2008 Reading Year in Review

This was the first year that I kept track of all the books I read, and the final count is 64. It is mostly fiction, as I only counted books that I read all the way through, so most of the stuff that I read for research purposes or for school I only read in sections. Even though I probably should count my Evidence casebook since we got through the entire thing…

And no cheating, either! I didn’t leave anything out, so yes, now the whole world knows that I read the occasional Doctor Who tie-in novel. A girl’s got to get her intellectual popcorn somewhere, right?

So with all of that under my belt, here are a few observations:

Best Overall: The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perotta. Got this one in right under the wire during the holidays, and maybe it’s just because it’s still resonating with me, but I absolutely loved this book. I read it in a day, couldn’t put it down.

Best Newly-Discovered Series: The Dresden Files. I devoured all of those this time last year. And it looks like I’m starting off this year by doing the same with Charlaine Harris’ vampire series.

Best SciFi: Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi. Why had I never read this before? It’s fantastic.

Best Fantasy: Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr. A great addition to the YA urban fantasy world.

Best Non-Fiction: I, Avatar, by Mark Stephen Meadows. I was annoyed when I first found this book because I’d wanted to use the title for an article I was working on. :-p But it turned out to be a really fascinating look from inside Second Life.

Worst Book: Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer. I hate to even have this category, but I just… really didn’t like this book. However, I will give Meyer props for getting me to read through the entire series. And I did read the entire book in one day – I absolutely had to know what happened next, if perhaps not for the reasons the author intended.

Also, I’ve already finished a book in the new year. 😉 Two, actually, by the end of today since I’ve nearly finished with Lawrence Lessig’s new book, Remix. So I guess I need to put up a new page!