At the end of 2010 i set a goal for myself to finish 12 books in 2011. I’m happy to say that i did meet that goal. Here’s my lineup, courtesy of goodreads.com:
And because you probably can’t read the titles, here’s the list (in order of when i finished them, from the most recent on down):
- Marley and Me by John Grogan
- Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
- The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
- I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire
- Lying by Sam Harris
- French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
- Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It by Gary Taubes
- Bossypants by Tina Fey
- Naked by David Sedaris
- Letters To A Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens (may he rest in peace)
- Remaking Eden by Lee M. Silver
- The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and some other guy
I grabbed Marley and Me at a used bookstore in California when i finished Water For Elephants too quickly. I thought the former was a little too much of a writer-writing-about-being-a-writer type of memoir (you remember how i hate those, don’t you?) but i was suffering a pretty bad bout of puppy fever when i picked it up, so it entertained me. Water For Elephants was a really good piece of fiction—and by “good” i mean “entertaining.” DO NOT watch the movie until you’ve read the book! The movie will ruin the book for you, much moreso than other movies ruin other books. I can’t tell you anything more than that without giving too much away. Also, the movie is pretty much just bad all around, whether you read the book or not.
I Don’t was very dull. Lying was very intriguing and very short. Naked started off quite funny and quickly turned very weird. Remaking Eden was interesting if a little slow and sometimes far-fetched. It makes some really good points about why the “life begins at conception” argument is scientifically incorrect. I wish i could remember them. 
Letters to a Young Contrarian was a little over my head, but it deepend my admiration for Hitchens. The book really made me feel like he was a champion of truth, and that that’s a very worthy thing to be even if it means ruffling a lot of feathers. He was still alive when i read it, and now that i’m reading his memoir, he is gone.
I expected Bossypants to go one of two ways: very funny, or very intimate. It was neither. It leaned more to the funny side, but i kind of felt like she was just addressing the major questions that she gets asked all the time (Why do you have that scar? How did you get a job writing for SNL?) rather than trying to communicate an original idea. I still liked it and i’m still a huge fan of hers, i just think her talent for writing is put to better use on scripts.
So, for 2012 i’ve made it my goal to read 13 books (although 15 would make for a nicer layout in that goodreads screenshot, hm?). I think i’ll try not to read more than one memoir this year, and this time i mean it. I want to read more about UI and other sciency things. And in keeping with last year, i probably won’t read more than one novel.
Any recommendations? Come be my friend on Goodreads so i can see what you’re reading!
Thursday, January 5th, 2012 5:34 pm • books
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January 5th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
I would love to befriend you on goodreads, but, um, what’s your account? Here’s mine, http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3459917-ashley
January 5th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Love it! I should make a list of all the books I read in 2011… not sure I could remember all of them! (I have a terrible memory) But it looks like we have a couple in common!
January 6th, 2012 at 10:45 am
Oops, here’s my Goodreads profile.