My Year in Books 2007
In roughly chronological order:
Lawrence Shainberg. Ambivalent Zen: One Man's Adventure's on the Dharma Path. Did Shainberg learn anything about letting go?
Benjamin Hoff. The Te of Piglet.
Yasunari Kawabata. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. The restrained, spare stories in this book span decades of Kawabata's career. At first the style seems too deliberate, but you can feel him maturing into it as the book progresses.
Juan Rulfo. El Llano en llamas. Easily my favorite book of the year.
Aldous Huxley. Antic Hay. Gave up on this one about a hundred pages in. I couldn't take it!
James Joyce. Dubliners. There was something attractive about the writing style-it was clear and concrete and really gave a sense of the texture of life around Dublin a century ago. But many of the key references were obscure (I don't have the same frame of reference as someone living in Dublin a hundred-odd years ago) and that diminished the impact of most of the stories. I enjoyed the last story (what was the title? something about death, or snow) the best.
Robin P. Williams. The Non-Designer's Design Book.
Joan Didion. Political Fictions.
Joe Clark. Building Accessible Websites. This book continues to influence how I think about structuring web pages.
Rodale Food Center. Preserving Summer's Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, Preserving, and Drying What You Grow. A companion text to our CSA share.
Albert Camus. The Stranger. I know this book is supposed to be a classic but it did nothing for me. Maybe I missed something.
Jonathan Lethem. Motherless Brooklyn. The writing itself is amazing-apropos of a book about a man with Tourette's-but the plot left something to be desired. I was especially disappointed with the end of the book. I wonder if that means I should try another Lethem book or not.
Michael Chabon. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Poor Oyster.
Jorge Luis Borges. El informe de Brodie.
Shannon Hayes. Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook.
J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Bill McKibben. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.
Andrew Hunt. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master.
Samuel Fromartz. Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew.
Bill Bryson. A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Nina Planck. Real Food: What to Eat and Why.
Jonathan Franzen. The Corrections.
Steve Ettlinger. Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats.
Toni Morrison. Sula.
David Lehman, ed. The Best American Poetry 2005. There was a good poem by Mary Jo Salter in here, but that was about it.
Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner.
Lawrence Shainberg. Ambivalent Zen: One Man's Adventure's on the Dharma Path. Did Shainberg learn anything about letting go?
Benjamin Hoff. The Te of Piglet.
Yasunari Kawabata. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. The restrained, spare stories in this book span decades of Kawabata's career. At first the style seems too deliberate, but you can feel him maturing into it as the book progresses.
Juan Rulfo. El Llano en llamas. Easily my favorite book of the year.
Aldous Huxley. Antic Hay. Gave up on this one about a hundred pages in. I couldn't take it!
James Joyce. Dubliners. There was something attractive about the writing style-it was clear and concrete and really gave a sense of the texture of life around Dublin a century ago. But many of the key references were obscure (I don't have the same frame of reference as someone living in Dublin a hundred-odd years ago) and that diminished the impact of most of the stories. I enjoyed the last story (what was the title? something about death, or snow) the best.
Robin P. Williams. The Non-Designer's Design Book.
Joan Didion. Political Fictions.
Joe Clark. Building Accessible Websites. This book continues to influence how I think about structuring web pages.
Rodale Food Center. Preserving Summer's Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, Preserving, and Drying What You Grow. A companion text to our CSA share.
Albert Camus. The Stranger. I know this book is supposed to be a classic but it did nothing for me. Maybe I missed something.
Jonathan Lethem. Motherless Brooklyn. The writing itself is amazing-apropos of a book about a man with Tourette's-but the plot left something to be desired. I was especially disappointed with the end of the book. I wonder if that means I should try another Lethem book or not.
Michael Chabon. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Poor Oyster.
Jorge Luis Borges. El informe de Brodie.
Shannon Hayes. Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook.
J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Bill McKibben. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.
Andrew Hunt. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master.
Samuel Fromartz. Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew.
Bill Bryson. A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Nina Planck. Real Food: What to Eat and Why.
Jonathan Franzen. The Corrections.
Steve Ettlinger. Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats.
Toni Morrison. Sula.
David Lehman, ed. The Best American Poetry 2005. There was a good poem by Mary Jo Salter in here, but that was about it.
Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner.