books read in 2015
Favorites are bolded, strong dislikes are crossed through, re-reads have asterisks (and aren't eligible for bolding since obviously I loved them). Meh books are in italics, things I didn't enjoy at all but which weren't so bad as to warrant a strike through. I need marks for "Beautiful writing but had some aspect which spoiled my enjoyment." The Heart is a Lonely Hunter only JUST gets bolded, because the representation of disability was really annoying. Like on the one hand McCullers is showing how ridiculous people are in using John as a totem, basically, but she also keeps him totally passive. Even though he doesn't like/understand the attention he never tells them to go away or gets mad.
2015 Reading
January:
The Secret History of Wonder Woman - Jill Lepore
Pearl of China - Anchee Min
Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies - June Casagrande *
Night Watch - Terry Pratchett *
The Borgias - G.J. Meyerr
Are Women Human - Dorothy L. Sayers
Wild Strawberries - Angela Thirkell
Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt
The Way to Paradise - Mario Vargas Llosa
Toast - Nigel Slater
Mr. Fox - Helen Oyeyemi
Mr. Selden's Map of China - Timothy Brook
The Examined Life - Stephen Grosz
A Rare Benedictine - Ellis Peters
The Martian - Andy Weir *
The Porcelain Thief - Huan Hsu
Prickle Moon - Juliet Marillier
1914: The Year The World Ended - Paul Ham
Ode to a Banker - Lindsey Davis *
Two Years Before the Mast - Richard Dana
Mister Monday - Garth Nix *
The Art of Communicating - Thich Nhat Hanh
February:
We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo
Ingo - Helen Dunmore
Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert
Chicago - Alaa Al Aswany
Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L. Sayers *
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
On the Brink - Ryusho Kadota
Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo
Freddy Goes Camping - Walter R. Brooks *
Driving the King - Ravi Howard
Social Physics - Alex Pentland
The Jedera Adventure - Lloyd Alexander *
Alan Mendelsohn, Boy From Mars - Daniel Pinkwater *
Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh
Mussolini: His Part in my Downfall - Spike Milligan
March:
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
Monkey Mind - Daniel Smith
The Beautiful Struggle - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Grim Tuesday - Garth Nix *
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Drowned Wednesday - Garth Nix *
Doc - Mary Doria Russell
Sir Thursday - Garth Nix *
Sex At Dawn - Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
Rena's Promise - Rena Gelissen and Heather Dune Macadam
Stig of the Dump - Clive King
Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain - Joshua Levine
Brat Farrar - Josephine Tey
Lady Friday - Garth Nix *
A Bridge Too Far - Cornelius Ryan
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes
All Joy and No Fun - Jennifer Senior
Superior Saturday - Garth Nix *
A Tiny Bit Marvellous - Dawn French
Freddy and the Ignormous - Walter R. Brooks *
A Short History of Islam - Karen Armstrong
Lord Sunday - Garth Nix *
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson
The Agony and the Eggplant - Walter Hogan
April:
A World Undone - G.J. Meyer
The Clockwork Twin - Walter R. Brooks
Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
Things Not Seen - Andrew Clements
The Truth - Terry Pratchett *
My Planet - Mary Roach
The Great Dissent - Thomas Healy
I, Rigoberta Menchu - Rigoberta Menchu
The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
Flygirl - Sherri L. Smith
Tolkien and the Great War - John Garth
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
Dreams in a Time of War - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
The Inventor and the Tycoon - Edward Ball
Angelica - Sharon Shinn *
The Voices of Glory - Davis Grubb
4:50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie
Kitty Genovese - Kevin Cook
May:
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Let Me Go - Helga Schneider
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History - Cynthia Barrett
Girl in a Band - Kim Gordon
A Confusion of Princes - Garth Nix
The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Ascent of George Washington - John Ferling
The Fair Fight - Anna Freeman
Venus in Copper - Lindsey Davis *
Empty Mansions - Bill Dedman and Paul Newell
Non-Violence - Mark Kurlansky
Dream Angus - Alexander McCall Smith
Lives in Ruins - Marilyn Johnson
Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson
Storming Heaven - Denise Giardina
The Enemy at the Gate - Andrew Wheatcroft
H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman *
Not My Father's Son - Alan Cumming
Between You and Me - Mary Norris
Marbles - Ellen Forney
The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
Shanghai Girls - Lisa See *
Clariel - Garth Nix
Blood Work - Holly Tucker
June:
The Trolley to Yesterday - John Bellairs *
Puberty Blues - Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey
Medicus - Ruth Downie
Here - Richard McGuire
How to Be Happy - Eleanor Davis
Open Veins of Latin America - Eduardo Galeano
Imperial Woman - Pearl S. Buck
Tommy Gun Winter - Nathan Gorenstein
Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown
Under the Black Flag - David Cordingly
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson
Barefoot in the Park - Neil Simon *
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Sex Lives of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost *
Enemies at Home - Lindsey Davis
The Divide - Matt Taibbi
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell *
Cat Daddy - Jackson Galaxy
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
July:
Elsewhere - Richard Russo
The Yggyssey - Daniel Pinkwater
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter
A Spy Among Friends - Ben Macintyre
The Globe: The Science of Discworld II - Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, Terry Pratchett
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
Sipping From the Nile - Jean Naggar
Gulag - Anne Applebaum
All the Birds, Singing - Evie Wyld
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggins *
Saga Volume 4 - Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Walk Two Moons - Sharon Creech
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Pushkin Hills - Sergei Dovlatov
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke *
Truckers - Terry Pratchett *
Diggers - Terry Pratchett *
Wings - Terry Pratchett *
When Books Went to War - Molly Guptill Manning
In the Unlikely Event - Judy Blume
He Wanted the Moon - Mimi Baird
On Second Thought - Wray Herbert
August:
The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street - Jeanne Birdsall
The Iron Hand of Mars - Lindsey Davis *
Just Babies - Paul Bloom
Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin
Goblins - Charles Grant
Daughter of the Forest - Juliet Marillier *
Listen, Slowly - Thanhha Lai
The Sibling Effect - Jeffrey Kluger
The House with a Clock in its Walls - John Bellairs
The Rocketeer - Dave Stevens
The Pixilated Parrot: Donald Duck Vol 9 - Carl Barks
Sole Survivor - Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Cousin Phillis - Elizabeth Gaskell
July's People - Nadine Gordimer
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge
Dragonsong - Anne McCaffrey *
Dragonsinger - Anne McCaffrey *
Dragondrums - Anne McCaffrey *
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Being Mortal - Atul Gawande
Swallow Me Whole - Nate Powell
A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka - Lev Golinkin
September:
Jovah's Angel - Sharon Shinn *
The Upright Thinkers - Leonard Mlodinow
The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place - Julie Berry
Servants - Lucy Lethbridge
The Book of Three - Lloyd Alexander *
Austerity - Mark Blyth
Son of the Shadows - Juliet Marillier *
Enabling Acts - Lennard J. Davis
The Lady and Her Monsters - Roseanne Montillo
The Race Underground - Doug Most
Beloved - Toni Morrison
An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir
Mrs. Adams in Winter - Michael O'Brien
Just Send Me Word - Orlando Figes
The Dust That Falls From Dreams - Louis de Bernieres
October:
The Black Cauldron - Lloyd Alexander *
Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K.Hamilton *
The Oregon Trail - Rinker Buck
Coot Club - Arthur Ransome
The Half Has Never Been Told - Edward Baptist
Letting It Go - Miriam Katin
The Imposter's Daughter - Laurie Sandell
My Mother's Wars - Lillian Faderman
Betsy-Tacy - Maud Hart Lovelace *
Last Act in Palmyra - Lindsey Davis *
Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery *
A History of Future Cities - Daniel Brook
Lumberjanes Vol 1 - Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen
Tomboy - Liz Prince
Dynasty - Tom Holland
Katherine - Anya Seton
Neurotribes - Steve Silberman
Treasure Under Glass Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck Vol 3 - Don Rosa
Why I Read - Wendy Lesser
November:
Anne of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery *
A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson
Ms. Marvel Generation Why Vol 2 - G. Willow Wilson
Joan of Arc - Kathryn Harrison
Ms. Marvel Crushed Vol 3 - G. Willow Wilson
Trumbo - Bruce Cook
Malcolm X - Manning Marable
Jack - Shannon Cate
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
Places of the Heart - Colin Ellard
The Word Exchange - Alena Graedon
Coventry - Helen Humphreys
El Deafo - Cece Bell
Unexpected Stories - Octavia Butler
A Russian Journal - John Steinbeck
Ravensbruck - Sarah Helm
Unruly Places - Alistair Bonnett
Freddy and Mr. Camphor - Walter R. Brooks
Collected Poems - Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Last Bookaneer - Matthew Pearl
Moon at Nine - Deborah Ellis
December
Avenue of Spies - Alex Kershaw
Child of the Prophecy - Juliet Marillier *
Dr. Mutter's Marvels - Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Lumberjanes Vol 2: Friendship to the Max - Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis
Welcome to Nightvale - Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Wrapped in Rainbows - Valerie Boyd
Anne Thornton, Junior Guide - Lotta Rowe Anthony
Book of Ages - Jill Lepore
A Corner of White - Jaclyn Moriarty
Claudine at School - Colette
Letters from Rifka - Karen Hesse *
Step Aside, Pops - Kate Beaton
The Second Empress - Michelle Moran
Honor Girl - Maggie Thrash
Moomin Comics Vol 2 - Tove Jansson
Red Land, Black Land - Barbara Mertz
The Hogfather - Terry Pratchett *
I Have Lived A Thousand Years - Livia Bitton-Jackson
Silence - Shusaku Endo
The Chimes - Charles Dickens
Thirteen - Henry Cooper
Freddy and the Popinjay - Walter R. Brooks
Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters
Freddy the Magician - Walter R. Brooks
Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing - Melissa Mohr
Total Read: 251
50/50 Men/Women authors almost exactly (in double checked my book list against my books-read calendar I realized I'd left a book off, meaning my first total of 250 was off. I so wanted that nice round number and now I'm really annoyed.)
85 fiction, 100 non-fiction, 66 children's/YA (which includes some non-fiction), fiction/non-fiction ratio got closer together because of the re-reads, I think.
46% published between 2010 and 2015 - I've never read so many recently published books in a year!
51% had been on my to-read list for more than three months
Average publication year, 1991. Usually the average year is in the 1970s, which shows that influx of newer books.
74% Audiobooks
45 re-reads