Another year has come to an end, and with it another round of books has been added to the “already read” portion of my bookshelf.

2009 started off on an incredible pace. At one point — after two days — I was on track to read 182 books. That didn’t quite happen. But I did surpass my 2008 total, and since I dubbed that year “The Year of the Book,” I’d say that’s an accomplishment.

The key to reading a lot is to not have a job. I was pretty much convinced I was going to ease my way through 40 books this year…until I ended up with two jobs on my plate. The final tally is 21, and if you’ll remember from last year, that’s one better than I did in 2008.

You can read last year’s recap here.

The stack of this year’s books:

In case you can’t make them out, the list in text:

-The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
-Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer
-You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
-IV by Chuck Klosterman
-The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
-The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
-The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
-The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
-The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole
-Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone
-Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
-What is the What by Dave Eggers
-The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
-The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
-Getting Up and Down by Ken Venturi
-The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
–A Civil War by John Feinstein
–The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
-The Pearl by John Steinbeck
–Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
–A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

Last year I tried to remember all of the books and their order before writing this. I didn’t make it past three books this time before I had to consult my sweet Excel spreadsheet. Since I mentioned it, I’ll share some data about this year’s reads:

-Total pages: 6598
-Average length: 314
-Longest: 571 (The World is Flat)
-Shortest: 87 (The Pearl)

Unlike last year, no two books were the same length. It took me an average of 15 days to read each book, the longest stretch being 51 days and the shortest being two days. The title for half of the books starts with the word “The.”

Last year I wrote a blog about every title, since that was one of my goals from the start. This year I thought I had sort of burned out that topic and figured most people didn’t want another year of reading my book reports. And then people starting asking me why I hadn’t written about books in a while. So I started again with “A Civil War” back in August and probably won’t stop for a while. (In the text list above, any titles with a hyperlink will bring you to the post about that book).

I forgot how much I enjoyed going back and really thinking about the book I just read. It gave me a reason to dog-ear pages and reflect, all while sharing the experience with others. I had more than one person tell me they started reading a book after looking at one of those posts. I think that’s a good thing.

Now that I’m looking back on the year, I really wish I had written about all of the books. There are some amazing reads from the beginning of the year — “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” and “You Shall Know Our Velocity!” will definitely affect you.

As a nerd, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Nine” (an inside look at the Supreme Court) and also “Founding Brothers” (about specific instances/interactions among the founding fathers). Both are fascinating bits of history and contemporary perspective that really add to your view about how our country operates. Add in “Gaming the Vote” (arguing the election system is broken, and ways to fix it) and you’ll definitely want to take a closer look the next time an election rolls around.

It took me seemingly forever to get through “The World is Flat.” I’d blame that on the fact that it’s the longest of the year, features economic thoughts and I’ve also had it staring at me from the bookshelf for several years. But it’s certainly one I’m glad I read and I see the points Friedman makes on virtually a daily basis.

Last year I also set out to build something out of the book stack. I wasn’t very successful, but thought I’d at least try again.

Here’s the first attempt before it fell down:

I figured the carpet wasn’t doing me any favors, so I switched to the other side:

That seemed to work well:

I was slightly amazed it got this high:

Then gravity interfered, and the lack of hardcovers to provide stability led to this:

That video is a first for this blog. Get excited. You’ll see the loser in the tower was Jonathon Safran Foer, whose “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is the book wedged down into the wall. Sorry.

Made me laugh: “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,” “A Long Way Down” and “You Shall Know Our Velocity!”

If you read only five: “You Shall Know Our Velocity!,” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” “The Tipping Point,” “Fahrenheit 451” and “A Long Way Down.”

Would have left out: “Getting Up & Down”

You’ll learn something: “The Tipping Point,” “The Nine,” and “Gaming the Vote”

Hardest read: “The Sound and the Fury” (narrated by three different people, one of them mentally handicapped who has no concept of time, plus there’s a male and female character with the same name).

Like I said last year after reading his “A Confederacy of Dunces,” it’s a shame John Kennedy Toole was only around to write two books. We definitely missed out on some potential.

Here’s to a literary-filled 2010, which I’m tentatively dubbing “The Year of the Writing Project.” Updates as warranted.