Reading List 2009

Calling on Dragons ~ Patricia Wrede
The Princess Bride (good parts version) ~ William Goldman (hated)
The Time Traveler's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger (okay)
Searching for Dragons ~ Patricia Wrede (such a cute series)
Dealing with Dragons ~ Patricia Wrede
The Graveyard Book ~ Neil Gaiman (liked it for originality)
The Mauritius Command ~ Patrick O'Brian (my fave author)
Mistborn ~ Brandon Sanderson (good series)
H.M.S. Surprise ~ Patrick O'Brian (again, love him)
Dune Messiah ~ Frank Herbert (too much weird philosophy)
How to Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge ~ Glenn Doman
How to Teach Your Baby to Read ~ Glenn Doman
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress ~ Sijie (loved it)
Post Captain ~ Patrick O'Brian (love love love)
The Princess Academy ~ Shannon Hale (very cute)
The Goose Girl ~ Shannon Hale (good)
The Book of a Thousand Days ~ Shannon Hale
Marley & Me ~ John Grogan (loved)
Commitment ~ V.J. Featherstone
The Mothers of the Prophets (very interesting)
Master and Commander ~ Patrick O'Brian (yay!)
We Were the Mulvaneys ~ Joyce Carol Oates (moving and almost too depressing)
Perfect Health ~ Deepak Chopra (I wish)
Persuasion ~ Jane Austen (liked it)
a rumor of war ~ Philip Caputo (good good good)
The Tale of Despereaux ~ Kate DiCamillo (liked)
Sense and Sensibility ~ Jane Austen (reread, of course, and my fave of her books)
The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold (yuck!)
The Chronicles of Narnia ~ C.S. Lewis (very enjoyable but not my fave)
The Road ~ Cormac McCarthy (dark)
Just So Stories ~ Rudyard Kipling (reread and enjoyable)
Love in the Time of Cholera ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hated! my least favorite!)
The Secret Life of Bees ~ Sue K Monk (didn't empathize with it. one thumb down)
Nickel and Dimed ~ Barbara E (interesting, but probably not all true)

That's 38 books, but 14 of those were young adult/children's books.
I did start several that I dropped because they were awful and a couple that I started that I am still reading.
I read a few other large books to my kids but I can't remember them so they weren't added.

I rated the books I had an opinion about but that doesn't mean that the books I didn't rate were necessarily bad, although I'd have to say the majority of the books I read last year I wouldn't recommend to friends. Most of the books I just didn't have a strong enough opinion about to rate them. Obviously the Patrick O'Brian books comes in as my favorites, but I doubt that most people would like them as I have. I like books with technical language about boats and long drawn out descriptions. I really did not like Love in the Time of Cholera AT ALL and I didn't like The Lovely Bones either. I thought they were wretched. The Road was wretched but I found it less reprehensible, perhaps because it was shorter. You can also count me in the group of people NOT a fan of The Time Traveler's Wife. Like We Were the Mulvaneys, it was just a story, nothing special to me about it and often depressing.

Next year I have a goal to read more uplifting books. I do have a list, perhaps for another post.