Saturday, September 10, 2011

Summer Book Finds (and thoughts about this blog)

Wow - I've added it up and have bought 89 books this summer, from June to August.  I hate spending full price for anything so most have been bought at the local library sale, a Border's closing sale and used book stores in Virginia (where I live) and Cape Cod/Vermont (where we spent our summer vacation).  The good news is that I did not buy much else - who wants to go into a cute boutique in Hyannis, MA or Richmond, VA when there is a used book store across the street?

I have also thought about this blog and it's purpose.  I have "fallen off the wagon" in terms of posting reviews which really bothers me, but more in a chore-like way.  I have resolved to think about this blog as a part of my grief journey, and what may have helped me in the past (i.e. timely blog posts) may not be helpful now.  And that I should be okay with the purpose changing from time to time.  For example, I am now using it to keep up with my 2011 list, my wish list and my TBR list.  The latter two have been printed out and serve as my guide in book buying sprees.  I am also using the blog roll on the right to visit other blogs/posts.  And that is enough for now.

I did want to catalogue what I have bought this summer by genre and author as it is a good indicator of where I am at and what books interest me at this particular point of my journey.  I have read some of these books and use the Goodread rating system:


1 - didn't like it
2 - it was ok
3 - liked it
4 - really liked it
5 - it was amazing


Classics
  1. Carroll, Lewis - Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass 
  2. Shelly, Mary - Frankenstein
Memoir/biographies
  1. Angelou, Maya - The Heart of a Woman (#4) 
  2. Athill, Diana - After A Funeral 
  3. Baker, Russell - Growing Up
  4. Bartok, Mira - The Memory Place 
  5. Bialosky, Jill - History of a Suicide (4)
  6. Conroy, Frank - Stop-Time 
  7. Conroy, Pat - My Reading Life (4)
  8. Conway, Jill Ker - The Road From Coorain
  9. Conway, Jill Ker  - True North 
  10. Conway, Jill Ker  - When Memory Speaks 
  11. Dinesen, Isak - Out of Africa and Shadows On the Grass
  12. Dillard, Annie - The Writing Life (2)
  13. Flaubert, Gustauve - The Letters of Gustauve Flaubert (1830-1857) ed by Francis Steagmuller
  14. Frame, Janet - An Angel at My Table 
  15. Gaskell, Elizabeth - The Life of Bronte
  16. Grealy, Lucy - Autobiography of a Face (4)
  17. Hamill, Peter - A Drinking Life 
  18. Karr, Mary - The Liar's Club 
  19. Levi, Primo - Survival at Auschwitz
  20. Prose, Francine - Anne Frank: The Book, Life and Afterlife
  21. Ruhlman, Michael - The Soul of a Chef (3)
  22. Shield, Carol - Jane Austen (3)
  23. Seierstad, Asne - The Bookseller of Kabul 
  24. Styron, Alesandra - Reading My Father (5)
  25. Styron, William - Darkness Visible (5)
  26. Tomalin, Claire - Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life 
  27. Welty, Eudora - One Writer's Beginnings 
Fiction
  1. Atwood, Margaret - Alias Grace
  2. Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaiden's Tale 
  3. Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Game 
  4. Chiaverini, Jennifer - #4 The Runaway Quilt 
  5. Chiaverini, Jennifer - #5 - The Quilter's Legacy 
  6. Demas, Corrine - The Writing Circle  (2)
  7. Doctorow, E.L. - Billy Bathgate 
  8. Doctorow, E.L.Ragtime 
  9. Doetsch, Richard - The 13th Hour 
  10. Edrich, Lousie - Love Medicine 
  11. Ellroy, James - L.A. Confidential 
  12. Eugenides, Jeffrey - Middlesex 
  13. Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
  14. James, P.D. - Death in Holy Orders 
  15. Kazuo, Ishiguro - A Pale View of Hills  (3)
  16. Kerouac, Jack - On the Road 
  17. Kincaid, Jamaica - Annie John (3)
  18. Kingsolver, Barbara - Prodigal Summer 
  19. Lamb, Wally - I Know This Much Is True
  20. LeCarre, John - The Little Drummer Girl 
  21. LeCarre, John - The Russia House 
  22. LeCarre, John - Smiley's People 
  23. Mankell, Henning - Faceless Killer (4)
  24. Martin, George R.R - # 1 Game of Thrones (#1)  (4)
  25. Martin, George R.R - #2 - Clash of Kings  (4)
  26. Martin, George R.R - #3 A Storm of Swords (4)
  27. McCarthy, Cormac - The Road 
  28. Oates, Joyce Carol - Blonde 
  29. Quindlen, Anna - One True Thing
  30. Roth, Philip - The Plot Against America
  31. Roth, Philip - Zuckerman Bound 
  32. Russo, Richard - Empire Falls 
  33. Salinger, J. D - Catcher in the Rye  (5)
  34. Shields, Carol - The Republic Of Love 
  35. Shields, Carol  - The Stone Diaries (4)
  36. Smiley, Jane - The Greenlanders 
  37. Updike, John - Rabbit, Run 
  38. Wilson, Gayle - The Suicide Club (2)
  39. Zusak, Markus - Book Thief 
Historical Fiction
  1. Diamant, Anita - Day After Night (2) 
  2. Flanagan, Thomas - The Tenants of Time 
  3. Follett, Ken - Fall of Giants 
  4. Mantel, Hilary - Wolf Hall 
  5. O'Brien, Tim - Going After Cacciato 
Essays/Short Stories/Anthology
  1. Charters, Ann - The Story and Its Writers by Ann Charters
  2. Chekhov, Anton - Forty Stories 
  3. Dillard, Annie - The Annie Dillard Reader 
  4. Hamilton, Edith - Classic Bestseller Mythology
  5. Oates, Joyce Carol - Will You Always Love Me? 
  6. Quindlen, Anna - Living Out Loud 
  7. Woolf, Virginia - The Virginia Woolf Reader ed by Mitchell Leaska
Non-Fiction
  1. Adler, Mortimer - How To Read A Book (3)
  2. Bartlett, Alison - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much  (3)
  3. Gardner, John - The Art of Fiction (3)
  4. Henry, James - The Art of the Novel 
  5. LaPlante, Alice - The Making of A Story: The Norton Guide to Writing Fiction and Non-Fiction
  6. Pratt, Steven - Superfoods 
  7. Prose, Francine - Reading Like A Writer  
  8. Thomas, Uzzell - The Technique of the Novel