2002: March

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: January

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

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

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 art 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

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.

2001 Part 1

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

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.

1995

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