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To my defense, books #26 and #27 were two of the longest, most involved books I read all year. I could have copped out and read fluff. But no. I like to set myself up for failure. I'm oddly skilled at it.

Book #26 also wound up being my favorite of the entire year, which came as a huge surprise. I originally added Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants to my reading list because I read so many good reviews of it. Honestly, I didn't think it sounded like something I would like. Life with a Depression-era traveling circus? Eh. But oh, what a life it was. Brutal, cruel, demeaning, hilarious, romantic, heart-breaking, life-affirming. I could have finished this book a little faster, but it was one of those that I prolonged because I didn't want to be without the characters.

Book #27 took forever, too, for the same reasons as #26. This one, I knew I would love because it took place in my world. Or, what would be my world had I not opted for family life. Bill Buford, in his early 40s, quit a good, stable job as an editor at "The New Yorker" to spend a year or two as Mario Batali's kitchen slave at the three-star Babbo, which led to a stint training under one of the world's best (and possibly scariest) butchers in Tuscany. Then Bill wrote a little book about it called Heat, which made me long to dig my chef's whites out of the closet and get back to work. Part memoir of his experience at Babbo and in Tuscany, part bio of Batali. Wonderfully written with depth, humor, and insight into what drives people to the kitchen life.

Book #28 also spoke to me in a big, deep way. Wade Rouse lived in St. Louis until recently, but his memoir America's Boy hit even closer to home. Rouse grew up in a tiny town in southern Missouri - not the greatest place in the world to be if you happen to be gay. Having grown up in rural Missouri with a dear, closested friend, oh, this one hit home. Even moreso, Rouse depicts the people of my childhood - good people from the Ozark who might not understand difference, but do their best to be loving just the same - with an accuracy that made my heart ache. His family is my family in so many ways. Even though the book's about Rouse's personal journey to accepting his sexuality and the tragic death of his older brother, it's also a lovely depiction of a place and time I know well.

And now we have book #29, Frank Portman's King Dork, recommended by the delightful supergenius, who I'm idolizing these days, what with the good book recommendations and the blog software assistance. Anyway, I'm about 60 pages from the end, and I hate commenting on books before I finish them in case they go to hell at the last minute. So far, though, I'm loving this anti-Catcher in the Rye take on Catcher in the Rye. The whole book has been a literary in-joke, and I'm dork enough to love that.

What did I gain by keeping track of all the books I completed in 2006? A lot more than I expected, it turns out. For one thing, I lost my ability to leave a bad book unfinished. If I invested the time to read the first 50 pages, I absolutely, positively had to finish the whole stinking, awful thing because dammit, if I'd invest that much time in it, the damn book was going to be on my list. I got stuck finishing two really shitty books that I would have otherwise ditched. On the plus side, this compulsion made me a lot more selective about reading materials. Like Water for Elephants - I probably wouldn't have read it before since circuses don't interest me. But since so many people were singing its praises, I looked past my limited interests in the name of good writing.

In the past I've tended to gobble up books and immediately forget them. "Oh, you should definitely read ___________________," I was always telling people. "What's it about?" they'd reply, and I'd stare at them like they'd just asked me to solve a calculus problem. Keeping track of my reading has made me a more reflective reader. I've looked back on my list a lot this year and invested more thought in what I'd read than I did in the days when I'd read and forget.

And of course, there's a sense of accomplishment. Until 2006, I honestly had no idea how many books I was reading in a year. I only knew that I was constantly reading. Because of its ever-presence, I didn't look at reading in terms of accomplishment. With knitting, I can tell you everything I've knit in any given period of time. I can tell you what mix CDs I made in any given year. I can tell you what I've sewn in a year, or what recipes I've developed. I can tell you what I've written in a year. But until 2006, I never could tell you how much I'd accomplished in terms of reading, and I've got to say, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself. By doing this, I've given reading the kind of high priority I place on my other hobbies. It's similar to the perspective I gained by doing NaBloPoMo and Holidailies. Sometimes, we do things so habitually that we fail to see what we're accomplishing, and that's a shame.

2007's goal - conquear the 30.