2008 in review: Books

Last entry I reviewed my 2008 in live music. This time (for the third year), books. Here's a list of the books I read in 2008, with followed by some statistics:

1. Gastroanomalies - James Lileks
2. Sesame Street Unpaved - David Borgenicht
3. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs
4. Graduation Day - Ann M. Martin
5. The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival - Stanley N. Alpert
6. Elvis is Titanic: Classroom Tales from the Other Iraq - Ian Klaus
7. Summerland - Michael Chabon
8. Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
9. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
10. We Are All Welcome Here - Elizabeth Berg
11. Duma Key - Stephen King
12. Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories - Jill Rappaport
13. Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
14. Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter - Robert Rummel-Hudson
15. One Past Midnight: The Langoliers - Stephen King
16. Blaze - Richard Bachman
17. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
18. Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel - Patrick Smith
19. My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals - Melanie Dunea
20. A Fictional History of the United States (With Huge Chunks Missing) - T Cooper & Adam Mansbach, Eds.
21. The Crazy School - Cornelia Read
22. The Pact - Jodi Picoult
23. A Corner of Wellington - Chris Stevenson
24. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
25. The House That George Built (With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty) - Wilfrid Sheed
26. Tender at the Bone - Ruth Reichl
27. Ten Points - Bill Strickland
28. Ruby Holler - Sharon Creech
29. Chasing Redbird - Sharon Creech
30. The Wanderer - Sharon Creech
31. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
32. The Forgetting - Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic - David Shenk
33. Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
34. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
35. I Like Food, Food Tastes Good - Kara Zuaro
36. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
37. The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
38. The Hope Chest - Karen Schwabach
39. Surprise Island - Gertrude Chandler Warner
40. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
41. Gang Leader for a Day - Sudhir Venkatesh
42. Under the Tree: The Toys and Treats that Made Christmas Special, 1930-1970 - Susan Waggoner
43. Princess Academy - Shannon Hale
44. What is the What - Dave Eggers
45. Hitler Youth - Susan Campbell Bartoletti
46. Dedication - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
47. Dark Water Rising - Marian Hale
48. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
49. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey - Trenton Lee Stewart
50. We All Die Alone - Mark Newgarden
51. No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach - Anthony Bourdain
52. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
53. Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet - Charlotte Gordon
54. The Dangerous Book for Dogs - Various
55. Pollyanna's Western Adventure - Harriet Lummis Smith
56. By Hook or By Crook - David Crystal
57. Goose Girl - Shannon Hale
58. The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
59. Enna Burning - Shannon Hale
60. Comfort Me With Apples - Ruth Reichl
61. Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home - Lise Funderberg
62. Like a Rolling Stone: The Strange Life of a Tribute Band - Steven Kurutz
63. Population: 485 - Michael Perry
64. A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel: My Journey in Photographs - Annie Griffiths Belt
65. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
66. Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River - Velma Wallis
67. The Woman Who Can't Forget: A Memoir - Jill Price & Bart Davis
68. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - Joshilyn Jackson
69. Looking for Anne of Green Gables - Irene Gammel
70. Why They Killed Big Boy & Other Stories - Michael Perry
71. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
72. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman
73. Off Main Street - Michael Perry
74. Truck: A Love Story - Michael Perry
75. Just After Sunset - Stephen King
76. State by State: a Panoramic Portrait of America - Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, eds.
77. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson

Total books read: 77. I read exactly the same number of books in 2008 as I did in 2007.

By male authors: 37 (48%)
By female authors: 36 (47%)
By both: 4 (1%)

Previously read: 3 (4% - down dramatically from 2007's 21%)

Marketed for children/teens: 14 (18%)

Fiction: 37 (48%)
Nonfiction: 40 (52%)
The first year since I've kept track that my nonfiction reading has outstripped my fiction reading.

You should definitely read:
Freakonomics. I saw Steven Levitt speak at a conference this year, an experience that finally inspired me to check out this book. I'm a little late to the Freakonomics party, but I found the book fascinating and informative. I kept sharing the research findings with random people, exclaiming things like, "Everything makes so much sense!"

Don't bother reading:
All of the books I read (and finished) in 2008 were redeeming for one reason or another. But I did think that The Woman Who Can't Forget: A Memoir would be more interesting than it was. I'm normally a sucker for some good case-study nonfiction, but this is indeed more of a memoir. A memoir where the author has a few basic points to make about her life: "I remember everything that's ever happened from early adolescence onward. When I remember things I completely relive the emotions associated with them. It kind of sucks. But scientists love me." And the rest of the book is filled with examples of all this. I finished it, but I guess I was hoping for some breakthrough of scientific insight. Unfortunately (for the author, too, I'm sure) there really isn't one. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a long article. There's probably one out there, and I recommend finding that.