My goal for this year is going to be 60 books.

I reached my goal!

TOTAL : 71

january
01.01 The Reader : Bernhard Schlink
01.03 Coal Black Horse : Robert Olmstead
01.08 Vernon God Little : DBC Pierre
01.18 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan : Lisa See
01.23 A Ship Made of Paper : Scott Spencer
01.25 The Year of Magical Thinking : Joan Didion

february
02.06 Coraline : Neil Gaimon
02.07 The Inheritance of Loss : Kiran Desai
02.09 A Lion Among Men : Gregory Maguire
02.16 Loving Frank : Nancy Horan
02.21 Out Stealing Horses : Per Petterson

march
03.06 A Fine Balance : Rohinton Mistry
03.19 Alias Grace : Margaret Atwood
03.21 The Mysterious Affair at Styles Complete & Unabridged : Agatha Christie
03.23 The Glass Castle A Memoir : Jeannette Walls

april
04.01 The Good Earth : Pearl S. Buck
04.04 The Doctor's Wife : Elizabeth Brundage
04.15 The Secret Adversary : Agatha Christie
04.17 Lost and Found : Carolyn Parkhurst
04.22 Go Down, Moses : William Faulkner
04.23 The Secret History : Donna Tartt
04.24 Charming Billy : Alice McDermott
04.25 The Shipping News A Novel : E. Annie Proulx

may
05.02 When We Were Orphans : Kazuo Ishiguro
05.08 The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel : Amy Hempel
05.13 Tara Road : Maeve Binchy
05.19 First Among Sequels : Jasper Fforde
05.22 Slow Man : J.M. Coetzee
05.22 A Great and Terrible Beauty : Libba Bray
05.28 A Thousand Acres A Novel : Jane Smiley

june
06.02 The Book of Lost Things : John Connolly
06.14 Something Borrowed : Emily Giffin
06.17 One Hundred Years of Solitude : Gabriel Garcia Marquez
06.20 Naked : David Sedaris
06.23 Murder on the Links : Agatha Christie
06.29 The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc A Novel : Loraine Despres

july
07.01 Matrimony A Novel : Joshua Henkin
07.03 Sold : Patricia McCormick
07.08 The Crying of Lot 49 : Thomas Pynchon
07.14 Love Walked In : Marisa de los Santos
07.16 The History of Love A Novel : Nicole Krauss
07.17 Maus I A Survivor's Tale My Father Bleeds History : Art Spiegelman
07.19 Bloodsucking Fiends : Christopher Moore
07.21 Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore Getting Through the First Year of Sobriety : Rachael Brownell
07.25 Maus II A Survivor's Tale And Here My Troubles Began : Art Spiegelman
07.31 You Suck A Love Story : Christopher Moore
07.31 Interpreter of Maladies : Jhumpa Lahiri

august
08.07 Firefly Lane : Kristin Hannah
08.09 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian A Novel : Marina Lewycka
08.12 The Red Pony : John Steinbeck
08.23 Malinche A Novel : Laura Esquivel
08.26 People of the Book : Geraldine Brooks
08.27 Sexing the Cherry : Jeanette Winterson
08.28 Beloved : Toni Morrison

Contd. Below

TOTAL READ : 71

august, Contd.
08.29 Ex Libris Confessions of a Common Reader : Anne Fadiman

september
09.02 The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel A Novel : Maureen Lindley
09.02 The Optimist's Daughter A Novel : Eudora Welty
09.09 The Senator's Wife : Sue Miller
09.15 The Man Who Loved Books Too Much The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession: Allison Hoover Bartlett
09.21 Consequences : Penelope Lively
09.26 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao : Junot Diaz

october
10.05 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo : Stieg Larsson
10.07 Tales of the City : Armistead Maupin
10.12 The Remains of the Day : Kazuo Ishiguro
10.16 Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, US & Canada Ed.</i> : Edited by RL Mack
10.22 My Horizontal Life A Collection of One-Night Stands : Chelsea Handler
10.24 Lunch in Paris A Love Story, with Recipes : Elizabeth Bard
10.24 Runaway Stories : Alice Munro
10.25 The Alchemist : Paulo Coehlo
10.25 The Beach at Falesa : Robert Louis Stevenson
10.27 The Butcher and the Vegetarian One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis : Tara Austen Weaver

did you like Snow flower? I thought ti was so interesting and wellw ritten.

Jeane,
I did and I didn't like Snow Flower. I thought a lot of the information in it was really interesting but I felt like the characters were a puzzle missing the final piece, I never really got emotionally attached to any of them. That being said, I did enjoy it and when I come across a copy of 'Peony in Love', I will probably pick it up.

I am curious to see if her other books are the same kind like Snow flower or nor...that would be very good otherwise.

I just FINALLY finished The Good Earth - I found it to be pretty boring and the story seemed to planned to ever happen in real life.

So far I think I am behind where I was last year. But with my newly found free time in between looking for a new job, I think I should definitely be able to get ahead.

I can't recommend The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel enough, I absolutely loved this book!

Emily wrote: "I can't recommend The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel enough, I absolutely loved this book!"

I'm glad to hear that! I recently bought The Dog of the Marriage Stories by the same author on a suggestion from the bookstore owner. The cover jacket has a quote from Chuck Palahniuk that says 'Amy Hempel is my god among writers.'I was in line with Invisible Monsters by CP in my hand, so she suggested this one. Haven't read it yet, but I'm glad to hear you liked her other book!

I heard that Chuck Palahniuk asked Amy Hempel to do a reading/interview with him soon in NYC because she is his favorite author. I really don't think you will be disappointed in your purchase, I loved everything of hers, it was so unlike anything else I have ever read.

Awesome! I'll have to bump it further up on the TBR. :)

Just finished Tara Road by Maeve Binchy, I enjoyed it but I thought Circle of Friends was much better.

Slow Man was the longest short book I have ever ready. I don't know what it is about Coetzee but of the two of his I have read all I can say is that he is good at creating unlikable characters.

One Hundred Years of Solitude... after this I am definitely giving up on Garcia Marquez, it took me two months to read this book and the only reason I finished it was because I forced myself to. Love in the Time of Cholera wasn't as bad in general although it did take me five years to finish it.

Wow Emily!

If anyone is a member of PaperbackSwap.com, you can view my bookshelf here

I found The Crying of Lot 49 to be pure torture! I have never had such a short book take me so long to read, and in the end I felt unsatisfied.

Just finished A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and I think it might end up being one of my favorite books of this year!

I picked up Malinche A Novel from Borders for $1 last month, and I now think I know why it was such a bargain price! While the historical reference to Cortez and Malinalli I found interesting, for me this book ended up being very boring.

On the bright side, I am 1/4 of the way through Atlas Shrugged!

People of the Book was my first Geraldine Brooks novel, and I liked all of it except for the last 20 pages where it seemed like everything fell apart, and became too movie-y. I have ordered her Pulitzer winner, March, in hopes that she didn't pull a Hollywood at the end of that too.

I couldn't sleep so I started reading Sexing the Cherry - it is a very real possibility that it could have been my insomnia, but this book was one of the strangest things I have ever read, in a good way.

Beloved is my second book by Toni Morrison, the first one being Song of Solomon; I was drawn into the story quickly, and enjoyed it beginning to end.

1 more and I will have reached my goal!

Good job. Hey, how did you like A Thousand Acres by Smiley? Haven't read her, I know this one won awards...also, I really dug The Confessions of Max Tivoli. Like that one?

Thanks! I really liked A Thousand Acres, it felt so real that by the end I was really involved with the character's lives. I've had Moo on my shelf waiting to be read for about a year now and need to dig into that soon. I haven't read The Confessions of Max Tivoli yet, I don't really know what is stopping me.

Just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao last night, I was a bit disappointed by this one, probably because there was so much hype surrounding it, but overall I enjoyed it.

October has been a really strong reading month for me! Unfortunately for my TBR shelf, I will be headed back to a full-time job at the beginning of next month!