My Current Reads

Book stackI always have at least two books going, one I’m listening to, and one I’m actually reading. I’ve been trying to keep Amazon Dot Com in business ever since it opened shop, and so I buy more books than I should. (Such good deals!) All this creates a certain amount of anxiety about getting on to the next book so I can justify my spending. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a bit like me, and may also share with me another malady–losing track of what you’ve read. I began keeping a list in 2008 and felt a certain amount of satisfaction as I watched the list grow, and a certain amount of anxiety–there’s that “A-Word” again–that once I set the bar, I’d need to keep surpassing it in subsequent years. I can already see I’m going to fall short in 2009!

Here are my lists for 2008 and 2009, in case you’re interested. If you see something that looks good, feel free to ask me about it. By the way, my favorites for 2009 are Olive Kitteridge, The Help, The Poet, Shanghai Girls, and The Girl Who Played with Fire .

Books I’ve Read in 2010

  • The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Steig Larsson. (fiction–his last in the trilogy…sigh)
  • The Journey Takers, by Leslie Albrecht Huber (family history. Brings nacestors to life with realistic scenes.)
  • The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean (fiction)
  • The Ohio Frontier, by R. Douglas Hurt (non-fiction)
  • Never Let Me Go, by Kazu0 Ishiguro (fiction)
  • The Human Stain, by Philip Roth (fiction)
  • Making a Literary Life, by Carolyn See (non-fiction)
  • Power in the Blood, by Linda Tate (family history)
  • Rosie’s Daughters, by Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnet (non-fiction)
  • Memoir, by Ben Yagoda (non-fiction)
  • The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins (fiction)
  • Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro (short stories)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (fiction)

My 2009 List

  • Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith
  • What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark
  • The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel (memoir)
  • Mentors, Muses & Monsters, edited by Elizabeth Benedict
  • How Fiction Works, by James Wood
  • The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
  • Don’t Call Me Mother, by Linda Joy Myers (memoir)
  • Unreliable Truth, by Maureen Murdock
  • The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing (fiction)
  • The Poet, by Michael Connelly (fiction)
  • My Life in France, by Julia Child (memoir)
  • The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Steig Larsson (fiction)
  • On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan (fiction)
  • Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (fiction)
  • Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo (fiction)
  • Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See (fiction)
  • Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl (memoir)
  • All Things Wise and Wonderful, by James Herriot (fiction/memoir)
  • People of the Book, by Geraldine Brookes (Fiction)
  • A Mercy, by Tony Morrison (fiction)
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (fiction)
  • A Letter to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou (non-fiction)
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson (fiction)
  • Escape, by Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer (memoir)
  • An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken (memoir)
  • When Character was King, by Peggy Noonan (biography of Ronald Reagan)
  • The Widow’s War, by Sally Gunning (historical novel)
  • All the Living, by C.E. Morgan (fiction)
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (fiction)
  • Handle with Care, by Jodi Piccoult
  • Hooked, by Les Edgerton (A good book that discusses writing fiction that grabs readers at page one)
  • The Great Wagon Road, by Parket Rouse, Jr. (background for the family history I’m writing)
  • Hallelujah, by Maya Angelou (memoir–essays about food and life)
  • A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick (fiction)

My 2008 List

  • The Glass House, by Jeanette Walls (memoir)
  • Shakespeare: The World as Stage, by Bill Bryson (non-fiction)
  • Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (non-fiction)
  • The Gathering, by Anne Enright (fiction)
  • The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan (memoir)
  • The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer (memoir)
  • Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortensen (memoir)
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston (fiction)
  • A Broom of One’s Own, by Nancy Leacock (memoir)
  • Peony in Love, by Lisa See (fiction)
  • House on Mango Street, by Susan Cisneros (memoir)
  • His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph Ellis (non-fiction)
  • As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner (fiction)
  • Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett (fiction)
  • Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (memoir)
  • The Prince of Frogtown, by Rick Bragg (memoir)
  • How I Got Cultured, by Phyllis Barber (memoir)
  • Benjamin Franklin, by Walter Isaacson (non-fiction)
  • A Mormon Mother, by Annie Tanner (memoir)
  • Ancestors: A Family History, by William Maxwell (non-fiction)
  • The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan (non-fiction)
  • The King’s English, by Betsy Burton (non-fiction)
  • Talk to the Hand, by Lynne Truss (non-fiction)
  • March, by Geraldine Brooks (fiction)
  • Making Peace, by Eugene England (non-fiction)
  • Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (short story)
  • Our Story Begins, by Tobias Wolff (short story)
  • The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (fiction)
  • Three Junes, by Julia Glass (fiction)
  • Restless, by William Boyd (fiction)
  • Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (non-fiction)
  • Home, by Marilynne Robinson

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