I have never counted or kept track of the books I read, because I never really saw the point of counting the amount of books I read in a year (and, frankly, I still don’t). Besides, I think a year is a fairly arbitrary division. I don’t think of a year as ‘fencing in’ a certain period of time in my reading life. Which is why you probably won’t see any end-of-year statistics and best-of lists on my blog. Despite this, I decided to keep track of my reading for 2008 for the first time ever.
Links are to reviews on this blog. Books are added at the top, which means the latest book I finished is at the top.
* Australian Short Stories
* Dan Brown – Deception Point
* Dan Brown – Digital Fortress
* Ben Okri – The Famished Road
* Peter D’Hamecourt – Russen zien ze vliegen
* Laura Starink – De Russische kater
* Isabel Allende – Ines of My soul
* Chaim Potok – The Gates of November (De familie Slepak)
* Taner Akçam – A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
* Åsne Seierstad – The Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya
* Caryl Phillips (ed) – Extravagant Strangers
* Orhan Pamuk – My Father’s Suitcase (post 1 and post 2)
* Tom Rob Smith – Child 44
* Edward Rutherfurd – Russka
* Jelle Brandt Corstius – Rusland voor gevorderden: Berichten van een overlever
* Giselle Green – Pandora’s Box
* Lee Child – Killing Floor
* Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
* Jodi Picoult – Vanishing Acts
* Frank Westerman – Ararat
* Libby Cone – War on the Margins: A Novel
* Herbert van Thal (ed) – The World’s Greatest Detective Stories
* Alexander McCall Smith – Tears of the Giraffe
* Virginia Woolf – The Waves
* Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables
* Nathan Englander – The Ministry of Special Cases
* Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote (Part 1 and Part 2)
* Amos Oz – Don’t Call it Night (Noem het nog geen nacht)
* Anne Applebaum – Gulag: A History
* Geoff Ryman – Air
* Joris Luyendijk – Een goede man slaat soms zijn vrouw
* Hakan Nesser – The Return
* Anne Enright – The Gathering
* Anna Brouwer – Land van gebroken beloftes: Dochters van Rusland
* Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
* Mary S. Lovell – The Mitford Girls
* Geert Mak – De Brug
* Rafik Schami – De duistere kant van de liefde
* Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
* Shirin Ebadi – Iran Awakening
* Pieter Waterdrinker – Montagne Russe
* Rudyard Kipling – Just So Stories
* Corine de Vries – Dansen in een strafkamp
* Marjane Satrapi – The Complete Persepolis
* Goar Markosyan-Kasper – Penelope
* Alexander McCall Smith – The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
* Peter Balakian – Black Dog of Fate
* Факко & Сакко не теряют надежды – Reid, Geleijnse & Van Tol
* Vassily Aksyonov – Generations of Winter
* Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
* Helen Fisher – The First Sex
* Fazil Iskander – Tali, Het wonder van Tsjegem (Tali, The Miracle of Chegem)
* Simon Sebag Montefiore – Young Stalin
* Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
* Arthur Conan Doyle – The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2
* Orlando Figes – The Whisperers
* James Goodwin – The Snake Stone
* J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
* Madeline Albright – The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs (started in 2007, finished in 2008 )
* Deborah Tannen – You’re wearing that? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation (started in 2007, finished in 2008 )
In Europa - Geert Mak
Kindertijd Jeugdjaren Jongelingschap (Childhood Boyhood Youth) - Lev Tolstoy
I like your philosophy! Yes, one year is arbitrary, but I find it’s nice to follow along. I appreciate all of your reviews!
Thank you, Rebecca! I actually find that even though I am keeping track of my books now, I don’t feel different about my reading. I don’t feel pressure to read more or differently or something like that. Just now, I actually for the first time this year counted how many books I have read so far.