41 books in 52 weeks!

Hello friends! I hope you all had a great holiday season! Quite a few people have asked me for book recommendations or asked what I've been reading lately - and it just so happens that last year, for the first time ever, I kept a list of ALL the books I read.

41 books in 52 weeks was only possible with lots of hours driving and working while listening to audiobooks and vacation time! It turned out to be quite an eclectic list and so I'm excited to share it with all of you, hoping you will find just the right book to read next.

Here are some fun stats:

39% audio books (16 books)

34% non-fiction (including biography/memoir) (14 books)

41% of fiction books were historical fiction (11 books)

10% books I bought (4 books)

And now, without further ado, here is an annotated list of the books I read in 2010:

(e) = audiobook

1. Unaccustomed Earth - Lahiri (short stories about people from India in the US)
2. Little House, Long Shadow - Fellman (excellent critique of the "Little House" books and their connections with Libertarians)
3. (e) Clara Callan - Wright (2 sisters in write letters to each other about their lives; set in 1930s)
4. (e) The Lost Prophecies - "The Medieval Murderers" (not very good mystery set in a monastery)
5. (e) The Swan Thieves - Kostova (present day/historical split story about landscape painters in US and Paris)
6. The Lacuna - Kinsolver (boy growing up in Mexico working for Diego Rivera, covers McCarthyism; not as good as her other books)
7. (e) Out of Range - Box (fun mystery if you are on a long drive; set near Yellowstone)
8. (e) War Dances - Alexie (Funny! Short stories about American Indians)
9. Are you there, Vodka? It's me, Chelsea - Handler (Hilarious! Laugh out loud funny stories about the fast life of a stand-up comic)
10. (e) Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr - Nix (Young adult fantasy novel; good reader for audio book)
11. (e) Burning Bright - Chevalier (GREAT historical fiction about family in 18th century London; good details of the city)
12. Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy - King (engaging critique of the "pink ribbon" movement, focuses on feminism and consumerism)
13. The Poor Philanthropist: How and Why the Poor Help Each Other - Wilkinson-Maposa (I learned so much about informal borrowing/loaning systems in parts of Africa)
14. (e) The Tenth Circle - Picoult (very much like her other books; high school girl is raped, or is it more complicated than that?...)
15. The Secret Garden - Burnett (So nice to read as I went to sleep; sweet story of friendship and overcoming challenges)
16. (e) The Whistling Wind - Hillerman (Hillerman stories are so good for the road; mysteries about American Indians set in the southwest)
17. (e) Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea - Kurlansky (epic history of nonviolence movements; so much more than just MLK)
18. King's Dream - Sundquist (great close reading of MLK's "Dream" speech; really readable and inspiring)
19. A Place of Safety: A Chief Inspector Barnaby Novel - Graham (I LOVE the Midsomer Murders BBC movies and this is the book series they are based on! Good British countryside mysteries)
20. Push - Sapphire (very real look at girl growing up poor and abused; overcoming huge barriers)
21. Cry Dignity! - Peters (about the founding of the nonprofit World Neighbors)
22. (e) Remarkable Creatures - Chevalier (another wonderful historical fictions about woman fossil hunting in 1800s England)
23. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Larsson (you've probably heard of this one...I love the spunk of the main female character; good mystery)
24. The Girl who Played with Fire - Larsson (one of the few books I bought this year; HAD to read it after finishing the first one)
25. Brandraising: How nonprofits raise visibility and money through smart communication - Durham (common nonprofits - learn how to talk about our work better!)
26. Wind in the Willows - Grahame (slow rambling story about cute animals living near a river; another good going-to-sleep book)
27. (e) The Expected One - McGowan (historian finds a gospel of Jesus's life, written by Mary Magdalene; great mystery and religious tale)
28. (e) The Cat who went Underground - Braun (love these cozy mysteries! set in the midwest)
29. (e) Pillars of the Earth - Follett (EPIC 40-hr story of a monastery and town building a cathedral in 12th century England; an excellent story!)
30. (e) The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Larsson (3rd book in the series; loved every minute of it; great on tape)
31. What's the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros - Gordon (some encouragement in the face of a seriously lame job market for librarians...)
32. A Book of Silence - Maitland (decent look into the meaning and role of silence in our world; women vows to live a silent life; she can be pretty odd at times)
33. The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe - Clark (some bits of inspiration about prayer)
34. Things Fall Apart - Achebe (Cannot believe I hadn't read this before! Great book about affects of colonization in Nigerian village)
35. New England White - Carter (good mystery until the very end; set in New Haven/Yale although not officially)
36. (e) The Help - Stockett (GREAT novel looking at lives of black and white women in the South during the 1960s; awesome on tape because of the great southern accents)
37. Prayers for a Privileged People - Brueggemann (prayers pushing "comfortable" Christians beyond their comfort zone)
38. Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America - Jacobson (Amazing academic book about the movement toward hyphenated ethnic identities and what that means for cultural and political rhetoric; especially Irish-American, Italian-American, and Jewish-American)
39. A Christmas Carol - Dickens (Boyd read this to me just before Christmas; what a good story! I want to read it every year now)
40. Doing Social Media so it Matters: A Librarian's Guide - Solomon (teaching librarians not to be scared of Facebook)
41. Angelology: A Novel - Trussoni (Angels are real and a bad, undercover force ; this mystery uncovers and fights the angels; good until the end)

Phew! I hope you are still with me... Out of all of these The Help, Pillars of the Earth, and Burning Bright were probably my favorites. They are the ones that really stuck with me.

Did you find the perfect next book to read? Let me know if you pick any of these up and tell me what you think of them!

I've already started the list for 2011... Happy reading!