52 Books in 52 Weeks, 2006 Edition

For the sake of completeness, here is the list of books I read in 2006. I didn’t realize until now that I only managed 48 books that year, which I think says a lot about rules and how they can do more harm than good.

• Colicchio, Tom. Think Like a Chef.
• Bear, Greg. Dead Lines.
• Alder, Ken. The Measure of All Things.
• Wozniak, Steve. iWoz: How I invented the personal computer, co-founded Apple, and had fun doing it.
• Spencer-Fleming, Julia. All Mortal Flesh.
• Coupland, Douglas. JPod.
• O’Brien, Cormac. Secret Lives of the First Ladies: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Women of the White House.
• Haddon, Mark. A Spot of Bother.
• DeMille, Nelson. The Charm School.
• Connelly, Michael. Void Moon.
• MacDonald, Laura. Curse of the Narrows.
• Barry, Dave. Tricky Business.
• Pelecanos, George P. Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go.
• Pelecanos, George P. Nick’s Trip.
• Pelecanos, George P. A Firing Offense.
• Vowell, Sarah. Assassination Vacation.
• Taber, George M. Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine.
• Oliver, Garrett. The Brewmaster’s Table.
• Noonen, Greg. New Brewing Lager Beer.
• MacFarlane, Alan. The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World.
• Meloy, Maile. Liars and Saints.
• Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Child, Lee. The Hard Way.
• Marson, Bonnie. Sleeping with Schubert.
• Pratchett, Terry. Thud!
• Ackerman, Kenneth D. Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield.
• Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
• Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses.
• Cody, Diablo. Candy Girl.
• Rucka, Greg. Private Wars.
• Smith, Kyle. Love Monkey.
• Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.
• Toole, John Kennedy. A Confederacy of Dunces.
• Defrain, Darren. The Salt Palace.
• Tayman, John. The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai.
• King, Stephen. Cell.
• Winchester, Simon. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906.
• Robbins, Tom. Wild Ducks Flying Backward.
• Pratchett, Terry. Going Postal.
• Levitt, Steven D. and Dubner, Stephen J. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
• Gaiman, Neil. Anansi Boys.
• Hornby, Nick. A Long Way Down.
• Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink.
• Berendt, John. The City of Falling Angels.
• Pelecanos, George. Hard Revolution.
• Story, Rosalyn. More than You Know.
• Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild.
• Grafton, Sue. S is for Silence.

52 Books in 52 Weeks, 2007 Edition

In past years, I’ve tried a number of rules to adhere to the letter of the “52 books in 52 weeks” law. In general, I’ve found they get in the way of just reading. So, this year I lifted most of the restrictions, and decided to start on 1 January, stop on 31 December, and come what may in the middle.

The results were a little surprising.

I passed 52 books somewhere in October or November, I forget which. Even with something of a dry spell towards the end of the year, I still managed to finish my 65th book on 30 December.

Highlights from the year in reading:

• No more Harry Potter books. This is a mixed blessing, as they got so big there at the end that they took a fair chunk of time to read.
• Three more novels by Lee Child from the Jack Reacher series. I feel a little guilty about devoting so much of the year (almost 5%) to a single author, but they’re ripping yarns, and I just can’t help myself.
• Three books with “CIA” in the title. I didn’t notice that until reviewing this list.
• I’m glad I have discovered Angela Nissel. (Come to think of it, her book makes two by panelists from NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.)
• Ken Jennings’ Braniac led me to http://www.ken-jennings.com, which was worth reading the book by itself. (Not that the book wasn’t worth it, too. Highly recommended.) I’ve been subscribed to his Tuesday Trivia email for several months now, and while I don’t compete for the big prizes, I enjoy playing along at home.

Forward-selling for 2008:

• After two years, Sue Grafton finally delivered T is for Trespass. Santa delivered it below the tree. It will be my first read for the year. (By this weekend. I promise.)
• Also on deck currently are The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold (author of The Lovely Bones, which remains one of my favorite books evar) and Heat by Bill Buford (a spontaneous pickup at the library).
• And of course, some fraction of the hundreds of books on my todo list.

The list for 2007, in reverse chronological order:

• Child, Lee. Die Trying.
• Gischler, Victor. Suicide Squeeze.
• Bodanis, David. Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity.
• Rankin, Ian. Watchman.
• Couch, Dick. The Finishing School: Earning the Navy SEAL Trident.
• Pratchett, Terry. Making Money.
• Ferguson, Niall. Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire.
• Miller, John Ramsey. Inside Out.
• Finder, Joseph. Paranoia.
• Abbott, Karen. Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul.
• Gibson, William. Spook Country.
• Black, Baxter. Hey, Cowboy, Wanna Get Lucky?
• Brooks, Max. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.
• Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns.
• Connolly, John. Bad Men.
• Connelly, Michael. The Black Echo.
• Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
• Plotz, Dave. The Genius Factory.
• Moran, Lindsay. Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy.
• Pelecanos, George. Drama City.
• Reilly, Rick. Hate Mail from Cheerleaders.
• Levinson, Marc. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.
• Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods.
• Child, Lee. Killing Floor.
• Picoult, Jody. Nineteen Minutes.
• Butcher, Jim. White Night.
• Joss, Morag. Funeral Music.
• Budiansky, Stephen. Battle of Wits.
• Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
• Dunning, John. The Bookman’s Promise.
• Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• Yuan, Michael Juntao and Heute, Thomas. JBoss Seam: Simplicity and Power Beyond Java EE.
• Meltzer, Brad. The Zero Game.
• Pelecanos, George. The Night Gardener.
• Gehtland, Justin; Galbraith, Ben; Almaer, Dion. Pragmatic Ajax.
• Nissel, Angela. The Broke Diaries: The Completely True and Hilarious Misadventures of a Good Girl Gone Broke.
• Brogan, Jan. A Confidential Source.
• Bodanis, David. E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.
• Preston, Douglas and Child, Lincoln. Still Life with Crows.
• Smiley, Jane. A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money and Luck.
• Phillips, Scott. Cottonwood.
• Sterling, Bruce. The Zenith Angle.
• Child, Lee. Bad Luck and Trouble.
• Godin, Seth. Small is the New Big, and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas.
• Hiaasen, Carl. Nature Girl.
• Tennant, Alan. On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon.
• Lehrer, Kate. Confessions of a Bigamist.
• Viesturs, Ed with Roberts, David. No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s Highest Peaks.
• Schwarcz, Joe. The Fly in the Ointment: 70 Fascinating Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Life.
• Krueger, William Kent. Blood Hollow.
• Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail.
• Andrews, Russell. Aphrodite.
• Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America.
• Heffernan, Thomas Farel. Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock.
• Johansen, Iris. Fatal Tide.
• Katzenbach, John. The Analyst.
• Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things.
• Halpern, Jake. Braving Home: Dispatches from the Underwater Town, the Lava-Side Inn, and other extreme locales.
• Littell, Robert. The Company: A Novel of the CIA.
• Duncan, Dayton. Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip.
• Jensen, Jane. Dante’s Equation.
• Richelson, Jeffrey. The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology.
• Felber, Adam. Schrödinger’s Ball.
• Groneberg, Tom. One Good Horse.
• Jennings, Ken. Braniac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs.