The 75 (!!!) Books I read in 2012
Holy crap, I read a lot this year. It's almost embarrassing to admit how much I read, because it shows that I don't have much of a life. lol. Anyway, here's the list!
1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt -- 5 stars. I'm doing this in order of when I read the books, so this was a full year ago, but the book still stands out in my mind. It was really excellent. I'm in a bunch of goodreads.com clubs, and I read this for the "1001 books you must read before you die" club. So, yeah, if you adhere to that list-- this is definitely one to read before you die. :)
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- 3 stars. Great beginning, great ending, kinda lost me in the middle.
3. Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon -- 1 star. Totally forgot I read this one! I think it was for bookretorts. It was awful.
4. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson -- 3 stars. This was a good one, and Téa and I both enjoyed watching Muppet Treasure Island several times after I read the book. (This is one case where I thought the movie was more enjoyable!)
5. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin -- 4 stars. I think this was the hardest Game of Thrones book to get through for me. It took forever to read because it has a million pages, first of all, and secondly it was just gut-wrenching. At times I had to put the book down (or throw it across the room) and take a break from it.
6. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson -- 4 stars. Not as good as The Haunting of Hill House, but still creepy.
7. Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk -- 4 stars. This book was long, sort of dry in places, but really worth slogging through. My South Africa read for my Goodreads Around the World challenge.
8. Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste -- 4 stars. My Ethiopia read. Almost all the African novels I read this year were awesome, and this was no exception.
9. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin -- 4 stars. I guess this isn't a popular book in the series, but I liked it. It felt like a much-needed break after Book 3. Much shorter read and fewer main characters being slaughtered.
10. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson -- This was my first Bryson read and I really enjoyed it. I don't read much non-fiction (obviously), but this was incredibly informative and interesting.
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- 5 stars. My Nigeria read. SO GOOD. So heartbreaking, but SO GOOD.
12. The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth -- Really interesting, especially since I live in NYC.
13. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King -- 4 stars. Excellent short stories by one of my favorite authors! I liked this so much that I bought it for my mom for Christmas.
14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon -- 5 stars. Maybe the best book I read all year, this one was awesome.
15. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens -- 4 stars. Worth slogging through (damn, I read a lot of long books this year!)
16. Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje -- 2 stars. I just couldn't get into this one. My Sri Lanka read.
17. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle -- 4 stars. I've never read Sherlock Holmes before, and so didn't expect it to be so suspenseful and creepy!
18. The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois -- A classic I'm glad to have under my belt, but really didn't teach me anything I didn't already know.
19. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs -- 4 stars. Horrifying account of slave life.
20. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters -- 4 stars. One of the creepiest books I've ever read, and really well written.
21. Jazz by Toni Morrison -- 3 stars. I don't really remember the details of this one. Toni Morrison is hit or miss for me-- this one was a miss.
22. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro -- 3 stars. I liked the plot, but the way it was written was kind of meh.
23. Paula by Isabel Allende -- 3 stars. Love Allende's novels. This book was more non-fictional; she wrote it while (or after? I forget) her daughter was dying. It was touching, but really sad.
24. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson -- 3 stars. Honestly I don't remember a single story from this book including the title story. I think I prefer her novels to her short stories.
25. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- 4 stars. Another great one by Hosseini (I read The Kite Runner a few years ago).
26. Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern -- 3 stars. I read this one because my BFF lent it to me, and I didn't expect to like it (we have very different taste in books), but for a silly romance novel it was really good.
27. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond -- 4 stars. AWESOME. Totally paradigm-shifting. This book changed the way I perceive the world, in a very good way.
28. A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman by Lisa Shannon -- 2 stars. White lady does her best to save the poor suffering souls in the Congo. Sort of problematic.
29. House Rules by Jodi Picoult -- 2 stars. I read way more Jodi PIcoult this year than I wanted to, because my mom kept forcing them on me. She loves them and likes to have someone to discuss them with, so I oblige her. Sometimes they're okay, but this one was kind of lame.
30. Wise Children by Angela Carter --1 star. WORST BOOK I READ ALL YEAR. I think the author wanted it to be whimsical and fanciful, but it was just stupid and boring and forced.
31. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer -- 4 stars. Krakauer strikes again! Loved this one. It wasn't perfection like Into Thin Air, but it was close.
32. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton -- 4 stars. Just an excellent classic novel about high society in old New York.
33. The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- 5 stars. One of my favorites this year! It's about a lady in Paris who works in a fancy apartment building, and she's hiding the fact that she loves to read high-minded books. It was just a fun read.
34. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho -- 3 stars. I liked this one, but it was a little heavy-handed with the symbolism and preachery.
35. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy -- It had been so long since I read any Tolstoy, I forgot how amazing he is. All the stories in this book were fantastic.
36. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey -- 1 star. ALMOST the worst book I read all year. So fake. I don't know how anyone ever thought this was a real memoir. It's so disingenuous. And poorly written. And boring. I skimmed through it. (Had to read it for bookretorts, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered)
37. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz -- 3 stars. I can't remember why I only gave this three stars; I thought I liked it more than that. This was a good one! My Dominican Republic read. I want to read Diaz's other books; I've been on the library waiting list for his new one for months now.
38. Life of Pi by Yann Martel -- 5 stars. I know a lot of people didn't like this one, but I'm one of those who loved it. I feel like most of those who didn't like it, didn't finish it. The ending really makes the whole thing.
39. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons -- 2 stars. One of my token horror novels. It was creepy, but none of the characters were likable, and I feel like the plot kind of fell flat at the end.
40. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos -- 5 stars. The novel that inspired the movie Dangerous Liaisons (the one with Glenn Close-- SUCH A GOOD MOVIE) and Cruel Intentions (okay movie). It's such an old novel, I was expecting dullness, but it actually pulled me right in. It was sinister, and clever, and amazing.
41. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 5 stars. Amazing book. Long, hard to follow at times, but totally worth the journey.
42. The Woman Who Heard Color by Kelly Jones -- 1 star. Another that my BFF sent to me. This one I didn't like so much. It was just boring to read.
43. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson -- A good solid adventure book. I occasionally get a craving for these tales of survival in the mountains.
44. Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel -- 4 stars. Another by the author of Life of Pi. Short book, worth the read. Martel is just so original.
45. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick -- Weirdly enough, I never liked Blade Runner, but I did enjoy this book.
46. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat -- 4 stars. My Haiti read. I've now read 3 books by this author and they are all so good!
47. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke -- 4 stars. Really long book, but totally worth the read. I don't consider myself a fan of the fantasy genre (except for Game of Thrones), but this one was so well written! Loved it.
48. Midnight by Sister Souljah -- 1 star. My most disappointing read of the year. UGH. I loved The Coldest Winter Ever, and so thought I would also love the sequel-- nope. Boring, preachy, awful. AND, after about 500 totally boring pages it ended with a cliffhanger! The next book in the series is another 500 pages. No thank you, Sister Souljah.
49. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler -- 4 stars. Thank you, bookretorts, for making me read this one! So worth the read, although I'm not sure I'll ever get around to the sequels.
50. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden -- 3 stars. I had some serious reservations about this book just because it's written by a white dude, but I have to admit it was an engaging read. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it was well written.
51. Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England by Matthew P. Mayo -- 4 stars. Borrowed this one from my dad, and it was such a my dad kind of book. Really interesting factoids about my beloved New England.
52. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen -- 3 stars. Another sort of problematic book; a white European woman writes about her experiences farming in Kenya. Of couse there's some racism going on, but the book was an interesting read. An interesting foil to Agaat, which is also told from the POV of a white female farmer in Africa, but more directly about the relationship between white land owners and black employees.
53. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill -- 3 stars. A short horror book with pictures; pretty well written and creepy.
54. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré -- 2 stars. Read this one for my 1001 before you die book club. As much as I enjoyed the last le Carré I read (The Constant Gardener), this one wasn't so great if you're not into spy novels, and if you haven't read the previous books in the series.
55. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden - 3 stars. Another bookretorts book. It was okay.
56. The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard -- 2 stars. I really enjoyed Deep End of the Ocean by this author, but this one was not nearly as good. She writes what amounts to horror for stay at home moms: Worst case scenarios for women who are married with kids. I just picture ladies at book clubs reading this book and gasping to each other: "Oh my goodness, can you imagine?!" IDK, I didn't really like the gimmick.
57. I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Ali Nujood -- My Yemen read. The title says it all, really.
58. Blue Nights by Joan Didion -- 3 stars. I read Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and loved it; it was a bit of memoir about a tragic time of her life where her daughter was in the hospital basically in a coma, and her husband suddenly died of a heart attack. This one is written after her daughter's death, and it's basically a memoir of her life with her daughter. Really sad. I don't know why I'm so invested in this woman's tragic life, but she pulls you in. I knocked it down to three stars, though, because she basically would not admit (and was sort of offended that anyone would suggest) that her daughter led a very privileged life. It's awkward when people won't just accept and admit their privilege.
59. Freeman by Leonard Pitts Jr. -- 3 stars. A really engaging novel about a black man making his way through the post-war South to try to find his wife.
60. for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange -- I was really excited about this one, but it's in verse, so I had some trouble following it. Poetry is not my strong suit.
61. Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult -- My mother strikes again. This one was kind of awful. I'm starting to hate Jodi Picoult.
62. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi -- 4 stars. I can't see enjoying this book if you aren't a literature nerd/snob, but since I am that, I really loved it.
63. NW by Zadie Smith -- 4 stars. I found White Teeth kind of hard to get through, although it was brilliant. This book I found easy to get through! I liked the unconventional style of it.
64. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith -- 3 stars. I had problems with this because (is this a theme this year or what?) it was a white man writing about a black woman, and it was kind of patronizing.
65. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa -- 4 stars. Suuuuch a long book! Very dense and intense. But worth the read. I won't forget this one soon.
66. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt -- 5 stars (and as you can see, a 5 star rating is hard to pull out of me, so you know this one's good!) A fantastic book. Long, but I was enthralled the whole way through. Great characters, great stories.
67. The Known World by Edward P. Jones -- 5 stars. Excellent, excellent book about slavery. Best book on slavery I've read since Roots. I think this one's destined to become a classic; it's brilliant.
68. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte -- 4 stars. I love the hell out of Anne Bronte. She's the best of the Brontes, I think. This one unflinchingly chronicled the horrors of being a governess. As a teacher, I could totally relate to much of this.
69. Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey -- 3 stars. Kind of weird that this got the same rating from me as the McCall Smith above, because I liked this one a lot more. It's another African detective novel, but it's a Ghanaian man writing about a Ghanaian man, so none of the patronizing tone of the other one. But the sequel was better, namely:
70. Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey -- 4 stars. Quartey really hit his stride in this one. I can't wait for the next one to come out!
71. Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 3 stars. This one was alright. I don't think I've given Marquez anything higher than 3 stars except One Hundred Years of Solitude (5 stars). Nothing else he writes seems to compare to his masterwork.
72. Continental Drift by Russell Banks -- 4 stars. I love Russell Banks, read a lot of him in high school for AP English, and yet this book has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for years. Finally I read it, and it was awesome. Depressing, but awesome.
73. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne -- Read this one out loud to Téa. :) We both liked it a lot. So happy she can sit still for chapter books now! I think we'll be reading a lot of classic children's novels together, so prepare for that in my 2013 list.
74. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler -- 3 stars. Enjoyable detective novel, another 1001 book. Detective novels aren't really my genre, but it was good for what it was.
75. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor-- 2 stars. I love her short stories, but this, her first novel, was kind of bland.
Phew! This is the most books I've ever read in a year. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up this pace in 2013, but I've already finished 2, so we'll see!
1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt -- 5 stars. I'm doing this in order of when I read the books, so this was a full year ago, but the book still stands out in my mind. It was really excellent. I'm in a bunch of goodreads.com clubs, and I read this for the "1001 books you must read before you die" club. So, yeah, if you adhere to that list-- this is definitely one to read before you die. :)
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- 3 stars. Great beginning, great ending, kinda lost me in the middle.
3. Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon -- 1 star. Totally forgot I read this one! I think it was for bookretorts. It was awful.
4. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson -- 3 stars. This was a good one, and Téa and I both enjoyed watching Muppet Treasure Island several times after I read the book. (This is one case where I thought the movie was more enjoyable!)
5. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin -- 4 stars. I think this was the hardest Game of Thrones book to get through for me. It took forever to read because it has a million pages, first of all, and secondly it was just gut-wrenching. At times I had to put the book down (or throw it across the room) and take a break from it.
6. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson -- 4 stars. Not as good as The Haunting of Hill House, but still creepy.
7. Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk -- 4 stars. This book was long, sort of dry in places, but really worth slogging through. My South Africa read for my Goodreads Around the World challenge.
8. Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste -- 4 stars. My Ethiopia read. Almost all the African novels I read this year were awesome, and this was no exception.
9. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin -- 4 stars. I guess this isn't a popular book in the series, but I liked it. It felt like a much-needed break after Book 3. Much shorter read and fewer main characters being slaughtered.
10. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson -- This was my first Bryson read and I really enjoyed it. I don't read much non-fiction (obviously), but this was incredibly informative and interesting.
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- 5 stars. My Nigeria read. SO GOOD. So heartbreaking, but SO GOOD.
12. The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth -- Really interesting, especially since I live in NYC.
13. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King -- 4 stars. Excellent short stories by one of my favorite authors! I liked this so much that I bought it for my mom for Christmas.
14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon -- 5 stars. Maybe the best book I read all year, this one was awesome.
15. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens -- 4 stars. Worth slogging through (damn, I read a lot of long books this year!)
16. Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje -- 2 stars. I just couldn't get into this one. My Sri Lanka read.
17. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle -- 4 stars. I've never read Sherlock Holmes before, and so didn't expect it to be so suspenseful and creepy!
18. The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois -- A classic I'm glad to have under my belt, but really didn't teach me anything I didn't already know.
19. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs -- 4 stars. Horrifying account of slave life.
20. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters -- 4 stars. One of the creepiest books I've ever read, and really well written.
21. Jazz by Toni Morrison -- 3 stars. I don't really remember the details of this one. Toni Morrison is hit or miss for me-- this one was a miss.
22. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro -- 3 stars. I liked the plot, but the way it was written was kind of meh.
23. Paula by Isabel Allende -- 3 stars. Love Allende's novels. This book was more non-fictional; she wrote it while (or after? I forget) her daughter was dying. It was touching, but really sad.
24. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson -- 3 stars. Honestly I don't remember a single story from this book including the title story. I think I prefer her novels to her short stories.
25. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- 4 stars. Another great one by Hosseini (I read The Kite Runner a few years ago).
26. Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern -- 3 stars. I read this one because my BFF lent it to me, and I didn't expect to like it (we have very different taste in books), but for a silly romance novel it was really good.
27. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond -- 4 stars. AWESOME. Totally paradigm-shifting. This book changed the way I perceive the world, in a very good way.
28. A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman by Lisa Shannon -- 2 stars. White lady does her best to save the poor suffering souls in the Congo. Sort of problematic.
29. House Rules by Jodi Picoult -- 2 stars. I read way more Jodi PIcoult this year than I wanted to, because my mom kept forcing them on me. She loves them and likes to have someone to discuss them with, so I oblige her. Sometimes they're okay, but this one was kind of lame.
30. Wise Children by Angela Carter --1 star. WORST BOOK I READ ALL YEAR. I think the author wanted it to be whimsical and fanciful, but it was just stupid and boring and forced.
31. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer -- 4 stars. Krakauer strikes again! Loved this one. It wasn't perfection like Into Thin Air, but it was close.
32. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton -- 4 stars. Just an excellent classic novel about high society in old New York.
33. The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- 5 stars. One of my favorites this year! It's about a lady in Paris who works in a fancy apartment building, and she's hiding the fact that she loves to read high-minded books. It was just a fun read.
34. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho -- 3 stars. I liked this one, but it was a little heavy-handed with the symbolism and preachery.
35. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy -- It had been so long since I read any Tolstoy, I forgot how amazing he is. All the stories in this book were fantastic.
36. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey -- 1 star. ALMOST the worst book I read all year. So fake. I don't know how anyone ever thought this was a real memoir. It's so disingenuous. And poorly written. And boring. I skimmed through it. (Had to read it for bookretorts, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered)
37. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz -- 3 stars. I can't remember why I only gave this three stars; I thought I liked it more than that. This was a good one! My Dominican Republic read. I want to read Diaz's other books; I've been on the library waiting list for his new one for months now.
38. Life of Pi by Yann Martel -- 5 stars. I know a lot of people didn't like this one, but I'm one of those who loved it. I feel like most of those who didn't like it, didn't finish it. The ending really makes the whole thing.
39. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons -- 2 stars. One of my token horror novels. It was creepy, but none of the characters were likable, and I feel like the plot kind of fell flat at the end.
40. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos -- 5 stars. The novel that inspired the movie Dangerous Liaisons (the one with Glenn Close-- SUCH A GOOD MOVIE) and Cruel Intentions (okay movie). It's such an old novel, I was expecting dullness, but it actually pulled me right in. It was sinister, and clever, and amazing.
41. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 5 stars. Amazing book. Long, hard to follow at times, but totally worth the journey.
42. The Woman Who Heard Color by Kelly Jones -- 1 star. Another that my BFF sent to me. This one I didn't like so much. It was just boring to read.
43. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson -- A good solid adventure book. I occasionally get a craving for these tales of survival in the mountains.
44. Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel -- 4 stars. Another by the author of Life of Pi. Short book, worth the read. Martel is just so original.
45. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick -- Weirdly enough, I never liked Blade Runner, but I did enjoy this book.
46. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat -- 4 stars. My Haiti read. I've now read 3 books by this author and they are all so good!
47. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke -- 4 stars. Really long book, but totally worth the read. I don't consider myself a fan of the fantasy genre (except for Game of Thrones), but this one was so well written! Loved it.
48. Midnight by Sister Souljah -- 1 star. My most disappointing read of the year. UGH. I loved The Coldest Winter Ever, and so thought I would also love the sequel-- nope. Boring, preachy, awful. AND, after about 500 totally boring pages it ended with a cliffhanger! The next book in the series is another 500 pages. No thank you, Sister Souljah.
49. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler -- 4 stars. Thank you, bookretorts, for making me read this one! So worth the read, although I'm not sure I'll ever get around to the sequels.
50. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden -- 3 stars. I had some serious reservations about this book just because it's written by a white dude, but I have to admit it was an engaging read. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it was well written.
51. Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England by Matthew P. Mayo -- 4 stars. Borrowed this one from my dad, and it was such a my dad kind of book. Really interesting factoids about my beloved New England.
52. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen -- 3 stars. Another sort of problematic book; a white European woman writes about her experiences farming in Kenya. Of couse there's some racism going on, but the book was an interesting read. An interesting foil to Agaat, which is also told from the POV of a white female farmer in Africa, but more directly about the relationship between white land owners and black employees.
53. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill -- 3 stars. A short horror book with pictures; pretty well written and creepy.
54. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré -- 2 stars. Read this one for my 1001 before you die book club. As much as I enjoyed the last le Carré I read (The Constant Gardener), this one wasn't so great if you're not into spy novels, and if you haven't read the previous books in the series.
55. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden - 3 stars. Another bookretorts book. It was okay.
56. The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard -- 2 stars. I really enjoyed Deep End of the Ocean by this author, but this one was not nearly as good. She writes what amounts to horror for stay at home moms: Worst case scenarios for women who are married with kids. I just picture ladies at book clubs reading this book and gasping to each other: "Oh my goodness, can you imagine?!" IDK, I didn't really like the gimmick.
57. I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Ali Nujood -- My Yemen read. The title says it all, really.
58. Blue Nights by Joan Didion -- 3 stars. I read Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and loved it; it was a bit of memoir about a tragic time of her life where her daughter was in the hospital basically in a coma, and her husband suddenly died of a heart attack. This one is written after her daughter's death, and it's basically a memoir of her life with her daughter. Really sad. I don't know why I'm so invested in this woman's tragic life, but she pulls you in. I knocked it down to three stars, though, because she basically would not admit (and was sort of offended that anyone would suggest) that her daughter led a very privileged life. It's awkward when people won't just accept and admit their privilege.
59. Freeman by Leonard Pitts Jr. -- 3 stars. A really engaging novel about a black man making his way through the post-war South to try to find his wife.
60. for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange -- I was really excited about this one, but it's in verse, so I had some trouble following it. Poetry is not my strong suit.
61. Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult -- My mother strikes again. This one was kind of awful. I'm starting to hate Jodi Picoult.
62. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi -- 4 stars. I can't see enjoying this book if you aren't a literature nerd/snob, but since I am that, I really loved it.
63. NW by Zadie Smith -- 4 stars. I found White Teeth kind of hard to get through, although it was brilliant. This book I found easy to get through! I liked the unconventional style of it.
64. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith -- 3 stars. I had problems with this because (is this a theme this year or what?) it was a white man writing about a black woman, and it was kind of patronizing.
65. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa -- 4 stars. Suuuuch a long book! Very dense and intense. But worth the read. I won't forget this one soon.
66. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt -- 5 stars (and as you can see, a 5 star rating is hard to pull out of me, so you know this one's good!) A fantastic book. Long, but I was enthralled the whole way through. Great characters, great stories.
67. The Known World by Edward P. Jones -- 5 stars. Excellent, excellent book about slavery. Best book on slavery I've read since Roots. I think this one's destined to become a classic; it's brilliant.
68. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte -- 4 stars. I love the hell out of Anne Bronte. She's the best of the Brontes, I think. This one unflinchingly chronicled the horrors of being a governess. As a teacher, I could totally relate to much of this.
69. Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey -- 3 stars. Kind of weird that this got the same rating from me as the McCall Smith above, because I liked this one a lot more. It's another African detective novel, but it's a Ghanaian man writing about a Ghanaian man, so none of the patronizing tone of the other one. But the sequel was better, namely:
70. Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey -- 4 stars. Quartey really hit his stride in this one. I can't wait for the next one to come out!
71. Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 3 stars. This one was alright. I don't think I've given Marquez anything higher than 3 stars except One Hundred Years of Solitude (5 stars). Nothing else he writes seems to compare to his masterwork.
72. Continental Drift by Russell Banks -- 4 stars. I love Russell Banks, read a lot of him in high school for AP English, and yet this book has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for years. Finally I read it, and it was awesome. Depressing, but awesome.
73. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne -- Read this one out loud to Téa. :) We both liked it a lot. So happy she can sit still for chapter books now! I think we'll be reading a lot of classic children's novels together, so prepare for that in my 2013 list.
74. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler -- 3 stars. Enjoyable detective novel, another 1001 book. Detective novels aren't really my genre, but it was good for what it was.
75. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor-- 2 stars. I love her short stories, but this, her first novel, was kind of bland.
Phew! This is the most books I've ever read in a year. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up this pace in 2013, but I've already finished 2, so we'll see!