Who knows why, but some people do ask. So here are the books I've been reading. As you will probably note, there's little rhyme or reason behind my choices and I'm often several years behind a trend. (
What else is new?):
Favorites in 2009 (so far)
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris
The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Drown by Junot Diaz
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Sideways by Rex Pickett
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris
A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz
Favorites from 2008
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perotta
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Alan's War by Emmanuel Guibert
Epilogue by Anne Roiphe
The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Plan B: Further Notes on Faith by Anne Lamott
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Favorites from 2007
The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Infidel by Ayaan Hersi Ali
Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Pretty Birds by Scott Simon
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
Favorites from 2006
What is the What by Dave Eggars
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Lying by Lauren Slater
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck
Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl as told to Virginia Lee Barnes and Janice Boddy
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
Warriors by Gerald Hanley
The Doctor's Daughter by Hilma Wolizer
Whites by Norman Rush
Paradise by A.L. Kennedy
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Dog by Michelle Herman
Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
Favorites of 2005
The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Poison by Kathryn Harrison
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
Black Boy (American Hunger) by Richard Wright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenedes
The First Desire by Nancy Reisman
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Burning the Days by James Salter
Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis
The American Woman in the Chinese Hat by Carole Maso
Three Junes by Julia Glass
Living Past Midnight by Lee K. Abbott
Mating by Norman Rush
Oh! by Mary Robison
Winter Birds by Jim Grimes
The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda
©Stephanie Harrison
Updated 1/15/09
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes--Voltaire