The Year in Review: Books

I’m not huge on New Years resolutions; I think fresh starts are more likely to take place on a random day rather than a day when they’re supposed to. Plus, the start of a new year should be a time for celebrating, not for feeling guilty about eating too much junk food or not exercising enough.

But I think this is a good time to look back at the books I’ve read over this past year. In January of this year I started my (now verging on epic) Books of 2009 list. I’m happy I decided to keep a list – this year was a huge year of adjustments and it’s interesting to see what I read as a way of coping with, exploring, or just escaping from some of the things I was dealing with. I’ll start a Books of 2010 list tomorrow, but for now, some reflections on what I read in 2009:

• Grand total of 72 books read (not counting journals, magazines, or books for class).
• 61 of these books were works of fiction; 18 of these works of fiction were in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series.
• Only 10 works of non-fiction (I couldn’t quite figure out how to classify Maira Kalman’s Principles of Uncertainty), and of these, half were biographical, autobiographical, and/or memoir-ish.
• Only 21 of the books were written by women! That’s not even 30%! And I was TRYING to read more books by women!
• 13 were short story collections, either by one or multiple authors.
• 10 were translated into English from other languages.

Commentary:
Whoa boy, that was a lot of fiction, especially short stories! I think I really needed it after three years in graduate school. I’m really happy that I read a significant amount of translated work, and work coming from outside the U.S. I loved Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series and wish there were ten or twenty more of them. It was especially fun to be just a book or two behind my dad the whole time he was going through the same series. I loved reading Chimamanda Adichie, Margaret Atwood, and Louise Erdrich. I hope I can get my hands on a copy of the final book in Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo trilogy (used, preferably!).

And next year? I won’t say I’m tired of fiction (especially since there’s a pile of it still waiting to be read), but I do feel like it’s time to branch out. I’d like to start reading more histories and biographies, especially ones dealing with women’s experiences in different countries/times.

Whatever I do read, it’ll all go on the list.