Books
—————–2009————–
- The Amulet of Samarkand (Stroud)
- The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
- The Girl Who Played With Fire (Larsson)*
- Twilight (Meyer)
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Larsson)*
- The Lost Symbol (Brown)
- Infinite Jest (Foster Wallace)
- The Wordy Shipmates (Vowell)*
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan)*
- The King of Elfland’s Daughter (Dunsany)
- Inkheart (Flunke)
- Sunshine (McKinley)
- Assassination Vacation (Vowell)*
- ———-2008———–
- A Green History of the World (Pointing)
- Quicksilver (Stephenson)
- Lies My Teacher Told Me (Loewen)*
- Dark Star Africa (Theroux)*
- Lords & Ladies (Pratchett)
- Animorphs #1 (Applegate)
- Cat’s Cradle (Vonnegut)*
- Animorphs Megamorphs #1 (Applegate)
- Mermaid Chair (Kidd)
- The Hero and the Crown (McKinley)
- Everything is Illuminated (Safran-Foer)
- The Bell Jar (Plath)
- Magician’s Assistant (Patchett)*
- The Stone Gods (Winterson)
- Small Gods (Pratchett)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)*
- Flicker (Roszak)
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Sedaris)
- Farthest Shore(Le Guin)
- Tombs of Atuan (Le Guin)
- Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin)
- The Third Chimpanzee (Diamond)*
- Naked Lunch (Burroughs)
- Rant (Palahniuk)*
- The Man Who Knew Too Much (Leavitt)
- At the Water’s Edge (Zimmer)*
- Practical Demonkeeping (Moore)
- Spook (Roach)*
- Singer from the Sea (Tepper)
- The Sandman vol 1 & 2 (Gaiman)
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni)
- How To Make An American Quilt (Otto)
- Hogfather (Pratchett)
- Desert Queen (Wallach)
- All My Patients are Under the Bed (Camuti)
- Artemis Fowl (Colfer)
- Death’s Acre (Bass/Jefferson)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
- My Own Country (Verghese)
- Equal Rites (Pratchett)
- The Kite Runner (Hosseini)
- Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom)
- Under the Tuscan Sun (Mayes)
- The Infinite Plan (Allende)
- Persepolis 2 (Satrapi)*
- Ruby in the Smoke (Pullman)
- As She Climbed Across The Table (Lethem)*
- ———-2007———–
- Fragile Things (Gaiman)
- Einstein’s Dreams (Lightman)*
- Pollen (Noon)
- You Shall Know Our Velocity (Eggers)
- The Sands of Time (Hoeye)
- Wounded (Everett)*
- Shampoo Planet (Coupland)*
- Carter Beats the Devil (Gold)*
- Atonement (McEwan)
- The Sparrow (Russell)*
- The Giver (Lowry)
- Vurt (Noon)*
- Agatha Raisin and the Faeries of Fryham (Beaton)
- Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays (Foster Wallace)*
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Rowling)*
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Haddon)*
- Beloved (Morrison)
- Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Satrapi)*
- Lord of the Flies (Golding)
- Fun Home (Bechdel)*
- Towing Jehovah (Morrow)
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Murakami)
- Galapagos (Vonnegut)*
- Cloud Atlas (Mitchell)*
- The Amber Spyglass (Pullman)*
- The Subtle Knife (Pullman)*
- The Golden Compass (Pullman)*
- Y: The Last Man 8-9 (Vaughan)*
- Between the Bridge and the River (Ferguson)*
- Y: The Last Man 1-7 (Vaughan)*
- Pigs in Heaven (Kingsolver)*
- Firmin (Savage)
- Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (Tepper)
- Codex (Grossman)
- The Blind Assassin (Atwood)
- A Good Old Fashioned Future (Sterling)*
- Old Bones (Elkins)
- Witches Abroad (Pratchett)
- Glyph (Everett)*
- Moby Dick (Melville)
- The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)
- ———-2007: 18———–
- Stumbling on Happiness (Gilbert)
- Quicksilver (Stephenson)
- Fragile Things (Gaiman)
- Einstein’s Dreams (Lightman)*
- Pollen (Noon)
- You Shall Know Our Velocity (Eggers)
- The Sands of Time (Hoeye)
- Wounded (Everett)*
- Shampoo Planet (Coupland)*
- Carter Beats the Devil (Gold)*
- Atonement (McEwan)
- The Sparrow (Russell)*
- The Giver (Lowry)
- Vurt (Noon)*
- Agatha Raisin and the Faeries of Fryham (Beaton)
- Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays (Foster Wallace)*
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Rowling)*
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Haddon)*
- Beloved (Morrison)
- Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Satrapi)*
- Lord of the Flies (Golding)
- 7/07:Fun Home (Bechdel)* — On recommendation by Kate, I picked this up to read on my holiday this week. Although I’ve never been a regular reader, I do enjoy Bechdel’s regular comic, Dykes to Watch Out For, and this book, done in a similar style, was entertaining, and sweet, and achingly honest.
- 7/07:Towing Jehovah (Morrow) — Picked this up at Powells by staff recommendation. I wish I could say I loved it, because the plot (God has died, fallen into the sea, and needs to be towed to the Arctic for burial in an iceberg) is awesome, but instead it just gets a strong “Like” instead.
- 7/07:Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Murakami) — Read this for a Seattle LJ bookclub. This is my third Murakami, and it was equally as weird as the others, but still fun to get through. I don’t think this was my favorite, though; pretty sure that honor still goes to Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.
- 7/07:Galapagos (Vonnegut)* — I am apparently on an apocalyptic streak, though not intentionally. Found this at goodwill and had never even heard of it, so I picked it up. Not my favorite Vonnegut, but it is very familiar in style (he hates mankind, if you haven’t noticed, but truly has a way of loving individuals). He fixates on our “Big Brains”, which he calls the villian of the story. Reading this directly after Cloud Atlas and then moving straight into Hard-Boiled Wonderland… felt like I was reading through assignments for some college class in preparing yourself for The End.
- 7/07:Cloud Atlas (Mitchell)* — Laura said this was her favorite a few years ago, and Mom got it for me for my birthday this year. I really enjoyed it as well, even though it took me until past halfway through to figure out what the heck was going on. Slightly depressing read, and an interesting follow-up to the Pullman trilogy I read just prior, but very worth reading.
- 6/07:The Amber Spyglass (Pullman)*
- 6/07:The Subtle Knife (Pullman)*
- 6/07:The Golden Compass (Pullman)* — I don’t know WHY it took me so long to get around to reading these, the “athiest version of C.S. Lewis”, but they were fantastic. If you, also, have somehow not yet gotten to these, stop delaying and pick them up! I still have no hope that the movie, which comes in December, will be any good at all, but the books were their own reward
- 6/07:Y: The Last Man 1-9 (Vaughan)* — (AGAIN with the apocalypse!) Everyone should read these.
- 5/07:Between the Bridge and the River (Ferguson)* — You should totally read this book. It will stick in your head, and you won’t know why, because he’s an actor and a talk show host, for heaven’s sake, but he’s honest and lovable and completely crazy, and refuses to explain it.
- 5/07:Pigs in Heaven (Kingsolver)* — Barbara Kingsolver is always a good read, although in this case the plotline that had the secondary character running away to Seattle felt a little thin to me. Even so, she’s a beautiful writer, and the rest of the characters are strong and believable.
- 4/07:Firmin (Savage) — Desperation purchase about a rat in a bookstore. Not actually worth the read, even though it was quite a short novel.
- 4/07:Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (Tepper) — I think I may have reached the end of my ability to read Shari Tepper’s novels, they are all starting to sound very familiar to one another. I loved Family Tree, and Grass is permanently stuck in my head, but the more I read the more formualic they seem. Surprise! This one is a feminist sci-fi/fantasty novel.
- 4/07:Codex (Grossman) — Bah. If you must read about a Codex, just read Dan Brown and get it over with already. Lev Grossman’s book about a strange computer game and it’s links to a real life ancient book mystery is just way too pat to be any fun.
- 4/07:The Blind Assassin (Atwood) — I really wanted to like this book, but I just could NOT get into it. Two stories in one, and they’re supposed to intertwine, and oh, who cares? T and I tried to listen to Oryx & Crake on the road trip, too, and we couldn’t get into that one, either. I’m going to try to re-read The Handmaids Tale next, just to prove I do like Ms. Atwood.
- 3/07:A Good Old Fashioned Future (Sterling)* — Duncan’s offering to counter Old Bones, a collection of Bruce Sterling sci fi that was absolutely fantastic. I definetly need to pick up a full length Sterling book sometime this year.
- 2/07:Old Bones (Elkins) — Krista lent me this one, my first murder mystery in a very long time. I really enjoyed the mystery, and the book was slim enough that it was over long before I got tired of the twisting plot changes and the boilerplate characters (beautiful wealthy widow? overweight spoiled stepson?).
- 2/07:Witches Abroad (Pratchett) — I’ve never read much Pratchett, nor do I love him when I do read him, but this book was a pretty good read. He is a funny guy, certainly, and this one in particular, making fun of old fairy tales, was good fun.
- 1/07:Glyph (Everett)* — This book is far too smart for me, most of it went right over my head. I do like Everett, though, and his quirky main character in this book (an infant prodigy) keeps the action and the crazy intellectual insights coming page after page.
- ———-2006: 43———–
- 12/29/06:Wicked: The Life and Times… (Maguire) — I was told this would be better than the other Maguire books I’d read, and I think that’s true; Wicked creates a more indepth world than I’ve noted in his other books, a political and religious system that sucked me in. I did feel, though, that near the end of the book he got a little desperate to create a situation in which the Witch would do whatever she needed in order to end up in a puddle of water, and I was frustrated by her apparent descent into madness just when I wanted so badly for her to be a freedom fighter. Guess even a retelling can fall victim to history’s eye for the winner.
- 11/06:Bone: One Volume Edition (Smith) at John’s recommendation, and since passed on to my little sister. You were right, John, it was engaging and funny (I finished it on an airplane back from Atlanta, and kept laughing and I’m pretty sure my seatmate thought I was mentally challenged) and fucking heavy. Good grief. My arms hurt the day after from holding it up to read on the plane.
- 10/06:Running with Scissors (Burroughs) — Okay so the book was way better than the movie. But even so.
- 10/06:Bad Dirt (Prouix)* — Really good short stories, but only if you like stories about slightly dull lives in middle america. I found myself sort of longing for DeLillo or Palahnuik or something, you know, less normal.
- 10/06:Kensington Gardens (Fresan) — I picked this up in a bookstore in Argentina in desperation for something to read when my vacation turned into a library vacation instead of a travel vacation. It’s a big book, not typically anything I’d pick up, but like I said, I was desperate. And actually, I kind of loved it. It’s sort of about Peter Pan, and sort of about J.M. Barrie, and sort of about a fictional character who identifies strongly with both of them. It’s long and crazy and makes no sense half the time, but somehow the story carried me through anyway, and when I was done it stuck with me for a long time.
- 10/06:The Historian (Kostova)* — My friend Naomi recommended this to me eons ago and I didn’t pick it up til this year. She was right, it’s a good read. As a story it reads almost as a history, but has a story that drives the action forward with enough tension that I was flipping pages late at night to make sure my dear main character didn’t get a stake through his heart.
- 10/06:A Million Little Pieces (Frey) — Erm. My father has done well through AA, so I have my own feelings about AA and sobriety. Reading this book made me cry when it made me identify with my father’s own struggles, which I was mostly too young to actually be part of but have always had some leftover guilt for not being more involved in. Unfortunately, the final message of the book, especially given Frey’s factual challenges, made me mostly angry at the author for choosing to write a “memoir” that essentially tells other addicts that AA is for the weak and ignorant, and the only way to get through addiction is to break your way through mentally. That’s fine and well, but it, like AA, doesn’t work for everyone, and his dismissal of AA while simultaneously telling us about how fantastically strong he was to make it through when so many others failed mostly just made me want to punch him.
- 10/06:Saving Fish From Drowning (Tan) — Typical Tan fare, a good read, but not particularly original.
- 10/06:Cosmopolis (DeLillo)* — My only other DeLillo book was White Noise, which I loved up til the end, and this one redeemed him with a really good strong ending.
- 10/06:Anansi Boys (Gaiman) — Nothing will ever be as good as American Gods, but I forgive him.
- 10/06:The Will of the Empress (Pierce) — More YA (I was on vacation!). This particular series is fading fast, but it wasn’t a painful read.
- 10/06:Wizards Holiday (Duane) — YA for what ails the soul, I say. Most recent in one of my favorite series from my childhood.
- 10/06:The Commitment (Savage) — I love Dan Savage. I love his wacky job, his total brutal honesty, his weekly column AND his books.
- 9/06:Into The Wild (Krakauer) — this completes my Krakauer reading. I liked Into Thin Air much better, but Into the Wild had similar elements, and the scientific details were interesting. I share their desire to disappear sometimes, but haven’t ever wanted to push myself so hard I actually did.
- 9/06:MicroSerfs (Coupland)* — This book is scarily like my real life, so I therefore loved it. It even had a character with my name, for heaven’s sake, beyond being set in Redmond and San Mateo and about young people who work for tech companies in the early .com boom.
- 9/06:Prodigal Summer )(Kingsolver)* — As good as I said it was. I don’t know why I don’t read more Kingsolver, I’ve liked everything I’ve read so far.
- 8/06:Bless Me, Ultima (Anaya) — picked this one up because I keep looking at Isobel Allende, and, well, didn’t want to break that pattern so I picked another Latino author. This is apparently a classic, though I’d never heard of it or of Rudolfo Anaya. It’s a coming-of-age story, leaning towards the same sort of magic as a part of the every day as was in, for instance, A Hundred Years of Solitude, or Like Water For Chocolate. As most coming-of-age stories, the story takes place in a swirl of many dramas. By the end I was a little frustrated by the author’s habit of trailing off rather than resolving crisis, but overall it was worth reading, if nothing else it was an interesting view into 70′s border life.
- 8/06:Peter and the Shadow Thieves (Barry, Pearson) — That’s Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is the second in a series of Peter Pan rewrites by these two. The books are large (~500 pages), but quick reads written in a young adult fashion. If you’ve read Dave Barry’s The Big One, this is not like that. In fact, I didn’t find either of the Peter books to be all that funny despite the authors, which is a little disappointing. It is still fun, though, to read the familiar story though different events.
- 8/06:A Wild Sheep Chase (Murakami)* — Travis lent me my first Murakami (The Wind-up Bird Chronicles), and this one is as weird and interesting as you would expect. What I like about Murakami is that although his stories come from left field, he is kind to his characters; he never seems to feel he needs to make them jerks or unlovable just because his story is unusual. I don’t even know what to say about the Sheep Boy, but if you liked other Murakami, you’d like this one, as well.
- 8/06:Silverwing (Oppel) — My younger sister’s book I read in desperation crossing the ferry on our way to go camping. It’s a coming-of-age story about bats. If you can get past the oversimplification of Just About Everything, it’s a super quick read, but even then I didn’t think the writing or the story worth the time.
- 8/06:Because of Winn-Dixie (Dicamillo) — YA books out of desperation was a theme in August. This was on the shelf at home, so I picked it up one evening. Made me want to see the movie to catch Dave Matthews playing “magic” guitar songs. This one I found more worthwhile, it had a sweet story and a really likable main character.
- 7/06:Misfortune (Stace) — Nothing beats the Powells in the Portland Airport. When you don’t have Powells, you must make do with whatever looks like it isn’t being read by housewives, and so I ended up with this: it’s the story of a boy raised as a girl in Victorian era England. Interesting when it delves into the ways in which we lie to ourselves and one antoher, a little overlong, but not a bad read. It was written by an NYC singer/songwriter who started with the songs that are in the book and then wrote an entire book around the songs.
- 7/06:The Dispossessed (Le Guin) — This is only my second Le Guin book, and I’m a little embarassed that it took me so long to catch up with what everyone else knows already… she’s a great writer. The storyline is interesting, and the social and political commentary (I’m starting to get the impression this is a theme in her books) is timely as always.
- 7/06:Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Clarke) — Laura lent this one to me. Seemed like it was my type of book, but I found it a bit slow. I also had a very difficult time in the last half not throwing the book down in frustration at Strange’s character flaws.
- 7/06:The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)* — I forgot how much I loved this book. Wordplay is fun! I read this one because John dug it out for Laura to read.
- 7/06:Eleanor Rigby (Coupland)* — Douglas Coupland likes to write about lonely people. The connection that forms through this book is believable and interesting, and his writing is lovely to read.
- 6/06:Watershed (Everett)* — My first Everett book, I really enjoyed this one. Slightly off-kilter, very honest telling of a water rights battle between a Native American tribe and a local goverment.
- 6/06:A Plague of Angels (Tepper) — I do love Sherri Tepper, but this wasn’t her best. If you haven’t read her, start with The Family Tree, or The Gate to Women’s Country. She always has a political or social theme to her books, and as I generally agree with her I find them worthwhile, but in this book it felt a little forced. I did really like the characters and the concept, but I wanted her to flesh that out more rather than focus on going to the stars.
- 5/06:Holy The Firm (Dillard) — Loan from Talina, her favorite. It’s short, but that didn’t make me like it more. The contradiction between the second and third parts was too hard to swallow… it seemed more like a few journal entries that someone accidently published.
- 5/06:Fall of Hyperion (Simmons) — John made me read these two. I will do you the favor of recommending that you perhaps avoid them. I believe he also handed them to me with a similar negative recommendation. Something like… “Hey, see whether you hate these as much as I did!”
- 5/06: Hyperion (Simmons)
- 4/06: Feast of Love (Baxter) — Another loan from John. Modern fiction is still not my thing, but I enjoyed this story and it’s oddball characters who are able to find one another to fit together with. Just another story of all the ways we fuck with each other and ourselves… my favorite.
- 4/06: Lathe of Heaven (Le Guin)* — My first Le Guin book ever. So good!! Thanks, John!
- 4/06: Six Moon Dance (Tepper) — 2nd Tepper book for the year… not as good as A Plague of Angels but more interesting story than Grass. This one is about sexual power in some very graphic ways, and I was impressed by her ability to translate that into a SciFi book as well as she did. I’m pretty sure I borrowed this one from John, too. Oh My God, I’m going to miss those bookshelves…
- 4/06: Garlic and Sapphires (Reichl)* — Read THIS book if you want a NY foodie experience. Reichl is much more likeable as a writer than Steingarten was, I enjoyed the honesty as she confronts what it means to be a food critic with so much power, and next time I’m in NY I am totally eating at that soba place.
- 4/06: Lighthousekeeping (Winterson) — I loved the first few Jeanette Winterson books I read, but this one wears thin pretty quick. I’ve said it several times, but Jeanette, you can’t just keep writing in the same style and expecting that to make up for the total lack of a decent story. Two word sentances is not a way out of a tight spot.
- 4/06: The Big U (Stephenson)* — My second Stephenson, his first book. Have to tell you a story about the first Neal Stephenson book I read, Snow Crash, which I also really enjoyed… I told my boss the theme of the book, and how I loved that the main characters name was “Hiro Protaganist”, and he laughed and said he’s never heard of Neal Stephenson. He poked fun at me for reading no-name “scifi” writers and said I was probably the only person in 20 blocks who even knew who Stephenson was. We were on our way to coffee, and when we walked in I turned to the people ahead of us in line and said “Have you heard of Neal Stephenson?”, to which they responded “of course! He’s great!”. So there. This book was fantastic, very funny and quirky, and a quick read to boot. If you can find it, it’s worth it.
- 4/06: The Language of Goodbye (Fischer) — Um… Bought for me by a friend who said it was her favorite book, but unfortunately I did not enjoy it at all! I’m not big on romance anyway, but this one I thought particularly dated (so many 80s references! so painful!) and frustrating. I realize bad decisions are a hallmark of romance, but if romance is the only driving action in the book, must we always rely so heavily on bad decisions to get us through the story?
- 4/06: Magic Steps (Pierce) — YA by Tamora Pierce, I have consistently enjoyed her books, which I am sharing with my younger sister. I started this one as a reprieve from the heaviness of Walking It Off, below. She tends to write coming-of-age stories about young girls, an easy theme for me to get into anyway, but the stories are relatively strong on their own. Pretty traditional YA Fantasy.
- 4/06: Walking It Off (Peacock)* — This is a difficult read, a journal of sorts, written by a good friend of Edward Abbey about his death and their friendship. I really enjoyed the honesty of it, the contractictions here felt like he really meant all of them, and I can identify with that. If you’ve read Abbey or like behind-the-scenes stories, this one is a quick read that is well worth it.
- 4/06: The Moor’s Last Sigh (Rushdie) — I know Rushdie is famous for his writing, but I haven’t been particularly impressed by either of the books I’ve read by him. This one was an ok story spanning plenty of interesting history and characters, and yet still I kept wondering where we were going and why I wasn’t reading another book by now.
- 1/06: Grass (Tepper) — SciFi is always my refuge when I’ve read a frustrating book.
- 1/06: The Man Who Ate Everything (Steingarten) — Jeffrey Steingarten is most definetly an asshole, but as a cook I really enjoyed the how-tos and the science behind some of the stories. It’s nice that it is actually just articles in book form, so you can stop and start as you choose and not feel obligated to put up with his ego for the entire book all at once.
- ———-2005: 36———–
- 12/05: Freakonomics (Levitt / Dubner)
- 11/05: The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd)*
- 11/05: Bel Canto (Patchett)
- 11/05: Snow Crash (Stephenson)*
- 11/05: Sex and Sunsets (Sandlin)
- 10/05: Sideshow (Tepper)
- 10/05: Blindness (Saramago)
- 10/05: Coraline (Gaiman)
- 9/05: A Collection of Beauties
(Otto)*
- 9/05: Under the Banner of Heaven (Krakaeur)
- 9/05: Falling Sideways (Holt)
- 9/05: Pattern Recognition (Gibson)
- 8/05: Stardust (Gaiman)
- 8/05: The Time Travelers Wife (Niffenger)
- 8/05: Villa Incognito (Robbins)
- 8/05: Diary (Palahnuik)
- 8/05: Tipping Point (Gladwell)
- 7/05: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Rowling)
- 7/05: A Language Older Than Words (Jensen)*
- 7/05: The Ark Sakura (Abe)
- 7/05: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Alvarez)
- 6/05: Into Thin Air (Krakauer)*
- 6/05: Neverwhere (Gaiman)*
- 6/05: Wall of the Sky, Wall of the Eye (Lethem)
- 5/05: Mao II (DeLillo) `
- 5/05: Lullaby (Palahnuik)
- 5/05: Word Freak (Fatsis)*
- 5/05: A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving)
- 4/05: Good Omens (Pratchett/Gaiman)
- 4/05: Blink (Gladwell)*
- 4/05: The Little Book of Coaching (Blanchard/Schula)
- 2/05: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (Murakama)
- 3/05: Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (Adams)
- 3/05: Girlfriend in a Coma (Coupland)
- 2/05: Needle in the Groove (Noon)
- 1/05: Nymphomation (Noon)*
- *read me!
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