102 books in 2013

My 2013 goal was to read 100 books. I read 102! Not that I earned bragging rights. Scan the list, you'll see several Asimov's, Dahl's, Hornby's and even two Kinsella's...the classics!

Favorites
Here's a list of the 16 books I gave a full five stars on Goodreads. My absolute favorites are Someone Somewhere, Beside the Sea, The Jungle, Rebecca and Friend of my Youth. I read Dune for the third or fourth time. Just seeing Dune on the list makes me want to read it again. The author Jean Rhys was the best discovery of the year. I will read more Barnes, du Maurier and Munro. I am also reading children's books to my son...many of them for the first time.

1. Beside the Sea - Olmi, Véronique  
2. Blindness - Saramago, José  
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Dahl, Roald  
4. Dune - Herbert, Frank  
5. Friend of My Youth - Munro, Alice  
6. Jacob Two-Two on the High Seas - Fagan, Cary  
7. Rebecca - Maurier, Daphne du  
8. Seeing - Saramago, José  
9. Someone Somewhere - Mills, Dana 
10. Swimming Home - Levy, Deborah  
11. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Twain, Mark 
12. The Bell Jar - Plath, Sylvia  
13. The Jungle - Sinclair, Upton  
14. The Secret Garden - Burnett, Frances Hodgson  
15. The Sense of an Ending - Barnes, Julian  
16. Wide Sargasso Sea - Rhys, Jean 

What did I learn?
I picked up some knowledge here and there, although that's not really the point of reading fiction. I'm looking for insight and great sentences. When the author has a greater understanding of themselves or this world than I will ever. Take Barnes...when he talks about life in The Sense of an Ending:

"But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical."

Then there is Rhys' Paris set of novels, we meet discarded women who cling to men for support and think of beauty (aging beauty at that) as their only means for survival. In Good Morning Midnight, she is walking about Paris, haunted by memories. The first person narration invites you deep into her melancholia, and it's wonderful:

“...I know all about myself now, I know. You've told me so often. You haven't left me one rag of illusion to clothe myself in.” 

Of course, I also read to be entertained by stepping into a story and taking part in another world. When I read Asimov, I enjoy the plot and strange reality. Other times I need a lighter story after reading something particularily dark, and this is when I turn to Hornby.

Finally, I select books that you are supposed to read. The ones that land on the 'Top' lists. I read them to understand why they are considered great. I want to have my say. If there was a checklist to complete in order to be given the title 'well-read,' I would steadily work through it. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. So many lists, so many different genres. Then, of course, biographies and other non fiction as well. So many books!   
 
Now what?
I'm glad I meet my goal, but I won't repeat it in 2014. I want to spend more time with each book to digest it. Read some Victorian novels (currently reading Bleak House, by Dickens, I doubt I will finish before year end). I'd like to be able to discuss literature intelligently, so I plan on reading critical essays or analysis after the book. Well, this is the plan, anyways. The goal in 2014 is to get more out of what I am reading.

The list:

	Title	Author	Rating
1	The Five People You Meet in Heaven	Albom, Mitch	3
2	Bastard Out of Carolina	Allison, Dorothy	4
3	Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson	Anderson, Sherwood	4
4	Foundation and Earth	Asimov, Isaac	1
5	Foundation's Edge	Asimov, Isaac	2
6	Second Foundation	Asimov, Isaac	3
7	Foundation and Empire	Asimov, Isaac	3
8	Foundation	Asimov, Isaac	3
9	Prelude to Foundation	Asimov, Isaac	3
10	The Currents of Space	Asimov, Isaac	3
11	Pebble in the Sky	Asimov, Isaac	3
12	The Stars, Like Dust	Asimov, Isaac	3
13	Forward the Foundation	Asimov, Isaac	4
14	Alias Grace	Atwood, Margaret	3
15	Arthur & George	Barnes, Julian	1
16	The Sense of an Ending	Barnes, Julian	5
17	Zuleika Dobson: or An Oxford Love Story	Beerbohm, Max	3
18	Jane Eyre	Brontë, Charlotte	3
19	The Secret Garden	Burnett, Frances Hodgson	5
20	Bliss	Carey, Peter	4
21	A Year in the Merde	Clarke, Stephen	2
22	Eleanor Rigby	Coupland, Douglas	3
23	The Red Badge of Courage	Crane, Stephen	3
24	The Witches	Dahl, Roald	4
25	Fantastic Mr. Fox	Dahl, Roald	4
26	James and the Giant Peach	Dahl, Roald	4
27	The Twits	Dahl, Roald	4
28	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Dahl, Roald	5
29	White Noise	DeLillo, Don	4
30	The Sisters Brothers	deWitt, Patrick	4
31	Heartburn	Ephron, Nora	2
32	I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections	Ephron, Nora	3
33	I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman	Ephron, Nora	4
34	Jacob Two-Two on the High Seas	Fagan, Cary	5
35	How to Read Novels Like a Professor	Foster, Thomas C.	3
36	The French Lieutenant's Woman	Fowles, John	3
37	Ellen Foster	Gibbons, Kaye	4
38	I, Claudius	Graves, Robert	3
39	The Dispossessed	Guin, Ursula K. Le	2
40	Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames	Hạnh, Thích Nhất	4
41	A Moveable Feast	Hemingway, Ernest	4
42	Dune	Herbert, Frank	5
43	In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed	Honoré, Carl	3
44	High Fidelity	Hornby, Nick	3
45	A Long Way Down	Hornby, Nick	3
46	About a Boy	Hornby, Nick	4
47	Their Eyes Were Watching God	Hurston, Zora Neale	4
48	The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry	Joyce, Rachel	4
49	The Bean Trees	Kingsolver, Barbara	4
50	Mini Shopaholic	Kinsella, Sophie	2
51	Shopaholic and Baby	Kinsella, Sophie	3
52	Travelling Light	Kittle, Katrina	3
53	Swimming Home	Levy, Deborah	5
54	The Call of the Wild	London, Jack	3
55	Love and the Mess We're In	Marche, Stephen	3
56	Rebecca	Maurier, Daphne du	5
57	The Paris Wife	McLain, Paula	2
58	Someone Somewhere	Mills, Dana	5
59	Black Swan Green	Mitchell, David	3
60	Friend of My Youth	Munro, Alice	5
61	Starter For Ten	Nicholls, David	3
62	Z for Zachariah	O'Brien, Robert C.	4
63	Appointment in Samarra	O'Hara, John	4
64	Beside the Sea	Olmi, Véronique	5
65	Lullabies for Little Criminals	O'Neill, Heather	4
66	The Hidden Persuaders	Packard, Vance	4
67	The Bell Jar	Plath, Sylvia	5
68	The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals	Pollan, Michael	4
69	Good Morning, Midnight	Rhys, Jean	3
70	Voyage in the Dark	Rhys, Jean	3
71	Quartet	Rhys, Jean	3
72	After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie	Rhys, Jean	4
73	Wide Sargasso Sea	Rhys, Jean	5
74	Jacob Two-Two-'s First Spy Case	Richler, Mordecai	3
75	Allegiant	Roth, Veronica	2
76	The Little Prince	Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de	4
77	Death with Interruptions	Saramago, José	3
78	Blindness	Saramago, José	5
79	Seeing	Saramago, José	5
80	The End of Your Life Book Club	Schwalbe, Will	3
81	Me Talk Pretty One Day	Sedaris, David	2
82	Funny Boy	Selvadurai, Shyam	4
83	The Jungle	Sinclair, Upton	5
84	Zen and the Art of Faking It	Sonnenblick, Jordan	3
85	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Spark, Muriel	4
86	East of Eden	Steinbeck, John	4
87	The Hollow Hills	Stewart, Mary	3
88	The Last Enchantment	Stewart, Mary	3
89	The Wicked Day	Stewart, Mary	3
90	The Crystal Cave	Stewart, Mary	4
91	The Joy Luck Club	Tan, Amy	4
92	The Flying Troutmans	Toews, Miriam	4
93	A Boy of Good Breeding	Toews, Miriam	4
94	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	Twain, Mark	3
95	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Twain, Mark	5
96	The Glass Castle	Walls, Jeannette	3
97	Billy Liar	Waterhouse, Keith	4
98	Stuart Little	White, E.B.	1
99	Charlotte's Web	White, E.B.	4
100	The Dutch Republic and the Civilisation of the 17th Century	Wilson, Charles	3
101	Mrs. Dalloway	Woolf, Virginia	3
102	Chocky	Wyndham, John	2

ps. now you know what I have been up to! I am out of the habit of blogging. I am not sure how many posts I have left in me!