Category Archives: FaveBooks

Favorite Books of 2024

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Let’s start with the numbers:

For someone who does not do a lot of unnecessary math in adult life, I really do love statistics. So I’m about to hit you with some good ones! I read 132 books in 2024. I always set my goal as 100–because there have been years when I haven’t made it. For example I only read 88, 97, and 67 (what?) books, respectively, in 2020 (hello, global panini), 2016 (second year at a new school, had changed content areas) and 2013 (early teaching). In the 13 reading years from 2012-2024, I averaged 117 books a year. The last five years I have apparently given up other parts of life because I’ve averaged 140 reads a year for 2020-2024. Nuts.

I am a repeat-author offender. I read eight books by Percival Everett in 2024 (I’m sort of on a mission to be an Everett-completist; however some of his older books are not in the Chicago Public Library collections so we’ll see), five by Veronica Roth (three rereads), and three each by Naomi Novik (one re-read), Nghi Vo, Elle Kennedy (sometimes a girl needs her smut), and Neal Shusterman.

I read 55 fiction books, 29 science fiction or fantasy, 13 non-fiction (WHOA!), 21 poetry collections and 11 graphic novels (three non-fiction and 11 fiction). So across genre and type: out of the 132, 95 were fiction (71%, a little low for me, frankly, ha), 16 were non-fiction, which is a wildly high number for me, and 21 were poetry collections, which honestly tend to contain both fiction and non- within the span of a collection, although I do notice that Storygraph files them as nonfiction.

Highest of Highlights:

My very, very favorite read in any genre, but particularly fiction, for 2024 was “Wounded” by Percival Everett. Yes, I read James. Yes, I see it getting all the glory. Yes, I found it a good read. I did not find it as good a read as Wounded. I’ve read roughly 22 of Everett’s books at this point, and my favorites are: 1) Wounded; 2) The Trees; 3) Erasure; 4) Watershed; and 5) I Am Not Sidney Poitier.

I have really been reading a lot more non-fiction here in the old age of my 50s and I can lay at least part of the blame at the footsteps of Hanif Abdurraqib who put out my favorite nonfiction of 2024, a breathtaking memoir “There’s Always This Year.” Swoontastic. Abudurraqib’s writing is so beautiful that it actually becomes deceiving–when he writes about music, I want to buy every album he recommends. In fact, I did for a while, and it turns out our musical taste overlap is only about 25% of what he listens to, heh. Fortunately this memoir contains a lot of basketball, which I already loved, so I wasn’t fighting my instincts the whole time. It was glorious.

And my favorite poetry of 2024 was Victoria Cheng’s collection “With My Back to the World.” Beautiful, self-deprecating, humorous, and so much play with form. But warning: if you’re already depressed, this might not be a good prescription for you.

My favorite graphic novel reads in 2024 were the three books that comprise the Friday series by Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente: 1) Friday Book One: The First Day of Christmas; 2) Friday Book Two: On a Cold Winter’s Night; and 3) Friday Book Three: Christmas Time Is Here Again. These are also the books that made me most want to: 1) reread Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden; 2) rewatch Veronica Mars; and 3) be a precocious teen again.

Other Very Favorite Fiction:

  • Menewood, by Nicola Griffith. Finally the sequel to Hild. It was my first fresh read of 2024 and it broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. I will never be done reading these two books.
  • Enter Ghost, by Isabella Hammad. Definitely a book of this time and this moment in history. Also just a beautiful book with gorgeous ideas, interesting relationships, and such a tangibly fleshed out world. I went back and read her first novel after this. She joined my favorite living authors list this year and I’m so glad my dad told me about her, and then the NYRB told me about her, and now I am telling everyone about her.
  • I also really liked Big Swiss by Jen Beagin; James by Percival Everett, mentioned above; Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, which is just wildly gorgeous on a sentence level, and did you know you can’t hashtag that title on Instagram? Politics rule the world; Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino; The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut, another “I want to read everything he publishes author for me, after “When We Cease to Understand the World” in 2022; and, perhaps last summer’s hottest book, God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

Other Favorite Non-Fiction:

  • Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe. OMG this book is so good. It sent me seeking out PRK all over the place. I’m listening to his podcast about the CIA potentially writing a German band’s hit song, I’m listening to every interview he’s ever gone, I’m obsessed. I guess I need to watch the series.
  • The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, by Wright Thompson. Wowza. This book is amazing. It has a very spiraling structure (like a math curriculum, ha) and there are points at which you wonder why a particular tangent is happening, but it all ties together in the end. Very powerful. Here’s my GoodReads review if you need to hear more.
  • I also really liked How Far the Light Reaches, by Sabrina Imbler, a gorgeous exploration of identity via exploring sea creatures; Here After by Amy Lin, the best book I’ve read on grief since Madeline L’Engles’ book about her husband’s death from cancer in The Crosswick Series (volume 4 I think); and Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, by Chris LaTray, a poet I’m kinda obsessed with.

Other Favorite Poetry:

  • I loved Good Boys by Megan Fernandes, as I dig into her back catalog after adoring her 2023 release “I Do Everything I’m Told.”
  • I am also loving finally digging into Diane Seuss, both Frank: sonnets and American Poetry were excellent; and I also loved Safia Elhilo’s January Children after predviously loving “Girls That Never Die.”

Other Favorite Graphic Novels:

  • I’m still reading the ongoing series Saga (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), Monstress (Marjorie M. Liu), and Something Is Killing the Children (James Tynion IV). I also really enjoyed Shadowlife by Hiromi Goto.

A few other thoughts:

The books I found most unexpectedly charming:

  • Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
  • Familia by Lauren E. Rico (a purchase at the San Juan airport)
  • Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

The books that broke my brain the hardest: everything in the Atlas Complex series by Olivie Blake.

The most fun series I read was the Scholomance books by Naomi Novik (I reread the first one and fresh read the last two with a student and we had such fun conversations about them, so shout out Kamilo!).

The sexist books I read were Wolfsong by T.J. Klune and its sequels (although there are elements that get very repetitive and I haven’t been able to finish the last one, Brothersong).

The book I liked that was certainly the most unexpected to become a movie: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.

The author I’m coming around on: Sally Rooney. I really liked Intermezzo (and previously “Beautiful World, Where Are You”) after not loving either “Normal People” (and its overwhelming sadomasochism).

And I loved revisiting Ray Carney and his world in Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (I looooved “Harlem Shuffle”).

What about you? What were your favorite reads last year? What am I missing? Comments are open!

(Also if you want to see the complete list, you can view it on GoodReads or StoryGraph both of which I am doing. StoryGraph is better, ethically, but the community aspect on GoodReads is much stronger.)

Books you should go read, now.

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Hello, 2019. Let’s talk about 2018 some more. I have done a terrible job of keeping this blog up to date–in fact, this year I completely failed to keep up any of my lists (books, movies, concerts). Fortunately with books, it’s not a complete disaster as I do keep my Goodreads pretty much 100% up to date at all times. So, if you want to see my ever evolving list as it evolves, follow me there.

In 2018, I read 110 books, which is fairly normal for me. I generally read around 100 and am bitterly disappointed if I read less. This school year has started off strong, as I’ve instituted a goal where in the morning on the way there I read my current YA or middle grades book and in the afternoon on the way home I read my current adult book. It’s really kept things going, and it’s easier to notice when I clearly don’t like a book because I keep not reading on that leg of the journey! 😉

Just roughly looking over the list, I read 33 books by minority authors, 36 books that were clearly sci fi/fantasy, 4 teaching books, 6 nonfiction (not counting the teaching books, which would make it 10 which is…kinda high actually! ha!), and about 18 of my 110 were graphic novels.

Here are my top 10 reads from 2018: (not in any particular order, just numbered for the sake of numbering)

  1. Cravings 2: Hungry for More by Chrissy Teigen (cookbook). I absolutely love this cookbook, I love the way she writes, her enthusiasm and bubbly personality come right off the page. I’ve made 8 things out of it so far and they’ve all been fabulous!
  2. If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Already, by Cordell Strug. Yup, my dad’s book is in my top 10. Apparently I read a draft of this many years ago, but I didn’t remember that much of it. If you like Confederacy of Dunces, or Straight Man, I’d suggest you check this out. It’s a comedy of errors and quite enjoyable.
  3. Electric Arches, by Eve Ewing (poetry). A Chicago poet who also published this year a non-fiction text on southside Chicago schools, these poems tell the story of her childhood and her growing up and her growing understanding. If I was raising black girls, I would make them read this. But as a whitey white, there were so many moments in here that also resonated deeply with my childhood. Here’s how I started my GoodReads review: This book is so good I kept right on reading it at a bus stop in 20 degrees without mittens while the chill wind snapped the pages back against my numb fingers. 
  4. The Obelisk Gate (Broken Earth book 2), by N.K. Jemisin. The middle book of a trilogy–all of which are amazing and all of which won the Hugo in their year of publication!!–this was the one I loved best of the three. So, so, so good. Best sci fi/fantasy series out there right now. Read it!!!
  5. Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer book 2), by Laini Taylor. Another series (a duology, thankfully) I feel like I was waiting for this book forever and when it finally arrived, I just swallowed it up. The magic and the imagery in this series is just unmatchable–so evocative, and sensual, and scary, and intense.
  6. Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. This book has a slow start, it’s got multiple first-person perspectives, it jumps wildly from mind to mind, country to country. And it’s so damn powerful and good. Who has power, who matters, why, who do we love, why, what makes a person worth something, what doesn’t. Deep ideas, deep down in this fairytale word. I was breathless at the end.
  7. Endling #1: The Last, by Katherine Applegate. Not at all the next book I expected from the author of The One and Only Ivan, this is high fantasy at a middle grade readability level. Fascinating world building, great character development. I can’t wait to see where this series goes!
  8. The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill. Like Spinning Silver, this dips deep down into fairytale foundations to tell a story so true and real, it’ll break your heart. It had been in my classroom library for a while before Gabriel and Natalie told me READ IT! and wow was I missing out!
  9. Monstress Volume 2, by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda (graphic novel). Second book of what has been three so far but will be going on for quite a while, I expect. Another sci fi/fantasy world full of different factions fighting for control–I actually had to reread the first book a couple of times to keep track of who was on which side of things. The art in these books is amazing, the mysteries are intriguing, the monster is bewildering and terrifying. They’re super, super cool.
  10. The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black. I read this at lightning speed, it’s SO GOOD. Gave it to a student, and honestly we have been counting down the days until book 2 comes out (this month!!). It’s SO right on with the stings and tangles of growing up, of finding yourself, of being left out, of being let in. Oh, it’s just…bitter and beautiful and so very good.

What were your favorites this year? Leave me a comment or send me an email, because if I haven’t read it yet, I probably want to! 🙂

p.s. I saw The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas on a lot of 2018 lists–just thought I’d point out that I do love that book, but I read it in 2017.

ETA: (edited to add) WOW, I am so forgetful that I didn’t realize that a lot of what I said here, I already said in my very most previous post on Dec 14th. DOH. I recommend most of the same books and tell you the same story about the bus. Welcome to past-middle-aged me, you can probably expect a lot of that kind of repetition. HA.

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2011

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I read 113 books in 2011 which is higher than my 85-book average for the past 6 years (see more stats here) but pretty much par for the course. Also I don’t usually include textbooks and articles on my reading lists but this year I did include all the children’s and YA fiction I read for a class I took this fall because, after all, it was fiction! 🙂 It wasn’t a class that counted toward my degree, just an elective I had been wanting to take. Only crazy people take an extra class during student teaching though; I can’t say I really recommend it!

I read more non-fiction than usual (a lot of memoirs!) but no short stories at all. What? (I did start 2012 off with some though!)

It’s always hard to pin these things down, but…

My top six very favorite books read during 2011 were (not in any order) “Wonderstruck” by Brian Selznick, Love Is the Higher Law, by David Levithan, “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God”, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (that’s fiction, despite its non-fiction-like sounding title), “Mother’s Milk” by Edward St. Aubyn and “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin.

I also really really loved two of the last books I read in December: “A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness (not at all Twilight for adults, as I keep seeing it called–the quirks of the publishing industry’s advertising could really drive one to madness, couldn’t they?) and “Falling Together” by Marisa de los Santos.

I do read a ton of both adult and YA fantasy/sci fi, as you might know heh, and my favorites in 2011 were “Divergent” by Veronica Roth, “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, “Aftertime” by Sophie Littlefield, “Across the Universe” by Beth Revis and “Hunger” by Jackie Morse Kessler.

Other YA, but not fantasy, or not really, books I loved were “Ninth Ward” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and both “Okay for Now” and “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt. And I particularly loved a novel in verse “Inside Out & Back Again” by Thanhha Lai.

I enjoyed Rosanne Cash and Keith Richards‘ memoirs, I loved both the fiction and non-fiction I read by David H. Hackworth, widely known as one of America’s most decorated soldiers (now deceased), I would recommend absolutely any and everything (romance and memoir) written by my good friend Rachael Herron and if you want to revisit my favorite fantasy books of all time as I did this year I recommend The Tornor Chronicles by Elizabeth A. Lynn (book 1 is “Watchtower”) and The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander (book 1 is “The Book of Three”).

I read a LOT of stuff I loved this year, a lot of stuff that was good and fun and only a very few things I wish I hadn’t wasted time on and most of those wouldn’t wind up appearing on the read list anyway! 🙂 I grew out of that whole “I HAVE to finish every book I start!” baloney in my late 30s. There just isn’t time for bad books. And there are SO many good ones out there!!

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2008

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So I only read 79 books in 2008 which is definitely on the low end for me. Then I checked the numbers and found that I have read fewer books each year since 2004. What’s up with that? 2004 = 114, 2005 = 96, 2006 =87, 2007 = 85 and now 2008 = 79. This is NOT a trend I want to see continuing…but since I’ve already read more than 20 books in 2009 so far…I *think* it may be under control.

As with other lists, this is not necessarily books published in 2008, it’s books I read in 2008, regardless of when published.

My Favorite Ten Books of 2008 Were:
(in chronological order of my reading, with links to my Snip reviews)

Runners-Up Were:

Breaking things down in the manner of Ex Libris, of the 79 books I read:

  • 10 were short-story collections, either by one author or by various authors. Part of that was by design (Dad and I read short stories every other month for our 2008 challenge). And part because Elizabeth Crane got me all excited about short stories a couple years ago and I read them much more now than I did in the past.
  • Eight were non-fiction, but since five of those were BStarG nonfiction…well, that’s more a TV thing than a “me reading non-fiction” thing. So it’s more like three were non-fiction.
  • And two were poetry. But I don’t always put the poetry on the list, particularly if it’s a re-read, so that may not be totally accurate.
  • Not counting the BStarG non-fiction, there were eight authors I read more than one book by: five with two reads (Nick Hornby, David Malouf, Dick Francis, Rita Mae Brown, Lee Child); one with three (Paul Park), and two tied for most repeats with six reads, those authors being Harlan Coben and Patricia Briggs. Coben writes the Myron Bolitar mysteries, which I do enjoy, although I find I enjoy them less as the series has gone on (see the last one I read). Patricia Briggs writes truly fantastic sci fi and fantasy, some set in that indefinable middle ages/medieval seeming world so typical of fantasy (try this or this), and some (the Mercy Thompson books) set in the modern day. Everything I’ve read by her I have loved and I would recommend all of it.

You can read reviews of other books I read in 2008 not discussed here if you search for their names on Snip or you can just click on “reading” in the categories list to read any/all comments I’ve taken the time to post. I’m always happy to talk books so feel free to email me (link in right column) if you want more details on one or another or if you want to recommend something you think I’d like!

Now back to the book I started today…

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2007

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I read 85 books (full list here) in 2007, that’s probably about average for me, sometimes closer to 100, rarely below 50. Books may or may not have come out this year, it’s that I read them this year that counts.

My Favorite Six Books of 2007 were:

  • “Winter’s Bone” by Daniel Woodrell (fiction)
  • “Love Is a Mix Tape” by Rob Sheffield (memoir/music)
  • “The Used World” by Haven Kimmel (fiction)
  • “Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work” by Jason Brown (short stories)
  • “Remainder” by Tom McCarthy (fiction)
  • “Freddy and Fredericka” by Mark Helprin (fiction / really, really funny)

(Very very close) Runners Up Were:

  • “Run” by Ann Patchett
  • “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith” by Jon Krakauer (wow, could NOT put it down. he’s a great researcher/writer)
  • “Simplify” by Todd Goldberg
  • “The Uncommon Reader” by Alan Bennett (sooo funny)
  • “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon

Favorite New (to me) Discoveries:

  • Scarlett Thomas (“The End of Mr. Y” – philosophical fiction)
  • Margo Lanagan (“Black Juice” and “Red Spikes” – thanks Marrije!! – fantasy short stories)
  • Tana French (“In the Woods” – best mystery I read this year!!)
  • Chris Cleave (“Incendiary” – fiction)

I Read a Bunch of Good Books by Authors I Already Loved:
The aforementioned books from Haven Kimmel (and “She Got Up Off the Couch…” too), Ann Patchett (and “Taft” too) and Michael Chabon (and “Gentlemen of the Road” too). As well as:

  • “The Rain Before It Falls” by Jonathan Coe
  • “Day” by A.L.Kennedy
  • “Death of a Writer” by Michael Collins
  • “The Quarry” by Damon Galgut (won the Booker for his previous book “The Good Doctor”)
  • “Killing Pablo” by Mark Bowden (can he write a bad book?)
  • “12 Edmondstone Street” by David Malouf
  • “Black Cat” by Martyn Bedford
  • “An Invisible Sign of My Own” by Aimee Bender
  • “Ludmilla’s Broken English” by DBC Pierre (another former Booker winner)

I read some more “Looks like Chick Lit but Isn’t (It’s Better!)” (Leah Stewart, Marisa de los Santos, Nina Solomon). I continued to work on Proust (three down, three to go?). I read mysteries from Jake Arnott, Lee Child, Dick Francis, and Harlan Coben. I read bits of different sci fi/fantasy series (James Morrow, a true god of writing; Terry Goodkind’s Chainfire & Sword of Truth series; George R.R. Martin). I read books about vampires and werewolves and the like (Tanya Huff, Patricia Briggs, Stephenie Meyers, Amber Benson & Christopher Golden among others) and that’s not even counting all the Buffy Season 8 comics!

It was a good year.

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2006

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[originally posted on Snip]
[Limiting myself MOSTLY to books published and read this year, as opposed to all the books I read this year.]
The best NON fiction books I read this year were “Guests of the Ayatollah” by Mark Bowden and “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion.
The best novels I read were “Black Swan Green” by David Mitchell, “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn and “Towing Jehovah” by James Morrow [that one was not pub this year].
The best short stories I read were “In Persuasian Nation” by George Saunders and “When the Messenger Is Hot” by Elizabeth Crane (not from this year either).
The best poetry was “Strong Is Your Hold” by Galway Kinnell.
You can view the entire list of what I read here and reviews of most items are up on Snip (search by author or select category “readin”).

Duff Says “READ!!” And, sometimes, watch a movie too.

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Always Recommending Almost Anything By

  • Phillip Roth
  • Pat Barker
  • David Lodge
  • Haven Kimmel
  • Jonathan Coe
  • A.L. Kennedy
  • Graham Swift
  • Penelope Fitzgerald
  • Marilynne Robinson
  • Elizabeth A. Lynn

Moving into Greatness
  • David Mitchell, particularly “Black Swan Green”
  • Michael Cunningham, particularly “The Hours” and “Specimen Days”

Fun and Foibles in Academia
  • Michael Malone “Foolscap”
  • Richard Russo “Straight Man”
  • Michael Chabon “Wonder Boys”
  • Michael Frayne “Headlong” (not exactly academia, but feels like it)
  • David Lodge (pretty much all his books)
  • William Boyd (the novels are not IN academia but his characters could easily go there)

Good Things Come in Pairs
  • Ann Patchett “Bel Canto” and Niall Williams “As It Is in Heaven”
  • Nick Hornby “High Fidelity” and Tom Perrotta “The Wishbones”
  • Joan Didion “The Year of Magical Thinking” and Philip Roth “Everyman”

Favored Among Others
  • “King Hereafter” Dorothy Dunnett
  • “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” Michael Chabon
  • “In This House of Brede” Rumer Godden
  • “Lonesome Dove” Larry McMurtry (and the three that go with it)
  • “The Shellseekers” Rosamunde Pilcher
  • “The History of Love” Nicole Krauss
  • “Gone to Soldiers” Marge Piercy
  • “Birdsong” Sebastian Faulks
  • “The Lords of Discipline” by Pat Conroy (get over the fact that he wrote Prince of Tides and read this anyway)

My Top 7 Books on March 5, 1997
  • “Kim” Rudyard Kipling
  • “Possession” A.S. Byatt
  • “The Engima of Arrival” V.S. Naipaul
  • “As I Lay Dying” Faulkner
  • “The Baron in the Trees” Italo Calvino
  • “Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha” by Roddy Doyle
  • “Speak, Memory” Nabokov

Academically Dense
  • A.S. Byatt
  • Anne Carson
  • Jasper Fforde, the Tuesday Next series (you can read these and just MISS most of the literary references, and they’re still fun, but you can tell when stuff is flying over your head…)

Serious Sci Fi
  • Neal Stephenson “Cryptonomicon” is a great, great book.
  • Maureen McHugh “Mothers and Other Monsters”
  • Mary Doria Russell “The Sparrow” and “Children of God”

Time Travel
  • Audrey Niffenegger “The Time Traveler’s Wife”
  • Diana Gabaldon the Outlander series (I really love the first three, after that it falls off a bit)
  • Connie Willis “Doomsday Book” and “To Say Nothing of the Dog”

Read This Book AND See This Movie
  • Michael Ondaatje “The English Patient”
  • Milan Kundera “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
  • Nick Hornby “About a Boy”
  • Mark Bowden “Black Hawk Down”
  • Read Stuart O’Nan “Wish You Were Here” and watch “A Walk on the Moon”
  • Read Philip Caputo “Acts of Faith” and watch “The Constant Gardener”

Read This Book BUT do NOT See This Movie
  • Michael Connelley “Blood Work”
  • Cathleen Schine “The Love Letter”
  • Nick Hornby “High Fidelity”

Looks Like Chick Lit But Isn’t (It’s Better!!)
  • Darcy Cosper “Wedding Season”
  • Rebecca Wells “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Little Altars Everywhere”
  • Elisabeth Robinson “The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters”

Yes and No
  • Ian McEwan. YES: “Atonement” NO: “Saturday”
  • Zadie Smith. YES: “White Teeth” and “The Autograph Man” NO: “On Beauty”
  • Nick Hornby. YES: “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy” NO: “How to Be Good” and “A Long Way Down”
  • Alice Hoffman. YES: “Here on Earth” NO: “Turtle Magic”
  • Michael Connelly. YES: “Bloodwork” “The Poet” and the first five or six in the Harry Bosch series. NO: Everything written since then.
  • Dennis Lehane. YES: The (4 or 5?) Kenzie/Gennaro books. NO: The stand-alones.

One-Offs
  • Patrick Susskind “Perfume”
  • Martyn Bedford “The Houdini Girl”

Small-Town Blues
  • Haven Kimmel “A Girl Named Zippy”
  • Nicole Lea Helget “The Summer of Ordinary Ways”

Take Me to Another Place
  • Hilary Lifton & Kate Montgomery “Dear Exile”
  • anything by Bill Holm, but particularly “Coming Home Crazy”
  • anything by Sara Wheeler, particularly her Antarctica books
  • Anthony Bourdain “A Cook’s Tour”
  • Bill Bryson
  • Jenny Diski
  • Jeannette Wells “The Glass House”
  • Deborah Copaken Kogan “Shutterbabe”
  • Alexandra Fuller “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight”
  • Bruce Chatwin
  • Bruce Feiler

GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2005

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My Top 5 books of 2005 were (in this order):

  • Paradise, by A.L. Kennedy
  • History of Love, by Nicole Krauss
  • Mothers & Other Monsters, by Maureen McHugh
  • Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
  • The Closed Circle, by Jonathan Coe

Yes, to those of you who saw that list before, I switched the order a little.

Runners Up were:

  • Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (does what Ghostwritten tried to do, but so much better)
  • An Unfinished Season, by Ward Just
  • Specimen Days, by Michael Cunningham (can he write a bad book? Seriously?)
  • Old School, by Tobias Wolff

My favorite new discovery in 2005 was: A.L. Kennedy. Everything I read by her took my breath away. And there’s still a couple books waiting in the wings. Can’t wait!
Those were my top five, but I read sooooo many good books this year.

I read good OLD books:

  • To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
  • Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
  • The Way by Swann’s, by Marcel Proust

I read a truly shocking (for me) amount of non-fiction:

  • Sixpence House, by Paul Collins
  • A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel
  • The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
  • The Lives of the Muses, by Francine Prose
  • Wine & War, the French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure, by Don & Petie Kladstrup
  • Foreign Babes in Beijing, by Rachel DeWoskin
  • Travels with a Tangerine, by Tim MacKintosh-Smith
  • Why Are We at War?, by Norman Mailer
  • Silent Bob Speaks, the Collected Writings of Kevin Smith
  • The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty, by K.C. Cole
  • In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson

I read historical fiction that only added more things to my ‘must’ lists:

  • Author, Author, by David Lodge (must go back and read some Henry James. Haven’t read any since undergrad!!)
  • Neighboring Lives, by Thomas Disch and Charles Naylor (need to read some pre-Raphaelites again. And look at their paintings. It’s been ages…)

GirlReaction Reads: Best of 2004

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Best Novel read in 2004: The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth.

Runners-Up: The Houdini Girl, by Martyn Bedford and The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard.

Favorite New Discoveries: Jonathan Coe (“The Rotters Club” and “The Winshaw Legacy”), William Boyd (“Any Human Heart”, “The New Confessions” and “Stars and Bars”), Alison McGhee (“Rainlight” and “Shadow Baby”) and Haven Kimmel (“Something Rising (Light and Swift)” and “The Solace of Leaving Early”).