What I Read in 2009

Near the end of last term, I posed the same question to each of my three sections of 1st-year University Composition. We’d been discussing Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You throughout the term, and they had just finished reading what he says about, well, reading. Given that he’s so gung-ho about the cognitive workout provided by video-games, there’s a danger he’ll be mis-interpreted as dismissive of the benefits of reading. So he spends some time outlining those benefits, pointing out that he’s laid out his own argument in book-form, and that sustained, complex arguments require length to develop sufficiently. He outlines the benefits of reading, mindful that while we may all be reading as much in a screen-based environment, we tend not to be spending so much time with full-length books (in fact, he also points out, we’re spending less time at almost everything, including, surprisingly, television — especially the late-teens, early-twenties generation).

So what was my question? I asked my students how many books they read in a year. But rather than wait there, I prompted them a bit by suggesting a number. I picked a fairly random number that seemed reasonable to me — How many of you read, say, 20 books a year? I asked them. Their response was almost comic — there was the effect akin to a collective gasp, a drawing back, a shocked “Duuuuuude!” Apparently, 20 books a year is an astronomical amount of reading!

Of course, as the shock waves subsided and I phrased the question more carefully, it turned out that there were a few students who do read well over 20 books annually, but there are many more who read 5, and that would be optimistic. In each of my three classes were several who read one or less (discounting, obviously, their required coursework reading), and the average was probably between 5 and 10.

We had quite a productive discussion about the reasons for this — many of them find it tough to choose books successfully, and given the investment required — time searching for and buying the book, cost of the book (most of these students only use the library for assignments and then prefer on-line where possible) — if the choice is a dud, there’s a long-lasting deterrent effect. I was really gratified that one student asked if I’d mind providing a list of recommended books for them and others chimed in to agree they’d like that. I sent out a list by e-mail as classes ended, and was even more gratified to get e-mails thanking me for the suggestions and telling me of books they’d liked. As the song says, “The kids are alright!”

Of course, during the course of my questioning about numbers, a student asked me how many books I read. I had to answer, honestly, that I couldn’t think of a year in my life, no matter what was going on, that I hadn’t read at least fifty books. Shock and awe. Truly. And yet I know this number is quite typical among my reading friends. I asked my oldest daughter the following week how many books she thought she’d read in a year and she replied, casually, “Oh, probably about fifty,” and added that several of her friends would have a similar number.

I was a bit nervous, then, to tot up my reading record for 2009. Would I find out that I’d widely overestimated my reading habits? In fact, I was pretty close — 53 (would have been 54 if I’d included my re-reading of Johnson’s Everything Bad, but I decided to leave it out). You’ll note that there is a considerable number of comfort reading — mysteries being one of the largest categories here. I’m not making any claims, though, about being any kind of intellectual. What I clearly am is a reader. . .

I’m curious to know: where do you fit in the numbers game? estimated annual reading? And what do you notice in the young folks around you? Would they like a bit of help from experienced readers in finding books they’ll want to spend time with?

1.Dana Thomas’ How Luxury Lost Its Lustre

2. Elizabeth George’s Careless in Red

3. Edeet Ravel’s Ten Thousand Lovers

4. Bill Gaston’s Sointula

5. Rebecca Godfrey’s The Torn Skirt

6. Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

7. Lawrence Hill’s Some Great Thing

8. Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park

9. Michael Connelly’s The Brass Verdict

10. Richard Wagamese’s Ragged Company

11. Stephen Henighan’s The Streets of Winter

12. Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For

13. Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog

14. Kate Jacob’s Comfort Food

15. Peter Robinson’s Friend of the Devil

16. Mark Doty’s The Dog Years

17. Kathleen Finn’s The Sharper the Knife, the Harder You Cry

18. Julia Kristeva’s The Powers of Horror

19. Adele Wiseman’s Crackpot

20. Jonathan Kellerman’s Bones

21. Randall Maggs’ Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems

22. Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight

23. Jeffrey Deaver’s The Broken Window

24. Carol Windley’s Breathing Under Water

25. Lee Child’s Nothing to Lose

26. Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

27. Fred Vargas’ Un Lieu Incertain

28. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Knitting Rules

29. Michael Redhill’s Consolation

30. Peter Robinson’s All the Colours of Darkness

31. Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield

32. Don Domanski’s Poetry and the Sacred

33. Lee Child’s The Enemy

34. Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

35. Sandra Gilbert: Death’s Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve

36. Carlos Luis Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind

37. Miriam Toews’ The Flying Troutmans

38. Abha Dawesar’s That Summer in Paris

39. Susan Hill’s The Vows of Silence

40. Minette Walters’The Chameleon’s Shadow

41. Kathy Reichs’ Devil Bones

42. W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants

43. Colm Toíbín’s Brooklyn

44. Jeffrey Deaver’s The Bodies Left Behind

45. George Pelecanos’ The Night Gardener

46. Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta

47. Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero

48. Anne Michaels’ The Winter Vault

49. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma

50. Joseph Boyden’s Through Black Spruce

51. Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

52. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall

53. Patricia Cornwell’s The Scarpetta Factor