2009 was declared the year of the book and I decided to adjust my own involvement accordingly by joining a book club (BC). My membership in book club was rather pointedly insisted upon by me to my friend, Maggie, a longtime membership holder. The other two members of our club are Leah and Amy and we are all relationship-ed. Meaning our talks can meander to (mice and) men, school (JMU Alums represent), good food and naturally literature. In our Inaugural meeting we determined our list of books for the year, leaving December with an interesting project: choose a book of your own liking and share it with the BC.
So that you're in the loop, I've included our list of books below. Some were re-introduced to the 2009 list because they had not completed the full reading list in 2008, while others were suggested by various members of the club.
There is a solidarity to be found in communal reading, along with a distinct hesitation. When you find that others profess the same reaction to a characterization or a lingering image, there is comfort that the world you have created while reading the book remains intact and even validated. However, sharing your emotional response to book out loud or finding a dissimilar experience among your peers can be...well, disconcerting.
This promises to be a year of good novels that will undoubtedly reawaken my passion for the art of reading.
1. The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
2. The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales - Angela Carter
3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
4. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolfe
5. The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
6. Free Choice
7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
8. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. I Love You Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle
10. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Free Choice
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunday, November 23, 2008
An Exhaustive List
My dear friend Allen is a bibliophile of the nth degree, having created and read an expansive list of literature, graphic novels and non-fiction. Knowing my book quest well, he has not only presented me with many a title, but also here, an exhaustive list of his recommendations. Enjoy.
# My Sister's Keeper
# Lucky
# Love is a Mix Tape
# 19 Minutes
# Songs without Words
# The Monster of Florence: A True Story
# The House of Sand and Fog
# The Garden of Last Days
# America, America
# 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy
# Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote
# In Cold Blood
# Breakfast at Tiffany's
# Other Rooms, Other Voices
# Out of Africa --
# read the book; then watch the movie Mystic River --
# read the book; then watch the movie High Fidelity --
# read the book; then watch the movie The Myth of You and Me
# Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West
# The Border Trilogy ---- All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities on the Plain
# The Road
# -- read the book; then watch the movie this fall A River Runs Through It -- read the novella; then watch the movie (but only maybe)
# Shopgirl -- NEVER see the movie
# Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
# Blankets
# “Brokeback Mountain” -- short story = way better than the movie
# Saturday
# Amsterdam
# Redemption Falls
# The Lost
# Wonderful Tonight
# Tree of Smoke
# I Love you, Beth Cooper
# Wish You Were Here
# Night Country
# Snow Angels
# 100 Sonnets
# by Pablo Neruda Here is New York
# Complete Poems of James Dickey
# Deliverance
# To the White Sea
# Fun Home
# Summer Blonde
# Shortcomings
# Everything is Illuminated
# 25th Hour
# City of Thieves
# Snuff
# Choke
# Fight Club
# If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
# Going After Cacciato
# The Things They Carried
# In the Lake of the Woods
# Arcadia
# Maus I + II
# Wonder Boys
# Bridge of Sighs
# One Foot in Eden
# Saints at the River
# The World Made Straight
# Before I Die
# Reservation Road
# In the Wild
# From Hell
# -- read the comic book; then watch the movie Ghost World -- read the comic book; then watch the movie
# The Drowned and the Saved
# Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account
# The Grey Zone: Director’s Notes
# and Screenplay The Grey Zone -- watch the movie
# Judenhass
# “Million Dollar Baby” -- read short story; then watch the movie (again?)
# God Loves, Man Kills
# Gone, Baby, Gone -- read the book; then watch the movie
# Survival in Auschwitz
# The Reawakening
# Flags of Our Fathers --
# read the book; then watch the movie So Sad to Fall -- read and then watch Letters from Iwo Jima
# Unbearable Lightness of Being -- read the book; then watch the movie
# The English Patient -- read the book; then watch the movie
# We are on Our Own
# Life of
# Pi Rape of Nanking
# In Harm's Way
# A Rumor of War
# Shoeless Joe
# With the Old Breed: The Marines at Peleliu and Okinawa
# Friday Night Lights
# Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
# Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
# Understanding Comics
# Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
# Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
# March
# The March
# Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death & Politics
# Prep: A Novel
# The Man of My Dreams: A Novel
# Little Children
# Election
# The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
# In Country
# Then We Came to the End: A Novel
# The Book of Other People
# About a Boy
# -- read the book; then watch the movie Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
# 400 Photos
by Ansel Adams
# My Sister's Keeper
# Lucky
# Love is a Mix Tape
# 19 Minutes
# Songs without Words
# The Monster of Florence: A True Story
# The House of Sand and Fog
# The Garden of Last Days
# America, America
# 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy
# Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote
# In Cold Blood
# Breakfast at Tiffany's
# Other Rooms, Other Voices
# Out of Africa --
# read the book; then watch the movie Mystic River --
# read the book; then watch the movie High Fidelity --
# read the book; then watch the movie The Myth of You and Me
# Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West
# The Border Trilogy ---- All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities on the Plain
# The Road
# -- read the book; then watch the movie this fall A River Runs Through It -- read the novella; then watch the movie (but only maybe)
# Shopgirl -- NEVER see the movie
# Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
# Blankets
# “Brokeback Mountain” -- short story = way better than the movie
# Saturday
# Amsterdam
# Redemption Falls
# The Lost
# Wonderful Tonight
# Tree of Smoke
# I Love you, Beth Cooper
# Wish You Were Here
# Night Country
# Snow Angels
# 100 Sonnets
# by Pablo Neruda Here is New York
# Complete Poems of James Dickey
# Deliverance
# To the White Sea
# Fun Home
# Summer Blonde
# Shortcomings
# Everything is Illuminated
# 25th Hour
# City of Thieves
# Snuff
# Choke
# Fight Club
# If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
# Going After Cacciato
# The Things They Carried
# In the Lake of the Woods
# Arcadia
# Maus I + II
# Wonder Boys
# Bridge of Sighs
# One Foot in Eden
# Saints at the River
# The World Made Straight
# Before I Die
# Reservation Road
# In the Wild
# From Hell
# -- read the comic book; then watch the movie Ghost World -- read the comic book; then watch the movie
# The Drowned and the Saved
# Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account
# The Grey Zone: Director’s Notes
# and Screenplay The Grey Zone -- watch the movie
# Judenhass
# “Million Dollar Baby” -- read short story; then watch the movie (again?)
# God Loves, Man Kills
# Gone, Baby, Gone -- read the book; then watch the movie
# Survival in Auschwitz
# The Reawakening
# Flags of Our Fathers --
# read the book; then watch the movie So Sad to Fall -- read and then watch Letters from Iwo Jima
# Unbearable Lightness of Being -- read the book; then watch the movie
# The English Patient -- read the book; then watch the movie
# We are on Our Own
# Life of
# Pi Rape of Nanking
# In Harm's Way
# A Rumor of War
# Shoeless Joe
# With the Old Breed: The Marines at Peleliu and Okinawa
# Friday Night Lights
# Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
# Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
# Understanding Comics
# Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
# Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
# March
# The March
# Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death & Politics
# Prep: A Novel
# The Man of My Dreams: A Novel
# Little Children
# Election
# The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
# In Country
# Then We Came to the End: A Novel
# The Book of Other People
# About a Boy
# -- read the book; then watch the movie Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
# 400 Photos
by Ansel Adams
Preface
I love to read. The problem is libraries offer too many selections, same as bookstores. This means I've depended heavily on the experience of others to place some of the best reading material in my hands.
Know that "bucket list" idea? That's how I feel about books. Fill my bucket with some reads. Literature, poetry, non-fiction, blogs, news articles, op-eds, fiction, short stories, plays--I dine on them with a palette that is insatiable.
As I complete a selection I will post thoughts so you can fill your own bibliophile bucket with books.
Know that "bucket list" idea? That's how I feel about books. Fill my bucket with some reads. Literature, poetry, non-fiction, blogs, news articles, op-eds, fiction, short stories, plays--I dine on them with a palette that is insatiable.
As I complete a selection I will post thoughts so you can fill your own bibliophile bucket with books.
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