Books of 2007

Listed in the order they were read. 2007 was actually a pretty good year in terms of quantity (mostly due to spending the best part of two and a half months in hospital) and I expect 2008 will mark a return to levels more like 2006's twenty-eight.

1 Kate Atkinson – Case Histories
2 Nicholas Shakespeare – In Tasmania
3 Cormac McCarthy – The Road
4 William Boyd – Restless
5 Markus Zusak – The Messenger
6 Matt Rendell – The Death of Marco Pantani
7 William McIlvanney – Laidlaw
8 Rory Stewart – The Places In Between
9 Paul Auster – In the Country of Last Things
10 Anne Fadiman – Ex Libris
11 Jonathan Raban – Surveillance
12 Laura Hird – Hope and other Urban Tales
13 Richard Gwynn – The Colour of a Dog Running Away
14 Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost
15 Orhan Pamuk – The New Life
16 William Boyd – Fascination
17 Cormac McCarthy – No Country for Old Men
18 Roberto Bolano – The Savage Detectives*
19 Colin Thubron – In Siberia
20 Mark Taplin – Open Lands
21 Cate Kennedy – Dark Roots
22 David Vise – The Google Story
23 Martin Cruz Smith – Wolves Eat Dogs
24 Sara Wheeler – Travels in Thin Country
25 Richard Moore – In Search of Robert Millar
26 Ian Rankin – The Naming of the Dead
27 Kenneth Deffeyes – Beyond Oil
28 Graeme Fife – Inside the Peleton
29 Jonathan Coe – The Rain Before it Falls
30 Michael McGirr – Things you get for free
31 John O’Farrell – Things can only get better
32 Paul Auster – Oracle Night
33 William Gibson – Spook Country
34 Ian Rankin – Exit Music
35 Simon Winchester – The Map that Changed the World
36 Susanna Leal – Border Street
37 Andrew Greig – Kingdoms of Experience
38 Graham Swift – Tomorrow
39 Alexander McCall Smith – 44 Scotland Street
40 Orhan Pamuk – Istanbul
*Mostly read in 2007, but I ended up putting it aside about two-thirds of the way through and only finished it off recently.

Statistics
Fiction: 24 titles
Non-fiction: 16 titles
Number of authors: 34
Male authors: 27
Female authors: 7
Books published in 2007: 7
Books published in 2006: 10
Books published in 2005: 7
Books published 2000-04: 8
Books published 1990-99: 5
Books published 1980-89: 2
Books published before 1980: 1

Top 10
1 Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost
2 Jonathan Raban – Surveillance
3 Orhan Pamuk – Istanbul
4 Cormac McCarthy – The Road
5 William Boyd – Restless
6 Colin Thubron – In Siberia
7 Ian Rankin – Exit Music
8 William Gibson – Spook Country
9 Paul Auster – In the Country of Last Things
10 Nicholas Shakespeare – In Tasmania
Notes on the top 10 to follow...