100+ Books in 2025 discussion
2011 Lists
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Wils' 102 books in 2011
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70. Sandman Slim - Richard Kadrey - 9/11I loved this - first book of a series, I think the third is just coming out now. Sandman Slim is part of circle practicing magic when his circle turns on him and banishes him to hell. Eleven years later he escapes and he's back for revenge. Set in griddy L.A., it's supernatural and awesome!
71. Maus I: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1) - Art Spiegelman - 9/11Spiegelman tells his father's story of surviving the holocaust in this graphic novel format. The story intertwines him asking his father questions to get him to tell his story plus his own doubts of how you can ever appropriately represent that story in graphic novel form. Very well done. This is book one of two.
72. Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus, #2) - Art Spiegleman - 9/11
Part two of Spiegelman's telling of his father's story.
73. Before I Go to Sleep - S.J. Watson - 9/11
After an accident in her early twenties robbing the main character of her short term memory, she wakes every morning having to relearn where she is, how old she is, who the man in bed next to her is, and why her journal says "Do Not Trust Ben" (her husband). Great story!
74. Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim #2) - Richard Kadrey - 9/11Book 2 in Kadrey's Sandman Slim series. After returning from 11 years exiled in hell to seek revenge on those that sent him there, we now find Stark teaming up with the same cast of characters as he battles the dead - zombies. Awesome! Can't wait to read the third book.
75. Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick - 9/11
This young adult book is beautiful. There are two parallel stories - told 50 years apart. The one in the 1970s is told through written word, while the one told in the 1920s is told through pictures. I'm now very curious to go back and read Selznick's first book in this style.
76. One Bloody Thing After Another - Joey Comeau - 9/11
Watching your mom turn into a vampire like creature craving live flesh one would think things can't get any worse. Oh, but they do. And in this book it's pretty funny.
77. Happy Accidents: My Gleeful Life - Jane Lynch - 9/11This was a sweet memoir. I really like Jane Lynch and it was interesting to read about her childhood, battle with addiction, coming out and all the happy little accidents that led her down her career path. She's someone I'd like to hang out with.
78. The Strain - Guillermo del Toro - 10/11I was so excited to read this and was just disappointed. The story starts off eerie and suspenseful and then just plateaus. At around page 200 I thought we were finally being told the back story that would take the story in a different direction, but all it did was tell us the same story over and over of how the strain spread from one person to another. It told us how it happened to every character. Completely overkill and to me assumes that del Toro didn't think his readers could figure out the grand scale of it spreading for themselves. I really wanted to like this book and gave it so many chances, but I just didn't like it. As an aside, I loved Pan Labyrinth which was a large factor in reading this.
79. Fantastic Mr Fox - Roald Dahl - 10/11
Very cute. I wish I knew more Dahl books when I was a kid. I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel, but never knew he wrote more. After seeing this movie I thought I'd come back and give the book a go. The movie was brilliantly true to the book and the book is wonderful in its simplicity.
80. This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper - 10/11This was entertaining. A father's death brings a dysfunctional family back together again for seven days to sit shiva. It stays pretty surface level and delivers what you'd expect. I was hoping for something a bit deeper or some twist. Still very entertaining.
81. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick - 10/11
A boy in Paris living in a train station trying to uncover a mystery. The mystery starts with an automaton left behind when his father dies. The written story mixed with beautiful illustrations works very well.
82. Dragons in the Waters (O'Keefe Family #2) - Madeleine L'Engle - 10/11The second book in L'Engle's O'Keefe family series, it was entertaining for a YA book. I like all of the life lessons, but I really want to slap the main O'Keefe character. I like that science is usually at the forefront of L'Engle's stories, and still is here, but it's paired with more mysticism than usual (with the younger O'Keefe's dreaming) which I thought was very interesting.
83. Moonraker - Ian Fleming - 10/11Bond, James Bond. Oh the good old days when our enemies were Germans and Russians with the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation. Started off slow with too much detail into card games and gambling but turned into a great spy book as always.
84. Iceland's Bell - Halldor Laxness - 11/11This is based on Iceland's sagas, which I wasn't familiar with, as well as Iceland's history which I also wasn't familiar with. It was a difficult dense read for me and honestly took about 60 pages to even understand what was happening. And then I found myself in a wonderful story. Still very dense to read but was well worth it. The three books in this book were originally published as three separate books.
85. The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life: What 35 Years of Running Have Taught Me About Winning, Losing, Happiness, Humility, and the Human Heart - Amby Burfoot - 11/11Purely by coincidence I started reading this day of the NYC marathon which I ran and didn't do as well as hoped. This is a very inspirational book and helped me that day immediately put behind the negative thoughts and focus on the positive that I just ran a marathon! Lots of inspiring words and approaches to life in this small book!
86. The Lobster Chronicles: Life On a Very Small Island - Linda Greenlaw - 11/11I first learned of Linda Greenlaw from The Perfect Storm as she was part of that fishing community, then read her book about swordfishing which was great. This book focuses on her life after leaving swordfishing to start lobstering, moving back with her parents and working beside her father. A lot of the story is around the incredibly small community where they live. It was entertaining but I was hoping for many more stories of her fishing experiences.
87. Goliath (Leviathan, #3) - Scott Westerfeld - 11/11
The final book of the Leviathan trilogy. Very enjoyable steampunk story spanning three books with a good conclusion. And beautiful illustrations throughout.
88. Good Omens - Terry Pratchett - 11/11
Terry Pratchett makes the apocalypse hilarious! Sometimes it was a little difficult to keep track of all of the characters, but it was such a fun read. One example - the four horseman of the apocalypse in this story are the four bikers of the apocalypse, yup, hell's angels.
89. This Beautiful Life - Helen Schulman - 11/11
The perfect life quickly unravels in this wonderful book told from the vantage point of three different characters. The event that leads to the unraveling is horrific and like a train wreck you can't look away.
90. Fractured Fairy Tales - A.J. Jacobs - 11/11I seemed to have missed the animated version of these on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. These made me laugh out loud. Great short stories of taking the fairy tales we all know and turning them on their heads.
91. To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking On a 5-K Makes You a Better Person - Martin Dugard - 11/11
I really liked this book about the love of running and how constantly pushing yourself - whether to be faster, stronger, or just out the door - makes you a better person. Dugard usually writes articles and approaches each chapter in that format which was a bit odd when trying to read multiple chapters back to back.
92. Miss Don't Touch Me - Keracoët Hubert - 11/11
This graphic novel is translated from French. The story is incredibly dark and brutal. After seeing her sister murdered the main character has to join a brother to find her sister's killer.
93. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen - Christopher McDougall - 12/11I resisted reading this book because it just seemed too trendy at the time, everyone was talking about it and barefoot running and somehow all of the hooplah just annoyed me. But after personal running friends recommended it, I caved. And I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it. All of the hooplah around barefoot running was such a small part of many wonderful things this book has to offer.
94. The Complete Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi - 12/1
I love learning from graphic novels. Satrapi's graphic novel is a memoir of growing up in Iran during war time, as a teenager being sent to Europe to study and for her safety, going back to Iran to flea the awkward situation of being an immigrant, and finally her family sending her off again for good. Loved it, can't wait to see the movie to see how they captured all of this.
95. Miss Don't Touch Me, Vol. 2 - Kerascoet Hubert - 12/11Blanche finds her knight in shining armor to take her away from the brothel she entered in Vol. 1 to find the person that murdered her sister. However, things unravel very quickly and Blanche finds herself in danger again.
96. Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day - Ben Loory - 12/11
I really wanted to like this but so many of the short stories just left me thinking "and? what's the point?" Some were very entertaining, but most carried too many common themes such as dreaming about a situation and then it happens or getting lost, falling asleep and waking in bed and a lot of the language was just too simplified or elementary.
97. Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. - Julie Holland - 12/11Holland's stories of working at Bellevue Psych ER for 9 years - fascinating!
98. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin - 12/11
Written in the 20s in Russia, it's a vision of the future where this is no more individual thought or identity until one man starts to think of himself as "I".
99. The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood - 12/11
Berlin in the 30s as remembered by Christopher Isherwood - great stories, really a snapshot of the time.
Just after midnight Dec 31st, death goes on holiday. This time Saramago takes on what happens to a society if people suddenly don't die. What does it mean for funeral homes, grave diggers, life insurance, pensions, religion? It's true Saramago with great lack of punctuation and rambling details that made me feel like visiting and old friend. He of course takes the surreal approach and gives death's perspective of why she stopped taking people and her full story. Great read!