Books of 2013

Well, I think I'm just going to admit defeat and say that I am not capable of keeping a regularly updated blog, in any form. Furthermore, it seems nearly impossible for me to take the time to review each of the books that I've read. So, for now, until I can figure out how to discipline myself in this, I will just list the books I've read in 2013, and perhaps my own rating on a 1-5 (1=love it, 5=didn't love it) scale, and edit as the rest of the year progresses. Here goes:

1. The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz (1.5)
2. Specials - Scott Westerfeld (1)
3. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan (1)
4. The Beautiful Mystery - Louise Penny (2)
5. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (3)
6. Scarlet - Marissa Meyer (1.5)
7. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (1)
8. Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption - Katie Davis (2)
9. Butter Cream - Denise Roig (1)
10. Snap Happy - Fiona Walker (2.5)
11. Fat Chance - Julie Hadden
12. Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs (3)
13. Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick (3)
14. The Painted Girls - Cathy Marie Buchanan (1.5)
15. The Imposter Bride - Nancy Richler (4)
16. Eve & Adam - Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate (1)
17. Extras - Scott Westerfeld (2)
18. Pink Slip Party - Cara Lockwood
19. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce (2.5)
20. Confessions of a Pregnant Princess - Swan Adamson (3)
21. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (1.5)
22. Sheer Dynamite - Jennifer Skully (2)
23. Arranged - Catherine McKenzie (1)
24. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender (1.5)
25. The Summer of Us - Holly Chamberlin
26. Spin - Catherine McKenzie (3)
27. Hidden - Catherine McKenzie (3)
28. Arcadia - Lauren Groff (2)

I also read 2 books in digital format: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

July - December 2012

I'm just going to list the rest of the books I read in 2012 and get it done with... I wanted to write a bit of a description about each book I read, but it's been too long for some of them, and I've gotten rid of some, so... I'm not going to.

The Last Song - Nicolas Sparks
An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
We Bought a Zoo - Benjamin Mee
The Red Hat Club - Haywood Smith
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Rise of Nine - Pittacus Lore
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
The Story of Beautiful Girl - Rachel Simon
Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny
Eight Minutes Idle - Matt Thorne
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
My Name is Memory - Ann Brashares
Uglies- Scott Westerfeld
Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda
The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
The Soldier's Wife - Joanna Trollope
The Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick
Mating Rituals of the North American Wasp - Lauren Lipton
Room - Emma Donaghue
Pretties - Scott Westerfeld

Rory Gilmore Book Challenge

List of the books Rory mentions reading in the Gilmore Girls series.

1. 1984 - George Orwell
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
3. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
5. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
6. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
7. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
9. Archidamian War - Donald Kagen
10. The Art of Fiction - Henry James
11. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
12. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
13. Atonement - Ian McEwan
14. Autobiography of a Face - Lucy Grealy
15. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
16. Babe - Dick King-Smith
17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women - Susan Faludi
18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie
19. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
20. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
21. Beloved - Toni Morrison
22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation - Seamus Heaney
23. The Bhagava Gita
24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews - Peter Duffy
25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women - Elizabeth Wurtzel
26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays - Mary McCarthy
27. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
28. Brick Lane - Monica Ali
29. Bridgadoon - Alan Jay Lerner
30. Candide - Voltaire
31. The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
32. Carrie - Stephen King
33. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
34. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
35. Charlotte’s Web - E. B. White
36. The Children’s Hour - Lillian Hellman
37. Christine - Stephen King
38. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
39. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
40. The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse
41. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty
42. A Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare
43. Complete Novels - Dawn Powell
44. The Complete Poems - Anne Sexton
45. Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker
46. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
47. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas père
48. Cousin Bette - Honor’e de Balzac
49. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
50. The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
51. The Crucible - Arthur Miller
52. Cujo - Stephen King
53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
54. Daisy Miller - Henry James
55. Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende
56. David and Lisa - Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
57. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
58. The Da Vinci -Code - Dan Brown
59. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
60. Demons - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Death of a Salesman -Arthur Miller
62. Deenie - Judy Blume
63. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America - Erik Larson
64. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band - Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
65. The Divine Comedy - Dante
66. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells
67. Don Quijote - Cervantes
68. Driving Miss Daisy - Alfred Uhrv
69. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
70. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems - Edgar Allan Poe
71. Eleanor Roosevelt - Blanche Wiesen Cook
72. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
73. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters - Mark Dunn
74. Eloise - Kay Thompson
75. Emily the Strange - Roger Reger
76. Emma - Jane Austen
77. Empire Falls - Richard Russo
78. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective - Donald J. Sobol
79. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
80. Ethics - Spinoza
81. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 - Rick Steves
82. Eva Luna - Isabel Allende
83. Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
84. Extravagance - Gary Krist
85. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
86. Fahrenheit 9/11 - Michael Moore
87. The Fall of the Athenian Empire - Donald Kagan
88. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World - Greg Critser
89. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
90. The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring - J. R. R. Tolkien
91. Fiddler on the Roof - Joseph Stein
92. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
93. Finnegan’s Wake - James Joyce
94. Fletch - Gregory McDonald
95. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
96. The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
97. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
98. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
99. Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger
100. Freaky Friday - Mary Rodgers
101. Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
102. Gender Trouble - Judith Butler
103. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President - Jacob Weisberg
104. Gidget - Fredrick Kohner
105. Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
106. The Gnostic Gospels - Elaine Pagels
107. The Godfather: Book 1 - Mario Puzo
108. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
109. Goldilocks and the Three Bears - Alvin Granowsky
110. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
111. The Good Soldier - Ford Maddox Ford
112. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
113. The Graduate - Charles Webb
114. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
115. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
116. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
117. The Group - Mary McCarthy
118. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
119. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling
120. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - J. K. Rowling
121. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
122. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
123. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders - Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
124. Henry IV, part I - William Shakespeare
125. Henry IV, part II - William Shakespeare
126. Henry V - William Shakespeare
127. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
128. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon
129. Holidays on Ice: Stories - David Sedaris
130. The Holy Barbarians - Lawrence Lipton
131. House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III
132. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
133. How to Breathe Underwater - Julie Orringer
134. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr. Seuss
135. How the Light Gets In - M. J. Hyland
136. Howl - Allen Gingsburg
137. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
138. The Iliad - Homer
139. I’m with the Band - Pamela des Barres
140. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
141. Inherit the Wind - Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
142. Iron Weed - William J. Kennedy
143. It Takes a Village - Hillary Clinton
144. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
145. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
146. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
147. The Jumping Frog - Mark Twain
148. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
149. Just a Couple of Days - Tony Vigorito
150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar - Robert Alexander
151. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
152. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover - D. H. Lawrence
153. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 - Gore Vidal
154. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
155. The Legend of Bagger Vance - Steven Pressfield
156. Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
157. Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
158. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - Al Franken
159. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
160. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
161. Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens
162. The Little Locksmith - Katharine Butler Hathaway
163. The Little Match Girl - Hans Christian Andersen
164. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
165. Living History - Hillary Rodham Clinton
166. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
167. The Lottery: And Other Stories - Shirley Jackson
168. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
169. The Love Story - Erich Segal
170. Macbeth - William Shakespeare
171. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
172. The Manticore - Robertson Davies
173. Marathon Man - William Goldman
174. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter - Simone de Beauvoir
176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman - William Tecumseh Sherman
177. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
178. The Meaning of Consuelo - Judith Ortiz Cofer
179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy - H. R. Mencken
180. The Merry Wives of Windsro - William Shakespeare
181. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
182. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
183. The Miracle Worker - William Gibson
184. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion - Jim Irvin
186. Moliere: A Biography - Hobart Chatfield Taylor
187. A Monetary History of the United States - Milton Friedman
188. Monsieur Proust - Celeste Albaret
189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister - Julie Mars
190. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
191. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
192. Mutiny on the Bounty - Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath - Seymour M. Hersh
194. My Life as Author and Editor - H. R. Mencken
195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru - Tim Guest
196. My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult
197. The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer
198. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
199. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
200. The Nanny Diaries - Emma McLaughlin
201. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature - Jan Lars Jensen
202. New Poems of Emily Dickinson - Emily Dickinson
203. The New Way Things Work - David Macaulay
204. Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
205. Night - Elie Wiesel
206. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
207. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara . Johnson, John P. McGowan
208. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born - Dawn Powell
209. Notes of a Dirty Old Man - Charles Bukowski
210. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
211. Old School - Tobias Wolff
212. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
213. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
214. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
215. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey
216. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
217. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life - Amy Tan
218. Oracle Night - Paul Auster
219. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
220. Othello - Shakespeare
221. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
222. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War - Donald Kagan
223. Out of Africa - Isac Dineson
224. The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
225. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
226. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition - Donald Kagan
227. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
228. Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
229. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
230. Pigs at the Trough - Arianna Huffington
231. Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi
232. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
233. The Polysyllabic Spree - Nick Hornby
234. The Portable Dorothy Parker - Dorothy Parker
235. The Portable Nietzche - Fredrich Nietzche
236. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill - on Suskind
237. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
238. Property - Valerie Martin
239. Pushkin: A Biography - T. J. Binyon
240. Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw
241. Quattrocento - James Mckean
242. A Quiet Storm - Rachel Howzell Hall
243. Rapunzel - Grimm Brothers
244. The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe
245. The Razor’s Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
246. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi
247. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
248. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggin
249. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
250. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad - Virginia Holman
251. The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 - J. R. R. Tolkien
252. R Is for Ricochet - Sue Grafton
253. Rita Hayworth - Stephen King
254. Robert’s Rules of Order - Henry Robert
255. Roman Fever - Edith Wharton
256. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
257. A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf
258. A Room with a View - E. M. Forster
259. Rosemary’s Baby - Ira Levin
260. Sacred Time - Ursula Hegi
261. Sanctuary - William Faulkner
262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay - Nancy Milford
263. The Scarecrow of Oz - Frank L. Baum
264. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
265. Seabiscuit: An American Legend - Laura Hillenbrand
266. The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
267. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
268. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette - Judith Thurman
269. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 - Dawn Powell
270. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
271. A Separate Peace - John Knowles
272. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
273. Sexus - Henry Miller
274. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
275. Shane - Jack Shaefer
276. The Shining - Stephen King
277. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
278. S Is for Silence - Sue Grafton
279. Slaughter-house Five - Kurt Vonnegut
280. Small Island - Andrea Levy
281. Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway
282. Snow White and Rose Red - Grimm Brothers
283. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
284. The Song of Names - Norman Lebrecht
285. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos - Julia de Burgos
286. The Song Reader - Lisa Tucker
287. Songbook - Nick Hornby
288. The Sonnets - William Shakespeare
289. Sonnets from the Portuegese - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
290. Sophie’s Choice - William Styron
291. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
292. Speak, Memory - Vladimir Nabokov
293. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
294. The Story of My Life - Helen Keller
295. A Streetcar Named Desiree - Tennessee Williams
296. Stuart Little - E. B. White
297. Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
298. Swann’s Way - Marcel Proust
299. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals - Anne Collett
300. Sybil - Flora Rheta Schreiber
301. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
302. Tender Is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
303. Term of Endearment - Larry McMurtry
304. Time and Again - Jack Finney
305. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
306. To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway
307. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
308. The Tragedy of Richard III - William Shakespeare
309. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
310. The Trial - Franz Kafka
311. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters - Elisabeth Robinson
312. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship - Ann Patchett
313. Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
314. Ulysses - James Joyce
315. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 - Sylvia Plath
316.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
317. Unless - Carol Shields
318. Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann
319. The Vanishing Newspaper - Philip Meyers
320. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - in progress
321. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) - Joe Harvard
322. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
323. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
324. Walden - Henry David Thoreau
325. Walt Disney’s Bambi - Felix Salten
326. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
327. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited - Daniel Sinker
328. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 - Richard Nelson Bolles
329. What Happened to Baby Jane - Henry Farrell
330. When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka
331. Who Moved My Cheese - Spencer Johnson
332. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf - Edward Albee
333.  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Gregory Maguire
334. The Wizard of Oz - Frank L. Baum
335. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
336. The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
337. The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
338. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Tool

BBC Book Challenge

Found this list posted at my local new/used bookstore in December and got a copy - thought I'd see how many I've read, and how long it would take me to complete the list! :) (There's supposed to be 100, but there are only 99)

The BBC reckons most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. Let's prove them wrong.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastien Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife -
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Persuasion - Jane Austen
35. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
46. Far From the Madding Crowd- Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
59. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabrial Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Grances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From a Small Island- Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - Thackeray - in progress
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White
87. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Alborn
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince - Antoine - de Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adam
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
99. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Book Reviews: May-June

Not sure why I didn't post this yet (maybe I intended to flesh out the descriptions a bit? Hmm... Too bad), but here were some (possibly not all?) of the books I read between May and June...

Hope in a Jar - Beth Harbison Allie is in her late 20's, goes to her HS reunion and reunites with her friend Olivia to mend old wounds. She gets herself a makeover and realizes she's in love with her best friend, Noah. But Noah is engaged, so she has to break up her best friend's engagement in order to be with the one she loves.

The Lucky One - Nicholas Sparks (Marine finds pic in Afghanistan, considers it his lucky charm. Goes on a quest to find the girl, falls in love, etc. But there are issues when she finds out about the picture and complications from her past.)

The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill (Aminata Diallo is stolen from Africa at 11 years of age, sent to a South Carolina indigo plantation, then gets sold to Charles Town with Lindo Jews, escapes to New York, buys her freedom to Birchtown, Shelburne NS, finds a way back to Sierra Leone to try to get back home, and finally has to escape to England with abolitionists. Loses husband Chekura. Babies Mamadu and May stolen from her.)

Knit Two - Kate Jacobs (second book after Friday Night Knitting Club - how the group deals and heals after Georgia's death.)

Still Missing - Chevy Stevens (told in the form of therapy sessions with a psychiatrist. Annie O'Sullivan, realtor, was abducted after Open House. Held hostage for about a year. Had a dauther named Hope, but she died. She killed her captor in order to escape, but the danger isn't over when she leaves the cabin in the woods. Turns out Mom was behind it all along. There's a love interest with the cop in charge of the case, Gary...)

Death of a Dancer - Caro Peacock (Victorian London murder mystery. Dancer Jenny is accused of killing the famous dancer Columbine at the Augustus theatre and will be hanged. Liberty Lane knows Jenny is innocent and does her best to find the real killer and exonerate Jenny, who is her best friend Daniel's love interest.)

Between Here and April - Deborah Copaken Kogan (Elizabeth Burns comes face to face with a tragedy from her past she thought she had forgotten - the death of her childhood friend April Cassidy. Elizabeth decides to try to find the truth about what happened to April  - the mother, Adele Cassidy, killed herself and 2 daughters with carbon monoxide. In learning more about Adele Cassidy and her undiagnosed PPD, Elizabeth learns more about herself.)

Forecast - Jane Tara (Rowena "Rowie" Shakespeare, is a psychic, from a long matriarchal line. She's a fiery redhead who can predict the weather and see your future with a kiss - and she's never wrong. Drew Henderson is the local weather reporter and heartthrob. When he falls thru a roof covering a tornado story, Rowie gets asked to take his place. Jessie, the producer and Drew's jealous ex, believes that she and Drew were meant to be together, he just needs to see it for himself. So once he's home, she bets Drew that he can't get Rowie to kiss him by the end of the night, and also tells Rowie that she should kiss him and tell him who he's meant to be with so he can get over past heartaches. The energy between them needs no persuasion and Rowie and Drew do kiss, but Rowie doesn't see anything. Is he her One True Love, at last?)

Book Reviews: April Reads

April has been a slow reading month for me. The month itself seems to have flown by and lots has happened, which is probably why I haven't been reading as much. In any case, here are the books I've read:

The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley. This was quite a fun little story about a girl, Jessica Wild, who just tells one little lie that gets her into a heap of trouble. Jessica never knew who her father was and mother died when she was 2, so her grandmother raised her and Jessica dutifully went to visit her grandmother in the home. Then gram dies leaving Jessica with no family at all. But another lady from the home, Grace, becomes her friend and asks Jessica to continue visiting her, which she does happily. Grace is always asking Jessica about her love life and finally Jessica cracks. What can it hurt to tell an old woman she's got a boyfriend if it makes her happy? So Jessica tells Grace that she has a boyfriend called Anthony Milton - who is, in fact, her handsome boss. Grace is happy, but then Jessica makes the biggest lie of all and tells Grace they got married. But it's worth it to make the older woman so happy, right? Then Grace dies and Jessica learns that Grace was actually quite well to do and left an entire inheritance to Jessica. Jessica Milton, that is. She has 50 days to convince Anthony to marry her so she can get her inheritance. Can she do it?

Before I Wake by Robert J Wiersema. This was a crazy, weird, but good read! It's about this little girl who is involved in a hit and run accident, leaving her in a coma. The doctors said she would never wake up and so her parents made the difficult decision of removing her from life support. She stopped breathing and her heart stopped for a moment, but she continued to live for a year. The driver of the vehicle who hit her disappeared. During the year, they move her home and hire a nurse to help take care of her, her parents separate, and then weird things start happening. The story is told from the point of view of many different people, making it interesting and keeping you on your toes. I won't say anything else that could ruin the ending, but it might have you believing in miracles if you didn't before.

A Breath Away by Rita Herron. This was a really good romance mystery, I got really into it. Violet's childhood was traumatized when her best friend, Darlene, was murdered. Violet's psychic connection to Darlene in those last moments as she tried to tell the searches where to look for the little girl, still haunt her. Then Violet's father sends her away with her grandmother and she never sees him again. Twenty years later, Violet starts having visions again, of dying women, just like when Darlene died. Then they get the shocking news that Violet's father is dead - it looks like suicide, and there was a note near his body saying he killed Darlene. Violet doesn't believe her father was a killer. She goes back to Crow's Landing to bury her father and find the truth. Darlene's older brother, Grady, is now the town sheriff, and Darlene's death still haunts him, too. He is also now on a mission to find the truth, no matter the cost. How is it that Violet has a connection to these women she's never met? And how many secrets can one little town hold?

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah - This was a crazy good read, it had me crying at various points. It's a chilling tale of one woman's escape from Soviet Russia, and the journey she and her daughters make from strangers to family, with a happy, surprising twist at the end. :)

By the way... this new blogger is kind of weird! Just had to mention that...

Book Reviews: March Madness

Well, March has been a productive month for me, as far as reading goes! I read almost as many books this month as I did in the last 2 months combined. Wow! I have no life... But, chances are good that I'm going to meet or even exceed my goal of 52 books in the year 2012!

So to begin, I read what I consider to be an Indie type book called The Orphan Sister. It's the story of grown triplets (identical twins and their singleton triplet), told from the POV of _, the singleton. I find the dynamics of multiples fascinating. The identical twins can read each others' thoughts, finish sentences and hold entire conversations without opening their mouths. _ struggles with wanting to be more a part of that bond, and craving her independence from her sisters. In the end, the sisters all learn

Next I read the last 2 books of the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Totally gripping, with much more insight into the workings of the Capitol and Panem in general. Finnick is definitely the sort of character I would have a crush on. Catching Fire helped endear Gale to me (I was not a fan in the first book) and I can see why people would prefer him, but I'm Team Peeta all the way. However, we have to remember that this is not a love story. The love triangle is merely an added bonus to pique the interest of young girls (and, ok, grown women, too). There is plenty of action to entertain boys of all ages, but not so gorey to be distasteful. This is definitely my current favourite series. It took me weeks to get out of Panem in my mind, Suzanne Collins does such a thorough job of sucking her readers into Katniss' world. I also managed to see the film opening night (totally would have gone to the pre-showing Thursday, but I couldn't find anyone willing to stay up late to go with me). It was a good representation and I look forward to the rest of the movies, to see how they tie everything together and make up for the parts they left out...

Due to my mind being drenched in Panem, it took me a while to get into the Body Movers romantic-murder-mystery books. But once I did, I was hooked. It was a shock and disappointment to learn that there are, in fact, 6 books in the series, and I only have the first 3 (Body Movers, Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1, and Body Movers: 3 Men and a Body). *sad face* Carlotta Wren is a great character. Reminiscent of Sophie Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood, but a bit more responsible and down to earth. Carlotta and her younger brother Wesley have been on their own for 10 years now, since their parents abandoned them during their father's trial after he was allegedly accused of investment fraud from the firm where he was a partner. The then 18-year old Carlotta lost everything; the mansion and privileged lifestyle she was accustomed to, her friends, her parents, and then her fiance, Peter Ashford (handsome and wealthy). All she had was Wesley (then 9 years old) and the townhouse her parents had bought in her name. She's done her best to raise Wesley, but it's tough! Wesley gets arrested by Detective Jack Terry in the first book for hacking into the court house's system. Detective Terry (big, strong, Southern) makes a great love interest for Carlotta, and also seems to always be at the right place at the right time to bail her out. Then Peter waltzes back into her life, making an interesting little love triangle. But then, as if the girl isn't lucky enough to have 2 guys interested in her, Wesley gets a job moving bodies for the morgue and his boss, Cooper "Coop" Craft (Mr. Mysterious) turns into another interested party! Carlotta manages to get herself into trouble as well, over and over throughout the books, tangled in various murders, but with 4 guys looking out for her, and her quirky best friend Hannah, life's not so bad!

After all that romance and frivolous murder, I was in the mood for something a bit more serious. I had recently purchased Shutter Island (have only seen parts of the movie), but I knew the story, more or less. I thought reading the book might clarify things. Hardly. I didn't enjoy the writing style, it read too much like a movie, which confused me a bit. The overall story was captivating and exercised the mind a bit, which is always good. But it's not a book I would be inclined to read again, or even to keep. If interested, drop me a line, I could probably give you a good price...

After that I went back to my frivolous, flirty books to read Shopaholic & Sister by Sophie Kinsella. A great installment to the Shopaholic series. Becky is now married to Luke Brandon. In the beginning of the book, they are on their year-long honeymoon travelling around the world, have all sorts of wondering experiences, and buying all sorts of extravagant souvenirs, of course! Becky goes behind Luke's back to buy a bunch of really expensive items and then of course has to lie and sneak her way around telling him. They decide to head home early because Becky misses her family and friends and Luke has some business deals he wants to take care of, but they don't tell anyone they're coming, which ends up being a bit of a flop. Her parents aren't home when they get there, and when they do show up they act really weird. Then she goes to visit her best friend Suze, who has made a new best friend! Then Becky's parents tell her she actually has a half sister, and she is just so excited about the prospect and the idea of a replacement for Suze. But Becky's sister, Jess, is nothing like her. After a lot of misadventures, Becky and Jess finally accept each other for who they are, Suze and Becky make up, and Becky and Luke are pregnant!

And yesterday I finished, The Wedding Girl, by Madeleine Wickam (Sophie Kinsella). Main character Milly is wild at heart, but nobody knows just how wild she really is. When she was 18 she made some gay friends who asked her to marry one of them so he could stay in the country. It was too much of an adventure for Milly to miss, so she agreed. Ten years later, Milly is engaged to Simon Pinnacle, and days before the wedding, she meets her photographer, Alexander - the same young man who was witness to her first marriage and even has a picture of her to prove it. Alexander's presence, and teasing, gets Milly into a real panic and she decides that she needs to find Allan, the man she married, to know if he finalized their divorce, or if they're still married - all without telling anyone but her sister, Isobel, and godmother, Esme. She eventually finds Rupert (Allan's former lover), and Rupert eventually finds Allan. But not before someone tells the priest and everyone, including Simon, learns the truth, and they call the wedding off 2 days before. But is it off for good, or can true love conquer a few lies from the past?

This puts me at 18 books (currently in week 13), which means only 34 to go in 39 weeks! Wish me luck!