My goal is to read 2 books a week. I usually read a novel or memoir on the weekend and a non-fiction book (often related to something I’m writing about or teaching) during the week. I still haven’t found my journal from March of 2009 but even without that month, I read over 100 books last year. But to my disappointment, there were far more books marked “boring” or “pleasant” or “only read half of this” on my list than in any previous year. I can’t tell if it’s because there are less well-written books being published or because I’m crankier. If I had to guess, I’d say the latter.

Here are some of the books I did enjoy (in varying amounts) (skip to the bottom for my top ten books, if you don’t want to read the whole list):

Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory (historical fiction)

Master of Florence by Doug Preston (true crime)

Rounding the Mark by Andrea Camilleri (Silician mystery)

Secret of Scent by Luca Turin ( an intelligent book about perfume)

A Year in Scent by Chandler Burr (a more commercial approach to perfume)

Luca Turin’s pefume blog

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

A Rose By Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names by Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

Tribes by Seth Godin

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg (memoir about mentally ill daughter)

Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel (book about perfume)

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore

Barry Lyndon by William Thackeray

279 Days to Overnight Success by Chris Guillebeau (downloadable report from his web site)

Central Park in the Dark by Marie Winn

Anatomy of a Rose by Sharman Apt Russell

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

The Path by Chet Raymo

Scattershot: My Bipolar Family by David Lovelace (memoir about manic depression)

A Year in Place by W Scott Olsen and Brett Lott

Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

North and South by Mrs Gaskell (excellent 19^th century novel)

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (memoir about Oakland farm)

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks (schizophrenia memoir)

Time Exposure by Richard Fenn

Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey (a charming memoir about a honeymoon trip across the Pacific in a small sailboat)

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma by Hugh Warwick (about hedgehogs)

Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri (Sicilian mystery)

In Search of Lost Roses by Thomas Christopher

Crow Planet by Lyanda Haupt (a lovely account of finding nature in the city by observing crows)

Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent (memoir of woman who has herself voluntarily committed to three different sorts of mental health treatment centers)

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

#1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

Cities and Natural Process by Michael Hough

Lights on a Ground of Darkness by Ted Kooser (poetry about a small Midwestern town)

Not Becoming my Mother by Ruth Reichl (food writer’s memoir)

On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm by Michael Ableman (Goleta farm)

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Black Hand by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

The Yellowplush Papers by Thackeray

The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce by Hallie Rubenhold

To Kingdom Come by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

One Inch of Silence by Gordon Hempton

In Search of Silence by Sara Maitland

Persistence of Purgatory by Richard Fenn (interesting academic book linking our obsession with time to the doctrine of purgatory)

When Organizing Isn’t Enough by Julie Morganstern

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

The House of Hope and Fear: Life in a Big City Hospital by Audrey Young

Flower Style by Kenneth Turner (awesome book about an outrageous floral designer)

Dancing with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor

Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharatt

Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer ( a truly smart book about being a writer in the 21st century)

You can see a certain number of themes. I was reading memoirs about madness because I’ve been contemplating writing an essay about the madness (bipolar disorder) that runs through my family line. All of them were good, that is informative, but none of them were great.

At the start of the year, I was reading books about new ways of doing business—all of them had at least one inspiring idea. And in the middle of the year, I was reading (or re-reading) books on perfume as I was writing an essay on preserving the scents of flowers.

I was also working my way through several series. Two were triggered by my wanting to read the books that inspired the HBO series: True Blood and #1 Ladies Detective Agency. The first few books in each series were charming but by the fourth or fifth book I was bored.  True Blood, the HBO series, is richer and darker than the books, though it retains the wonderful premise (that vampires are a minority group claiming their rights). The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series is stunning in its beauty and very faithful to the books in its charming portrayal of the small triumphs and sorrows of life in Botswana.

I also enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the Tudor period—especially  The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin’s Lover—but when I tried reading books she had written before that time period, I was disappointed. Very disappointed.

My two favorite series for the year were Andrea Camilleri’s series of Silician mysteries which are translated from the Italian. They feature Salvo Montalbano, a police inspector in a small town in Sicily who is plagued by incompetence underlings, corrupt superiors and bureaucratic obstacles and yet manages to solve crimes through his persistence and close observation. He also loves his meals, which are lovingly described. And the mystery novels set in Victorian London written by Will Thomas which feature a Holmes-and-Watson like duo, the mysterious enquiry agent Barker and his Welsh side-kick Llewellyn. They solve crimes that take place against a backdrop of various ethnic enclaves: the Jewish quarter, a crew of Irish revolutionaries, the Italian longshoremen.

Prize for best book of the year has to go to Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, a memoir written by Novella Carpenter who grew her own food (plants and animals) on the vacant lot next to her rental apartment in a run-down section of Oakland. I appreciated how unabashedly unapologetic she is about her unconventional life style.

Second best was another memoir: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg, a food blogger’s charming stories each paired with a mouth-watering recipe.

Because I was working on my own Victorian novel, I read a lot of Victorian fiction. The best and definitely, my third favorite book of the year, was Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore. It’s one of the best history books I’ve ever read. The story is so enthralling you can read it through like a novel, yet Moore gives you all the information you need to understand the situation and setting. Once I learned that the villain of the piece served as the inspiration for Thackeray’s novel, Barry Lyndon, I read that again. What a delightful romp of a book that is!

I loved the premise of A Year in Place! W. Scott Olson and Brett Lott invited talented writers to submit a story about one month in a place they live. Some of them are brilliant. I especially enjoyed the essays written by Rick Bass and Naomi Shibab Nye. I want to do something like this on my web site.

Flower Style: The Art of Flower Design and Decoration I picked up at my local half price book store during their after Christmas sale. It features lavish photographs of the baroque flower designs of a London flower designer. Think of Martha Stewart on steroids! It’s beautiful and bizarre at the same time. I love reading about the life paths of people who love what they do.

Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharatt is a great historical novel about the Pendle witches who were condemned for witchcraft in fifteenth century England. She’s done an amazing job of historical research and thoughtful re-imagining about what it was like to be a “cunning woman” in those desperate times. I’ll write more about this when I’m done with it and hope to feature an interview with the author on my blog.

Cities and Natural Process by Michael Hough was a rather dry book, designed to be read by urban planners, and it was written fifteen years ago, but I found it eye-opening. As one reviewer said on Amazon: “In many ways the profession is just catching up with Hough’s thinking.” Like any good academic book, it challenged my assumptions and gave me a historical perspective on nature in the city. Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt was another book that encouraged me that I am going in the right direction with its wise stories.

That’s it for 2009. Hoping to read many more good books in 2010