Total Books Read (Finished): 234
DNF's: 11 (this is a shrinking number! Yay!)
Tops and Bottoms:
Since I read mainly mysteries, I have two separate top-ten categories, one for mysteries and one for "everything else."
Top Ten Mysteries:
1. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
2. A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
3. Echoes From the Dead by Johan Theorin
4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
5. The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
6. The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill
7. Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie
8. Winter's Child by Margaret Maron
9. The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
10. The Ravens of Blackwater by Edward Marston
Top Ten "Other":
1. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by MaryAnn Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2. Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen
3. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
5. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
6. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
7. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
8. Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
9. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
10. Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
Top Audios (with author and reader listed):
1.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (multi-reader cast)
2.Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan (the whole series!) (Jesse Bernstein)
3.Hoot by Carl Hiassen (Chad Lowe)
4.The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (Alyssa Bresnahan)
5.A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Saul Reichlin)
6.The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Jayne Entwistle)
7.Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (James Marsters)
8.The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein (read by J.J. Myers, aka Mrs. Grabenstein, LOL)
9.The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (read by the author, who is outstanding!)
10.Winter's Child by Margaret Maron (CJ Critt)
Bottoms (These are books I finished that I gave grades of C or lower to...there aren't many.)
1. A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison
2. Flesh and Bone by Jefferson Bass
3. A Potion for a Widow by Caroline Roe
4. The Last Templar by Michael Jecks
5. Flower Net by Lisa See
6. If It's Not One Thing, It's a Murder by Liz Wolfe
7. Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin
8. The Long-Legged Fly by James Sallis
It's been a good year! I completed the RYOB (Read Your Own Books) Challenge, where I pledged to read 150 books from my own TBR shelf, not the library or borrowing. I completed a couple of monthly challenges in 4MA (a Yahoo mystery group) and also did the whole Mystery challenge on Paperbackswap, including bonuses. I did NOT complete the Historical Fiction Challenge at PBS.
Reading goals for 2010: I always give voice to the vague concept of paring down my TBR stacks, but somehow it never seems to happen and I admittedly only make half-hearted attempts at it. I read a lot of my own books, but I acquire more just as fast as I trade off the ones I've read. Or faster! So I will once again give lip service to this noble goal and then most likely promptly ignore it. :)
My goal as always will be to have fun with reading. It's my primary pastime, and when it gets so bogged down with having to read too many books for review before release deadlines, having to read this or that for a discussion or umpteen challenges, it just becomes work rather than fun. No thanks! This year I'm limiting the number of ARCs I'll accept and cutting down on the number of challenges, too.
Happy New Year to all and keep on reading! :)
Cheryl
