Summer Book Finds (and thoughts about this blog)

Wow - I've added it up and have bought 89 books this summer, from June to August.  I hate spending full price for anything so most have been bought at the local library sale, a Border's closing sale and used book stores in Virginia (where I live) and Cape Cod/Vermont (where we spent our summer vacation).  The good news is that I did not buy much else - who wants to go into a cute boutique in Hyannis, MA or Richmond, VA when there is a used book store across the street?

I have also thought about this blog and it's purpose.  I have "fallen off the wagon" in terms of posting reviews which really bothers me, but more in a chore-like way.  I have resolved to think about this blog as a part of my grief journey, and what may have helped me in the past (i.e. timely blog posts) may not be helpful now.  And that I should be okay with the purpose changing from time to time.  For example, I am now using it to keep up with my 2011 list, my wish list and my TBR list.  The latter two have been printed out and serve as my guide in book buying sprees.  I am also using the blog roll on the right to visit other blogs/posts.  And that is enough for now.

I did want to catalogue what I have bought this summer by genre and author as it is a good indicator of where I am at and what books interest me at this particular point of my journey.  I have read some of these books and use the Goodread rating system:


1 - didn't like it
2 - it was ok
3 - liked it
4 - really liked it
5 - it was amazing


Classics

1. Carroll, Lewis - Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass 
2. Shelly, Mary - Frankenstein

Memoir/biographies

1. Angelou, Maya - The Heart of a Woman (#4) 
2. Athill, Diana - After A Funeral 
3. Baker, Russell - Growing Up
4. Bartok, Mira - The Memory Place 
5. Bialosky, Jill - History of a Suicide (4)
6. Conroy, Frank - Stop-Time 
7. Conroy, Pat - My Reading Life (4)
8. Conway, Jill Ker - The Road From Coorain
9. Conway, Jill Ker  - True North 
10. Conway, Jill Ker  - When Memory Speaks 
11. Dinesen, Isak - Out of Africa and Shadows On the Grass
12. Dillard, Annie - The Writing Life (2)
13. Flaubert, Gustauve - The Letters of Gustauve Flaubert (1830-1857) ed by Francis Steagmuller
14. Frame, Janet - An Angel at My Table 
15. Gaskell, Elizabeth - The Life of Bronte
16. Grealy, Lucy - Autobiography of a Face (4)
17. Hamill, Peter - A Drinking Life 
18. Karr, Mary - The Liar's Club 
19. Levi, Primo - Survival at Auschwitz
20. Prose, Francine - Anne Frank: The Book, Life and Afterlife
21. Ruhlman, Michael - The Soul of a Chef (3)
22. Shield, Carol - Jane Austen (3)
23. Seierstad, Asne - The Bookseller of Kabul 
24. Styron, Alesandra - Reading My Father (5)
25. Styron, William - Darkness Visible (5)
26. Tomalin, Claire - Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life 
27. Welty, Eudora - One Writer's Beginnings 

Fiction

1. Atwood, Margaret - Alias Grace
2. Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaiden's Tale 
3. Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Game 
4. Chiaverini, Jennifer - #4 The Runaway Quilt 
5. Chiaverini, Jennifer - #5 - The Quilter's Legacy 
6. Demas, Corrine - The Writing Circle  (2)
7. Doctorow, E.L. - Billy Bathgate 
8. Doctorow, E.L.Ragtime 
9. Doetsch, Richard - The 13th Hour 
10. Edrich, Lousie - Love Medicine 
11. Ellroy, James - L.A. Confidential 
12. Eugenides, Jeffrey - Middlesex 
13. Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
14. James, P.D. - Death in Holy Orders 
15. Kazuo, Ishiguro - A Pale View of Hills  (3)
16. Kerouac, Jack - On the Road 
17. Kincaid, Jamaica - Annie John (3)
18. Kingsolver, Barbara - Prodigal Summer 
19. Lamb, Wally - I Know This Much Is True
20. LeCarre, John - The Little Drummer Girl 
21. LeCarre, John - The Russia House 
22. LeCarre, John - Smiley's People 
23. Mankell, Henning - Faceless Killer (4)
24. Martin, George R.R - # 1 Game of Thrones (#1)  (4)
25. Martin, George R.R - #2 - Clash of Kings  (4)
26. Martin, George R.R - #3 A Storm of Swords (4)
27. McCarthy, Cormac - The Road 
28. Oates, Joyce Carol - Blonde 
29. Quindlen, Anna - One True Thing
30. Roth, Philip - The Plot Against America
31. Roth, Philip - Zuckerman Bound 
32. Russo, Richard - Empire Falls 
33. Salinger, J. D - Catcher in the Rye  (5)
34. Shields, Carol - The Republic Of Love 
35. Shields, Carol  - The Stone Diaries (4)
36. Smiley, Jane - The Greenlanders 
37. Updike, John - Rabbit, Run 
38. Wilson, Gayle - The Suicide Club (2)
39. Zusak, Markus - Book Thief 

Historical Fiction

1. Diamant, Anita - Day After Night (2) 
2. Flanagan, Thomas - The Tenants of Time 
3. Follett, Ken - Fall of Giants 
4. Mantel, Hilary - Wolf Hall 
5. O'Brien, Tim - Going After Cacciato 

Essays/Short Stories/Anthology

1. Charters, Ann - The Story and Its Writers by Ann Charters
2. Chekhov, Anton - Forty Stories 
3. Dillard, Annie - The Annie Dillard Reader 
4. Hamilton, Edith - Classic Bestseller Mythology
5. Oates, Joyce Carol - Will You Always Love Me? 
6. Quindlen, Anna - Living Out Loud 
7. Woolf, Virginia - The Virginia Woolf Reader ed by Mitchell Leaska

Non-Fiction

1. Adler, Mortimer - How To Read A Book (3)
2. Bartlett, Alison - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much  (3)
3. Gardner, John - The Art of Fiction (3)
4. Henry, James - The Art of the Novel 
5. LaPlante, Alice - The Making of A Story: The Norton Guide to Writing Fiction and Non-Fiction
6. Pratt, Steven - Superfoods 
7. Prose, Francine - Reading Like A Writer  
8. Thomas, Uzzell - The Technique of the Novel