I read a whopping 59 books this year, and that doesn’t even count all of my travel books.  That’s a whopping 15 more than last year!  I have started to include books I consult for travel, though I am still inconsistent on that because I try not to add it unless I really have gone through the whole thing.  I also added a “gave up” category.  I think giving up on books really allowed me to get to books I wanted to read!

47 non-fiction/80% (27 last year/41%>last year)

12 fiction/20% (17 last year/41%<last year)

I was consistent for the last two years, so this is amazingly different.  Screw you, fiction!

16 were audio, a few less than last year.  My love for the NYPL digital library has gone a little south.  The search and hold systems are painful to use.

This year I tried a lot of new authors, and have been reading a lot of self-help-type books.  I am very interested in life coaching after reading things last year like “The Four Hour Workweek,” “Stumbling Upon Happiness,” and things of the GTD ilk.  All of these seem like real common sense to me, and convince me I should be a life coach.  Food books, as always, were prominent, with more gardening books.

I have only met two of this year’s authors (Kinky Friedman and Simon Winchester), but I have sustained some personal correspondence with one (Ben Woods), and seen two in person (David Sedaris and Chuck Palanhiuk).

Biggest surprise:

Biggest letdown: Now You See Him-compared to Donna Tartt, moody, tense with no payoff. It was billed as mysterious and shocking and was neither.

Favorites: All Michael Largo and Matt Ruff books, Micronations, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Finding George Orwell in Burma

Most Overrated: Now You See Him,

Books I could not finish this year included: Slackonomics; Dear American Airlines; The Wicker Man; Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys; Tweak

I most recommend: Anything Matt Ruff; George Orwell in Burma

Best book tech this year:Magnetic bookmarks! Goodreads–helps me keep track of what I am reading, and I love seeing what other people are reading.   And I converted to Bookmooch this year; Also, Powells.com lets you sell books on the Innernets! I guess magazines in Google Books, though I find it annoying to search

Worst book tech: Espresso Book Machines in libraries. Um, all libraries already have a better quality copy of Tom Sawyer, NYPL.  I get how hot the machines are.  I love them.  They make me all excited.  They are just not library relevant right now.  Try a better ebook system if you are so bug nutty for tech.

Book tech I am still not into:  Though I like it in concept, and I love the people that work there, I still have no idea why anyone would want to catalog their personal library.  I catalog things when people pay me to do so and I jettison books as soon as possible.  Sorry, Librarything.  Kudos re: early reviewer copies and Santathing though.

Book Wish(es) for 2k9: An e-book reader I can somehow check books out from the library with; Less crazy DRMs on ebooks I check out from Overdrive (hey, why can’t I check a book back in?!); A more universal book wishlist export standard (so every time a new book website comes out, I don’t have to put all 658 books on the new list manually.  Seriously people, Amazon is the standard.  Find a way to import it.