Infinitive Splitter

Here’s what I remember reading this year, in approximate order of enjoyability (I recommend all of them):

Fiction

• Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger
• A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
• White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

Nonfiction

• Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
• The Assassins’ Gate, by George Packer
• The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Frank Rich
• Charlie Wilson’s War, by George Crile
• The Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson
• Made in America, by Bill Bryson
• What’s Liberal about the Liberal Arts?, by Michael Bérubé
• Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
• Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, by Chuck Klosterman

That’s all. The list of books I didn’t finish includes John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise, which was hilarious, but whose almanac-esque structure didn’t really compel me to continue reading beyond the first hundred pages; Cobra II, by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, which did not turn out to be as good for summertime, pool-side reading as I had hoped; and Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear, which I brought on my trip to Philadelphia — along with the ridiculous notion that I might have the time or energy to read for pleasure in the final week before Election Day. I may or may not revisit those latter two before New Year’s.

Any suggestions for 2007? I hope next year’s list is at least twice as long.