The year in books

Some statistics

137
Number of books read in 2009

58
Number of non-fiction titles

69
Number of fiction titles
(excluding graphic novels and Shakespeare retellings)

5
Number of graphic works

5
Number of plays and related retellings

This year's "On the nightstand" entries
12.24.2009
11.30.2009
11.06.2009
10.12.2009
9.21.2009
9.20.2009
8.12.2009
7.13.2009
6.28.2009
6.06.2009
5.10.2009
4.24.2009
4.12.2009
3.26.2009
3.16.2009
2.28.2009
1.31.2009

Books read
The following titles are arranged in (approximate) order read. I've boldfaced this year's particularly exceptional reading experiences.

■ Outside Lies Magic (John R. Stilgoe)
■ Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Elizabeth Kolbert)
■ Diary of a Provincial Lady (E.M. Delafield)
■ Walking through Walls: A Memoir (Philip Smith)
■ What I Saw And How I Lied (Judy Blundell)
■ Test (William Sleator)
■ Little Brother (Cory Doctorow)
■ Daemon (Daniel Suarez)
■ Ender in Exile (Orson Scott Card)
■ Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)
■ Julius Caesar (Adam McKeown)
■ Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
■ Reading the OED (Ammon Shea)
■ The Hours before Dawn (Celia Fremlin)
■ A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (Orson Scott Card)
■ Drawing with Charcoal, Chalk, and Sanguine Crayon
■ Studying Suzuki Piano: More Than Music (Carole L. Bigler)
■ In the Kingdom of the Fairies (Susan Coyne)
■ Nikon D40/D40x Digital Field Guide (David D. Busch)
■ First Meetings in Ender's Universe (Orson Scott Card
■ Your Child's Strengths (Jenifer Fox)
■ American Wife (Curtis Sittenfeld)
■ The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery)
■ Packaging Girlhood (Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown)
■ Watchmen (Alan Moore) *
■ Company (Max Barry)
■ Edvard Munch (Jim Whiting)
■ The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush (Ann Gerhart)
■ Edvard Munch (Alf Boe)
■ Fool (Christopher Moore) *
■ Owls in the Family (Farley Mowat)
■ Beowulf (Robert Nye)
■ The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl (Shauna Reid)
■ Hold Tight (Harlan Coben)
■ Brief Gaudy Hour (Margaret Campbell Barnes)
■ The Digital Photography Book (Scott Kelby)
■ Admission (Jean Hanff Korelitz)
■ The Glister (John Burnside)
■ Who Do You Think You Are? (Alyse Myers)
■ Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion (Al Seckel)
■ Graphic Works of Max Klinger
■ A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers (Elaine Showalter)
■ The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (Mikita Brottman)
■ The Pursuit of the Perfect (Tal Ben-Shahar)
■ Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary (Pamela Dean)
■ If I Stay (Gayle Forman)
■ Unwind (Neal Shusterman)
■ The Compound (S. A. Bodeen)
■ Columbine (Dave Cullen)
■ The Armchair Birder (John Yow)
■ Harvard Medical School Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure
■ Schooling for Life: Reclaiming the Essence of Learning (Jacqueline Grennon Brooks)
■ The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Mary E. Pearson)
■ The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson)
■ How Lincoln Learned to Read (Daniel Wolff)
■ The Principles of Uncertainty (Maira Kalman)
■ The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)
■ After Photography (Fred Ritchin)
■ Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
■ The Actor and the Housewife (Shannon Hale)
■ Dead Until Dark (Charlaine Harris)
■ Living Dead in Dallas (Charlaine Harris)
■ Club Dead (Charlaine Harris)
■ Dead to the World (Charlaine Harris)
■ The Appeal (John Grisham)
■ Lost and Found (Andrew Clements)
■ The End of the Alphabet (CS Richardson)
■ Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)
■ The Last Child (John Hart)
■ Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt)
■ Wanda Gág: The Girl Who Lived to Draw (Deborah Kogan Ray)
■ The Girlhood Diary of Wanda Gág, 1908-1909: Portrait of a Young Girl (Wanda Gág; edited by Megan O'Hara)
■ Millions of Cats (Wanda Gág)
■ Nothing at All (Wanda Gág)
■ Gone Is Gone (Wanda Gág)
■ The Report Card (Andrew Clements)
■ Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture (Kirsten Olson)
■ The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education (Maya Frost)
■ The Body of Christopher Creed (Carol Plum-Ucci)
■ Guide to Joining the Military (Scott A. Ostrow)
■ Best Friends Forever (Jennifer Weiner)
■ NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children (Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman)
■ Prairie Plants of Northern Illinois: Identification and Ecology (Russell R. Kirt)
■ A Field Guide to Wildflowers: Northeastern and North-Central North America (Peterson Field Guide)
■ A Guide to Field Identification: Wildflowers of North America
■ Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers: A Field Guide to Common Wildflowers and Plants of the Prairie Midwest (Doug Ladd and Frank Oberle)
■ A Field Guide to the Wildflowers of North America
■ Prairie in Your Pocket: A Guide to Plants of the Tallgrass Prairie (Mark Muller)
■ Where the Sky Began (John Madson)
■ Prairie: A Natural History (Candace Savage)
■ Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie
■ Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World (Rafe Esquith)
■ The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin)
■ Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Josef Pieper) *
■ Velocity (Dean Koontz)
■ The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir (Laurie Sandell)
■ Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Colors of Light (Wanda M. Corn)
■ The Art of Andrew Wyeth (Wanda M. Corn)
■ Blue Dog (George Rodrigue)
■ The Vermeer Interviews: Conversations with Seven Works of Art (Bob Raczka)
■ Betsy-Tacy (Maud Hart Lovelace)
■ The Wretched Stone (Chris Van Allsburg)
■ Much Ado about Nothing (Shakespeare)
■ What Now? (Ann Patchett)
■ A Gate at the Stairs (Lorrie Moore)
■ The Miles Between (Mary E. Pearson)
■ The Other Daughter (Lisa Gardner)
■ Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head (Carla Hannaford)
■ Bal-A-Vis-X : Rhythmic Balance/Auditory/Vision eXercises for Brain and Brain-Body Integration (Bill Hubert)
■ Brain Gym: Simple Activities for Whole Brain Learning (Paul F. Dennison)
■ Brain Gym for Business: Instant Brain Boosters for On-the-Job Success (Gail E. Dennison)
■ Hamlet (John Marsden)
■ Await Your Reply (Don Chaon)
■ The Writing Class (Jincy Willett)
■ Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar (James Marcus Bach)
■ Stitches: A Memoir (David Small)
■ Devil Dog Diary (Will Price)
■ The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey)
■ The Unit (Ninni Holmqvist)
■ Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)
■ William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Bruce Coville)
■ Manhood for Amateurs (Michael Chabon)
■ Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn)
■ The Hour I First Believed (Wally Lamb)
■ Julia Child: A Life (Laura Shapiro)
■ A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
■ Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works (Daniel T. Willingham)
■ Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell)
■ Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
■ Under the Dome (Stephen King)
■ Tomorrow When the War Began (John Marsden)
■ Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle (Brian Dennis)
■ Crow Call (Lois Lowry)
■ The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa)
■ Fat Cat (Robin Brande)
■ The Wrong Mother (Sophie Hannah)
■ The Sacrifice (Kathleen Benner Duble)

* Unfinished but not forgotten