The Year in Books
Time to take a look back at the books I've read this year:
2011 books
2010 books
2009 books
2008 books
2007 books
2006 books
2005 books
1. City of Ashes by cassandraclare
2. City of Glass by cassandraclare
3. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
4. Hoot! by Carl Hiaasen (started as a read-aloud but girls were bored so I finished it on my own)
5. American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
6. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
7. You Suck by Christopher Moore
8. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
9. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
10. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (the second half of it; I just wanted to see how the series ended)
11. Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey
12. Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch by Nancy Atherton
13. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
14. Emma by Jane Austen
15. The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory
16. From Beginning to End by Robert Fulghum
17. Wintersmith by PTerry
18. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
19. The Sunne in Splendor by Sharon Kay Penman (I feel like this should count as 2 or 3 books - it was 900+ pages in paper format!)
20. Uh-Oh by Robert Fulghum
21. Demon's Lexicon by sarahtales
22. Diary of a Wimpy Kid #1 by Jeff Kinney (Shutup.)
23. Red Seas Under Red Skies by scottlynch
24. The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
25. Merchant of Venice graphic novel by Shakespeare. Sort of.
26. Clockwork Angel by cassandraclare
27. An American Family in WWII by Sandra O'Connell (Minker)
28. Clockwork Prince by cassandraclare
29. Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway
30 City of Orphans by Avi (MiniPlu read it, loved it, and insisted I read it, too.)
31. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien*
32-33. The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen* (I read it twice in a row.)
Read aloud:
1-5. Sisters Grimm #5-9
6. The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan
7. Judy Moody, Girl Detective by Megan McDonald
8. HP PS/SS*
9. Mark of Athena (haven't finished yet)
Plus a bunch of Nancy Drew books, countless picture books and I don't even know what else.
I think this is the shortest booklist I've had in ages. I admit my life has been crazier this year, although I'm still trying to figure out why. Oh well - I guess I should be glad I managed to read as much as I did. :P
I'm happy to say that this year, at least, I really enjoyed almost everything I read. The only "eh" books for me were "Hoot!" "You Suck" "Becoming Marie Antoinette" "The Labyrinth" and the ridiculousness of "Breaking Dawn Part II".
I haven't had a chance yet to review the last two books on my list, so let me do that now while I'm thinking of it.
The Hobbit: This was, of course, because we saw the movie a few weeks ago, and it had been so long since I'd read the book, I wanted to re-read it and remind myself exactly what happens in canon. I had initially planned just to read as far as the first movie's content, but once I'd got that far, I was perfectly happy to keep going. I have to say, I liked the story a LOT more than I did the first time I read it. It seemed a lot more whimsical, in writing style, somehow; I want to read it aloud to the girls at some point, and see what they think.
The False Prince I picked this up at MiniPlu's recent book fair, intrigued by the premise. Three orphan boys are selected by a royal regent to impersonate a missing-and-presumed-dead prince in order to claim the throne and avoid a civil war. The three boys must compete in the space of just 2 weeks to see who will be the best to be the prince; the two boys who are not chosen are threatened with death so they can't tell anyone the "prince" is an imposter, so they all have a serious vested insterest in winning. The story is told from the vantage point of one of the orphan boys, Sage. SPOILER: There was a major plot twist about 2/3 of the way through the books; I confess I'm not good at predicting those. I DID have a feeling the prince was alive, but was guessing totally wrong about who it was (I'm usually really bad at predicting plot twists) and did a major OMG when it was revealed. Which is why I went back and re-read the entire book over again, to see all the events with that new information./SPOILER
I was given a pile of books for Christmas; I got two Kindle books (well, one is an all-in-one trio, so sort of four books) from my Boston friend, one from alchemine and two paper books from hamsterwoman. Plus an Amazon gift card from Will, and all the to-read books that I still had in my Kindle. I think I may start with one of the books in the all-in-one trio on the Kindle, and then see what I want to do after that.
2011 books
2010 books
2009 books
2008 books
2007 books
2006 books
2005 books
1. City of Ashes by cassandraclare
2. City of Glass by cassandraclare
3. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
4. Hoot! by Carl Hiaasen (started as a read-aloud but girls were bored so I finished it on my own)
5. American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
6. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
7. You Suck by Christopher Moore
8. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
9. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
10. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (the second half of it; I just wanted to see how the series ended)
11. Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey
12. Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch by Nancy Atherton
13. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
14. Emma by Jane Austen
15. The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory
16. From Beginning to End by Robert Fulghum
17. Wintersmith by PTerry
18. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
19. The Sunne in Splendor by Sharon Kay Penman (I feel like this should count as 2 or 3 books - it was 900+ pages in paper format!)
20. Uh-Oh by Robert Fulghum
21. Demon's Lexicon by sarahtales
22. Diary of a Wimpy Kid #1 by Jeff Kinney (Shutup.)
23. Red Seas Under Red Skies by scottlynch
24. The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
25. Merchant of Venice graphic novel by Shakespeare. Sort of.
26. Clockwork Angel by cassandraclare
27. An American Family in WWII by Sandra O'Connell (Minker)
28. Clockwork Prince by cassandraclare
29. Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway
30 City of Orphans by Avi (MiniPlu read it, loved it, and insisted I read it, too.)
31. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien*
32-33. The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen* (I read it twice in a row.)
Read aloud:
1-5. Sisters Grimm #5-9
6. The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan
7. Judy Moody, Girl Detective by Megan McDonald
8. HP PS/SS*
9. Mark of Athena (haven't finished yet)
Plus a bunch of Nancy Drew books, countless picture books and I don't even know what else.
I think this is the shortest booklist I've had in ages. I admit my life has been crazier this year, although I'm still trying to figure out why. Oh well - I guess I should be glad I managed to read as much as I did. :P
I'm happy to say that this year, at least, I really enjoyed almost everything I read. The only "eh" books for me were "Hoot!" "You Suck" "Becoming Marie Antoinette" "The Labyrinth" and the ridiculousness of "Breaking Dawn Part II".
I haven't had a chance yet to review the last two books on my list, so let me do that now while I'm thinking of it.
The Hobbit: This was, of course, because we saw the movie a few weeks ago, and it had been so long since I'd read the book, I wanted to re-read it and remind myself exactly what happens in canon. I had initially planned just to read as far as the first movie's content, but once I'd got that far, I was perfectly happy to keep going. I have to say, I liked the story a LOT more than I did the first time I read it. It seemed a lot more whimsical, in writing style, somehow; I want to read it aloud to the girls at some point, and see what they think.
The False Prince I picked this up at MiniPlu's recent book fair, intrigued by the premise. Three orphan boys are selected by a royal regent to impersonate a missing-and-presumed-dead prince in order to claim the throne and avoid a civil war. The three boys must compete in the space of just 2 weeks to see who will be the best to be the prince; the two boys who are not chosen are threatened with death so they can't tell anyone the "prince" is an imposter, so they all have a serious vested insterest in winning. The story is told from the vantage point of one of the orphan boys, Sage. SPOILER: There was a major plot twist about 2/3 of the way through the books; I confess I'm not good at predicting those. I DID have a feeling the prince was alive, but was guessing totally wrong about who it was (I'm usually really bad at predicting plot twists) and did a major OMG when it was revealed. Which is why I went back and re-read the entire book over again, to see all the events with that new information./SPOILER
I was given a pile of books for Christmas; I got two Kindle books (well, one is an all-in-one trio, so sort of four books) from my Boston friend, one from alchemine and two paper books from hamsterwoman. Plus an Amazon gift card from Will, and all the to-read books that I still had in my Kindle. I think I may start with one of the books in the all-in-one trio on the Kindle, and then see what I want to do after that.