Year In Reading, 2013

40 43 books read or partially read, not counting the re-reading of comfort food books (Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Dorothy Sayers mysteries, and Pride and Prejudice) but totally counting War & Peace, because I read the shit out of that, except the epilogue, which I skimmed the shit out of, because UGH TOLSTOY I GET IT NAPOLEON HISTORY EUROPE. Other than the epilogue, though, it really was pretty good! That was a pleasant surprise.

 

Here is the full list, roughly in order:

The Orphan Master’s Son (Johnson) – A

Life After Life (Atkinson) – A

Finishing the Hat (Sondheim) – A

Lonesome Dove (McMurtry) – A-

War and Peace (Tolstoy) – A-

Tenth of December (Saunders) – A-

A Tale for the Time Being (Ozeki) – A-

On Writing (King) – A-

Just Kids (Smith) – B+/A-

[all five of] The Patrick Melrose Novels (St. Aubyn) – B+/A-

Dear Life (Munro) – B+

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (Waldman) – B+

Speedboat (Adler) – B+

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (Sloan) – B+

Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble (Ephron) – B+

Half the Kingdom (Segal) – B+

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Semple) – B+

The Long Goodbye (Chandler) – B+

Foreign Affairs (Lurie) – B/B+

The Golem and the Jinni (Wecker) – B

Parrot and Olivier in America (Carey) – B

Your Baby and Child (Leach) – B

The Song of Achilles (Miller) – B

The Middlesteins (Attenberg) – B

The Burgess Boys (Strout) – B

Miss Silver Comes to Stay (Wentworth) – B

Double Indemnity (Cain) – B

The Interestings (Wolitzer) – B/B-

The Private Patient (James) – B-

Angry Conversations with God (Isaacs) – B-

Thrones, Dominations (Patton Walsh) – C

 

PUT ASIDE FOR LATER AND NOT BECAUSE OF QUALITY

When I Was a Child, I Read Books (Robinson) — UF

The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky) — UF

 

PUT ASIDE, KINDA BECAUSE OF QUALITY, OR MAYBE I JUST WASN’T IN THE RIGHT MOOD

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (Greer)

Love, In Theory (Levy)

Telegraph Avenue (Chabon)

Bringing up Bebe (Druckerman) <– If Carrie from SATC had not just gone to France but stayed there, had a baby, and written an inane memoir

 

UNRATED BUT EXCITING

Flashes of War (Schultz) — by a friend! Can’t rate it objectively but can kvell.

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