What books have you read in 2008?

I agree with stewart and beer god. Counting pages cannot tell you the quality of what you've read. I've read some really long clunkers and some really short gems. And vice versa. So really, length has nothing to do with value.

Wells83 said:

I agree with stewart and beer god. Counting pages cannot tell you the quality of what you've read. I've read some really long clunkers and some really short gems. And vice versa. So really, length has nothing to do with value.

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For me personally, I found myself forcing my way through clunkers just to get the page count...it became a pride issue. Not healthy for me. If I could manage to keep the page count thing light...just for fun, that would be ok. Definately a case of milage varying here.

abecedarian said:

For me personally, I found myself forcing my way through clunkers just to get the page count...it became a pride issue. Not healthy for me. If I could manage to keep the page count thing light...just for fun, that would be ok. Definately a case of milage varying here.

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Well, really it's personal preference too. Some people love reading books that are 1,000+ pages long. And while I will read books that long, they better be good. One clubker that comes to mind is I am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe. I read it a month or two ago and it was really big, which would have been fine with me, had it been a good book, which I didn't find it to be. I hate putting books down, so I forged through it because it was only the last two hundred pages that I really hated. So yeah, I see where you're coming from. I guess my point originally is that with Charlotte, I read a hell of a lot of pages, but was so aggravated by the end, whereas another book I read recently, Sula, by Toni Morrison, had a profound effect on me but was only about 100-150 pages.

ETA: Not to mention that FourTonMantis's theory would seem to discount short stories and novellas, which can be as powerful as any book. The Awakening, The Yellow Wallpaper, Metamorphosis...

I didn't say anything about measuring the quality of what you're reading. What I mean by progress is your comprehension speed and the overall volume of content taken in. I find that the more I read, the better I am at reading and can comprehend and decode information a lot faster.

For example, at the beginning of the year, I started to read From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Not a particularly difficult book at all, but I had some trouble comprehending certain ideas Friedman was attempting to get across and some of the relationships of events in the book. I quit about 80 pages in. I picked it up again about a day or so ago after having read those 15,007 pages and find that understanding and comprehension comes much faster and ideas Friedman is presenting are clicking like they weren't before; it's actually holding my interest this time.

I'll go ahead now and list the books I read in 2008

January
The Thirteenth Tale, Dianne Setterfield
Hanna's Daughters, Marianne Fredriksson
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max
Choke, Chuck Pahalniuk
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
Surfacing, Margaret Atwood
The Distant Land of my Father, Bo Caldwell
The Last Witchfinder, James Morrow
The Kitchen Boy, Robert Alexander
Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt

February
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
Duchess: The Story of Sarah Churchill, Susan Holloway Scott
'Tis, Frank McCourt
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishigaro
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
This Common Secret, Susan Wicklund
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Sisters, Mary S Lovell
Falling Man, Don DeLillo

March
Those Who Save Us, Jenna Blum
An Inconvenient Book, Glenn Beck
Atonement, Ian McEwan
When the Dancing Stopped, Brian Hicks
Pnin, Vladimir Nabakov
Michael Moore is a Big, Fat, Stupid White Man, Jason Clark and David T Hardy
The American Way of Death Revisited, Jessica Mitford
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd be Republicans, Ann Coulter

April
Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
Gold Digger, Constance Rosenblum
Stardust, Neil Gaiman
The Plague, Albert Camus
Are You There Vodka, It's Me, Chelsea, Chelsea Handler
The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky

May
Loving Frank, Nancy Horan
The Wednesday Letters, Jason F Wright
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
The Real McCain, Cliff Schecter
Nectar From a Stone, Jane Guill
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
1000 White Women, Jim Fergus

June
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Victorian London, Liza Picard
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The Year of Living Biblically, AJ Jacobs
The Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick
Possible Side Effects, Augusten Burroughs
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

July
Spook, Mary Roach
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
The Family, Ed Sanders
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir
Death in a Prairie House, William Drennan
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Louder Than Words, Jenny McCarthy
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
The Shining, Stephen King
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
The Body Project, Joan Jacob Brumberg
The Light of the Home, Harvey Green
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier

August
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Meaning of Wife, Anne Kingston
The Know-It-All, AJ Jacobs
Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
The City of Ember, Jeanne Duprau
Sellevision, Augusten Burroughs
Fanny Hill, John Cleland
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
Dry, Augusten Burroughs
The Conservative's Handbook, Phil Valentine
Freakonomics, Stephen D Levitt and Steven Dubner
Prom Nights from Hell, Misc

September
Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev
The Obama Nation, Jerome Corsi
Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
The Firefly Cloak, Sheri Reynolds
The Politically Incorrect Guide to English Literature, Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D

October
Blood Sucking Fiends, Christopher Moore
The Complete Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow
Fleeced, Dick Morris
The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike
The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
Veronika Decides to Die, Paul Coelho
Bonk, Mary Roach
The Rules of Attraction, Bret Easton Ellis

November
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincey
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
The Acid House, Irvine Welsh
American Eve, Pauline Uruburu
I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
The North China Lover, Marguerite Duras

December
Shakespeare, Bill Bryson
Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
Sula, Toni Morrison
Look at my Striped Shirt, Phat Phree
The Waiter Rant, the waiter
Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
A Million Little Pieces, James Frey
The Girls That Went Away, Ann Fessler

FourTonMantis said:

I didn't say anything about measuring the quality of what you're reading. What I mean by progress is your comprehension speed and the overall volume of content taken in. I find that the more I read, the better I am at reading and can comprehend and decode information a lot faster.

For example, at the beginning of the year, I started to read From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Not a particularly difficult book at all, but I had some trouble comprehending certain ideas Friedman was attempting to get across and some of the relationships of events in the book. I quit about 80 pages in. I picked it up again about a day or so ago after having read those 15,007 pages and find that understanding and comprehension comes much faster and ideas Friedman is presenting are clicking like they weren't before; it's actually holding my interest this time.

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I think quality is what's important. Counting pages or books read means nothing. I enjoy reading Louis L'Amour novels, but if I sat down and read through 100 of his best, it wouldn't do anything to help my comprehension when I sit down to read something from Nabokov or Márquez.

The lists that users post are interesting to me because I like seeing what others are reading and because I pick up more then a few good titles from readers like Stewart and saliotthomas.

FourTonMantis said:

I didn't say anything about measuring the quality of what you're reading. What I mean by progress is your comprehension speed and the overall volume of content taken in. I find that the more I read, the better I am at reading and can comprehend and decode information a lot faster.

For example, at the beginning of the year, I started to read From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Not a particularly difficult book at all, but I had some trouble comprehending certain ideas Friedman was attempting to get across and some of the relationships of events in the book. I quit about 80 pages in. I picked it up again about a day or so ago after having read those 15,007 pages and find that understanding and comprehension comes much faster and ideas Friedman is presenting are clicking like they weren't before; it's actually holding my interest this time.

Click to expand...

But increasing your comprehension has everything to do with the quality of what you are reading rather than the quantity. Reading 15, 007 pages of Dr Suess or Enid Blyton isn't going to do much to improve your understanding.
I find what people are reading so much more interesting than how much they have read (although the amount that some of you read blows my mind).

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
The Sweet-Shop Owner by Graham Swift
Last Orders by Graham Swift
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The First Circle by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg
The Ruins by Scott Smith
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
For Love of the Game by Michael Shaara
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Everyman by Philip Roth
The Last Oracle by James Rollins
Ramage by
Ramage and the Drumbeat by
Governor Ramage RN by
Ramage's Prize by Dudley Pope
Ramage and the Guillotine by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Diamond by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Mutiny by Dudley Pope
Ramage and the Rebels by Dudley Pope
The Ramage Touch by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Signal by Dudley Pope
Ramage and the Renegades by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Devil by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Trial by Dudley Pope
Ramage's Challenge by Dudley Pope
Ramage at Trafalgar by Dudley Pope
Ramage and the Saracens by Dudley Pope
Ramage and the Dido by Dudley Pope
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Telegraph Days by Larry McMurtry
Traveler by Ron McLarty
The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Embers by Sandor Marai
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Once upon the River Love by Andrei Makine
Fair Blows the Wind by Louis L'Amour
The Key Lock Man by Louis L'Amour
Radigan by Louis L'Amour
Conagher by Louis L'Amour
Proving Trail by Louis L'Amour
Bendigo Shafter by Louis L'Amour
To Tame A Land by Louis L'Amour
The Iron Marshal by Louis L'Amour
Long Ride Home by Louis L'Amour
Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
Cujo by Stephen King
Stand into Danger by Alexander Kent
Band of Brothers by Alexander Kent
Midshipman Bolitho and the 'Avenger' by Alexander Kent
Midshipman Bolitho by Alexander Kent
To Glory We Steer by Alexander Kent
The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton
The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Spencer's Mountain by Earl Hamner
The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale
Man of the Forest by Zane Grey
The Hash Knife Outfit by Zane Grey
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester
The Captain from Connecticut by C. S. Forester
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig
Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig
English Creek by Ivan Doig
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Chase by Clive Cussler
The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Utopia by Lincoln Child
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
The Sea by John Banville
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
For One More Day by Mitch Albom

1. Ilkeät Sisarpuolet - Kaari Utrio
2. Tummien Perhosten Koti - Leena Lander
3. July's People - Nadine Gordimer
4. The Motorcycle Diaries - Ernesto Che Guevara
6. Beautiful Child - Torey Hayden
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
8. Mutant Message Down Under - Marlo Morgan
9. Tulkoon Myrsky - Leena Lander
10. Käsky - Leena Lander
11. Message From Forever - Marlo Morgan
12. Anna Minun Rakastaa Enemmän - Juha Itkonen
13. On Beauty - Zadie Smith
14. The Nanny Diaries - Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
15. Moominpappa At Sea - Tove Jansson
16. Jungle Child - sabine Kuegler
17. The God Of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
18. The Tiger’s Child - Torey Hayden
19. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
20. So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish - Douglas Adams
21. Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostojevski
22. The General in His Labyrinth - Gabriel García Márquez
23. Luonas En Ollutkaan - Leena Lehtolainen
24. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
25. Enon opetukset - Petri Tamminen
26. Sokkopeli - Virpi Hämeen-Anttila
27. Juhannusvieras - Anna-Leena Härkönen
28. Atonement - Ian McEwan
29. The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
30. The Name Of The Rose - Umberto Eco
31. The Hours - Michael Cunningham
32. A Blessed Child - Linn Ullmann
33. Before You Sleep - Linn Ullmann
34. Grace - Linn Ullmann
35. Veronika Decides To Die - Paulo Coelho
36. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
37. Stalinin Lehmät - Sofi Oksanen
38. Breakfast At Tiffany's - Truman Capote
39. The House Of Paper - Carlos maia Dominquez
40. The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho
41. Vadelmavenepakolainen - Miika Nousiainen
42. Sikalat - Susanna Alakoski
43. Jerusalem - Selma Lagerlöf

I've thought about counting pages also, but then I realize that the philosophy books I read may have fewer pages, but they take 400% more time to read. A 150 page book outlining Nietzsche's philosophy might take me a week or two to digest, whereas a work of fiction the same length will take me a matter of hours. Quality should always trump quantity in the end, but something irrational in me wants to increase my book count every year, regardless that reading more doesn't necessarily mean comprehending more.

My final list (I thought I could edit my original post... whoops... :blush:

50. Japanese in Mangaland by Bernabe
49. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
48. Heidegger: An Introduction by Polk
47. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (tr. Bernard O'Donoghue)
46. Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut
45. The Dominant Animal by Ehrlich and Ehrlich
44. Heidegger's Being and Time: A Reader's Guide by Blattner
43. Vox by Nicholson Baker
42. Complete Peanuts 1969-1970 by Schulz
41. The US-Mexican War by Christensen
40. Heidegger's Being and Time by William Large
39. East, West by Salman Rushdie
38. Krazy and Ignatz, 1943-1944 by Herriman
37. Heidegger: A Guide For the Perplexed by Cerbone
36. Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker
35. Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction by Coles
34. Kant by Walker
33. The World According To Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
32. Ayer by Hanfling
31. Salman Rushdie: A Beginner's Guide by Blake
30. Hume by Quinton
29. Shinto: Origins, Rituals, Festivals, Spirits, Sacred Places by Littleton
28. Popper by Raphael
27. A Rulebook for Arguments by Weston
26. Plato by Williams
25. The Wizard of Oz by Salman Rushdie
24. Socrates by Gottlieb
23. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Garcia Marquez
22. Pascal by Rogers
21. The Overspent American by Juliet Schor
20. Berkeley by Berman
19. How To Move To Canada: A Primer For Americans by Loeb Kreuzer
18. Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie
17. The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life by Derber
16. Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut
15. The Complete Peanuts 1967-1968 by Schulz
14. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Fagan
13. The Cartoon History of the Universe III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance by Larry Gonick
12. Husserl: A Guide for the Perplexed by Matheson Russell
11. Points in Time by Paul Bowles
10. Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker
9. Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton
8. Experimental Phenomenology: An Introduction by Don Ihde
7. Krazy & Ignatz, 1941-1942: "A Ragout of Raspberries" by George Herriman
6. The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong
5. Introduction to Phenomenology by Robert Sokolowski
4. Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography by Francis Wheen
3. Popeye Vol. 2: "Well Blow Me Down!" by E. C. Segar
2. How to Read Nietzsche by Keith Ansell Pearson
1. Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture by John Strausbaugh

A decent year for me...

Problogger: how to do blogging.

Good book , but not excellent.

I haven't really kept track of what I read in 2008, but here's the list of what I remember reading:
1. Murder in the Mews, by Agatha Christie
2. Into the wild, by Jon Krakauer
3. Amorous Tales from the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
4. The poisoned chocolate case, by Anthony Berkeley
5. The Lover, by Marguerite Duras
6. The Egiptian Cross Mystery, by Ellery Queen
7. A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, by Charles Dickens

What I remember

Birdsong
Charlotte Grey
The Emperor series by Conn Iggulden
The druid king
If you could see me now
Chesil Beach
The girl at the the Lion D'or
American Psycho
Zeldas cut
The first Casualty
Viking series book 2
Women in love

Books to read

I am amazed by the precision of you guys, working it all out by month etc. I prefer freestyle reading. I know my next 2 books only.

Born on a Sheaf of Straw by Brian Edkins. I heard it was good.

and... probably

Richard Branson's Biography - just because