To keep me on track with my new year’s resolution to read four books each month, I’ll log my progress here and grace the books I enjoyed most with a fancy link. However, as of press time, it’s clear that I don’t have nearly enough books to get me even halfway through the year, so please! Recommend your favorites! I don’t pressure myself to finish a book if it ends up being a chore (Take Walden. Please.), so I’m open to whatever other people liked. I’ve never read anything by Jodi Picoult and I hear she’s good. Is she?
For those who are curious whether I’d enjoy a particular book:
- I try to vary my reading with fiction and non-fiction
- My favorite authors are Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, James Thurber, and Jane Austen (in that order)
- I’ve become fond of memoirs lately and I like short story/essay anthologies
- I make my best effort to read books that I should read on sheer principle, building character and all that
- I can’t handle a lot of suspense, gore, or ridiculous romance
And so it begins!
January
Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt
The General in His Labyrinth, by Gabriel García Márquez
Come Back, Barbara, by C. John Miller
February
The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan
Lapsing into a Comma, by Bill Walsh
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson
March
Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott
Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons
March, by Geraldine Brooks
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
April
The Kitchen God's Wife, by Amy Tan
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris
Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima
May
Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner
Singing My Him Song, by Malachy McCourt
Friends for the Journey, by Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
June
Loud and Clear, by Anna Quindlen
Waiting in the wings: (alphabetically)
- Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Code Book, by Simon Singh
- In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson
- Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
- Runaway Horses, by Yukio Mishima
- Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
5 comments:
Not sure if this is up your alley but I loved reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If/when we ever meet up in DE I'd be happy to lend you my copy!
I've just finished reading "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl. I'd definitely recommend it.
As for memoirs, I'm planning to read "Love is a Mix Tape," which is supposed to be a great love story.
I recently read The Timetraveler's Wife, which has become a favorite. In the non-fiction department, I would also recommend Mountains Beyond Mountains. Do you ever read Young Adult Fiction? Princess Academy is one of my favorites or anything else by Shannon Hale.
Oh, I was looking at your book list again, I couldn't help it. I really like Jhumpa Lahiri. Have your read her book, The Namesake? I really liked that one. I also just recently read The Kitchen God's Wife and really liked that one, too, so I hope you like it. I'm thinking that Amy Tan is an excellent writer and just about anything of hers would be a great read. I just thought of another book that you might like - A Girl Named Zippy. I can't think of the author right now, but you could definitely find it on Amazon.com. It's different experiences the author had growing up and it's hilarious. Okay. I'll leave you alone now so you can read.:-)
I found your blog via Sunday Scribblings and stumbled on your list. I very much liked "The Horizontal World: growing up wild in the middle of nowhere" by Debra Marquart.
It is a memoir grounded in her childhood on a North Dakota farm along with her struggles concerning getting away and being drawn back to that place. She adds to the story by digging into her family's roots, and even the area's geographical history and the history of the plants that made up the wildlife in the area before it was farmed by her ancestors.
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