Books of the Year 2012

A list of the books I read in 2012. It is considerably less mighty than those of previous years, for which I blame grad school. I did tons of reading this year, but not all of it was in book form.

1. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi 1/27
2. The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher by Randolph Hock 1/30
3. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan 2/24
4. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston 2/28
5. The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan 3/2
6. The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan 3/8
7. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan 3/13
8. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 4/4
9. A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin 4/29
10. The Oxford Guide to Library Research by Thomas Mann 4/29
11. Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin 5/29
12. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin 6/16
13. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin 6/26
14. Out of Oz: The final volume in the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire 7/12
15. The Craft of Research, 3^rd Edition by Booth, Colomb, and Williams 7/22
16. Bringing It All Together: Language and Literacy in the Multilingual Classroom by Marcia Brechtel 8/30
17. Endymion by Dan Simmons 9/19
18. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel Beck, et al. 9/26
19. The Pearl by John Steinbeck 10/30
20. Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons 11/11
21. My Brother Sam is Dead by Collier and Collier 11/ 19
22. The Magician King by Lev Grossman 11/27

Some trends:

• I read books that I assigned to my students
• I read books about teaching
• I read/finished a few series: A Song of Ice and Fire, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Hyperion Cantos, etc. 

Goals for 2012:

• Read at least 52 books (grad school will soon be done, so not unreasonable).
• Ride my bike 1000+ miles.

Books of the Year: 2011

This is the 4th consecutive year that I've kept track of what books I read. Unfortunately, this is the only year where the number of books decreased from the previous year (last year I read 51 books). I attribute this to grad school and being a new teacher. Despite reading less books in their entirety, I know I spent tons of time reading this year. Last semester, it seems like all I did was read. So, even though I apparently read less, I probably read at least the same amount, or possibly more.

Anyway, the books. It goes Title author, date I finished reading it

1. Children of God, Mary Doria Russel 1/2 (don't worry, this is a sci-fi novel)
2. The Rise and Fall of Languages, RMW Dixon 1/5
3. The Forever Machine, Mark Clifton 1/11
4. The Art of Teaching Spanish: Second Language Acquisition from Research to Praxis, Salaberry & Lafford 1/14
5. Double Star, Robert Heinlein 1/16
6. What to Eat, Marion Nestle 1/26
7. The Big Time, Fritz Leiber 1/28
8. Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov 2/17
9. Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman 2/23
10. The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi 2/28
11. Starship Troopers, Robery Heinlein 3/13
12. Foundation, Isaac Asimov 3/21
13. Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov 3/22
14. Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov 3/24
15. Foundation's Edge, Isaac Asimov 4/2
16. If I'm so Successful, Why do I Feel like a Fake? Harvey Katz 4/11
17. Foundation and Earth, Isaac Asimov 4/21
18. The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, Tony Attwood 4/25
19. Aspergirls, Rudy Simone 4/26
20. Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson 4/30
21. Prelude to Foundation, Isaac Asimov 5/18
22. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins 5/21
23. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins 5/23
24. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins 5/26
25. Asperger's Syndrome and Anxiety: A Guide to Successful Stress Management, Nick Dubin 5/31
26. Omnilingual, H. Beam Piper 5/31
27. Containment, Christian Cantrell 6/3
28. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, H.R. Ellis Davidson 6/15
29. Forward the Foundation, Isaac Asimov 6/17
30. The Passage, Justin Cronin 6/26
31. This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, Marilyn Johnson 7/1
32. The Wild Things, Dave Eggers 7/2
33. Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages, Alex Wright 7/14
34. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, David Weinberger 7/19
35. Hyperion, Dan Simmons 7/28
36. Ambient Findability, Peter Morville 8/9
37. Crash Course in Public Library Administration, Wayne Disher 8/15
38. The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War, Michael Shaara 9/17
39. The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons 11/5
40. A Fire upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge 11/24
41. The Lightening Thief, Rick Riordan 11/25
42. California: A History, Kevin Starr 12/28

Trends:

• I didn't manage to get through any books in languages other than English this year. Sort of horrifying, but I think this is indicative of how all-consuming it was to finish my credential/get a job/maintain my job/start my masters
• I started reading through Hugo Award winners, of which I read 8 this year.
• 30 of the books I read were Kindle books, which means I'm reading a lot more digitally. 
• 15 were non-fiction. My non-fiction doesn't seem to follow much of a trend. Once again, I seem interested in everything.

Goals for 2012?

I can't really bring myself to set any goals because I know this year is going to be crazy between work, my MLIS and getting my clear credential. Other things being equal, I hope to read at least 50 books, some of those should be in languages other than English (notably Spanish and Arabic). I want to keep reading through Hugo winners because that has been interesting so far.

My non-reading goal is to write and blog more. We'll see how that goes, too.