May Reading

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Stories

• Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch
  

Novels

• The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
• Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young
• Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes
• The Solomon Sisters Wise Up by Melissa Senate
• Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
  

Notable Nonfiction

• None :(

And there we have my reading list for my travels. Not really highbrow, but it was nice to take a break from what I feel I should be reading and focus on some fun stuff.

A rave goes out to Monkey Beach, which I found in a wonderful Canadian independent bookstore. I'll definitely be looking for more of Robinson's work because this book was phenomenal. Also, I really enjoyed Melissa Senate's The Solomon Sisters Wise Up. I read See Jane Date several years ago and didn't love it so much, so I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. Both are recommended.

In other reading related news, I have to report that I visited no fewer than eight bookstores on our Alaskan adventure. Highlights included Green Apple Books in San Francisco (spent a good hour browsing there), Hearthside Books and Rainy Day Books in Juneau, and Book Warehouse in Vancouver.

April Reading

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Stories

• "Ysreal" by Junot Diaz
• "Betrayal" by Patricia Duncker
• "God's Goodness" by Marjorie Kemper
• "Greasy Lake" by T. Coraghessan Boyle
• "Material" by Alice Munro
• Alligator Dance by Janet Peery
  

Novels

• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Notable Nonfiction

• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• Vintage Baldwin by James Baldwin

Hibernating

• Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
• Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I did lots of reading this month, but not all of it got finished. A word about hibernating books: I have a 50 page rule. If I'm not enjoying a book or getting something out if it in 50 pages, I give up. I used to never give up on books. I used to force myself to get through anything, but that lead to a lot of slow and unpleasant reading. Thus, the 50 page rule was born.

Book raves for the month include Alligator Dance, which I still cannot coherently talk about, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

March Reading

Monday, March 31, 2008

Short Stories

• "The Shell Collector" by Anthony Doerr
• "Burn Your Maps" by Robin Joy Leff

Novels

• The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

Notable Nonfiction

• Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
• "The Charms of Wikipedia" by Nicholson Baker, the New York Review of Books

Hibernating

• Lisey's Story by Stephen King

February Reading

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Novels

• Nobody's Girl by Antonya Nelson
• The Last of the Savages by Jay McInerney
  

Short stories (inc. collections)

• The Knife Thrower by Steven Millhauser
• "The Thing in the Forest," by A.S. Byatt

Notable nonfiction

• The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King by Michael Craig

February was a bum month for reading. Not only did I not read very much, I also didn't read anything really great. (Nobody's Girl was a reread. It's great, but it it doesn't count.) I had high hopes for the Last of the Savages because Brightness Falls is one of my favorite books and I always enjoy McInerney's novels, but I was only lukewarm about this one. I loved half the stories in The Knife Thrower, but had a hard time finishing the other half. I have high hopes of finishing Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories . . . but not this month.

January Reading

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Novels

• Second Glance by Jodi Picoult
  
• Step Ball Change by Jeanne Ray

Short stories (inc. collections)

• The Woman in the Woods by Ann Joslin Williams
• "Cascom Mountain Road" by Ann Joslin Williams
• "Year's End," by Jhumpa Lahiri
• "My Old Man" by Melissa Bank
• "The Worst Thing a Suburban Girl Could Imagine" by Melissa Bank

Notable nonfiction

• The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez
• Postitively Fifth Street by James McManus

December Reading

Monday, December 31, 2007

Novels
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi
A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
The Uses of Enchantment, Heidi Julavits
Carnet de Voyage, Craig Thompson
Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut

Short stories
"Or Else," Antonya Nelson
"Heart Shaped Rock," Antonya Nelson
"The Geranium," Flannery O'Connor
"The River," Flannery O'Connor
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Flannery O'Connor
"Everything that Rises Must Converge," Flannery O'Connor
"Revelation," Flannery O'Connor
"Judgment Day," Flannery O'Connor
"Nobody Said Anything," Raymond Carver
"The Student's Wife," Raymond Carver
"Fever," Raymond Carver
"Beginners," Raymond Carver

Notable nonfiction
"Come One, Come All: A Megachurch Grows in New England," The New Yorker
"Rough Crossings: The Cutting of Raymond Carver," The New Yorker

Lots and lots of reading this month. The Flannery O'Conner entry can be found here. The Raymond Carver entry is forthcoming, once I gather my thoughts on the selections and the New Yorker article.

I read Bluebeard for next month's book group. It was my first Vonnegut and I'll be interested to hear what the rest of the group has to say. A few people were very excited about this choice, but I didn't think much of it. It was a quick read and there were a few passages with fascinating theories of artistry, but the story and the writing didn't do much for me. Don't know if I'll read anymore Vonnegut any time soon.

November Reading

Friday, November 30, 2007

Novels

• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
• The Babysitters Club: The Truth About Stacey by Raina Telgemeier and Ann. M. Martin

Short stories

• "Bar Joke, Arizona" by Sam Allington (from One Story, read more about it here)
• "Promise Breaker" by Chris Aiden (read it here)

Noteworthy nonfiction

• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen
• Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
• The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
• "Life in an Eggcup." John Gamel, Alaska Quarterly Review

October Reading

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Novels

• And Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
  
• The 25th Hour by David Benioff
  
• Later, At the Bar by Rebecca Berry
  
• Blindness by Jose Saramago
  

Short stories

• "Willing" by Lorrie Moore

Noteworthy nonfiction

• "The Corrections: Of Abridgments, Commentaries, and Art," Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, Oct. 22, 2007.
• "Why is Indie Rock So White?" Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker, Oct. 22, 2007
• "Women and Children For Sale," Caroline Moorehead, New York Review of Books, Oct. 11, 2007
• "They'd Much Rather Be Rich," Andrew Hacker, New York Review of Books, Oct. 11, 2007.