I'll name two I read (not 2007 titles): Ansel Adams, a Biography and On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon, which I "discovered" when I looked into what film projects Robert Redford was currently working on in 2007. Enjoyed them both. I read a lot more than that, but those are two that had an impact on me.

The Lambs of London was certainly a good read.

The World Without Us is really good. And, though I just started looking at it a couple days ago, Veganomicon is a great cookbook. So, for that matter, is Arabesque. More to follow, probably.

I read for both edification and recreation (They're often one and the same, anyway!). In recent years I've noticed I get through my books slower, though. One reason is definitely the New Yorker. Since I've started reading it, it has slowed my book consumption seriously. Thousands of words of topical, fresh, great writing weekly? You can't resist that. I also do a lot of reading on the web, obviously, and also at work.

Books I've really enjoyed this year: Water for Elephants, Eat Pray Love (despite its shortcomings and bourgeois-ness), Uncommon Carriers.

Yes I read constantly, mostly fiction, but this year, the book with the most impact on me was The Ominivore's Dilemma.

I finally got around to reading The Name of the Rose, and liked it immensely.
Also did my every-4-years reread of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, and enjoyed it as much as ever.

Also dug Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil's The Black Dossier, although I understand why it pissed a lot of people off.

And I didn't expect to like Then We Came to the End-- I'm really leery both of books about how much office work sucks and of books with crazy point-of-view stunts-- but it was a really nice piece of work.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to hog a thread.

I enjoyed The Indian Clerk and Silence of the Grave.

I mostly read in bed before going to sleep at night. Of the dozen or so books I read this year, the most memorable was Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector.

I read for recreation+edification, simultaneously, though I'm sort of over fiction. The Elements of Typographical Style, by Robert Bringhurst, is one of my favorite books, ever.
I also liked Small worlds : the dynamics of networks between order and randomness by Duncan J. Watts.
I recently started The Code Book, by Simon Sing, and enjoying it a lot.
The last fiction books I enjoyed where probably the Baroque Cycle books, by Neal Stephenson, or The Algebraist by Iain Banks.

I also do a lot of reading on the web, obviously, and also at work.

This makes me wonder . . . if we printed out all the print-based websites we read every day, how many pages would that amount to? How many pages of text are we reading on our screens every day?

I wonder if, at some point in the near future, increased connection speeds will create a web split between a minority who still browse text and photo sites and a much larger majority using a video-based web.

Just a thought.

I also read Water for Elephants. Enjoyed it, in the sense that I enjoy Pat Conroy books. A bit over-wrought, but engrossing.

I agree with that assessment exactly, danf.

Yeah, j_p, I've often thought the same - there may be a literate web and a post-literate web in our future.

"Post-literate" things generally drive me nuts - ATM keyboards, for instance, with no words on the keys, just symbols I'm expected to understand mean "enter" or "cancel." Touchscreen ordering systems and fast-food menus that show pictures of the food rather than names. Shades of "Idiocracy."

Shades of "Idiocracy."

Or a rational attempt to overcome language barriers, perhaps.

Recent fiction: Chris Adrian--The Children's Hospital
Not-so-recent fiction: Russell Hoban--Riddley Walker
Non-fiction: Harry Collins--Gravity's Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves

Shades of "Idiocracy."

Or a rational attempt to overcome language barriers, perhaps

And literacy barriers.

I'm always reading something. The books that stand out most for me this year are Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain, about the bombing of Hiroshima, and Sarah Waters' Fingersmith. I mostly read novels and narrative non-fiction.

I read for both, like most everyone else here it seems, but here's a few I actually remember (some of these are a little older):
William Vollman, Poor People.

Jeff Chang, Can't Stop, Won't Stop.

Brian Vaughan, The Pride of Baghdad.

Reread (for the 300,000th time--conservative estimate):
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.

How to Talk Dirty and Influence People by Lenny Bruce.

77 Dream Songs by John Berryman.

Most anything by William Carlos Williams.

hmm, should be Vollmann, not Vollman. Sorry.

I've been delving into old stuff lately, and the "People of the Black Circle" collection of Conan stories knocked my socks off. This is original Robert E. Howard stuff, accept no substitutes.

As a knuckle draggin', booger pickin', recidivist moron, from a family in which madness runs, I have a feeling I shouldn't admit to readin', at all, much less honest-to-Flyin'-Spaghetti-Monster books. But.

I enjoyed Scott Rosenburg's Dreaming in Code. In September, I started reading The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition online, and that has prompted me to plunk down money I should be spending on trucks and guns, on this gorgeous worthwhile thing. Well, hell, I've taken their trip, 8 times, on motorcycles, in old trucks, and on my thumb, with and without a dog, and the Corps of Discovery left plenty, still, to discover, I can tell you. But they saw a lot of it, if not first, at least freshly, when seeing it was worth their lives. What they thought to record is an obligation, for somebody, still, to read. So sorry, boys, if that includes me.

Last July, I dipped back into Robert Sternberg's The Triarchic Mind, for some half forgotten references on athletic "intelligence," to cover a discussion I was having on an email list. It's worth, I think, the $0.01 that Amazon is listing a used copy for, if for nothing else than order filler. And not a year goes by, that I don't re-read some of The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris, just to remember being gob smacked by one man's fresh opinion.

I was jolted back, again, to Lauren Slater's Prozac Diary, as are many who put their arms and hearts around mental illness, 100+ days a year. She's still the brilliant, but self-serving cunt she always was, in words, once printed, that never change. And she saved 2007 from being the first year that I read no book by a women, since 1972.

I read, for the first time, because he died, Norman Mailer's The Prisoner of Sex. I miss you, you magnificent asshole, more in death's distant embrace, than ever I did, while you were kickin'.

I read a bunch, but lately much of my time has been spent burying my nose in computer books...

I'm sure I'll think of more later but here's some of the stuff I loved this year

Fiction
Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
Bad Monkey by Matt Ruff was pretty fun

Business
Made to Stick

Kids
The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Anything by Michael Perry

Poetry
The new Matt Cook
and Milwaukee does strange things to People by Susan Firer

I read a bunch of baseball books in case anyone wants recs

Jeez, paulsc: You aren't just a reader. You're a writer. hell of a comment

I'm commenting here just because we don't have favorites, to tell the truth. I want to be able to easily find all of your suggestions later on.

This year, I have read a lot of Margaret Atwood, Anthony Bourdain, Nick Hornby, and Armistead Maupin. (Apologies for any misspellings.) And yes, I know it's all pretty trendy.

I'm doing a lot of catching up, thanks to the wonderful local library.

This thread is kind of sad for me, as I realize that 2007 was not a big book year for me. I tend to read things in spurts - have several books going all at once, but find it hard to complete many of them. However, here's a few I completed:

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
House Thinking

I am currently reading Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin, and enjoying it a great deal.

Oh, and PaulSC - I definitely feel you should send some roses and a card to the one female author you pick each year to read. Chances are she'll be really flattered that you took the time.