Favorite books – 2010

One of my new years resolutions for 2010 was to read a book a week. HAHAHA! Yeah, right! That didn’t happen. In 2011, I’m aiming for a books every two weeks, 26. In 2010 I read 24 books and some of them were awesome! Here are my ten favorites:

1. All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy – I don’t know how many times I’ve read this book but it is still one of my all-time favorites. The movie adaptation is great too.
2. Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin – I thought I knew a lot about animal behavior but this really brought a unique perspective. If you don’t want to read the whole book, at least read the first chapter and any chapter about a species that you have a great deal of interest in. Also Temple Grandin is AWESOME!
3. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins – I’ve never read anything by Tom Robbins before even though friends always told me I should. You gotta love a book that begins like this: “The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.”
4. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde – Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite authors. This is a new series of his. I’m definitely reading the next in the series, whenever it arrives.
5. The Economics of Food: How Feeding and Fueling the Planet Affects Food Prices by Patrick Westhoff – After reading this book, every time I hear someone in the media declare that food prices are “a simple matter of supply and demand”, I want to puke. The world is no longer a simple place, including supply and demand. It is mainly about food and commodity prices in 2008 but it is an excellent primer for non-economists, such as myself, on this topic.
6. Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress by Candacy A. Taylor – This book made me cry, I can’t say that about very many books. A beautiful book about women who work very hard.
7. Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis – These stories, some very short, alternate between silly and moving.
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson – Read the book before you see the movie. It is much better, also, you’ll be lest confused.
9. The Road by Cormac McCarthy – Another great one by Cormac McCarthy. I’ve yet to see the movie.
10. The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larrson – See #8

As of today, I’ve only finished three books this year. Getting through 26 may be a challenge.

 

Favorite books – 2009

For the past few years, I’ve made one New Year’s resolution: Read 52 books this year. I was successful at it for a couple of years but the last two? Not so much. Anyway, I did read 25 books last year, which isn’t so bad. Here’s my top 10:

1. An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage – You get to eat, be very grateful. It doesn’t taste like crap. We have it easy.
2. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – The first in a post-apocalyptic young adult fiction trilogy. Bloody but amazing. Give a copy to your favorite Libertarian.
3. Marley and Me by John Grogan – Deciding to love a dog is knowing someday your heart will break.
4. I Love You, Miss Huddleston: And Other Inappropriate Longings of My Indiana Childhood by Philip Gulley – Silly stories about growing up, written by a Quaker minister. Hilarious, read when you are in the bed with the flu, it will cheer you up.
5. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – The second in a post-apocalyptic young adult fiction trilogy. Bloody but amazing. Give a copy to your favorite Libertarian. I’m anxiously awaiting the third book.
6. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer – The second in the Twilight Saga. I think that Bella and Edward are two of the most annoying characters ever. I want to slap them both but mysteriously I really liked this book, probably because Edward was absent for half of it.
7. Holy Fools by Joanne Harris – She is one of my favorite authors, she also wrote Chocolat. Excellent as always.
8. Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King – From the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.  Some period fiction is awful but King spent her time in the library to make it good. Also, Sherlock Holmes! I love that dude! If you start the series read the first, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, first.
9. The Language of Bees by Laurie R King – Another from the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. Like all of them, it is a great combo of action and interesting characters.
10. It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather B. Armstrong – This book definitely has some rough patches but it made me laugh out loud a lot so onto the list it goes! You should read it for her definition of marriage alone, which somehow involves demolishing mailboxes with baseball bats.

And you? What were the best books you read last year?