2010 IN BOOKS

So, in case you were wondering (I know you totally were!), I read 75 books last year, a whopping seven more than I read in 2009. I wish I could attribute this upward trend to growing erudition on my part, but I’m afraid it has more to do with my increased consumption of young-adult books, graphic novels, audiobooks, and other quick reads—although commuting on the Metro, which provides an extra four to six solid reading hours per week, is a big help too.

And to quantify my dorkiness, here’s a bar chart showing how last year compares to previous reading years!


(Sadly, my record-keeping only goes back to 1993. I wish I’d been keeping track back in the halcyon days of my childhood when I had nothing to do but read and every book was under 200 pages. I’m sure I tore through hundreds of books per year; I certainly remember having to attach multiple supplementary pages to my MS Read-a-Thon form, and my parents wouldn’t let me solicit by-the-book sponsorship from relatives or neighbors for fear I’d bankrupt them [they just donated a flat fee instead]).

I apparently wasn’t feeling the love for cold, hard facts in 2010; I read just 18 nonfiction books compared to 57 works of fiction. About a quarter (18) of all the books I read were rereads, which I think is a pretty good proportion—although there are still so many new books out to explore that it oppresses me at times, I also think it’s worth knowing some books really well, and I often lament that I don’t have infinite free time to reread my favorites.

My ten happiest discoveries of 2010 were (in chronological order):
Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens
The Mapp & Lucia series: Queen Lucia, Lucia in London, Miss Mapp, Mapp and Lucia, The Worshipful Lucia, and Trouble for Lucia (review forthcoming), by E.F. Benson
My Antonia, by Willa Cather
Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech
The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach
Carney’s House Party, by Maud Hart Lovelace
Blackout and All Clear, by Connie Willis (This is basically just a single book broken into two volumes, so it counts as one.)
Brat Farrar and Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey (It’s a tie. Don’t make me choose.)