September 12, 2010

• 69 and counting

  So my first year with a Kindle is drawing to a close, and the mad reading frenzy of the past few weeks (I read 6.5 books during our week in Hawaii) has brought me up to 69 books completed (I have three other books in progress now, and have a secret wish to hit 75 by the time October 6th rolls around).

  Out of the 69 books I’ve read and the three that I’m currently reading, here are the ones I’ve liked best so far, in case you’re looking for something to read. Some of them I liked because they were really well written. Some of them were just exactly what I was in the mood for at the time. Some of them just had really interesting ideas or imagery:

  • Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel (author of the Life of Pi; this book takes on the Holocaust in an unusual manner)
  • My Life in France – Julia Child, Alex Prud’Homme (post-WWII cooking in France)
  • The Missing - Tim Gautreaux (post-WWI angst in the bayou)
  • The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame (part of my children’s book kick)
  • Not Quite What I Was Planning - Larry Smith (six word memoirs)
  • The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch (love and cancer, written by the author about himself)
  • A Happy Marriage: A Novel – Rafael Yglesias (love and cancer, written by the author about his wife)
  • Shantaram: A Novel – Gregory David Roberts (a bit prose-y, but really evocatively written book about India)
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand - Helen Simonson (interesting portrayal of class, race, family, and British society)
  • The Help – Kathryn Stockett (interesting portrayal of class, race, family, and Southern society)
  • The Aleph and Other Stories – Jorge Luis Borges (his stories inspired some of the reality-bending labyrinthine ideas of Inception)
  • The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (drama in Spain that revolves around books)
  • If on a winter’s night a traveler - Italo Calvino (in progress; post-modern book that revolves around books)

  • 11:13 pm
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