End-of-year book survey

I saw this survey on Books and Chocolate and immediately wanted to do one myself.  I'm a little late-ish but I don't care.  So here goes:

1.  Best book(s) I read in 2011: "Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn and "Earthly Delights" by Kerry Greenwood

2.  Most disappointing book of 2011: It's a tie between "The Map of Time" by Felix J. Palma and "This Dark Endeavour" by Kenneth Oppel 

3.  Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2011: I figured I would read the first page of "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness, not like it, and return it to the library.  I finished the book in two days...got totally sucked in! 

4.  Books I recommended most to people in 2011: "Before I Go To Sleep" by S.J. Watson 

5.  Best series I discovered in 2011: The Corinna Chapman series by Kerry Greenwood 

6.  Favourite new authors of 2011: Kerry Greenwood, Ivan Coyote, and Gail Carriger 

7.  Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2011: I go to bed at the same time every night, so when a book is so good that I stay up until the wee hours of the morning to finish it, that's a sure sign the book is good.  I did that for both "Forbidden Fruit" by Kerry Greenwood (read in 1 day) and "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness" (read in 2 days)

8.  Book I most anticipated in 2011: "Wonder" by Robert J. Sawyer, the third and final book in his WWW trilogy 

9.  Favourite cover of a book I read in 2011: "Stars" by Mary Lyn Ray

10. Most memorable character in 2011: Corinna Chapman! 

11. Most beautifully written book of 2011: "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Anne Barrows.  I would also vote it for the book with the longest title.

12. Best book that was out of my comfort zone or was a new genre for me in 2011: I don't like heavy metal music and I'm not much for reading biographies.  But I enjoyed reading "Mustaine" by Dave Mustaine. 

13. Book that had the greatest impact on me in 2011: "The Reading Promise" by Alice Ozma.  I promise to read and I promise to read to my brand new niece. 

14. Book I can't believe I waited until 2011 to FINALLY read: "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.  I was impressed to find that there is more plot to the actual story than the film versions I've seen.  I still love "Mickey's Christmas Carol" for the visual but I actually like the book a lot. 

15. Book I read in 2011 that would most likely be reread in 2012: I have far too many books on my to-read list to do any rereading but if I miraculously ran out of things to read, I would choose any book by Ivan Coyote. 

16. Book that had a scene in it that had me reeling and dying to talk to someone about it? (A WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc.  No spoilers!): The revelation about Audrey's father and uncle at the end of "Come, Thou Tortoise" by Jessica Grant.


Some fun stats:
Books completed: 122
Pages read: 27,367
Books by male authors: 63
Books by female authors: 59
Fiction: 75
Non-fiction: 47
Children's books: 34
YA books: 4
Big fat books (more than 500 pages): 3


I might do this again next year.  I already have one of the answers.

Read on,
Paula

Women reading

A few months ago I came across Women Reading, a tumblr about women reading.  The photos vary:
*some are contemporary, some are antique
*some are photos, some are paintings
*some are amateur, some are professional
*some are famous women, some are everyday women
*some are candid, some are staged
*some are original, some are edited
*some are basic, some are creative
but all of them have books and women in them.

From viewing this website, I choose to believe that Marilyn Monroe was an avid reader.  Photos on the website show her reading James Joyce, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, magazines and newspapers.  I love the website but I have some nitpicks.  A small percentage of the photos are repeated.  And some of them repeated repeatedly.  Personally, I don't "get" the photos of people sitting or standing on books or laying a book on their face.  How can you enjoy the books if you aren't actually reading them?  And personally, just because a woman and at least one book are in the photo doesn't mean it is about a woman reading.  And what's up with a woman fully clothed sitting in a bathtub of books?  But that's my nitpickiness.  The website is still fabulous in and of itself.  There are approximately 12 photos per page and I've gone through 450 pages so far without reaching the end.  I am grateful for this website because I didn't realize there were so many different artworks involving women reading.  And I get to lose myself in the beauty of it.


Read on,
Paula

Book abuse and free ebooks

Inside a book donated to a library I work at I found a note.  In pen was written "Hi Linda, Thank you for the lend of your book, Brenda".  If a friend of mine were to write me a note inside my book in pen, they wouldn't be my friend for long.  That is the sort of property damage that I find inexcusable.

I recently discovered a fabulous blog that offers the download of free ebooks.  The process is a bit complicated for the non-computer-savvy and the impatient.  But I've gotten some of the books from my to-read list from it.

These days, I'm having different media/ideas/topics colliding in my life.  Today, for example, I am listening to the "Stress" episode of Radiolab, which touches on the same topics that I am reading about in "When The Body Says No" by Gabor Mate.

Read on,
Paula

Books for the holidays

  My final tally for books read in 2011 is 119.  This number includes an unedited proof, therefore 118 are reflected on my Goodreads and Shelfari shelves.  This is the largest number of books I've ever read in one year.  I attribute this mostly to not spending as much time on the computer (aka getting frustrated at my slow hard drive and giving up).  Will this record ever be broken?  I can't really say.  As I've mentioned before, I don't like competition, and competing with yourself is particularly pointless.  I like astounding people with the total though.  I like that a lot actually.  I also like the round number of 100.  So I have decided to strive for 100 again this year, which is an average of 1 book every 3.65 days.  But I will accept whatever number I make it to.

  I don't usually ask for books for christmas; I ask for Chapters gift certificates.  This year, I asked for specific titles and got them from my book-loving friends.  Perhaps I'll continue to do this every year.  The trick is to ask for specific books from specific people so that you don't get multiple copies of the same book.


  The best part of giving christmas presents is the extra room in your luggage for bringing back books.  I spent a week with family in BC and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I even got the honour of editing a proof copy of a book written by a member of the family.  That was cool!  Two days before coming home, I visited a local secondhand bookstore.  I spent two hours browsing to my heart's content.  And then I cashed out.  I bought 16 books (3 to give as gifts) and the owner gave me a lovely discount.  It wasn't until I went to pay for the books that I noticed the sign saying "cash or cheque only".  Thankfully, I'd stopped at the ATM for cash first.  Also, thankfully, the discount brought the total down to the exact amount of cash I had on hand: $60.  I personally feel no shame about this.  It was only the worry about possible negative comments from family that I snuck the pile into the house.  I was very happy that a few books from my very long (and ever-growing) to-read list were among my purchases.  Shoving my clothes into the smaller suitcase and putting the pile of books into my larger backpack, my newly-acquired reading material made it safely back across the country and now sit happily on my bookshelves.

  Also for the holidays, my mother brought me books she has been keeping from our childhood.  I am now the proud owner of the Collier's Junior Classics 10-volume set.  I finally can reread "The Five Chinese Brothers" whenever I wish.  Unfortunately, the set has been stored in a variety of garages over the years and had become a little unsightly.  As I was cleaning them up, I browsed through the table of contents of each.  This was when I realized that although I had loved them as a child, I never got very far in them.  "The Five Chinese Brothers" is in the first volume, along with all the various nursery rhymes I am familiar with, and I recognized a few titles from the second volume.  Any titles I recognized in the subsequent volumes are because I have encountered them elsewhere; some I have read and some I am just familiar with superficially.  This means I have a lot to catch up on.  Perhaps there will be stories from this collection that I will share lovingly with my brand-new niece as she grows older.  I fully intend to wholeheartedly support her love of reading for the rest of our lives.  And that makes me happy.

Read on,
Paula