Fiction: 73
Non-fiction: 67
That works out to 11.67 books per month, 2.69 books per week.
Most books completed: January. This makes sense as I was pregnant and didn't feel like doing much other than read. (Kind of like my life right now!)
Fewest books completed: July. Again, makes sense: July was crazy busy with two weeks of church camp.
Most fiction finished: January (14). Followed by: February (10)
Most non-fiction finished: December (10). Followed by: November & March (7).
Favorite mystery series: I still enjoyed the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayers (and a few written by Jill Paton Walsh) but this year was the Year of Marsh
. I finished at least eight Roderick Alleyn mysteries this year (although it took me until October to figure out I'd been reading them out of order).Mystery Runner-Up: I should note that I finished The Complete Father Brown Stories
in August.
Best Stand Alone Mystery:The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox, read in June.
Most Disappointing Mystery: Death Comes to Pemberley
P.D. James is a master but this book (and a few annoying timeline errors) left me cold. It should have been my new favorite thing (Mr. Darcy! Solving a mystery!) but it definitely was not.Favorite Novel:Witch Wood
by John Buchan. Hard to get into, at first, but worth the effort. Philip and I both read this one. We both agree that we have nothing to compare it to - it's an original.Most Over-hyped Novel: The Age of Miracles: A Novel
by Karen Thompson Walker. Not my cup of tea. (Runners-up: The Lifeboat, The Fault in Our Stars, Next to Love, Penhally - which came highly recommended, and Fall of Giants)
Wannabe Austen-esque: Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson.
Best Classic I finally got around to reading: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
Book from my shelves that I finally got around to: Embers
by Sandor Marai, translated from the Hungarian. Didn't love it and it's no longer on my shelf.Book I read just to finish the series (and talk about with my younger brother): Inheritance
by Christopher Paolini. Book #4 of what was supposed to be a trilogy. Not my favorite series ever but I am impressed that a teenager could write a series and get it published.Books I had no business reading: The Game of Thrones series. I can see why they're popular but I wish they didn't contain so many objectionable elements. It's really over the top and I can't excuse that.
Favorite re-read: Jane of Lantern Hill
by L.M. Montgomery. One of her finest. (Do I say that about all the Montgomery books?)Best Book About Writing: The Creative Habit
by Twyla Tharp. Not about writing, per se, but definitely inspires creativity.
Best Book About Homemaking:The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket.
Best Book on Parenting: Boundaries with Kids
by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend.
Non-fiction book that inspired more reading and research: Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age by D. J. Taylor.
Best WW2 Non-fiction: Inferno: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. Excellent work - truly well done.
Best WW1 Non-fiction:The Guns of August
by Barbara Tuchman.Non-fiction more people should read:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
by Susan Cain.Runner-up:The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr.
Spiritual Living book everyone should read: The Hole in our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung.
Theology classic I finally got around to reading: Orthodoxy
by G.K. Chesterton.
Book I Wish I Hadn't Needed to Read: What Was Lost: A Christian Journey Through Miscarriage by Elise Erikson Barrett. Just what I needed and I recommend it to anyone going through miscarriage.
Favorite Biography: The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary Lovell.
Related book: The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley
Books sent to me to review: none. Guess I'm not doing this Book Blogger thing very well. (Or I ignored the emails because I couldn't be bothered.)
Books I wish had been better: so, so many. I think I'm getting pickier as I get older (and as I've finished more books).
Books in my stack: Usually around 10, sometimes more but very rarely less.
Books I should start counting in my total: cookbooks. I read a lot of them but because they're primarily recipes I've never written them down in my commonplace book. Maybe it's time to start a new list!
More books I should count: books I read aloud to my girls. I need the accountability. I really slacked off on our read alouds last year and I regret that. So far, we're doing much better this year.
There you have it. Kind of a lackluster reading year, but definitely fun because of all the mysteries. You can find find previous reading years in review here: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.
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1.The Five Love Languages of Children. Non-fiction by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. Helpful reminder that people (including smaller, younger people) have different ways of expressing and receiving love. Inspired a lot of conversation and conjecture as to what our 4 girls' "Love Languages" might be.
2.The Flight of Gemma Hardy. Fiction by Margot Livesey. This one had been in my stack for a while but I finally got interested in it. Imaginative story strongly based on 
. Found myself getting impatient with the heroine at times, but I had that same reaction to Jane Eyre, honestly, which has never been one of my favorite classic novels. (All the Bronte sisters tend to make me sigh in exasperation.) Great sense of location in this book, whether Scotland or Iceland (the two prominent countries in the story).
3. These Last Days: A Christian View of History. Non-fiction edited by Richard Phillips and Gabriel Fluhrer. A collection of essays loaned to me by Pastor Dad. Much food for thought here, even though most of the authors hold a different view of eschatology than the one I have been taught. Highly thought-provoking and good fodder for some excellent Sunday afternoon conversations between Pastor Dad, Mom, Philip and myself.
5. Backtalk: 4 Steps to Ending Rude Behavior in Your Child. Non-fiction by Audrey Ricker & Carolyn Crowder. Ordered this one from the library on a bad parenting day. Cautiously recommend, but warn that the Adlerian psychology might not be everyone's cup of tea.
6. Diary of a Provincial Lady. Fiction by E.M. Delafield. Charming vintage British "Domestic Fiction", a category recommended by book #4 above and of which I am already a committed fan, though I had never read this effort before. Think Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones's Diary fame definitely owes some thing to E.M. Delafield.
7. Turkish Delight and Treasure Hunts. Non-fiction by Jane Brocket. Another book by the author of #4 above. Fun things to do and make inspired by classic children's fiction. Definite British slant to it, which only added to the charm for me. The addition of some classic American Children's Lit probably helps it to appeal to a wider American audience (The Little House Books, for instance).
8.The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Fiction by Agatha Christie. Another Hercule Poirot mystery (see, I am getting around to them!), this one a classic because of the set up, but I can't really give more details without being a total spoiler, assuming you haven't read it. Which you should, if you're a fan of vintage mystery because this book turns the genre on its ear. I shall say no more.
10. Have a New Kid by Friday. Non-fiction by Dr. Kevin Leman. What can I say? It was a very bad day, the day I ended up ordering at least 5 parenting books from the library. So even though life did get better from that day, I still read at least three of the books I had ordered (#5, #9, #10). Of the three #9 is the one I recommend with the fewest reservations. This one is OK. Leman is very approachable and fairly lighthearted in all his books and this is no exception. (Interestingly, I think the 3 books all tended toward an 
11. Final Curtain. Fiction by Ngaio Marsh. Another great effort by Marsh, this one highlighting the reunion of Troy Alleyn (painter) and her long absent due to the Second World War husband, Detective Roderick Alleyn. Featuring another memorable cast of characters, something Marsh excelled at creating and describing.
12. A Life that Says Welcome: Simple Ways to Open Your Heart & Home to Others. Non-fiction by Karen Ehman. Hospitality does not come naturally to me. I'll blame my introversion, of course, but I also like to blame other things, like limited space. Well, Ehman blows that type of excuse out of the water with a chapter called, "The Myth of the Too-Small House". Which confirmed again for me that hospitality is something my family needs to be working on, whether God gives us the bigger house we're praying for or not. (But, yes, we are still praying hard for God to sell this house and give us some more space!) I think blogs have made some of us even worse at hospitality than we used to be: we think our houses must be perfectly decorated, we must be gourmet cooks, and our children must be the kind of children who never backtalk or argue over a Happy Meal toy. This is a practical, encouraging book for Christian women who wish to honor God's call to be hospitable:
13. Boundaries in Marriage. Non-fiction by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend. Not quite as groundbreaking (to me) as the Boundaries with Kids book, but that may be because I feel like Philip and I are a lot better at the marriage thing than we are the parenting thing.
14. The Pilgrim's Guide: C.S. Lewis & the Art of Witness. Non-fiction edited by David Mills. A collection of essays that has been in my stack and partially read for a couple of months now. Lewis is one of my heroes, and even if I didn't agree with each of the essays, this was a valuable book to me. An inspiring way to end a year of reading - I finished this one on the 31st of December.