Grand Total

It's January 14th, exactly a year since I started my blog.  I've been waiting till now to do a count on how many books I read in the past year.  Any guesses? Well, here's the answer: I started 50, finished 47, 4 of which were young adult books.  I re-read Prep, but otherwise none of them were repeated.  Most of them were fiction, and several were hotly anticipated (at least by me) new books by favorite authors of mine (like Scarlett Thomas, David Mitchell, and Elizabeth Kostova).

I just finished Scattershot by David Lovelace.  It's nonfiction, about the author and his family struggling with bipolar disorder.  It focused less on the disorder and more on his whole life, and really I wish there had been more details and specifics on events, on what he did when he was manic, on the effects on his friendships, on how he was diagnosed.  I could've done with slightly less of him writing about how it felt to be manic.  But overall it was good.  I like books about psychiatric disorders.

Next, speaking of hotly anticipated, I'm starting The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.  The main character is a 17th century Dutch clerk in a Japanese colony.  I feel cool because I know the correct Dutch pronunciation of the main character's name (Yahkob de Zoot).  Also, more David Mitchell, yay!!!