4.166) books a month. Here are the books I read and what I thought about them, along with some statistics.
In order to meet my goal of 50 books, I listened to a lot of them, 58%. I also read print, and on an iPad.
Some interesting quick facts:
- I read a total of 6,815 print pages.
- Average length of the print books was 324 pages.
- The average length of the audio books I listened to was 9 hours and 50 minutes.
- I listened to a total of 285 hours and 9 minutes of audio books. That’s almost 12 solid days of audio (11.875 days).
- I abandoned reading 3 books this year. They were: Classical Music 101 by Fred Plotkin, The Art of War: The Essential Translation of the Classic Book of Life by Sun Tzu, Harmony by Charles Hrh The Prince Of Wales
My Favorites:
Hamlet – I never really read much Shakespeare before. Just a little in high school, so I’m really glad I picked this book up. I really enjoyed it. So much that I read it twice and while reading it I also read the Cliff Notes, which I haven’t read since high school, as well.
Call of the Wild – Just a really excellently written novel. Kept me wanting more. Riveting story.
Time Travelers Wife – A very pleasant surprise. I had watched the movie prior to reading the book. In fact, I read the book because I liked the movie. But as it usually the case, the book was much better. This may be the best book I read all year.
A Prayer for Owen Meany – Not something I would have found on my own. This was a recommendation from a friend. I had never heard of it before and was skeptical at first, but this book really did come through. A really great story with deep character description. You really come away feeling that you knew these characters.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom – A strange science fiction story. This book is public domain, which means it is free, and an audio reproductions of it are also free. I listened to one of these audio reproductions and was really pleased. Its one of those sci-fi books that erally doesn’t give much background on the way things are. It just dives into the story and you have to figure things out.
The Girl Who Played with Fire – This was a hugely popular series this year and last. It will be coming out as an English speaking film soon. All the books are already movies in Sweden. The first two movies I have seen and liked, but the books (again) were SO much better. I highly recommend the whole series. But so far this is my favorite in the series. I still have yet to read the last book the series.
The Books:
Click on the link to see the book details at goodreads.
- What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Oxford World’s Classics) by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone
- The Bourne Identity (Jason Bourne, #1) by Robert Ludlum
- Twilight (Twilight, #1) by Stephenie Meyer
- New Moon (Twilight, #2) by Stephenie Meyer
- Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
- The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat by Tal Ronnen
- Eclipse (Twilight, #3) by Stephenie Meyer
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions) by Harriet Ann Jacobs
- The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright
- Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4) by Stephenie Meyer
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Classical Music 101 by Fred Plotkin
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt
- Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care by Alan Greene
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 by Stephenie Meyer
- The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
- Nano Comes to Clifford Falls: And Other Stories by Nancy Kress
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- The Call of the Wild (Unabridged Classics) by Jack London
- White Fang (Unabridged Classics) by Jack London
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- Hamlet (Cliffs Notes) by J.K. Lowers
- The Associate by John Grisham
- The Sherlock Holmes Theatre by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker’s Guide, #1) by Douglas Adams
- The Art of War: The Essential Translation of the Classic Book of Life by Sun Tzu
- Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) by Suzanne Collins
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson
- Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Margaret MacMillan
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims’ First Year in America by Glenn Alan Cheney
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion by Jude Fisher
- A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library) by John Irving
- The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium, #2) by Stieg Larsson
- The Prince (Bantam Classics) by Niccola Machiavelli
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
- The Essential Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition) by Meriwether Lewis
- Deception Point by Dan Brown
- Harmony by Charles Hrh The Prince Of Wales
- The Tristan Betrayal by Robert Ludlum
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde