50 Books in 2009
Reading Challenge
I never thought that reading 50 books in one year would pose a challenge for me, but ever since starting university three years ago I've found it increasingly difficult to find time for personal reading. I came very close to my goal last year (42 books read) but I'm determined to complete the challenge this year.
I will not only be listing the books I've read, but I will also include the book jacket description as well as a rating of 1-5 stars based on my personal enjoyment of the book and the likelihood I'll read it again.
The books will be listed behind the LJ cut:
Rating System
: A read that felt like torture or like work. Will never re-read and regret ever wasting the time reading it in the first place.
: A mediocre read. While it doesn't leave one feeling angry over wasted time, it doesn't even pass as a happy distraction from life.
: An average read which was neither terrible nor mind-blowingly brilliant. Simply a nice escape from reality.
: A pleasurable read that while not life-changing was far above 'average' and which I will probably re-read in the future.
: A near perfect read that will leave a lasting impression and which I will definitely re-read in the future
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Book 001
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Book Jacket Description
"Upon completing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald declared it 'the funniest thing ever written' and 'one of my two favourite stories'". It's the strange tale of a man who is 'born' 70 years old and mysteriously ages in reverse."
Status: Complete
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Book 002
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Book Jacket Description
"The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe's book charts the progress from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of a martyr who transcends all earthly ties. At the middle of the nineteenth century, the names of its characters - Little Eva, Topsy, Uncle Tom - were renowned. A hundred years later 'Uncle Tom' still has meaning, but to Blacks everywhere it had become a curse."
Status: Complete
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Book 003
Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho
Book Jacket Description
"Twenty-four-year old Veronika seems to have everything - Youth and beauty, boyfriends and a loving family, a fulfilling job. But something is missing in her life. So, one cold November morning, she takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up. But she does - At a mental hospital where she is told that she has only days to live.
Inspired by events in Coelho's own life, Veronika Decides To Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Bold and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity."
Status: Complete
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Book 004
Karlology by Karl Pilkington
Book Jacket Description
"By his own admission Karl Pilkington left formal education behind with only an E in History to his name and not much else. Ever since, his thirst for knowledge has nagged.
With this in mind, Karl has embarked on a tour of discovery to make up for the lost years of learning, and to find out more stuff. To this end he submits himself to a brain scan; attempts to join MENSA; scours books, the internet, and newspapers for 'facts'; and visits England's most celebrated museums and galleries in his search for knowledge. Karlology is the result.
So what exactly has Karl Pilkington learned so far? This is a man, it should be noted, who thinks owing 1,777 acres of the Moon is a good idea, and believes that the human testicles should be relocated to the earlobes. Maybe he's right. Perhaps his unique brand of wisdom and insight is what the world has been waiting for? Judge for yourself: Observe, enjoy, and become a Karlologist."
Status: Complete
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Book 005
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Book Jacket Description
"The quintessential novel of the Lose Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920's Paris to the brutal bull fighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century."
Status: Complete
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Book 006
Happyslapped By A Jellyfish by Karl Pilkington
Book Jacket Description
"Palm-fringed beaches, vibrant cultures, daring adventures, and life-changing experiences in far-flung climes: If you're looking for all that, than this probably isn't the book for you. Happyslapped By A Jellyfish is a travel book for people who don't particularly like traveling. It's Karl Pilkington, with a suitcase, occasionally with his passport, more often with a bemused suspicion of anything vaguely exotic, and an observant eye for the disappointments, tedium, general weirdness, and absurdities of being a tourist abroad and at home: Like staring at Mount Vesuvius in case it erupts, cow fish that look nothing like cows, the horrors of a Lanzarote nudist beach, and the curiosities to be seen in the world's weirdest museum. Pilkington's stories are interspersed with fond reflections on life back in England, from Salford joy-riders to what his girlfriend's mum and dad have for dinner on Thursday (It's chops and vegetables, in case you're wondering.)
A collection of baffling, hilarious, infuriating yet curiously compelling insights and anecdotes, diary entries, poems, "true" facts, cartoons, and assorted witterings concerning travel from the mind of Karl Pilkington, the unlikely star of The Ricky Gervais Show, the world's funniest and most successful podcast."
Status: Complete
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Book 007
The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham
Book Jacket Description
"Everything's coming up roses for Fleur Daxeny, as she goes through more rich men than he does designer hats. Beautiful and utterly irresistible, her success at crashing funerals to find wealthy men is remarkable. Fleur wastes no time in seducing her latest conquest, the handsome and rich widower Richard Favour. His children are caught up in a whirlwind as their father's new girlfriend descends on the family estate. Fleur is not one to wear her heart on her Chanel sleeves, but she soon finds herself embracing Richard and his family. But just as Fleur contemplates jumping off the gold-digger train for good, a long-buried secret from her past threatens to destroy her new family."
Status: Complete
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Book 008
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Book Jacket Description
"In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives - A world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love.
In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Sedaris returns to his deliriously twisted domain: hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds. The family characters his readers love are all here, as well as the unique terrain they inhabit, strewn with comic landmines."
Status: Complete
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Book 009
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Book Jacket Description
"Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment seeking refuge from a troubled past-but her ethreal spirit irks Stella's husband, the loutish Stanley Kowalski. Crudely, relentlessly, he unmasks the lies and delusions that sustain Blanche, until her frail hold on reality is shockingly severed."
Status: Complete
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Book 010
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Book Jacket Description
"For Elinor Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for others and for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete with self-centered fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, whilst Marianne's unswerving belief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerously susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men."
Status: Complete
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Book 011
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Book Jacket Description
"When fifteen-year-old Michael Berg falls ill on his way home from school, he is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover, enthralling him with her passion, but puzzling him with her odd silences. Then she disappears.
Michael next sees Hanna when she is on trial for a hideous crime, refusing to defend herself. As he watches, he begins to realize that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder."
Status: Complete
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Book 012
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
Book Jacket Description
"David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (His sixth) Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking. In Tokyo.
Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire."
Status: Complete
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Book 013
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Book Jacket Description
"At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. There she accepts her lowly status, and gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund. When the dazzling and sophisticated Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Fanny watches as her cousins become embroiled in rivalry and sexual jealousy. She struggles to retain her independence in the face of the Crawford's dangerous attractions, and when Henry turns his attentions to her, the drama really begins..."
Status: Complete
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Book 014
The Diary Of A Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
Book Jacket Description
"The Provincial Lady has a nice house, a nice husband (Usually asleep behind The Times) and nice children. In fact, maintaining Niceness is the Provincial Lady’s goal in life - her raison d'être. She never raises her voice, rarely ventures outside Devon (Why would she?), only occasionally allows herself to become vexed by the ongoing servant problem, and would be truly appalled by the confessional mode that has gripped the late 20th century. The Provincial Lady, after all, is part of what made Britain great."
Status: Complete
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Book 015
Emma by Jane Austen
Book Jacket Description
"When her former governess finds happiness as the bride of a local widower, the brilliant and beautiful Emma Woodhouse flatters herself that she alone has secured the marriage and that she possesses a special talent for bringing lovers together. The young heiress next busies herself with finding a suitable husband for her friend and protege, Harriet Smith, setting off an entertaining sequence of comic missteps and misunderstandings in this sparkling comedy of English-village romance. Beneath its considerable wit, the novel is also the story of a young woman's progress towards self-understanding."
Status: Complete
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Book 016
Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller
Book Jacket Description
"Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death Of A Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has become a symbol for a kind of majestic grandiosity - and a play that compresses epic extremes of humour and anguish, promise and loss, between the four walls of an American living room."
Status: Complete
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Book 017
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Book Jacket Description
"Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to a naval captain with no fortune, ancestry, or prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances."
Status: Complete
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Book 018
The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"When the Earl of Rule proposes marriage to her sister Lizzie, Horatia offers herself instead. Her sister is already in love with someone else, and Horatia is willing to sacrifice herself for her family's happiness. Everyone knows she's no beauty, but she'll do her best to keep out of the Earl's way and make him a good wife. And then the Earl's archenemy, Sir Robert, sets out to ruin her reputation...
Unbeknownst to Horatia, the Earl is enchanted by her. There's simply no way he's going to let her get into trouble. Overcoming some misguided help from Horatia's harebrained brother and a hired highwayman, the Earl routs his old enemy, and wins over his young wife, gifting her with a love that she never thought she could expect."
Status: Complete
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Book 019
Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty
Book Jacket Description
"Captivated readers have followed Jessica through every step and misstep: from her life as a tormented, tart-tongued teenager to her years as a college grad stumbling toward adulthood. Now a young professional in her mid-twenties, Jess is off to a Caribbean wedding. As she rushes to her gate at the airport, she literally runs into her former boyfriend, Marcus Flutie. It's the first time she's seen him since she reluctantly turned down his marriage proposal three years earlier - and emotions run high.
Marcus and Jessica have both changed dramatically, yet their connection feels as familiar as ever. Is their reunion just a fluke or has fate orchestrated this collision of their lives once again?
Told partially from Marcus' point of view, Perfect Fifths finally lets readers inside the mind of the one person who's both trouble and titillated Jessica Darling for years."
Status: Complete
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Book 020
Celebutantes by Amanda Goldberg & Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper
Book Jacket Description
"The wickedly funny New York Times bestseller by two daughters of Hollywood royalty that chronicles one girl's exploits in La La Land during Oscar Week and her quest to put her life back on course."
Status: Complete
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Book 021
Opportunity Rings by Sheryl Steinberg
Book Jacket Description
"Erica Swift may run the marketing department of Rockit Wireless, but she doesn't know a heck of a lot about tech. That's okay - she could sell stilettos to a nun. But after her husband announces that he's leaving her for an older woman - who knew the pruney president of his company was a cougar? - Erica is forced to reboot her own life. Suddenly 'disaster recovery' takes on a whole new meaning, as Erica fends off the attention of some very eligible bachelors, hits on a perfect plan to save Rockit's new product launch, and hones her abysmal text-messaging skills."
Status: Complete
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Book 022
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
Book Jacket Description
"Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American dream."
Status: Complete
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Book 023
Addition by Toni Jordan
Book Jacket Description
"Grace Lisa Vandenburg orders her world with numbers: how many bananas she buys, how many steps she takes to the cafe, where she chooses to sit, how many poppy seeds are in her daily piece of orange cake. Every morning she uses 100 strokes to brush her hair, 160 strokes to brush her teeth. She remembers the day she started to count, how she used numbers to organize her adolescence, her career, even the men she dated. But something went wrong.
Her father is dead and her mother is a mystery to her. Her sister wants to sympathize, but she really doesn't understand. Only Hilary, her favourite niece, connects with her. And Grace can only connect with Nikola Tesla, the turn-of-the-twentieth-century inventor whose portrait sits on her bedside table and who rescues her in her dreams. Then one day all the tables at her regular cafe are full, and as she hesitates in the doorway a stranger - Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (19 letters in his name, just like Grace's) - invites her to sit with him.
And suddenly Grace may be about to lose count of the number of ways she can fall in love."
Status: Complete
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Book 024
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Book Jacket Description
"Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He has been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do...
Internationally acclaimed, with more than five million copies in print, Fahrenheit 451 is Ray Bradbury's classic novel of censorship and defiance, as resonant today as it was when it was first published fifty years ago."
Status: Complete
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Book 025
Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars by Rob Thomas
Book Jacket Description
"Veronica Mars has won the hearts of a small but devoted fanbase to Veronica's class-torn hometown, where the high school landscape echoes adult patterns of power and privilege and your best bet for justice is a teenage girl and her private detective father. The show is so snarky, so smart, and so savvy, that the detective show's biggest mystery is why more people aren't watching.
This collection of essays on the show's first two seasons explores the noir roots of Veronica's blonde locks, and the sharp writing and the killer plot twists that have catapulted Veronica Mars to the top of smart viewers' must-watch list."
Status: Complete
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Book 026
Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters by Peter Vronsky
Book Jacket Description
"How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters, or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men. Women have registered low on our collective paranoia radar. Perhaps that's why so many trusting husbands, lovers, friends, and children have fallen prey to "the female monster". In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill - and the political, economic, social, and sexual implications buried in each victim.
From history's earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen; from 'Lonely Hearts Killer' Martha Beck to Britain's notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley; from the sensationalism of Aileen Wuornos - the first female serial killer-as-celebrity - to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and our pop-culture fascination with the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky not only challenges our ordinary standards of good and evil, but also defies our basic accepted perceptions of gender role and identity."
Status: Complete
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Book 027
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Book Jacket Description
"One of the most spectacular successes of the burgeoning literary marketplace of eighteenth-century London, Pamela also marked a defining moment in the emergence of the modern novel. In the words of one contemporary, it divided the world into "two different Parties, Pamelists and Antipamelists", even eclipsing the sensational factional politics of the day. Preached up for its morality, and denounced as pornography in disguise, it vividly describes a young servant's long resistance to the attempts of her predatory master to seduce her. Written in the voice of its low-born heroine, but by a printer who fifteen years earlier had narrowly escaped imprisonment for the seditious output of his press, Pamela is not only a work of pioneering psychological complexity, but also a compelling and provocative study of power and its abuse."
Status: Complete
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Book 028
Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky
Book Jacket Description
"In this unique book, Peter Vronsky documents the psychological, investigative, and cultural aspects of serial murder, beginning with its first recorded instance in ancient Rome through fifteenth-century France on to such notorious contemporary cases as cannibal/necrophiliac Ed Kemper, Henry Lee Lucas, Ted Bundy, and the emergence of what he classifies as the 'serial rampage killer', such as Andrew Cunanan.
Vronsky not only offers sound theories on what makes a serial killer but also makes concrete suggestions on how to survive an encounter with one - from recognizing verbal warning signs to physical confrontational resistance. Exhaustively researched with transcripts of interviews with killers, and featuring up-to-date information on the apprehension and conviction of the Green River Killer and the Beltway Snipers, Vronsky's one-of-a-kind book covers every conceivable aspect of an endlessly riveting true-crime phenomenon."
Status: Complete
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Book 029
For The Thrill Of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz
Book Jacket Description
"It was a crime that shocked the nation, a brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child, by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb had first met several years earlier, and their friendship blossomed into a love affair. Both were intellectuals - too smart, the believed, for the police to catch them. However, the police had recovered an important clue at the scene of the crime - a pair of eyeglasses - and soon both Leopold and Loeb were in the custody of Cook County. They confessed, and Robert Crowe, the state's attorney, announced to the newspaper reporters that he had a hanging case. No defense, he believed, would save the two ruthless killers from the gallows.
Set against the backdrop of the 1920's, a time of prosperity, self-indulgence, and hedonistic excess, For The Thrill Of It draws the reader into a lost world, a world of speakeasies and flappers, of gangsters and gin parties, of anarchy. The rejection of morality, the worship of youth, and the obsession with sex had seemingly found their expression in this callous murder."
Status: Complete
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Book 030
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Book Jacket Description
"When it was first published in 1943, The Fountainhead - containing Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision with the seeds of her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism - won immediate worldwide acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful young woman who struggles to defeat him."
Status: Complete
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Book 031
Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields
Book Jacket Description
"With the same sensitivity and artfulness that are the trademarks of her novels, Carol Shields explores the life of a writer whose own novels have engaged and delighted readers for the past two hundred years.
In Jane Austen: A Life, Shields follows this superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventon to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relationship with her sister Cassandra. She reveals both the very private woman and the acclaimed author behind the enduring classics Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma."
Status: Complete
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Book 032
Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
Book Jacket Description
"France's iconic queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous "Let them eat cake," was alternately revered and reviled during her lifetime. For centuries since, she has been the object of debate, speculation, and the fascination so often accorded illustrious figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted child was thrust onto the royal stage and commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in European history. Antonia Fraser's lavish and engaging portrait excites compassion and regard for all aspects of the queen, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but in the culture of an unparalleled time and place."
Status: Complete
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Book 033
Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
Book Jacket Description
"Georgiana Spencer became Duchess of Devonshire in 1774 and proceeded to become the undisputed queen of fashionable society, an influential hostess and an important figure in the Whig party. Yet her story is one of cruel disappointments and personal suffering.
Adored as she was by the public at large, she was incapable of satisfying her husband, who preferred instead her best friend. Adept at negotiating fund-raising and socializing for the benefit of the Whigs, she could not manage her own extravegances, which brought insurmountable debts and ignominy, or her search for love, which brought pain and disgrace.
This is a penetrating, beautifully written account of one of the great figures of the late eighteenth-century, an icon in her own time and a fascinating foil for our own."
Status: Complete
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Book 034
Madame Du Barry: The Wages of Beauty by John Haslip
Book Jacket Description
"Jeanne Du Barry, courtesan and Louis XV's official mistress until his death, was the last of the French royal favourites, suceeding Madame De Pompadour. For four years she was feted as one of France's most beautiful women, patron of artists such as Fragonard and Vernet, yet she had been born into the most humble circumstances - the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a seamstress. On Louis XV's death she became vulnerable to those who secretely longer for her downfall. Marie Antoinette had her imprisoned, and in 1793 she was executed by the Revolutionary Tribunal for her aristocratic associations. In this incisive biography, John Haslip portrays Du Barry as an ordinary woman, thrust into extraordinary circumstances - a victim of her own beauty. This is also a fascinating look at the dazzling world of life at the royal court of eighteenth-century France and the horros of the Revolution."
Status: Complete
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Book 035
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Book Jacket Description
"Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don't get visited by ghosts. Or do they?
When the spirit of Lara's great-aunt-Sadie - a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love and the right way to dance - mysteriously appears and she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie's possession for more than seventy-five years and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, had a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and buisness partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering and she's just been dumped by the 'perfect' man.
Sadie, however, could care less.
Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie's necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different 'twenties' girls learn some surprising truths from each other along the way."
Status: Complete
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Book 036
Julie & Julia by Julie Powell
Book Jacket Description
"Nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell resolved to reclaim her life by cooking, in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life - lived with gusto."
Status: Complete
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Book 037
The Private Lives of Pipa Lee by Rebecca Miller
Book Jacket Description
"Meet Pippa Lee, a thoroughly modern heroine. She is the devoted wife of a brilliant man thirty years her senior, proud mother of grown-up twins, and an adored friend and neighbour. But where once she was content with her seemingly enviable world, Pippa finds her life beginning to unravel. Amid the buzzling lawnmowers and suburban coffee mornings, she starts to wonder, how did she find herself in this place?"
Status: Complete
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Book 038
Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"The spirited and independent Miss Annis Wychwood is twenty-nine and well past the age for falling in love. But when Annis embroils herself in the affairs of a pretty runaway heiress, Miss Lucilla Carleton, she is destined to see a great deal of her fugitive's uncivil and high-handed guardian, Mr. Oliver Carleton. Befriending the wayward girl brings unexpected consequences, among them the conflicting emotions aroused by her guardian, who is quite the rudest man Annis has ever met..."
Status: Complete
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Book 039
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"Freddy is immensely rich, of course, and not bad looking, but he's mild-mannered, a bit hapless - Not anything like this virile, handsome, rakish cousin Jack...
Young Kitty Charing stands to inherit a vast fortune from her irascible and eccentric guardian - Provided she marries one of his great-nephews...
No sooner does Kitty arrive in London than the race for her hand begins, but between confirmed rakes and bumbling affections, Kitty needs a daring scheme."
Status: Complete
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Book 040
Arabella by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"An enchanting debutante and the eldest daughter of an impoverished country parson, Arabella Tallant embarks on her first London season. Armed with beauty, virtue, and a benevolent godmother, Arabella is sure to be a success, as long as her notoriously impetuous temper does not interfere.
But when Robert Beaumaris, the most eligible Nonpareil of the day, accuses her of being yet another pretty female after his wealth, Arabella allows herself to be provoked - into a deceitful charade that might have unexpected consequences."
Status: Complete
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Book 041
The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"When Elinor Rochdale boards the wrong coach, she ends up not at her prospective employer's home but at the estate of Eustace Cheviot, a dissipated and ruined young man on the verge of death.
His cousin, Ned Carlyon, persuades Elinor to marry Eustace as a simple business arrangement. By morning, Elinor is a rich widow, but finds herself embroiled with an international spy ring, housebreakers, uninvited guests, and murder. And Mr. Carlyon won't let her leave..."
Status: Complete
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Book 042
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro* (Required Reading)
Book Jacket Description
"Lives of Girls and Women is the intensely readable, touching, and very funny story of Del Jordan, a young woman who journeys from the carelessness of childhood through an uneasy adolescence in search of love and sexual experience.
As Del dreams of becoming famous, suffers embarrassment about her mother, endures the humiliation of her body's insistent desires, and tries desperately to fall in love, she grapples with the crises that mark the passage to womanhood."
Status: Complete
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Book 043
Sylvester by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"Sylvester, the Duke of Salford, is a polished bachelor who has stringent requirements for his future wife - She must be wellborn, intelligent, elegant and attractive. And of course she must be able to present herself well in high society. But when he is encouraged to consider Phoebe Marlow as a bride, Sylvester is taken aback by the coltish woman who seems to resent him...
When Phoebe runs away, circumstances find the two striking up an unusual friendship. Phoebe discovers that the Duke isn't the villain she first thought. And Sylvester stumbles upon something he never dared hope for..."
Status: Complete
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Book 044
Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"Miss Charity Steane is running away from the drudgery of her aunt's household to find her grandfather. Not expecting her visit, the old gentleman is not in London but is away in the country.
When Viscount Desford encounters a lovely waif searching for her grandfather, he feels honour bound to assit her; but dashing about the countryside together, the Viscount must prevent his exasperating charge from bringing ruin upon herself...and him.
In the end, his best idea is to bring Charity to his lifelong best friend Henrietta, and that's when the fun and surprises begin..."
Status: Complete
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Book 045
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock (Required Reading)
Book Jacket Description
"Stephen Leacock was one of the bestselling English-language humorists in the world. Referred to as 'The Canadian Mark Twain', his most famous book was Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, published in 1912.
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, which first appeared as a newspaper serial, chronicles life in the fictional community of Mariposa, modeled on Orillia, Ontario, where Leacock spend many summers. It's a brilliant satire about small towns, small-town people and small-town occurrences.
Life in Mariposa is never dull or ordinary. It's a town full of eccentrics, where boats sent to rescue passengers from a sinking steamer have to be rescued themselves, where the leading citizen is a 280-pound illiterate saloonkeeper, and where a barber who stumbles into a fortune is heralded as a financial wizard."
Status: Complete
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Book 046
I Drink For A Reason by David Cross
Book Jacket Description
"On a seemingly uneventful midwinter moring, small-time comedian David Cross awakens to find a phone message left for him by a representative of a mysterious company known only as "Grand Central". Immediately upon listening to it, a series of random events unfold that work together to spin his life out of control. Thrust blindly into the sweaty, unpleasant world of book publishing, he finds himself laboring to bring together a collection of 'humorous' and 'amusing' pieces.
Some of these pieces are fictional and some anecdotal, bearing the scars and divots of a fiercely fought battle over right and wrong. As events progress, Cross finds himself trapped in a topsy-turvy world in which good deeds are punished and evil deeds are rewarded with fame and fortune.
With less than twenty-four hours left and no one to turn to, Cross has to find the antidote, break the Carlyle Group out of prison, recapture the President's Book of Secrets from that idiot girl down the hall who wears those ridiculous shiny black leggings from American Apparel and DVR's Road Rules and then fucking watches it at top volume at two in the morning and get it safely back in the hands of The National Review.
Can he do it? Will he do it? Should he do it? The clock begins...Now*
* As of the time of the purchase of the copy of the book you are now holding in your hand."
Status: Complete
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Book 047
Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer
Book Jacket Description
"When Max Ravenscar offers her a fortune to refuse the marriage proposal from his young nephew, the beautiful Deborah Grantham is outraged.
She may be the mistress of her aunt's elegant gambling house, but Miss Grantham will show the insufferable Mr. Ravenscar that she can't be bribed, even if she has to marry his puppyish nephew to prove it."
Status: Complete
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Book 048
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Book Jacket Description
N/A
Status: Complete
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Book 049
A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett (Required Reading)
Book Jacket Description
"Alone in a new country, wealthy Sara Crewe tries to settle in and make friends at boarding school. But when she learns that she'll never see her beloved father again, her life is turned upside down. Transformed from princess to pauper, she must swap dancing lessons and luxury for hard work and a room in the attic. Will she find that kindness and generosity are all the riches she truly needs?"
Status: Complete
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Book 050
The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
Book Jacket Description
"In the popular imagination, the wives of Henry VIII - Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr - survive as stereotypes: The Betrayed Wife, the Temptress, the Good Woman, the Ugly Sister, the Bad Girl, and the Mother Figure. in The Wives of Henry VIII, leading historian Antonia Fraser shows us the unique personalities of the famed six. Catherine of Aragon emerges as a steadfast scholar-queen, Anne Boleyn is absolved of everything but a sharp tongue and an inability to produce a son. Catherine Parr is revealed as a religious reformer with the sense to tack with the treacherous winds of the Tudor court. We gain fresh understanding of Jan Seymour's circumspect wisdom, the touching dignity of Anna of Cleves, and the naivete that led to Katherine Howard's fatal indiscretions. The Wives of Henry VIII interweaves passion and power, personality, and politics, into a superb work of history."
Status: Complete
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Book 051
The Perfect Christmas by Debbie Macomber
Book Jacket Description
"What would make your Christmas perfect? For Cassie Beaumont, it's meeting her perfect match. Cassie, at thirty-three, wants a husband and kids, and so far, nothing's worked. Not blind dates, not the Internet and certainly not leaving love to chance.
What's left? A professional matchmaker. He's Simon Dodson, and he's very choosy about the clients he takes on. Cassie finds Simon a difficult, acerbic know-it-all, and she's astonished when he accepts her as a client.
Claiming he has her perfect mate in mind, Simon assigns her three tasks to complete before she meets him. Three tasks that are all about Christmas: being a charity bell ringer, dressing up as Santa's elf at a children's party and preparing a traditional turkey dinner for her neighbors (whom she happens to dislike) Despite a number of comical mishaps, Cassie does it all - and she's finally ready to meet her match.
But just like the perfect Christmas gift, he turns out to be a wonderful surprise!"
Status: Complete
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Book 052
A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber
Book Jacket Description
"Mother-to-be Mary Jo Wyse arrives in Cedar Cove on Christmas Eve, searching for her baby's father. David Rhodes had said he'd be in town. But he isn't. Which leaves Mary Jo stranded, pregnant, and alone. And there's no room at the local inn...
So Grace Harding brings Mary Jo home to her nearby ranch. She and her husband, Cliff, have a houseful of guests, but they offer her a room over their stable (currently sheltering the animals - including a donkey and a camel - for Cedar Cove's Nativity pageant!)
When Mary Jo goes into labour that night, a young man named Mack McAfee, a paramedic, comes to her rescue, just as her brothers - the three Wyse men - show up in town. The people of Cedar Cove join them in celebrating the birth of the baby Noelle. But no-one has more to celebrate than Mack. Because this Christmas brings him faith, hope, and love..."
Status: Complete
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Book 053
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
Book Jacket Description
"The plot here is deceptively slim: five women and one enigmatic man meet on a monthly basis to discuss the novels of Jane Austen, one at a time. As they debate Marianne's marriage to Brandon and whether or not Charlotte Lucas is gay, they reveal nothing so much as their own "private Austen(s)": to Jocelyn, an unmarried "control freak," the author is the consummate matchmaker; to solitary Prudie, she's the supreme ironist; to the lesbian Allegra, she's the disingenuous defender of the social caste system, etc. The book club's conversation is variously astute, petty, obvious and funny, but no one stays with it: the characters nibble high-calorie desserts, sip margaritas and drift off into personal reveries."
Status: Complete
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Book 054
Home In Time For Christmas by Heather Graham
Book Jacket Description
"Centuries ago, by a scaffold in Manhattan, rose petals drifted gently to the ground like snow on a wintry Massachusetts night. Melody Tarleton is driving home for Christmas when a man - clad in Revoluationary War-era costume - appears out of nowhere, right in the path of her car. Shaken, she takes the injured stranger in, listening with concern to Jake Mallory's fantastic claim that he's a Patriot soldier, sentenced to death by British authorities. The last thing he remembers is the tug of the noose.
Safe at her parent's house, Melody concocts a story to explain the handsome holiday guest with the country manners, strange clothes and nasty bump on the head. Mark, her close friend who wishes he were more, is skeptical and her family is fascinated - though not half so fascinated as Melody herself. Jake is passionate, charming and utterly unlike anyone she's ever met. Can he really be who he claims? And can a man from the distant past be the future she truly longs for?
With the aid of enchanted petals, ancient potions and the peculiar magic of the season, Melody and Jake embark on an unimaginable Christmas adventure - and discover a love that transcends time."
Status: Complete
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Book 055
Western Skies by Nora Roberts
Book Jacket Description
"Song of the West
The towering mountains and windswept plains of Wyoming are truly beautiful. But Samantha Evans has absolutely no intention of staying-until she meets devastatingly handsome Jake Tanner. Suddenly the idea of leaving isn't quite so appealing. Samantha is torn between a lifelong dream and her feelings for this intriguing man when a blizzard strikes and she's stranded with him. Is Mother Nature trying to tell her something? Maybe she should listen!
Boundary Lines
A feud has been warring for years between two Montana families, and the feisty Jillian Baron and irresistible Aaron Murdock seem determined to carry it into another generation. But when threatened by a common enemy, Jillian and Aaron become uneasy allies. Soon the battle waged within their own hearts pits their historical mistrust against a clear and present passion. Might the Barons and the Murdocks finally find common ground and form a very special union? Just take a step over the line…."
Status: Complete
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Book 056
Snowy Night With A Stranger by Jane Feather, Sabrina Jeffries, and Julia London
Book Jacket Description
"Jane Feather
leads an unwitting Yuletide traveler down a twisting path....
Edward Vasey, Viscount Allenton, is journeying precariously through a snowstorm when his coach is overtaken by high-waymen! Robbed of his money, Ned takes refuge at Selby Hall, where a spirited beauty with a shocking secret may steal something more -- his heart.
Sabrina Jeffries
unlocks the heart of an embittered lord....
When a coach accident strands heiress Elinor Bancroft at the home of the notorious Black Baron, she discovers the Christmas Day heartache that darkened his soul years ago -- and her generous heart brings a festive air to his home and reawakens his spirit to love.
Julia London
sends a debutante into the wintry Scottish wilds....
Searching for her rakehell brother, an earl lying low in the wake of a scandalous affair, Fiona Haines is led by a rugged Highlander who obscures his scarred face. As they journey on, Fiona draws closer to her brave, enigmatic protector -- but will fury or passion ignite when he reveals his identity?"
Status: Complete
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Book 057
That Holiday Feeling by Debbie Macomber, Sherryl Woods, and Robyn Carr
Book Jacket Description
"Silver Bells by Debbie Macomber
In this classic story, Debbie brings those Manning men and Manning sisters home for a mistletoe marriage when a single dad finally says "I do."
The Perfect Holiday by Sherryl Woods
Will bachelor Trace Franklin become a groom-to-be by Christmastime? He sure will…if Savannah Holiday's aunt Mae has anything to do with it.
Under the Christmas Tree by Robyn Carr
When the folks of Virgin River discover a box of adorable puppies under the town's Christmas tree they call on local vet Nathaniel Jensen for help. But it's his budding romance with Annie McCarty that really has tongues-and tails-wagging!"
Status: Complete
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Book 058
Truly, Madly Manhattan by Nora Roberts
Book Jacket Description
"Local Hero
Comic-book writer Mitch Dempsey creates heroes, but he's never seen himself as one -- that is, until Hester Wallace moves into the apartment upstairs. When Hester's son, Radley, finds out his new neighbor is the brains behind his favorite superhero...well, Mitch might as well be Commander Zark. He can do no wrong as far as Radley is concerned, but Hester isn't as easy to win over. Still, there's something about the shy, single mom that intrigues Mitch...and makes him long to love, honor and protect her forever.
Dual Image
Playing Booth DeWitt's cruel ex-wife in his semiautobiographical film is a dream come true for actor Ariel Kirkwood. Not only is it a giant boon for her career, but she also gets to work with Booth - and since she's gotten to know him, Ariel can't get the aloof, sexy screenwriter out of her mind. She wants to be his leading lady for life, but Booth seems more distant with each passing day. Now Ariel must convince Booth to see her for the woman she truly is, not the one she was hired to portray..."
Status: Complete
Current Status: 58 / 50 Books Read
Note:I will only be listing books I've read for the first time. While there are books I tend to re-read every year, I will not be counting them on this list.