So I Read 76 Books This Year - That Doesn't Mean I'm Obsessive and Other Lies

It is pretty popular to do a "best of" list on your blog when you start a new year.  I made a conscious decision at the beginning of 2010 to watch fewer movies and to read more.  I set what I thought to be a lofty goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks and started to keep track of the books as I read them.  I also tried to through in a few books I hadn't read before and even a few that would be considered, "classic" or "important" books.  My blog post halfway through the year:
http://jakeomatador.blogspot.com/2010/06/ive-got-problems-curse-of-minor-ocd.html

I not only read 52 books this year, I read 76.  Granted some of them were short, but just as many of them were very long.  Most of them were audio books.  I commute 2 hours a day so reading this way is pretty easy.  I had someone tell me recently that listening to audio books wasn't the same as reading them.  That is stupid.  I only listen to unabridged audio books, never the crappy abridged versions.  I have exactly the same feeling of understanding and completion when I listen to an audio book as when I read it myself sometimes more depending on who is reading it. 

The list below are the books I read in 2010 in the order I read them.  If there is an * at the end of the author's name, it means I had already read this book before.  Those books that I highlighted are books that I think of as "classic" or "important" books.

1)      Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Suzanna Clarke

2)      The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History – Jonathan Franzen

3)      The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouc

4)      20th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill - Audio

5)      Genius – Jesse Kellerman

6)      Evidence – Jonathan Kellerman

7)      Bones – Jonathan Kellerman

8)      Empire – Orson Scott Card

9)      Hidden Empire – Orson Scott Card

10)  Under the Dome – Stephen King

11)  Fiddlers - McBain

12)  Black Dogs – Ian McEwan

13) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

13)  The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

14)  Light in August – William Faulkner

15)  Heart-Shaped Box – Joe Hill

16)  The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

17)  Night Shift – Stephen King*

18)  Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

19)  Complete Tales and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe

20)  Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman

21)  A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare

22)  Siddhartha – Herman Hesse*

23)  An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England – Brock Clarke

24)  The Trial – Franz Kafka

25)  The Colorado Kid – Stephen King*

26)  A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking

27)  The Regulators – Stephen King (Writing as Richard Bachman)*

28)  The Art of War – Sun Tzu

29)  Common Sense – Thomas Paine

30)  Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

31)  The Nightmare Factory – Thomas Ligotti

32)  Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

33)  The Stranger – Alber Camus

34)  The Final Solution – Michael Chabon

35)  Puddin Head Wilson – Mark Twain

36)  Short Stories of Saki – H.H. Munro

37)  The Age of Fable Part 1 – Thomas Bullfinch

38)  Turn of the Screw – Henry James

39)  Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card*

40)  Abraham Lincoln – A Presidential Life – James McPherson

41)  The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce – Ambrose Bierce

42)  The Tommyknockers – Stephen King*

43)  Night Crew – John Sandford

44)  The Hanged Man’s Song – John Sandford

45)  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

46)  The Breathing Method – Stephen King*

47)  King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard

48)  The Age of Fable Part 2 – Thomas Bullfinch

49)  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie

50)  Billy Budd – Herman Melville

51)  The Body – Stephen King*

52)  Dark of the Moon – John Sandford

53)  The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin*

54)  Horns – Joe Hill

55)  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream – Hunter S. Thompson*

56)  Four Past Midnight – Stephen King*

57)  Heat Lightning – John Sandford

58)  The Unnamed – Joshua Ferris

59)  20^th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill*

60)  Fragile Things – Neil Gaiman*

61)  Dead Watch – John Sandford

62)  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Frank Baum

63)  The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane*

64)  Xenocide – Orson Scott Card*

65)  The Shining – Stephen King*

66)  Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill*

67)  Horns – Joe Hill*

68)  Silas Marner – George Eliot

69)  The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver*

70)  The Gingerbread Girl – Stephen King*

71)  Stationary Bike – Stephen King*

72)  Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King

73)  Works of H.P. Lovecraft – H.P. Lovecraft

74)  Children of the Mind – Orson Scott Card

75)  The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells*
76) No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

If you are interested in book reviews, I reviewed many of these books through my Goodreads account, which were then posted to Facebook.  Somehow when I linked my Goodreads account to Facebook, it set up a second account and my posts were scattered over 2 accounts.  I got so frustrated that I stopped reviewing them altogether.  I don't think this was a Goodreads problem, I really like Goodreads.  I think this was a Facebook problem.  If you would like to "friend" me on Goodreads, look me up.  If you want to read a couple of my book reviews found elsewhere on this blog, here are a few:


Light in August, Picture of Dorian Grey, Black Dogs Reviews:
http://jakeomatador.blogspot.com/2010/04/light-in-august-black-dogs-picture-of.html



Top 10 Lists

Let me break down my top 10 favorite books from 2010.  These are books that stayed with me long after I read them - books that resonated.  These were books that I read that made me happy to be a reader:

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

Light in August – William Faulkner

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Suzanna Clarke

Puddin Head Wilson – Mark Twain

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie

Xenocide - Orson Scott Card

The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin

As you can see all but Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell were books I consider to be "classic" or "important" books.  I have committed to myself to read a number of these each year.

That being said, 10 of the best guilty pleasure books I read this year were:

Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King

 Xenocide – Orson Scott Card (maybe a little to thought-provoking to be categorized as a guilty pleasure

Empire – Orson Scott Card

The Gingerbread Girl – Stephen King

The Body – Stephen King

Horns – Joe Hill

 Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill

Genius – Jesse Kellerman

 Heat Lightning – John Sandford

Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman

A few books I wouldn't read again because they bored or annoyed me:

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

Silas Marner – George Eliot

Billy Budd – Herman Melville


Special mention goes to Stephen King's boy Joe Hill.  I read his 2 new novels and short story collection 2x this year as well as his Locke and Key graphic novels.  He doesn't write like his dad exactly.  The content is similar, ghosts, demons and the like, but the style is very different.  He is like a glam-rocker version of his pops, but I'm hoping to see great things from him in the future.

Along with the books I read above, I'm a voracious comic reader (graphic novels is what I call them to make them sound more impressive).  The best graphic novels I read this year in no particular order are:

The Escapists  - Brian K. Vaughan
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 1 - Alan Moore
Wanted - Mark Millar
Kick Ass -  Mark Millar
Locke and Key Vol. 1, 2, and 3  - Joe Hill


So what does the 2011 hold for my obsessive hobbies?  I already know I won't be reading as much.  I have a list of books I'm going to pick at and they do include some of the high-brow stuff.  I'm sure I will read the annual submissions from John Sandford and Jonathan Kellerman.  I would like to read the Dragon Tattoo series and the Hunger Games series.  Other than that I'm not going to worry about it.  I've never had a hard time reading.  I would like to write a short story or two, but I really don't feel like I'm very good at it.  It is hard.  I think I'm going to get back into video games and beat a few games this year.  I really don't know... I've never had a hard time finding obsessions.