2010 Reading Round-Up

My reading goal for this year was to read 10 grown-up books. I got off to a rocky start, but I did it, plus one! Here they are:

• Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)


• The Lovely Bones


• Firefly Lane


• The Selfish Gene


• Life from an RNA World: The Ancestor Within


• A Walk in the Woods


• Galapagos: The Islands that Changed the World


• The Road


• Water for Elephants


• Three Cups of Tea


• Cradle of Gold

Remarkably (for someone who prefers fiction), 7 of my 11 are non-fiction. I attribute that to an immediate interest in the origin of life (The Selfish Gene and Life from and RNA World, neither of which satisfied my particular curiosity) and impending travel (Galapagos and Cradle of Gold). Of these, A Walk in the Woods was my favorite. It was funny and interesting, even for a non-outdoorsy person like me. It was so good, I made B read it too. Water for Elephants and Three Cups of Tea both lived up to their reputations. The others, meh.

I also read (almost) 11 kids' books, and though none of them were fabulous, most of them were pretty good. (The "almost" is because I haven't finished the last one yet, Forge. But it's good, and I plan to finish it before the year is out.)

I can't expect to have any more time to read next year than I did this year, and I got a lot of books as gifts. My "To Read" shelf now contains 30 books; some will be challenging. Therefore, my goal for 2011 will be to read at least 15 of these. I'll supplement the selection with kids' books from the library. And of course, I'll also be reading an immunology textbook and parts of a cell biology text. What are you reading?