A year of books

I did this last year and the year before and it seemed like an interesting and maybe even useful thing to continue this year.

Trends in my reading this year? An increase in books on social media and a bit down in terms of science and fantastic fiction. A lot of that has to do with working on the My Job in 10 Years book and the reading I've been doing for that. A lot of it also has to do with the reading I did for the Sunburst Award. I was on the jury for the 2009 award (winners!) and so I did a ton of reading for that in the first half of the year. That didn't leave me that much time for other reading; it has also left me a little burnt out on fiction reading. Note that I'm not listing any of the books I read for the award as the list of submitted books isn't publicly released.

Overall, a pretty good year in reading books, but with no one book really standing out. One nice thing is that this year's Buffy DVD watching extravaganza (my wife and I watched the whole series for the first time between November2008 and July 2009) got me back into reading graphic novels a bit more than in the last few years so that is happily represented here. I think in 2010 I'll be moving a little more into non-Buffy-inspired fare...

I'll link to the reviews I've written below. I'm quite a bit behind on that score right now, so I'll try and catch up a bit, maybe with with capsule & group reviews.

So, without further ado, here's a list of all the books I've read this year, more-or-less in order:

1. First Principles: First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science by Howard Burton (review)
2. All those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners by Rutger Hauer and Patrick Quinlan (review)
3. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser (review)
4. The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World by Jacques Cousteau, Susan Schiefelbein
5. Losers Town by Daniel Depp (review)
6. Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes by Mark Bittman
7. Blasphemy by Richard Preston
8. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig (review)
9. What's So Funny by Donald E. Westlake
10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 1 by Joss Whedon, Others, Eric Powell, and Joe Bennett
11. The Rising by Brian Keene
12. Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters by Bill Tancer
13. Year's Best SF 12 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
14. The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1) by Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty (review)
15. Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer (review)
16. Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter (review)
17. Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter (review)
18. Destined for an Early Grave by Jeaniene Frost (review)
19. Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry (review)
20. The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper (review)
21. The Good Humor Man by Andrew Fox (review)
22. Berserk by Tim Lebbon
23. No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2) by Brian K. Vaughan, Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty, and Cliff Richards (review)
24. Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3) by Drew Goddard, Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty, and Jo Chen (review)
25. Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4) by Joss Whedon, Jeff Loeb, Karl Moline, and Eric Wight (review)
26. The Werewolf's Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten by Ritch Duncan and Bob Powers (sort of a review)
27. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
28. Zugzwang: A Novel by Ronan Bennett
29. Monster Planet by David Wellington
30. Shambling towards Hiroshima by James Morrow
31. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna (review)
32. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: 18 edited by Stephen Jones
33. Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5) by Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Steven S. DeKnight, and Drew Z. Greenberg
34. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 2 by Various
35. The Removers by Donald Hamilton
36. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen
37. Conan the Invincible by Robert Jordan
38. Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block
39. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization by Jeff Rubin
40. Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run by Alton Brown
41. A Flash of Hex by Jes Battis
42. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg
43. The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism by Matt Mason
44. I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto by Dave Thompson
45. Moyasimon 1: Tales of Agriculture by Ishikawa Masayuki
46. Pulp Masters edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg
47. Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. by Mitch Joel
48. Angel: After The Fall Volume 1 by Brian Lynch and Franco Urru

Notable non-fiction, in no particular order:

• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna
• All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners by Rutger Hauer and Patrick Quinlan
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Laurence Lessig
• Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg
• First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science by Howard Burton

Notable fiction, in no particular order:

• Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow
• The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper
• Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel by Jonathan Maberry
• Loser's Town: A David Spandau Novel by Daniel Depp
• Moyasimon 1: Tales of Agriculture by Ishikawa Masayuki

I hope this list provides a little inspiration to all my readers to compile their own reading list for the year. I look forward to seeing them -- feel free to drop a link in the comments.

(I've been recording every book I read since 1983 and on my other blog I've been occasionally transcribing the list on a year by year basis. I've stalled a bit the last couple of years, but I'll try and do a few more during the holidays this year. This list will also be re-posted there eventually.)