Monday, January 09, 2006

Because I like to be exactly like my friends

Andrew Hungerford has a list of books he read in 2005 posted on his livejournal, and since I keep such a list myself it seemed silly to not share it.

Before I start in, however, a few caveats: first, 2005 was a sloooooow reading year for me. I worked crazy shifts in a grocery store and a CD store while my wife and I shared a room with our infant daughter. Quiet reading time was at a premium. Second, you may remember that I ignored nonfiction in my post discussing the NYT Book Review's 2005 list of notable books. As you'll see from my list, I don't read nonfiction. (I do, however, read newspapers, journals, and book reviews which, on the whole, keep me reasonably informed.) Third, for the heck of it, I'll include 2004's list as well. (As you'll see, 2004's list is much longer, partly because I was writing book reviews and so I was reading on deadline.)

Books read in 2005

  • Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
  • Marianne Robinson, Gilead
  • Caleb Carr, The Alienist
  • J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  • Rick Moody, The Diviners
  • Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility
  • John Updike, Rabbit Run


Books read in 2004

  • Jonathan Lethem, This Shape We're In
  • Hannah Tinti, Animal Crackers
  • E. M. Forster, Arctic Summer
  • Erik Larsen, The Devil in the White City (for review)
  • Debra Weinstein, Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. (for review)
  • Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code
  • Lois Lowry, The Giver (for author profile)
  • Lois Lowry, Number the Stars (for author profile)
  • Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue (for author profile)
  • Lucy Ellmann, Dot In the Universe
  • Julie Orringer, How To Breathe Underwater
  • Maile Meloy, Half In Love
  • Valerie Martin, Property (for bookstore reading group)
  • Orson Scott Card, Shadow Puppets
  • David Leavitt, The Body of Jonah Boyd
  • Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
  • Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
  • Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
  • Edward Lewis Wallant, The Tenants of Moonbloom


And I've already finished Zadie Smith's On Beauty for 2006.

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