It's time for another book review! I've fallen into the habit of doing these every two years or so. Here are my previous reviews: 2009, 2007.
Over the past two years, I've read 30.5 books (I didn't finish one of them), all of which have been reviewed on this blog. It surprised me to find that I only gave the full 5 stars to one of those books. I must be getting crotchety in my old age, I guess. However, there were several that just missed the 5-star cut, ending up with 4 1/2 stars instead. So, without further ado, let's get to the top three!
And . . . drum roll please . . . the top three fiction books from 2010-2011 are:
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Modern)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Classic)
The Glass Castle (Memoir)
I should note that The Glass Castle is technically non-fiction, but the stories in there are so outrageous that it really feels like a novel.
For this Review, I feel like I really need a separate list for the non-fiction books because I read some really great ones over the past two years. So, keep that drum roll going . . . the top three non-fiction books from 2010-2011 are:
NurtureShock
Predictably Irrational
Undaunted Courage
I highly recommend all six of these books. They could all be 5-star books, even though I only gave full marks to The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. The links will take you to my reviews of them.
Lastly, the worst book I read over the past two years was A Happy Marriage, which gets low marks for highly explicit material. It was the only book I didn't finish out of the 31 on the list.
For the numbers-oriented, here's a statistical summary of my reading in 2010-2011. For comparison, the number in parentheses is the corresponding figure for all 86 books that I've read since 2007.
Average Pages: 389.9 (377.3)
Average Reading Grade Level: 8.53 (7.65)
Average Rating: 3.71 stars (3.67)
Average Rating by Genre:
Classic: 3.83 (4.03)
Fantasy: 3.67 (3.44)
Memoir: 4.25 (3.64)
Modern: 3.38 (3.69)
Mystery: 3.50 (3.19)
Non-fiction: 3.85 (3.65)
If you're curious, here's what I've got on my stack to be read next:
Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970
The Corrections
The Year of Living Biblically
The Upside of Irrationality
To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson
Inverting the Pyramid
I'm always looking for recommendations, so please leave them in the comments! Happy reading!
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2 comments:
I don't have any great recommendations as it seems I often read/listen to books after you do. I was pleased to hear you liked Undaunted Courage that much. I thought it was pretty spectacular. I think you might enjoy something by Nathaniel Philbrick. I read a book of his about Custer's Last Stand which was pretty good, but he's especially known for his books about sailing. The Whaleship Essex was an amazing story if you haven't gotten to it yet.
Something kind of original that I liked was The Secret Knowledge of Water, though it may have been because I'm living in Tucson right now and it was all about the Southwest. And finally, if you haven't read Jon Krakauer, you should give him a try. My two cents.
Ben, have you read "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage"? It's a must-read, and so is "Unbroken" if you haven't gotten to it yet. Both are true stories of amazing courage. Also, if you haven't read "Here Be Dragons" or something else by Sharon Kay Penman, it is time to get on that bandwagon and try her out. She is a fabulous historical fiction writer. Happy reading!
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