Noel DeVries at Never Jam Today had a year-end reading review that I thought was cool - so I decided to steal the idea! Here's my review of my reading for 2009, with a few changes from Noel's original:
5 Books I had planned to read in 2009
My Brother Sam is Dead - James Lincoln Collier/Christopher Collier (check - finally!)
Red Moon at Sharpsburg - Rosemary Wells (check)
The Tall Woman - Wilma Dykeman (check)
The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Gregory (nope)
The Falconer's Knot - Mary Hoffman (check)
Best Discoveries
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope (So, so glad I found this at that used bookstore!)
Alex and the Ironic Gentleman - Adrienne Kress (This was really funny.)
Favorite Classic
Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes (It seems reading "classics" is a weakness for me....)
Favorite Love Story
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Favorite Historical Fiction
A Difference of Opinion - Nancy Dane (I learned a lot about the Civil War in the local area from this book.)
The Big Knives - Bruce Lancaster (I wasn't all that crazy about the book itself, but I had no idea George Rogers Clark was such an American hero.)
Greatest Reading Accomplishment
The Health of the Country - Conevery Bolton Valencius
Biggest Failure to Complete
Undaunted Courage - Stephen Ambrose. Again - sigh.
Favorite Re-Read
Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes (It was still as good as I remembered.)
Books I Won't Be Reading Again, Ever
The Circle of Friends: Sarah - Diane Wolfe
Peter and the Starcatchers - Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson (I listened to this one rather than reading it - I doubt I would have finished if I'd been reading.)
Books I Thought Would Be Amazing but Weren't That Great
Catherine, Called Birdy - Karen Cushman
Red Moon at Sharpsburg - Rosemary Wells (This was my biggest disappointment of the year.)
The Tall Woman - Wilma Dykeman
The Falconer's Knot - Mary Hoffman
Books I Thought Wouldn't Be Much but Were Actually Good Stuff
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (I'm not much for vampires and such, but I liked this book.)
The Princess Academy - Shannon Hale (I thought it would be silly fluff, but it had real substance.)
The Sideyard Superhero - Rick Niece (I was pleasantly surprised.)
5 Books I Plan to Read in 2010
Alice in Love and War - Ann Turnbull (highly anticipating this one!)
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (Yes, I was an English major in college and somehow never read this.)
The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart (for a review site)
Rifles for Watie - Harold Keith (it's been a long time since I've read it - I remember it being good.)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate - Jacqueline Kelly (I see a lot of Newberry buzz about this, so I'm curious.)
I'll probably take another stab at Undaunted Courage - it's a good book, I just can't seem to make much progress in it. Oh, and I will definitely be reading Web Design for Dummies - my sabbatical starts in earnest on Monday!
3 comments:
In the interest of record-keeping, there were three books I read this year that didn't fit any category: The River Between Us, by Richard Peck; A History of the Wife, by Marilyn Yolam; The Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud.
Sorry it so disappointed you...
Great year-end review. I still need to do this but have been putting it off because it seems like it will be hard.
I'm glad to hear that even an English major had never read The Scarlett Letter. It makes me feel better, but I am going to get to it this year for sure.
Post a Comment