I have recently taken on a challenge with my friend Rebekah to read 100 books for 2010. Since we are already half way through the year, we are just doing it as our own personal goal. However, for 2011 we plan on doing a charity event where other people can take part. So stay tuned for that. Since I began this challenge, it has become a great topic of conversation and I have found myself talking and thinking about books non-stop. I was at a friend’s Birthday party two weeks ago and was talking with a friend when my friend Sarah, also a reader and a teacher, came running up to me telling me to come join her conversation because she’s talking to a librarian. A librarian! These days that’s almost the equivalent to telling me she was talking to God, but way better! I’ve had a lot of people asking me for book recommendations and to please write a blog listing my most favorite books I’ve read so far this year. Right now I am at #35 out of 100 and Rebekah is at #44 out of 100. So we have each made a list of our top 15. Some of them are the same and as you will see we have similar tastes in our selections. So without further to do, here are our top 15 lists (in no particular order).
Andrea’s Top 15:
1. Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
2. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
3. A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Towes
4. Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
6. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
7. The Art of Power, by Thich Nhat Hanh
8. The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs
9. Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, by Elisabeth Robinson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Schaffer
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana deRosnay
A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas
Broken Open, by Elisabeth Lesser
Rebekah’s Top 15:
1. Not That Kind of Girl: A Memoir, by Carlene Bauer
2. Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties, by Marion Meade
3. Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. A Wolf at the Table, by Augusten Burroughs
5. What French Women Know About Love Sex and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind, by Debra Ollivier
6. How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer
7. Intimate Terrorism: The Deterioration of Erotic Life, by Michael Vincent Mille
8. The Road, by Cormac Mc. Carthy
9. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Schaffer
The Liars’ Club, by Mary Karr
A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
Slow Motion, by Dani Shapiro
Run Catch Kiss, by Amy Sohn
The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson
Feel free to put any recommendations in the comments box. I still have 65 more to go and Rebekah has 55.
Feel free to put any recommendations in the comments box. I still have 65 more to go and Rebekah has 55.
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