Booked Up

Some of you may recall an earlier post where I planned to double the number of books I had read up to that point last year (14 books).  Well, now the year is over and I am just shy of my goal.  But that's OK.  I'm not going to cry about it.  In fact, I have a whole new list of books I plan to read in 2011 with the intention of doubling last year's total.  That's right.  When I fall off the horse, I get right back on.  (If you know me well, stop laughing).

So here are the 12 books I did manage to read:

★★★★★ The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Beautifully written book about a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard.  It's a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and The Jungle Book.
★★★★☆ Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford
Interesting auto-biographical account of a writer who works for free for a year in Mario Batali's restaurant and then travels to Italy to learn the art of pasta-making and butchery.  
★★★★☆ Becoming a Chef by Andrew Dorenburg and Karen Page
A compilation of successful chefs' experiences and their advice on surviving as a cook, offering an inside perspective on what it means to be a chef.
★★★★☆ Fire by Kristin Cashore
A prequel to the book Graceling.  It transports you to another world entirely-- one too complicated to explain in a simple tagline.
★★★★★ The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The moving story of a little girl who turns to books to escape the hardships of Nazi Germany.
★★★☆☆ Artemis Fowl: Book 1 by Eoin Colfer
A quirky and humorous book in which an evil boy genius plots to steal treasure from fairies.
★★★★☆ The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Cute and cuddly.  These are the classic Winnie the Pooh tales that make you smile and want to reach for a jar of honey.
★★★★☆ Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan
Offers simple yet clever guidelines to help steer you towards healthy, wholesome eating.  This is eating as it should be.  
★★★☆☆ Kaimira: The Sky Village: Book One by Monk Ashland and Nigel Ashland
A futuristic story in which a Chinese village made entirely of hot air balloons floats precariously over a war-torn world where beasts and machines fight for dominance. 
★★★★☆ The Giver by Lois Lowry
A boy raised in a utopian society gets his first dose of pain and suffering after being named Receiver of Memories and discovers that his society may not be perfect after all.
★★★☆☆ What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
A collection of interesting articles (some more interesting than others) addressing various conundrums and phenomena in our society, all written by Gladwell for the New Yorker.  
★★★☆☆ Shanghai Girls: A Novel by Lisa See
The story of two sisters and their arranged marriages to Chinese American brothers.  It offers a historical look at China from the Japanese Occupation through the Cultural Revolution and its effect on the immigrant Chinese community in Los Angeles. 


Looking back, I realize now that I read a lot of really great books in 2010.  I can't choose a favorite, but I will say that the books I probably read the most obsessively were the Hunger Games/Catching Fire/Mockingjay series (even though they did contain their share of flaws).

Now onto tackling my first book of 2011, which looks like it's going to be Julia Child's My Life in France.


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