Books of 2011

In 2011, I read 72 books. 72, people. Of course, when I say "read", I generally mean "listened to", as I get most of my literary fixes listening to audiobooks while I work. And, as there was a lot of working going on, there were a lot of books being consumed. I kept count on a board on Pinterest, which has been a nice way to keep them all together. I was roughly aiming for 52 - you know, one a week - so I'm rather chuffed to have got past 70. Here they all are:



A bit of a mix. 55 fiction, 17 non fiction. 7 "real" books, 3 ebooks (my first forays into digital reading), 62 audiobooks. I used to think of audiobooks as cheating, or for kids, but these days I absolutely love them. One of my favourite series to listen to is the Agatha Raisin books by MC Beaton. I've tried reading one in actual three dimensions and everything, but I find MC Beaton's style works so much better when read aloud than it does on the page. It seems quite, dare I say it, prosaic on paper, but totally full of life when read by the marvellous Penelope Keith.

I'm not sure which one would be my favourite out of these. Hmmm, tough choice. I loved Caitlin Moran's "How To Be a Woman", and would recommend it to anybody, but I read it in one evening at the height of my illness, and was swinging wildly from laughter to proper tears, so I'm not sure if I had anything like an rational reaction to it; I'll have to re-read and let you know.

I think my favourites in the fiction category would be "Rivers of London" and "Moon Over Soho" both by Ben Aaronovitch, both of which I banged on and on about at length here and here. The third in the series, "Whispers Underground" is out in March; can't wait.

In non-fiction, my fave was probably Mark Kermode's "The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex", which is basically a seven-hour rant about the crapness of modern cinema, which I was agreeing with so thoroughly I could barely concentrate on my work. I had to keep stopping it in order to actually do anything.

I've started up another board for my 2012 books. There's nowt in it yet, but it's waiting expectantly for me to fill it up with new discoveries or old friends. If you want to follow my Books of 2012 board, there's a link to it and all my other boards at the top of the right hand column over there ---->

Better get reading, got 72 to beat...