2008's Pleasure Reading, in Convenient List Form

Taking my inspiration once again from a friend whose list is always longer than mine (BeeKay, I'm so jealous!), I'd like to present to you the books I read for pleasure in 2008. This list is a bit of a trip down memory lane for me. It takes me back to train rides in Germany this summer, those five beautiful weeks of down time when I first moved to New Jersey, our camping trip to Algonquin, the lazy days leading up to Christmas at my parents' house, all those mornings on the cramped PATH train from Jersey City to 33rd Street in Manhattan, etc. It's been a good year.

I've been trying to pinpoint it lately: why exactly do I love to read? One answer I've come up with so far: your life is basically what happens inside your head. When you read, you give yourself the opportunity to live wildly beyond your limits. I lived on the American frontier this year. I solved mysteries in the 1950s. I went back to China; I lived with the expatriates in 1920s Paris; I hung out again with Anne Shirley. Reading is, of course, beyond simple adventure. There's a lot more to say on this topic, but I'll leave it at this for now.

And now, in case you're curious, my list (in chronological order):

1. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
2. The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
3. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
5. The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
6. The Hero With a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
7. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World - John Wood
8. Fault Lines - Nancy Huston
9. The Mystery at Lilac Inn - Carolyn Keene
10. Foreign Affairs - Allison Lurie
11. History of Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Frederick Hartt
12. Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon
13. Our Oriental Heritage - Will and Ariel Durant
14. The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way - Bill Bryson
15. Farmer Boy - Laura Ingalls Wilder
16. The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
17. Collected Stories - Roald Dahl
18. The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden
19. What's Bred in the Bone - Robertson Davies
20. Balkan Ghosts: a Journey Through History - Robert Kaplan
21. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
22. On the Banks of Plum Creek - Laura Ingalls Wilder
23. By the Shores of Silver Lake - Laura Ingalls Wilder
24. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World - Margaret MacMillan
25. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
26. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
27. The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud
28. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze - Peter Hessler
29. The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder
30. Little Town on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
31. These Happy Golden Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder
32. The First Four Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder
33. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
34. The Hours - Michael Cunningham
35. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
36. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
37. Small World - David Lodge
38. The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
39. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
40. The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper
41. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
42. The Shipping News - E. Anne Proulx
43. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
44. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genuis - Dave Eggers
45. Anne of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
46. A Mighty Fortress: a New History of the German People - Steven Ozment
47. The Quiet American - Graham Greene
48. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
49. A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
50. The Monster of Florence - Douglas Preston & Mario Spezi
51. Into Thin Air - John Krakauer

A couple notes on all this:

Of the 51 books listed, only 5 were read in the 3 and a half months class was in session. Looks like my 2009 list will be a short one.

If you're interested in recommendations, definitely read The Hours, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and Into Thin Air. (Should I really stop at 3?? I feel like I could chatter on and on about at least 25 of the books on this list)

I would not however, recommend The Maltese Falcon. What a disappointment! I can't stand Dashiell Hammett's writing style - so clunky and over the top.

A couple stats:

7 books with a stong Canadian connection - Canadian authors, settings, etc.

13 books written for a younger audience.

7 Pulitzer Prize Winners

2 Pulitzer Finalists

On to 2009! I've got two weeks to cram in a semester's worth of reading. Better get going.