Saturday, December 31, 2011

Books and Best of 2011

January
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - James L. Haley
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems - Folger Shakespeare Library
Apologetics for the 21st Century - Dr. Louis Markos
Have A New Kid by Friday - Dr. Kevin Leman
Bread Givers - Anzia Yezierska

February
Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff
Room - Emma Donoghue
Restoring Beauty: The Good, The True and The Beautiful in the Writings of C.S. Lewis - Dr.Louis Markos
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Our Horses in Egypt - Rosalind Belben
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein

March
The Testament - John Grisham
Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer
Crazy U - Andrew Ferguson
Decision Points - George Bush

April/May/June
I didn't keep track - I was moving

July/August
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Running on Empty by Marshall Ulrich
Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl
The Churchills by Mary S. Lovell
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Night by Elie Weisel
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

September
Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
What Was She Thinking [Notes on a Scandal] by Zoe Heller
Until Tuesday by Luis Montalvan
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
The Fellowship of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs
The Hours by Michael Cunningham

October
War and Peace (Book One) by Leo Tolstoy
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

November
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
The Lost Hero and
The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein

December

Anne of Green Gables
●Anne of Avonlea
●Anne of the Island
by Lucy Maud montgomery
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
11-22-63 by Stephen King
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

That is 52 books in 2011. Respectable (considering the 3 months lost to an international move) and I don't think I could have fit another one in. Some were disappointments (but who cares about those). And then there were the great ones. The top five of 2011 ... and these will stick with me for a long time:

Blindness by Saramago
11-22-63 By King
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Clarke
The Night Circus by Morganstern
Catherine the Great by Massie

Except for Blindness, because it is just too disturbing, I would recommend these to anyone.

Goals for 2012 - and I know I always set goals that tend to be pie in the sky, but I am not the kind of person that is disappointed when I don't achieve them. I am proud to accomplish even a fraction of my reading goals. For example, I only read four of the classics that I had picked out for last year, but those were well worth it. And I finished Mrs. Dalloway! Which I never would have done without the goal to begin with. I am not the beat myself up kind of person ... just trying to get better and better.

But back to the goal ... its a big one. Are you ready?

One Shakespeare play per month. I know too little of the bard. Suggestions on where to begin?

2 comments:

Sheila said...

I love your header photo! Where was it taken? I grew up in Calgary, Alberta so I'm assuming it is in the
Rockies.

Thanks for posting your book list. I love reading what other people are reading.

Patricia said...

Sheila, the photo was taken in K-County. This photo was taken on our very first hike in the mountains on the way back from Chester Lake.