Book List 2011
January 8, 2011
I met my reading goal last year (more than 21) and read 26 books. Sometimes that feels like a number barely worth even mentioning, but it's more than two books per month and I was able to do that even though I taught for a semester.
So this year, my goal is an even 30. We'll see if I can do it. I'm not doing so well with the book I chose to start the year. And now that I have a Roku, tv may win the day.
Fiction
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (This book is excellent. I read it in about a day. I highly, highly recommend it.)
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Room by Emma Donoghue
The World's Shortest Stories of Love and Death edited by Steve Moss
Dear Old Love edited by Andy Selsberg
Best American Short Stories 2010 edited by Richard Russo
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
The Leftovers by Tom Perotta
Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
Non-fiction
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America by Susan Faludi
Life by Keith Richards
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Archives in the Ancient World by Ernst Posner
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
I'm Down by Mishna Wolff
Abandoned
And then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (Seriously, people? I'm charging you for the interminable hours I won't get back reading half this book.)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Ditto.)
Finn by Jon Clinch
The Manufactured Identity by Heath Sommer (This is, in all seriousness, the most poorly written book ever published. Probably.)
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell
*Edit 07/16/2011* I am not going to hit my goal this year. 2011 has been a shitty reading year.
*Edit 09/07/2011* This might be the first year in the last 3+ that I've read more fiction than non-fiction.
I met my reading goal last year (more than 21) and read 26 books. Sometimes that feels like a number barely worth even mentioning, but it's more than two books per month and I was able to do that even though I taught for a semester.
So this year, my goal is an even 30. We'll see if I can do it. I'm not doing so well with the book I chose to start the year. And now that I have a Roku, tv may win the day.
Fiction
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (This book is excellent. I read it in about a day. I highly, highly recommend it.)
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Room by Emma Donoghue
The World's Shortest Stories of Love and Death edited by Steve Moss
Dear Old Love edited by Andy Selsberg
Best American Short Stories 2010 edited by Richard Russo
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
The Leftovers by Tom Perotta
Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
Non-fiction
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America by Susan Faludi
Life by Keith Richards
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Archives in the Ancient World by Ernst Posner
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
I'm Down by Mishna Wolff
Abandoned
And then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (Seriously, people? I'm charging you for the interminable hours I won't get back reading half this book.)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Ditto.)
Finn by Jon Clinch
The Manufactured Identity by Heath Sommer (This is, in all seriousness, the most poorly written book ever published. Probably.)
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell
*Edit 07/16/2011* I am not going to hit my goal this year. 2011 has been a shitty reading year.
*Edit 09/07/2011* This might be the first year in the last 3+ that I've read more fiction than non-fiction.