Books Read 2010
Here’s a reverse-chronological list of all the books I’ve read in 2010. My rating system is out of five stars, but it’s not a comparison system, so all of the five stars aren’t of the same value, all of the four stars aren’t the same, etc. It’s more about my experience as I was reading the book-were there flaws? Did I absolutely love it and wish it wouldn’t end? Did I fear that it never would end? That being said, here’s my rough guideline; in practice, the line between 5s and 4s gets blurred a lot. (5=Extraordinary. I will immediately try to acquire other books by this author, 4=Very strong book, good writing style, really enjoyed, 3=A good read, possibly had one or two really strong areas, but the rest was average OR parts of the book were great and other parts were just miserable, 2=There were some major flaws in the book, but it had some good points as well, 1=I regret ever having even considered reading this book). All titles are linked to Powell’s (I’m not an associate or anything). New linking policy as of early June: I’ll be linking to the publisher’s page on the book. Mainly, this is because I want to pay more attention to imprints and editors, and this is a simple way for me to do so. :) If I’ve discussed it on the blog, that’s noted and linked in parentheses following the author.
-December-
- Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne*** (thoughts)
- Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie***** (thoughts)
- Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irgan Orga**** (thoughts)
- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol**** (300) (thoughts)
- Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna*** (thoughts)
- An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis**** (thoughts)
- Eating India by Chitrita Banerji**** (thoughts)
- Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh*** (thoughts)
- A Persian Requiem by Simin Daneshvar**** (thoughts)
- The Habit by Elizabeth Kuhns*** (thoughts)
- Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster**** (thoughts)
- So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba**** (thoughts)
- Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko***** (thoughts)
- Freedom from Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi*** (290) (thoughts)
- The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier** (thoughts)
- Without a Name and Under the Tongue by Yvonne Vera*** (thoughts)
- Egg on Mao by Denise Chong** (thoughts)
- The Fashion File by Janie Bryant***
- The Sundial by Shirley Jackson**** (thoughts)
- In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent****
- Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd**** (thoughts)
- What to Wear for the Rest of Your Life by Kim Johnson Gross**
- Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman*** (thoughts)
- Rapunzel’s Daughters by Rose Weitz**** (280) (thoughts)
- Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott*** (thoughts)
- The Crusades Through Muslim Eyes by Amin Maalouf** (thoughts)
- Unburnable by Marie-Elena John*** (thoughts)
- The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith**** (thoughts)
-November-
- The Evil Genius by Wilkie Collins***** (thoughts)
- The Wayfinders by Wade Davis** (thoughts)
- A Human Being Died that Night by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela***** (thoughts)
- Purge by Sofi Oksanen***** (thoughts)
- “The Ascent of Mount Fuji” by Chingiz Aitmatov***** (thoughts)
- Translation Nation by Hector Tobar**** (270) (thoughts)
- Empress by Shan Sa*** (thoughts)
- The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz** (thoughts)
- Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai*** (thoughts)
- The Open Road by Pico Iyer**** (thoughts)
- The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson**** (thoughts)
- Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman** (thoughts)
- Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers by Stephanie Wellen Levine***** (thoughts)
- Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons**** (thoughts)
- The Temptation of the Impossible by Mario Vargas Llosa**** (thoughts)
- The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr**** (260) (thoughts)
- Africa’s World War by Gerard Prunier***** (thoughts)
- American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Levy***
- Lovesick by Angeles Mastretta***** (thoughts)
- Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel***** (thoughts)
- All She was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe**** (thoughts)
- Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer*** (thoughts)
- The Magician’s Book by Laura Miller***** (thoughts)
- Beyond the Blossoming Fields by Jun’ichi Watanabe** (thoughts)
- By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah***** (thoughts)
- Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman**** (250) (thoughts)
- A Diamond in the Desert by Jo Tatchell** (thoughts)
- Medicine River by Thomas King***** (thoughts)
- Flow by Elissa Stein and Susan King**** (thoughts)
- The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie**** (thoughts)
- Sistah Vegan ed. by A. Breeze Harper*** (thoughts)
- The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg**** (thoughts)
- The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green**** (thoughts)
- Fall On Your Knees by Anne Marie Macdonald***** (thoughts)
-October-
- An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks*****
- Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum**** (240)
- Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende*****
- Oracle’s Queen by Lynn Flewelling***
- Dream Homes by Joyce Zonana*** (thoughts)
- John Crow’s Devil by Marlon James** (thoughts)
- Heaven by Lisa Miller*****
- The King’s Bride by E.T.A. Hoffman**** (thoughts)
- Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones***** (thoughts)
- False Colours by Georgette Heyer***
- Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome***** (thoughts)
- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood***** (230)
- Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier***** (thoughts)
- The Butterfly Mosque by Willow Wilson* (thoughts)
- The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin*** (thoughts)
- Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje***** (thoughts)
- Hidden Warrior by Lynn Flewelling****
- Cesar’s Way by Cesar Millan*
- Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore**
-September-
- The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling****
- Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg***
- The Whale by Philip Hoare** (220)
- Love by Toni Morrison****
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford***
- The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum***** (thoughts)
- No God but God by Reza Aslan**** (thoughts)
- Buddha’s Orphans by Samrat Upadhyay** (thoughts)
- Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift**** (thoughts)
- The Between by Tananarive Due**** (thoughts)
- Small Island by Andrea Levy***** (thoughts)
- Blood Harvest by S.J. Bolton*** (thoughts)
- Dark Mage by Barbara Hambly**** (210)
- The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman**** (thoughts)
- The Color of Style by David Zyla***
- Better than Beauty by Helen Valentine and Alice Thompson**** (thoughts)
- Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Rooney Doland***
- Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar***
- Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope**** (thoughts)
-August-
- The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy**
- Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin**** (thoughts)
- Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo****
- Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg***** (200) (thoughts)
- Around the World in 80 Dates by Jennifer Cox***
- The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford*** (thoughts)
- Inspector Singh Investigates: a Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint****
- Women with Big Eyes by Angeles Mastretta***** (thoughts)
- The Dancing Girls of Lahore by Louise Brown****
- The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa***
- The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones***** (thoughts)
- Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner**
- Wars, Guns, and Votes by Paul Collier*****
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth by Jamie Zeppa**** (190)
- Mosquito by Roma Tearne****
- Zaatar Days, Henna Nights by Maliha Masood*
- My Mother’s Wedding Dress by Justine Picardie***** (thoughts)
- Samba by Alma Guillermoprieto***** (thoughts)
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie***** (thoughts)
- A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit* (thoughts)
- The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery***** (thoughts)
- The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman***
- Yellow Moon by Jewell Parker Rhodes*** (thoughts)
- Iceland by Betsy Tobin** (180)
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons**** (thoughts)
- Biography: a Veru Short Introduction by Hermione Lee**** (thoughts)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle**** (thoughts)
-July-
- Memories of Muhammad by Omid Safi**
- Red Gold by Alan Furst*** (thoughts)
- Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston***** (thoughts)
- The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie**** (thoughts)
- Letters from a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stuart***** (thoughts)
- The End of the Free Market by Ian Bremmer* (thoughts)
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry*** (170) (thoughts)
- Chances Are by Michael and Ellen Kaplan***** (thoughts)
- Angelology by Danielle Trussoni** (thoughts)
- No Place Left to Bury the Dead by Nicole Itano***** (thoughts)
- Asleep by Molly Caldwell Cosby**** (thoughts)
- The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles** (thoughts)
- A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel*** (thoughts)
- The Duel by Tariq Ali***
- Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham*** (thoughts)
- My Mother’s House and Sido by Colette***** (thoughts)
- The Aeneid by Virgil, trans. Robert Fagles***** (160) (thoughts)
- Everything is Broken by Emma Larkin***** (thoughts)
- Women of Algiers in Their Apartments by Assia Djebar****
- Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire by Rafe Esquith***** (thoughts)
- The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin* (thoughts)
- A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True by Brigid Pasulka**** (thoughts)
- The 13th Element by John Emsley** (thoughts)
- I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti****
- The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang** (thoughts)
- The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant**** (thoughts)
-June-
- Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones**** (150) (thoughts)
- The Heart that Bleeds by Alma Guillermoprieto***** (thoughts)
- Green Mountain, White Cloud by François Cheng***** (thoughts)
- Bellfield Hall by Anna Dean***** (thoughts)
- Cartographies: Meditations on Travel by Marjorie Agosin***
- The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton****
- Twinkle Twinkle by Kaori Ekuni***** (thoughts)
- The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman****** (thoughts)
- For the King by Catherine Delors****
- Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn**** (thoughts)
- Among Flowers by Jamaica Kincaid**** (140)
- Aphrodite’s Island by Anne Salmond***
- Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez****
- They Knew Mr. Knight by Dorothy Whipple*** (thoughts)
- Bachelor Girl by Betsy Israel** (thoughts)
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh***** (thoughts)
- Alone! Alone! by Rosemary Dinnage*** (thoughts)
- The Boys From Dolores by Patrick Symmes****
- Claudine in Paris by Colette***** (thoughts)
- Body Drama by Nancy Amanda Redd*** (thoughts)
- Anatomy of a Rose by Sharman Apt Russell***** (130) (thoughts)
-May-
- Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih**** (thoughts)
- Piece by Piece by Teresa Toten***
- Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis**** (thoughts)
- Murder in the Cassava Patch by Bai T Moore*** (thoughts)
- A Spy in the House by YS Lee**** (thoughts)
- Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie***
- Goodbye, Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto*** (thoughts)
- Talking About Detective Fiction by PD James***** (thoughts)
- The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Darrow** (thoughts)
- Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick***** (120) (thoughts)
- God of the Hive by Laurie King ***** (thoughts)
- Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood***
- The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Kretser** (thoughts)
- The Ordeal of Elisabeth Marsh by Linda Colley***** (thoughts)
-April-
- The Country Under My Skin by Gioconda Belli**
- Castle Eppstein by Alexandre Dumas** (thoughts)
- Glorious by Bernice McFadden**** (thoughts)
- The Gift of Rain by Tan Twang Eng**** (thoughts)
- Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon*****
- The House Behind the Cedars by Charles Waddell Chestnutt*** (110)
- Dracula by Bram Stoker*****
- The Jew in the Lotus by Rodger Kamenetz**
- Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope***** (thoughts)
- The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley** (thoughts)
- The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola** (thoughts)
- Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler***
- Chrysalis by Kim Todd**** (thoughts)
- Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan**** (thoughts)
- Frangipani by Celestine Hitiura Vaite***** (thoughts)
- The Pocket Stylist by Kendall Farr**** (100)
- The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower*** (thoughts)
- Here’s to You, Jesusa! by Elena Poniatowska** (thoughts)
- The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon***** (thoughts)
- Eye of the Albatross by Carl Safina***** (thoughts)
- Memoir: a History by Ben Yagoda** (thoughts)
- Troll: a Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo***** (thoughts)
- The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine***** (thoughts)
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson**** (thoughts)
- Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show by Frank Delaney** (thoughts)
- After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat**** (90) (thoughts)
- Jesus by Marcus Borg***** (thoughts)
-March-
- Looking for Bapu by Anjali Banerjee***** (thoughts)
- The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar***** (thoughts)
- The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman*** (thoughts)
- The Silence of the Rain by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza* (thoughts)
- The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia**** (thoughts)
- The Things that Matter by Edward Mendelson** (thoughts)
- The Green Age of Asher Witherow by M. Allen Cunningham**** (thoughts)
- Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson****
- Meet Me Under the Ceiba by Silvio Sirias**** (80) (thoughts)
- Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf**** (thoughts)
- My Antonia by Willa Cather**** (thoughts)
- The Practical Nomad by Edward Hasbrouk**** (thoughts)
- A Season in Mecca by Abdellah Hammoudi**** (thoughts)
- Cold by Bill Streever**** (thoughts)
- A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami**** (thoughts)
- The Bostonians by Henry James**** (thoughts)
- Carpentaria by Alexis Wright**** (thoughts)
- Kinky Gazpacho by Lori Tharps**** (thoughts)
- Microcosm by Carl Zimmer***** (70) (thoughts)
- In Search of King Solomon’s Mines by Tahir Shah* (thoughts)
- Persuasion by Jane Austen***** (thoughts)
- The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer**** (thoughts)
- A Journey of One’s Own by Thalia Zepatos***** (thoughts)
- Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber**** (thoughts)
- Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: a Graphic Adaptation by Michael Keller and Nicolle Rager Fuller****
- Cranioklepty by Colin Dickey** (thoughts)
- The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich***** (thoughts)
- The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez* (thoughts)
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin*** (60) (thoughts)
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman***** (thoughts)
- The Journal of Madam Knight by Sarah Kemble Knight*** (thoughts)
-February-
- The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien***** (thoughts: part one and part two)
- The God who Begat a Jackal by Nega Mezlekia** (thoughts)
- The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson**** (thoughts)
- The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick** (thoughts)
- The Hidden Forest by Jon Luoma**** (thoughts)
- Dearest Anne by Judith Katzir***** (thoughts)
- Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang**** (thoughts)
- Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham** (50)
- The Waves by Virginia Woolf***** (thoughts)
- An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker***** (thoughts)
- Sisters in War by Christina Asquith**** (thoughts)
- The Book of My Life by Saint Teresa of Avila***
- A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipul** (thoughts)
- Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros***** (thoughts)
- The Road to Home by Vanessa del Fabbro** (thoughts)
- NurtureShock by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman*** (thoughts)
- Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice**** (thoughts)
- Unbowed by Wangari Maathai***
- Journey Into Islam by Akbar Ahmed** (40) (thoughts)
- Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer***** (thoughts)
- Tropical Fish by Doreen Baingana***** (thoughts)
- Passing by Samaria by Sharon Ewell Foster* (thoughts)
- Country Driving by Peter Hessler**** (thoughts)
- Hair Story by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps*** (thoughts)
- When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro**** (thoughts)
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf***** (thoughts)
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien**** (thoughts: parts one, two, and three)
- “Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen**** (thoughts)
-January-
- Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett*** (30) (thoughts)
- The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa*** (thoughts)
- Washington Square by Henry James***** (thoughts)
- In Her Own Sweet Time by Rachel Lehmann Haupt**** (thoughts)
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters***** (thoughts)
- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga*** (thoughts)
- The Far Traveller by Nancy Marie Brown***** (thoughts)
- A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid**** (thoughts)
- Dancing in the Dark by Morris Dickstein *** (thoughts)
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie***** (thoughts)
- Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman***** (20) (thoughts)
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass***** (thoughts)
- The Long March: The True History of Communist China’s Founding Myth by Sun Shuyun***** (thoughts)
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf***** (thoughts)
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens** (thoughts)
- Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang**** (thoughts)
- White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi***** (thoughts)
- The Sorrows of Young Werther and Novella by Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe**** (thoughts)
- Three Novellas (Ethan Frome, Summer, The Bunner Sisters) by Edith Wharton***** (thoughts)
- The Ladies from St. Petersburg by Nina Niklaevna Berberova**** (thoughts)
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville***** (10) (thoughts: part one and part two)
- Travels With a Tangerine by Tim Mackintosh-Smith*** (thoughts)
- Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi**** (thoughts)
- The Good House by Tananarive Due*** (thoughts)
- Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki**** (thoughts)
- Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie***** (thoughts)
- The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong*** (thoughts)
- Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple***** (thoughts)
- The Travels of Ibn Battutah ed. by Tim Mackintosh-Smith** (thoughts)
- Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux** (thoughts)
Thirty books just in the first month? And not lightweights, either. Wow. I routinely read 200+ a year and thought I was ahead of the pack. And it would take me considerably more than one day to get through Goethe! :)
It was a short Goethe! I bet it wouldn’t take you long; it was super-readable. :) I’m unemployed, so I’ve got more time to read than most. ;)
if I’m unemployed I won’t be able to do 30 books a month! You’re amazing! ;)
Great job I think you are ahead of me!
Aww: thanks! :)
All I can say is this: Holy cow! I think the highest number of books I’ve read in a whole year was just into the 60s. So far this year, I’ve averaged about a book a week, which is pretty good for me. I tend to catch up in the summer :) Keep up the great/quick reading!!
I’ve got a lot more spare time than most people! :)