Books read in 2008

It’s the week for lists, so here’s my list of books read this past year. Blogging has definitely boosted my reading pace — and I hope it will help me retain more of what I’ve read, too. I’m putting together a very modest TBR list to follow this one.

I was curious about the breakdown for the year, so I sorted the titles by genre. I read more nonfiction than anything else (which shocks me), followed by a healthy dose of novels, then children’s and YA books, then essays and short stories. Titles in this list are linked to my reviews:

Nonfiction:

1. Allender, Dan. To Be Told.
2. Berry, Wendell. The Way of Ignorance.
3. Buechner, Frederick. The Sacred Journey.
4. Burnham, Gracia. In the Presence of My Enemies.
5. Clarkson, Sally. Seasons of a Mother’s Heart.
6. Elliott, Elisabeth. The Shaping of a Christian Family.
7. —. Through Gates of Splendor.
8. Grafton, John, ed. The Declaration of Independence and Other Great Documents of American History.
9. Guinness, Os. Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It.
10. —. God in the Dark.
11. Hart, David Bentley. The Doors of the Sea.
12. L’Engle, Madeleine. A Cry Like a Bell. (Poetry.)
13. Levertov, Denise. To Stay Alive. (Poetry)
14. Lewis, C.S. Miracles.
15. —. The Problem of Pain.
16. —. The Weight of Glory.
17. McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation.
18. Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz.
19. Mitchell, Stephen, trans. The Book of Job. (Poetry)
20. Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity.
21. Rosenberg, Joel C. Epicenter.
22. Schaeffer, Francis. No Little People.
23. —. True Spirituality.
24. Vega, Suzanne. The Passionate Eye. (Poetry)
25. Welty, Eudora. One Writer’s Beginnings.
26. Wilkinson, Alec. My Mentor: A Young Writer’s Friendship with William Maxwell.

Novels:

1. Bernanos, Georges. Diary of a Country Priest.
2. Berry, Wendell. Andy Catlett: Early Travels.
3. —. The Memory of Old Jack.
4. Canin, Ethan. America America.
5. Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. [I inadvertantly deleted my review of this one. ]
6. Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities.
7. —. American Notes for General Circulation. (This review was lost when my blog crashed.)
8. Forrester, E.M. A Room with a View.
9. Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South.
10. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland.
11. Grisham, John. The Summons.
12. Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go.
13. —. When We Were Orphans. (No review for this one.)
14. L’Engle, Madeleine. Certain Women.
15. Lewis, C.S. Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer. (Not exactly a novel, but fiction just the same.)
16. —. That Hideous Strength.
17. Welty, Eudora. The Optimist’s Daughter.
18. White, T.H. The Candle in the Wind.
19. —. The Ill-Made Knight.
20. —. The Queen of Air and Darkness.
21. —. The Sword in the Stone.
22. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
23. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway.

Children’s book reviews:

1. Children’s books about horses.
2. Children’s books about horses II.
3. Hoban, Russell. Stories.
4. Hopkins, Lee Bennett. America at War.
5. Lobel, Arnold. Frog and Toad stories.
6. MacDonald, George. The Light Princess.
7. Mains, David and Karen. Tales of the Kingdom.
8. McCloskey, Robert. Stories.
9. Paterson, Katherine. The Light of the World.
10. Potter, Beatrix. Assorted stories.
11. Seuss, the good doctor. Stories.
12. Sutcliff, Rosemary. Black Ships Before Troy.
13. Tudor, Tasha. Stories.
14. Updike, John. A Child’s Calendar.

YA novels:

1. Alexander, Lloyd. The Black Cauldron.
2. Coty, Debora. Billowing Sails.
3. Doty, Jean Slaughter. Summer Pony.
4. —. The Dark Horse. (No review for this one.)
5. Henry, Marguerite. Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
6. —. Justin Morgan Had a Horse.
7. —. White Stallion of Lipizza.
8. Lowry, Lois. The Giver. (This review was lost when my blog crashed.)
9. MacDonald, George. The Princess and Curdie.
10. McKinley, Robin. Beauty.
11. Pace, Mildred Mastin. Old Bones the Wonder Horse.
12. Yates, Elizabeth. Amos Fortune: Free Man.

Short stories/short story collections:

1. Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio.
2. Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles.
3. Vonnegut, Kurt. “Harrison Bergeron.”

Essays:

1. Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating.”
2. McKnight, Scot. “What is the Emerging Church?”

Not included:

• Personal Bible-reading, an underlying constant
• Countless children’s books, either read aloud or experienced via audiobook

*This list links to posts at both Across the Page and my previous blog, Findings.