Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Book list for 2011

Evelyn has probably spent more time with these books than I have.  She's a very tactile reader.


I nearly forgot about this!  I was just thinking the other day that I hadn't made a post for December (I re-read Frank Herbert's Dune) and then I realized that I hadn't done my yearly book list.

It's a little short this year.  I've been busy.  But here it is, just in case you were really missing it.

 Lady Oracle. Margaret Atwood.

 The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home. Jane Brocket.

 The Hound of Baskervilles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Eco-nomical Baby Guide: Down-to-Earth Ways for Parents to Save Money and the Planet.  Joy Hatch and Rebecca Kelley.

Dune. Frank Herbert.

The Knitting Circle (CD). Ann Hood. Read by Hillary Huber*

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (CD). Stieg Larsson. Trans. Reg Keeland.  Read by Simon Vance.*

The Girl Who Played With Fire. Stieg Larsson. Trans. Reg Keeland.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Stieg Larrson.  Trans. Reg Keeland.

The Night Bookmobile. Audrey Niffenegger.*

Eats, Poops and Leaves: The Essential Apologies, Rationalizations, and Downright Denials Every New Parent Needs to Know and Other Fundamentals of Baby Etiquette. Adam Wasson*

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.  Simon Winchester.*

To the Lighthouse. Virginia Woolf.

Knitting Without Tears. Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Some thoughts on this year's selection, in no particular order:

Yes, I did the Larrson trilogy.  I think I liked it.  The books were an easy read, and I was able to get through most of them while nursing.  

Eats, Poops and Leaves made me laugh in a sad and resigned sort of way.  

The Gentle Art of Domesticity introduced me to Jane Brocket and I loved looking at the pretty pictures while--what else?--nursing.  

The Professor and the Madman was sad and interesting, and I love Winchester's work on the OED.  


The Eco-Nomical Baby Guide was a library book that was so helpful that we went out and bought our own copy.  

Lady Oracle was a lot funnier than most Atwood novels.  

Listening to The Knitting Circle made me want to join a group and learn a new stitch or project every month or so, but made Cody sigh and ask "What horrible thing happened to this character?" every time he heard me listening to it.  

The Night Bookmobile was sad and unsettling and beautiful in a lonely sort of way, and it met my apparent 'read a graphic novel every couple of years' quota that I didn't know I had.

The Hound of Baskervilles, Dune, and To the Lighthouse were as great as I remembered them.   Or maybe better.  It was nice to think about these books, know what a good story was waiting for me, and then re-enjoying them even more than I thought I would.

And that's it!  I'm currently reading 3 or 4 books right now, and I'm hoping that 2012 will see a few more completions.   

What does your 2011 book list look like?  I'm assuming you kept one and that you read more than I did.   

She read the ending, told me about it, and ruined the whole book for me.  DO NOT invite this girl to your book club.