It got busy this week! Lots going on at home, work, and otherwise as well. Life My daughter's school decided to close on Friday, along with several other schools in the area, with some being closed from Thursday. Not enough staff. The school had been on a mask mandate since the beginning of the pandemic, dropping it only for one week when the pandemic had appeared to have stabilized last year. And yet, they dropped the mandate completely at the beginning of this year, when cases were exponentially rising, only to bring it back again starting next week. I've gone from being very annoyed to angry to feeling fatigue in these first two weeks already. I won't lie - we all mask around here and try to avoid going where we don't have a need to be in, and still, we are not taking anything close to the extreme precaution we all took at the beginning of the pandemic. I cannot and don't want to keep my kids home - I have at least that much faith in the schools' precautions
Like any other year, 2011 was a mixed bag of sorts for me. I read about 85 books this year (15 short of my original target) - but many were books that I enjoyed at so many levels that I'm not too fussed by the number. There were a few I could have done without, but overall, it's been a good year in reading.
Of the 85 books I read, 36 were 2011 releases. I'm quite impressed with that because I imagined I read far less 2011 books. Depending on which side of the bed I wake up from each day, I either like reading more current books or not. It's a fluctuating thing - sometimes I wish I read more classics, but the very next day, I'm all into the new releases.
Still, 36 isn't a huge number, so I'm going to list the books that made an impression on me, without looking at their publication dates. I read a total of 62 fiction titles, so I'm listing 10 titles that I would gladly recommend to you.
Favorite fiction reads
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Good Neighbors by Ryan David Jahn
- Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb by George Rabasa
- The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
- Far to go by Alison Pick
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- The Four Ms. Bradwells by Meg Waite Clayton
- Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile
Favorite nonfiction reads
- A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres
- Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford
- The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik
- The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke
- The Freedom Writers' Diary by Erin Gruwell
The first four titles above were all ARCs. I was intrigued that most of the nonfiction titles I read are those offered as review copies. Lately though, I've been looking out for more nonfiction titles, so I hope the stats change next year.
- Maus 1 & 2 by Art Speigelman
- Anne Frank by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon
- Green River Killer by Jonathan Case and Jeff Jensen
- Vietnamerica by GB Tran
- Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme
Some of the books I loved when I first read them no longer seem to hold me in the same awe now, so I did change a few ratings today, but on the whole, I remember most of the books to be just as good as I first wrote about them. Have you read any of these?
Comments
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!!
Really need to stop reading these wrap up posts, my virtual piles are getting huge!
Happy New Year!