book list part three

So apparently there are some people out there that still read this from time to time (Hi Mom!). Lately I have been thinking about posting again, so I thought I would give it a try with something fairly easy, a run down of all of the books that I have crammed into my head in the past year or so. Some are literature, others are trash, some I liked and one I didn't even finish.

You may recall I did something a lot like this after my first year in Chicago. Here's the list, totaling 42 books and about 15,000 pages.

-The Fiery Cross, Diana Gabaldon: you should definitely be judging me right now.

-The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger: but see! I do read good books too! That get turned into decent movies that are no where near as amazing as the book was...

-How the Water Feels to the Fishes, Dave Eggers

-Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling

-Emma, Jane Austen

-My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Handler

-A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Diana Gabaldon

-The Good Earth, Pearl Buck

- The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan: How I made it so long in my life and into the vegetarian stage of my life without reading this book is a mystery. Everyone should read it.

- A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley: The first time I tried to read this book I didn't really get into it and gave up. This time, I loved it so much that I wanted to start reading it over from the beginning as soon as I had reached the end.

- At Weddings and Wakes, Alice McDermott

- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski

- The Double Bind, Chris Bonjalian

- An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon: I promise this is the last one....at least for the next two years or so when the final book in the series comes out.

-Agnes Parker: A Girl in Progress, Kathleen O'Dell: read for a pen-pal reading project that fell through.

-Wounded Warriors: Those for Whom the War Never Ends, Mike Sager: a really great collection of short profiles including one about Kobe Bryant.

- The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman: I don't think it has ever taken me longer to read a book, and I probably read five others during the course of reading this one, but I finally finished it!

-Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

-Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Piece, One School at a Time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

- The Last Bridge: Teri Coyne

- South of Broad, Pat Conroy

- Rifles for Watie, Harold Reith: this time through was maybe read number 15? I don't know why I love it, but I have to read it about once a year.

-Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revieled Bird, Andrew Blechman: Yes, I really did read a book about pigeons and it was actually really interesting and funny.

- Sin in the Second City, Erik Larson

- Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America From Starbucks, Bryant Simon: this guy totally took my idea for a book...

- Not Afraid of the Dark, Rosemary Bray

-You Shall know Our Velocity, Dave Eggers: his third time on the list for this year and one of my favorite books from my favorite author.

-Rececca, Daphne Du Maurier

- Brooklyn, Colm Toibin

-Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

- All the Licing, CE Morgan

- The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz: I would recommend this to anyone, but it especially appealed to me with it's heavy Lord of the Rings references and Spanish interjections.

- The Whale, Philip Hoare: Not nearly as successfully as the book about pigeons. This is one of the few books in my life that I have started but not finished but maybe since it is nonfiction it is different and my streak is intact?

- The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich: I love this woman's prose and her perspective on life. Also, she survived being struck by lightening, which is pretty amazing.

- Of Love and Dust, Ernest Gaines: I read this book almost entirely in one sitting and finished it in less than twenty four hours even though it was 300 some pages long.

- The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

- The Year of Pleasures, Elizabeth Berg

- The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver: I love some of Kingsolvers books but I was really torn about this one all the way through. I would probably still recommend it though.

- The Year of Fog, Michelle Richmond

- The Help, Kathryn Stocket

- Shopgirl, Steve Martin: Yes, that Steve Martin. I was also torn about his writing style all the way through the book but now that I am done with it I keep finding myself thinking about the characters and how Martin presents humans in general.