Shock News: Post Not About Photography!

In what is probably the most middle class blog post imaginable, here is a list of every book I read in 2009. I'd been thinking about keeping track of my reading for a while now, as my memory is pretty dire, especially when it comes to books, so it's been quite interesting (for me at least!) to see what I got through. So, without further ado, here they are in date order from January-December 2009 along with random, ill-informed comments as and when I feel the urge:

Master Georgie Beryl Bainbridge
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Haruki Murakami
1977 David Peace
1980 David Peace
1983 David Peace
A Little History of the World E H Gombrich (Felt I needed a little non-fiction as a light holiday after reading so much David Peace back-to-back)
The Other Hand Chris Cleave
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
A True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey
Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
The Fire Gospel Michel Faber
The Small Back Room Nigel Balchin
We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver (Blew me away, fantastic book)
David Copperfield Charles Dickens (Shamefully never read any Dickens before, and really enjoyed it)
Restless William Boyd (Not as good as Brazzaville Beach or Any Human Heart but a good holiday read)
Black Swan Green David Mitchell
The Damned United David Peace
Indignation Philip Roth (Great cover, dull story)
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess (Should have read it years before but somehow passed me by)
Possession A S Byatt
Hackney That Rose Red Empire Iain Sinclair (Superb, been a fan for years but this was his best yet)
The Little Stranger Sarah Waters
Imperial Life in the Emerald City Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Interesting and worthy but depressing)
The Ongoing Moment Geoff Dyer (Massively inspirational and beautifully written)
The Long Fall Walter Mosley
Three Men in a Boat Jerome K Jerome
The House on the Strand Daphne Du Maurier
The Grifters Jim Thompson
Factotum Charles Bukowski
Poor Things Alasdair Gray

I make that a total of 30 books over the course of the year, not too shabby considering I walk to work so I don't read during a commute. I did also spend about a month reading Moby Dick and got about two thirds of the way through before packing it in. As I get older I keep thinking that I ought to read more classics, but some I really struggle with. On the other hand, I did finally manage to read my first Dickens so that's something I guess.

Towards the end of the year I joined my local library for the first time in years. It's had an interesting effect on my choices. Rather than popping into Waterstones and picking up a new release from the tables, I've been browsing through the shelves more. It's probably meant that I've read slightly older books than I would normally, and taken more risks as I haven't been paying for my choices.

I was going to pick some books of the year, best fiction, non-fiction, best new author, that sort of thing, but looking back through the list I think I'd find it really hard to narrow down my choices. It also seems a pretty pointless exercise – and that's coming from someone who's just spent 30 minutes on a Tuesday evening typing up a list of their books...