
Here is the complete list of books that I read in 2011. There are some months that I didn’t read much, and in late December, I got an iPad since I started reading a lot more ebooks. The iPad makes reading books so much more convenient. Once you finish one, you can immediately start another. I’ve probably read a lot more because of the iPad and the 2,881 books that I have on it. I had been reading books on my MacBook Pro for the last couple of months, and I found it tiresome, especially when you read at night before going to bed. This isn’t the case with the iPad. I’ve read a lot of books on it in the month of December, almost all of them, and it was a pleasant experience.
Compared to last year, I read 41 more books. I read a total of 85 books last year. This year, I hope to reach 100. Standout books for this year were 1Q84, The Prague Cemetery, 2666, The Savage Detectives, Reamde, and the Jasper Fforde books. At the rate I read, and because of the prevalence of ebooks, I tend to read through an author’s repertoire quickly, unless they’re prolific.
Towards the end of the year, after reading a lot of fiction, I started to read some science-fiction again. I finally finished all of the Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow novels by Orson Scott Card. A friend also suggested Richard Morgan. I devoured his books, though the last one, Woken Furies, wasn’t as good as the previous two.
This is the year that I started reading many books at the same time. Once I felt that a book was challenging, I usually started reading something else, to make it easier. At the worst, I was reading 7 books at the same time. Now, I’m back to more manageable number, with still a few books to finish. I also live by a rule: any book that I start must be finished, even if it is boring. I keep my list updated with the books I read over the months. I might have to switch to a monthly digest as I have done before to make the list easier to peruse.