Well Read

Fifty-two weeks equals one calendar year, any way you slice it.  Last June I set a goal (emulating a good friend who did the same previously) to read a book a week for a year - on average - 52 in 52.

Funny, I expected "52" to look like "more" because it sure felt like it!

I am proud to say that I've not only finished and read some fantastic books, but also learned a lot in the process.

1. Don't avoid the YA section: I may be way off base, but when I was younger, I feel "young adult" meant Goosebumps and Scholastic Read-a-longs.  Granted, I tore through the Hunger Games series in a little over a week's time, and one of my favorite reads from a couple years ago was Alexie Shermann's phenomenal The Absolutely True Stories of a Part-Time Indian, both of which fall completely into the YA category.  This year two such books landed on my list, both by recommendation: The Scorpio Races and Wonder.  Easily, both contained some of the most memorable literary moments of these past 52 weeks.
2. I like memoirs: Let's clarify something.  I like memoirs about people who are not "somebodies."  People who have connections to persons of interest or lived through an iconic, world-changing event themselves, but are otherwise unknown.  And they need to be decent writers.  
3. Toni Morrison is amazing: I have my favorite authors - Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Isabel Allende, Jhumpa Lahiri - but Toni Morrison is a master.  Until further notice, Morrison sits atop my list.  

When I started this experience I set some personal rules.  1) I could quit a book if I wasn't into it.  Just because I started it didn't obligate it being finished, though it in no way negated the week.  2) Speaking of the week, I didn't have to stick to it.  Life happens.  And some books are just really long.  "Average" is the operative word here.  3) Try not to choose books based on length.  Page numbers don't necessarily correlate with length; font size and word spacing can be tricky little bedfellows.  (But, obviously don't pick a 500 page behemoth when you're two weeks behind schedule!)  Basically, be reasonable.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Fiction Books: 36

Short-story Collections (but still Fiction): 5 (maybe 6*)

Non-Fiction (Non-Memoir): 7

Non-Fiction Memoirs/Biographies: 9

Male Authors: 30.5 **

Female Authors: 21.5 **

Oldest Book: The Great Gatsby - 1925 (Second Place: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - 1943)

Newest Book: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards - 2013

Books Quit: 3

Books I Wish I Quit But Had Invested Too Much Time to Do So: 2

Books Read on Kindle: 28

Times I Tried Turning a Page of a Real Book By Tapping it: 3 (that I remember)

Longest Title: 12 words (The 100 Year Old Man Who Crawled Out the Window and Disappeared)

Shortest Title: 6 books with single-word titles, though two use only one syllable: Swim and Home 

Repeat Authors: Toni Morrison (with 2 books)

Books recommend by "book friends"***: Jocelyn (4), Annie (3), Sarah Lou (1), Tara (1), Oprah (2) and The Daily Beast (4)

Books That Made Me Cry: Full out - 1, Tear up - 4

Unexpected Repeating Themes: I'm not a "war story" kind of person, however, at least 8 of these books turned out to be undoubtedly about some war.  And 3 books in the list dealt with Nazi Germany in one way or another.

DRUM ROLL...

I had a hard time picking one favorite, so here are my top five BESTS that you must shove to the top of your reading lists (though even this was challenging):

1. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards
2. Birds Without Wings
3. The Yellow Birds
4. The House at Sugar Beach
5. Waiting for Snow in Havana 

* I'm not sure whether to count fantastic The Twelve Tribes of Hattie as a short story collection or not; each chapter easily be isolated from the others, though for full enjoyment it should be read as one masterful work.
**One book, Half the Sky, was co-authored by journalist power-couple Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I counted it as half so as to end with a total of 52 authors.
***While I got recommendations constantly, I erred on the side of caution and mostly went with those who have yet to steer me in the wrong direction, literarily speaking.