100 Books For 2010

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. 

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