Inverarity is not a Scottish village

I read more books in 2010 than I have in years. Two things are responsible for the dramatic increase in my reading:

1. An ereader. This thing seriously increased the number of books I bought and read. The technology is just starting to edge out of the "early adopter" stage, but formats are still in flux and most of the big publishers are still wedded to stupid DRM schemes (I am told this is often demanded by their legal departments, not so much because the publishers themselves like DRM), so reading ebooks isn't quite as hassle-free as it could be (and will be), especially if, like me, you refuse to go Kindle. But I've bought tons of ebooks this year, downloaded many more free ones from Project Gutenberg or Google Books, and being able to carry several hundred books in my pocket means I will never be stuck without something to read.

2. Audiobooks. Ever since I subscribed to Audible.com, I've been going through audiobooks at an average of about one a week, on top of my regular reading. An iPod full of audiobooks means any spare moment where my hands are busy but my brain isn't (walking, cooking, doing chores, exercising, driving) can be turned into extra reading time.

I also made a concerted effort to change my reading habits, trying to get back to the days when I was younger and read voraciously, multiple books per week.

So, how did I do in 2010? Not counting technical and academic books, I read 72 books and over 16,000 pages. (Audiobooks aren't counted in the page counts.) Also excluded from this: short stories, novellas, way too many blogs, crappy self-published ebooks, and fan fiction.


You can find reviews for most of these books on my reviews page.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson
The Passage by Justin Cronin
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A Grey Moon over China by Thomas A. Day
The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas
Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick
Content by Cory Doctorow
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine
Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories by Ian Fleming
Grendel by John Gardner
On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner
The Appeal by John Grisham
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) by Stephen King
Invasion (The Secret World Chronicle) by Mercedes Lackey
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark
Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn
In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Methland by Nick Reding
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The God Engines by John Scalzi
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
Oil! by Upton Sinclair
Armor by John Steakley
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Far North by Marcel Theroux
The Apex Book of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (editor)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson
Petropolis by Anya Ulinich
Master of the World by Jules Verne
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Out of the Dark by David Weber
and Falling, Fly by Skyler White
A Massive Swelling by Cintra Wilson
Ingledove by Marly Youmans
This Immortal by Roger Zelazny


My goal for 2011 is to hit the 100 books mark. Which is looking doubtful already, because several of the books in my TBR queue are real doorstoppers.

But of course I cannot end this list without yet another plug for my books1001 challenge. We, the community, are going to collectively attempt to read and review 1001 books in 2011. Part of the challenge is that you will be assigned a book randomly, and it will very likely be something you would not have chosen on your own. I don't even know yet myself which book I will be assigned -- I will be running my random book script tomorrow (January 1). Please come and sign up! The only requirement is that you read one book in 2011, though of course more is encouraged! At this moment, we have 61 signups -- I think we'll need some more help to get through 1001 books... (And of course you can sign up at any time: January 1 is not a deadline, just the day we'll start.)