I started this blog on the 9th of January 2013, with no clear idea of where it would take me. Even though I have taken a few months off recently, maintaining this blog has been a great joy for me throughout 2013. I am so pleased to have met some lovely people through my blogging, and I really hope to meet more next year. And I find that knowing I will be reviewing a book on the blog forces me to read it in a more thoughtful manner. Possibly it has also kept me reading through times this year when it has been quite difficult to sit down and read, even though that is one of my favourite things to do: in the sleepless nights following the birth of baby Eloise, for example.
In no particular order, these are the books I have read this year:
1. Steve Hely - How I Became a Famous Novelist
2.Madeleine Wickham - Sleeping Arrangements
3. Maggie Alderson - Everything Changes But You
4. Dominic Knight - Disco Boy
5. Hermann Koch - The Dinner
6. Chris Cleave - Gold
7. Paul Harding - Tinkers
8. Yoko Ogawa - The Housekeeper and the Professor
9. Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad
10. Ian McEwan - Sweet Tooth
11. Tom Rachman - The Imperfectionists
12. Susannah Calahan - Brain on Fire
13. Marian Keyes - The Mystery of Mercy Close
14. Derek B. Miller - Norwegian by Night
15. Edward St Aubyn - Never Mind
16. Edward St Aubyn - Bad News
17. Edward St Aubyn - Some Hope
18. Edward St Aubyn - Mother's Milk
19. Jennifer Egan - Look at Me
20. P. D. James - Death Comes to Pemberley
21. Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
22. F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
23. Lauren Leto - Judging a Book by its Cover
24. Graeme Simsion - The Rosie Project
25. Carrie Tiffany - Mateship with Birds
26. Sheryl Sandberg - Lean In
27. Curtis Sittenfield - American Wife
28. A. M. Homes - May We Be Forgiven
29. Madeleine St John - The Women in Black
30. Sophie Kinsella - Wedding Night
31. Richard Beasley - Me and Rory MacBeath
32. Mohsin Hamid - How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
33. Amor Towles - Eve in Hollywood
34. Piper Kerman - Orange is the New Black
35. Deborah Levy - Swimming Home
36. Maria Semple - Where'd You Go Bernadette?
37. Gretchen Rubin - The Happiness Project
38. Dominic Knight - Man vs Child
39. Mindy Kaling - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns)
40. Maggie O'Farrell - The Hand that First Held Mine
Oh, and there were a few others but I'm not sure they count. The Getaway Car, by Ann Patchett - her treatise on writing, formerly only available online, now published as a chapter of her new book. I have dipped, through the year, in and out of the book of letters exchanged between Paul Auster and J. M Coetzee, entitled Here and Now. I have peeked into a wine book, several cookbooks and I perused some travel books before we took off on our trip. I have read a book about French fashion called Forever Chic.
All in all, given that it has been a year of many happenings, I am quite pleased to have read 40 books. And I'm surprised: 6 of my 40 reads are non-fiction. That's more than I would have expected.
But I am so embarrassed by my failure to achieve my set reading goals for 2013. All I managed to do was read a few chapters of Infinite Jest and to re-read The Great Gatsby. I will write another aspirational post soon, and hope to live up to my goals better in 2014.
I have so much reading lined up to do, and I can't wait to get to it. I'm hoping I can squeeze more books into my life next year.
How many books did you read this year? Any stand-outs? Any regrets? I would love to hear from you.
Bibliofilly x
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