I am keeping a running list of the books I read this year because my goal is to read 100 books, which I achieved in 2009 but failed to do in 2010. So . . . without further pause, here they are:
January 2011 (7):
Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Art Spiegelman's Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
Nick Rennison's Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography
Jack London's White Fang
Aeschylus' Agamemnon
Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers
Aeschylus' The Eumenides
February 2011 (6):
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex
Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Euripides' The Bacchae
Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry
Nella Larsen's Quicksand
Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures
Yearly Total: 13
March 2011 (8):
Richard Wright's Native Son
Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile
Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why
Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone
Cyrus Keith's Becoming NADIA
Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
Yearly Total: 21
April 2011 (4):
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
D. Q. McInerny's Being Logical
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood
Yearly Total: 25
May 2011 (5):
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine
Jasper Fforde's One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
A.S. Byatt's Possession
Karin Fossum's The Indian Bride
Gil Adamson's The Outlander
Yearly Total: 30
June 2011 (5):
Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Karin Fossum's Don't Look Back
Karin Fossum's He Who Fears The Wolf
Karin Fossum's When The Devil Holds The Candle
Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian
Yearly Total: 35
July 2011 (31):
Simon Winchester's The Professor and The Madman
Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song
Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains
Laurie Halse Anderson's Forge
John Green's Looking For Alaska
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk Goes To The Firehouse
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk Goes To Hawaii
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk and The Blue Flu
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk and The Two Assistants
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk in Outer Space
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk Goes To Germany
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk Is Miserable
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk and The Dirty Cop
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk in Trouble
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out
Lee Goldberg's Mr. Monk On The Road
Karin Fossum's The Water's Edge
Mary Ann Shaffer's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Arnost Lustig's Lovely Green Eyes: A Novel
Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk
Larry McMurtry's Comanche Moon
Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo
T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral
Colin Dexter's The Wench is Dead
Paula McLain's The Paris Wife
Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children
Karin Fossum's Black Seconds
Karin Fossum's Bad Intentions
Cyrus Keith's Unalive
Yearly Total: 66
August 2011 (13):
Peter Manso's Reasonable Doubt
Bill James's Popular Crimes
Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
Rick Smolan's and David Elliot Cohen's A Day In The Life Of The Soviet Union
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts
Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck
Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
Jo Nesbø's The Redbreast
Jo Nesbø's The Snowman
Yearly Total: 79
September 2011 (2):
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
Percy Shelley's The Cenci
Yearly Total: 81
October 2011 (7):
Daisy Hay's Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry's Greatest Generation
Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane's Maggie: Girl On The Streets
Stephen Crane's The Monster
Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels
Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Frank Norris's McTeague
Yearly Total: 88
November 2011 (5):
Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie
Walter Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident
Tim O'Brien's In The Lake of The Woods
Bernard Schlink's The Reader
Carolyn Deloach's Shadow Chasers: The Woolfolk Tragedy Revisited
Yearly Total: 93
December 2011 (10):
Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
Sherman Alexei's Tonto and The Lone Ranger Fistfight In Heaven
Amy Chua's The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom
Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag
Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves
Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road
Cyrus Keith's Critical Mass
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible
William Shakespeare's Othello
Yearly Total: 103
"Books are the quietest and most constant friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers." Charles W. Eliot
2012 Book Challenge
Books I've Recently Read
To Read List
About This Blog
I'm going to be posting book reviews and recommendation lists on this blog. I'll be covering non-fiction, biographies, classic literature, genre fiction (especially mysteries, plus some fantasy and horror), and new books. I love to read many different categories of fiction - it doesn't matter to me what "genre" the book belongs to. If it interests me, I'll try it. I want to review books based on whether or not they're entertaining, not their use of symbolism or other literary concerns. I can honestly say that I've never heard another person tell me, "I couldn't put that book down - the symbolism was so enthralling!" I think the real realm of literature is to make us laugh, make us cry, make us think. That's what makes a good book to me. A book doesn't have to be a masterpiece for me to enjoy it: if it amuses, moves, or provokes me, I'll like it. My other main concern is the author's intent. If the book is supposed to be funny, and I'm laughing, how is this book less valid than one that is brilliant but dull? If the book is supposed to be touching, and I'm crying at the end, how is this book inferior to one that is superbly written but unmoving? Word of warning: There will be no rhyme or reason to the books I choose or the order I post them in. When I read it, I'll post it (regardless of how old the book is or what type of book it is.) In short: If I'm reading it, I'll be posting on it. I hope you enjoy my reviews! Oh! One final warning (this is starting to sound like a corny horror movie) - if I read one book and really like it, I'll probably go crazy and start binging on every book the author has ever written. Nerdy, am I not? :)
Readers
Favorite Book Sites
Recommendation Lists
Genre Websites
Bestseller Lists
About Me
- zellakate
- Hey! I'm Zella Kate. I'm a college student who loves to read and write. I wanted to start blogging and I think posting book reviews will be a good start.
Don't Be Shy: Visit My Second Blog!
Favorite Books, Movies, and Music
- Favorite Authors: William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Edgar Alan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lynne Truss, Washington Irving, Terry Pratchett, Suzanne Collins
- Favorite Books: Lord of the Flies, Hamlet, Rebecca, Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Eats, Shoots and Leaves; And Then There Were None, Northanger Abbey, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, The Hunger Games series
- Favorite Movies: Coen Brothers movies, Alfred Hitchcock (esp. The Trouble With Harry), comedies (Shaun of The Dead, Monty Python) historical films (Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford)
- Favorite Music: Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Rush, Metallica, Three Doors Down, Tori Amos, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Berlioz, Schoenberg
- Favorite Poets: Edgar Alan Poe, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Lord Byron, John Donne, Samuel Coleridge, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My Life...According To Pink Floyd
Are you a male or female: “Mother”
Describe yourself: "Fearless"
How do you feel: “Sorrow”
Where do you currently live: “Outside the Wall”
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: “The Great Gig in the Sky”
Your favorite form of transportation: “Pigs on the Wing”
Your best friend is: “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”
You and your best friends are: "Wearing The Inside Out"
What's the weather like: “Obscured By Clouds”
Favourite time of day: "Morning Glory"
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: “Welcome to the Machine”
What is life to you: “A Momentary Lapse of Reason"
Your relationship: “Nobody Home”
Your fear: “One of My Turns”
What is the best advice you have to give: “Shine on, You Crazy Diamond”
Thought for the Day: "The Gold It's In The..."
How would you like to die: “Brain Damage”
My soul's present condition: “Waiting for the Worms”
My motto: “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”
Describe yourself: "Fearless"
How do you feel: “Sorrow”
Where do you currently live: “Outside the Wall”
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: “The Great Gig in the Sky”
Your favorite form of transportation: “Pigs on the Wing”
Your best friend is: “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”
You and your best friends are: "Wearing The Inside Out"
What's the weather like: “Obscured By Clouds”
Favourite time of day: "Morning Glory"
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: “Welcome to the Machine”
What is life to you: “A Momentary Lapse of Reason"
Your relationship: “Nobody Home”
Your fear: “One of My Turns”
What is the best advice you have to give: “Shine on, You Crazy Diamond”
Thought for the Day: "The Gold It's In The..."
How would you like to die: “Brain Damage”
My soul's present condition: “Waiting for the Worms”
My motto: “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”