This was a good reading year for me. I exceeded my goal of 2 books per month, even if I didn’t exactly read them at that rate. There has been a definitely slacking off these last two months, but here’s how it all went down with the 31 books I read:

Chanel: A Woman of Her Own
By Axel Madsen

Coco Chanel was a hero of mine and still is in a way. But she definitely had issues and it seems she was incapable of working through them. It probably never occurred to her to try. Is trauma a prerequisite to success? It’s clear success is no guarantee against loneliness.

The Maltese Falcon
By Dashiell Hammett

This was for the book discussion group at the library. Sam Spade is not nice. I had thought he was a loner with a distinct personal ethic, essentially hard-bitten detective with a heart of gold. Turns out he’s wolfish, sleazy and slightly satanic. I think I must have been remembering some sanitized Hollywood version of the character.

Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
By Jon Katz

Heartening that this book has a note at the start:
“Professor Chernowitz, and other readers: No dogs die in this book.”
After “Marley and Me” last year, I don’t think I could have read it otherwise.

A Moveable Feast
By Ernest Hemingway

I first read this when I was in my 20s and living in Geneva. I loved it then and love it now. It makes me want to move back to Europe even if that place doesn’t actually exist any more. Such is the magic of nostalgia.

Persuasion
By Jane Austen

My least favorite of Austen’s novels holds on to its status.

Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte

This was a childhood favorite that I had to revisit after reading Setterfield’s “The Thirteenth Tale” last year. Just wonderful.

On Writing
By Stephen King

A writer on writing who doesn’t try to discourage other people from writing. So rare. I like this guy even though I don’t much care for his fiction.

Never Let Me Go
By Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a disturbing fantasy of a world divided into organ donors, transplant recipients, and caregivers. Unsettling and bizarre. I’m not quite sure why it was written, but it held my attention throughout.

The Art of Living and other stories
By John Gardner

Gardner was a terrific writer; sad that he died so young. This was another re-read from my 20s. I guess I really got on a nostalgia kick this year. Just full of intriguing character studies and observations.

Far From the Madding Crowd
By Thomas Hardy

Oh, no … another favorite from my youth. When my parents took me and my brother on a summer tour of Switzerland in 1976, this was one of two books that I brought with me. (The other was Orwell’s “1984”.) I read them both obsessively for 6 weeks. Still great. Even at 16 I understood Bathsheba Everdene falling for Frank Troy, but I knew she belonged with Gabriel Oak.

Chilly Scenes of Winter
By Ann Beattie

This particular re-read was not as satisfying as the first time I read it. I wanted to shake these characters and say “Snap out of it!” It did remind me of how hopeless the 1970s seemed and how they actually ended and life went on pretty nicely from there. Until we hit this latest wall, of course.

The Art of Possibility
By Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

At last something new and nonfiction. I tried to read this book before. To tell you the truth, I think I bought it originally because of the bright yellow cover. This time it caught my attention and I finished it. I particularly like the chapter on “being a contribution.” Instead of constantly judging yourself every day for success or failure … “throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why.” Also — remember Rule #6.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

GGM wears me out. Does he have to give nearly every male character a variant of one of two names? And I’m not a big fan of “Magical Realism.” I’m glad I read this, but I was a little relieved to be done with it.

Evening
By Susan Minot

I finished this and had an immediate impulse to read it again (which I didn’t do). Is that good or bad? It was kind of “What the heck was that about? I think I liked it.” It was a jumbled narrative about the ending of a life–and that whole life. How we aren’t really ever known by another person however close they may seem.

The Namesake
By Jhumpa Lahiri

Loved it. I don’t know why a book about Bengalese expatriates should resonate with me, but then I realized it is being an outsider in American society. Or somehow being part of it but not wholly. Outwardly I look like any other average white American, but in my soul I’m from another planet.

The Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini

Another good novel — disturbing but good. I’d like to know if there really is/was a big kite flying culture in Afghanistan. Or am I just being ridiculously literal minded?

Welcome to Hard Times
By EL Doctorow

Also a book discussion read for a series on revenge. I don’t like westerns, even when they are meant to demonstrate what’s wrong with the genre. Bloody and no redemption here. I need a little more hope than that.

Selected Stories
By Andre Dubus

Also for the series on revenge. The discussion was only on one of the stories, but I read the whole thing. I confused Dubus with his son, Andre Dubus III, who wrote “The House of Sand and Fog.” Both are gritty but I liked Dubus senior more.

The Sweet Hereafter
By Russell Banks

Also for the revenge series. The cover copy said it was a morality play and so it was. Not a lot of depth here.

Comfort Food
By Kate Jacobs

Just a snack, thanks. A bit formulaic, not terribly engaging.

Certain Girls
By Jennifer Weiner

I liked this one well enough in a summer-novel kind of way, but I’m having trouble remembering the details now. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the book.

The City of Falling Angels
By John Berendt

I relished this one. If you can’t got to Venice, at least read this book. Vivid and engrossing.

Becoming Madame Mao
By Anchee Min

Apart from reading Fox Butterfield’s “China: Alive in the Bitter Sea” and Pearl S. Buck’s “The Good Earth,” I haven’t thought much about China and Chinese history, huge topics, of course. This fictionalized version of the life of Madame Mao was a good read and made me want to learn more.

The Sun Also Rises
By Ernest Hemingway

I must have read this short novel once, but I don’t remember when. Certainly I’m familiar with the characters, but then Hemingway did tend to revisit certain types over and over so I might be thinking of a different novel. Good solid, descriptive writing.

Interpreter of Maladies
By Jhumpa Lahiri

Good short stories by a good writer. Isn’t that the very definition of perfection?

Morningside Heights
Cheryl Mendelson

Another lightweight-ish novel. I read this after spending a weekend in NYC and enjoyed it for the big-city flavors. But I saw the end coming a mile off. Don’t you hate that?

The Death of Vishnu
By Manil Suri

I heard Manil Suri speak on a book discussion panel while I was in NYC and was interested enough to get this book and read it. I liked it and plan to read his second novel, “The Age of Shiva” when I have the time.

Goldengrove
By Francine Prose

I liked Francine Prose’s nonfiction “Reading Like a Writer” and still dip into it when I’m looking for a recommendation on something new to read. She didn’t have the nerve to recommend her own fiction, which was probably the right call.

Here If You Need Me: A True Story
By Kate Braestrup

I heard Braestrup on NPR a year or so ago and made a mental note to check out her memoir. She makes no bones about having somewhat exploited the “plucky widow” angle, but still worth reading.

Brideshead Revisited
By Evelyn Waugh

How could I have lived so long and not read this one? Loved it. Now I can finally watch both the BBC miniseries and the new movie.

Stradivari’s Genius: Five Violins, One Cello and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection
By Tony Faber

Enjoyable history of both Stradivari and his instruments. I’m still not sure why his “Messiah” violin is considered so magnificent when it has hardly been played. Ever. I really do believe that a mediocre instrument can be played into greatness. Perhaps not by me, though.

In addition to the books I finished this year, I have some “in progress” and abandoned titles:

New and Selected Poems
By Mary Oliver

It’s hard to sit down and read whole book of poems so I keep this one by the bed and dip into it when I need a fix. A lovely writer and observer of nature.

Nothing to Be Frightened of
By Julian Barnes

The library has been sending me emails reminding me to return this, but I’ve been stalled for a week. Julian Barnes has a problem with death. He seems to be dealing with this by turning from atheism to agnosticism.

Lady with Lapdog and other stories
By Anton Chekhov

Chekhov is credited with inventing the modern short story and for that I think him.

InDesign Production Cookbook
By Alistair Dabbs

Not sure you can really read this kind of book. My method is to wait until I have a problem doing something in InDesign and then I look in the index for a solution.

China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
By Fox Butterfield

“Madame Mao” got me thinking about this early 80s nonfiction book about China. I found it on Alibris and have been dropping in and out of it for a few months.

The Rough Guide to Costa Rica
By Jean McNeil

We are planning to go to Costa Rica next year so I’m reading this in preparation. We will be staying just south of Limon on the Caribbean side. My friend Carol describes it as the “hippie” part of the country. That might be her way of telling me not to expect any spa treatments.

Here is the round up of the books I read this year. I didn’t quite reach the two books per month target. If I had finished everything I started, I would have, but I had trouble sustaining interest in some books this year.

1. Heart – A personal journey through its myths and meanings by Gail Godwin

   This book was a great start to the year. I had abandoned the book I was reading (Regards by John Gregory Dunne) in favor of it. It contains lots of good information and could be a little scholarly at times. I learned much about the Sumerians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Hindus (Upanishads stories), Buddha, Confucius, Islam … well, a lot! It definitely pointed the way for further areas of study.

2. About Alice by Calvin Trillin

   In his memoir about life with his late wife, Trillin is sweet and funny. The first chapter had been excerpted in New Yorker magazine and drew me in immediately. It was a short, quick read about a lovely, gracious woman.

3. Leaving Church – A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

   I loved this book and will probably buy it just to have it. Even after singing in the choir at St. James Episcopal for a few years, I still question myself about it and wonder at my motives. This memoir gave me some insight into a life lived in faith, regardless of ecclesiastical affiliation. Here is a particular quote that spoke to me:

   You have everything you need to be human. There is nothing outside of you that you still need–no approval from the authorities, no attendance at temple no key truth hidden in the tenth chapter of some sacred book. In your life, right now, God has given you everything that you need to be human.

4. Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

   I enjoyed this book despite being occasionally revolted by graphic descriptions of the life and death struggles of the hunter-gatherer life. I seem to be getting more squeamish as I get older. I read it for a Vermont Council on the Humanities book discussion at the library. The author is from New Hampshire and has lived with the Kalahari San (African bushmen). Her approach seems more authentic than Jean Auel’s popular “Clan of the Cave Bear” series. “Reindeer Moon” has been included in the anthropology classes and Marshall Thomas is an anthropologist herself. I attended a book discussion with her during which she was curiously inarticulate. Just a bad day or writerly shyness?

5. Grace (Eventually) – Thoughts on Faith by Anne LaMott

   I haven’t read the last couple of LaMott’s books of collected essays because she can grate on me and her writing sometimes seems formulaic. Here she is, griping, grousing, creating a messy situation and boom! … a tiny reversal, Big Flash Of Insight and it’s all better. Until the next essay. It wears on me. I didn’t have huge hopes and I wasn’t disappointed. She does write awfully well and for that it was worthwhile.

6. I Feel Bad About My Neck (and other thoughts on being a woman) by Nora Ephron

   This was an amusing, quick (one day) read. Sometimes superficial, but with an easy conversational style. The last chapter on death brought mist to my eyes. And I liked the chapter on the things she wishes she had known sooner including:

   The plane is not going to crash.
   Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of 35 you will be nostalgic for at the age of 45.
   If the shoe doesn’t fit in the store, it is never going to fit.
   The thing that’s waking you up at 2 AM is the second glass of wine.

7. Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

   Subtitled “A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them,” this is a great tour of great literature. It inspired me to read Gabriel Garcia Marques who had always intimidated me. Definitely planning to read more of the other books she excerpted.

8. Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

   A wonderful story. I was both repulsed by and sympathetic toward Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. In particular, the way he seemed to inadvertently cause the deaths of his lovers. The ending–forever cruising the ruined river on a quarantined steamship–was poetic. And their relationship at the end: “It was as if they had leapt over the arduous calvary of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love.” Also of note from page 329 as she sits in the twilight with Florentino Ariza (her childhood sweetheart with whom she has been reunited after many years of married life with another):

   Fermina Daza stopped smoking in order not to let go of the hand that was still in hers. She was lost in her longing to understand. She could not conceive of a husband better than hers had been, and yet when she recalled their life, she found more difficulties than pleasures, too many mutual misunderstandings, useless arguments, unresolved angers. Suddenly she sighed: ‘It is incredible how one can be happy for so many years in the midst of so many squabbles, so many problems, damn it, and not really know if it was love or not.’

9. Counting on Grace bu Elizabeth Winthrop

   I read this for the Vermont Reads 2007 book discussion that took place in June. This was intended to be for all ages so it is a “Young Adult” selection. Quick and easy, but not terribly engaging. French Canadian immigrants working in a cotton mill in 1910. It was preachy and heavy-handed. Yeah, child labor is bad. I get it.

10. Inanna (From the Myths of Ancient Sumer) by Kim Echlin with fabulous illustrations by Linda Wolfsgruber

    I love this book. It is beautiful. I want to own it (I borrowed it from the library and only returned it because I had to). I was introduced to Ianna by Gail Godwin’s book “Heart.” Wonderful in particular the love songs are perfect. If I weren’t already married, I would use them in my wedding ceremony:

    Put flowers and sweet herbs on my bed.
    Bring me the man I love.
    Put his hand in my hand.
    Press his heart next to my heart.
    Our pleasures will be sweet.
    I rest my head on his arm.
    Our sleep will be sweet.

    Never mind that she eventually sends him to take her place in the Underworld.

11. Birds In Fall by Brad Kessler

    Sad topic, but very good novel. The first chapter, taking place in the present tense on a doomed airplane flight over Nova Scotia really grabbed me. And the rest–the widowed ornithologist, the innkeepers, the other “survivors” all rang true. I was sorry to finish it.

12. Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope

    Maybe, but I don’t think I can forgive Trollope. This was another one for the Vermont Council on the Humanities book discussion group at our library. It is the book that taught me that it is okay to not finish a book. I did finish this one. I spent my whole vacation reading time on it, putting off more appealing titles like “Eat, Pray, Love.” It took forever to get into and was often tedious. There was more information about fox hunting and parliament than I ever cared to know. There were some good characters, but overall I resented the book for taking up so much time for so little pleasure. Other people in the book group loved it so … your mileage may vary.

13. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

    Terrific. It’ll be a movie soon, reportedly starring Julia Roberts, which I find more than off putting. I’m glad I didn’t know that before reading it.

14. Homestead by Rosina Lippi

    This book was loaned to me by my friend, Frank, because it is set in a small alpine village not far from the Swiss lake front village that my father’s family called home. It’s a winner, covering life over most of the 20th century in one community.

15. Living in a Foreign Language by Michael Tucker

    Interesting only because Italy interests me. Tucker, an actor perhaps best known for his role on TV’s “LA Law,” was charming and smug by turns. I wanted to like it more, but mostly it made me miss Frances Mayes “Under the Tuscan Sun.”

16. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

    Good book with a tragic true ending. This historical fiction is about Frank Lloyd Wright’s and Mamah Borthwick Cheney’s scandalous affair and relationship, written with slightly more sympathy for Cheney than Wright, I think. Quote from Ellen Key (Swedish philosopher) who figures in the story:

    [In Ibsen’s view] the proof of a person is ‘the power to stand alone; to be able, in every individual case, to make his own choice; in action to write anew his own law, choose his own sacrifices, run his own dangers, win his own freedom, venture his own destruction, choose his own happiness.’

17. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

    I tried to read this book a few years ago and couldn’t get into it. This time I soldiered on and was eventually engaged, but it took way too long. It made me want to read or re-read some classics with new eyes. It gave me a sense also of how I take my own freedom for granted.

18. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

    This modern gothic novel held my interest with plot twists and many echoes of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. At times it seemed more fantasy fiction than I normally read, but I liked it quite a lot.

19. Persuasion by Jane Austen

    Even my least favorite of Austen’s novels is still pretty darn good.

Unfinished Books of 2008:

1. Regards by John Gregory Dunne – A collection of essays that I just couldn’t relate to.
2. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot – Poor Eliot took the fall for Anthony Trollope. I was so fed up after my experience with Can You Forgive Her, I didn’t really give her a chance.
3. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg – A recommendation by the bookstore owner who saw me purchasing Francine Prose’s book “Reading Like a Writer” that never really inspired my imagination.
4. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway – I read this years ago and loved it. I read half of it the morning of my birthday and still loved it. Just haven’t gotten back into it since that one golden morning.
5. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle – I tried this one last year and again this year. If it doesn’t work next year, it is going in the Revels North yard sale.
6. Getting Things Done by David Allen – Productivity tips you can make a career out of implementing. Seriously, good ideas but not exactly enthralling reading. Using some of these techniques has made me feel marginally less overwhelmed than usual.

My goal was modest: to read at least 2 books a month this year. And it was going really well. By July 2nd, I was finishing book 22. You might even say I was feeling a little bit cocky.

Then July and most of August came and went and I didn’t so much as crack the spine of a new book. I read one book on vacation in late August. Then in September and and most of October – nothing.

Finally in late October, I managed to finish a small volume, a memoir, thereby completing my goal almost a month early. Since then I’ve read just three more and am partly through Regards by John Gregory Dunne.

As I finished each book, I made a few sparse notes:

1. The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey

   The author was in her late teens when she decided to educate herself at home in lieu of going to college. I enjoyed her story despite her youthful pretension. Reminded me of myself at around the same age — way less sophisticated than I thought I was.

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

   Didion’s memoir of the year following the sudden death of her husband on December 30th, 2003. Heartbreaking.

3. Light On Snow by Anita Shreve

   Young girl and her widowed father find a newborn baby left to die in the snowy New Hampshire woods. Interesting tale but the protagonist seemed too young for the vocabulary and opinions attributed to her. Maybe I understimate age levels, but I have known 20, 30 and 40 year olds who can’t express themselves half so well.

4. Marley and Me by John Grogan

   Memoir about a dog. I should have known the dog would die. Still, amusing and touching account of life with an unruly labrador retriever.

5. Best of Women’s Short Stories by multiple authors

   I loved “Ladies in Lavender” from this collection, and “Marriage a la mode” by Kathleen Mansfield. Overall a good read. These were stories about women, not strictly stories by female writers (although many were both).

6. Knitting–A Novel by Anne Bartlett

   I was struck by the richness of internal dialogue in each character–contrasted with how spare the communication among them was. We are so little known by (or able to know) others.

7. Stranger On the Square by Arthur and Cynthia Koestler

   I first read this book while living Geneva. I guess CK resonated with me at that time. The man in my life then was certainly no Arthur (who was something of monster to live with), but his ideas were somewhat more fixed and forceful than mine and I admired that the way CK admired AK. This time, she was just annoying. And then the whole double suicide thing … I just don’t get that at all. Cynthia, honey, he just wasn’t worth it.

8. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

   Technically, another re-read (and, my heavens, an attempt at double suicide), but shorter and so very beautifully written.

9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

   Good, but I got a little bored. I guess I don’t identify/empathize with extremely precocious pre-adolescent boys even if they have lost a parent in 9/11. What is wrong with me.

10. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

    Despite the promising reference to one of my favorite authors, I found this too lightweight and predictable.

11. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

    Hey, I actually liked this one, but I didn’t realize at first that it was a “tribute” to EM Forster’s “Howard’s End.” She could have stolen less from him, but at least the end surprised me.

12. Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant

    Well done. Satisfying and interesting story. Or I should say stories. Both versions describing the same outward circumstances were credible in their own way and kept me on the edge of my seat.

13. Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott

    This one seemed short, but mostly good. Again with the wise-beyond-her-years adolescent protagonist. But she had a tenderness that made me care about her.

14. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

    I don’t know why I liked this book so much, but I did. My notes say “enjoyable and realistic” but when I think about it now, I have to wonder what I meant. I don’t think there are a lot of middle-aged married women out there having passionate affairs with (no longer celibate) monks. Just a guess.

15. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

    Gripping, good read. Not entirely real, but close to the bone, especially the theme of self-deceit.

16. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

    I was repulsed at first at the bit where the zookeeper father has his sons observe a goat being eaten by wild cats, but I stuck with it and was rewarded with this:

    “It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did and your heart is heavy with remorse.”

17. Piano Lessons – Music, Love and True Adventures by Noah Adams

    Would that my true adventures included buying a Steinway piano and attending the Autumn Sonata workshop, but still a good, quiet read.

18. Leap of Faith – Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor

    I’ve always been curious about Queen Noor. She’s not so far from my age and was an American when she married the much older King Hussein of Jordan. It was unfathomable to me at the time. Her memoir gave me a perspective lacking in media coverage of the middle east.

19. Let Me Finish by Roger Angell

    At times I wished he would finish, but mostly a good if rambling memoir. The last chapter “Hard Lines” was particularly moving. I also enjoyed the inside perspective on EB White.

20. The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart

    I liked it. Read it fast. I wasn’t hugely impressed with Oliver’s big secret but I cared about everyone else.

21. Everyday Matters by Nardie Reeder Campion

    Fun memoir. Campion is engaging if flighty. Still, this is pretty much what I expect from a memoir.

22. Digging to America by Anne Tyler

    Very Anne Tyler, which is to say I liked it a lot and it wasn’t entirely predictable.

23. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

    Good novel, but she went a little long and then seemed to get bored and wrapped it up fast and neat.

24. The Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

    Another good novel. Big city lawyer goes to live among the Amish and learns what life is about.

25. Are You Happy? by Emily Fox Gordon

    Another memoir, and although I did not grow up fat and unpopular, and get institutionalized instead of finishing college … I could still identify!

26. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart

    I wanted to love this book, but really only just liked it a little. Somehow it just didn’t touch me.

27. Tolstoy Lied – A Novel by Rachel Kadish

    Bordering on chick-lit, the genre where an independent single woman steers through the rocky shoals of love, with the support of one wacky (also single) girlfriend, one stable (read, married) girlfriend, and one male friend (who too often turns out to be her “true” love). This one avoided some of those pitfalls and was a good read.