In the interests of good-blog-housekeeping and future retrieval, I thought I’d transfer my list of Recently Read Books into a single post for 2007. Again, sorry to subscribers for clogging up your mailbox with a not-so-interesting post, but this will only happen annually and I think it will make for a neater, better-organized blog. These are the books I’ve read since beginning my blog back in July, and having such a list is one of the significant benefits, for me, of keeping a blog — while books I read before July this year are already being lost to memory, short of seeking them out on my bookshelves, books read post-July 2007 can now be tracked, something I’ve meant to do for years, but never got round to.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, and Love. If anything were to inspire me to make New Year’s resolutions, this would be the book. A definite nudge to incorporating the spiritual into one’s everyday life, but there’s nothing about this writer’s voice that sounds like proselytizing. Moving, funny, inspiring, this was a joy to read, and would make a wonderful gift as well. And now I really want to visit Italy! (Figures I’d be most moved by the “eat” section)
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp’s Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe.
I’ve included some of my favourite bits from thishere.
Ian Rankin’s Exit Music — sadly, this is supposedly the end of John Rebus for his many readers, although we’ll all be hoping for some kind of comeback, perhaps similarly to what Michael Connelly managed for Harry Bosch.
James Lee Burke’s Pegasus Descending
Nancy Milford’s Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay which I posted abouthere
Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter — this is a must-read, either to validate your conviction that today’s television programs are made for smarter audiences than those dramas and sitcoms of the 50’s, 60’s and 70s or to challenge your pre-conceptions of video games and reality tv being mind-numbing and violence-inducing
Toni Morrison’s Jazz
Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations
Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip briefly reviewed this here
James Lee Burke’s The Tin Roof Blowdown — scalding indictment of the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina/New Orleans
Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love–quirky, poignant, often painful yet wryly optimistic exploration of the long-reaching effects of trauma and the choices possible in response to them–collection of oddly endearing characters
Anna Gavalda’s Hunting and Gathering, trans. from French by Alison Anderson. I posted a review of this here
Debra Weinstein’s Apprentice to the Flower Poet, Z.
Lawrence Hill’s Some Great Thing
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes
Lawrence Hill’s Any Known Blood
Vikram Chand’s Sacred Games. For a brief excerpt–a charming bit of knitlit actually –from this epic detective novel, see my post here.
what an impressive list. It’s a great idea recording the books you’ve read. I find myself recommending reads to people and not quite getting the name write or author. Normally I leave my finished books(unless it’s special) on the skytrain for someone else so maybe a New Years resolution for me should be “keep note of books you’ve read” seems manageable
Hilary
What a wonderfully eclectic list! I, too, have been meaning to keep track of my reading for years. It’s so interesting to see the patterns in such a list.
Happy New Year!
Puttermeister
I only read Eat, Pray Love, and I was largely irritated on my first pass. I waited a year, picked it up in paperback and devoured it like a tourist devouring a plate of spaghetti on their first night in Rome. Like you, I was most moved by the Italy portion.
Puttermeister — It is eclectic, isn’t it! As is my blog, and as I am generally, I guess. Surprised I ever managed the focus to finish a dissertation, as I rather prefer a wider field!
Gina: isn’t it funny how that sometimes works? The first time I read Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children I found it a really hard slog, but subsequent readings I’ve enjoyed so much that I can’t understand what I ever resisted. So, should we meet in Italy next year to recreate the “Eat” portion!?