Reading, 2008
Not sure yet who won the competitive reading club competition for 2008; the results won't be posted for a couple of days. And this will be the last year for competition; my nephews--who coordinate, compile, and post--are getting too busy, and as the club's enrollment has grown and the number of books we each read has swelled, their work has swelled, too.
So we're all being politely pushed toward Shelfari, and the competitive site will go away.
It's just as well; reading shouldn't be about quantity, though it was hard to keep from getting caught up in the whole toting-up of each month's totals.
Speaking of totals, I posted my January through June titles earlier. Here are July through December; keep in mind that some of the titles (um, Nicholas Sparks) I had to read, for work.
Best books I read this year? Charles Baxter, for sure. Ron Rash's "Serena." Helene Cooper. The Tibetan book we all talked about earlier. Blake Morrison's memoir of his father. Tony Horwitz's history of America. Anne Enright's "The Gathering." Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories.
July
"Blueberry Summers" by Curtiss Johnson
"Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey through China," by Jen Lin-Liu
"Izzy and Lenore: Two Dogs, an Unexpected Journey, and Me," by Jon Katz
"The Longest Trip Home," by John Grogan
"Dark Summit," by Nick Heil
"Something for the Pain: One Doctor's Account of Life and Death in the ER," by Paul Austin
"The Feast of Love," by Charles Baxter
August
"Reading the OED," by Ammon Shea
"Stanley and Sophie," by Kate Jennings
"The Anglo Files," by Sarah Lyall
"In His Sights," by Kate Brennan
"After the Fire," by Robin Gaby Fisher
"Black Box," by Julie Schumacher
"The Nineteenth Wife," by David Ebershoff
"A Guide to the Birds of East Africa," by Nicholas Drayson
September
"The House at Sugar Beach," by Helene Cooper
"The Second Time Around," by Marcia Willett
"The Lucky One," by Nicholas Sparks
"The Pages in Between," by Erin Einhorn
"My Name is Number 4," by Ting-xing Ye
October
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
"The Condition," by Jennifer Haigh
"American Wife," by Curtis Sittenfeld
"The Leisure Seekers," by Michael Zadoorian
"The Sealed Letter," by Emma Donoghue
"The Sharper the Knife, the Less you Cry," by Kathleen Flinn
"The Road Home," by Rose Tremain
"I'll Never Be French," by Mark Greenside
"Greasy Rider," by Greg Melville
"An Irish Country Christmas," by Patrick Taylor
"American Wife," by Curtis Sittenfeld
"The Leisure Seekers," by Michael Zadoorian
"The Sealed Letter," by Emma Donoghue
"The Sharper the Knife, the Less you Cry," by Kathleen Flinn
"The Road Home," by Rose Tremain
"I'll Never Be French," by Mark Greenside
"Greasy Rider," by Greg Melville
"An Irish Country Christmas," by Patrick Taylor
November
"The Hidden Room," by Johanna Speiss
"A Hidden Life," by Johanna Speiss
"A Pint of Plain," by Bill Barich
"Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures," by Ellen Helzel and Margo Hammond
"Heart and Soul," by Maeve Binchy
"Serena," by Ron Rash
December
"The Mercy Papers," by Robby Romm
"Losing Everything," by David Lozell Martin
"A Place Called Canterbury," by Dudley Clendenin
"Where Wanderers Cease to Roam," by Vivian Swift
"Alex and Me," by Irene M. Pepperberg
"Keeping the House," by Ellen Baker.
14 comments:
Wow, impressive reading list! Makes mine look very trashy indeed. And short in comparison. :)
I was just starting to work on my 2nd half of 2008 book post. Will wait now with posting that for a few days yet.
dumdad has his up, too, over at the other side of paris.
he and i agree on NOTHING. not one book!
I adored the Lahiri stories! And I'll keep your list through the year for when I'm at a loss as to what to read next.
Lovely photo of Boscoe smiling. BTW, my husband got Lexi and Wolfie a ramp for Christmas, for our truck. We haven't tried it out yet. How's Boscoe doing on his?
Good grief, Laurie, haven't you anything better to do with your time than read all those books?
Can you remember the outlines of all of them? Some of the earlier ones, for instance?
lali, many of the books weren't worth it. and this doesn't include the dozens of books i've schlepped home night after night and glanced at, read the first 20-30 pages of, skimmed, etc., trying to decide if they need to be reviewed or not. but if you don't know charles baxter, you would love him, i think.
doglover, i do remember them all! but i might not by next year at this time...
Cripes, I've only read one on your list - the Rose Tremain one.
Which would be your top pick from the list?
Laurie, curious as to if you have a rating system?
Best book of each month, etc.
Would highly recommend "Through Black Spruce" Joseph Boyden - it won the Giller here. And also his "Three Day Road" which still haunts me years later.
XO
WWW
we do rate them, with up to five stars.
lane, did you like the tremain book? i know it won some awards, and i did like it, but i didn't love it. i didn't believe the plot, which felt pat at times.
WWW, are you familiar with charles baxter? his book "the feast of love" isn't new and apparently has been made in to a movie (which i haven't seen) but wow, his writing is so gorgeous. i started copying out the sentences that i particularly loved and had to stop because i was copying out the whole damn book.
It's amazing not one of our combined 107 books tally!
I did re-read Blake Morrison's wonderful book When Did You Last See Your Father, but that was in 2007.
If we ever read the same book we must compare notes!
Seriously: Do you ever sleep? Ever?
Laurie, I agree. I enjoyed it but it wasn't a stunner. Too many of the characters were overly stereotypical.
I swear, Laurie, I just love ya. You're the only other person I know who devours books the way I always have.
Did you like "The Nineteenth Wife"? It's on my Amazon shopping list.
I've not read a single one of these books. But then I am the Queen of Trashy reading. (So I guess one might assume that I would like Nicholas Sparks, but one would be very, very wrong.)
I need to finish up my list for the year.
I really enjoyed Izzy and Lenore....I read and like all of Jon Katz' stuff, but this one really touched me as he described the hospice work that he and Izzy do.
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