2009 Booklist

*Drumroll, please*

Announcing Valderi Valdera's 2009 booklist (Barnes and Noble, here I come)! And yes, half of these are carry-overs from Booklist Aught 8. I read just over 40 books last year, but I cheated a bit and six of them were re-reads of books not on the list. Will have to try a little harder to make it up to the big 6-0!

First up this year is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. And yes, you can expect I'll be writing another blog entry shortly as a follow up to my film review. I'm about 30 pages in and it's not nearly as painful as Christopher Paolini's Eragon, so there is hope yet.

2009 Booklist

1. 13 Clocks, James Thurber
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
3. Blindness, Jose Saramago
4. Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
5. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
6. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne
7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
8. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Ian Fleming
9. The City of Ember, Jeanne Duprau
10. Close Range, Annie Proulx
11. Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella
12. Downtown Owl, Chuck Klosterman
13. In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen
14. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
15. Emma, Jane Austen
16. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
17. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
18. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
19. Ghost Girl, Tonya Hurley
20. The Giver, Lois Lowery
21. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J K Rowling
24. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
25. I Am America (And So Can You!), Stephen Colbert
26. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
27. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
28. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
29. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
30. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
31. Madeline is Sleeping, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
32. Minority Report and Other Stories, Philip K Dick
33. Mirror, Mirror, Gregory Maguire
34. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
35. Neuromancer, William Gibson
36. The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollen
37. On Writing, Stephen King
38. Paradise Lost, John Milton
39. Pastoralia, George Saunders
40. Possession, A. S. Byatt
41. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
42. Rebel Angels, Libba Bray
43. Rebel Without a Crew, Robert Rodriguez
44. Remember Me, Christopher Pike
45. Seven Basic Plots, Christopher Booker
46. Shop Girl, Steve Martin
47. The Tales of Beadle the Bard, JK Rowling
48. The Tale of Despereaux, Kate Dicamillo
49. Tangled Webs, Anne Bishop
50. The Third Witch, Rebecca Reisert
51. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
52. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneger
53. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
54. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi
55. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
56. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffery Eugenides
57. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
58. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
59. Watership Down, Richard Adams
60. Wicked: The Grimmerie, David Cote

2008 Booklist

I love books in every way that it is possible to love books (legally, that is). I love wandering aimlessly in Barnes and Noble, drawn from spine to spine, analyzing titles and covers and back blurbs and inside jackets. I love buying books and carrying them around in my oversized purse - anywhere from one to three at a time. I love sitting (standing is more of a challenge) on the subway reading on the way to and from work, squeezed between two strangers, trying to keep my elbows tight against my sides as I flip the pages. And when I don't have books of my own, I love casually reading over the shoulder of the stranger closest to me, delighting when I discover that theirs is a book I have already read or when I eavesdrop on a particularly juicy passage.

So I find it surprising now, after having compiled my 2008 Booklist, to discover that I have never done this before. Why, if I love reading so much, have I never determined ahead of time what I will be reading next - before?

I believe the reason is that reading has always been a fluid experience for me. Although I try to read only one book at a time (more focus, fewer entangled subplots), I never really know what will strike my fancy next, after the last page has been turned. There are certain genres that I browse the most frequently - fantasy, teen fiction, novels recently adapted to film - but I never really know if I will follow an epic fantasy with a current New York Times Bestseller or wash it down with a nineteenth century classic. My shelves are regularly filled with 30-45 books I haven't read, but as I skim the covers, my fingers itching for inspiration, I'm just as likely to pick up one of those as re-read Harry Potter for the twelfth time and buy half a dozen new books next week.

Despite the problems inherent in making a list of books that are supposed to satisfy me for the next 52 weeks, I've gone ahead and made a list of 50 as a start - about half of which I already own and the rest being titles that have recently struck my fancy.

*Bolded means I actually got through them in '08!

1. All Things Alice, Linda Sunshine
2. All Things Oz, Linda Sunshine
3. The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman
4. Atonement, Ian Mcewan
5. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
6. Belladonna, Anne Bishop
7. The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander
8. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
9. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
10. Emma, Jane Austen
11. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
12. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
13. Gathering Blue, Lois Lowery
14. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
15. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J K Rowling
16. The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler
17. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
18. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
19. I Am America (And So Can You!), Stephen Colbert
20. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
21. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
22. Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen
23. Lucky, Alice Sebold
24. Madeline is Sleeping, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
25. Minority Report and Other Stories, Philip K Dick
26. Mirror, Mirror, Gregory Maguire
27. Naked Pictures of Famous People, Jon Stewart
28. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
29. The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
30. The Nimrod Flipout, Etgar Keret
31. No Plot? No Problem, Chris Baty
32. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
33. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
34. Rebel Angels, Libba Bray
35. Redwall, Brian Jacques
36. Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
37. Sebastian, Anne Bishop
38. Seven Basic Plots, Christopher Booker
39. She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb
40. The Shining, Stephen King
41. The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman
42. Tangled Webs, Anne Bishop
43. The Third Witch, Rebecca Reisert
44. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
45. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
46. Why Buffy Matters, Rhonda Wilcox
47. Wicked: The Grimmerie, David Cote
48. The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce
49. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
50. Women and Children First, Francine Prose

I wanted to keep the list at 50, but of course I've already discovered omissions I had intended to include (Paradise Lost, Beowulf - preferably illustrated copies), and what about all of the deliciously wonderful books that aren't in print yet? Woe is me! This list may need to be a fluid one after all.