Keep Track of All the Books I Read in 2007

36. Marley and Me by John Grogan

I couldn’t put this book down and finished it in a day. I loved the story and the humor. Anyone who has made a pet part of the family is sure to love this book.

Well, 2007 is just about finished and it looks like my tally for the year stands at 36. I read most of those books in the first half of the year. In the second half there were a lot of distractions and the reading just kind of fell away. I’m hoping to get back into good reading habits come the start of 2008.

34. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
35. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

These were both engrossing reads – I couldn’t put either of them down. Without giving too much away I was slightly disappointed by the ending of My Sister’s Keeper, I found it to be a bit contrived in contrast to the rest of the story.

30. The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life by Noah Lukeman
31. The Spirit Walker by Michelle Paver
32. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
33. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Stumbling on Happiness was the best of the bunch here. Gilbert is a psychologist and has put together some interesting research on why we find it difficult to reliably predict what will make us happy.
Lukeman irritated me from start to finish by continually referencing films to illustrate his points on writing. And talking of italics, Tolle also Irritated me by his Largely Unnecessary capitalization of words That really Didn’t need capitalizing and extreme overuse of italics. Annoying, isn’t it?

27. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
29. The Year the Gypsies Came by Linzi Glass

The Year the Gypsies Came tells the story of Emily Iris and her family, which is quietly falling apart. The backdrop is 1960’s apartheid South Africa. Emily looks to their nightwatchman, Buza, for comfort and wisdom in the face of her parents growing estrangement. One summer ‘gypsies’ come to stay, a wandering family of Australians. Their lives are dramtically transformed by the encounter, violently, in a way none of them could ever have forseen.
I was initially attracted to this novel because of the South African setting (the old zulu stories Buza tells Emily are a highlight). The story is well told and at times painfully sad.

19. Red Dust by Ma Jian
20. Yellow Doors: Poems by Ruth Goring
21. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
22. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie
23. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
24. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
25. Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path by James Hollis
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I’ve read so many good books in the past few months it’s impossible to single out one over the other. Different books, different journeys – from the beautiful poems in Yellow Doors, to the wilds of China in Red Dust , to a war-torn Nigeria in Half of a Yellow Sun. Pippi Longstocking was fun, a first time read, Charlotte’s Web a children’s classic I have read many times over. The Sorrows of Young Werther , The Kite Runner and Creating a Life were all completely different but utterly compulsive reads (I finished each of them in just over a day).

17. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
18. Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice

Pobby and Dingan are Kellyanne’s imaginary friends, friends that her brother Ashmol doesn’t have much time for. But when Pobby and Dingan go missing and his sister falls ill Ashmol takes it upon himself to enlist the help of the town, a dusty opal mining community, to help find them. Spare and restrained, this is a beautiful story.

16. Sophie’s World:A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaardner

Sophie Amunsden, a fifteen year old girl, becomes unwittingly enrolled in a mysterious course which teaches her the history of philosophy. At the same time, she must unravel a mystery involving another young girl, Hilde, by using the information she is learning.
I found the first half of the novel engaging but somewhere around the middle everything starts to take a turn for the worse. I found a lot of the dialogue annoying too – not believable at all.

14. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
15. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning begins with Frankl’s account of his imprisonment in various concentration camps and his struggle during this time to find reasons to live. The second part of the book, is called “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,” detailing a revolutionary approach to psychotherapy that Frankl developed. At the centre of his theory is the belief that man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning. This is a deeply moving and inspirational book and it really makes you stop and think about what’s important in your own life.

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
Victor E. Frankl

12. Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior by Phil Jackson
13. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom was sitting on our bookshelf for nearly a year, but once I finally picked it up I could not put it down.
Much of Mandela’s autobiography was written secretly while he was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island. It details his childhood, his years as a lawyer and politician, the treason trials and imprisonment on Robben Island, and his eventual release.
It is utterly compelling reading, and despite its length an absolute page turner. A real ‘must-read’ book.

8. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
9. The Secrets of Jin Shei by Alma Alexander
10. Best of Beijing by Eilis Quinn (Lonely Planet)
11. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I loved Sarah Waters three other novels. The Night Watch is her latest and takes place in the late years of the second world war, a departure from the Victorian setting of her earlier works. The story moves backwards in time, following a set of characters whose lives intertwine during the war. I enjoyed it, loved the writing, but couldn’t help comparing it to Fingersmith . This was slower paced with none of the twists and turns and intricate plotting that made Fingersmith such a gripping read.