Booklist 2011 Edition: Tales of Ladies, Lies & Legends

It’s 2011, which I anticipate will be a year of big changes, big dreams, big pushes and lots of good feeling. In said anticipation and because I loved keeping track of my reading last year, I’ve compiled a list of books that either A. I didn’t get to last year or B. have been since recommended, added, etc. So, here’s this year’s reading list. Feel free to jump in with already-formed opinions or to read along and jump in as we go. UPDATE: Probably makes sense to link you to the finale of reading goodness from last year’s list. Enjoy. UPDATE AGAIN: * Bold items have been read. Italicized items I own, but have yet to read. Stricken items I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

1. Stone Voices: the Search for Scotland
2. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon
3. Killer Web Content
4. Job: A Comedy of Justice (Heinlein)
5. City of Lost Girls
6. Hippie Boy
7. Nothing (Henry Green)
8. King Solomon’s Mines
9. Ruined by Reading
10. Forgotten Garden
11. Never Let Me Go
12. Traveling Mercies (Lamont)
13. Island
14. Lancelot (Percy)
15. A Brief History of Time
16. Stranger in a Strange Land
17. Invention of a Morel
18. Valis
19. Kite Runner
20. Patrick (Lawhead)
21. Dance to the Music of Time
22. Otherland
23. Blankets (Thompson)
24. Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland
25. Cleopatra: A Life
26. The Glass Castle
27. The Ethics of Aristotle
28. The Psychology of Happiness
29. Lighting Up (Shapiro)
30. Bel Canto
31. Crime Signals (Givens)
32. Monster: Blood Tatoo
33. The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray
34. If I am Missing or Dead
35. Loose Girl
36. Smashed
37. Slave Hunter
38. The Four Loves
39. The Telling
40. The Lost Hero
41. Spell of the Highlander
42. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
43. The Queen’s Own
44. Daughter of the Forest
45. Poison Study
46. Neuromancer
47. Vienna Prelude
48. Prague Counterpoint
49. The Importance of Being Earnest (again)
50. Exodus (again)
51. The Paradox of Choice
52. The Unexpected Dragon
53. Rhapsody
54. The Help
55. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
56. Changeless
57. The Devil in the White City
58. A Bed of Red Flowers
59. Beyond the Broken Gate
60. Black Virgin Mountain
61. The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion
62. Breaking the Limit: One Woman’s Motorcycle Journey Through North America
63. Cycling the Sacred Mountain
64. Publish this Book
65. Committed (again)

Finished!

1. The Hunger Games [01/14, 07/16 (twice!) - Riveting]
2. Catching Fire [01/16 - Still riveting]
3. Mockingjay [01/17 - What can I say except that I totally should be sleeping, but instead I just finished this book. Also, now I cannot sleep. Wow.]
4. The False Prophet [02/21 - Interesting. Presumptuous.]
5. Redwall [02/02 - Cute.]
6. The Stolen Child [05/01]
7. Mere Christianity [02/26]
8. The Sherlockian [04/17]
9. Something Missing [03/09 - Totally charming]
10. What Every BODY is Saying [03/26 - Very smart. Loved it.]
11. The Mysterious Benedict Society [04/08]
12. The Year of Magical Thinking [ 03/19 - beautiful and sad, well-written and fully-felt]
13. The Year of Living Biblically [ 01/12 - interesting]
14. The Enclave [Jan 07 - Kept me on the edge of my seat, but had a strange ending]
15. I Know What You’re Thinking [03/13 - Meh]
16. Till We Have Faces [Jan 02: mediocre and unlike Lewis' other books]
17. The Divine Comedy [05/04]
18. Clockwork Orange [03/14- I was so unprepared for the vileness of this.]
19. Cooking for Mr. Latte [04/21 - brilliant!]
20. City of Bones [01/29 - The heroine is kind of a whiner.]
21. City of Ashes [02/10 - Bad things happen. Lots of bad things.]
    
22. City of Glass [02/19]
23. The Book Thief [05/18 - Haunting, sad and wonderful. I cried. And I loved.]
24. What the Dog Saw [05/30]
25. Vagabonding [06/09]
26. The Grown-Up’s Guide to Running Away from Home [06/10]
27. The Cases that Haunt Us [06/12]
28. How to Retire Overseas [06/16]
    
29. Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America [06/17 - best book of its kind I've seen]
30. Alanna: The First Adventure [06/20]
31. In the Hand of the Goddess [06/22]
32. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man [06/24]
33. Lioness Rampant [06/26]
34. Inside the Mind of BTK [07/01 - Yikes]
35. Darkly Dreaming Dexter [07/02]
36. Dearly Devoted Dexter [07/07]
37. The Great Divorce [07/04]
38. Dexter in the Dark [07/09]
39. Dexter by Design [07/10]
40. How Did You Get this Number? [07/13]
41. The Unlikely Disciple [07/20 - delightful]
42. Geography of Bliss [07/26]
43. French Women Don’t Get Fat [07/28]
44. The Lost Girls: Three Friends, Four Continents, One Unconventional Detour Around the World [08/04]
45. Obsession: The FBI’s Legendary Profiler Probes the Psyches of Killers, Rapists and Stalkers and Their Victims and Tells How to Fight Back [08/?]
46. What I Wore [08/20]
47. The Little Black Book of Style [08/23]
48. The One Hundred [08/23]
49. Sex Lives of Cannibals [08/24]
50. The Dark Side of the Supernatural [09/10]
51. River Town: two years on the Yangtze [09/17]
52. Style Yourself [09/30]
53. Neither Here Nor There [10/02 - charming]
54. Notes from a Small Island [10/17]
55. I’m a Stranger Here Myself [10/21 - my favorite of his books so far]
56. Bridget Jones’s Diary (again) [10/31]
57. Just So Stories [11/01]
58. French Women for All Seasons [11/02]
59. A Walk in the Woods [11/04]
60. Bossypants [11/08]
61. A New Kind of Christian (again) [11/10]
62. A Stolen Life [11/11 - Yikes. Heartwrenching. Fascinating. Horrible.]
63. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First Hundred Years [11/15 - charming]
64. Without Reservations [11/19]
65. Educating Alice [November]
66. Elements of Content Strategy [November]
67. The Story We Find Ourselves In (again) [12/10]
68. The Last Word and the Word After That (again) [12/14]
69. The Hunger Games (again) [12/15]
70. Blue Like Jazz (again) [12/19]
71. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society [12/23 - delightful]
72. The Neverending Story [12/27]

Books I couldn’t finish:

1. Speak[01/12 - couldn't finish it. One-dimensional, unrealistic.]
2. A Long Way Gone [01/03 - I am incredibly sad to report that I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this book. I'm sure it's a worthwhile read and was looking forward to it, but as you know, I'm an enormous wuss and things like "brains coming out of their noses," I cannot handle... ]
3. Content Rules [ 01/20 - basic, but interesting case studies]
4. The Weight of Glory [02/21 - Quit 3/4 though. Boring.]
5. The Great Typo Hunt [03/11 - Great idea, not a great book]
6. Selling the Invisible [03/11 - Obvious]
7. Sabriel [ 01/24 - got halfway through and couldn't finish - too graphic for me + I wasn't captured enough by the plot to put up with "clotted blood sealed her mouth shut" - uh, gross]
8. Slaughterhouse 5 [03/27 - I just don't like war books. I've tried several of the greats now and I find them utterly boring.]
9. Emotions Revealed [04/17 - skimmed for relevant information, took the test at the end, but ignored things I felt I knew]
10. Telling Lies [04/03 - Laborious and mostly things I feel I already know.]
11. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk [04/05 - his fiction just doesn't entertain the way his truth does.]
12. Hindsights [05/07]
13. The Prodigal God [05/30 - basic.]
14. Slipping into Paradise [06/21 - boring]
15. Stephen Fry in America [06/27]
16. Invisible Man [07/03 - boring. I gave up on the real book and finished the SparkNotes.]
17. A Grief Observed [07/13 - his usual books are intellectually driven. This one is emotionally driven. Not that it's a bad thing, but not what I was looking for from Lewis.]
18. High School Confidential [07/15 - I didn't make it very far on this one...he's just so long-winded.]
19. Saved by Beauty [08/05 - lost me]
20. You Say More Than You Think [08/04 - basic]
21. The Body Language Handbook [08/04 - basic]
22. A Thousand Days in Venice [08/25 - too sexy, a bit slow-moving]
23. One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo [09/18 - disappointing]
24. Wanderlust [10/04 - unexpectedly perverse]
25. Julie & Julia [10/09 - disappointing, also unexpectedly perverse]
26. The Expert Expat [10/20 - disappointing. Do we really need a whole book to tell us duh information like "learn the language?"]
27. GenXpat [10/20 - also disappointing. I want real, helpful info...not "to have a long distance relationship, you'll need to communicate." No shit, Sherlock.]
28. Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand [11/05 - who knew New Zealand could sound so boring]
29. I Am the Messenger [11/26]