Books Read in 2011

43 books read this year. I'm counting the chapter books read aloud to The Son, as long as I'd never read them before. I don't know how I made it through a bookworm childhood without discovering Ramona!

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Lady Doctor Wyre by Joely Sue Burkhart
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer
The Old Silent by Martha Graham
The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
Matched by Ally Condie
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias
The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Story of the World, Volume III by Susan Wise Bauer
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer
City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
Endymion by Dan Simmons
Cane River by Lalita Tademy
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Ramona and Her Mother by Beverly Cleary
Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
Henry and the Paper Route by Beverly Cleary
Archangel by Sharon Shinn
The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray
Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
1-2-3 Magic by Thomas W. Phelan
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary
Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold
Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans
Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein
Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn

By far the most blow-me-out-of-the-water read of the year was the Hyperion quartet. Wow. 3,000+ pages of seriously epic Science Fiction, with the fate of all humanity hanging in the balance, and a surprising amount of romance.

I also really loved the last book I read this year: Jovah's Angel. I liked the world of Samaria as depicted in Archangel well enough to put the next book in the series on my Christmas list, but the characters kind of got on my nerves: the villain was ridiculously puppy-kicking evil, and the romance was reeeeaaallly old-school: lots of glowering hero and "feisty" heroine who flounces away rather than just using her damn words. Someone once said that the conflict in a romance shouldn't be something that two four-year-olds could clear up over the phone, and while it wasn't that bad, I did find myself rolling my eyes quite a bit at the drama of it all.

Jovah's Angel is a much better book with a much quieter romance, and much bigger themes: what we owe our God, our society, and our hearts, and how we manage when these demands conflict with one another. It was pretty much the perfect book for me.