false 7 422 273 true 6445619 read 1 true 6445667 currently-reading 148 true 6445629 to-read 127 false 6446380 books-i-own 88 false 7930823 1st-person-narratives 83 false 8391046 romance 62 false 6461677 1001-must-read-books 54 false 6571819 classics 47 false 8390122 so-many-books--so-little-time 30 false 8441864 i-saw-the-movie-and-read-the-book 27 false 8121509 read-in-group 26 false 6465433 nonfiction 20 false 6446418 favorites 15 false 8215995 wish-list 13 false 7717352 books-i-reread 11 false 7710392 summer-2010 9 false 8390670 books-about-book-lovers 8 false 8471978 great-first-lines 5 false 8122226 could-not-finish http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/244897-my-2009-reading-year-in-retrospect Kayla made a comment in the College Students! group:

Best Book...A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Worst Book...Life of Pi

I suppose Life of Pi would be the most surprising book for me, b/c I had really expected to love it after hearing so many good things about it and then I ended up hating it.

The book I recommended the most would actually be The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami even though I had read it a couple of years ago. I found myself talking a lot about Murakami in the last few months of this year. For a book I actually read this year and recommended a lot...that would probably be The Glass Castle. The author, Jeannette Walls, came to my college to talk about her newest book Half-Broke Horses so I kept telling my friends about the event and tried to convince them to read The Glass Castle (if they hadn't already) and go to the event and book signing.

An unexpected gem...Animal's People. I had never heard of this book, but I saw it in the 1001 Must-Read Books Before You Die list as one of the contemporary novels and I was attracted by the title. It was a great book. Very different from anything I've read.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78928373 After the Quake (Paperback) by Haruki Murakami
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/70409211 to: Play It As It Lays: A Novel (Paperback) by Joan Didion
bookshelves: books-i-own
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/233519-kayla-s-book-challenge Kayla made a comment in the The Book Challenge group:

Book 5: Play It As It Lays A Novel by Joan Didion

I found this book hard to get into at first, but once I got past the first 30 pages or so I sped through it. I'm always drawn to stories of a woman's downfall into madness (The Bell Jar anyone?) I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Maria's drives to nowhere, just speeding down all the different interstates between L.A. and Las Vegas. I, myself, enjoy driving just to drive. I found it very relatable in that way. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78675697 to: The Road (Hardcover) by Cormac McCarthy
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78551016 Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel (Paperback) by Dai Sijie
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/147784-books-you-bought-this-week Kayla made a comment in the The Book Addicts! group:

I just went to this really great used book store with some friends after a hiking trip. It had huge windows with views of the river below and a lot of comfortable chairs that you can curl up in for hours. I love finding book stores to hang out in!

Anyway, the books I bought there were:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (this book has been on my TBR list for years!)
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (I've never read anything by her yet)
Set in Motion by Valerie Martin (I'm going to be taking a class next semester that Valerie Martin is teaching, so now I'm really curious about her books. Mary Reilly is another book by Martin that I would like to read soon.) ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78548674 Set in Motion (Paperback) by Valerie Martin
bookshelves: books-i-own, to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78423046 to: The Outsiders (Mass Market Paperback) by S.E. Hinton
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78422805 Blonde (Paperback) by Joyce Carol Oates
bookshelves: to-read
]]>