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<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nHere it is, almost the end of the year. I may just read another book before the year’s out, but I doubt it, so here goes: I read 59 books this year—a number that includes a few picture books and also several kids’ books—which is less than I read last year, but I’m OK with that. <\/p>\n
The breakdown:<\/strong> Works in translation: 10<\/p>\n Favorites:<\/strong> The Cows<\/em> by Lydia Davis. Seriously. So charming and smart. Nocturne<\/em> by James Attlee, which was smart and blended the historical\/cultural with the personal really nicely. Travels in Siberia<\/em> by Ian Frazier, who’s really funny and wonderfully enthusiastic. The whole “Melendy Quartet” by Elizabeth Enright—wonderful classic kids’ books that I somehow missed as a kid. White Teeth<\/em> by Zadie Smith, which I’d been meaning to read for years and quite exceeded my expectations; really smart and more engaging than I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n Re-reads:<\/strong> Just The Magicians<\/em> by Lev Grossman, because I wanted to re-immerse myself in the book’s world before reading the sequel. <\/p>\n Books I expected to like way more than I actually did:<\/strong> The Lost Art of Walking<\/em>, which was snarkier than I wanted it to be\/full of lists that weren’t really that interesting\/just not quite the book I wanted. Shopgirl<\/em>, which I didn’t like nearly as much as I liked the movie. <\/p>\n In general:<\/strong> I had a whole bunch of single-author stretches this year, and I also read rather a lot of mysteries. In January I read Charles Finch’s first book featuring detective Charles Lenox, and in December I read the next three in that series. I read two of Alan Bradley’s mysteries featuring Flavia de Luce (though they were spaced out, one in April and the other in November). In June and July I read four consecutive Elizabeth Enright books. In August I didn’t read a single book that wasn’t either by Philip Pullman or by Lev Grossman. I’m not sure whether I was particularly in the mood for comfort reads this year or whether I just found myself picking up a lot of series and finishing them either because they were totally excellent (e.g. Enright) or because they were pretty good and I’m a completist (e.g. Finch)—probably a bit of both. <\/p>\n Coming up in 2012:<\/strong> As previously mentioned, I’m taking the TBR Double Dare Challenge<\/a>. Between January 1 and April 1, I’m going to try to read books exclusively from my own shelves, with the exception of three already-checked-out library books I have waiting for me (a picture book by Emily Gravett called The Rabbit Problem<\/em>, A Burial at Sea<\/em> by Charles Finch, which is another of the Charles Lenox mysteries, and Jamrach’s Menagerie<\/em> by Carol Birch, which was on the Booker shortlist). I don’t have super-specific reading plans or goals, but I think it’ll be a good thing. <\/p>\n Recent acquisitions:<\/strong> That picture at the top of this post shows the new books\/book-ish things I acquired over my Christmas vacation in Georgia. I’ve wanted the Postcards from Penguin box set (one hundred postcards, each one a Penguin cover) since it came out, but wouldn’t have bought it for myself. My mom and I were on the checkout line at Anthropologie and I spotted it and excitedly pointed out; she asked if I wanted it, and she very nicely bought it for me. The rest of the books here are all thrift store\/Goodwill finds: I hadn’t heard of Living Dolls<\/em> (subtitle: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life) but it caught my eye: I’m always looking for interesting\/smart non-fiction. Then there’s Netherland<\/em>, which I’ve heard about in various places, I think most recently when Elizabeth<\/a> gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. Next is Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain<\/em>, which may be too full of God and Catholicism for me, but we shall see: it’s a first edition hardcover and it was too cheap to pass up. Merton went to Columbia and was part of the same literary society<\/a> I joined (though it was a frat back in his day, rather than being co-ed), and I’ve been mildly curious about this book since my freshman year in college. Last is Craig Thompson’s Carnet de Voyage<\/em>, a travelogue in graphic novel format that I’ve been meaning to read for ages. The four books I bought cost less than $10: there is something to be said for thrift-store shopping in suburbia!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here it is, almost the end of the year. I may just read another book before the year’s out, but I doubt it, so here goes: I read 59 books this year—a number that includes a few picture books and also several kids’ books—which is less than I read last year, but I’m OK with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalmeta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Picture books: 3
\n Other kids\u2019\/YA books: 11
\n Fiction (for grown-ups): 33
\n Non-fiction: 6
\n Poetry: 6<\/p>\n