2011 book stats

I love doing book stats!

Total books read: 38
Total authors read: 33

Authors
male: 15
female: 18
new: 24

Genre
fiction:13

historical fiction: 1
young adult: 16
crime/mystery: 1
fantasy:2
sci fi: 0
non-fiction:6


Year of Publication
oldest: 1892 (The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes)


1890s-1
1940s- 1
1960s- 4
1970s- 4
1980s- 4

1990s- 11
2000s- 15

Places visited in books
New York, United Kingdom, Georgia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, India...and more I probably forgot!

Top 10 of 2011

in no particular order

1. A Gracious Plenty

2. A Clockwork Orange

3. The Great Brain

4. The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

5. One Night at the Call Center

6. Trolley Car Familiy

7. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

8. Diary of An American Au Pair

9. Fire in the Valley

10. Ruby Slippers of Oz*

*Ruby Slippers was a reread but I was as fascinated with this book the second time I read it as I was the first.

2011 books

I guess I don't really use this blog much anymore except for my yearly totals, if anyone is reading this! I've been using goodreads a lot-please find me there (Amy Gourley) I really didn't read as much as I would have liked to in 2011 and I think this has been my lowest number read in a while.

January

1. Countdown January- Daniel Parker

2. Vinyl Leaves- Stephen Fjellman

February

3. The Suble Knife- Philip Pullman

4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Arthur Conan Doyle

5. Cringe- Sarah Brown

6. Mortified 2- David Nadelberg

March

7. Mortified- David Nadelberg

8. A Gracious Plenty- Shari Reynolds

9. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing- Judy Blume

10. Superfudge- Judy Blume

April

11. A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess

12. Double Fudge- Judy Blume

13. Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great- Judy Blume

14. The Pigman- Paul Zindel

May

15. Ramona and Her Mother- Beverly Cleary

16. Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast- Bill Richardson

17. A Woman's Place- Marita Goldman

18. The Other Side of Dark- Joan Nixon

19. The Great Brain- John D. Fitzgerald

June

20. Eclipse-Stephenie Meyer

21. Breaking Dawn- Stephenie Meyer

22. The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud- Ben Sherwood

July

23. Requiem for a Princess- Ruth Arthur

24. Trolley Car Family- Eleanor Clymer

25. Pears on a Willow Tree- Leslie Pietrzyk

August

26. Stori Telling- Tori Spelling

27. Filthy Rich- Dorothy Samuels

28. One Night at the Call Center- Chetan Bhagat

29. Finding Mr Right- Emily Carmichael

30. Class Notes- Kate Stimpson

31. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc- Loraine Despres

September

32. The Te of Piglet- Benjamin Hoff

33. The Ruby Slippers of Oz-Rhys Thomas

November

34. How Not to Spend Your Senior Year- Cameron Dokey

35. Coraline- Neil Gaiman

36. Fire in the Valley- Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine

December

37. The Forest- Edward Rutherfurd

38. Diary of An American Au Pair- Majorie Leet Ford

2010 book stats

Yeah, I have really slacked on this blog but I wanted to write down my stats for 2010 before I forget to do it

Total books read: 52
Total authors read: 40

Authors
male: 18
female: 20
new :33

Genre
fiction: 18
young adult: 16
crime/mystery: 0
fantasy:1
sci fi: 1
non-fiction: 7


Year of Publication
oldest: 1932 (Little House in the Big Woods)
most recent: 2010 (The Ship Hotel

1930s- 2
1940s- 2
1960s- 1
1970s- 2
1980s- 2

1990s- 9
2000s- 23

2010-1

Places visited in books
Inkworld, New York, Boston, Hyannisport, Los Angeles, Italy, Florida, Nebraska, Japan, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New Mexico, London, Canada, Ohio, New Jersey, Kentucky, Nevada, Illinois, Honolulu, Philippines, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Mexico, Wisconsin, Kansas

Top 10 of 2010

in no particular order

1. The Golden Compass
2. Into the Forest
3. Disney War
4. Sister Spider Knows All
5. If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend
6. Flashforward
7. Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet?
8. Hotel Honolulu
9. Beauty
10. The Secret History

Top 10 of 2010

2010 books

I've been slacking on my book blog this year. Here's a list of the books I read this year, followed by a post of my top 10. I didn't get to read as much as I would have like to this year but I hope to have a better reading year in 2011!

January
1. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
2. The Quality of Life Report by Megan Daum

February
3. Idlewild by Mark Lawson
4. Sister Spider Knows All by Adrian Foglelin
5. The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters by Timothy Schaffert
6. Library Card by Jerry Spinelli
7. Carry Me Across the Water by Ethan Canin

March
8. If Andy Warhol had a Girlfriend by Alison Pace
9. Lucy's E-Journal by Jane Harrington

April
10. The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place by Michael Dolan
11. Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
12. The Orphan and Doll by Tracy Friedman
13. Blasting into the Past by M. Spenser
14. Beauty Queen Blowout: Miss Adventure #2 by Lilia Zuckerman

May
15. Disney War by James B. Stewart

June
15. Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer
16. Twice Upon a Time #2: Sleeping Beauty, the One that Took a Really Long Nap by Wendy Mass
17. Elegant Gathering of White Snow by Kris Radish
18. The Dolls' House by Rumer Godden
19. Little America by Rob Swigart
20. The Lost Girls by Laurie Fox

July
21. The Meanest Doll in the World by Ann M. Martin
22. Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet? by Charlene Baumbich
23. Sibling Rivalry:How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Too by Adele Faber
24. Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down You're Wearing Us out by Charlene Baumbich

August
25. Hotel Honolulu by Paul Theroux

September
26. Gentlemen of Space by Ira Sher
37. The Ship Hotel: A Grand View Along the Lincoln Highway by Brian Butko
38. Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World by Davy Rothbart
39. The Year of Plenty by Rebecca Brammer
40. P.S. Longer Letter Later by Paula Danzinger
41. Snail Mail No More by Paula Danzinger

October
42. Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freeman
43. Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

November
44. 8.4 by Peter Hernon
45. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
46. Light This Candle: The Life and Times of Alan Shepard by Neal Thompson

December
47. The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich
48. The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurty
49. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

re-reads
50. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
51. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
52. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The Meanest Doll in the World

This is a sequel to The Doll People, which I read years ago. This book focuses on the same group of dolls but two of the dolls get lost and end up in Princess Mimi's house, a doll who all other dolls are afraid of. I saw Toy Story 3 a few days ago and some things in the book remind me of things in the movie! Another wonderful doll book!

The Lost Girls

The Lost Girls focuses on Wendy's (from Peter Pan) great grand-daughter. All daughters in Wendy's family are taken away by Peter to Neverland to live for a time. Wendy's great granddaughter is really an unlikeable character. Too whiny, doesn't stand up for herself, weak etc. I just didn't care for her. Or the book really. I could never understand why the Darling women keep returning to Neverland since it seems to change their whole life and not really in a good way. This is one of the worst books I've read lately.

Little America

This was a strange little book. Some strange comical story lines. Basically about a man who wants nothing else but to live and work at a huge gas station complex in Little America, Wyoming. Oh, and kill his father. The story of how he gets there is hilarious. And strange. Strange, but it worked somehow and I enjoyed this book.

The Dolls' House

I know I have said this before but I love books about dolls and dolls' houses; seem to be reading a lot of them lately! This is an older one, which are really the best. A doll family finally gets a dolls' house to live in but then a mean doll comes to live with and threatens their peaceful lives. Great book!

The Elegant Gathering of White Snows

The premise of this book sounds interesting: 8 women suddenly decide to leave their lives and just walk off in the middle of the night. They just keep walking for days, finding out more about themselves and each other, etc, blah, blah, blah. I'm not really a big fan of books about a group of friends but this sounded somewhat interesting. After the first 100 pages or so, I started skimming a lot especially all the descriptive prose. I got the women confused too. I didn't like her style of writing either. Needless to say, I'm not going to be reading anymore of Kris Radish's books.

Twice Upon a Time-Sleeping Beauty

This book is from the recent genre of retelling of fairy tales. This one retells Sleeping Beauty from the side of Sleeping Beauty and the prince. They alternated chapters telling their sides of the story. It was a fun and cute book. There is also a retelling of Rapunzel by this author and I plan to read that one too.

Flashforward

I received this book at Christmas but hadn't read it yet. I decided to read right after the series ended and I heard it had been cancelled. I'm still a bit bummed about that. I found the series fascinating at the beginning, then a bit predictable and boring, but loved it again in the last episodes. But I never really liked many of the main characters, but that's another story.

The book mainly takes place around CERN in Switzerland, while the TV series took place in Los Angeles. The cast of the book had a much more international flavor as scientists around the world worked at CERN. The only name in the book from the series is Lloyd Simcoe, but it is not the same character at all. I saw where they took certain story lines from the book.

The book was a real page turner for me until the last quarter of the book. You thought it would end and it went on and on, like the movie A. I. did. When it did end it ended rather abruptly. But overall I really enjoyed the book.

Disney War

I'm a big of Disney, especially Disney theme parks. This book is about Michael Eisner's reign as CEO of Disney. This book was fascinating. I felt like I learned a lot of the movie business and Hollywood through this book. It gives a great inside look about how Eisner and company turned the Disney company around in the 1980s to produce mega hits and also of its later downfalls, Eisner's feud with Roy Disney and many others. Great reading.

Beauty Queen Blowout

I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure book when I was a kid (who didnt?) so I had to try this updated version for adults. This book focuses on an unlikely beauty queen, Miss Vermont, and her adventures in the pagentry world, depending on what scenario you choose. This was fun, just like the Choose Your Own Adventure books that I remember. It took a while but I made it through all the possible stories. Lots of fun!

Blasting into the Past

Like a doll story, I also can't resist time traveling books. This is another young adult story. I didn't care for it very much. It is written in the first person, and while I generally love this type of book, I didn't like how this one was done. I think this book is part of a series too and I didn't read any of the other Humano Morphs so some was a bit confusing.

The Orphan and the Doll

I just can't resist a doll story. This is about an orphan during (or shortly after) the Civil War and a doll that was sent to her and who helps her find her real family. The doll meets other dolls at the orphanage, has adventures and helps the orphan find her family. A quick and fun read.

Into the Forest

Wow, this book really makes me think. The story is about 2 teenage sisters living in northern California in a post apocalyptic world. They are far enough out in the country to survive. It was fascinating to read how they learned to grow more of their own food, find out what was edible, and how to live off the land. I was a little surprised to find out what they did in the end but their decision is something that made me think. I still think about this book at times. A fascinating story.

The American Porch

I've always loved porches, especially big wrap around porches on a house. I always wanted a wrap around porch; don't have one but our porch is pretty big.
This book gives the history of the porch from ancient Greece to modern times. Some parts were great while others were a bit boring, like most non fiction books that I read. I learned a lot in this book and even looked some more stuff up to read about further. I highly recommend this book.

Lucy's E-journal

Hmmm, I read this book this book several months ago but can't remember much about it! It's a kids book told in email form, which is why I read this. Guess it wasn't too memorable!

If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend

I'm not really into chick lit so much but I really enjoyed this chick lit book. The main character, works in a chic art gallery. She is extremely likeable (unlike some other chick lit characters) but hates her job. The turn of events is pretty predictable but I really enjoyed this book. A fun read.

Carry Me Across the Water

I think I orginally picked this book because it is partly set in Pittsburgh, my hometown. It's a story of an elderly man, near the end of his life, looking back on key moments of his life and also important things happening in the present.