Books 1-32

1. Death to the Landlords by Ellis Peters. Fairly good, but part of it did not convince me.

2. The Home Place by Fred Gipson. Family story; prose a bit weak, but setting thorough.

3. We Die Alone by __Howarth. Unbelievable. Any adjective weaker than “amazing” would be an understatement. True as WWII!

4. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

5. With God in Russia by Walter Ciszek. A priest is a convicted “spy,” spends several years in solitary confinement, and then fifteen years hard labor in Siberia.

6. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. Beautiful and complex

7. Granny Torelli Makes Soup by Sharon Creech. LOL funny, simple yet touching

8. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. Definitely for younger readers, but still with original ideas and a fully built fantasy world.

9. 365 Thankyous by John Kralik. Sweet, very focused, but not brilliant.

10. The Virginian by Owen Wister. A novel capitalizing on the legendary west. Complicated yet entertaining.

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Romantic, theatrical, brainy, Christian, wise. The vocab is a challenge.

12. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and what it says about us) by Tom Vanderbilt. Tons of studies upend myths and explain “why we drive the way we do.”

13. What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! Agatha Christie at her finest. One of the few Miss Marples I like, possibly because she is on the periphery.

14. Death on the Nile by Christie. Very complicated. A bit too many bodies for my taste.

15. Moccasin Trail by Eloise McGraw.

16. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Interesting read. It is something like a riddle; it doesn’t read in a straight-forward way at all.

17. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift. A book that is alternating mind-numbingly detailed or gross. Satirical? Yes. I don’t approve though.

18. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. Story of intertwined characters. Enjoyable, but not brilliant and pace is very relaxed.

19. Girls on the Edge by Leonard Sax

20. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. One of the most enjoyable horror stories ever!

21. Day of the Locust by Nathanael West. Very creepy book. The movie’s climax, which I watched in class, made me nauseous. It does have a good point though.

22. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

23. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Even re-reads cannot make this book dull for me. I laugh and laugh and then sigh some too.

13. Colony by John Tayman. Facinating read about the leper colony in Molokai, Hawaii. I thought I knew a fair bit about it, but I hardly had the surface scratched. What an amazing cast of characters has been there! Fr. Damian isn’t the biggest star after all, or at least not by much.

14. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. I found her parenting method to be brutal. Although lax Americans can learn from it, I believe she came dangerously close to alienating one of her daughters. Also, is the whole point of life to be successful? Success often, but not always, leads to happiness.

15. Tuesdays with Morrie. I am a bit skeptical about some of his wisdom. It also bugs me that God/Christianity is not brought into the equation. You don’t need Morrie to be telling you these things if you read the Bible. Nonetheless, it is inspiring that he died with dignity and that he is good friends with a former student.

18. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Eerie, gothic, romantic, mysterious, fabulous.

16. Madam, Will You Talk? By Mary Stewart. Romantic, tense, and thrilling

17. Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart. Romance, governesses, mystery, suspense!

18. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. Delves into the world of memorization, memorization techniques, and memory. NOT a self-help book.

19. Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. Funny and lively. Although I disagree with some of the main character’s political views, I believe that this is the character in all of literature that is the most like me. (Joan Mitchell of The Mitchells: Five for Victory coming close second.)

20. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Creepy. Really creepy.

21. Voices in Summer by Rosamund Pilcher. Not particularly interesting.

22. The Boggart by Susan Cooper. Fun fantasy romp.

23. Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam jr. Lots of layers of conflict and characterization, inspiring, interesting.

24. Where There’s a Will by Ellis Peters. Count on Peters for both a thrill and a complex set of characters.

25. Baby Brain Rules by John? Medina. My favorite brain scientist gives the real oil on brain development in a lively fashion.

26. Adoption Nation by Adam Pertman. Discusses how adoption is affecting and changing America and a lot of adoption issues.

27. Odds Against by Dick Francis. Featuring Sid Halley. Fun but not edifying; certain amount of sex can appear in Francis’ works, and there is ALWAYS a beating.

28. Whip Hand by Dick Francis. See #27

29. Come to Grief by Dick Francis. See #27

28. The Keys of the Kingdom by A.J. Cronin. Beautiful and sensitive.

29. Under Orders by Dick Francis.

30. Hot House Kids. Interesting, good points. Although it is arguing against something, I kinda wish there were more parents who needed to hear this.

31. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

32. Fuzzy Nation

Books I didn’t Finish

1. Octopus by Frank Norris. Just couldn’t get into it.

2. French Leave by P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse has individually great sentences, and his plots are funny, but somehow he was too understated British for too long of a stretch for me to enjoy.

3. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. Skimmed a lot. He has serious psycho problems. Too much messed up adult/youth memories, not enough teacher

4. My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart. Spent too much time wandering Greece and little else

5. Mastering Point-of-View. Not that enlightening. I guess I was more enlightened than I thought.

6. Render Unto Caesar by Charles Chaput. Very well done, but somehow it doesn’t speak to me.

7. In this House of Brede by Godden Rumer. WAAAAY too many characters. Can’t handle it.

8. On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Eerie yet plotless.

9. Faint Praise by Gail Pool. Too many questions in a row, not enough answers.

10. The Pun Rises. Too much detail about one small subject.

11. The Art of Choosing by Sheena Tyengar. Somehow couldn’t get into it.