52 book challenge

Well, since I didn’t keep up with my reading list in 2009 (because I didn’t keep up with the blog, see), now I must attempt to reconstruct the entire list from memory and stacks of books sitting on the chest of drawers and the help of Library Elf. Here goes! This will be an abbreviated version, and maybe my new widget (see the lovely sidebar) will take care of keeping track of the books I read in the future, obviating this endless list. The ordering is roughly chronological, but nowhere near exact. List is numeric for the purposes of telling me how many.

1. Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe
2. Hikaru No Go, Volume 1 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
3. Hikaru No Go, Volume 2 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
4. Hikaru No Go, Volume 3 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
5. Hikaru No Go, Volume 4 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
6. Hikaru No Go, Volume 5 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
7. Hikaru No Go, Volume 6 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
8. Hikaru No Go, Volume 7 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
9. Hikaru No Go, Volume 8 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
10. Unbinding The Gospel by Martha Grace Reese
11. Shadows Over Baker Street edited by Michael Reeves and John Pelan
12. Beloved by Toni Morrison
13. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
14. Knights of the Kitchen Table Time Warp Trio Book 1 by Jon Sciezka
15. The story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wrobleski
16. The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia
17. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
18. The Shambhala guide to yoga by Georg Feuerstein.
19. Into the woods by Lyn Gardner, pictures by Mini Grey
20. Howl’s moving castle by Diana Wynne Jones
21. Peeps by Scott Westerfield
22. Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, Volume 5 by Bryan Lee O’Malley
23. Hikaru No Go, Volume 9 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
24. Hikaru No Go, Volume 10 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
25. Hikaru No Go, Volume 11 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
26. Hikaru No Go, Volume 12 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
27. Hikaru No Go, Volume 13 by Yumi Hotta, art by Takeshi Obata
28. Queen and Country Definitive Edition, Volume 1 by Greg Rucka
29. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
30. The Austere Academy Volume 5 of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
31. Mixed Magics by Dianna Wynne Jones
32. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
33. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
34. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
35. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
36. Dead To The World by Charlaine Harris
37. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
38. Dead As A Doornail by Charlaine Harris
39. Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
40. All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
41. From Dead To Worse by Charlaine Harris
42. Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
43. Shakespeare’s Landlord by Charlaine Harris
44. Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
45. Finding God in a Tangled World: Thoughts and Parables by Juris Rubenis and Maris Subacs
46. Farthing by Jo Walton
47. Mistborn by Brian Sanderson
48. Frindle by Ander Clements, illustrated by Brian Selnick
49. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
50. Dead and gone by Charlaine Harris
51. Naamah’s kiss by Jacqueline Carey
52. The green glass sea by Ellen Klages
53. Yotsuba&! Volume 1 by Kiyohiko Azuma
54. Yotsuba&! Volume 2 by Kiyohiko Azuma
55. Crazy in Love by Lani Diane Rich
56. The Red Tree by Caitlín R. Kiernan

It’s nice to have reviewed the list all in one gulp, even though it was kind of a time-consuming pain to reconstruct. It was like a slide show tour of places I’d been, because I can remember where I sat reading it and what was happening during the time I read. I can feel the passage of the year, here, whether I was bundled while reading or lying in the sun; whether I was home or away; whether I was in public or private. I’d forgotten, for example, that I’d read Ekaterina Sedia’s wonderful Alchemy of Stone, very early in the year.

Additionally, I read loads and loads of short stories this year. Not in a way I can quantify, because most weren’t in anthologies, and some weren’t even published. But trust me, I read vast amounts of short stories this year. Outside of the obtuse “unpublished” comment I just made (which will be explained in due time!), I also read a good amount of short fiction online. In addition to the usual suspects: Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons, I’m also reading fiction from tor.com. They’ve put out some excellent stories this year. I am still a faithful listener of Escape Pod and PodCastle, and I mean to go back to Pseudopod at some point soonish. If I were to recommend a couple of stories from the podcasts, they’d be: EP215: Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store, EP214: Sinner, Baker, Fablist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast, EP209: On the Eyeball Floor, PodCastle 79: Marsh Gods, PodCastle 77: Nine Sundays in a Row, and PodCastle 62: The Fiddler of Bayou Teche. Happy listening!

Also of note, this year I was given a Sony e-book reader for my birthday. I read three books on it: Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Farthing, and Mistborn. I really enjoyed the reading experience. It was lovely, in particular, to sit on the boat at my in-laws, reading a fat paperback that was actually the slimmest of books because it was the reader. I’m also pleased not to need physical storage for those books, because while I enjoyed them, I am not terribly likely to re-read them, and am pleased not to have deal with the dead tree versions.

This list will probably be modified before year’s end, because I expect to finish some of the books listed in the “Currently Reading” Sidebar on the right before the year’s out (my guess is the diet book and the Kiernan book will be finished). Next year, there may be no list, if I can slice the data from the library the way I want to. Also, there are books missing, probably, and I’ll add them in as I figure out what they are. My husband looked at the list and said, “No Bujold?” which seems odd to me, too.

I met the challenge again this year, though meeting the challenge is always helped by the vast number of graphic novels and YA books I read, which are faster to get through than regular books. Although, to be fair, both the M.T. Anderson books (ostensibly YA) were full-fledged door stops, so it all evens out, in the end.

Christmas goodies in book form this year included Finch by Jeff VanderMeer, which I’m very much looking forward to; The Confessions of Saint Augustine which I owned but lost to water in the basement, so it’s a replacement copy; The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction which is going to be a glory of re-reading goodness and – of course – gift certificates to Amazon which will be delightfully spent shortly.

For mild accountability, because everyone knows my desiderata is out of control, here are the books I’m hoping to read this year: Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (I read half of it in 2008), China Miéville’s new one The City and The City, Soulless by Gail Carriger (which sounds fun), Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout (squee!), and N.K. Jemisin’s One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms because N.K. Jemisin is awesome like an awesome someone (if you don’t believe me, read her incredible story “Cloud Dragon Skies“, or listen to it at Escape Pod). Other than those books, I’m looking forward to an interesting reading year in 2010, full of great stuff and surprises. Hope your 2009 had as many lovely stories as mine did, and that your 2010 gives you the reading experiences you want.

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