#	Author	Title	Published	Rating	Mini Sum	Comments
1,2,3	Philip Pullman	His Dark Materials Trilogy - The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass	1996, 1997, 2000		Kids adventure in magic worlds to save love and innocence.	overall good, but doesn't seem totally thought out (b/c YA book?)  Shouldn't have ended w/ the kids at 13 - books should have been over longer time so kids could Fall convincingly.
4	Hubert Selby Jr.	Requiem for a Dream	1978		4 people experience highs and lows of drug addiction over a year.	liked parallel between stories, seasonal changes thru book, use of dialect.  fast read.  later: saw movie on IFC - great adaptation
5	Willa Cather	My Antonia	1918		Man reminisces about pioneer life and friendship of his childhood.	not bad. standard Cather.
6	Robertson Davies	The Cunning Man	1994		Homeopathic doctor tells story of life and friends in Canada.	enjoyable. organic. not really his best work though.
7	Evelyn Waugh	Brideshead Revisited	1945		Country house reminds English solider of wealthy college friend.	very old-school British. depressing like Remains of the Day - only about the rich who can't find love & joy. Aloysius is a great teddy bear name.
8	Vikram Seth	A Suitable Boy	1993		Indian families try to marry off their eligible children.	This book is wonderful. Highly recommended. Allow 2-3 months unless you speed read/have much free time but completely worth it. Best book so far this year! Check out the embryonic website I built about it for Digital Libraries class.
9	Nevil Shute	A Town Like Alice	1950		English woman meets Australian soldier in Asia in WWII; they marry.	1st part during the war works, but not feeling the 2nd part. Troubled by the blatant colonialism, racism & sexism throughout. not sure how it made the Big Read - enough from that list
10	Franz Kafka	The Complete Stories	1913-24		Wild short stories, often abstract and gruesome.	reads like dreaming - mostly nightmares. Very, very strange, but kind of brilliant
11	Jasper Fforde	The Eyre Affair	2001		In alternate reality where books are powerful, a woman hunts villains.	This is easily the most fun novel I've read this year. It's fantastic!
12	Jasper Fforde	Lost in Good Book	2002		The story continues from The Eyre Affair.	Another super Thursday Next book. I had some different ideas about where I thought it was going that might have made it better, but it's plenty good on its own. Looking forward to book 3.
13	Kim Stanley Robinson	The Years of Rice and Salt	2002		Alternate reality where Europe dies and Asia takes over.	This book is so awful there aren't words. I kept thinking it would get good, but no such luck. It has a couple of great concepts, but it's so badly done. It's full of annoying things: like stupid quips & references to its own genius. The philosophy is puerile - it takes basic concepts from every field & tries to make sweeping statements about everything. A handful of characters manage to invent every technology, think up every philosophy, & maybe fight a war in the Bardo but I couldn't really tell. The author should have split his ideas into a few coherent novels instead of this monster.
14	Jeffrey Eugenides	The Virgin Suicides	1993		Neighbor boys watch daughters in a repressive household kill themselves.	Just watch the movie instead. The movie is great (dir Sofia Coppola) & the book is just pretty good.
15	Robertson Davies	Fifth Business	1970		Teacher from small town is fascinated with saints, knows interesting characters.	I wish everyone could read the books I love! It's crafted so well & with the darkness & style *sigh* *grin*
16	Angela Carter	Fireworks: nine stories in various disguises	1974		Unique short stories, many written while she lived in Japan.	I had a craving for Carter. I'm a big silly fan of hers. :)
17	Salman Rushdie	Midnight's Children	1980		Man born on India's independence day is psychically connected to India.	Yay for magical realism. Very cool.
18	Angela Carter	Several Perceptions	1968		Guy in 60's England despises everything, especially himself.	Her earliest stuff isn't her best, but it's still wonderful. She has an amazing way with language.
19	Barbara Kingsolver	The Poisonwood Bible	1998		Missionary family goes to The Congo during a revolution.	The story is compelling. I like the way you know one of the kids will die, but she keeps you in suspense about which one. Each girl could have died of her own mistakes, but it turns out to be random. It really fits for the story. I have mixed feelings about continuing a story through a where-are-they-now part, but in this case it worked, because there was still more to say.
20	John Irving	A Prayer for Owen Meany	1989		Man misses his extraordinary childhood friend who had a purpose from God.	It took a while to grow on me, but in the second half it all comes together. Great story, unique characters, witty observations (political and literary). I think I read it at the right time (Reagan).
21	Sue Monk Kidd	The Secret Life of Bees	2003		Girl runs away to find women who knew her mother in the segregated South.	Quick read. Kinda made me want to take up beekeeping. I didn't realize it's a YA book (or should be). For all the drama through most of the book it's too happily-ever-after at the end. Way sappy.
22	José Saramago	The Stone Raft	1986		Five people wander around when the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from Europe.	Lovely magical realism. It's beautiful & clever & witty & different.
23	Alice Sebold	The Lovely Bones	2002		Murdered teen girl watches family and friends try to cope with her death.	Probably the single creepiest book I've ever read. But very good.
24	Salman Rushdie	The Satanic Verses	1989		2 Indian men metamorphose into angel & devil after a plane crash.	Hell of a book. Ellowen Deeowen, djinn & a lamp, chameleon butterflies, melting a wax Thatcher, ghosts of Everest, dreams & visions - it's everything I want in a story
25 (half way!)	Alexander McCall Smith	The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency	1998		Botswana's first female detective pursues her first cases.	Mma Ramotswe is a great character; she's a person you'd want to know. She has this great love of her country & for Africa as a whole. It's graceful nationalism that isn't about who's better, but that the world is better for having places where people love their home.
26	Walter Isaacson	Benjamin Franklin : an American life	2003		Biography of US founding father Benjamin Franklin: 1706-1790.	I'm not a big fan of bios or nonfiction in general, but Franklin was a character. It's a good bio.
27	Gabriel García Márquez	One Hundred Years of Solitude	1967		Cyclical story of odd Buendías family thru 100+ years.	Magical realism rocks. Somehow after reading about slaughter of all the banana workers the baby devouring ants are almost amusing. That might not be the best advertisement for the book. There's a lot of hype about this book at Margin, but it lives up to it.
28	Josephine Carr	The Dewey Decimal System of Love	2003		Silly story about a librarian in love.	Cute & very funny. I could be her (sort of) in 20 years, but I hope not. Quick read. Great joke about an unreliable narrator.
29	Katherine S. Newman ed.	Rampage : the social roots of school shootings	2004		Result of 4 years of research about school shootings, esp 2 in '97-'98.	Professional, scientific look at ramage shootings. Intriguing.
30	Jim Shepard	Project X : a novel	2004		2 troubled boys plan to shoot up their middle school.	I thought it would be a good companion to Rampage, but I think it falls a little short. I think Shepard identified too much with Edwin, so he couldn't let his character play it out. There's a point in the book where Edwin becomes a sympathetic character - for the book it's both positive & negative.
31	Alice Sebold	Lucky	1999		Memoir particularly about the author's rape & trial during college.	I don't know what to say about this book. I was glued to it & finished it in 2 days.
32	Julio Cortázar	Hopscotch	1963		Story to be read either beginning to middle or in crazy, mixed up non-linear order.	Read it the wild way - pretty wild. Book is more notable for form than content. Kind of slow until the kid dies, then slow again, then picks up at the end. Often felt I missed stuff for lack of philosophy background & translation. Definately a unique book.
33	Azar Nafisi	Reading Lolita in Tehran	2003		Memoir of English Lit professor in Iran.	Lovely. Educational. It's a memoir, a lit class, and study of 2 decades of Iranian history & culture all rolled into one.
34	Bram Stoker	Dracula: a mystery story	1897		Gothic novel about people hunting a vampire.	Thought I should read at least 1 pre-20th century book & this one is great fun. Cracks me up. It must have been scandalous in its day.
35	W. Somerset Maugham	Of Human Bondage	1915		Man with a club foot looks for meaning in life in early 20th cent England.	Kind of timeless in some ways, but also defined by it's time. Reading it is like a disfunctional relationship where you know too much without sharing respect or affection. Philip is likeable, but it's hard to love him, because you doubt he'd like you. Overall I liked it.
36	Anne McCaffrey	The Ship Who Sang	1969		Brain powered ship has adventures in space.	This is some of her early work & it shows. There are hints of the good stuff McCaffery writes in Pern & Killashandra series: I always like the ways she writes about grief, greed, & music. But her dialogue sucks in this, the jokes are incomprehensible, & the technology is ridiculous.
37	Monica Ali	Brick Lane	2003		Bangladeshi woman adjusts to life in England.	Interesting subject matter.
38	L. M. Montgomery	Anne of the Island	1915		Anne Shirley goes to college.	Comfort reading.
39	Nathaniel Hawthorne	The House of the Seven Gables	1851		19th century New England family's fate is tied to their house.	Good stuff. Charming story. It hints at ghosts but in the end dawn chases out the shadows.
40	Stephen T. Asma	Stuffed Animals & Pickled Heads: the culture and evolution of natural history museums	2001		Author studies the history of Natural History.	Fascinating. & some ew - explict descriptions of stuffing dead animals & preserving body parts. Also lots about politics' effect on edutainment & demonstrating evolution in museums.
41	Joyce Carol Oates	I Lock My Door Upon Myself	1990		Rural white woman falls in love with black man in early 20th century NY.	Her use of language feels clean, but not extraordinary. The plot is ok. The book is short.
42,43,44	Suzette Haden Elgin	Native Tongue Trilogy - Native Tongue, The Judas Rose, Earthsong	1984, 1987, 1994		In misogynist future linguists create a women's language.	feminist SF dystopia - very much my sort of thing
45	Penelope Fitzgerald	The Blue Flower	1995		Novel about 1700's German poet Novalis.	well done
46	Robertson Davies	The Manticore	1972		2nd in Deptford Trilogy.	I was less into than 5th Business, but you really can't go wrong with Robertson Davies.
47	Robertson Davies	World of Wonders	1975		3rd in Deptford Trilogy.	This is really great. It was all building up to this. I love Davies.
48	Will Christopher Baer	Kiss Me, Judas	1999		Crazy ex-cop has kidney stolen by murderess.	The author is a friend of a friend, so I somehow ended up with an advance press proof for the reprint. Very Tarantino-ish. Pretty cool & lots of good one liners.
49	Jasper Fforde	The Well of Lost Plots	2003		The story continues from Lost in a Good Book.	Lots of good books featured, very funny, & so cleverly done. I laughed a lot. Best of the series so far.
50	Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin & David Javerbaum	America (The Book)	2004		The Daily Show mocks U.S. in print.	I love The Daily Show. This book rocks.

Go me & my goal accomplishment skills.