Last Year's Books Read (and the Starting List for This Year)

Well, I did it. Somehow, I managed to hit my rather over exuberant goal of reading forty books. Perhaps you can say I cheated a little as I did include little novellas like those of Roald Dahl, but I do like to know what my kids are reading and why they like what they read.

1. Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
2. My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
3. Fight Fat after Forty by Pamela Peeke, M.D., M.P.H.
4. The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse
5. A Victorian Christmas by Catherine Palmer
6. Wheat Belly by William Davis M.D.
7. The Witches by Roald Dahl
8. Lifestyle for Health by Cheryl Townsley
9. Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris
10. Lost and Found by Jacqueline Sheehan
11. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
12. The World as I Remember It by Rich Mullins
13. A Claim of Her Own by Stephanie Grace Whitson
14. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
15. Submerged by Dani Pettrey
16. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
17. House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
18. The Twits by Roald Dahl
19. Disconnected Parenting Teens in a MySpace World by Chap and Dee Clark
20. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
21. Divergent by Veronica Roth
22. Touching the Sky by Tracie Peterson
23. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
24. I Kissed dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris
25. The Gift by Richard Paul Evans
26. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
27. Unbridled Dreams by Stephanie Grace Whitson
28. Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs
29. The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston MD.
30. Teenage Boys by Bill Beausay
31. The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond
32. Ape House by Sara Gruen
33. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
34. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
35. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
36. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
37. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
38. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
39. A Life That Says Welcome by Karen Ehman
40. The Quilter's Daughter by Wanda E. Brunsetter
41. Home Grown Handbook for Christian Parenting by Karen De Boer 

They are ordered from most recently completed to those completed at the beginning of the year. If I had to come up with a reading theme for last year's books, it would have been about war and dystopian societies as those books took up a large part of the list. Some were better than others and some were rather depressing. If I had to pick my favorites, I would say, The Book Thief, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The World as I Remember It (non-fiction), The Winter Ghosts, and Fight Fat After Forty (non-fiction).

Image: Prattle Book Shop

My goal this year is a little less lofty with the hope of reading thirty. I trotted around the house and collected a bunch of the books I wanted to begin the year with and there are five hanging around from last year that didn't get finished yet. The goal is to get them done first and then dig into the collection shelved in our bedroom.

Here's the first five that I need to complete:

Eldest by Christopher Paolini
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
The Endless Forest by Sara Donati

 I hope it's a snowy winter :o)! Do any of you have reading goals? What are you reading? Let me know. I always love to add new titles to my never ending must read list.