{"id":3271,"date":"2012-01-06T19:02:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T01:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2012\/01\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2011.html"},"modified":"2019-01-15T19:18:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T01:18:21","slug":"girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2012\/01\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2011.html","title":{"rendered":"GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read 113 books in 2011<\/a> which is higher than my 85-book average for the past 6 years (see more stats here<\/a>) but pretty much par for the course. Also I don’t usually include textbooks and articles on my reading lists but this year I did include all the children’s and YA fiction I read for a class I took this fall because, after all, it was fiction! \ud83d\ude42 It wasn’t a class that counted toward my degree, just an elective I had been wanting to take. Only crazy people take an extra class during student teaching though; I can’t say I really recommend it!<\/p>\n

I read more non-fiction than usual (a lot of memoirs!) but no short stories at all. What? (I did start 2012 off with some<\/a> though!)<\/p>\n

It’s always hard to pin these things down, but…<\/p>\n

My top six very favorite books read during 2011 were (not in any order) “Wonderstruck” by Brian Selznick<\/strong>, Love Is the Higher Law, by David Levithan<\/strong>, “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett<\/strong>, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God”, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein<\/strong> (that’s fiction, despite its non-fiction-like sounding title), “Mother’s Milk” by Edward St. Aubyn<\/strong> and “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I also really really loved two of the last books I read in December: “A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness<\/strong> (not at all Twilight for adults, as I keep seeing it called–the quirks of the publishing industry’s advertising could really drive one to madness, couldn’t they?) and “Falling Together” by Marisa de los Santos<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I do read a ton of both adult and YA fantasy\/sci fi, as you might know heh, and my favorites in 2011 were “Divergent” by Veronica Roth<\/strong>, “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss<\/strong>, “Aftertime” by Sophie Littlefield<\/strong>, “Across the Universe” by Beth Revis<\/strong> and “Hunger” by Jackie Morse Kessler<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Other YA, but not fantasy, or not really, books I loved were “Ninth Ward” by Jewell Parker Rhodes<\/strong>, and both “Okay for Now”<\/strong> and “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt<\/strong>. And I particularly loved a novel in verse “Inside Out & Back Again” by Thanhha Lai<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Rosanne Cash<\/strong> and Keith Richards<\/strong>‘ memoirs, I loved both the fiction and non-fiction I read by David H. Hackworth<\/strong>, widely known as one of America’s most decorated soldiers (now deceased), I would recommend absolutely any and everything (romance and memoir) written by my good friend Rachael Herron<\/strong> and if you want to revisit my favorite fantasy books of all time as I did this year I recommend The Tornor Chronicles by Elizabeth A. Lynn<\/strong> (book 1 is “Watchtower”<\/strong>) and The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander<\/strong> (book 1 is “The Book of Three”<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

I read a LOT of stuff I loved this year, a lot of stuff that was good and fun and only a very few things I wish I hadn’t wasted time on and most of those wouldn’t wind up appearing on the read list anyway! \ud83d\ude42 I grew out of that whole “I HAVE to finish every book I start!” baloney in my late 30s. There just isn’t time for bad books. And there are SO many good ones out there!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read 113 books in 2011 which is higher than my 85-book average for the past 6 years (see more stats here) but pretty much par for the course. Also I don’t usually include textbooks and articles on my reading … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,63,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-76","category-all-faves","category-favebooks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3370,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions\/3370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}