The Best of My 2008
Submitted by Book Nut
I had so much fun doing this last year, that I had to repeat myself. 
By the Numbers:
Middle Grade Fiction: 72 (being on the MG panel really shot the numbers through the roof!)
Young Adult Fiction: 53
Graphic Novels: 16
Non-Fiction: 14
Fiction: 42
Grand Total: 197
Challenges Completed: 9
And it wouldn’t be the same without the awards…
Best Adult Fiction: Dracula
Best YA book: The Patron Saint of Butterflies
Best Middle-grade book: Every Soul a Star
Best Fantasy: A Curse Dark as Gold
Best Sci-Fi/Distopian: 1984 (even if it is depressing)
Best Graphic Novel (new this year!!) : Plain Janes/Janes in Love
Best Non-Fiction: John Adams
Best (um, only?) Mystery (I still ought to read more…): The Winter Queen
Best Jacket Flap: The Fall of the Kings
Best Worst Jacket Flap: Matilda
And in other categories…
Books I should have read AGES ago: 84 Charing Cross Road, Call of the Wild, Right Ho, Jeeves, The Christmas Carol (well, I did read it before, but it’s been AGES)
Writing Style I Discovered I liked: Novels in verse, especially Diamond Willow and Song of the Sparrow
Favorite Challenge: Jane Austen
Best main character: Marvin from Masterpiece
Book for in-person book group I liked best: Suite Francaise
Book for on-line book group I liked best: The Glass Castle
Books I didn’t feel the love for: The Book Thief, Audrey, Wait!
Number of Shakespeare plays I read: 1 - Othello, but I saw two (Much Ado About Nothing and Pericles)
Number of books read that had something to do with Shakespeare: 4
Favorite use of Shakespeare’s plays: The Juliet Club
Books that Made me Laugh the most: The Year of Living Biblically, Leave it to Psmith, Island of Mad Scientists
Authors everyone else loves that I discovered I liked: John Green (but I think I like his vlog better than his books. Don’t shoot me.) and Maureen Johnson
Best Book from an author I previously didn’t care for: Airman
First-time authors I’d love to see more from: Susan Selfors (Saving Juliet), Daphne Grab (Alive and Well in Prague, New York), J. Scott Savage (Farworld: Water Keep)
Book I read the fastest: anything for the MG Cybils panel…
Favorite book from a series: Forever Rose (with The Battle of the Labyrinth a close runner-up)
Best Arthurian book: Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy
Newbery Books I read: Good Masters, Sweet Ladies, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry
Books that made me want to go out and do something:The Omnivore’s Dilemma (change food buying habits), Every Soul a Star (look at stars and see a solar eclipse), Forever Rose (read the rest of the series), Dairy Queen (cheer!), Ten Cents a Dance (watch Swing Kids).
Books I abandoned: The Painted Drum, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Acts of King Arthur, Blue Bloods, Audrey Wait!, and a whole host of MG Cybils books.
Here’s to another great year!
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