Eh. Blogging hasn't been a priority for me, but I do like seeing the lists of the books I've read! 2011 was a slow reading year for me (no wonder! completed a master's degree, dating someone, working late a lot). However, I did read some great books!

My favorites of 2011:
The Thursday Next series, by Jasper Fforde. This silly series follows a "literary detective" through the book world as she solves mysteries that affect written books. Who changed the ending of Jane Eyre? Can the Goliath Corporation be stopped? And can the characters in Hamlet ever stop fighting? These were a lot of fun to read.

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
These two are memoirs written by comedy writers/showrunners on NBC's comedies 30 Rock and The Office. I've liked their work for years, and these books were very entertaining.

The Wilder Life, by Wendy McClure.
An examination of obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie books. The author traveled to the main sites (and some minor ones) that were important in the books, and juxtaposed the importance of those books in her childhood with her current travels.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
This nonfiction look at the history of the treatment of cancer was fascinating, for a lot of personal reasons. Well-written and compelling, it offers hope for the future while remaining realistic about the extent to which treatment can help (and the fact that, often, there are no treatments that will work for more than a few months).

These is My Words, by Nancy E. Turner.
You know how sometimes, when a book has been recommended to you over and over again, you just...don't want to read it? Because you don't want to follow the bandwagon? And then you read the book and it is as great as everyone says and you like it just like everyone thought you would? This is that book, for me. I've had it on my shelf since last Christmas, after a couple more years of having it recommended to me. It's a great book.


Complete list of books:

1. The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic, by Steven Johnson. Finished January 3. (Recommended by Sheila O'Malley.)
2. Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour, by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Finished January 17.
3. Matched, by Ally Condie. Finished January 17.
4. Zombies vs. Unicorns, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. Finished January 21.
5. The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall. Finished January 26. (Recommended by the site By Common Consent, I think...)
6. Only the Good Spy Young, by Ally Carter. Finished February 27.
7. I Was Told There's Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley. Finished March 4.
8. The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. Finished March 5.
9. The Restless Dead, edited by Deborah Noyes. Finished March 6.
10. Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde. Finished March 8.
11. The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde. Finished March 12.
12. Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde. Finished March 13.
13. How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley. Finished March 19.
14. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley. Finished March 27.
15. Slam, by Nick Hornby. Finished April 18.
16. Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, by Laura Sessions Stepp. Finished April 24.
17. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde. Finished April 26.
18. Bossypants, by Tina Fey. Finished April 28.
19. One of our Thursdays Is Missing, by Jasper Fforde. Finished May 10.
20. The Lover's Dictionary, by David Levithan. Finished May 14.
21. The Passage, by Justin Cronin. Finished June 2. (Recommended by Dave.)
22. The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. Finished June 28.
23. The Wilder Life, by Wendy McClure. Finished June 23.
24. City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina,  by Jenni Bernal. Finished July 2. (I wanted to know more about New Orleans after I visited).
25. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan. Finished July 13. (Because it won the Pulitzer.)
26. You Know When the Men are Gone, by Siobhan Fallon. Finished July 4. (Got it for free at ALA, and it was good!)
27. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Finished September 11.
28. Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling. Finished September 18. (Recommended by Dave.)
29. World War Z, by Max Brooks. Finished September 24. (Re-read, in preparation for Zone One.)
30. Zone One, by Colson Whitehead. Finished October 24. (A critically acclaimed zombie book. Of course I was going to read it.)
31. The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman. Finished October 30.
32. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Finished November 1. (So bleak.)
33. Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, by Leslie Knope (and the writing staff of Parks and Recreation). Finished November 12. (Because it's my favorite TV show. The book was as awesome as the show.)
34. Is Everone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), by Mindy Kaling. Finished November 13.
35. These Is My Words, by Nancy E. Turner. Finished December 4.
36. Reamde, by Neal Stephenson. Finished December 11. (Because I love Stephenson. Except for the Quicksilver trilogy. Those books really needed an editor; I only made it halfway (which was still something like 1500 pages.)
37. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal, by Eric Schlosser. Finished December 30. (This was a re-read, although I didn't realize it until halfway through. I picked it up again on the recommendation of a girl from my freshman ward at BYU. Just as good the second time.)
38. Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton. Finished December 23. (Saw it on the new books shelf at the library. Too bad Hamilton is incredibly unlikeable, and spent the last third of the book justifying herself for her decision to divorce her husband. That ruined it for me.)

That's it--38 books. But, I'm okay with that. I had other stuff going on this year.