The halfway point
I'm about to turn in my June books for the competitive reading club.
You remember the competitive reading club--invented by my nephews, the book club that has no required reading other than "something." You must read something each month in order to keep your membership current.
At the end of each month, you send in the list of books you've finished reading, along with a star rating and a six-word review.
I won two years ago, discovered blogging, and fell back to second place the next year.
This year I am in fourth place in a field of fifteen. But with my new responsibilities at work I will be doing a lot of reading, and so I am taking myself out of the running for the prize. An arrogant move on my part, since I'm nowhere near the front and there's no guarantee that I will suddenly surge ahead and smoke everyone else.
But still. It takes the pressure off. And removes any unfair advantage I might have. Anyway, at the halfway point, here are the twenty-eight books I've read so far this year, starting with June and working backwards to January. I'll spare you the star ratings and the six-word reviews; you can probably guess which ones I liked and which ones I didn't.
Which have you read? Which have you liked? What are you reading now?
THE GATHERING, by Anne Enright
TIME IS A RIVER by Mary Alice Munroe
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH by Jhumpa Lahiri
DRUNKARD: A HARD-DRINKING LIFE by Neil Steinberg
THE BIELSKI BROTHERS; THE TRUE STORY OF THREE MEN WHO DEFIED THE NAZIS, BUILT A VILLAGE IN THE FOREST, AND SAVED 1200 JEWS by Peter Duffy
A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN by Marina Lewycka
CLOSING TIME by Lacey Forsburgh
AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? by Blake Morrison
A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE by Tony Horwitz
THE KILLING OF MAJOR DENIS MAHON; A MYSTERY OF OLD IRELAND by Peter Duffy
THE SOLOIST by Steve Lopez
THE DEPORTEES by Roddy Doyle
THE LOST CONTINENT; TRAVELS IN SMALL-TOWN AMERICA by Bill Bryson
RUNNING A HOTEL ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD; FIVE YEARS IN TIBET by Alec LeSueur
GREENSLEEVES by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
AN IRISH COUNTRY DOCTOR by Patrick Taylor
FINDING IRIS CHANG; FRIENDSHIP, AMBITION AND THE LOSS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MIND by Paula Kamen
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
THE RETURN JOURNEY by Maeve Binchy
BRINKLEY'S BEAT; PEOPLE, PLACES AND EVENTS THAT SHAPED MY TIME by David Brinkley
THE STORY OF CHICAGO MAY, by Nuala O'Faolain
THE THIRD ANGEL by Alice Hoffman
THREE MOTHERS by Sonia Lambert
IF TODAY BE SWEET by Thrity Umrigar
BORN STANDING UP by Steve Martin
MARY: MRS. A. LINCOLN by Janis Newman
THE LAST BEACH BUNGALOW by Jennie Nash
THE SINS OF THE MOTHERS by Frank Delaney
Your turn.
34 comments:
I have not read a single one of those books. And I also haven't managed to read 28 adult books. Kids books, I might be in the four figures for the year.
I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Relin. It was really inspiring, enlightening, humbling and informative. I didn't think it would be a page turner, but it was.
I haven't decided what my next book will be. Yet.
Ah hell. Do knitting books count? I've bought and read quite a few this year. I've been knitting so much that my reading has fallen behind.
I did just finish Jeffrey Deaver's new book The Broken Window. I've since sworn off discount cards and paying for anything by credit card.
I'm currently reading Stiff and Thinning the Herd. Oh, I also read the new provider manual for Advanced Cardiac Life Support, took the certification class, passed and promptly transferred to hospice. hahahahaha. That should be a bit of insight into my somewhat dark mind.
I have read several other very good books but that's enough for now. At least it's more than the funny pages. Or Playgirl.
Unbelievable! I won't say how many books I've read this year, but it's less than one.
Well, I'm up there somewhere near you though I can't tell you how many since I don't record them. Damn, I wish I did. I loved The Gathering. I love the idea of the competitive book club - it's brilliant.
I've just got The Gathering on Bookmooch, can't wait to receive it now. I've read about 3-4 books per month. April was an exception, I read less that month (I think I was too excited about NYC).
I obviously read the Hotel on the Roof of the World book but none of the others. Currently reading a trashy thriller by David Baldacci.
But you've given me an idea for a post now, so you've got to wait for a little while to see what I read so far this year. :)
Wow, that's an amazing number of books. It normally takes me a week to ten days to read a book and then my husband polishes off the same book in two days. Oh to speed read. Debs x
On your list, I've only read the Bill Bryson book. I'm finally reading again, with my more relaxed summer reading schedule, and am looking forward to my trip on Wednesday. I can usually knock out 2 books on a transatlantic flight. I have my books all lined up for the flight too - "Heart Shaped box" by Joe Hill and a couple of Jeffrey Lindsey's Dexter books.
rudee, any book counts as long as it's 150 pages or more.
ped, greg mortenson is a minnesotan! though he doesn't live here now.
WT, i don't believe you.
JJ, the gathering was great but bleak. there were echoes that reminded me of my family, in the complicated relationships.
babaloo, and i wonder where our tibet book is now?
debs, and just think there are three people in the club who've read more than 28 books already. amazing.
ann, i thought bill bryson was obnoxious in that book. but doug is reading his new book about shakespeare and is really liking it.
Twenty eight books in six months is pretty impressive. I aim to read one book a week, but that doesn't always happen.
I just finished Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, about a sociologist who spends a few years hanging out with drug dealers. I seem to have developed an unhealthy interest in drug gangs after discovering The Wire.
katie, everyone keeps telling me i have to rent The Wire. they say it's the best-written show they've ever seen. (obviously, they've never seen Slings and Arrows.)
so now it's on my netflix list. with trepidation. i don't like violence. i don't like police dramas. i don't like drug dealers.
but i do like good writing. so....we'll see.
Funny, I never feel like I read enough, but looking over this list, I'm surprised how it adds up. (I'm not keeping a formal count, by the way; I just happen to be typing this within sight of all our books.) And some of these are re-read; does that count?
• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
• The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud
• The Tibet hotel book
• The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova, Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship, by Johnette Howard
• Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• When You are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
• Equal Affections, by David Leavitt
• Good Faith, by Jane Smiley
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
• Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende
• Close Range, by Annie Proulx
• Fraud, by David Rakoff
• The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
• The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• Hiroshima, by John Hersey
• Michael Tolliver Lives, by Armistead Maupin
• Morgan's Passing, by Anne Tyler
• The Clock Winder, by Anne Tyler
• Celestial Navigation, by Anne Tyler
• Saint Maybe, by Anne Tyler
• Searching for Caleb, by Anne Tyler
And, of course:
• The Associated Press stylebook
And currently reading:
• A Tale of Love and Darkness, by Amos Oz
wow, bfy, lotsa anne tyler. i like her, too.
did you like "handmaid's tale"? maybe "like" is the wrong word. i found it absolutely plausible. if you were horrified by that, you should read ishiguro's "never let me go." same sort of thing, though also very different.
This isn't really fair, because I don't know you well enough to guess which ones you liked and which ones you didn't. I have the Enright and the Lahiri close to the top of my TBR stacks.
Seeing your challenge, I pulled out the ol' book journal to see what I've read this year so far:
Keeping the House by Ellen Baker
Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov
Voices by Arnaddur Indrittason
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
Trespass by Valerie Martin
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Run by Ann Patchett
The Heroines by Eileen Favorite
Best American Short Stories of 2007
The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski
In Her Absence by Antonio Munez Molino
The Book of Other People, edited by Zadie Smith
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
The God of Animals by Arin Kyle
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Anna of All the Russias by Elaine Feinstein
The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos
The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis
All Souls' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell
The Other Mother by Gwendolyn Gross
The Delicacy and Strength of Lace by Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright
The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey
Things I Learned from Knitting by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
wow, amy, that's a very impressive list. what did you think of "the remains of the day"? one of my favorite books.
How did you like The Soloist? I think that is the book that grew out of Steve Lopez's columns (he is one of my favorite columnists in the LA Times) that were hard to take, but I enjoyed reading. He discovered a well-educated and talented musician while writing about abuses on skid row. It was a very interesting story, but very sad.
Lopez is really good and has recently writing about his sister's battle with brain cancer and her attitude towards life. I can't imagine you get his columns in St. Paul since they tend to be LA specific, but maybe you read them on line.
I just read the Tractors in Ukrainian one. It was on the clearance book shelf at the library--50 cents. I love the bits when the father's new and younger wife thrusts her large breasts at people in order to accentuate whatever verbal point she is trying to make. Also, the part when the younger daughter realizes that due to family circumstances her own childhood was the polar opposite of her sister's childhood and that that explains much about them both.
Of course I've read P & P. You can't go to a women's college and not read Jane Austen. All of Jane Austen. Jane Austen up the wazoo.
I've been reading a lot of theology lately, mostly stuff on Gnosticism, did Paul write 1 Timothy or did someone just attach his name?, what gospels didn't make it into the New Testament and why. It's not typical for me to read theology. I don't even know why I'm doing it. Otherwise, I've been re-reading and re-reading old comforts: Gladys Taber, Miss Read, Terry Pratchett, E. F. Benson, Colette's Claudine novels.
What a good list. I have the excuse that I've been reading textbooks - if I include those it would be a very boring list. I read the Ukranian Tractors one and didn't much like it, but Bill Bryson is good and of course, Jane Austen.
Mine are:
ON ROYALTY by Jeremy Paxman (I thoroughly recommend anything by JP, even a shopping list)
SEE DELPHI AND DIE (audio) by Lyndsey Davis (my audio books are generally more trashy)
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by Mark Twain
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES by Lynne Truss
LABYRINTH (audio) by Kate Mosse
IF NOBODY SPEAKS OF REMARKABLE THINGS by Jon McGregor
A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS ETC by Marina Lewycka
NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION by Patrick Gale
THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON by Kate Morton
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khalid Husseini
HEAT by Bill Buford
DISSOLUTION by CJ Sansom
THE GOLDEN BOWL (audio) by Henry James
SAMUEL PEPYS (audio) by Claire Tomalin
BAD MEDICINE by David Wootton
DEATH IN A WHITE TIE (audio) by Ngaio Marsh
THE UNCOMMON READER (audio) by Alan Bennett
CODEBREAKERS: THE INSIDE STORY OF BLETCHLEY PARK by FH Hinsley and Alan Stripp (ed) but this one doesn't count because I couldn't finish it
LEAVE IT TO PSMITH (audio) by PG Wodehouse
That's more than I expected!
Amy: I've been meaning to read "Wide Sargasso Sea" for years. You might tempt me to take the plunge.
Laurie: I found "A Handmaid's Tale" terrifying for the reasons I suspect you feel the same about. One regret I have about the book is that she did not address (or at least I don't think she did) what happened to gay men, though I can only assume they were sent off to the islands to deal with toxic waste.
I'm also struck by the fact that most books are so serious. Whatever happened to comedy? I recommend David Sedaris and David Rakoff to anyone.
Also, I did not include the "Little House on the Prairie" books, which I re-read with abandon. I intend to make a theater trip to Minneapolis to see the musical at the Guthrie, and I'll let you know when.
P.S. About Anne Tyler, I can't get enough of her. A friend of mine has made a name for himself studying her and her use of time as a theme.
Here's a sample: http://tinyurl.com/5cojze
The best part about Tyler is that she can be analyzed academically or consumed conspicuously. I think I tend toward the latter.
I note you don't believe wt's number of books read (if that's the right word).
So can I have the prize? I have equalled his/her number.
[I do a lot of - erm - thinking, so don't have much time for reading]
my two cents: i liked the soloist ok, but i didn't think it was great. the guy is clearly a newspaper columnist, and he was a bit heavy-handed trying to make a book out of what was, essentially, a bunch of columns. a different kind of writing. it was tough. he tried to fold in the theme of how his friendship with the homeless man made lopez a better person, and it wasn't convincing.
but i agree the story itself was pretty amazing.
ari, i'd be totally lost in all that theology. but i have also beein re-reading some favorite childhood stuff---like GREENSLEEVES, a favorite of my youth.
lola: HEAT is on my list. and EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES is terrific. i saw Lynne Truss speak when she was in minneapolis two years ago. she's really quite wonderful.
byf: i'm not a big sedaris fan. what can i say? he plays with the truth too much and refuses to admit it. that offends me. but he IS funny.
interesting observation about tyler and time. i'd never noticed how smoothly she does that--i guess because she does it so smoothly.
wow. these are quite the lists! i feel lucky if i get a book a month read. but in all fairness, winter is my reading time. summer is filled with field work, harvesting, animals and farmers markets. you should see the tbr stack by the time october rolls around.
my list is small, but here it is:
omnivore's dilemma
harvest
fields of plenty
just who will you be? (my daughter received this as a gift for her high school graduation)
you can go home again
the right to write
walden (inspired by a thoreau cabin building class i took in grand marais)
eat pray love
you've given me some great ones to add to the fall/winter stack.
thanks!
I have read only a few on your list and i realize that i am hopelessly out of touch and will never keep up. I will no longer be the literate Irene I once was. Oh, poor brain cells. what is to become of you, so neglected by your owner. Surely shriveling up and death is next.
no no no--the only comparisons allowed here are in what was read, not how much. we are not obsessed with quantity. we just like to read.
angie, i have a friend who went to grand marais and took the bread-oven-building class. and then she went home and built a brick oven in her back yard. amazing! from time to time now, i come to work and find a perfect round crusty loaf on my chair, a gift.
irene, i read your blog. your brain cells aren't dead yet.
Oh Laurie:
I must must must keep a log, I never thought to before although I do keep a movie log.
I am currently reading Alan Bennett's latest, I adore the man. It is a funny funny book about the queen discovering books and getting addicted to reading.
I must do a tally of this year's reading.
My bed book is Jodi Picoult's "My sister's keeper" absolutely riveting about a baby born so her bone marrow and spare parts can be harvested for her sister.
XO
WWW
I probably would be a little behind you in tally...
WWW, I read that!! the alan bennett! or a truncated version of it, anyway. it ran in the London Review of Books. My sister-in-law sent it to me. It was wonderful! I loved it.
And I bought one of his books on your recommendation; "Untold Stories." It's on my bedside table now.
Laurie:
And I bought Blake Morrison's memoir on yours, it is about #2 on my stash of unreads.
Oh I envy you beginning "Untold" though not a bed book as it is too big, unless of course you have a bedside book-crane ;^)
XO
WWW
Wow Laurie!!!! What a list.....and I've looked at some of the others. Am now feeling like a rather illiterate type! This year I've read
When we Were Bad - Charlotte Mendelson
The View From Castle Rock - Alice Munro
Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World - Alec Le Sueur
Paula; The House of the Spirits; The Stories of Eva Luna;Ines of My Soul - Isabel Allende
Her Daughter's Keeper (reading now) - Jodi Picoult
Palestine, Peace not Apartheid - Jimmy Carter
Who Owns Canada Now - Diane Francis
The Last Templar - Raymond Khoury
and a whole whack of mysteries and thrillers that I bought for my month in South America this winter.
Not much of a list - do gardening books count???
Dang, WWW, i would have sent you my copy of Morrison's book.
Pondside, all books count! Gardening, mysteries, knitting, anything.
Any word on where the Tibet book is these days? Funny how it keeps popping up on our lists....
It's right here on my desk - with its original boarding pass, and another one added. Time to have another look at that April post of yours and pick its next destination!
I luv the pic of the chocker-block full bookcase!!
You have read 28 books this year? Wow. Impressive!
The crc sounds compelling. Hmmmm. Want.to.join.
but I barely have time to blog.
don't.make.me.choose.
great post!
And sadly, the only book I've read is Pride & Prejudice, one of my all time faves, EVER. The subtle ripping dialog is to die for, isn't it? Nobody does dialog quite like Austen.
"Edmund Ruthurford's "London," which weighs in at a staggering 1,152 pages, gave me four credits."
I'd love to read your rating of this book (all of your books listed, for that matter, please please with cherry on top?)
I have it on my shelf. Started it a couple years ago. Found it too slow. couldn't quite get into it. But want to try it again - should I?
I am not afraid of long books. I adore long books, as long as they are good. I read a slew of James Michener books in my teens, as example.
phd, "london" got five stars from me (five being the highest) and a review that says only "2,000 years of English history."
i lugged that book across the ocean with me and read it in England and finished it up in Paris, which might have something to do with my appreciation of it.
but i love how rutherford keeps the lines of eight or nine families going throughout the generations. it's a way to make the history more personal and fun.
you can read the reviews of all the 2007 books here.
and this year's books are here.
last year we wrote five-word reviews.
this year we get six words.
Byf, read Wide Sargasso Sea. It is very interesting. Even if it is, as one blogger put it, basically fan fic.
Laurie, Remains of the Day was a re-read for me--I love that book.
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