Books Read 2009

It's really been a slow year of reading so far. I've been busier this semester than at any other point in my life (which is saying a lot), and reading's just not been any sort of priority. That's going to change though.

44. Selected Poems - R.S. Thomas 8/10

43. The Gravedigger's Daughter - Joyce Carol Oats 7/10

42. This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living the Compassionate Life - David Foster Wallace 9.5/10

40. United Methodist Beliefs: A Brief Introduction - William Willimon 8.5/10

39. Welcome to the Episcopal Church - Christopher Webber 7/10

38. The Irony of American History - Reinhold Niebuhr 7/10

37. The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers - Robinson Jeffers 8/10

36. Falling Man - Don Delillo - 6/10

35. Collected Works - Wallace Stevens 6/10

34. The Guardians - Anna Castillo 7.5/10

33. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 9.5/10

32. The Known World - Edward P. Jones 8/10

31. Towards a Natural Narratology - Monika Fludernik 2/10

30. The Major Works - Gerard Manley Hopkins 9/10

29. Glamorous Powers - Susan Howatch 8.5/10

28. Man in the Holocene - Max Frisch 2/10

27. Glittering Images - Susan Howatch 9.5/10

26. Kim - Rudyard Kipling 6.5/10

25. The World's Religions: Our Wisdom Traditions - Huston Smith 9/10

24. Letters from a Skeptic - Gregory A. Boyd 5.5/10

23. Small is Beautiful - E.F. Shumacher 8.5/10

22. Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate - Terry Eagleton 9.5/10

21. The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx and Fred Engels 7/10

20. Glittering Images - Susan Howatch 9.5/10

19. Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity (a misleading title for that book) - Lauren Winner 8.5/10

18. Kim - Rudyard Kipling 6/10

17. Letters from a Skeptic - Gregory Boyd and Edward Boyd 6.5/10

16. Night - Elie Wiesel - 9/10

15. God Work: Confessions of a Stand Up Preacher - Randy Harris - 9/10

14. Life of the Beloved - Henri J.M. Nouwen 10/10

13. The Watchmen - Alan Moore - 9/10

12. Small is Beautiful - E.F. Shumacher 9.5/10

11. The Courage to Be - Paul Tillich - 8/10

10. Walking to Martha's Vineyard - Franz Wright - 9.5/10

9. Paul: A Very Short Introduction - E.P. Sanders 8/10

8. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - 8.5/10

7. The Princess Bride - William Goldman - 10/10

6. Fool - Christopher Moore - 8/10

5. The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis - 9/10

4. In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan - 10/10

3. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? - Raymond Carver 8/10

2. Fight Club - Chuck Palauhniuk 7/10

1. The Little Foxes - Lillian Hellman 9/10

Books Read 2008

70. Selected Poems - W.H. Auden 8/10

69. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories - Tim Burton 7/10

68. Voss - David Ives 7.5/10

67. The Tales of Beedle the Bard - J.K. Rowling 7.5/10

66. The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming - Lemony Snicket 7/10

65. Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell 8.5/10

64. Amusing Ourselves To Death - Neil Postman 9.5/10

63. All of Us - Raymond Carver 7.5/10

62. Weather Central - Ted Kooser 7.5/10

61. 1 & 2 King (Brazos Theological Commentary) - Peter J. Leithart 8.5/10

60. If I Don't Know - Wendy Cope 4/10

59. Maxims - La Rochefoucauld 8/10

58. Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament - Ellen Davis 9/10

57. The Crucible - Arthur Miller 9/10

56. The Crock of Gold - James Stephens 9.5/10

55. How to Heal the Hurt by Hating - Anita Liberty 7.5/10

54. Austenland - Shannon Hale 7.5/10

53. The Mystic Masseur - V.S. Naipaul 8/10

52. Lying Awake (second time) - Mark Salzman 9/10

51. Interior Castle - Teresa of Avila 6/10

50. Exiles: A Novel - Ron Hansen 8.5/10

49. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction - Christopher Butler 7.5/10

48. Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise - Robert Inchausti 10/10

47. What Saint Paul Really Said - N.T. Wright 8.5/10

46. The Old Testament: A Very Short Introduction - Michael Coogan 6/10

45. Belief in God in an Age of Science - John Polkinghorne 8/10

44. The Bhagavad-Gita 6.5/10

43. Barth for Armchair Theologians - John R. Franke 9/10

42. Wesley for Armchair Theologians - William J. Abraham 8.5/10

41. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger 7/10

40. Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot 9/10

39. Iron and Silk - Mark Salzman 8/10

38. Lying Awake - Mark Salzman 9/10

37. Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke 9.5/10

36. 20 Something Manifesto - Christine Hassler 7.5/10

35. Roman England: A Very Short Introduction - Peter Salway 7/10

34. The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction - John Blair 7/10

33. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams 9/10

32. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling 10/10

31. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz 8/10

30. A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry 9.5/10

29. A Very Long Engagement - Sebastian Japrisot 8.5/10

28. Coraline - Neil Gaiman 7/10

27. Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut 6/10

26. The Princess Bride - William Goldman 10/10

25. Night - Elie Wiesel 9/10

24. A Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Live the Bible as Literally as Possible
- A.J. Jacobs 8/10

23. Captain Alatriste - Arturo Perez-Reverte 7/10

22. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama 8/10

21. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller 7.5/10

20. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott 7/10

19. American Born Chinese - Guen Luen Yang 8/10

18. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 8.5/10

17. Russell Baker's Book of American Humor - Russell Baker 6/10

16. There's a Hair in My Dirt - Gary Larson 6/10

15. God's Silence - Franz Wright 7.5/10

14. I Am One of You Forever - Fred Chappell 9.5/10

13. An Honest Answer - Ginger Andrews 7.5/10

12. Hurricane Sisters - Ginger Andrews 8/10

11. Just People - Kathi Appelt 6.5/10

10. Good Poems for Hard Times - Garrison Keillor 9/10

9. Walking to Martha's Vineyard - Franz Wright 9.5/10

8. Flying at Night - Ted Kooser 8.5/10

7. Good Poems - Garrison Keillor 9/10

6. Eve's Diary - Mark Twain 9.5/10

5. The Blizzard Voices - Ted Kooser 7.5/10

4. Spoon River Anthology - Edgar Lee Masters 7.5/10

3. Delights and Shadows - Ted Kooser 9.5/10

2. Twilight - Stephanie Meyer 5/10

1. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl 8/10

Reading List 2007

55. The Elements of Style - E.B. White and William Strunk 6.5/10

54. No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy 8.5/10

53. Simply Christian - N.T. Wright 8/10

52. Following Jesus - N.T. Wright 8/10

51. Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament - Ellen Davis 8.5/10

50. What Learning Leaves - Taylor Mali 7/10

49. Life of the Beloved - Henri J.M. Nouwen 9.5/10

48. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 8/10

47. The Nuts-And-Bolts of College Writing - Michael Harvey 7/10

46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain 10/10

45. The Prentice Hall Reader - 4/10

44. Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare 9.5/10

43. The Challenge of Jesus - N.T. Wright 8.5/10

42. A Little Literature - Sylvan Barnet, William Burnet, and William Cain 7/10

41. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling 10/10

40. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling 10/10

39. A Generous Orthodoxy - Brian McLaren 6.5/10

38. The Princess Bride - William Goldman 10/10

37. The Death of Adam - Marilynne Robinson 10/10

36. Legend - David Gemmell 8/10

35. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 9/10

34. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - Peter Boxall 8/10

33. Tutoring Writing: A Practical Guide for Conferences - Donald McAndrew and Thomas Reigstad 6/10

32. Smiley's People - John Le Carre 9.5/10

31. The Red Pony - John Steinbeck 7/10

30. The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carre 8/10

29. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield 7/10

28. The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham 6.5/10

27. St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox - G.K. Chesterton 8.5/10

26. The Symposium - Plato 8/10

25. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 9/10

24. Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer 5/10

23. Resident Aliens - Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon 8.5/10

22. Bus Stop - William Inge 7.5/10

21. The Slave - Isaac Bashevis Singer 9.8/10

20. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh 8.5/10

19. Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson 8 /10

18. Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore 7.5/10

17. Mornings Like This: Found Poems - Annie Dillard 7/10

16. Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 8.5/10

15. Candide - Voltaire 5.5/10

14. The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian - Lloyd Alexander 9/10

13. An Honest Answer - Ginger Andrews 9/10

12. The Longwood Reader - Edward A. Dornan and Michael Finnegan 7/10

11. Painless Writing - Jeffrey Strausser 5.5/10

10. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce 5/10

9. Writing Without Teachers - Peter Elbow 7.5/10

8. Community of Writers - Peter Elbow 5.5/10

7. The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing - Michael Harvey 8/10

6. The End - Lemony Snicket 10/10

5. The Penultimate Peril - Lemony Snicket 9.5/10

4. The Grim Grotto - Lemony Snicket 8/10

3. The Slippery Slope - Lemony Snicket 9/10

2. The Carniverous Carnival - Lemony Snicket 8.5/10

1. The Hostile Hospital - Lemony Snicket 7.5/10

The Fifty Novels I'd Sort of Like to Read in the Next Few Years or So (Let Me Know If You've Read Any and They're Terrible).

1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro*

2. Arthur and George – Julian Barnes

3. Offshore – Penelope Lively

4. The Secret River – Kate Grenville

5. The Echo Maker – Richard Powers

6. Confederates – Thomas Keneally

7. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood

8. Atonement – Ian McEwan

9. Three Cheers for the Paraclete – Thomas Keneally

10. The World According to Garp – John Irving

11. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving*

12. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

13. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

14. On the Road – Jack Kerouac

15. Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

16. A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby

17. Saturday - Ian McEwan

18. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini*

19. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

20. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield*

21. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer*

22. Reluctant Prophets and Clueless Disciples – Bob Darden

23. Bee Season – Myla Goldberg

24. The Doctor’s Wife – Brian Moore

25. Precious Bane – Mary Webb

26. March – Geraldine Brooks

27. Winter’s Tale – Mark Helprin

28. Last Orders – Graham Swift

29. Slapstick – Kurt Vonnegut

30. The Baron in the Trees – Italo Calvino

31. Lying Awake – Mark Salzman

32. Coyote Blue – Christopher Moore*

33. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer*

34. Haroun and the Sea of Stories – Salman Rushdie*

36. The War of the End of the World – Mario Vargas Llosa

37. Quarantine – Jim Crace

38. The Ball and the Cross - G.K. Chesterton

39. The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor – John Barth

40. Independent People – Halldor Laxness

41. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro

42. The Samurai – Shusaku Endo

43. The Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos

44. Ahab’s Wife – Sena Jeter Naslund

45. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco

46. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

47. Love in the Ruins – Walker Percy

48. Jayber Crow – Wendell Berry

49. Brendan – Frederick Buechner

50. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse – Louise Erdrich

Books I've Read in 2006

76. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense - N.T. Wright 9/10

75. The Vile Village - Lemony Snicket 7.5/10

74. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie 8/10

73. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer 9.5/10

72. The Ersatz Elevator - Lemony Snicket 8/10

71. So What Are You Going to Do With That?: A Guide for M.A.'s and Ph.D's Seeking Careers Outside the Academy - Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius 5.5/10

70. A Little Literature: Reading, Writing, Argument - Sylvan Barnett, William E. Burto, William E. Cain 6.5/10

69. Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot 9.5/10

68. Othello - William Shakespeare 8/10

67. Literary Theory: An Introduction - Terry Eagleton 9/10

66. Lacan for Beginners - Phillip Hill 7/10

65. Lamentations and the Tears of the World - Kathleen O'Connor 8/10

64. Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World - Enrique Nardoni 8.5/10

63. Introduction to the Hebrew Bible - John Collins 7/10

62. Living by Fiction - Annie Dillard 9/10

61. A Little Literature - Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain 7/10

60. The Dragonbone Chair - Tad Williams 8.5/10

59. The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man - Lloyd Alexander 8/10

58. The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin 9/10

57. Captain Blood - Rafael Sabatini 7.5/10

56. The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula Le Guin 9/10

55. Atticus - Ron Hansen 9.5/10

54. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre 9/10

53. The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life - Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. 9/10

52. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott 8/10

51. Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living - Cornelius Plantinga 6.5/10

50. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut 9/10

49. Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern 6.5/10

48. Kierkegaard in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern 6.5/10

47. Thomas Aquinas in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern 5/10

46. Saint Augustine - Gary Wills 7/10

45. Derrida in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern 6/10

44. Mudhouse Sabbath - Lauren Winner 8/10

43. Babe: The Gallant Pig - Dick King-Smith 8/10

42. Lament for a Son - Nicholas Wolterstorff 7/10

41. The Whipping Boy - Sid Fleischman 7/10

40. The Solace of Leaving Early - Haven Kimmel 8.5/10

39. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore 8.5/10

38. Isaac the Pirate: To Exotic Lands - Christophe Blain 6.5/10

37. The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool - Margaret Gray 5/10

36. Can You Drink the Cup? - Henri J.M. Nouwen 8.5/10

35. Ironweed - William Kennedy 6.5/10

34. Princess Academy - Shannon Hale 10/10

33. The Moon is Down - John Steinbeck 6/10

32. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold - John Le Carre 9.5/10

31. Summer of the Swans - Betsy Byars 7/10

30. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh 7.5/10

29. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes - Eleanor Coerr 7/10

28. A Fine White Dust - Cynthia Rylant 7.5/10

27. The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence 6.5/10

26. Kiss of the Spider Woman - Manuel Puig 8.5/10

25. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 7.5/10

24. Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World - Lee Camp 9.5/10

23. Stardust - Neil Gaiman 9/10

22. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore 9.5/10

21. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2 - Alan Moore 6.5/10

20. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 - Alan Moore 8.5/10

19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon 7.5/10

18. Plainsong - Kent Haruf 9/10

17. Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words - Stanley Hauerwas 8/10

16. Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World - Henri J.M. Nouwen 9/10

15. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson 8/10

14. Prayers Spoken Plainly - Stanley Hauerwas 9/10

13. Crazy Horse - Larry McMurtry 6.5/10

12. Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott 8.5/10

11. Martin Luther - Martin Marty 8.5/10

10. Prayers - Peter Washington 6.5/10

9. Love Letters - Peter Washington 6.5/10

8. Cherry Log Sermons - Fred Craddock 7/10

7. The Club of Queer Trades - G.K. Chesterton 8/10

6. Watchmen - Alan Moore 8.5/10

5. The Message - Eugene Peterson (and God) 10/10

4. Basic Christianity - John Stott 7/10

3. Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis 6.5/10

2. The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis 8/10

1. The Assistant - Bernard Malamud 8/10

Things To Do Before I Die #4

They announced the new winner of the Pulitzer Prize yesterday, and so I thought that this would be a good time to post my Pulitzer Prize book list. This should be my last reading list to post (thank goodness). It’s another one that I’m sort of stuck with since I made my little vow to read all of these back in junior high (or early high school—I’m too old to remember now). Still, several of these have become my favorite novels, so it’s not that bad a vow.

I’m not doing so good on this list. I’ve currently read 26 out of the 90 books on the list.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

2006 – March: A Novel – Geraldine Brooks

2005 – Gilead – Marilynne Robinson

2004 – The Known World – Edward P. Jones

2003 – Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

2002 – Empire Falls – Richard Russo

2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

2000 – Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

1999 – The Hours – Michael Cunningham

1998 – American Pastoral – Philip Roth

1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer - Stephen Millhauser

1996 – Independence Day – Richard Ford

1995 – Stone Diaries – Carol Shields

1994 – The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx

1993 – A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain – Robert Olen Butler

1992 – A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley

1991 – Rabbit at Rest – John Updike

1990 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love – Oscar Hijuelos

1989 – Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

1988 – Beloved – Toni Morrison

1987 – A Summons to Memphis – Peter Taylor

1986 – Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

1985 – Foreign Affairs – Alison Lurie

1984 – Ironweed – William Kennedy

1983 – The Color Purple – Alice Walker

1982 – Rabbit is Rich – John Updike

1981 – A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

1980 – The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer

1979 – The Stories of John Cheever – John Cheever

1978 – Elbow Room – James Alan MacPherson

1976 – Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow

1975 – The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara

1973 – The Optimist’s Daughter – Eudora Welty

1972 – Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

1970 – Collected Stories – Jean Stafford

1969 – House Made of Dawn – N. Scott Momaday

1968 – The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron

1967 – The Fixer – Bernard Malamud

1966 – Collected Stories – Katherine Anne Porter

1965 – The Keepers of the House – Shirley Ann Grau

1963 – The Reivers – William Faulkner

1962 – The Edge of Sadness – Edwin O’Connor

1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

1960 – Advise and Consent – Allen Drury

1959 – The Travels of Jamie McPheeters – Robert Lewis Taylor

1958 – A Death in the Family – James Agee

1956 – Andersonville – MacKinlay Kantor

1955 – A Fable – William Faulkner

1953 – The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

1952 – Caine Mutiny – Herman Wouk

1951 – The Town – Conrad Richter

1950 – The Way West – William B. Guthrie

1949 – Guard of Honor – James Gould Cozzens

1948 – Tales of the South Pacific – James Michener

1947 – All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

1945 – A Bell for Adano – James Hersey

1944 – Journey in the Dark – Martin Flavin

1943 – Dragon’s Teeth – Upton Sinclair

1942 – In this Our Life – Ellen Glasgow

1940 – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

1939 – The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938 – The Late George Apley – John P. Marquand

1937 – Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

1936 – Honey in the Horn – Harold L. Davis

1935 – Now in November – Josephine Johnson

1934 – Lamb in His Bosom – Caroline Miller

1933 – The Store – Thomas Stribling

1932 – The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

1931 – Years of Grace – Margaret Barnes

1930 – Laughing Boy – Oliver La Farge

1929 – Scarlet Sister Mary – Julia Peterkin

1928 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

1927 – Early Autumn – Louis Bromfield

1926 – Arrowsmith – Sinclair Lewis

1925 – So Big – Edna Ferber

1924 – The Able McLaughlins – Margaret Wilson

1923 – One of Ours – Willa Cather

1922 – Alice Adams – Booth Tarkington

1921 – The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington

1918 – His Family – Ernest Poole

Things To Do Before I Die #3

Well, I’ll continue my book-list vows now and get them out of the way on the blog.

So, I’ve also vowed to read all of the Newbery Winning books. This is sad; I know. I decided this back in junior high, and I’m stuck with it. I should have done a little more about it back then, too, I guess.

Anyway, this one should be much quicker than my other booklist assignments. Plus, a lot of the Newbery Winners I’ve read have been excellent, and I still enjoy them. I probably actually look forward to this little reading task more than to my other reading lists.

So, here is the list. I’ve currently read 59 books on the list (out of 84 total). The books in bold I've read.

Newbery Winners

2006 - Criss Cross – Lynne Rae Perkins

2005 – Kira-Kira – Cynthia Kadohata

2004 – Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread – Kate DiCamillo

2003 – Crispin: The Cross of Lead – Avi

2002 – A Single Shard – Linda Sue Park

2001 – A Year Down Yonder – Richard Peck

2000 – Bud, Not Buddy – Christopher Paul Curtis

1999 – Holes – Louis Sachar

1998 – Out of the Dust – Karen Hesse

1997 – The View From Saturday – E.L. Konigsburg

1996 – The Midwife’s Apprentice – Karen Cushman

1995 – Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech

1994 – The Giver – Lois Lowry

1993 – Missing May – Cynthia Rylant

1992 – Shiloh – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

1991 – Maniac Magee – Jerry Spinelli

1990 – Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

1989 – Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices – Paul Fleishman

1988 – Lincoln: A Photobiography – Russell Freedman

1987 – The Whipping Boy – Sid Fleishman

1986 – Sarah, Plain and Tall – Patricia MacLachlan

1985 – The Hero and the Crown – Robin McKinley

1984 – Dear Mr. Henshaw – Beverly Cleary

1983 – Dicey’s Song – Cynthia Voigt

1982 – A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers – Nancy Willard

1981 – Jacob Have I Loved – Katherine Paterson

1980 – A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal 1830-1832 – Joan Blos

1979 – The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin

1978 – Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

1977 – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred Taylor

1976 – The Grey King – Susan Cooper

1975 – M.C. Higgins, the Great – Virginia Hamilton

1974 – The Slave Dancer – Paula Fox

1973 – Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George

1972 – Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O’Brien

1971 – Summer of the Swans – Betsy Byars

1970 – Sounder – William H. Armstrong

1969 – The High King – Lloyd Alexander

1968 – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E.L. Konigsburg

1967 – Up a Road Slowly – Irene Hunt

1966 – I, Juan de Pareja – Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

1965 – Shadow of a Bull – Maia Wojciechowska

1964 – It’s Like This, Cat – Emily Cheney Neville

1963 – A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

1962 – The Bronze Bow – Elizabeth George Speare

1961 – Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

1960 – Onion John – Joseph Krumgold

1959 – The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare

1958 – Rifles for Watie – Robert Keith

1957 – Miracle on Maple Hill – Virginia Sorensen

1956 – Carry On, Mr. Bowditch – Jean Lee Latham

1955 – The Wheel on the School – Meindert DeJong

1954 – And Now Miguel… - Joseph Krumgold

1953 – Secret of the Andes – Ann Nolan Clark

1952 – Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes

1951 – Amos Fortune, Free Man – Elizabeth Yates

1950 – The Door in the Wall – Margurine De Angeli

1949 – King of the Wind – Margurite Henry

1948 – The Twenty-One Balloons – William Pene Du Bois

1947 – Miss Hickory – Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

1946 – Strawberry Girl – Lois Lensky

1945 – Rabbit Hill – Robert Lawson

1944 – Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes

1943 – Adam of the Road – Elizabeth Janet Grey

1942 – The Matchlock Gun – Walter D. Edmonds

1941 – Call it Courage – Armstrong Sperry

1940 – Daniel Boone – James Daugherty

1939 – Thimble Summer – Elizabeth Enright

1938 – The White Stage – Kate Seredy

1937 – Roller Skates – Ruth Sawyer

1936 – Caddie Woodlawn – Carol Ryrie Brink

1935 – Dobry – Monica Shannon

1934 – Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women – Cornelia Meigs

1933 – Young Fu of the Upper Yang-Tze – Elizabeth Foreman Lewis

1932 – Waterless Mountain – Laura Adams Armer

1931 – The Cat Who Went to Heaven – Elizabeth Coatsworth

1930 – Hitty, Her First Hundred Years – Rachel Field

1929 – The Trumpeter of Krakow – Eric P. Kelly

1928 – Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon – Dhan Gopal Mukerji

1927 – Smoky the Cowhorse – Will James

1926 – Shen of the Sea – Arthur Bowie Chrisman

1925 – Tales from the Silver Lands – Charles Finger

1924 – The Dark Frigate – Charles Boardman Hawes

1923 – The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle – Hugh Lofting

1922 – The Story of Mankind – Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Things To Do Before I Die #2

This one is pathetic, but I decided it back before I knew what I was thinking. So I’m stuck with it. So it goes.

I’m going to read all of the novels on Modern Library’s top hundred novels of the twentieth century list.

There are only a couple of exceptions on the list. Because of a previous vow I had taken, I will not read the ridiculously hard and meaningless books by James Joyce. I will read his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but I will not read either Finnegan’s Wake or Ulysses. Also, I don’t feel bound to read all of the U.S.A Trilogy or the Studs Lonigan Trilogy or the Alexandria Quartet. I can sample them. I may claim that same right for A Dance to the Music of Time as well, but I doubt that I will. I’m pretty sure that I’ll love that entire series and will read it all. Also, if I never quite develop the stomach to read all of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, that will be ok, too.

Here’s the list. Those in bold, I have read. It’s funny, but I’ve read a lot of the more obscure books before I’ve read some of the more famous.

I've currently read 33 books on the list.

Modern Library’s Best 100 Books of the Twentieth Century

1. Ulysses – James Joyce

2. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce

4. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

5. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

6. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

7. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

8. Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler

9. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence

10. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

11. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry

12. The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler

13. 1984 – George Orwell

14. I, Claudius – Robert Graves

15. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

16. An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser

17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

18. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

19. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

20. Native Son – Richard Wright

21. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow

22. Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara

23. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos

24. Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson

25. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster

26. The Wings of a Dove – Henry James

27. The Ambassadors – Henry James

28. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T. Farrell

30. The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford

31. Animal Farm – George Orwell

32. The Golden Bowl – Henry James

33. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser

34. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh

35. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

36. All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

38. Howards End – E.M. Forster

39. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin

40. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene

41. Lord of the Flies – William Goldman

42. Deliverance – James Dickey

43. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell

44. Point Counter Point – Aldous Huxley

45. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

46. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad

47. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad

48. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence

49. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence

50. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller

51. The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

52. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth

53. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov

54. Light in August – William Faulkner

55. On the Road – Jack Kerouac

56. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

57. Parade’s End – Ford Maddox Ford

58. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

59. Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm

60. The Moviegoer – Walker Percy

61. Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

62. From Here to Eternity – James Jones

63. The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever

64. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger

65. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

66. Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham

67. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

68. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis

69. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

70. The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell

71. A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes

72. A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul

73. The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West

74. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

75. Scoop – Evelyn Waugh

76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark

77. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce

78. Kim – Rudyard Kipling

79. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster

80. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

81. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow

82. Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

83. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul

84. The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen

85. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

86. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow

87. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett

88. The Call of the Wild – Jack London

89. Loving – Henry Green

90. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

91. Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell

92. Ironweed – William Kennedy

93. The Magus – John Fowles

94. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

95. Under the Net – Iris Murdock

96. Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

97. The Sheltering Sky – Paul Powles

98. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain

99. The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy

100. The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington

2005 in Review

I don't know if you're interested, but these were my favorite books, movies, and cds that I happened across in 2005 (I'll add some Amazon links later).

Books
1. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson (a landslide favorite)
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (best book in the series)
3. Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry – ed. David Impastato
4. Ragman and Other Cries of Faith - Walter Wangerin
5. Hannah Coulter - Wendell Berry
6. The Complete Poems - Robert Frost

Movies
1. Star Wars (I watched all of them for the first time this summer.)
2. Life of Brian (up there with Holy Grail)
3. Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
4. A Very Long Engagement
5. Rules of the Game
6. The Corpse Bride

CDs
1. The Collection - Jennifer Knapp
2. Careless Love - Madeleine Peroux
3. Tambourine - Tift Merritt
4. Dreamland - Madeleine Peroux
5. Oh, Inverted World - The Shins
6. Wave of Mutilation - The Pixies

Stop Crying

By the way, I laugh a lot too. After that last post, I thought I should give a brief list of books that make me laugh. Here they are.

1. The Princess Bride by William Goldman – As wonderful as the movie is, the book is better and much funnier.

2. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore – A book that makes the life of Christ into a comedy would normally be pretty sacrilegious. But somehow, Christopher Moore stayed respectful, with even a few reverent moments. This is basically the story of those lost years of Jesus’s life as told by Jesus’s goofy best friend Biff. There are a lot of inside jokes that Christians will really enjoy, and there are some actual profound moments that Moore is a good enough author to create. Moore was working with some pretty good material, and he didn’t go wrong.

3. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – This is every bit the classic it’s supposed to be. It’s funny and poignant.

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – I guess this is pretty standard. My favorite of the series is the fourth one, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. The movie wasn’t bad, but it didn’t do the trilogy justice.

5. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy – Walker Percy’s novel The Second Coming contains the single funniest moment I’ve ever read in a book, but that’s not primarily a comedic book. I guess this one isn’t either, but it’s still consistently funny. It’s basically a mock self-help book (that’s also a real self-help book) from one of the most original thinkers we’ve ever had. Percy was a fairly conservative Catholic who just lampoons everybody from this age. He just makes you feel silly sometimes by pointing out little absurdities in our lives that we take for granted, and he always points to a better way to live.

6. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh – This is easily the darkest book on the list. Evelyn Waugh saw a lot of soulless people in our secular age, and he set out to shock us out of our complacency. This satire on the Hollywood funeral industry is pretty effective. His best book is easily Brideshead Revisited, but to me, this is his funniest.

Other notables:

1. The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton (Chesterton’s the Besterton!!!)
2. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
3. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
4. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
5. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
6. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
7. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
8. Godric by Frederick Buechner

I'm Such a Girl

A few days ago, when I was driving to San Angelo, a song that I don’t much like came on with the words, “I didn’t cry when Old Yeller died…” I quickly turned the song, but of course, I started thinking about the line. I did not cry when Old Yeller died in either the book or the movie. I’ve never been much of a crier, even when I was an infant (or so I’ve heard), and I started to think if any book or movie had ever made me cry. There are not any movies that I could think of (though Lonesome Dove and A Man for All Seasons almost did), but there were a surprisingly high number of books that have made me cry. When I started to list them in my head, I also realized that the handful books that made me cry were also the ones that I counted as my very favorites. That’s not much of a coincidence, but I had never thought of it that way before. Anyway, there are seven books that have made me cry in my lifetime. Two of them are children’s books that I read a long time ago (a picture book version of The Fox and the Hound and Cynthia Rylant’s Missing May that I read right after my grandmother died) that I would disqualify from my favorites list now, but the others all happened within the last few years. I also just thought it was strange that only one of the five, King Lear, can be said to end unhappily (and I really think that conclusion could be debated). I just cry for strange reasons, that’s all. Anyway, here they are, the books that for one reason or another have made me turn into a little girl.

1. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy – I didn’t like the book the first time I read it and certainly didn’t cry during it. Something about the book stuck with me though, and eventually, the experiences in my life caught up those in the book. Then, I started rereading The Moviegoer (I think I cried the third time I read it), and in some ways, I haven’t stopped rereading it. It’s my comfort book, and whenever I’m at all down, I tend to turn to this. In so many ways (often ways that I wouldn’t be proud to admit), I’m like the protagonist of this novel, Binx Bolling, and in the book, he makes the breakthroughs I often need to make in my life. In doing so, he shows me the way. I don’t recommend this book to that many people for several reasons. For one, even I didn’t like it the first time I read it; it’s sort of difficult for many people to connect with Binx. Moreover, I think I’m a little too closely connected myself to the novel to recommend it. If I recommend it to someone, it sort of feels like I’m letting a bit too much about myself be known.

2. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – I would recommend this novel to anyone. It’s the most perfect book I’ve ever read (and it definitely deserved its Pulitzer). It has a pretty simple plot, but there are so many things to enjoy. It’s basically about a seventy-six-year-old preacher, who has found out he will soon be dying, writing a book to his seven-year-old son so that he can tell the boy the things he wants the boy to know about him. What follows is a sort of hodge-podge of things. John Ames often just meditates poetically on the things he has enjoyed in his life: nature, his wife, his son. And, of course as a preacher, he spends a lot of time writing philosophically about Christianity, and some of his observations and glorifications were my favorite moments of the novel (it’s really refreshing to read a contemporary literary novel that is so strongly for Christianity). And, of course, he tells stories, and of course, these are the best parts of book. It’s in these stories where the grace John Ames has praised in his meditations is made incarnate. He talks about his grandfather and his father. He writes about falling in love with his wife late in life and marrying her. He writes about his adventures with his young son. And, most importantly, he tells the stories of his life as a pastor, particularly in helping one man (I’ll leave it at that). It probably sounds like a boring book, but the stories and the observations all culminate into one of the most emotional and inspiring books I’ve ever read. In time, I could see Gilead even overtaking The Moviegoer on this sort of list.

3. For the Time Being by Annie Dillard – This is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read (which is saying a lot), and I definitely don’t understand it all. That said, it’s still tremendously affecting. It’s basically a bunch of vignettes on all sorts of seemingly random things (clouds, sand, birth defects, clay soldiers, her travels in Israel, and the theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), but in all of them, she’s basically trying to figure out one thing. She’s set out to tackle just about the biggest questions there are. Is there a God? If there’s a God, why does he allow evil? The result of Dillard’s questioning is the best book I’ve ever read (and I’ve heard of a lot of people who agree with me) there is on the problem of evil, and a one-of-a-kind postmodern theodicy. Of course, a book that tries to take on these sorts of problems isn’t going to be normal. After all, evil isn’t logical, and God’s ways aren’t our ways anyway; you can’t approach the subject in any sort of rational way. So she doesn’t. All the rules about what a book should be, and what an apologetic should be, are thrown out the window. She takes apart every rational explanation about the problem of evil, she cries out at God, she writes a little about clouds, and she somehow brings you back to God. I can’t explain how she does it, but she does it. She leaves you with a bunch of mysteries—the mysteries of humanness and God and of the love that occurs “despite all the facts”—and with an overwhelming desire to cast yourself into those mysteries and fight for the redemption of the world. After all, “The Mystery will be accomplished.” I know that all of that is pretty esoteric, but trust me, reading the always an overwhelming experience, and everyone I’ve ever recommended this book to has agreed.

4. King Lear by William Shakespeare – This is easily Shakespeare’s best. Easily. I remember when this was taught to me at ACU, the professor wept openly during the class, as had I when I first read it. Just about every element of element of living out the Christian story is depicted here so beautifully, with all of the humor, pathos, and grace necessary. Scene after scene is memorable and saturated with meaning. In particular, I remember Lear’s divestiture out on the heath, the Earl’s leap of faith, the reunion of Cordelia and Lear (the scene that got my professor), and the ending (which I don’t think is nearly as tragic as most people read it to be—I see at least a hint of resurrection). Anyway, this is Shakespeare’s best to me, both in terms of story and the meaning in that story, and it’s easily one of my favorites.

5. Empire Falls by Richard Russo – This is another of those books, like Gilead, that I recommend to a lot of people. Russo is one of the best writers out there (he’s even better than some of the other great domestic novelists I’ve read—Wallace Stegner, Anne Tyler, Wendell Berry, John Updike). He takes his cast of pretty normal characters, a fortyish man who considers himself a failure, his teenage daughter, his ex-wife, and several other family members and friends trying to survive the turmoil of their normal lives in a small town, and he somehow manages to present them in all their humanness. He presents these unbelievably sympathetic characters with an extraordinary compassion that somehow never becomes sentimental. All of the sadness and disappointment inherent in human life is here, and so is a redemptive humor. This is both one of the funniest and saddest books I ever read, and often, both the hilarious and the poignant moments come on the same page. After I got through the first chapter, I couldn’t let this book down, and I read the five hundred pages in a little over a day. This book also contains the single most shocking moment I have ever read anywhere. The moment’s not shocking in any gross sort of way; it just has one moment that seems utterly devastating at the time. And I think it’s the strange workings of grace in the aftermath of this devastating moment that got me. Anyway, it’s a great book; I’d recommend it to anybody.


I thought that I’d list briefly the books that were near-misses. These books nearly made me break down, but not quite.

1. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
2. Upholding Mystery by David Impastato (the ultimate book of contemporary Christian verse)
3. The Royal Physician’s Visit by Per Olav Enquist
4. The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket (I’m serious.)
5. Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner
6. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
7. The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling