I snuck in a few more books before the end of the year, bringing my total to 79 (including one novella). I read Peter Brett’s The Warded Man, Janice Hardy’s The Shifter, (and on my new Kindle *squeak*) The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt, A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith and The Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon.
I met my goal of reading 75 books in 2010 (yay!) but not my goal of reading more non-fiction (boo). I didn’t read a single book of American history, just one on creativity, and only bits and pieces of theology books. My history reads were For All the Tea in China and The Secret History of the Mongol Queens. Continuing my fascination with Mongolia, I picked up Hearing Birds Fly, an account of one woman’s yearlong sojourn in rural Mongolia. I have yet another Mongolia-based travelogue, Eagle Dreams, in my to-read pile.
My science reads were Napoleon’s Buttons (chemistry) and Reading in the Brain (neuroscience). I also read much of Uranium and Plutonium (for research) but neither made it on to the list since I didn’t read them in their entirety and I’m a stickler for rules. I’m feeling an insane desire to go back to school and get a chemistry degree. I <3 chemistry.
I read six books related to homeschooling/child development/parenting. I lump them all in one category, since mothering and teaching and understanding my children’s brains are all tangled together in my real life.
SF&F (of course) made up the bulk of my fiction reads (48 out of the 75 books). I also read a fair amount of YA. I discovered The Hunger Games trilogy, Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera and Carol Berg. I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson’s non-Wheel of Time work. Two of my favorite books of the year were Frances Hardinge’s The Lost Conspiracy (upper MG/YA) and Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron (YA), both of which were recommended to me by other people.
There were some disappointments. I failed to finish two separate trilogies, having stalled out in the middle of their respective book threes. There were a few highly anticipated and/or well-reviewed books that I wanted to love, but didn’t. One book drew me in with fantastic worldbuilding, but then the protagonist did something so horrific and monstrous toward the end that I’m still reeling from the shock of it.
My goal for this year is to read 75 books again. Most will certainly be fantasy, though I’m going to make a push to get to the space opera on my to-read list. I’m going to make a valiant attempt (again) at reading more non-fiction, especially in history and science, with an exploratory foray into astronomy. I’d like to squeeze in a few classics this year–but I haven’t decided yet whether they will be a hodge-podge of whatever catches my fancy or fall neatly under a thematic umbrella. I’m also going to finish the CS Lewis books currently languishing on my nightstand.
I got a Kindle for Christmas and I’ve already read three books and a novella on it. I didn’t realize I was going to love it this much! Now that I have a dedicated e-book reader, I’ll try out some indie authors.
What about you? What were your favorite books from last year? What are your reading goals for this year?
What a list! I’m impressed 🙂
Glad you’re enjoying kindle. Happy reading for 2011 and may there be much of it!
My reading goals? To read anything and everything which comes my way. So no different from last year 😀
In my Christmas stack I have a biography of Lawrence Johnston (an American who became a Brit. cit. and made the wonderful garden at Hidcote Manor), a book on Prehistoric and Roman Landscapes (in Britain – to help with my 2010 NaNoNovel), and a book on barns (because I’m interested in them). That should keep me quiet for a while 🙂
Oooh, what’s your 2010 NaNoNovel about? I have a soft spot for Roman/prehistoric Britain after falling in love with Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels as a child.
A stressed fashion editor and her husband go to Wales where she begins acting rather strangely when she finds a small crystal ball in an antique shop which her partner buys for her. Thinking she’s cracking up, her partner humours her and takes her back to a small stone circle on a lonely hillside overlooking the sea where they had been the day before. It’s getting dark and he wants to leave but she insists they must enter the circle. Mist curls around the stones making it a solid structure from which they cannot escape except through one of 12 doors which appear.
Through one of the doors they go…and find themselves in exactly the same place but when they walk back to the car, the road and car have disappeared. A group of people arrive bearing torches, dressed as if for a film set in times past.
Of course, the heroine and her partner are back in Britain at the time when the Romans were taking over. They are taken in by the local villagers and live an Iron Age sort of life.
In this time and place, the heroine discovers – thanks to the local druid chief – that she has latent powers. He wants the crystal ball which she is carrying.
Now, that’s about all I know. So far I have 13 scenes which sort of connect but some don’t. There is no theme either. It needs an overarching plot and it needs forging into a story.
There’s a lot of conflict just from taking a fashion editor (and a stressed one at that!) back into Iron Age Britain. There are conflicts because of her discovering magical powers. Conflicts also between my heroine and her partner and the villagers – introduce anyone into a group and the group changes.
I’m having a rest from it and have gone back to Mystery in Morocco to finish revising that but my fingers are starting to itch to get working again on ‘Time to Go’.
I love “fish out of water” stories. Good luck with this. 🙂
First, I just gotta say I’m in awe of you and your reading habits. You go, girl, at getting so MANY read.
My favorite books of 2010 are so totally the new series by T. Davis Bunn and Janette Oke: The Centurion’s Wife, The Hidden Flame, and now, The Damascus Way. I’ll admit, I read the first two a while back (even possibly in ’09 :goggles: ), but the last book is as strong as the first and my personal favorite in the series.
What I love about the series is that it makes God and His Presence feel real. Most books that talk about the presence of God just simply do not make me actually feel it. In fact, as much as I’m a Christian, I’m one of the best at skipping “those” parts. Also, I have, as a rule, HATED early church fiction. Most of it is gruesome or boring. (And I MEAN boring.) These books come to life. They’re vivid and capture the truly shocking nature of how different following Christ was from the dead religion of the times. I feel like I’m living it, breathing it, and it makes that whole story compelling in a way that most modern Christianity simply is not. Love.
Reading goal for 2011:
Buy 12 new books that I actually like. Read them. I wish I could be more specific, but I am now embarking upon a much less stable budget and there are a lot of higher priorities.
I did meet my 2010 goal of reading new fiction and more science fiction, but as much online reading as I do, I do very little paid for reading and I don’t currently get down to the library (it’s way out of my way), so there you have it.
🙂 Keep on reading!
I constantly feel like I’m falling behind on my reading, though. I have SO many interests that it’s hard to explore any one genre or topic thoroughly. I’m trying to make better use of my time this year by doing less Internet surfing and more reading. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t read much (if any) Christian fiction. Much of it comes across as too heavyhanded and well, fake, to me. I’d rather read essays by Lewis or Chesterton! I’ll give the Oke books a try, though. on your recommendation. 😀
In the interest of full disclosure: it’s blatantly, heavily Christian, and it’s got plenty of preaching, and yet… It just doesn’t FEEL preachy. I can read it and enjoy it. So if you like The Centurion’s Wife, I say finish the series. Hopefully, you’ll like it.
I also highly recommend Joseph by Terri Fivash. That one’s about Joseph, so lots of God, but it doesn’t feel too heavyhanded AT ALL. It’s just awesome humor and depth and tons of interesting things happening. Love that book.
*scribbles recommendations*