2011 Book List

Dec 29, 2011 07:28

Books I read in 2011:
--A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara Tuchman. The Black Death! Need I say more?
--Salvation City - Sigrid Nunez. An interesting post-pandemic story.
--Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua. I only read this for a book group that basically died before it got started. She really, really annoyed me and I felt sorry for her daughters.
--In the Woods - Tana French. I've been getting into mysteries and crime books lately (thanks nsfinch!) and this was a good one. Set in Ireland.
--The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S. - Arnost Lustig. Fictionalized diary of a woman in the Terezin ghetto. Wrenching.
--A Big Storm Knocked it Over - Laurie Colwin. I friend recommended this book to me and I definitely enjoyed. I guess I would classify it as robust chick-lit.
--The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell. This is a Kurt Wallander book. F and I watched the BBC series with Kenneth Branaugh. The books are good too.
--American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld. Fictionalized account of Laura Bush. I enjoyed it.
--The Vanishing of Katharina Linden - Helen Grant. Small, but gripping small-town drama.
--Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier. I love so many of her books and this was one was amazing.
--Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier. Her most recent one. Also quite good.
--Burning Bright - Tracy Chevalier. Not as good as the two listed above.
--Sidetracked - Henning Mankell. Another Wallander mystery.
--The Night Watch - Sarah Waters. This narrative went backwards in chunks and that annoyed me. It was about Blitz and post-war London, but the characters weren't completely likeable to me.
--Bent Road - Lori Roy. Another rural/small-town in middle America family drama. Missing child, family skeletons.
--Russian Winter: A Novel - Daphne Kalotay. Delightful story partly in this time, partly in Soviet Moscow.
--The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 - Eric Hobsbawm. I wanted to learn more about the French Revolution and I have this in my collection.
--Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing - Christiane Northrup. My acupuncturist let me borrow this to read the chapter on endometriosis before my surgery. I read most of the whole book. Interesting insights about the connections between emotions and our physical health, especially as it relates to our lady-bits and other parts.
--The Weight of Silence - Heather Gudenkauf. More missing children in Iowa. More family secrets. A good book, but note to self: do not move to Iowa.
--The Boys: The Untold Story of 732 Concentration Camp Survivors - Martin Gilbert. I actually went to this reading YEARS ago, and Gilbert signed my copy and I finally got around to reading it.
--Children of the Arbat - Anatoli Rybakov. I've owned the book for years, but just read it. Very, very good novel of the lead up to the Terror in the Soviet Union in 1935.
--In a Perfect World - Laura Kasischke. Flu pandemic goes bad, world collapses, small family struggles to make the transition. Good but it disturbed me in the end. I read it one sitting.
--Purge - Sofi Oksanen. Fascinating, wrenching novel about Soviet-occupied Estonia and the immediate post-Soviet period. And there is some serious WTF?? stuff in there.
--Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Food - Nina Planck. A lot of this I've learned from my herbalist and other readings, but a good perspective on things.
--Fear - Anatoli Rybakov. Part 2 of the Arbat trilogy. Not as good as the first, but good.

Books I started reading but quit on for various reasons:
--Life Class - Pat Barker. I thought it was going to be about WWI, but it was such a slow start I gave up.
--The Listener - Shira Nayman. I barely remember what this was about. It was supposed to be a mystery of sorts but it did not hold my attention.
--The File: A Personal History - Timothy Garton Ash. Ash wrote "In Europe's Name," which was awesome. This is about the Stasi's personal files on people, but I couldn't get through it.
--The Bridge on the Drina - Ivo Andric. I was trying to be virtuous by reading this book. After the impalement in the 2nd chapter, I couldn't keep going though.
--The History of History - Ida Hattemer-Higgins. The premise, which I can barely remember seemed so promising, but it just slogged so I quit.
--Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian. I got pretty far, but I have to confess, I didn't finish it.

goodreads, books read in 2011, books

Previous post
Up