Tuesday, December 30, 2008

My 2008 reading

I didn't have nearly as good a reading year in 2008 as I had hoped. I finished just 14 books - not even half of my 2007 total. Most of my reading came in spurts - in March, July and the final four months of the year. I picked up a lot of books that I just could not finish. My attention wandered, or the books themselves were not that good.

I have plans to help myself refocus on reading in 2009, including joining a couple of challenges I'm anxious to start.

Of those books I did finish, I enjoyed the vast majority of them immensely. I finished only one book I truly despised: The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn, which turned Katherine Parr's story into a piece of really bad chick lit.

The best book I read all year was Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz - a wonderful collection of children's monologues that took me back in time to the Middle Ages. Other favorites include Ariana Franklin's two historical thrillers, Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent's Tale, and Georgette Heyer's sparkling Regency romance, The Grand Sophy.

Read in 2008:
  1. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
  2. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
  3. Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
  4. The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn
  5. The Bad Seed by William March
  6. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
  7. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
  8. My Lady of Cleves by Margaret Campbell Barnes
  9. The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin
  10. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
  11. A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
  12. The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
  13. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
  14. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

3 comments:

Carl V. Anderson said...

I had hoped to read Ghost Writer this year but I just never could get to it. Love the name of your blog. If I did something similar it would probably have to be called Buried Under Mount TBR! ;)

Mimi said...

I've heard good things baout Ariana Franklin, but not read her. I should order a book from PBS.

Moo said...

I was so heartened to read that your book totals were not astronomical! Everyone's year end round up seemed to be 75 to 100 plus books and I serious considered not posting my year end review because my numbers don't even come close.