A mostly mainstream year

The figures are in. Actually they've been in since January 1 but I’ve only just got round to processing them. Of the books read in 2009, with 2008's figures in brackets:

• Total: 54 (53)
• Science fiction /fantasy: 19 (30)
• Translated from Swedish: 1 (4)
• (Auto)biography/fact: 9 (5)
• Crime: 3 (3)
• Gave up: 1 (2)

A mere 19 science fiction or fantasy! That’s even counting ones like Boom! by Mark Haddon which is technically of that genre but not entirely serious – but not, though, counting No Highway by Nevil Shute, which for the most part is an enjoyable and prescient progenitor of the techno-thriller genre punctured at the end by a séance providing the denouement. I got the feeling Shute ran out of ideas: "The vital clue is lying in the middle of the Canadian wilderness and our hero needs to find it – how I can get it to him?"

But anyway. 19 out of 53. 36%! That must be the lowest quite literally for decades. A marked increase in factual reading, though. Other people’s lives can be interesting. I also note that I managed an entire year without reading a single thing by Terry Pratchett, which has been unheard of since I first discovered the man. That would have changed if anyone had got the hint and given me Unseen Academicals for Christmas. (Gosh, I have a birthday in February, what could people possibly give me? [Bonusbarn muses: "You probably don't want anything pirated, do you?"]).

And because I know you’re dying to ask, the 54 are:

• The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
• Resurrection Men, Ian Rankin
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
• Strange Itineraries, Tim Powers
• Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
• Blind Faith, Colin Harvey
• The Business, Iain Banks
• Nice Work, David Lodge
• Varjak Paw, S.F. Said
• The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad
• Stealing Water - A Secret Life in an African City, Tim Ecott
• The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, on Tour: Aged Far Too Much to Be Put on the Front Cover of a Book, Adrian Plass
• Changeling, Mike Oldfield
• The Oz Suite, Gerard Houarner
• The Stress of her Regard, Tim Powers
• The Second Rumpole Omnibus, John Mortimer
• The Odessa File, Frederick Forsyth
• The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
• The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross
• Principles of Angels, Jaine Fenn
• The Prefect, Alastair Reynolds
• Where Eagles Dare, Alistair Maclean
• Moab is my Washpot, Stephen Fry
• Life of Pi, Yann Martel
• Dead and Alive, Hammond Innes
• The Inferior, Peadar Ó Guilín
• The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
• Future Bristol, Colin Harvey
• Icehenge, Kim Stanley Robinson
• Endymion Spring, Matthew Skelton
• Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
• The Ghost, Robert Harris
• Boom!, Mark Haddon
• The Owl Service, Alan Garner
• Jason, J. M. Marks
• Elidor, Alan Garner
• Sirius, Olaf Stapledon
• Odd John, Olaf Stapledon
• The Last Templar, Michael Jecks
• Miracles of Life, J.G. Ballard
• No Highway, Nevil Shute
• deadkidsongs, Toby Litt
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• A Parliamentary Affair, Edwina Currie
• Fighter Boys, Patrick Bishop
• The Storm Prophet, Hector Macdonald
• Pompeii, Robert Harris
• John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, Jonathan Aitken
• Christianity Explored, Rico Tice & Barry Cooper
• The Sorcerer's Tale: Faith and Fraud in Tudor England, Alec Ryrie
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne
• A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
• William Wilberforce, William Hague
• Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson

And life was too short to read Master of Hawks by Linda E. Bushyager.