It's been a while since we've had a reading thread. And at the end of the year, I always compile a list of the books I've read since January, so this seems like a good time - I can post my list.  I don't get through as much as I once did, because I have a 2 1/2 year old and just had another baby as well. Still, I try to get through at least three books a month. Here's my list for 2008:

1) Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street (nonfiction)

2) Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories (short story collection)

3) Charles Stross, Singularity Sky (science fiction)

4) James Baldwin, Going to Meet the Man (short story collection)

5) Edwidge Danticat, Brother I'm Dying (memoir)

6) Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (science fiction)

7) Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (novel)

8) Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners (essay collection)

9) Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise (science fiction)

10) Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (novel)

11) R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez, The Death of WCW (nonfiction)

11) Orhan Pamuk, Snow (novel)

13) Samuel R. Delany, Flight from Nevèrÿon (fantasy of sorts)

14) Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith (nonfiction - comparative religion with a bit of memoir)

15) Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (nonfiction)

16) Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais, and Stephen Merchant, The World of Karl Pilkington (humor)

17) Ursula K. LeGuin, Gifts (fantasy)

18) Toni Morrison, Sula (novel)

19) David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames (essay collection/humor)

20) Greg Bear, Eternity (science fiction)

21) Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea (nonfiction)

22) Amit Chaudhuri, Freedom Song (collection of three short novels)

23) Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana (fantasy)

24) Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (novel)

25) Karen Armstrong, Islam (nonfiction)

26) China Mieville, Perdido Street Station (fantasy)

27) Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (novel)

28) Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (novel)

29) Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn (fantasy)

30) Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (history)

31) Garrison Keillor, Love Me (novel)

32) John Le Carre, The Mission Song (novel)

33) Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (fantasy)

34) Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (short story collection)

35) Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (memoir)

I also reread several Neil Gaiman graphic novels at the beginning of the year.

My first book for 2009 was Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams, a Big Fat science fiction epic - at 770 pages, it's just the first of four books in a series. Yesterday, I started Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It's really good through the first fifty pages or so.