2010: Year in Review

As 2010 comes to a close, it's time to announce my favorite books of the year as well as tally up my total reading!

Last year Hunger Games was my clear favorite, but this year's list doesn't have a without-a-doubt first place finisher.  Collins' Mockingjay came no where near the top (and would probably top my list of biggest disappointments), but a number of other books were all fabulous. Interestingly, though YA made up only one-third of my books read this year, it makes up 50% of my list.  I think this may be because I'm especially picky about the YA I read.  The order to the list is only mildly meaningful.

My top 10 books read in 2010:
1. The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
2. World War Z by Max Brooks
3. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
4. Room by Emma Donoghue
5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
7. Liar by Justine Larbalestier
8. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
9. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
10. The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by E. Lockhart

Total books read and reviewed: 109
Like last year, I reviewed all the books I read, and I also read 27 books more than in 2009.  I hadn't set a particular reading goal for this year, though I was a little pleased to break the 100 read mark. Again, I don't plan on aiming for a particular number in 2011, but I hope I'll keep about pace with this year.

Fiction read: 90
Nonfiction read: 19
Last year I made a goal to have nonfiction make up 15-20% of what I read, and I succeeded, with nonfiction comprising about 17% of the books I read.  Another goal I'll try to keep in the coming year.  I do want to try to branch into areas of nonfiction I haven't touched before. 

Adult read: 74
Young adult read: 35
My goal was to keep YA as only one third of my read books, and, again, I succeeded.  Ditto keeping this goal for next year.  I've found that recently I haven't been craving a lot of YA, and there's nothing right now that I'm really looking forward to reading.  Hopefully something soon will spark my interest.

Female authors: 51
Male authors: 58
I only recently began counting this statistic, and it was actually pretty equal up until recently when the men pulled ahead.  Although it's not something I was to focus on a lot, I do hope to be relatively equal in my reading habits next year. 

Book sources:
- Total borrowed: 82 (71 from library, 11 from friends/family/students)
- Total purchased: 8 (5 hard copies, 3 for the Kindle)
- Total for review: 9 (4 from NetGalley, 4 from NCTE, and 1 from publisher)
- Total otherwise acquired: 6 (2 as gifts, 2 from Paperback Swap, 2 won)
- Total already owned: 4 (these are books I've had for over five years)

Obviously I'm a library woman through and through.  This perhaps merits a separate post, but I've always been shocked by the number of books many book bloggers purchase.  I've always been on the thrifty side, and so I love libraries.  I can read whatever I want, for (pretty much) as long as I want, for free!  Who wouldn't take advantage of that?  I know I won't reread most books, covers have never been much of a draw, and I have no room to store books anyway.  Now, I certainly am fortunate in many ways--I have a close library that is part of a large extended system, so I can get most any book I want, and I never wait more than a few weeks.  In addition, very rarely am I "dying" to get a new release, so I never mind not being the first to have a book. 

Challenges I participated in:
- TwentyTen Reading Challenge 
- Books of the Century Challenge 
- GLBT Challenge 2010
- Persons of Color Reading Challenge

The only challenge I didn't complete was the TwentyTen challenge, and I knew I'd have a hard time doing so because I buy so few books.  One of the categories required that you read two books purchased from charity, and that never happened.  I was super excited to finish the Books of the Century challenge, even though it appears I'm the only person still doing the challenge.  It provided me the opportunity to read a number of books I wouldn't have otherwise read.

Happy new year.