Books I Read in 2009

1.George R. R. Martin - A Storm of Swords (audiobook)
2.Michael Chriton - Prey
3.Geraldine Brooks - People of the Book
4.Jodi Picoult - The Pact
5.Amy Bloom - Away
6.George R. R. Martin - A Feast for Crows (audiobook)
7.Daniel Mason - The Piano Tuner
8.Larissa Behrendt - Home
9.Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
10.Kim Edwards - The Memory Keeper's Daughter
11.Iain M. Banks - Consider Phlebas
12.April Sinclair - I Left My Back Door Open
13.Helen Neff - Accident of Birth
14.Susan Kurosawa - Coronation Talkies
15.Rose Tremain - Sacred Country
16.David Mitchell - Number9Dream
17.Nada Awar Jarrar - Dreams of Water
18.Stephen Dando-Collins - Pasteur's Gambit (nonfiction)
19.Audrey Niffenegger - Three Incestuous Sisters (visual novel)
20.Audrey Niffenegger - The Adventuress (visual novel)
21.Annie Proulx - Brokeback Mountain
22.Mudrooroo - Wild Cat Falling (PFitG)
23.Jenny Newman - Life Class
24.Elizabeth Knox - The Vintner's Luck (PFitG)
25.Louise Erdrich - The Master Butchers Singing Club
26.Yoshimoto Banana - Kitchen (PFitG)
27.Eric Gerome Dickey - Chasing Destiny
28.Lev Grossman - Codex
29.Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
30.Sandra Newman - The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done
31.Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn
32.Andrew Nicoll - The Good Mayor
33.Curtis Sittenfeld - American Wife
34.Samrat Upadhyay - The Guru of Love
35.Martha Cooley - The Archivist
36.Haruki Murakami - Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (PFitG)
37.Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveller's Wife (re-read)
38.L.M. Montgomery - The Blue Castle (re-read)
39.Lauren M. Hunter - The Steward's Son
40.Manil Suri - The Death of Vishnu
41.Jonathan Lethem - As She Climbed Across the Table (re-read)
42.Helen Dunmore - ice cream (short stories)
43.Paul Coelho - The Alchemist (half)
44.Rajaa Alsanea - Girls of Riyadh
45.Emma Donoghue - Touchy Subjects (short stories)
46.Margaret Atwood - Dancing Girls (short stories--half)
47.William Gibson - Spook Country
48.A. S. Byatt - The Biographer's Tale
49.Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
50.Emma Donoghue - The Sealed Letter
51.Anne Patchett - What Now? (nonfiction)
52.John Krakauer - Into the Wild (nonfiction)
53.Ed. Emma Forrestt - Damage Control (nonfiction)
54.Lauren M. Hunter - Mother of Tigers
55.John Krakauer - Under the Banner of Heaven (nonfiction)
56.Sarah Harvey - The Lit Report (YA)
57.Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris - The Crown of Columbus
58.Beth Goobie - Hello, Groin (YA)
59.Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things (PFitG)
60.Leanne Lieberman - Gravity (YA)
61.Shelley Hrdlitschka - Sister Wife (YA)
62.Marjane Satrapi - Embroideries (graphic novel)
63.Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry
64.Eileen Chang - Lust, Caution
65.Geling Yan - The Uninvited
66.Mary Anne Mohanraj - Bodies in Motion
67.Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart (PFitG)
68.Kate Grenville - The Secret River
69.Sheema Khan - Of Hockey and Hijab (nonfiction)
70.Robin McKinley - Chalice


This year I had a goal to read 50% books by known authors of colour. (Last year it was about 6/60.) I fell short, not even making it to a third, at 21/70. The purpose of the goal WAS more to make myself think about it, and I am still glad that I've made a good improvement from 10%, but I am also very disappointed in myself for not making the goal. So I will aim for 50% again next year, and I will also aim to exceed 50% rather than miss the mark.

I also didn't do very well with my Project Fill In the Gaps list, reading only 7/100!!! I still have four more years to go for that one (and the cut-off is early April, not January) but I'm behind nonetheless. So I am going to aim to catch up by reading 15-20 of the books on that list next year.

Even though I haven't read the books ON THAT LIST though, I have been reading lots more world lit than I used to. And I'm really enjoying it! I look forward to more translations and English books published outside of North America next year.

Also, I counted (although probably with a couple of counting errors!) the number of female authors, and I'm pleased with that--39 of the authors I read this year are women, and I read multiple books by three of them. (Including the two unpublished manuscripts on this list, which I shall not identify!)


And speaking of things to do next year, I'm also resolving to always say "twenty-ten" and never "two-thousand and ten." And I have good intentions of updating this blog more often!