January:
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Started off the new year with a classic for book club. Always an interesting read, although pretty depressing, and with some eerily prescient descriptions of futuristic technology. We totally have that interactive video and the show about the screaming neighbors -- Kardashians? Real Housewives?
A Room With A View - E.M. Forster. Another book club selection. Even though I have seen the movie so many times I could stage a one-woman performance of it, I had never read the book. It was very good and I discovered the movie is extremely faithful.
Essentialism - Greg McKeown. I got caught up in the frenzy of closet cleaning and the making of a capsule wardrobe and this book was making the rounds among the bloggers. Actually, not that interesting.
The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz. This one, on the other hand, was fascinating. I had been hearing about this book for years and I was not disappointed. Let us praise "good enough."
February:
The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom. A book club selection I wasn't that crazy about. I seem to remember this one had the fatal flaw of supposedly speaking in the voice of a child, but with the thoughts and memory of an adult. Just give it up and use a narrator already.
From Heaven Lake - Vikram Seth. One of my book clubs read this one a few months earlier, and I was not sorry I went back and read it better-late-than-never. A very interesting and humorous travelogue through China and Tibet.
Life After Life - Jill McCorkle. This was a local author from North Carolina I first read when we lived there and I have always enjoyed her writing, so I was very happy to see this new novel of hers in the library. A story about a woman who cares for older people in a nursing home. I can recommend it wholeheartedly as long as you promise to just disregard the last 30 pages or so. You will know what I mean when you get there. The last event in the book just plain does not make sense with the rest of the book, and the rest of it is so good! Then go back and try to track down a copy of the out-of-print Tending To Virginia, my favorite of Jill's.
March:
Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century - Michael Hiltzik. A really interesting history of the dam and its life and times. I love this period of history so this was a winner. Follow it up with the American Experience documentary about the same subject.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo. Yep, I read this one along with several million of my closest friends. A funny mix of super-compulsivity and some useful tips (fold your jeans and slot them vertically in the drawer so you can see everything at once -- pure genius) as well as an interesting picture of Japanese life. Short and mostly entertaining. It brought me enough joy that I still have it.
April:
Armageddon - Leon Uris. I remembered liking Trinity and Exodus, so I decided to try this one. It concerns Berlin in the aftermath of WWII including the airlift. Love that period of history too. The history part was good but the romantic relationships were very dated. Take my criticism with a grain of salt though -- this was engrossing enough that I never cracked open the movies I brought to entertain myself on either direction of a flight to St. Louis.
Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather. Such beautiful writing. And I loved reading all about the part of the west the characters travel through. A pleasure to read.
The Madonnas of Leningrad - Debra Dean. I think I remember this was pretty good. Harrowing story of survival during WWII.
May: What? Nothing? Oh yeah, I had a high school graduation, 7 quilts to finish and a house full of family. Sue me. Hopefully I at least caught up on the New Yorker.
June:
The Case Against the Supreme Court - Erwin Chemerinsky. I believe I stopped by the library and checked this one out on the way home from hearing Dean Chemerinsky speak at University Synagogue. It was fascinating -- I am a big fan. Is it too late for me to go to law school?
July:
Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder. Interesting non-fiction about a doctor doing relief work in Haiti. The story was really inspiring, and I picked up a couple of good turns of phrase, including referring to People magazine as the Journal of Popular Studies.
Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese. Indian doctors in Ethiopia. Mostly a pretty interesting read, but I thought it fell off in the second half. We read this one for book club and had our discussion at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant.
August:
Citizen Vince - Jess Walter. Funny and ridiculous. Read everything by this author.
Tattoos on the Heart - Gregory Boyle. Memoir by Father Boyle of Homeboy Industries. Touching and funny and inspirational. Also cool that we picked up our copies when my besties took me out to Homegirl Cafe for my birthday.
That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo. Read everything by him, too. This was another round of absurd humor and family craziness. If you don't laugh out loud at the wedding reception, I think there might be something wrong with you.
September:
Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey. This one has been sitting on my shelf for several years so I foisted it on the book club. An upper class young man and his servant in France and America in the 19th century. It was not easy going to begin with but eventually grabbed my interest and I ended up thinking it was quite good. Reviews from the group were mixed.
The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance - Elna Baker. Humorous memoir about the life of a single Mormon girl in the big city. I like Elna Baker's stories on the radio much better than I liked this book.
October:
The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee. This was just a really enjoyable novel set in WWII and 1950s Hong Kong. Well written and interesting.
Fatherland - Robert Harris. A post-WWII counterfactual imagining the aftermath of the Nazis having won the war and what happens when some of the truth about the Holocaust starts to leak out. I didn't think the book turned out to be as interesting as the premise.
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott. We took this one up at book club as the prelude to Geraldine Brooks' March. I will reread Little Women at the slightest provocation. This time I looked up the current value of the $50 length of silk Meg splurges on -- over $700 in today's money! Crikey!
The Forgotten 500 - Gregory Freeman. I have to admit that I didn't finish this one. History of a military rescue in Serbia during WWII. I lost patience with the writing, and I thought this author had a real axe to grind about the U.S. attitude toward the Serbs during the Kosovo war.
November:
The Jews in the Twentieth Century - Martin Gilbert. I picked up this really interesting coffee table book at Deseret Industries in St. George, Utah, of all places. Lots of great pictures, interesting information.
Lisette's List - Susan Vreeland. Another did-not-finish for book club. I just got too darn busy and decided I was really done with these novels imagined from a painting.
December:
March - Geraldine Brooks. A happy reread for book club. This is the backstory of Little Women from the point of view of the absent father. A great imagining by Geraldine, of whom I am a big fan.
All Joy and No Fun - Jennifer Senior. Social science research about the nature of modern parenting with terrific insights about every age. And an overall message to parents to RELAX.
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History - Erik Larson. I could not. Put. This. Down. About the Galveston hurricane in 1900 that wiped out the city. So glad I didn't know about this when I lived in North Carolina.
Devil in the White City - Erik Larson. Yep, both book clubs picked books by the same author this month. I skipped this one when my other group read it because, although I was really interested in the history of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1892, I really didn't think I wanted to read about the sadistic serial killer who operated in the city during the fair. I was not wrong about that. I would much rather have read a New Yorker article about the history of the fair. But I did find out all about the invention of the Ferris Wheel, so it was not time completely wasted.
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