What I Read This Year

Most people do their "year in the review" the week between Christmas and New Year's, but I'm going to do it now. That's because right now, I have time to do it. If I have time the week after Christmas, I'll review what I've read in the past decade.

But first, about my book journal.

On June 14, 1990, my friend Lori Parnell (now Lori Mallard) gave me a writer's notebook. You've seen one before. It's one of those hardbound books of blank pages so aspiring writers like I was in 1990 could fill it up with the great American novel. One thing I like about this notebook is that each page includes an inspiring quotation from a famous author (for instance, William Faulkner wrote, "Read, read, read. Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the mast. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window." I like that one. And I think he's right.)

I stewed about the plot for five years. During that time, I got married, gave birth to my first child, got my master's degree, and started my PhD. Then in 1996 (August 23, 1996, to be exact), I began to wonder how many books I had read in my life. Unable to count them (or remember them) at that point, I set out to write down every book I read from that point on. And I've been doing so ever since. I still had the writer's notebook Lori gave me, and I turned it into my reader's journal (hence, following Faulkner's advice). The first book in my journal is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

In my book journal, I note the title of the book, the author, the date I finished reading it, a one-two sentence review of it, and a rating of one to five stars.

So here I am at the end of 2010, and this morning I wrote the latest addition to my journal: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I chose this book because I was looking for a good book to read, and on the radio one morning I heard Oprah Winfrey announce the title of this book as her next book club selection. She made it sound like a masterpiece, calling it's title out as if she were Mel Gibson at the end of "Braveheart": "Freeeedooooooooom!"

"Wow, it must be good," I thought. So I bought it. And now I've read it. Next.

Here's what I wrote about the novel: "The saga of the love triangle among Patty, Walter, and Richard. Interesting take on the freedom motif, but like most other door stop novels, this one didn't have to be so long." I gave it a generous 3 stars. One of the items on my blog "to write" list is a posting about authors' tendency to write door-stop novels (in other words, novels that are gratuitously long) and why they should not do so.

Other, shorter, novels earned more stars from me. For instance, Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain, told from a dog's point of view, is a clever story about death, wrongful accusations, persistence, and NASCAR racing. When my friend Joni Filiault gave me this book, I thought it would be kind of silly. But Enzo, the narrator, sucked me in immediately. I loved it. Thank you, Joni, for sending me this one (and all those others you sent me).

Another one, Sapphire's Push (now known to most people as Precious, but I like to use the original title), was so compelling that I have adopted it as a reading selection in my upcoming Literature and Humanities course. I love how the voice changes as the narrator's literacy develops. It's both heart breaking and heart warming, and I hope my students appreciate it as much as I did. I gave that one five stars.

As the weather warmed, my book choices changed. I transitioned to light (very light) reading that would make me laugh. Unfortunately, This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper and The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell did not do it. Bushnell's novel was just more of the same with this Sex and the City prequel. Tropper's book was more captivating, but not much. And it made me wonder if Jewish people really do use the name Jesus Christ as an expletive. Two stars for both of those.

But my favorite humor writer, Laurie Notaro, didn't let me down. I bought her Spooky Little Girl to read on the plane from Newark to Rome. My journal entry reads, "Must have been strongly influenced by the movie "Ghost," but I liked the idea of training seminars for the unexpectedly dead. Cute Notaro humor."

A couple of books earned a one-star rating this year. One of them was The Truth about Lord Stoneville. My entry reads, "A bodice ripper. Nuff said." I read this one because I'm trying to figure out how to write romantic tension in my own fiction. I thought a romance novel would do that. I suppose some do. This novel, though, taught me how to write about sex. Well, okay.

And then there were Steig Larsson's "The Girl" books. Who didn't read those this year? At first, I started reading them out of curiosity. Then I kept reading because I had to find out how the story ended. By the time I was finished, I didn't care anymore.

Here's my book list from 2010:

• The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein, January 2, 2010: Told from a dog's point of view, a clever story about death, wrongful accusations, persistence, and racing. ****
• Push, Sapphire, January 28, 2010: So heartbreaking I couldn't stand it. Neither could I put it down. *****
• Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Neffenegger, February 20, 2010: Ghost meets The Thirteenth Tale. This book has a captivating plot, with some gaps and discrepancies. ***
• Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible!, Jonathan Goldstein, March 16, 2010: A humorous, contemporary reiteration of Old Testament stories. I read this book in 24 hours. ****
• World Without End, Ken Follett, April 11, 2010: Sequel to Pillars of the Earth, should have been titled Book Without End. A thousand pages of a long, drawn-out story. **
• Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress, Debra Ginsberg, May 1, 2010: A captivating memoir. Gives new meaning to the line, "The waiting is the hardest part." ***
• Home Safe: Elizabeth Berg, May 8, 2010: A quiet novel about mothers and daughters and about widowhood. Not to thick and a pretty quick read. Good for summer. ***
• The Carrie Diaries, Candace Bushnell, May 10, 2010: Sex and the City in high school No substance to this book. None. Zilch. Perfect for the beach. Read it in two days. **
• This is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper, May 17, 2010: Fast read but a little hard to latch onto because of so much dysfunction in this fictional family. Also, I was a little perplexed at the tendency of these Jewish characters to utter "Jesus Christ" so much. **
• Spooky Little Girl, Laurie Notaro, May 22, 2010: Must have been strongly influenced by the movie "Ghost," but I liked the idea of training seminars for the unexpectedly dead. Cute Notaro humor. ***
• The Truth about Lord Stoneville, Sabrina Jeffries, May 29, 2010: A bodice ripper. Nuff said. *
• Favorite Wife, Susan Ray Schmidt, June 6, 2010: An autobiography about being raised in a polygamous community and being married into the infamous LaBaron family. **
• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, Chelsea Handler, June 9, 2010: Laugh out loud funny. Now I know what to read during Laurie Notaro's writing process. ***
• Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli, June 11, 2010: This young adult novel is so captivating even this grown up liked it. ****
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larsson, June 26, 2010: People kept saying, "Stick with it." I'm glad I did. It takes about 150 pages before the story starts rolling, but once it does, it's a page turner. ****
• Prairie Tale, Melissa Gilbert, July 3, 2010: Interesting enough for a Hollywood autobiography. She got too bogged down at the end in Screen Actors' Guild politics, but otherwise it was okay. ***
• Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Alison Arngrim, July 5, 2010: Funny and a better story than Gilbert's. Arngrim knows how much to tell and how much to leave out. Loved the sidebars. ****
• The Way I See It, Melissa Sue Anderson, July 7, 2010: Really bad. * (That was a generous rating. The book was that bad)
  
• Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, July 9, 2010: The story of the Lacks family is heartbreaking. The story of the HeLa cell is fascinating, but also a little maddening. ****
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, July 19, 2010: More of a page turner than its predecessor. ****
• S--t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern, July 20, 2010: Laugh out loud funny with a sweet ending. I've been reading his blog all year. The book is just as good. Read this book in one afternoon at White Water. *****
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson, August 8, 2010: If this had been a first book, it wouldn't have been published. Sluggish in places with unnecessary side plots. **1/2
  
• Little Bee, Chris Cleve, October 6, 2010: A Nigerian refugee crosses life-changing paths with a British woman. Starts out good, but loses steam after 100 or so pages. ***
• King Lear, William Shakespeare, November 7, 2010: Not my favorite Shakespearean tragedy, but it'll do. ***
• So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell, November 14, 2010: A short, quiet pice about a man reflecting on a murder that took place during his childhood. ***
• Freedom, Jonathan Franzen, December 4, 2010: The saga of the love triangle among Patty, Walter, and Richard. Interesting take on the freedom motif, but like most other doorstop novels, this one didn't have to be so long.
  

And now I will pick up The Woman in White, which I put down to start King Lear again.