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Books of 2011

I fell woefully short of my goal to read 100 books this year.  I’d like to blame it on being busy with a move, new job, anything really, but I think it was just a matter of having too many hobbies: writing, crocheting, working out, napping, building that genealogy website I’ve been working on for three years….

Anyways, here’s what I read.  Books marked with an * are ones I didn’t finish, either due to time constraints, lack of interest, or just plain sucky writing *coughcoughJohnNormancough*  I use Goodreads to keep track of what I’ve read (if you’re over there, feel free to add me as a friend), and I’ve reviewed most of these books there, if you’re curious as to what I thought of them.

  1. The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War: A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq – Brandon Friedman
  2. Leaving Las Vegas – John O’Brien
  3. Marauders of Gor (Gor #9) – John Norman
  4. Alberta Clipper – John Salter
  5. Redemption in Indigo – Karen Lord
  6. The Dogs of War – Frederick Forsyth
  7. *Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam – Jerry Lembcke
  8. Aftershock: The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon – T. Christian Miller
  9. *Inside School Turnarounds: Urgent Hopes, Unfolding Stories – Laura Pappano
  10. Losing Graceland: A Novel – Micah Nathan
  11. Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
  12. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society – Dave Grossman
  13. *Tribesmen of Gor (Gor #10) – John Norman
  14. War – Sebastian Junger
  15. Beautiful Disaster – Laura Spinella
  16. When Tito Loved Clara – Jon Michaud
  17. A Hatful of Rabbits – Benjamin Jacobson
  18. Fluffs – Daniel I. Russell
  19. The Best American Short Stories 2009 – Alica Sebold
  20. *Atlanta Nights – Travis Tea
  21. Hydrofracked? One Man’s Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling – Abrahm Lustgarten
  22. Whitechapel Gods – S.M. Peters
  23. Wrecker: A Novel – Summer Wood
  24. Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century, #1) – Cherie Priest
  25. *The Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear – Atiq Rahimi
  26. *The Good Soldier – C.J. Bilbrey
  27. The Glass Man (Lila Gray #1) – Jocelyn Adams
  28. Emily of New Moon (Emily #1) – L. M. Montgomery
  29. Emily Climbs (Emily #2) – L. M. Montgomery
  30. Emily’s Quest (Emily #3) – L. M. Montgomery
  31. Love Child: A Novel – Sheila Kohler
  32. Snitch – Allison van Diepen
  33. Mexican WhiteBoy – Matt de la Pena
  34. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
  35. *Light from a Distant Star: A Novel – Mary McGarry Morris
  36. Overwatch – Allen Gray
  37. *Sunrise Over Fallujah – Walter Dean Myers
  38. A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah
  39. The Basketball Diaries – Jim Carroll
  40. *The Song is You – Arthur Phillips
  41. The Lords of Discipline – Pat Conroy
  42. The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton
  43. A Gate at the Stairs – Lorrie Moore

 I also beta read a bunch of novels through a crit site, but as they’re not published yet, I won’t list them here.

And because my background is in statistics, here’s a breakdown of my year:

  • I finished 34 books, or 79% of what I read.
  • I read an average of 1 book every 12 days.
  • 77% was fiction, 21% was nonfiction, and 2% was poetry.
  • 10 books (23%) were about war or the military, ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Sierra Leone.
  • 9 books (21%) were either children or YA (I didn’t include any of the little kid books I read with my son this year; for the most part none of them are even chapter books).
  • 2 of the books (5%) were by local authors, and 3 (7%) were by people I know through writing sites.
  • 17 books (40%) were personally recommended to me (not going to tell the breakdown of how many of these I actually finished). 

My goal for 2012 is once again to read 100 books, and to actually finish that many as well.

Did you have a reading goal for 2011?  Did you make it?  Any suggestions for what I should read in 2012?

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