Books of 2010

Katie D.

December 28, 2010 - 3:59 PM

Every year since 2004, my mom and I have kept lists of the books we read each year. When I have time, I've kept notes on the books I really like, and sometimes write a bit about the book. When I'm busy, I simply keep track of the book and the date I finished it. Being able to look back and see my reading history is something I totally love.

Have I already confessed to being a complete book lover? My mom read to me every night until well into my middle school years. We've been sharing books for as long as I can remember. She read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to me at least twice, but possibly three times. We're both re-readers, passionate about fiction and non-fiction, and more than slightly competitive. And since we both read extremely quickly, it's sometimes been a bit of a competition.

For the first three years I kept track, I read over 100 books each year. That includes re-reads, and books I read for class. But still, a list of 100 books for the year isn't bad at all. During that time, I mostly read novels, and many were still young adult novels (this was my sophomore-junior year of high school). It was the beginning of my Stephen King phase, and the end of the Star Wars era of my reading. I can trace my favorites over the years, since they've been read over and over. I can see when I began to read more non-fiction for fun, and the patterns of reading during the school year vs. breaks.

The biggest change in my reading journal was in 2008, when I studied abroad in Chile. For the first time, I discovered an activity which could totally overwhelm my normal love of reading: travel. I read only two books during my first month abroad, and an unprecedented single book the second month (the Spanish translation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Living abroad accomplished something that two years of college did not: it shifted my focus away from books and into the world around me.

Since then, there's been an ever-evolving reading vs. living dichotomy. Books are essential to my well-being and engagement with the world. But so are weekend camping trips, schoolwork, keeping up with the news (newspapers don't count, of course) and work.

All that being said, 2010 still might finish out as an 80 book year. The list includes significant contributions of school books, as well as an entirely new genre of graphic novels, and a summertime obsession (dare I say this in public?) with the True Blood vampire novels (please don't judge too harshly). I'm at 77 as of today, with two books in process and a novel I've been eying for a week waiting for me. If this were high school, I'd quit all other activities and power through hundred-page chunks at a time, pausing only to change the background music. I must say that a rainy Eugene day makes that plan mighty tempting--a reading goal and a pot of tea by my side and I might just read the day away. We'll see.

It was a good year, with lots of work, lots of growth, and lots of reading. Looking back, I read lots of "low" fiction when I was particularly busy, and tackled some excellent classics when I had more time. I read some wonderful non-fiction books, both for school and for fun. Most of these had to do with prison issues, particularly in the time leading up to the completion of my thesis.

Anyway, here's to a great year in books! Here's a list of my favorites read this year, for your 2011 reading pleasure.

Fiction
People of Paper by Salvador Placencia
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Kindred by Octavia Butler
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safron Foher
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson (the whole series)
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughn
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Dune by Frank Herbert

Non-fiction
Finding Freedom by Jarvis J. Masters
Truth and Beauty by Anne Patchett
I'll Fly Away edited by Wally Lamb
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
Changing Lenses by Howard Zehr
Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah