Books read in 2009

At some point this year I lost track of what month I read some books in, so I'm not going to bother dividing this into months. I think on average, for the first 6 or 7 months of the year I read about 4-5 books a month. Then my reading rate slowed dramatically for some reason and I probably only read 5 books after that. In my defense, one of them was War & Peace...so...you know. That was about equivalent to four books right there. :D

Last year I used a rating system which was very difficult to implement. I think this year I'll just put a star by the ones that I really really enjoyed.

*Ex Libris ~Anne Fadiman

Adam Bede ~George Eliot (Rather odd book in a way, but good I guess.)

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast ~Robin McKinley (I read this years ago and then couldn't remember what it was called. I finally found it and reread it this year. Very nice book.)

*The Man Who Was Thursday ~G.K. Chesterton (Splendid book, as most of Chesterton's are, and it had an ending that made you think. A very confusing ending it was too. I'm still not real clear on what his point was, but I definitely enjoyed it.)

The Ordinary Princess ~M.M. Kaye

*Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House ~Eric Hodgins (Very good. I'd seen the movie version a long time ago, and the book was very funny as well!)

*Tramp for the Lord ~Corrie ten Boom

*Brave New World ~Aldous Huxley (Very good as far as dystopian literature goes.)

*The House of the Seven Gables ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

*Murder Must Advertise ~Dorothy Sayers (Dorothy Sayers is always a favorite. Great mysteries and this particular book is a fun look into the advertising business.)

Lorna Doone ~ R.D. Blackmore (I quite honestly don't remember a bit of this. Hmm...I went and read a synopsis of the plot. Yeah, I think it was pretty good. For whatever reason it didn't sink in though.)

Over Sea and Under Stone ~Susan Cooper (Part of a series of fantasy books for children, but very good.)

Dark is Rising ~Susan Cooper

*The Count of Monte Cristo ~Alexander Dumas (Awesome book!)

Social Graces ~Ann Platz & Susan Wales

*Let Me Be a Woman ~Elisabeth Elliot (Very good book by Elisabeth Elliot. It's written to her daughter before or just after she got married, but it has points applicable to a single woman as well.)

*The Scarlet Pimpernel (Set during the French Revolution. Very good!)

The Murders in Volume 2 ~Elizabeth Daly (Very funny mysteries. Well-written.)

Evidence of Things Seen ~Elizabeth Daly

The Book of the Dead ~Elizabeth Daly

Captains Courageous ~Rudyard Kipling (Meh. I'm not fond of books about the sea, but this was alright I guess.)

Riki-tiki-tavi ~Kipling

The Maltese Cat ~Kipling

Nothing Can Rescue Me ~Elizabeth Daly

The House Without the Door ~Elizabeth Daly

No More Christian Nice Guy ~Paul Coughlin (He had some good points, but it wasn't well-written.)

How Canon Got Its Flash Back ~Nikkei (gave up on it for poor writing)

*War and Peace ~Leo Tolstoy (I wrote a blog post about this earlier.)

Public Enemies ~Bryan Burrough (Not bad. I saw the movie when it was in theaters here and found it interesting, so I decided to get the book and read it. The book covers a lot more than the movie did, since the movie focused mainly on Dilinger. It seems like the book started out a bit rough, but the writing was better by the end. Maybe I just got used to the author's writing style.)

Altogether I read 29 books this past year...maybe a few more that I didn't get written down. It seems like there must have been a few more this fall. Maybe not.

Currently my book list has 22 books on it that I want to read. So I need to read about two books per month...or perhaps more, because I'll come up with more I want to read throughout the year. :)