3. The Thinking Fan's Guide to The World Cup

Edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (397 pp.)

This collection with the unfortunately elitist sounding title, was put together prior to the 2006 World Cup. It's made up of 32 essays by different writers, one essay for each country in the final. Plus there's a recap of the 02 WC and a preview of the 06 WC and a bunch of statistics about the countries and the World Cup. There was no format for the essays. Some of them read like school reports about the country with a sentence or two about soccer thrown in. Others are like school reports about soccer in the country. The best ones are personal anecdotes where the writer has a personal connection with the country and with soccer. My favorite was the Iran essay by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh. It's both sad and hilarious and unfortunately that link is only an excerpt. I don't think you can really appreciate it without reading the whole thing. I also loved Portugal, Italy and Togo but lots of the essays are great. I recommend for soccer fans but the Iran essay I recommend to everyone.

2. What It Is

By Lynda Barry (209 pp)

I've had this book on my nightstand forever and I pick it up and page through it now and then. I finally actually read it cover-to-cover last week. It's a book based on the writing class that she does and it's a must for all Lynda Barry fans. Bob got me her new book for my bday and now that has been moved to the nightstand.

1. On Writing

by Stephen King (288 pp)

I picked this up during the holidays while I was organizing my bookshelves. I intended to just flip through it and ended up reading the whole thing. Really good as a writing book and as a memoir.

Book List for 2011 Starts Here

I just want to point out, again, that I read a lot of big books last year. Thirteen books had 400 or more pages. Five had 700 or more. In case there is a regulatory body reviewing my stats I just want to make sure they have all the data they need. It added up to 15,968 pages. If I'd known how close I was to 16K I would have hurry-upped and read another book.

I also kept track of reading 133 short stories. That isn't completely accurate because I don't write down every short story I read. Sometimes it's too much trouble.

I don't have any specific reading goals for 2011. I'm not going to keep track of a page count again. I just did that because I kept finding myself mowing through giant books and I haven't read giant books in a long time. Giant books can be really good. I still have a couple on my bookshelf.