Books and More Books

So... 2011 was not a stellar reading year for me; only 54 books (according to Goodreads, 22,822 pages (compared to last year's 75 books and with 27,220 pages. I don't have page stats for 2009, but I apparently read 83 books that year)). That's barely one a week. I may have to have a 100 books goal for next year, because I feel like that was a lot of time watching TV and ew. Since I have all my read books recorded on Goodreads, instead of listing every single one this year, I'm only going to list eleven (in honor of 2011) that I really loved:

1Q84, Haruki Murakami -- "I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It started out as a pretty straightforward alternate timeline tale and just got more and more surreal as the novel went on. But in a good way."

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman -- "Bushman did a good job of at least seeming to be objective about the subject matter, although obviously favorable. It is well sourced and I appreciated the source descriptions included as well since there are few neutral sources on Joseph Smith."

Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, Ken Jennings -- "It made me literally laugh out loud more than once, which is difficult to do, and I loved how Ken Jennings the narrator seemed to fall a little in love with all of the people he talked to about the history of trivia."

Nation, Terry Pratchett -- "You know when you find an author who can do no wrong? That's Pratchett for me, this is the second of three books that I've read of his and they have all been wonderful (review of the third coming soon)."

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro -- "I LOVED the conversational narration of this book. I loved how quiet it was. I loved how brilliantly British it was."

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann -- "A very interesting and highly readable book."

The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough -- "Epic. That is the word for this book. Well, really its the word for the whole building the Panama Canal undertaking, but McCullough is a narrative history genius and does a fantastic job of getting you all caught up in the thrill and the horror and the absolute hugeness of building the canal."

The Lost Gate, Orson Scott Card -- "As good, if not better, than Ender's Game."

The Modern Scholar: World War l: The Great War and the World It Made, John Ramsden -- "The lecture series is well structured and detailed enough to be interesting without bogging down a novice."

Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris -- "Morris again does an excellent job with his subject -- totally readable (in my case listen-to-able, despite a slightly over-wrought reading by Marosz) and super interesting.

Jar City, Arnaldur Indridason -- "I hugely enjoyed this book. It's not life-changing (which may be one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much, I've been reading too many life changing things lately), but it's got that thing that makes a book excellent."