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JG's 2009 Reading List
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I don't necessarily like challenges. I like to read what I want when I want without worrying about whether it will fit into a challenge. But let's see...I read 69 books last year...I'll aim for 80 this year.
My sort of challenge: 80 books read in 2009.
JANUARY1. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks--372 pages--4 stars
2. The Sachem by Donald Clayton Porter--372 pages--4 stars
3. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke--534 pages--4 stars
4. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig--385 pages--4 stars
5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón--487 pages--4 stars
6. North Carolina Impressions by Jim Hargan--80 pages--5 stars (Mostly photos, but I'm counting it and the next one anyway!)
7. Blue Ridge Parkway Impressions by Cara Ellen Modisett--80 pages--5 stars
8. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy--897 pages--3 stars
FEBRUARY9. Dissolution by C.J. Sansom--390 pages--4 stars
10. Coraline by Neil Gaiman--192 pages--3 stars
11. Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani--336 pages--4 stars
12. A Lion Among Men Volume Three in the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire--312 pages--2 stars
13. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez--348 pages--3 stars
14. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith--352 pages--4 stars
15. Don't Look Down by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer--373 pages--2 stars
16. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian--388 pages--4 stars
17. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz--340 pages--4 stars
18. Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende--304 pages--3 stars
19. Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop--375 pages--4.5 stars
MARCH20. The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde--378 pages--4 stars
21. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt--460 pages--4 stars
22. 100 Photographs That Changed the World by Robert Sullivan--176 pages--5 stars
23. Renno by Donald Clayton Porter--324 pages--4 stars
24. Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom--503 pages--4 stars
25. The Audacity of Hope Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama--375 pages--5 stars
26. Water for Elephants--335 pages--4 stars
27. The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child--597 pages--3 stars
28. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin--673 pages--3 stars
29. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray--403 pages--4 stars
30. Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop--496 pages--4 stars
31. Artemis Fowl The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer--277 pages--4 stars
32. The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall--517 pages--3 stars
33. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones--329 pages--5 stars
34. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik--356 pages--4 stars
Laura, I usually only read one book at a time, but I found that I did better if I read Audacity along with something else. It's very interesting, and I'm glad I read it, but he makes you think a lot and I needed breaks from that. You're an Obama fan, though, right? You would probably enjoy it.
Tricks to catch an agent’s attention:You hear it in classical music all the time: theme and variation. A motif is introduced in a minor, off hand sort of way. A few notes on the piano or clarinet ..and it is gone. But when the theme returns later, played now by the full orchestra, it reveals unexpected depth of emotion.
This can also be done in prose;-- signaling an editor or agent, Here’s the work of a sophisticated writer. In the passage below, note how casually a weather theme is introduced: a snow storm blew through town etc.
Banal enough.
But when the enhanced weather theme returns a sentence or two later, note how it marks entrance of a major new player.
*
CHAPTER ONE. Rita
“You think San Francisco’s changed very much since your college days?”
He stopped trying to sneak looks at my bandaged nose, his voice dropped, his head turned;--
Someone had just come in.
* * *
We were mostly of an age at Betty&Mab’s dinner party that evening, my fellow friends and guests;-- the first generation ever guaranteed we would never grow old. (Remember, “Don’t trust anyone over 30”?) The last storm of a dying winter had blown through the Bay Area the night before. When the morning fog lifted, fluky warm zephyrs came wafting up from the south.
“Glass of wine, Mr. Jim?”
“No thanks.”
I took a slice of lemon for my iced tea and walked over to the French doors leading to the terrace. A half dozen handsome black ceramic urns stood out there all in a row, planted with the first daffodils of spring, the perky yellow flowers nodding up through a blanket of half melted snow. But inside it was warm. The women wore gowns and jewels, the men wore ties, and while the conversation was a little about real estate and/or Iraq, something too about the Hobbesian notion of economics as the “war of all against all,” there was a well-dressed hum to the evening of an era earlier than our own, a retro kind of Frank-Sinatra-Sings-Cole-Porter-in-The-Big-City feel that I liked. Rita arrived beautiful and alone, more than a little late, no excuse offered other than the arrogance of her youth which told us once we may have been the daffodils now we were the snow.
W.H., this is not the place for this kind of thing. This is my reading list. Feel free to comment on it. Don't plug your writing in here. I've asked Lori to delete your comment.
APRIL35. Tomahawk by Donald Clayton Porter--305 pages--4 stars
36. One Child by Torey L. Hayden--254 pages?--5 stars
37. Salt A Novel by Isabel Zuber--352 pages--3 stars
38. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin--728 pages-5 stars
39. Dear Jane Austen A Heroine's Guide to Life and Love by Patrice Hannon--157 pages--3 stars
40. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett--973 pages--4 stars
41. Bound South A Novel by Susan Rebecca White--345 pages--3 stars
MAY42. Sovereign by C.J. Sansom--583 pages--3 stars
43. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris--292 pages--4 stars
44. Fool A Novel by Christopher Moore--311 pages--2 stars
45. Lisey's Story by Stephen King--513 pages--4 stars
46. Asheville Impressions by Bob Schatz--80 pages--5 stars
47. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving--617 pages--4 stars
48. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin--185 pages--4 stars
49. The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint--269 pages--5 stars
50. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson--128 pages--3 stars
51. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak--368 pages--4 stars
52. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier--416 pages--5 stars
53. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan--279 pages--4 stars
54. The Tale of Despereaux Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo--270 pages--5 stars
55. Sabriel by Garth Nix--292 pages--3 stars
56. Graceling by Kristin Cashore--471 pages--5 stars
57. It Happened on the Outer Banks by Molly Perkins Harrison--146 pages--3 stars
58. The Woods by Harlan Coben--324 pages--3 stars
JUNE
59. War Cry by Donald Clayton Porter--327 pages--3 stars
60. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly--404 pages--4.5 stars
61. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly--389 pages--5 stars
62. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins--460 pages--3 stars
63. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen--276 pages--4 stars
64. A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith--403 pages--3 stars
65. Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik--398 pages--4 stars
66. Ambush by Donald Clayton Porter--310 pages--3 stars
67. Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith--re-read--320 pages--5 stars
JULY68. The Last Wife of Henry VIII A Novel by Carolly Erickson--326 pages--3 stars
69. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson--465 pages--3 stars
70. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières--436 pages--3 stars
71. how i live now by Meg Rosoff--194 pages--3 stars
72. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin--420 pages--4 stars
73. What the Mouse Found and Other Stories by Charles de Lint--64 pages--4 stars
74. Trader (Newford Book 7) by Charles de Lint--352 pages--4 stars
75. Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child--435 pages--4 stars
76. Emma Brown by Clare Boylan--464 pages--3 stars
77. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay--293 pages--4 stars
78. Maus I A Survivor's Tale My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman--159 pages--5 stars
79. Maus II A Survivor's Tale And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman--136 pages--5 stars
JG wrote: "JANUARY1. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks--372 pages--4 stars
2. The Sachem by Donald Clayton Porter--372 pages--4 stars
3...."
People of the Book was good.
Shadow of the Wind was superb. :)
I'd like to re-read The Shadow of the Wind sometime now that I know how everything turns out. I was so afraid of who was going to die! :-)
AUGUST80. Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! by Fannie Flagg--396 pages--3 stars
81. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See--253 pages--3.5 stars
82. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink--218 pages--2 stars
83. The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif--529 pages--3 stars
84. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins--374 pages--4 stars
85. The Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd--776 pages--3 stars
86. Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop--448 pages--4 stars
87. Good Poems for Hard Times--edited by Garrison Keillor--344 pages--3 stars
88. Abundance A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund--545 pages--4 stars
89. The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff--364 pages--3 stars
90. The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman--291 pages--3 stars
91. Persepolis 1 The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi--153 pages--4 stars
Okay, I blew past 80 already, without really even realizing it. I just might make 120! It depends on work, I guess. I get most of my reading done there, and I'm about to start training new people and we're coming up hard on cold and flu season, and that's our busiest time. I still think I'll make it!
SEPTEMBER92. Fragile Things Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman--360 pages--4 stars
93. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly--339 pages--4 stars
94. Persepolis 2 The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi--192 pages--4 stars
95. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny--175 pages--3 stars
96. Mermaids in the Basement by Michael Lee West--291 pages--3 stars
97. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull--332 pages--5 stars
98. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins--391 pages--5 stars
99. Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris--266 pages--4 stars
100. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon--226 pages--4 stars
101. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch--499 pages--4 stars
OCTOBER102. Simon's Cat by Simon Tofield--240 pages--4 stars
103. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill--316 pages--4 stars
104. The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent--332 pages--3 stars
105. Odd Hours by Dean Koontz--443 pages--4 stars
106. Cujo by Stephen King--304 pages--3.5 stars
107. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley--270 pages--3 stars
108. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson--317 pages--4 stars
109. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld--425 pages--3 stars
110. Rose Madder by Stephen King--420 pages--3 stars
111. The Unofficial Guide to San Francisco by Richard Sterling--404 pages--4 stars
112. Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore--300 pages--4 stars
113. You Suck A Love Story by Christopher Moore--328 pages--4 stars
114. The Ruins by Scott Smith--319 pages--3 stars
115. Misery by Stephen King--338 pages--4 stars
116. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier--348 pages--3 stars117. Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix--314 pages--4 stars
118. Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles--342 pages--4 stars
119. Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas--305 pages--3 stars
120. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson--503 pages--4 stars
121. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer--629 pages--4 stars
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Books mentioned in this topic
Inkheart (other topics)The Shadow of the Wind (other topics)
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (other topics)
Blue Ridge Parkway Impressions (other topics)
North Carolina Impressions (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Lauren Willig (other topics)Donald Clayton Porter (other topics)
Cara Ellen Modisett (other topics)
Geraldine Brooks (other topics)
Cornelia Funke (other topics)
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