What I (Re)Read in 2015

Since 2008 I've vowed to read 52 (for-pleasure) books every 52 weeks. Usually, I keep it.

This year I also promised to re-read some of my favorite books, to remember why I loved them and better learn how they worked.

And I did! ...But I couldn't stick to strictly rereads. There's just too much out there in the world that I need to get my hands on.

All in all I reread fewer books than I first-time read. But I do plan to keep returning to beloved books in 2016.

I put away 65 book this year. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud.

My Top 10 Reads from 2015
1. Euphoria - Lily King
2. The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yuknavitch
3. Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth - Xiaolu Guo
4. The Turner House - Angela Flournoy
5. Bad Girls, Honey: Poems about Lana del Rey - Megan Falley
6. Breathing Machine: A Memoir of Computers - Leigh Alexander
7. Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth - William Bryant Logan
8. Mary Oliver forever, just everything, always.
9. The Star Side of Bird Hill - Naomi Jackson
10. Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates


2015 Rereads
Eva Luna - Isabel Allende (fiction)
The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obrecht (fiction)
Body Bereft - Antje Krog (poetry)
Room - Emma Donoghue (fiction)
Sabriel - Garth Nix (fantasy)
Before I Forget - Andre Brink (fiction)
White Oleander - Janet Fitch  (fiction)
Saga, Vol. 1 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)
Saga, Vol. 2 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)
Saga, Vol. 3 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)
Saga, Vol. 4 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (fiction)

The World Shared - Dariusz Sosnicki (poetry)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg (children's fiction)

The Phantom Tollbooth - Norman Juster (children's fiction)

Sula - Toni Morrison (fiction)

The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros (young adult fiction)

Maniac Magee - Jerry Spinelli (young adult fiction)

Cavedweller - Dorothy Allison (fiction)

The Red Tent - Anita Diamont (fiction)

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (fiction)

One Day - David Nicholls (fiction)

Daytripper - Fabio Moon Gabriel Ba (graphic novel)

The Bonesetter's Daughter - Amy Tan (fiction)

The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice (fiction/horror)

The Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice (fiction/horror)

Dream Work - Mary Oliver (poetry)

2015 First-Time Reads
Saga, Vol. 4 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)
Logicomix - Aposotolos Doxidas (graphic novel)
Euphoria - Lily King (fiction)
Ex-Machina, Book 1 - Brian K. Vaughan (graphic novel)
Clariel - Garth Nix (fantasy)
Woods and Chalices - Tomaž Šalamun (poetry)
A Worldly County - John Ashbery (poetry)
The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yuknavitch (memoir)
Walking - Henry David Thoreau (essay)
Freud - Corinne Maier and Anne Simon (graphic novel)
Scott Pilgrim, Vol 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Bryan Lee O'Malley (graphic novel)
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (fiction. I put it down after 100 pages. Woof.)
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth - Xiaolu Guo (fiction)
Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (science fiction)
Native Guard - Natasha Trethewey (poetry)
Save Twilight - Julio Cortazar (poetry)
The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins (mystery)
The Merchant of Venice: A Graphic Novel adapted by Gareth Hinds (graphic novel)
Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan (pretty trashy fiction SUE ME)
Adulthood Rites - Octavia Butler (science fiction)
Breathing Machine: A Memoir of Computers - Leigh Alexander (essay/memoir)
The Turner House - Angela Flournoy (fiction)
Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey (science fiction)
The Star Side of Bird Hill - Naomi Jackson (fiction)
Scott Pilgrim Vol 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness - Bryan Lee O'Malley (graphic novel)
Scott Pilgrim Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together - Bryan Lee O'Malley (graphic novel)
Reinventing Yourself: Overcome you anxiety and fear when faced with life's problems and challenges - Mario Alonso Puig (self-help)
Saga Vol. 5 - Brian K.Vaughan and Fiona Staples (graphic novel)
Bad Girls, Honey: Poems about Lana del Rey - Megan Falley (poetry)
The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolaño (fiction)
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr (fiction)
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth - William Bryant Logan (creative nonfiction)
All are Welcome Here - Elizabeth Berg (fiction)
Naming the World: And other exercises for the creative writer, edited by Bret Anthony Johnson (essay collection)
Versed - Rae Armantrout (poetry)
In Light of India - Octavio Paz (nonfiction/essay)
Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl - Donald Sturrock (biography)
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (creative nonfiction/essay)

What I Read in 2011

Every year I set the goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks.

Well, I made the mark! For funsies, I read 75 books in the last 52 weeks.


My Top 10 of 2011:
1. Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter – Pamela Jooste
2. Eva Luna – Isabel Allende
3. The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood
4. Local Girls – Alice Hoffman
5. Coloured Lights – Leila Aboulela
6. Purple Hibiscus – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
7. Lives: Simone Weil – Francine Du Plessix Grey
8. King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa -- Adam Hochschild
9. Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
10. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen


And the complete list:
1. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson (fiction)
2. The Last Fish Tale – Mark Kurlansky (nonfiction)
3. American Gods – Neil Gaiman (sci-fi/fiction)
4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell (fiction)
5. Super Sad True Love Story – Gary Shteyngart (fiction)
6. The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival -- John Valliant (nonfiction)
7. The Penderwicks of Gardam Street – Jeanne Birdsall (YA fiction)
8. The Waves – Virginia Woolf (fiction)
9. The Beet Queen – Louise Erdrich (fiction)
10. Embroderies – Marjane Satrapi (graphic novel)
11. Gathering Blue – Lois Lowry (YA fiction)
12. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams (science fiction)
13. A Walk in the Night and Other Stories – Alex La Guma (short story collection)
14. Uncle Tom’s Children – Richard Wright (short story collection)
15. Burger’s Daughter – Nadine Gordimer (fiction)
16. Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter – Pamela Jooste (fiction)
17. In the Dark with me Dress on Fire – Blanche La Guma (memoir)
18. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (fiction)
19. Eva Luna – Isabel Allende (fiction)
20. Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)
21. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami (fiction)
22. The Attack – Yamina Khadra (fiction)
23. Numbers in the Dark – Italo Calvino (short fiction collection)
24. Brida – Paulo Coelho (fiction)
25. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (fiction)
26. Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges (fiction)
27. First Light – Rebecca Stead (YA fiction)
28. Beats of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala (fiction)
29. The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood (fiction)
30. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters (fiction)
31. Purple Hibiscus – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (fiction)
32. Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann (fiction)
33. Laura – Larry Watson (fiction)
34. Sexuality: A Very Brief Introduction – Veronique Mottier (history)
35. Teacher Man – Frank McCourt (memoir)
36. The Art Instinct – Denis Dutton (philosophy)
37. Gilead – Marilynne Robinson (fiction)
38. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” – Judith Butler (philosophy)
39. Henry and June – Anais Nin (memoir)
40. Lives: Simone Weil – Francine Du Plessix Grey (biography)
41. The Seven-Storey Mountain – Thomas Merton (memoir)
42. White Teeth – Zadie Smith (fiction)
43. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen (fiction)
44. Factotum – Charles Bukowski (fiction)
45. Green-Eyed Thieves – Imraan Coovadia (fiction)
46. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse (fiction)
47. Sozaboy – Jen Saro-Wiwa (fiction)
48. Karl Rahner – William V. Dych, SJ (theology)
49. The Songlines – Bruce Chatwin (travelogue/fiction)
50. The Traveling Poet – Shelley Barry (poetry)
51. On Photograhpy – Susan Sontag (history/philosophy)
52. Coloured Lights – Leila Aboulela (short story collection)
53. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig (philosophy/fiction/travelogue)
54. She May Not Leave – Fey Weldon (fiction)
55. In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan (nonfiction)
56. The Bang-Bang Club – Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva (history/memoir)
57. King Leopold’s Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa -- Adam Hochschild(history)
58. The Glass Palace – Amitav Ghosh (historical fiction)
59. Anatomy of an African Kingdom: A History of Bunyoro-Kitara – J.W. Nyakatura (history)
60. Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties – Sheila Rowbotham (memoir/history)
61. The Other America – Michael Harrington (history)
62. Commencement – J. Courtney Sullivan (trashy fiction)
63. The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, A South African Sharecropper 1894-1985 (history/biography)
64. Taking Back God: American Women Rising up for Religious Equality – Leora Tanenbaum (nonfiction)
65. An Eye for Colour – Norman Silver (YA Fiction)
66. True Confessions of Adrian A. Mole – Sue Townsend (YA Fiction)
67. Aminata, The Wind Loves You: An African Folktale – Retold by Chia Hearn Chek, Illustrated by Kwan Shan Mei (Children’s Fiction)
68. The Angry Gods: A Tibetan Folktale – Retold by Chia Hearn Chek, Illustrated by Kwan Shan Mei (Children’s Fiction)
69. Gandhi’s Prisoner?: The Life of Gandhi’s Son Manilal – Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie (biography)
70. The Lost Boy – Thomas Wolfe (novella)
71. From Death to Morning – Thomas Wolfe (short story collection)
72. The History of Love – Nicole Krauss (fiction)
73. News of a Kidnapping – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (nonfiction)
74. Local Girls – Alice Hoffman (fiction)
75. Absurdistan – Gary Shteyngart (fiction)