My Year of Reading

I'm a dedicated reader as well as a writer. I don't feel comfrotable unless I have a book or two in my bag. About two years ago, I started writing reviews on Amazon for everything I read as well as movies I saw. They are available here. I had the idea that reviewing books would make me concentrate more as I read -- and also perhaps remember more. It partially succeeded but even with the reviews I find many of the books I spent time with did not linger very long in my mind unfortunately.

I thought I would review my overall reading for 2009.
It turns out I read 49 books during the year, of which 31 were fiction and 18 non-fiction.

I seems to have enjoyed the non-fiction more (or at least admired more of these books.) I gave nine non-fiction books the maximum five stars and two more four stars. Among the fiction books I read, only one got five stars while four received four stars. Perhaps I'm more critical when it comes to fiction. Or perhaps I should just choose better books.

Anyway, in case anyone is interested, here's the complete list together with their ratings:
FICTION
Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Halperin *
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver ****
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ****
Rough Treatment: The 2nd Charles Resnick Mystery by John Harvey **
Personal Days by Ed Park **
City of Refuge by Tom Piazza ****
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood ****
In the Deep Midwinter by Robert Clark ****
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey **
This Night’s Foul Work by Fred Vargas ****
Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley ***
Flying by Erik Kraft **
A Dead Man in Barcelona by Michael Pearce
The Philosopher’s Apprentice by James Morrow *
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier ***
A Sundial in a Grave: 1610 by Mary Gentle **
We Can Still Be Friends by Kelly Cherry **
Frozen Sun by Stan Jones ****
The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig ***
The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta ***
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro **
Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe ***
The Fruit of Her Hands by Michelle Cameron *****
Legacy by Alan Judd ****
Flower Ney: A Red Princess Mystery by Lisa See ***
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro **
The Good Nanny by Benjamin Cheever **
A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev ***
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke ***
The Secret Fire by Martin Langfield ****
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostrova ***

NON-FICTION
Bomb Scare;The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons by Joseph Cirincione ***
The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath by Robert J. Samuelson **
You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen ****
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama *****
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptional by A.J Bacevich ***
Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries) by Jared Bernstein *****
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny *****
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins *****
Barack Obama’s America by John Kenneth White ***
The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War by Alexander Waugh ***
1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Armine Howarth *****
Sealing Their Fate: The Twenty Two Days that Decided World War II by David Downing ***
A Life in the Balance by Thomas B. Graboys ****
Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard A. Muller *****
Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism) by Frank Schaeffer ***
The Man Who Made Vermeers by Jonathan Lopez *****
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literary and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges ***
Resurrecting Hebrew by Ilan Stavans **