What I Read in 2008

I set out at the beginning of 2008 to see if I could do something I’d never specifically tried to do: read 52 books in 52 weeks. This has been a pursuit of bloggers for years (I’m far from the first to attempt it), but as a pretty busy guy, but also one who reads a lot, I wanted to see how I stacked up.

Turns out, pretty well.

In 2008, I read 83 books. When I started the project, I worried that I might not make it to 52, which could have been embarrassing for a professional writer. Guess I don’t need to worry about that, eh?

Here’s how my 2008 reading broke down by type of book:

I’m not surprised to see so many comics on the list (though I managed 52-in-52 with comics alone). After all, a 150-page comic can be read in an hour or two, while an equivalently long novel needs to be broken over a couple of days. I am surprised to see so many novels. I’ve been feeling a little disconnected from novels in recent years and have been preferring short story collections, so seeing that I read more than twice as many novels as story collections is a bit of a surprise.

For 2009, my reading goals are:

• Read more short story collections
• Up the number of business books to 3
• Drop back on comics a little, and make up the difference in prose

Around this time next year, we’ll see how I did.

(The photo above is of the bookshelves in my office. Not the only bookshelves in my house, but certainly the most heavily laden)