read 50 books in a year

17. Pilgrims – Elizabeth Gilbert
18. The Story of Forgetting – Stefan Merrill Block
19. A Year in Japan – Kate T. Williamson
20. Harley – Star Livingstone
21. The Patron Saint of Liars – Ann Patchett
22. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
23. Truth and Beauty – Ann Patchett
24. The Unstrung Harp [or Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel] – Edward Gorey
25. The Underachiever’s Diary – Benjamin Anastas
26. Into The Great Wide Open – Kevin Canty
27. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

12. Coffee With the Buddha – Joan Duncan Oliver
13. Rats Saw God – Rob Thomas
14. Journal (The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason) – Kristine and Joyce Atkinson
15. Microthrills – Wendy Spero
16. The Torn Skirt – Rebecca Godfrey

currently reading:
Pilgrims – Elizabeth Gilbert
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Story of Forgetting – Stefan Merrill Block (advanced copy)

6. A Certain Slant of Light – Laura Whitcomb
7. Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
8. The Tent – Margaret Atwood
9. Milk – Darcey Steinke
10. Was She Pretty? – Leanne Shapton
11. Girl Meets Boy [The Myth of Iphis] – Ali Smith

currently reading:
Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
Eating Mammals – John Barlow

I won’t count this as a book, but I did also read a short story by TC Boyle, “After the Plague”, which was really good and gave me a better sense of his writing voice. My friend had read his novel Drop City and didn’t exactly like it, but I wasn’t about to give up on him (that book is waiting patiently on my shelves) and I found that I like his style and I hope it carries through in a longer format!

1. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby
2. The Cheese Monkeys – Chip Kidd
3. You Shall Know Our Velocity! – Dave Eggers
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer – Laini Taylor

2006: 25
2007: 35

Shooting for 50 again in 2008!

28. Remarkable Reads – J. Peder Zane
29. A Mango-Shaped Space – Wendy Mass
30. Beowulf
31. An American Childhood – Annie Dillard
32. The Average American Male – Chad Kultgen
33. God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian – Kurt Vonnegut
34. Macbeth – Shakespeare
35. The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan

25. Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl (514 pages…it took me a long while to slog through all the beautiful metaphorical haze. It was good, but long, and kind of ended with a thud. Rather, an ellipsis. But it was still rather good.)
26. Ask the Fruitcake Lady – Marie Rudisill (Funny, insightful, an hour’s worth of words.)
27. Darkwing – Kenneth Oppel (Nostalgic; I read the Silverwing trilogy in middle school.)

currently reading:
Remarkable Reads – J. Peder Zane

20. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
21. Love is a Mixtape – Rob Sheffield
22. Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
23. Rat – Jerry Langton
24. It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Ned Vizzini

currently reading:
Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl
Darkwing – Kenneth Oppel (I read the Silverwing trilogy when I was in middle school!)

16. Paint It Black – Janet Fitch
17. The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse – Jonathan Selwood
18. Sula – Toni Morrison
19. Little Children – Tom Perrotta

Currently reading:
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Love is a Mixtape – Rob Sheffield

I keep a list on my wall of every book I’ve read so far in 2007. It is the backside to my list of books I read in 2006. I write down the title, author, and start and finish dates. So far, this year, I have read:

1. To Feel Stuff – Andrea Seigel
2. Haunted – Chuck Palahniuk
3. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
4. Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
6. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
7. White Oleander – Janet Fitch
8. Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
9. The Breast – Philip Roth
10. Horseplay – Judy Renee Singer
11. One Pill Makes You Smaller – Lisa Dierbeck
12. Buddha in Your Backpack – Franz Metcalf
13. Dear Zoe – Philip Beard
14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling
15. A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That – Lisa Glatt

Currently reading:
-Paint it Black – Janet Fitch

Reading off and on:
-McSweeney’s Volume One – Dave Eggers (ed) [It’s a collection of short stories, so I read a bit here and there. I’ll officially add it to my list once it’s read all the way through.]

Put to the side until later:
-Catch-22 – Joseph Heller [I started reading this when school was in session and decided I’d rather wait until I had more time to really sit and focus on it so I’d pick up on all the subtleties and wit.]
-Seven Types of Ambiguity – Elliot Perlman [So big! Again, I think I need more time to really read it.]
-The Dream Life of Sukhanov – Olga Grushin [Pretty writing, but slightly dull. I put this book back on the shelf about 3/4s of the way through. I don’t want to say I outright gave up on it, but for now, it’s in book purgatory until I say otherwise.]

Books I have given up on:
A Taxonomy of Barnacles – Galt Niederhoffer [I just couldn’t slog through it, so I returned it to the library.]