Behold, my third annual list of pleasure reading!
2009 was a good year book-wise, much better than I had anticipated. I think I have my long Rutgers commute to thank for that. Those long hours going from here to there were ideal for reading - and were in fact, just about the only time I ever felt I was "allowed" to read, that it was okay to do something other than homework or other library-type stuff.
No, that can't be right. The Northeastern line of NJ Transit wasn't the only place I read. Where else did I read then? There was the subway I guess, and my vacation, and the odd Saturday afternoon... maybe "sneaking it in" was my theme this year. Looking forward to changing that in 2010.
The list:
1. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt
2. King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild
3. The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
4. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
5. Anne of the Island - L.M. Montgomery
6. Anne of Windy Poplars - L.M. Montgomery
7. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
8. Scratch Beginnings - Adam Shepard
9. The Mark of the Angel - Nancy Huston
10. Strong Poison - Dorothy Sayers
11. Kitchen Priviledges: A Memoir - Mary Higgins Clark
12. The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris - Edmund White
13. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals: 1903-1933 - William Preston Jr.
14. Bel Canto - Anne Patchett
15. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
16. Wicked Plants - Amt Stewart
17. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
18. The Professor and the Madman: a tale of murder, insanity and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - Simon Winchester
19. Home Game - Michael Lewis
20. Sketches - Washington Irving
21. Murder in the Latin Quarter - Cara Black
22. Death in the Andes - Mario Vargas Llosa
23. A Rip in Heaven - Jeanine Cummins
24. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
25. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
26. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
27. Red China Blues - Jan Wong
28. Wuthering Heights - Charlotte Bronte
29. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
30. The Grass Harp and Other Stories - Truman Capote
31. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
32. Connected: the surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives - Nikolas Christakis33. A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
34. Vanity Fair - William Thackeray
35. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins
36. The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X/Alex Haley
37. Here of All Places - Osbert Lancaster
38. I, Claudius - Robert Graves
39. Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
40. Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Raves:
Bel Canto - a novel about terrorists in a South American country making hostages of the guests at a party in the vice president's home. I went back to certain passages again and again just to re-read certain strings of words. I don't do that often.
The Grass Harp and Other Stories - a collection of short works by Truman Capote. The title story involves a boy and two eccentric old ladies running away to live in a tree house. Beautiful, and it made me want to run away and have a strange adventure.
The Grass Harp and Other Stories - a collection of short works by Truman Capote. The title story involves a boy and two eccentric old ladies running away to live in a tree house. Beautiful, and it made me want to run away and have a strange adventure.
I, Claudius - Do you have even the faintest interest in Roman history? I didn't. That changed of course, after I read this book. It's a novel, but based on the history of Rome near the end of the empire. Little bit of fiction, little bit of history. Engrossing.
Plans for 2010:
*Re-read books I currently own! There are so many I have loved and want to read again...
*Read 75 books by December 31.
*Toss in some philosophy - get a couple classics under my belt this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment