Bybee's Bookish Past

2002: March

2010-02-28T22:39:00.000-08:00

Another dismal month. Only two books read.

8. Who Do You Love? (short story collection) - Jean Thompson. A really solid collection. If you like Raymond Carver, you'll enjoy Thompson. Also, how can you not love a book that takes its title from a Bo Diddley song? If you see this book at a bookstore or a library sale, don't hesitate to pick it up.

9. Rich Dad, Poor Dad (nonfiction) - Robert T. Kiyosaki. His message that "your money should work for you and the best way to do that is in real estate" is interesting, but he doesn't really lay it out how to get it done. Instead, he spends a lot of time comparing his hero Rich Dad with his biological Poor Dad. Those titles grated on the nerves when you saw them on Every. Frickin'. Page. Ultimately, I was put off by the scorn Kiyosaki seems to have for his Poor Dad. Poor Dad was well-educated, but he didn't spend his life trying to be a raging capitalist. For me, he's the more interesting of the two Dads. Son Robert's an asshole -- I'm sorry I spent money on his book.

2002: February

2010-02-24T20:54:00.000-08:00

What an abysmal month. I didn't read much and hardly anything stuck in my memory.

5. The Man Who Loved Children (novel) - Christina Stead. Australian author Stead gets the top prize for The Most Annoying Character Ever in this 1940 novel. The title character, Sam Pollitt, the father of a large brood (7 children) is unpleasant on so many different levels that I long to pick him up and bodily throw him out of the novel. Stead shows the reader and shows and shows and SHOWS and SHOWS what an ass he is and how his behavior is systematically tearing the family down bit by bit. Adding to the already distressing scenes is a sense of dislocation. It's like Stead tried to graft her 1910s Australian upbringing onto this 1930s American family, and everything feels irritiatingly off. Henny, Sam's wife in particular uses phrases that sound oddly clipped in that British sort of way. Even for all of that, the writing is powerhouse stuff and the story sweeps readers along. Check out that jangly cover art. That's an illustrator who definitely read the novel and perfectly captured the tone. This book is available as an audiobook, but it's painful enough to read the dialogue; I can't imagine listening to it.

6. Goodbye, Columbus (novella and short stories) - Philip Roth. I don't remember anything about the book, but I do remember that I didn't like it -- boring with unpleasant characters -- and I was put off reading Philip Roth for five years.

7. The Source of Trouble (short stories) - Debra Monroe. I remember Raymond Carveresque characters and good, solid writing, but nothing in particular.

2002: January

2010-02-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I decided to keep track of what and how much I read each month at the beginning of 2002. My life? I was teaching ESL K-8. Running from elementary school to middle school kept me busy, but I still had time to check out the middle school library from time to time.

1. The One-Minute Teacher (nonfiction) - Spencer Johnson, M.D. & Constance Johnson, M.Ed. Aaaargh. The Johnsons have one idea and repeat it over and over. The book is really short, but as Mark Twain (?) would have said, "Those covers are too far apart!"

2. Christina Stead (biography) - Hazel Rowley. An excellent portrait of the Australian novelist, best known for her 1938 novel The Man Who Loved Children.

3. In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (nonfiction) - Nathaniel Philbrick. The story of the Essex tragedy, which took place over two years 1819-1821 was the horror sea story of the 19th century as the Titanic was for the 20th. After the Essex was attacked by a giant sperm whale (which later inspired Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick), the survivors of the wreckage took off across the Pacific in three small boats with most of their suffering ahead of them during the next 90+ days. Starvation and cannibalism play a part in the crew's fate, and Philbrick reports this unsparingly. Although tons of research (Philbrick has pages and pages of end notes) was done, In The Heart of the Sea is not a long book, and the narrative moves along nicely. Very highly recommended.

4. Lupita Manana (novel) - Patricia Beatty. This is a young adult novel. When Lupita's father is killed in an accident, Lupita's mother decides to send her two oldest children, Lupita and Salvador to their aunt's home in California, so they can find work and send money back to Mexico to help support their mother and the younger children. After one unsuccessful trip in which they are stopped by la migra (immigration police), Lupita and Salvador cross the border into the United States. They face a series of obstacles relating to family, work, a different culture and always fear of la migra, but Lupita is spunky and optimistic, always believing that manana (tomorrow) will be better. It was interesting to compare this book with a movie called El Norte that I'd seen a couple of years earlier.

2001 - The Final Chapter

2010-02-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

After I read The Complete Tightwad Gazette, nothing else seemed interesting. I only wanted to read (and talk and talk and talk...) about how to save money. Although I read a few other things, I was constantly dipping back into TCTG. It all felt like a revelation.

29. Living Well On A Shoestring (nonfiction) -Editors of Yankee magazine. Hmm, there's something about New Englanders...they've really got that thrift thing going on. Is it because of their Puritan past? Good hints, but without personal stories or life philosophy. I enjoyed the flinty good humor.

30. The Best Of The Cheapskate Monthly (nonfiction) - Mary Hunt. Hunt was an extreme spendthrift who got so in over her head in credit card debt that she was finally forced to see the light. Again, hints without trying to show people how to get the mindset that's necessary. Plus, she seems a little chirpy.

31. Your Money or Your Life (nonfiction) - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I'm pleased that this was updated in 2008. A worthwhile read about money = life energy and how we so often waste that needlessly. Dominguez and Robin are like Amy Dacyczyn in that they appeal to the reader's intelligence by showing them the workings instead of firing off a volley of hints. Jessica at Both Eyes considers it a book that changed her life and recently wrote a fine review which I recommend.

32. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (biography) - Nancy Milford. New Year's Eve. Champagne. Dick Clark. LitAmnesia.

2001 Part 3

2010-02-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

23. Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (biography) - Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith. This 900+ page biography isn't just about Pollock, it's about 20th century aret and Pollock's world in general as well as the figures he came in contact with like Peggy Guggenheim, Thomas Hart Benton, Clem Greenberg and the artist who would become his greatest promoter and wife, Lee Krasner. Naifeh and Smith present Pollock warts and all. The whole book is excellently researched and written. Ed Harris used this for his source material when he directed and starred in a 2000 biopic about Jackson Pollock.

24. For The Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun (nonfiction) -Lucy Kaylin. Kaylin examines convents in the United States that are clsoing due to dwindling numbers of women unvilling to choose a life of religious service. On the other hand, some convents are thriving, but their numbers are small. Kaylin interviews a few dozen nuns and former nuns. Another good book related to this subject is Sisters by John J. Fialka.

25. The Chocolate War (novel) - Robert Cormier. This is Cormier's big hit, but I much preferred Fade, a later novel. This prep school story about Jerry refusing to sell chocolates for the school and the dramatic outcome seems like so much blather.

26. Tiger Eyes (novel) - Judy Blume. I read this for an Adolescent Literature class, but I only remember that the main character's faher died and the family goes to New Mexico to stay with an uncle.

27. Farewell To Manzanar (memoir) - Jeanne Wakatasuki Houston. Another for the Adolescent Literature class. As a child, the author and her fmaily were placed in a Japanese-American interrment camp until World War II had ended. This thoughtful and intelligent look back at how her whole fmaily was affected should be required reading in schools.

28. The Complete Tightwad Gazette (nonfiction) - Amy Dacyczyn. I was teaching an ESL class for university students and we were doing a chapter on recycling. I vaguely remembered "a tightwad lady" who had some "wacky hints" about recycling. I found the book at Hastings and bought it. The lesson for my students ended later that week and mine was just beginning. I became so engrossed in Dacyczyn's story and methods and the stories of other successes from folliwing her advice that I couldn't stop reading and rereading and ruminating. This ended up being one of the books of my life and one that came with me to Korea. TCTG is an excellent resource. I wish I had encountered such a book early in my life.

2001 Part 2

2010-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

I had been thinking that instead of going year by year, I would go book by book, but it's fun to see what kind of reading streaks I go through.

11. Duane's Depressed (novel) - Larry McMurtry. McMurtry returns to the crowd in Thalia. They're getting older and their lives are getting sadder, but still chaotic.

12. The Stone Angel (novel) - Margaret Laurence. Whoops! LitAmnesia! I'm really ashamed of not remembering a novel written by the other great Margaret of Canada. Blush.

13. Texasville (novel) - Larry McMurtry. 30 years after The Last Picture Show, Thalia's in the middle of planning the 100th anniversary of their county, but there's uneasiness because the area has gone from oil boom to oil bust. Jacy shows up in town again, sadder and wiser, but complicating life as always.

14. All Over But The Shoutin' (memoir) - Rick Bragg. Bragg, a veteran journalist, writes about his hardscrabble upbringing in Georgia. He has a way of writing very movingly without getting corny or maudlin.

15. Walter Benjamin At The Dairy Queen (nonfiction) - Larry McMurtry. McMurtry writes about his life as a reader and details what life was like after heart surgery. His health and mental state were so affected that he didn't feel like reading for five years.

16. Buffalo Girls (novel) - Larry McMurtry. The Old West as seen from "Calamity" Jane's point of view in letters to her daughter Janey, whose father was Wild Bill Hickok.

17. Back When We Were Grownups (novel) - Anne Tyler. Rebecca Davitch got married to a widower when she was very young and was pressed into both his family and the family business. When he died and left her a young widow, she carried on with everything. She always, but even more now, wonders what her "real" life would have been like.

18. Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (biography) - A. Scott Berg. Maxwell Perkins was the Superman of editors. He had unfailing good taste, knew how a story should be told and had the uncanny gift of being able to precisely relay that information to the authors he worked with -- a list that reads like "Who's Who In 20th Century American Literature". Furthermore, he knew when authors needed to be handed with kid gloves and when to give them a kind but firm push towards their typewriters. A. Scott Berg seems to have taken Perkins' advice to heart and written a first-rate biography. No doubt his subject would be pleased.

19. Fiona Range (novel) - Mary McGarry Morris. This book was WAY too soap opera in the most annoying way. You know there's a huge secret about Fiona's background from Chapter 1 and you also know that no matter how she misbehaves, she's not really a reprobate -- she's just misunderstood. Sadly, you have to suffer till the second-to-last chapter, wading through a forest full of wooden dialogue.

20. In The Cut (novel) - Susanna Moore. The main character is an English professor who is researching street language and gets caught up in a serial killer case. It's kind of like Joyce Carol Oates lite.

21. The Book Of Zines: Readings From The Fringe (nonfiction) Chip Rowe, editor. A fun look at several great zines including Mystery Date and Beer Frame. You can read scholarly tongue-kind-of-in-cheek analyses of your favorite sitcoms.

22. The Father And The Son (memoir) - Matt Murray. Murray's widowed father announces to his grown children that he's decided to take orders and become a Roman Catholic priest.

Lovely Baby Blog

2010-02-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it! Bybee's Bookish Past is a newborn blog, but it's already received an award:

Many thanks to Kathleen from Boarding In My Forties! Kathleen, I must confess: When I first saw the name of your blog, I thought "boarding school" and imagined you in a school uniform that consisted of a smart navy jumper with matching knee socks.

2001 Part 1

2010-02-11T00:56:00.000-08:00

2001 was busy. Except for an Adolescent Literature class during the summer, I was finally finished with school. I had a variety of part-time ESL teaching jobs. One of the highlights of the year was that I got a chance to visit Larry McMurtry's bookstore in Archer City. Even better, he was there sorting books! What can I say? He's my Lit Hero.

1. Son Of The Morning (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates. LitAmnesia. Dang.

2. On Writing (nonfiction) - Stephen King. In the first part, King discusses the influences that shaped him from a very early age. The second part is advice to would-be writers and the last part deals with his near-fatal pedestrian accident in 1999 and his long road to recovery and how it affected his writing. A very short book, especially by King standards, but quite satisfying. Highly recommended.

3. Helen Keller (nonfiction) - Dorothy Herrmann. I liked this bio much better than the genteelly restrained Joseph P. Lash biography published in 1980. Keller comes off here more like a real human. Usually, she seems almost abstract or the patron saint of physical challenges. Herrmann gets more in-depth with the temestuous relationship between Helen and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, Helen's ardent support of socialism, her feelings about sexuality and other previously little-known facts.

4. Anything For Billy (novel) - Larry McMurtry. McMurtry's take on the Billy The Kid legend.

5. Boone's Lick (novel) - Larry McMurtry. This novel is narrated by 15-year-old Shay, but his mother is the real main character and heroine. Mary Margaret Cecil has been waiting placidly in Boone's Lick, Missouri for her husband to make his fortunes in the west. Dick (appropriately named, I might add) comes home every couple of years then he's off again. Finally, one day Mary Margaret packs up her large and extended family and travels west to find Dick. During the long journey, the family makes a surprising discovery about Dick's years away from home. There's a dry comedic tone that makes this book a pleasurable reading experience.

6. One Child (nonfiction) - Torey L. Hayden. A disturbed young elementary student is angry and nonresponsive, due to a mother who abandoned her and a father who abuses her. Sheila is put in Torey Hayden's class. Torey's skills as a caring teacher slowly bring her around and in the process, it is discovered that the child is highly intelligent.

7. The Widower's Son (novel) - Alan Sillitoe. LitAmnesia. I really hate when this happens with English authors. I always feel as if I should have a few points shaved off my IQ.

8. Saratoga Trunk (novel) - Edna Ferber. Creole beauty Clio Dulaine and Texan Clint Maroon meet up in New Orleans in the mid-1800s, hit it off and decide to team up in order to fleece some robber barons at Saratoga. Clint wants to become very rich and Clip's dream is to marry respectably, unlike the other women in her family. Ferber describes New Orleans lovingly and thoroughly. When the action is moved to Saratoga, you can percieve Ferber's interest dropping off considerably. Sadly, for the sake of the plot, this is precisely when and where the novel needs the most energy. Ultimately, it's a fail, but I'll always treasure this book for those early scenes in New Orleans, particularly the one where Clio eats jambalaya for the first time.

9. While I Was Gone (novel) - Sue Miller. zzzzzzzzttt! LitAmnesia strikes again. It always happens with Sue Miller, Elizabeth Berg and Kaye Gibbons. I'm sorry, ladies. I really don't understand why.

10. Private Demons: The Secret Life Of Shirley Jackson (biography). This was a reread. Actually, make that a re-re-reread. One of my favorite biographies. Oppenheimer had the full cooperation of all 4 of Jackson's children, her many friends and scads of correspondence at her disposal. She puts it all together with a discerning eye and doesn't overload the reader with the need to not waste a drop of research as some biographers do. Best of all, she's got a very warm and natural writing style. Highly recommended. If you see Private Demons at your library or in a used bookstore, go ahead and grab it. You won't be sorry.

2000

2010-02-09T00:55:00.000-08:00

Fiction: 17

Nonfiction: 17

I completed my MA-TESL in May after a really great class in which we read several books about language and culture. In the summer, I headed into the teacher certification program and a part-time job in Kansas City teaching ESL to adults. As far as reading goes, I had a perfectly balanced year between fiction and nonfiction. Didn't plan it -- just worked out that way!

1. Ways With Words: Language, Life and Work In Communities and Classrooms (nonfiction) - Shirley Brice Heath.
Read for the Language and Culture class. This was the first time I ever thought about how home life and school life connected. A real eye-opener.

2. Amelia Earhart: A Biography (nonfiction) - Doris L. Rich.
I got the impression from this biography that Earhart's skills as a pilot weren't all that polished and her husband and manager, George Putnam, pushed her into many adventures that she wasn't ready for (including her ill-fated final flight) because she had such incredible promotional appeal.

3. The Invisible Culture: Communication In Classroom And Community Of The Warm Springs Indian Reservation (nonfiction) - Susan Urmstrom Phillips.
More home and school culture examination. Also for Dr. Cheryl Eason's Language and Culture class.

4. Patton: The Man Behind The Legend 1885-1945 (nonfiction) - Martin Blumenson. Written by Patton's close friend and former aide. An interesting look at Old Blood And Guts, but sometimes seems to get bogged down in long discussions of military tactics.

5. Educating Esme: Diary Of A Teacher's First Year (nonfiction) - Esme Raji Codell.
Esme has the imagination and drive that we would wish for in first-year teachers, and I believe this book should be read during that first and frustrating teaching year, but she comes across as a little arrogant. Also, she expresses appreciation and admiration for her mentor teacher, but except for one shocking but funny incident, she summarizes her training in a couple of breezy, almost offhand sentences. I would've suggested a different title: Esme's Ego.

6. The Inner World Of The Immigrant Child (nonfiction) - Cristina Igoa.
Language and Culture class. After I read this book, I wanted to be Cristina Igoa, the greatest ESL teacher in the world. A fascinating look at what challenges immigrant children face. Igoa also takes readers through the process she used to set up her classroom, and suggests activities useful for teaching mixed levels.

7. Hatchet (novel) - Gary Paulsen.
Exciting YA novel. Brian, whose parents are recently divorced, is on his way to visit his father in Canada. The pilot has a heart attack and Brian must crash land the plane. His adventures during the next 54 days in the Canadian wilderness are suspensefully narrated. Robinson Crusoe for the younger set, but adults will be just as enthralled.

8. "Good Writing" In A Cross-Cultural Context (nonfiction) - Xiao Ming Li.
Language and Culture class. I was having a wonderful time; all the assigned reading was endlessly interesting. Unbelievably, this was my first realization that our straightforward style of writing is not considered proper in all cultures. Wow! Eye-opener! I've thought of this book often during my 10-years as an ESL/EFL teacher.

9. You Just Don't Understand (nonfiction) - Deborah Tannen.
Language and Culture class. Tannen's bottom line is that women talk to connect emotionally and men talk to impart knowledge. This book made me take notice of how I communicate with others. I laughed and shook my head as I recognized some of the conversations I've had that have been frustrating. If I haven't always been more direct since I read this book, I now recognize when I'm not using the necessary communication skills to make myself understood.

10. Waking The Dead (novel) - Scott Spencer.
Fielding Pierce is a young politician who lost his activist girlfriend several years ago when she was killed. He has thrown himself into his work, but can't forget her. Suddenly, he gets the feeling that she might be alive. Is he having a nervous breakdown? I like Spencer's Endless Love better, but this is a close second favorite.

11. Bootstraps (nonfiction) Victor Villanueva, Jr.
The last book for the Language and Culture class. Villanueva, whose family is Puerto Rican, details the prejudice he struggled against all his life, even after he was in supposedly enlightened academic circles. A powerful and angry book. Highly recommended.

12. The Chisellers (novel) - Brendan O'Carroll.
The story of Irish widow Agnes Browne and her huge family. The comedic situations might remind some readers of Roddy Doyle, although there's not as much depth. Brendan O'Carroll is also an actor and had a small but extremely funny part in the movie adaptation of Doyle's novel The Van.

13. The Mammy (novel) - Brendan O'Carroll.
Agnes Browne, who runs a produce stand has recently been widowed. She's feisty and has a wicked deadpan humor. This was made into an entertaining movie called Agnes Browne, starring Anjelica Huston (who also directed) as the title character.

14. 'Tis (memoir) - Frank McCourt.
The sequel to Angela's Ashes. McCourt comes of age as an immigrant in New York City. Wryly funny. McCourt was a brilliant storyteller.

15. The Perfect Storm (nonfiction) - Sebastian Junger.
The true story of how the Andrea Gail was lost during the Halloween storm of 1991. Incredibly engrossing. The movie version does its best but it can't quite capture the hugeness of this tragic event.

16. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (novel) - Stephen King.
Another lost-kid-survival tale. Trisha, who is on a hike with her dysfunctional family, takes a short detour to get away from her mother and brother's arguing. Bad choice. She is lost in the woods for several days. One thing that helps her is imagining that she's having conversations with Boston Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon. This book is scary in a psychological way, rather than King's usual gross-out tricks. Well-written. I put it right up there with Misery.

17. A Lesson Before Dying (novel) - Ernest J. Gaines.
The setting is the South, and an African-American man is the sole survivor of a liquor store holdup that went terribly wrong. At his trial, he is sentenced to death. His grandmother asks the young schoolteacher in town to talk to her condemned grandson and help him go to his death with dignity. I know this is a modern classic, but I really didn't care for it at all. The premise seems a little phony. The situation is set up so Gaines could lay down some life wisdom. I wish I could have gotten a different feeling from the book.

18. Booth (novel) - David Robertson.
A novel about Lincoln's assassin, and how he charmed the Surratt family into taking part in his heinous plot. Robertson's writing seems a little uneven and the action seems all over the place.

19. Among Schoolchildren (nonfiction) - Tracy Kidder.
Kidder spends a year in Chris Zajac's 5th grade classroom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. This is my favorite of Kidder's books -- I read AS when it first came out in the 1980s and again in 2000.

20. Invisible Writer: A Biography Of Joyce Carol Oates (nonfiction) - Greg Johnson. Johnson did an incredible amount of research into JCO's life and work, but he doesn't really succeed in capturing a successful portrait of her. With any other writer, I'd be disappointed but in this case, I'm glad she's unattainable. Being an enigma seems to work well for her type of fiction.

21. Expensive People (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates.
In this late 1960s novel, Oates goes into the mind of Richard, a young teen from an affluent background who happens to be psychotic.

22. Get Happy: The Life Of Judy Garland (nonfiction) - Gerald Clarke.
Find another -- ANY OTHER -- biography of Judy Garland. Don't read this one. Don't check it out or borrow it or buy it. This guy's got a fat nerve, calling himself a biographer. He should be held down and scrubbed mercilessly about the face with used toilet paper.

23. The Talented Mr. Ripley (novel) - Patricia Highsmith.
My introduction to the original twisted sister, Patricia Highsmith. Great stuff. Ripley is classic.

24. How We Choose To Be Happy (nonfiction) - Rick Foster and Greg Hicks.
The authors compare 9 different happy people from different walks of life and note what they have in common. I found this book sensible and useful.

25. Henderson The Rain King (novel) - Saul Bellow.
The story of Eugene Henderson, a self-made millionaire who runs away to Africa to find out what he really wants out of life was entertaining, but Henderson's philosophical ramblings get a little long-winded and stale. This novel didn't make me want to run out and read more Bellow.

26. Wait Till Next Year (memoir) - Doris Kearns Goodwin.
I got so engrossed in this memoir of 1950s baseball and the Brooklyn Dodgers, that when the Dodgers' owners moved them to Los Angeles, I felt a strong sense of betrayal. Incredible writing. Even if you're not a baseball fan, this memoir has the stuff.

27. The "Genius" (novel) - Theodore Dreiser.
Eugene Witla is an artist who eventually finds financial reward as a commercial illustrator, but his personal life is in a continual mess because he can't control his romantic appetite. The ups and downs of Witla's career seem much more interesting than his passionate love scenes. Dreiser had a bit of a tin ear when it came to the latter. Not his best, but still a good read.

28. Tender At The Bone (memoir) - Ruth Reichl.
The first volume of Ruth Reichl's memoirs. Her writing style is funny and warm, and no one describes food better, except for maybe M.F. K. Fisher. Several recipes -- there's one for schnitzel that will knock your socks off.

29. The Blind Assassin (novel) - Margaret Atwood.
This novel-within-a-novel has a very cool twist ending. One of my favorites by Atwood and the cover of the book is one of the most gorgeous ever printed.

30. The Centaur (novel) - John Updike.
A touching father-son story. Updike's tone is unusually quiet in this one, as if he didn't want to get in the way of the story and the myth of Chiron that is the subtext.

31. Pygmalion (play) - George Bernard Shaw.
For one of my education class assignments, I had to write a lesson plan for high school freshmen around a piece of literature. I'd always wanted to read this play, so I killed 2 birds with one stone.

32. The Waterfall (novel) - Margaret Drabble.
For a novel about adultery, this was boring. I slogged through to the end, but it was an effort. I haven't wanted to read any Drabble since.

33. The Call Of The Wild (novel) - Jack London.
Buck, who is half German Shepherd and half Saint Bernard, is stolen from his comfortable family home and cruelly put to work as an Alaskan sled dog. Although he escapes and meets kind people once again, he eventually turns his back on civilization and becomes the leader of a pack of wolves. I loved the story, but was annoyed at my copy's cover. London explicitly states that Buck looks like a giant wolf, due to his Shepherd bloodline, but the artist drew him looking like a Saint Bernard. I've always meant to read more of Jack London, but haven't gotten around to it.

34. Angel Of Light (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates.
A political family that is descended from John Brown (who was nicknamed Angel Of Light by sympathetic abolitionists) suffers from tragedy. When the father is found dead from suicide, his adult children suspect their mother and her lover and vow revenge. Ruthless, inexorable, just what you'd expect from a Joyce Carol Oates novel.

1999

2010-02-02T00:55:00.000-08:00

Fiction: 15

Nonfiction: 8

Another low-numbers year because I was still in graduate school. I felt a little overwhelmed during the spring semester, but got it all back again (thanks to fellow students and one particular professor) in the fall with a renewed vigor and an intensity of focus and purpose I hadn't known I was capable of summoning.

1. Lost In Translation (memoir) - Eva Hoffman.
Hoffman's family immigrated when she was a young teenager. Interesting look at second language acquisition and what gets given up when assimilation takes place. Perfect title, so evocative.

2. The Professor And The Madman (nonfiction) - Simon Winchester. The bizarre but true story of how the OED came to be written. This one fairly screams: REREAD!

3. Any Woman's Blues (novel) - Erica Jong. Uh-oh. LitAmnesia. But it seems like the episodes of this were getting fewer and farther between.

4. The Poisonwood Bible (novel) -Barbara Kingsolver.
I suppose this is considered her best novel, but it's not my favorite -- seemed to go on way too long. On the other hand, since it's Kingsolver, I'm willing to give it another try.

5. McTeague (novel) - Frank Norris. 1899 novel. A masterpiece of naturalism. No wonder Erich von Stroheim went crazy over it and made the classic 1924 movie Greed.

6. Terms of Endearment (novel) - Larry McMurtry.
A mother and daughter story...I think it's the third book in McMurtry's Houston series. I'm always surprised and pleased at how well he portrays women.

7. The Wishbones (novel) - Tom Perotta. This book was so much fun. Nice description, background, character development, observations -- you name it -- of life in the mid-90s in a wedding band. Protagonist is early 30s (so is his girlfriend) and about to leave an extended adolescence and 15-year courtship to venture into marriage. Perotta's style is engaging.

8. The Day Diana Died (nonfiction) - Christopher Andersen. A day that need not have happened.

9. Evensong (novel) - Gail Godwin. Good strong sequel to Father Melancholy's Daughter. It's ten years later and Margaret has become an Episcopalian priest. This book ties in so well with the other one that I wonder if Godwin wrote both books as one, initially.

10. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts On Faith (essays) - Anne Lamott. Nice collection, but I was disappointed to realize that I'd already read most of these essays in Lamott's "Word By Word" column at Salon.

11. Affliction (novel) - Russell Banks. A bleak and wintry novel about Wade Whitehouse, a man whose life has been eroding for years and now he's at the breaking point. The novel is seen through the eyes of Wade's younger brother Rolfe and there are terrifying flashbacks to childhood with their raging and abusive father. Inexorable. Downer. But an outstanding character study. This was also made into a fine movie with Nick Nolte (one of his best performances) and James Coburn that sticks close to the novel and is also unrelentingly depressing.

12. Amy and Isabelle (novel) - Elizabeth Strout. Well-written and immensely readable, but the basic plot line seemed like a homage to Peyton Place.

13. Middlemarch (novel) - George Eliot. I tried unsuccessfully twice before to read this novel, then finally finished it. What a gem. It's long but well worth the time and patience invested. It has truly become one of the books of my life, to be read and savored again and again. George Eliot is so immensely, intensely intelligent.

14. Voices of Silence: Lives of the Trappists Today (nonfiction) - Frank Bianco. Bianco does a wonderful job of reporting on contemplative life in monasteries, particularly Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was a monk. Bianco interviews several monks, many of them at critical stages in their spiritual development. He also discusses the psychological sea-change that occurs as monks spend more and more time in the monastery. Plenty of food for thought for those interested in the mysteries involved in the ongoing search for both God and self-awareness.

15. The Catcher In The Rye (novel) - J.D. Salinger. * Re-read* My son was 14, about to enter the 9th grade and I felt like the time was right to introduce him to Holden Caulfield. This was one of our last mother-son reads. I'm happy to report that he became a fan of the novel and has re-read it many times.

16. White Oleander (novel) - Janet Fitch. Astrid's mother is a strange lady -- a poet and single mother who murders her ex-lover with a poison brew made of white oleander flowers. She is found guilty and sent to prison and Astrid is left to somehow survive a series of disastrous foster homes. I read it avidly, but now, upon reflection, it seems like a typical Oprah book club pick.

17. The Old Man And The Sea (novel) - Ernest Hemingway. I read this in honor of Hemingway's 100th birthday.

18. Let Me Alone (novel) - Anna Kavan. A few years after this novel's 1930 publication, the author, Helen Woods, changed her name to Anna Kavan after the main character in Let Me Alone. Anna (the character) has a rough life: mother died, father committed suicide, boarding school, loveless marriage -- some of it in exotic locales. Kavan's writing is clear and direct, like a punch. She published about 20 novels during her lifetime and 5 more were found and published after her death in 1968. I've always wanted to read other novels by her, but have never found one in all this time.

19. Merde (nonfiction) - Ralph A. Lewin. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about shit. The language is starchy and academic, but he's so enthusiastic about his subject!

20. Co-Dependent No More (nonfiction) - Melody Beattie. Remind me to run right out and avoid my friends who want me to read self-help books! This one was particularly annoying. Where to begin? The writing style was really meandering. Also, the book was set in type that was annoying to the eye. In addition, "bullets" to make a few salient points are fine, but Beattie uses them page after page. Skim this one if you must, but seek out other books about co-dependency that are better written.

21. Sons And Lovers (novel) - D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence at his best, describing the life of Paul Morel and his family in working-class England at the turn of the century, as well as his love affairs with Miriam and Clara. Paul is an artist and when he discusses his work, it comes off as stilted and artificial, not to mention a little boring. Since Paul is a self-portrait of Lawrence, he probably should have just gone whole hog and made him a writer as well. Other than that, it's a wonderful novel -- language, narrative, characters, setting.

22. Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 By Jeffrey Cartwright (novel) - Stephen Millhauser. This dark comedy is a parody of literary biographies and also a microscopic examination of the life of childhood. I've heard it described as being like Pale Fire, except with younger characters. Definitely on my re-read shelf!

23. Teacher (memoir) -Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Ashton-Warner was New Zealand author who spent many years working with young Maori children. This outstanding book describes her pioneering efforts using organic language to build a bridge between cultures.

1998

2010-01-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

Right before the beginning of the year, I had a *click* moment when I realized that I could go to graduate school. But what to study? I spent several months working on my decision. Even though I was still unsure about things, I felt calmer and this is reflected in my reading. There's not so much LitAmnesia for 1998. By the fall of that year, I had begun an MA-TESL course. The work was challenging and sometimes overwhelming at times, but I was happy and excited. Reading for pleasure took a back seat, but that was okay.

1. The Silent Woman (nonfiction) - Janet Malcolm. Exploring poet Sylvia Plath's life, Malcolm interviews Plath's friends and acquaintances during those last years of her life and makes some interesting observations about the nature of biography.

2. Our Noise (novel) - Jeff Gomez. First published as a serialized zine. Excellent portrayal of Generation X. Twenty-something slackers living in the town of Kitty, Virginia. Coffeehouses, thrift stores, flashbacks to the 1980s, a zine called g*df*ck -- what's not to love?

3. Lady Chatterley's Lover (novel) - D. H. Lawrence. I read this book while house-sitting for a friend. She had a waterbed and it seemed like the perfect place to read LCL. I loved Mellors' Yorkshire accent (once I got my eye adjusted to reading the thorny dialect) but I hated that he was the one who made all the pronouncements about love and sex, men and women when Connie probably knew as much (or more) than he did. Love the story, anyway. This is Lawrence's best-known and most controversial novel and I'll argue that it's also Lawrence at his best.

4. In Cold Blood (novel) - Truman Capote. Such a strange combination -- a violent subject coupled with Capote's meticulous, almost delicate prose. Adds to the chill and horror of what happened at the Clutter farmhouse in Kansas on that night back in 1959.

5. Look For The Woman (nonfiction) - J. Robert Nash. A historical encyclopedia of women who were famous (infamous) criminals.

6. Birthday Letters (poetry) - Ted Hughes. After Sylvia Plath committed suicide in 1963, her widower, Ted Hughes began a series of poems chronicling the story of their relationship. This book was published shortly before Hughes' death in 1998.

7. Reviving Ophelia (nonfiction) - Mary Pipher, Ph.D. According to Pipher, so many things can get adolescent girls off track during this crucial part of their development and mess them up permanently regarding their feelings of self-worth. Instead of leaving them to their own devices and also open to traps like boys and sex and the media with its warped messages about body image, they should be encouraged to do volunteer work or sports or similar things in which they can repeatedly prove their capability and develop their gifts with will counteract those other influences and build self-esteem. I highly recommend this book to everyone who knows a girl in this age bracket. It would also be helpful for women who are still carrying unnecessary baggage around.

8. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulumia (memoir) - Marya Hornbacher. The part I remember most vividly is when Hornbacher was making herself throw up so much that the weight of her vomit burst the pipes in her uncle's home. Hornbacher offers as a quick aside that the same problem exists in girls' dormitories and sorority houses at universities all over the US.

9. Cold Mountain (novel) - Charles Frazier. Set during the Civil War, Inman struggles to get back to his true love, Ada, who is experiencing challenges of her own after her father dies. I love Frazier's use of old-fashioned words and phrases while maintaining a modern style.

10. A Patchwork Planet (novel) - Anne Tyler. Barnaby is an ex-juvenile delinquent who still hasn't gotten his life together at the age of 29. He works for an agency called Rent-A-Back which does errands for senior citizens. His well-to-do family is frustrated with him, and his 7-year-old daughter really doesn't know what to make of him. I would love to hear the audiobook version of this novel, which is read by David Morse, an actor that I always enjoy watching.

11. NixonCarver (novel) - Mark Maxwell. An amusing, quirky fantasy about the former president being good buddies with poet/short story writer Raymond Carver. They have long conversations about just about everything. This novel actually made me like Nixon a little better. Lovely portrait of Carver.

12. Fasting: The Ultimate Diet (nonfiction) - Allan Cott, M.D. Yes, it is.

13. High Fidelity (novel) - Nick Hornby. This was my introduction to Hornby's work. Rob Fleming works in a record store and makes lists about music and his life. Since this book takes its title from an Elvis Costello song, I had the nicest earworm going on as I read.

14. Backtalk: Four Steps To Ending Rude Behavior In Your Kids (nonfiction) - Audrey Ricker, Ph.D and Carolyn Crowder, Ph.D. The authors give simple but not easy advice to follow: Recognize backtalk when you hear it (includes eye-rolling and put-upon sighing) and let the child know you recognize it, figure out a consequence for the backtalk, apply the consequence, then disengage from the rude behavior. There's also a chapter for dealing with backtalk in adult children!

15. Fasting: A Neglected Discipline (nonfiction) - David R. Smith. This book discusses fasting as a spiritual practice to be used in conjunction with prayer.

16. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (nonfiction) - Kathleen Norris. When Norris became interested in church again as an adult, she found the vocabulary of religion a little off-putting because it was often confusingly abstract. This book describes in her calm, lucid and always excellent prose how she was able to make meaning of this language in her own spiritual journey.

17. The Everlasting Story of Nory (novel) - Nicholson Baker. A fun book about life through the eyes of a nine-year-old. As always with Baker's books, it was too short -- I wanted more!

18. Helen and Teacher (biography) - Joseph P. Lash. A starchily dignified and restrained joint biography of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan.

19. The Fermata (novel) - Nicholson Baker. And everyone thought Vox was dirty! The main character finds a way to pause time and uses this power to undress women and look at them then redress them before starting time again. Very junior high, but Baker keeps it lively and interesting.

20. Fool For Love (play) - Sam Shepard. A half-brother and sister in a rocky love relationship deal with all of their issues in a tacky motel in the Mojave Desert. In spite of everything, I was bored and not propelled to go out and read any more Shepard plays. Too bad -- I really want to like his writing because I really like his acting. Plus, even though he's in his 60s now, he's still really hot.

21. A Widow For One Year (novel) - John Irving. LitAmnesia. Damn. I thought I had it whipped.

22. Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind The Legend (biography) - John E. Miller. A little dry and academic in tone, but an interesting mother-daughter portrait of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane. Apparently things weren't always smooth between Laura and Rose. Miller doesn't believe that Lane rewrote her mother's books, but anyone who has read The First Four Years and the other books in the series can see the marked difference. After reading this, I had to make a pilgrimage to Laura's home in the Ozarks, less than two hours from where I lived.

23. Genie: A Scientific Tragedy (nonfiction) - Russ Rymer. Heartbreaking true story of "Genie" who was abused by her father in a particularly odd manner -- nearly from babyhood, he kept her alone in a room tied to a potty chair. No one was allowed to communicate with her and he only "spoke" to her in grunts and growls. Family Services finally got wind of this and rescued Genie when she was a young teenager, but it was too late for her to acquire language except for a word croaked out here and there and some birdlike noises. Interested in this 20th century "wild child", scientists competed to study Genie and test their theories. No one was really focused on getting her the help she needed. Finally, after a court battle, she was returned to her mother who put her in a home for mentally disabled adults. There is also a PBS documentary of this case which features footage of Genie.

24. Anne Sexton: A Biography (biography) - Dianne Wood Middlebrook. Quite controversial, because Middlebrook was allowed access to tapes and notes from Sexton's sessions with her psychiatrist.

25. Interlanguage Phonology: The Acquisition of A Second Language Sound System (nonfiction) - Georgette Ioup and Steven Weinberger, eds. Graduate school reading.

26. How Languages Are Learned (nonfiction) - Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada. More graduate school reading about second language acquisition.

27. Approaches and Methods In Language Learning (nonfiction) - Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers. Historical overview at different ways to learn language. they run the gamut from boring (Grammar-Translation Method) to completely whack (Suggestopedia).

28. The Multilingual Self: An Inquiry Into Language Learning (nonfiction) - Natasha Lvovich. Lvovich, a native of Russia, began studying French when she was young. Because she only used it in an art/culture context, it never really felt like a true second language as English did a few years later when she emigrated to the US with her family and had to operate in English on every possible level. Lvovich also briefly discusses her young daughter's language issues -- the girl's first language is Russian, which they spoke at home, but the daughter didn't like it and was constantly code-switching into English. She told her mother that she "felt ugly" when she had to speak in Russian. Interesting and extremely readable firsthand account of second language learning. You don't have to be an ESL/EFL teacher or a linguistics expert to enjoy this book.

29. Marry Me (novel) - John Updike. Updike returns to one of his favorite themes -- adultery -- in this novel. As much as I enjoy Updike, I felt as if I'd read this book before.

1997

2010-01-21T00:54:00.000-08:00

This was a year of feeling -- and actually being -- quite unsettled. I shivered and howled out there in storms of my own making. Somehow, there was still reading. I always had the books and by the end of the year I was seriously working out how I really wanted my life to be.

1. Regeneration (novel) - Pat Barker. Very fine WWI novel. I feel ready for a re-read.

2. A History of Reading (nonfiction) - Alberto Manguel. I remember bits about how a teenaged Manguel read aloud to his fellow Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges and how reading silently used to be viewed as an interesting feat. Manguel explores all facets of reading and books all over the world. Another one I'd like to re-read.

3. Recipes From The Dump (novel) - Abigail Stone. The only thing I remember about this novel is that the author's email was on the back flap where the biographical information is printed. I'd never seen that before, so I sent her an email and she kindly responded.

4. Mary (autobiography) - Mary Mebane. I believe this might be a 2-volume autobiography and I read volume 1. As an African-American coming of age in the 1950s, Mary had to face problems presented by the white world, but she also had to struggle against prejudices in the black community. Intelligent, balanced writing. Received an honorable mention Coretta Scott King Award.

5. Anagrams (novel) - Lorrie Moore. Re-read.

6. Night Bird: Conversations With Francoise Sagan (nonfiction) - Jean-Jacques Pauvert, David Macey (translator). A series of conversations about life, love and work with French novelist Sagan, who is most famous for her novel Bonjour Tristesse. This book was published in 1954 when Sagan was only 18 years old and became an international hit. From that time, Sagan lived a jet-set life which included two husbands, two children, lovers of both gender, fast cars, gambling and drugs. In her conversations with Pauvert, which were done in the late 1970s, she comes off quite existential.

7. A Live Coal In The Sea (novel) - Madeleine L'Engle. I don't remember anything about this novel.

8. After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (novel) - Jean Rhys. I was captivated by Rhys' stark portrait of Julia Martin, who was once young and beautiful and has lived off of men all her adult life. Not really willing to make the compromises needed to keep these relationships going, she finds new prospects getting fewer and farther between and she's living out her life in dingy hotels, scraping for money.

9. Good Morning, Midnight (novel) - Jean Rhys. Sasha Jensen is living in Paris, if you can call it living. She's definitely at the end of her rope, living in a dismal room, drinking constantly and worried about money. She's bitter, angry and afraid of the human race in general, referring to them as a "pack of hyenas." She gets involved with a younger man who works as a gigolo, but hasn't got the energy to put into an affair.l Depressing, but so well written. Good Morning, Midnight is so angry and bleak that there immediately sprang up a false rumor that Jean Rhys had committed suicide shortly after writing this novel.

10. Voyage In The Dark (novel) - Jean Rhys. Anna is a younger version of Sasha and Julia. She's just come to England from the West Indies and works some underpaid job in the theatre. An older man makes her his mistress then tires of her, bringing on the familiar Rhys-ian downward spiral.

11. Bonjour Tristesse (novel) - Francoise Sagan. With its talk of affairs and mistresses, this novel seemed so very French to me. Teenage Cecilie enjoys life with her free-spirited, easygoing father, and she's also embarking on a summer romance. The merde hits the fan when she realizes that her father and her mother's old friend, Anne are falling in love. Cecilie enlists her new boyfriend in a plot to keep her father from remarrying.

12. Bird By Bird (nonfiction) - Anne Lamott. Funny and perceptive advice about writing. I especially loved Lamott's advice for avoiding a libel suit!

13. Rosie (novel) - Anne Lamott. LitAmnesia.

14. Quartet (novel) - Jean Rhys. I think this was one of her early ones and not quite as well crafted as the others.

15. Alias Grace (novel) - Margaret Atwood. Grace is in prison, but is she really a murderess? Based on a true case in 19th c. Canada.

16. The Rector's Wife (novel) - Joanna Trollope. Tidy little vignettes strung together. Almost too chill and neat as if she was writing the novel to go straight to Masterpiece Theatre.

17. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year (nonfiction) - Anne Lamott. Whenever my coolest friends are expecting their first child, I present this book to them.

18. I Was Amelia Earhart (novel) - Jane Mendelsohn. Fantasy about Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan surviving the 1937 disappearance and living on some island. It reads like prose poetry. I had just seen The Piano when I read this book, so I've always imagined it as a film by Jane Campion.

19. Hard Laughter (novel) - Anne Lamott. Lamott's fiction doesn't stay with me as well as her nonfiction. LitAmnesia.

20. Wide Sargasso Sea (novel) - Jean Rhys. The story of Antoinette Bertha Mason of the West Indies before she married Edward Rochester and became the madwoman in the attic featured in Jane Eyre.

21. The Soul Of A New Machine (nonfiction) - Tracy Kidder. Although I'm a Kidder fan, this one was a bit of a slog for me with all the technical jargon.

22. Drinking: A Love Story (memoir) - Caroline Knapp. Knapp's account of her years as a functioning alcoholic. It's scary because she shows the sheer attractiveness of alcohol addiction. This memoir also contains one of the most insufferable ex-boyfriends to ever walk the face of the earth, and Knapp does a great job of poking sly fun at him.

23. We Were The Mulvaneys (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates. LitAmnesia.

24. The Family Nobody Wanted (memoir) - Helen Doss. The Dosses were one of the first families in the United States to support adoption of children of different or mixed races. Altogether, they adopted 12 children.

25. A Very Private Eye (memoir) - Barbara Pym. LitAmnesia.

26. The Long Loneliness (autobiography) - Dorothy Day. Day is one of the prominent figures in the history of "social Christianity". During her life, she moved from anarchism to socialism to Catholicism. She founded a newspaper called The Catholic Worker and opened "Houses of Hospitality" in the inner cities and later on farms where communes of people could settle. During wartime, she and the newspaper maintained a pacifistic stance. Day died in 1980, a revered figure in the American Catholic church. She is in the first stage of being considered for sainthood. A movie about her life called Entertaining Angels came out about 10 years ago.

27. Zines! (nonfiction) - V. Vale. Before there were blogs, people did fanzines, or zines, for short. This compilation features samples from the best, including Mystery Date by Lynn Peril and Thrift Score by Al Hoff as well as frank, in-depth interviews with their creators. Blogging is wonderful, but I sometimes miss the days of wielding The Big Stapler.

28. A Clockwork Orange (novel) - Anthony Burgess. Classic dystopian novel about Alex and his hoodlum friends. I read an edition that had a glossary at the back for Alex's strange slang, which Burgess created for the novel. That edition also omitted the final chapter in which Alex expresses remorse for his former violent behavior.

29. Five For Sorrow, Ten For Joy (novel) - Rumer Godden. A woman who has had hard knocks throughout her life and has worked as a prostitute, ends up at a convent and gradually changes her life and becomes a nun.
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30. A Time To Dance, No Time To Weep (memoir) - Rumer Godden. LitAmnesia.

31. Crooked Little Heart (novel) - Anne Lamott. I know that this is the sequel to Rosie, but that's all I remember.

32. Anna LMNO (novel) - Sarah Glasscock. Anna works at one of the beauty shops in her little Texas town. She's saving her money to buy the shop from the owner. Meanwhile, she's been married almost 2 years to a South Africian named Bryan who needed a green card and is involved in some mysterious activities. There's a lot going on in this novel and Anna is a memorable character. I feel a residue of discomfort for liking this book because in a fit of enthusiasm I gave a copy of it to my friend for Christmas. She dutifully read it, but her thank-you note contained a scathing review. I had always assumed that my opinions were shit compared to hers, so I promptly gave my copy to the nearest used bookstore. A few years later I was feeling ever-so-much smarter and found another copy at Larry McMurtry's bookstore in Archer City. It was one of 3 books I grabbed that day. Whether my opinion is shit or not, I LOVE this goddamn book. It's part of my landscape.

33. Joy School (novel) - Elizabeth Berg. I can't understand why this author's novels don't stay with me. LitAmnesia.

34. The Invisible Circus (novel) - Jennifer Egan. LitAmnesia.

35. Love Invents Us (novel) - Amy Bloom. LitAmnesia and I feel bad about it.

36. The Cloister Walk (nonfiction) - Kathleen Norris. Norris, who was raised Protestant has been a Benedictine oblate for many years at a convent in Minnesota. This book covers one liturgical year that she spent full-time at the convent. Her prose is so clear and penetrating. I'd love to read this one again.

37. Bogart (biography) - Jeffrey Meyers. An enjoyable look writing at my favorite actor. I'd also like to read the Sperber-Lax bio as well as the 2006 book by film critic and historian Richard Schickel. What can I say? I'm a fan!

38. The Nuns (nonfiction) - Marcelle Bernstein. LitAmnesia.

39. Henry and Clara (novel)- Thomas Mallon. A novel about the couple who was seated in the balcony with President and Mrs. Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on the night Lincoln was assassinated. Their lives were full of twists and turns and sadly, they came to an end as grisly and shocking as Lincoln's.

40. The Seven Storey Mountain (autobiography) - Thomas Merton. Like Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton had a long and circuitous path towards the religious life. He eventually became a Trappist monk at Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky. Recognized as a brilliant writer even before he took vows, his writing and philosophy gave him a large worldwide following.

41. Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs (nonfiction) - Dave Barry. Barry polled readers of his column and published the winners, er..losers. I remember we all agreed about MacArthur Park.

42. Fraud (novel) - Anita Brookner. LitAmnesia. I'm sorry to say that I don't really recall plots or characters in Brookner's novels, either.

43. American Appetites (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates. The only thing I remember is that there's an accidental killing and the victim is some kind of food writer.

44. Love Warps The Mind A Little (novel) - John Dufresne. Shit! I really hate that I have LitAmnesia. I love that title!

45. Songs In Ordinary Time (novel) - Mary McGarry Morris. LitAmnesia.

46. Angela's Ashes (memoir) - Frank McCourt. McCourt's look back at his brutally poverty-stricken childhood in Limerick, Ireland during the 1930s and 40s. The first line of the book says something about how his parents should have stayed in New York City where they met and married and where Frank was born. That's damn right!

47. Bad Angel (novel) - Helen Benedict. LitAmnesia.

48. What Falls Away (memoir) - Mia Farrow. Farrow's life story, including her relationship and scandal-ridden split with Woody Allen. Written a couple of years after these events, WFA reads as if Farrow was still dazed by it all.

49. Snow Falling On Cedars (novel) - David Guterson. In the 1950s, a Japanese-American man living near Pugent Sound in Washington State is accused of murder. The autopsy scene in this book was so graphic that I had to stop reading and go throw up. Now that's good writing!

50. Pretty Boy Floyd (novel) - Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. The life and times of Charles Floyd, the famous 1930s outlaw from Oklahoma. This book has a lovely feel of the southwest that only McMurtry could provide.

51. Zeke & Ned (novel) - Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. A look at the last two Cherokee warriors, Zeke Proctor and Ned Christie. Ned has been accused of murder and has a several year's standoff with the US government, who wants to bring him to Fort Smith, Arkansas for hanging. Christie's standoff is told in sort of a strangely humorous sort of way.

52. A Virtuous Woman (novel) - Kaye Gibbons. I read her novels, but I can only remember Ellen Foster, her first one.

53. Staring At The Sun (novel) - Julian Barnes. And 1997 ends with LitAmnesia in my Christmas stocking. Ho ho ho.

1996

2010-01-20T00:53:00.000-08:00

1996 found me doing a great deal of rereading. One good thing about rereading is that LitAmnesia is less likely to occur.

1. The Snapper (novel) - Roddy Doyle. Re-read.

2. Zombie (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates. Oates gets into the mind of a serial killer who resembles Jeffrey Dahmer. She seems almost too comfortable in his skin. Chilling stuff.

3. A Prologue To Love (novel) - Taylor Caldwell. Re-read. Novel about the world's richest woman, an American named Caroline Ames Sheldon, and how various people in her life influenced her. Takes place in the years shortly after the Civil War and leading up to World War I. A little heavy handed, but good storytelling. I've always thought this could make a halfway decent movie.

4. Listening To Prozac (nonfiction) - Peter Kramer. Kramer discusses the different ways Prozac works on brain chemistry and presents testimonial after testimonial from people whose lives were miraculously changed by the little pill. I always meant to read Talking Back To Prozac, but never got around to it.

5. The Story of English (nonfiction) - MacNeil, Cran and McCrum. This was entertaining...I watched the PBS series as well. I love English so much; I'm soooooooo glad it's my native language. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Dad!

6. Vox (novel) - Nicholson Baker. What I liked best about this novel, which takes place during a single phone sex conversation between two strangers is the recipe the woman gives for creamed dried beef and spiral pasta. Although I snickered appreciatively when she said that the pasta and the creamed dried beef sauce "make a sensual noise" when stirred together, after I read this book that dish went into the weekly rotation of meals. She used Stouffer's mix, but it's cheaper if you buy the dried beef in a jar and make your own sauce. Also, if the beef is too salty, you can rinse the stuff in the jar off a bit, which makes it a shade less unhealthy. Dang, I wish I had some now!

7. How The Irish Saved Civilization (nonfiction) - Thomas Cahill. I would really like to read this book again. Basically, while the Germanic tribes and the Vikings were running around ransacking Europe, the Irish monks were copying and hiding manuscripts that would have been irretrievably lost in the chaos and destruction.

8. Room Temperature (novel) - Nicholson Baker. A man looks at his life while he's doing a single nighttime bottle feeding of his infant child. I can't remember if the baby is a boy or girl.

9. Will Campbell and the Soul of the South (nonfiction) - Thomas L. Connelly. Will Campbell was an interesting person. As a pastor, first he ministered to black people in the South during the 1950s and 60s when it was quite dangerous to do so. Then, after the civil rights movement had gained some footing, he decided to minister to poor white racist people, saying that they couldn't help how their society had made them, and they needed grace most of all. His creed is that of St. Paul: "Be reconciled."

10. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (novel) - Roddy Doyle. It's difficult to read the story of battered wife Paula Spencer, although from the way the story is written, the reader can see she's emerging from the worst of it. I would like to read the sequel to this book.

11. Letters To Alice On First Reading Jane Austen (novel) - Fay Weldon. In this epistolary novel, an aunt writes to her niece about Jane Austen. I remember the niece is struggling with her life, her novel and that she had green, spiky hair! A fun read for Austen fans.

12. Harriet Said... (novel) - Beryl Bainbridge. I vaguely remember two creepy little girls living in a resort town and making a game out of flirting with men and writing about it in a shared notebook.

13. Tony and Susan (novel) - Austin Wright. Now how could I forget a novel with my first name in the title?

14. Such Nice People (novel) - Sandra Scoppettone. She's a wonderful writer, but I seriously don't remember this book. I feel bad about that.

15. Clutter Control (nonfiction) - Jeff Campbell. Campbell wrote a series of books about how to clean and organize. I wish he could come and take my apartment in hand!

16. Rabbit, Run (novel) - John Updike. Re-read. How can such a despicable character like Rabbit Angstrom grab my heartstrings so hard?

17. Gardening For Dummies (nonfiction) - I liked the compost chapter the best, which speaks volumes about my gardening interest and skills.

18. The Budget Gardener (nonfiction) - Maureen Gilner. A lot of useful information. -- I remember feeling sorry that this was a library book.

19. Celestial Navigation (novel) - Anne Tyler. Re-read. During this next spate of Anne Tyler re-reading, I was clearly using reading to comfort myself. I think it's probably because I hated my job.

20. A Slipping-Down Life (novel) - Anne Tyler. Re-read. This early novel of Tyler's is one of my favorites.

21. Morgan's Passing (novel) - Anne Tyler. Re-read. Another Tyler favorite. I picked this up at Waldenbooks in the early 80s because the blurb on the front said that Morgan was like Garp, which was my favorite book at the time.

22. Searching For Caleb (novel) - Anne Tyler. Re-read.

23. Family Terrorists (novella and short stories) - Antonya Nelson. Sigh. All that Tyler left me with LitAmnesia!

24. Intuitive Eating (nonfiction) - Evelyn Tribole, M.S. R.D. and Elyse Resch, M.S. R.D. I was in a TOPS group for a while and we took turns making presentations about eating healthily and getting the weight off. I did a book report about this book. We have to retrain ourselves to listen to our bodies tell us when they're really hungry and be aware of all the signals that masquerade as hunger. Also, if we start listening to our bodies, they'll tell us what we need to eat, like veggies and such. There was also a list of the different types of overeaters...the darkest one and the one that I couldn't quite wrap my head around was eating to punish oneself. Dark, disturbing. Overall, it was an informative, interesting read.

25. In The Beauty of the Lillies (novel) - John Updike. A multigenerational saga about religion in America. I seem to remember one of the characters falling into a cult that was like the Branch Davidians. I'd like to read this again. Changing the topic a little -- does anyone else have this problem: When a book is named after a song title or a bit of lyric, does the song play in your head constantly?

26. War and Peace (novel) - Leo Tolstoy. I have to admit that I ended up skimming most of the epilogue. Great novel, though.

27. Esio Trot (novel) - Roald Dahl. A mother-son read.

28. Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams (biography) - Lyle Leverich. I haven't read the Donald Spoto biography of Williams, but it seems a little more sensational than this one.

29. A Simple Path (nonfiction) - Mother Teresa.

30. Rabbit Is Rich (novel) - John Updike. Rabbit is 46 in this novel. His father-in-law has died and left the car dealership (now Toyota) to him. His son has gotten his girlfriend pregnant, so Rabbit is looking at grandparenthood. Age doesn't seem to have slowed him or Janice down; there's some icky and tacky 1970s stuff here like wife-swapping.

31. A Little Princess (novel) - Frances Hodgson Burnett. Re-read.

32. Anna Karenina (novel) - Leo Tolstoy. I liked this better than War and Peace, but again, the last chapter was too much. I don't really want pages and pages and pages and pages of Tolstoy's philosophy unless he can wrap it around some plot.

33. A Death In The Family (novel) - James Agee. Sad story about the death of the young father of a family who is killed in an automobile wreck as he goes to see about his own mortally ill father and how his death affects his wife and young children. Ironically, Agee would die and leave a young family before this book was completed. A family friend who was also an editor took the manuscript in hand and got it published to get money for the widow and 2 children. Winner of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

34. Mary and the Giant (novel) - Philip K. Dick. Dick's mainstream fiction from the 1950s, before he broke through as a successful science fiction writer.

35. The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (novel) - Philip K. Dick. More mainstream Dick from the same period. It's interesting to read his material from this period, but frustrating. How is it that his work didn't catch fire? It's really wonderful stuff.

36. David Copperfield (novel) - Charles Dickens. This was my first full-scale attempt at Dickens, but I didn't care for this novel. I shied away from him for years after this but finally felt some love in 2008 and 2009 when I read Great Expectations and The Old Curiosity Shop. Maybe I just finally got to the right time in my life for Dickens...who knows?

37. Puttering About In A Small Land (novel) - Philip K. Dick. Another mainstream novel, written in 1957. I believe this one is about a guy who owns a TV repair shop. His son goes off to boarding school, somehow adultery is a large part of the plot. Quirky and a great look at postwar America.

38. The Distinguished Guest (novel) - Sue Miller. I don't know why Sue Miller's novels don't stick with me. She and Kaye Gibbons.

39. The English Patient (novel) - Michael Ondaatje. Beautiful novel with unlikely characters coming together. I loved the language in this book and enjoyed the movie.

Fiction: 29

Nonfiction: 10

Male authors: 23

Female authors: 16

Books with multiple authors: 2

Canada: 1

Russia: 2

Ireland: 2

England: 4

USA: 30

1995

2010-01-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

In April of 1995, I got a job working 6 hours a day, 6 days a week and it really cut into my reading time. There was no way to sneak and read on the clock at my job. Believe me, I tried several times!

1. The Good Husband (novel) - Gail Godwin. One of the main characters is dying and her husband takes care of her. Another woman also becomes her caretaker and she and the husband develop feelings for one another but they're too well-bred to do anything about it until he's widowed.

2. Talk Before Sleep (novel) - Elizabeth Berg. Is someone dying in this novel? I have a vague memory.

3. The Prodigal Women (novel) - Nancy Hale. First published in the early 1940s. It's time for this novel and this author to be rediscovered.

4. Postcards (novel) - E. Annie Proulx. Loyal Blood accidentally kills his girlfriend and goes on the lam for about 40 years. He sends postcards from the west back home to his family in Vermont. They also write postcards for a variety of reasons.

5. A Tremor of Bliss: Contemporary Writers On The Saints (essays) - Paul Elie, editor. What the subtitle says. It's interesting to see which writers chose which saints and why.

6. Flying in Place (novel) - Susan Palwick. I don't remember this novel.

7. Violet Clay (novel) - Gail Godwin. The writing seemed a little stiff. This was an earlier novel of Godwin's and I don't think she had really hit her stride yet.

8. Friends For Life (novel) - Meg Wolitzer. Cute. Fun. I always like Wolitzer's writing.

9. Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? (novel) - Lorrie Moore. I really love Anagrams, but I couldn't warm up to this one. I kind of dislike the title as well.

10. The Nun's Story (novel) - Kathryn Hulme. This was a re-read from my high school days. What can I say? I love this book, although nowadays, Sister Luke seems a little too intense to be true.

11. Three Nuns (nonfiction) - Sarah Harris. Terrible writing style.

12. Holy Company: Christian Heroes and Heroines (essays) - Eliot Wright. Lively, informative and enjoyable. An assortment of Christian heroes and heroines, each one a chapter and arranged by the Beatitudes.

13. A Map of the World (novel) - Jane Hamilton. Alice is taking care of her friend's kids one day. She turns her back for a moment and the 2-year-old drowns in the pond. Her troubles are just beginning though, as she is accused of child abuse by a student she has seen at her part-time job as a school nurse. The book is divided into 3 sections. Alice narrates the first and last and her husband narrates the middle section, which feels a little jarring. Enjoyable in that bleak and depressing way.

14. A Right To Be Merry (memoir) - Sister Mary Francis, P.C.C. Life in a Poor Clares convent. Although it's a little too perky and positive, it was a relief after book after book about what's wrong with being a nun and why nuns were leaving convents in hordes during the 1960s and 70s.

15. The Book of Ruth (novel) - Jane Hamilton. Ruth is saddled with two of the most unsavory characters in recent modern fiction: Her mother, May, whose mean, toxic mouth proves to be her undoing and her husband, Ruby, who is very much on the scuzzy side of life. The way Ruth/Hamilton describes him, you wonder how Ruth could even inhabit a room with him, much less get pregnant by him twice. So dark and depressing but so well-written.

16. Duplicate Keys (novel) - Jane Smiley. A mystery/suspense novel; one of Smiley's earlier efforts. Nothing wrong it it -- just not my type of book.

17. The Screwtape Letters (novel) - C.S. Lewis. A series of letters from Screwtape, a master tempter-tactician to Wormwood, his incompetent apprentice. This is my very favorite of all of Lewis' writing.

18. The Virgin Suicides (novel) - Jeffrey Eugenides. I didn't like it. The narration seemed all wrong.

19. The Stone Diaries (novel) - Carol Shields. This strange and clever Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows Daisy from her childhood to her first brief and strange marriage, her widowhood, her second marriage to an older family friend, her second widowhood and her old age. The photos at the end of the novel are disconcerting. Who are these people?

20. Mariette In Ecstasy (novel) - Mariette's a nun. She's having visions. Is she a saint or high-strung or just out-and-out faking? No one really knows what to make of it all. The other nuns are awed and a little jealous.

21. Dancer With Bruised Knees (novel) - Lynne McFall. I don't remember this novel.

22. Ladder of Years (novel) - Anne Tyler. Delia just walks away from her home one day and makes a new life for herself away from Baltimore and her doctor husband and their children. She is annoyed that when they write the missing person's description, they can't even get her basic stats right.

23. The Basketball Diaries (memoir) - Jim Carroll. Muddled and boring.

24. Splendora (novel) - Edward Swift. I don't remember this novel.

25. Kristin Lavransdatter (trilogy of novels) - Sigrid Undset. Wow! The story of Kristin's life is unforgettable and unputdownable. Undset does medieval so perfectly. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature and deservedly so. Standing ovation!

26. The Information (novel) - Martin Amis. I don't remember this novel. My first husband was a big Martin Amis fan. I read it because he read it and because I thought it would make me seem edgy and intelligent, but all I got was LitAmnesia. Sniff.

27. Madame Bovary (novel) - Gustave Flaubert. How did Flaubert manage it? He wrote a novel about a 19th century airhead that readers find themselves sympathizing with. The key is his no-nonsense now-flowery writing style. It packs a bigger punch than if he'd written in the overblown, sentimental style that Emma Bovary herself was so fond of reading.

28. The Republic of Love (novel) - Carol Shields. Damn. LitAmnesia strikes again.

29. I, Asimov: A Memoir (memoir) - Issac Asimov. Entertaining and very readable memoir by the prolific writer.

30. One Writer's Beginnings (memoir) - Eudora Welty. Wonderful depiction of Welty's family and her childhood in Jackson, Mississippi. It seems to flag a little at the end when she's in college, then working.

31. The Liar's Club (memoir) - Mary Karr. I should remember this book! Oh well, I can fix it by reading her trilogy of memoirs The Liar's Club, Cherry and Lit all in one fell swoop.

32. Bogart: In Search of My Father (memoir) - Stephen Humphrey Bogart. Sad and thoughtful. He was just a small boy when his father died.

33. Sights Unseen (novel) - Kaye Gibbons. LitAmnesia. I don't know why Gibbons' novels don't stick with me.

34. Diary of A Fat Housewife (memoir) - Rosemary Green. Former beauty queen struggles with her weight. Each diary entry begins with that day's number on the scale. She has a huge eating disorder. By the end of the book, she's made some good progress, but she's stalled at 208 and still struggling, so I liked that she wasn't all wrapped up neatly in a size 4 at the end.

35. Three Women At The Water's Edge (novel) - Nancy Thayer. I'll never forget the beginning in which a woman is told by one of her husband's patients that she looks like Mrs. Santa Claus because she's plump and her gray hair is permed. That comment acts as a catalyst -- she goes on an extreme diet, ditches the perm, dyes her hair, leaves her husband and moves to Vancouver! The rest of the novel has nice domestic details about this character and her two daughters.

36. Travels With Lizbeth (memoir) - Lars Eighner. Eighner, a homeless guy with a dog is living on the streets of Austin, Texas. He has several chances to be housed again, but the condition is always that he must part with Lizbeth, which he refuses to do. This book stuck in my mind. I'd read it again. Anytime. Highly recommended.

37. Last House (memoir) - M.F.K. Fisher

38. Among Friends (memoir) - M.F.K. Fisher

39. Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me (memoir) - M.F.K. Fisher. I started out actually wanting to read Fisher's How To Cook A Wolf, but couldn't find it so I read these three memoirs instead. Her writing is gorgeous; I feel like I could just melt into her prose.

40. The Van (novel) - Roddy Doyle. I read this book in 1993 and loved it so much I was ready for a re-read in 1994.

Fiction: 28
Nonfiction: 14

Books by male authors: 13
Books by female authors: 29

Re-Reads: 2

1994

2010-01-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

In 1994, I didn't work outside the home, so I was able to cover a lot of ground with reading. The library was practically my second home.

1. The Interior Castle: The Life and Art of Jean Stafford (nonfiction) - Ann Hulbert. I had read a 1988 biography of Stafford by David Roberts that I liked so much better chiefly because of the narrative flow. By contrast, Hulbert's writing seems so flat. Zzzzzzz.

2. Clockers (novel) - Richard Price. I really enjoyed this novel about Strike, a young drug dealer with a stomach ulcer; his older brother Victor, who's trying to get his young family out of their bad neighborhood in New Jersey and Rocco the homicide detective. I'm up for a reread and I want to see the 1995 Spike Lee movie, too.

3. Maybe The Moon (novel) - Armisted Maupin. I don't remember this book. I hope that the 1994 list won't show so much LitAmnesia.

4. Judy Garland: The Secret Life of an American Legend (nonfiction) - David Shipman. A well-researched and excellently written biography of Judy Garland. Read this one, NOT the putrid Get Happy by Gerald Clarke. Please.

5. Father Melancholy's Daughter (novel) - Gail Godwin. This story of Margaret, the 21-year-old daughter of an Episcopalian priest, was my favorite novel for this year. I blush to admit that it's also the reason I joined the Episcopalian Church and got very interested in religion for a while.

6. Love and Reruns in Adams County (novel) - Mark Spencer. A comic and poignant novel about Lon, a high school baseball star who has just struck out of the minor leagues and Pamela, his ex-wife who was a golden girl in high school but is now working at the golden arches. If you see this at a library or in a used bookstore, grab it. You won't be disappointed.

7. Love Medicine (novel) - Louise Erdrich. I don't remember anything about this book, but I've got an uneasy feeling that I should. Isn't Erdrich kind of an important author?

8. Domestic Life (novel) - Paula Webb. I don't remember anything about this book.

9. The Robber Bride (novel) - Margaret Atwood. Man-stealing frenemy Zenia is such a great villain. Imagine giving yourself scurvy just to trick everyone into thinking you have a fatal disease! Atwood has a lot of fun with this one, and I did, too.

10. The Van (novel) - Roddy Doyle. I read The Barrytown Trilogy out of order, starting with the last in the series, but I think it's the best. Jimmy Rabbitte, Sr. is out of work and his best friend, Bimbo, has just been made redundant at his bakery. Bimbo comes into some money and decides to buy a fish-and-chips van. Jimmy goes in with him as a partner with often mixed and mostly comic results. There are some perfect, poignant moments that preview Doyle's later, more serious work. The action takes place in 1990 around the time of the FIFA World Cup.

11. Daphne Du Maurier (biography) - Margaret Forster. I got the impression from this biography that Du Maurier didn't really like writing all that much and that it didn't come easily for her. I'm so glad she pressed on and wrote Rebecca!

12. The Snapper (novel) - Roddy Doyle. This is the second novel in The Barrytown Trilogy. Sharon Rabbitte is pregnant and not saying who's responsible. Of course all of Barrytown is dying to know. Hilarious!

13. The Commitments (novel) - Roddy Doyle. The first novel in The Barrytown Trilogy. I saw the movie first and although the book and movie are similar, I slightly prefer the movie. Well, it is about music, so it's best as an auditory experience. But you should read the book, too!

14. Exposure (novel) - Kathryn Harrison. I don't remember anything about this novel.

15. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (novel) - Roddy Doyle. Doyle is great at portraying childhood. This seems to be a transition novel for him -- it has some funny bits like The Barrytown Trilogy, but it's more serious in tone like his follow-up novel The Woman Who Walked Into Doors.

16. Straight Through The Night (novel) - Edward Allen. Chuck Deckle is downwardly mobile. He's a quasi-intellectual who's now working as a butcher for a kosher meat processing company. His coworkers are mean and stupid and ridicule him at every turn. Chuck excuses them at first and gives them every opportunity to become at least cordial, but his slow-simmering rage becomes progressively ugly. A well-written but bleak novel.

17. She Needed Me (novel) - Walter Kirn. I don't remember anything about this novel.

18. Brightness Falls (novel) - Jay McInerney. I have a vague impression that this novel is about the greedy old 1980s and it's big and bloated like that decade.

19. Animal Farm (novel) - George Orwell. Another mother-son read. My husband was laughing at the satire as we read and my 9-year-old son wanted to know what was so funny, so he got the whole Communism subtext right then and there.

20. The Orton Diaries (nonfiction) - Joe Orton, John Lahr, editor. John Lahr does a great job of presenting the short life of playwright Joe Orton, who was an edgy character. Orton was murdered by his lover, who then committed suicide.

21. Old Friends (nonfiction) -Tracy Kidder. Tracy Kidder spends time in a nursing home. Excellent book, intelligent and satisfying -- exactly what you'd expect from Kidder.

22. Skipped Parts (novel) - Tim Sandlin. Although the premise for this novel made my skin crawl, I still thought it was somewhat interesting: It's the early 1960s. A 13-year-old boy and his mother have been 'exiled' to Wyoming from the south by the boy's grandfather because of the mother's embarrassing behavior. The boy meets a girl at his new school and they hit it off. Soon, the boy's mother is encouraging them to take it to the limit. WTF??? They do, and soon these middle-schoolers are expectant parents. Anyway, even though all of this sounds appalling, I think it could have worked in the hands of a different writer. As it is, the writing is actually pretty dull. What a strange combination.

23. The Devil's Dream (novel) - Lee Smith. I don't remember anything about this novel.

24. The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien (novel) - Oscar Hijuelos. Oh boy, here we go again with the LitAmnesia!

25. You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (biography) - John Keats. This biographer spent a lot of time asserting that Parker didn't say a lot of those witty and scathing things she's famous for. Disappointing, but still an interesting look at the writer and the times in which she lived.

26. Black Mountain Breakdown (novel) - Lee Smith. I don't remember anything about this novel.

27. Prick Up Your Ears (biography) - John Lahr. Biography of playwright Joe Orton who was the darling of the London stage in the 1960s. He seems to have been a prankish sort all of his life -- he went to prison for a while for defacing library books! Later on, this humour would show up in the plays that he wrote, where he's just basically fucking with the audience. He was fond of the fast life and was violently murdered by his male lover who committed suicide directly after killing Orton.

28. Kicking Tomorrow (novel) -Daniel Richler. LitAmnesia. Someone should have taken me off novels completely at this point in my life.

29. Long Quiet Highway (nonfiction) - Natalie Goldberg. Goldberg writes more about her Zen journey here and how her Zen master influenced her life. Interesting to compare it to #36 for this year.

30. Primitive People (novel) - Francine Prose. You see? I can remember nonfiction; it's only novels that I'm blanking on!

31. Different Seasons (4 novellas) - Stephen King. All four of these novellas were adapted into successful movies. My favorite in the collection is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. When I recommend King to the small handful of people who haven't read him yet, I always mention this book and Misery.

32. For Love (novel) - Sue Miller. LitAmnesia again. Sigh.

33. Sin (novel) - Josephine Hart. I don't remember what this novel is about, but I have a strong impression that it's a piece of crap. Maybe I'm wrong.

34. Feather Crowns (novel) - Bobbie Ann Mason. This bout of LitAmnesia makes me feel really bad. Bobbie Ann Mason was my idol in the early 80s. I even cried once when someone in my book group said that he hated hated hated the stories in Shiloh.

35. The Great Divorce (novel) - Valerie Martin
I don't remember anything about this novel. What was I doing, just flipping pages at intervals?
Gah!
..
36. The Empty Mirror (nonfiction) - Janwillem van de Wetering. In the late 1950s, a Dutch guy shows up at a Japanese Zen monastery and stays there for several months, trying to learn the right path. This book is decidedly not like other Zen encounters that usually sound wide-eyed, perky and dripping with understanding and enlightenment. No, de Wetering is often grumpy and frustrated. Even at the end, he leaves the monastery not sure if the whole thing was a waste of time. A quick and humorous read.

37. The Lilac Bus (short stories) - Maeve Binchy. Binchy is great comfort reading. Grab some hot chocolate and an afghan and curl up on the couch with this book.

38. The Light In The Forest (novel) - Conrad Richter. I hate that I can't remember this book because I'm such a big fan of his Awakening Land trilogy.

39. Cadillac Jack (novel) - Larry McMurtry. The great characters you've come to expect from McMurtry against the backdrop of the flea market circuit.

40. Fade (novel) - Robert Cormier. Paul has discovered that he can fade away to nothingness. this is a family trait that his uncle also shares, as well as generations subsequent to Paul's.

41. Marlene Dietrich (biography) - Maria Riva. This biography is by Dietrich's only child. It's very well done, very intelligent.

42. Oh! (novel) - Mary Robison. I don't remember anything about this novel.

43. Miss Lonelyhearts (novel) - Nathanael West. An unnamed newspaper writer known to us only as "Miss Lonelyhearts" answers letters for a lovelorn column. He starts to feel the overwhelming responsibility of saving all those who write to him. His editor, a real bastard, ridicules both his finer feelings and those people who send letters. In the process, he destroys Miss Lonelyhearts.

44. Souls Raised From The Dead (novel) - Doris Betts. I have no memory of this novel.

45. Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott (biography) - Martha Saxon. This seems more like a joint biography of Louisa and her father, Bronson. Saxon tries to assert that LMA was in love with Thoreau, but her evidence seems weak. Also, she gets something wrong about Little Women. It was minor, but it sticks in my craw and lessened my enjoyment of this biography.

46. In A Country of Mothers (novel) A. M. Homes. LitAmnesia again. Damn.

47. Portrait of a Marriage (biography) - Nigel Nicolson. Nicolson is the son of vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Another interesting and intelligent biography by a child with famous and unconventional parents.

48. Kate Chopin (biography) - Emily Toth. A little boring in places, but still okay.

49. On Cukor (nonfiction) - Gavin Lambert. Interviews with director George Cukor as he discusses his film. Respectful commentary by Lambert. They both love and breathe film and the shining results show in this book. Great movie stills as well.

50. The Shipping News (novel) - E. Annie Proulx. After I read this novel, I wanted to pack up and move to Newfoundland.

51. Mama Makes Up Her Mind (Essays) - Bailey White. When Bailey White writes about her mother, her prose sparkles. When Mama isn't present, she's not as effective. Also, she has a tendency to end her essays with a neat little 'click' of a conclusion that grated on my nerves after a while.

52. Platforms (nonfiction) - Pagan Kennedy. Funny and irreverent look at all that was charming and goofy about the 1970s. Great fun to read. Not highly polished -- instead, it reads like a long and friendly fanzine.

53. Charms For The Easy Life (novel) - Kaye Gibbons. I wrote that I liked this novel, but I can't remember why.

54. Confessions of a Crap Artist (novel) - Philip K. Dick. Philip K. Dick is well-known in the SF world. Before he became famous, he wrote several mainstream novels which he didn't have much luck getting published. This one was written in 1959, but it didn't see print until the mid-1970s. Unfairly overlooked -- It's as good as anything John Updike published around this time.

55. Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years (memoir) - Margaret Mead. I really enjoyed this memoir. I'd read it again in a minute. Show me a copy!

56. How To reduce Your Risk Of Breast Cancer (nonfiction) - Jon J. Michnovicz. A friend who had an episode with breast cancer insisted I read this book. It was full of good information about diet, which is now common knowledge and written in a reader-friendly style. Some tasty recipes are included as well.

57. The Man In The High Castle (novel) - Philip K. Dick. A "what-if...?" novel in which the Axis wins WWII and they divide up the USA. The main character is in hot water because he wrote a "what if...?" novel that imagines the Allies won the war. I'm not an SF/Fantasy reader, but I really like this novel which won the Hugo Award in the early 1960s.

58. The Finishing School (novel) - Gail Godwin. I don't remember anything about this book.

59. A Southern Family (novel) - Gail Godwin. I don't remember anything about this book.

60. Suicide Blonde (novel) - Darcy Steinke. A prolonged bout of LitAmnesia is a hell of a way to end your reading year. Bah.

Fiction: 42

Nonfiction: 18

Books by male authors: 30

Books by female authors: 30

1993

2010-01-07T00:52:00.001-08:00

1993 was the first year I began to seriously keep track of books I'd read. I kept a list in 1984 and another in 1990, but they were written in the back of books, and now I have no idea what those books were or where they are. Looking at this list, I'm quite shocked at how many books I can't remember anything about. Was I reading a lot of crap? Was I distracted?

1. Not The End Of The World (novel) - Rebecca Stowe

I don't remember anything about this book.

2. At The Sign Of The Naked Waiter (novel) - Amy Herrick

I don't remember anything about this book, either -- you'd think I would, with that title! What a way to start a year!

3. We Have Always Lived In The Castle (novel) - Shirley Jackson

Finally, we have a winner. Not only do I remember this novel, it's my favorite novel by Shirley Jackson as well as one of my favorites overall.

4. The Object Of My Affection (novel) - Stephen McCauley

I have a vague impression of enjoying a comic novel, deftly written with a gay theme.

5. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot (memoir) - John Callahan

I laughed at cartoonist Callahan's memoir of being a paraplegic, was ashamed of myself for laughing and then laughed some more.

6. The Haunting of Hill House (novel) - Shirley Jackson

Jackson knocks the ball out of the park again.

7. The Risk Pool (novel) - Richard Russo

I really like Richard Russo's work, so it pains me that I can't remember this novel. Time for a reread.

8. The Girl In A Swing (novel) - Richard Adams

Speaking of rereads, this beautifully written, erudite psychological horror gem was one. Every time I read it, I pick up on something new.

9. Forty Whacks: New Evidence In The Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden (nonfiction) - David Kent

What the subtitle says.

10. Come Along With Me (novel fragment) - Shirley Jackson

I wish that Jackson had lived to complete this novel.

11. The Year It Rained - (novel) Crescent Dragonwagon

I don't remember anything about this novel.

12. Cowboys Are My Weakness (short stories) -Pam Houston

I don't remember anything about these short stories. I'm noticing that this 'mindless' reading seems to last for a couple of books, then move on.

13. Possession (novel) - A.S. Byatt

I loved this novel about two academics who are researching the lives of two Victorian poets. I'd read this one again in a heartbeat!

14. In The Garden of the North American Martyrs (short stories) -Tobias Wolff

I really enjoy the title story; just read it again recently.

15. All The Pretty Horses (novel) -Cormac McCarthy

I didn't like this book when I read it, but I feel differently about fiction and McCarthy now. I'll probably do a reread at some point.

16. The Housewife and the Assassin (novel) -Susan Trott

I have no memory of reading this, but in my reading journal, there's a frowny face drawn next to the title.

17. She's Come Undone (novel) Wally Lamb

Entertaining novel and the song played in my head the whole time I was reading.

18. Small Spaces Between Emergencies (short stories) - Alison Moore

I don't remember anything about this book.

19. Where The Red Fern Grows (novel) - Wilson Rawls

YA crowd-pleasing weepie about a boy and his two hunting dogs. My son and I read this one aloud together.

20. July 7th (novel) - Jill McCorkle

I have no memory of reading this book.

21. Disguises of Love (novel) - Robbie McCauley

I have no memory of reading this book, but I do remember that it was on an upstairs bookshelf at my in-laws' house in Tulsa.

22. The Bridges of Madison County (novel) - Robert James Waller

I thought the characters were uninteresting, the setting snoozeworthy and Waller completely lost me when the male character started comparing himself to a peregrine. The movie with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep was an improvement, but that's not saying much.

23. The Firm (novel) - John Grisham

My mother-in-law was going through a Grisham phase. I borrowed this and read it to please her, but other than a vague memory of the protagonist realizing that he's joined a really crooked law firm, it didn't make much of an impression on me. I didn't read another Grisham book until 2008.

24. The Easy Way Out (novel) - Stephen McCauley

I don't remember anything about this book.

25. Hairdo (novel) - Sarah Gilbert

I don't remember anything about this book.

26. Ramona Forever (novel) - Beverly Cleary

Another mother-son read. I love Cleary's depiction of the relationships in the Quimby family. There's a slightly gritty feel to this one as well -- Mr. Quimby is out of work, Ramona's mother is working and money is tight.

27. The Duke of Deception (memoir) - Geoffrey Wolff

I know this is about Geoffrey and Tobias' Wolff's father, but I don't remember anything else. Luckily, I have another copy on the shelves!

28. The Evening Star (novel) - Larry McMurtry

The continuing adventures of Aurora Greenway from Terms of Endearment.

29. Rambling Rose (novel) - Calder Willingham

I don't remember anything about this book.

30. Like Water For Chocolate (novel) - Laura Esquivel

I loved the magic realism, Esquivel's storytelling, the great translation and all those recipes! Gorgeous book!!!

31. The Mountain Lion (novel) - Jean Stafford

A few years before this book, Stafford wrote a bestselling novel called Boston Adventure that is really reader-unfriendly, as if she'd been channeling Henry James, but this short novel is its polar opposite, quite folksy and friendly as if she'd been channeling Mark Twain.

32. Bitter Fame: A Biography of Sylvia Plath (nonfiction) - Anne Stevenson

Stevenson was approximately Plath's age and also went to an Ivy League women's' college, so presumably, she can shed a lot of light on Sylvia's life and times. She takes up too much time explaining this to the reader. I've read better books about Plath. I recommend the one by Janet Malcolm and also the one by Dianne Middlebrook.

33. The Lost Language of Cranes (novel) - David Leavitt

I don't remember anything about this book.

34. Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life (nonfiction) - Natalie Goldberg

An interesting and entertaining book about applying meditation techniques to writing. Whenever I meet someone who says that they want to 'start writing', I always recommend this book.

35. Katherine Mansfield: A Critical Study (nonfiction) - Sylvia Berkman

Boring. Zzzzzzz.

36. Good Rockin' Tonight (short stories) - William Hauptman

I don't remember anything about this short story collection. Too bad. I like that song.

37. Jack (novel) - A.M. Homes

Jack, who's just come into adolescence, finds out that his father is gay.

38. Pigs in Heaven (novel) - Barbara Kingsolver

I loved The Bean Trees, the prequel to this novel, but didn't like this one because of the shift in viewpoint from first to third person.

39. Vanished (novel) - Mary McGarry Morris

I don't remember anything about this novel.

40. Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life (nonfiction) -Claire Tomalin

Very good biography of Mansfield, with a thorough discussion of the story plagiarized from Chekov and an in-depth look at Mansfield's chronic health problems that started well before she contracted TB which led to her death at 34.

41. Needful Things (novel) - Stephen King

The devil went up to Maine, looking for some souls to steal. He opens a shop that strangely enough, always has the object one desires most. The cost? Bwahahahaha!

42. The Life of Katherine Mansfield (nonfiction) - Antony Alpers

Poor Antony Alpers. The "Life" just could not compare with the "Secret Life" of Mansfield. ZZZZZ.

43. Bastard Out of Carolina (novel) - Dorothy Allison

Terrific, gritty writing.

44. Dolores Claiborne (novel) - Stephen King

Dolores tells her story, but other than a shit husband and an estranged daughter, I remember nothing.

45. Hunger (novel) - Knut Hamsun

This book about a literally starving writer in Christiana --now Oslo-- Norway is a brilliant piece of storytelling. The translation I read was excellent as well.

46. Foxfire (novel) - Joyce Carol Oates

This novel is about a girl gang in the 1950s or 60s. Oates does that intensity of teenage life so well.

Male Authors: 22

Female Authors: 24

Fiction: 38

Nonfiction: 8