July 2012 – December 2012 (not in order)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years
The First Four Years
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Goldberg, Myla
Bee Season
Eugenides, Jeffrey
The Virgin Suicides
Middlesex
The Marriage Plot
Gladwell, Malcom
Blink
The Tipping Point
Outliers
What the Dog Saw
Ma Yan
The Diary of Ma Yan
Xinran
The Good Women of China
Solnit, Rebecca
A History of Walking
I expected a socio-cultural history and instead got a literary one. Tough to finish.
Hessler, Peter
River Town
Sedaris, David
When you are Engulfed in Flames
Naked
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Picoult, Jodi
Mercy
The Pact
Salem Falls
Sing You Home
My Sister’s Keeper
Harvesting the Heart
Keeping Faith
Roose, Kevin
The Unlikely Disciple
Levitt, Stephen & Dubner
Freakonomics
Fey, Tina
Bossypants
T.C. Boyle
The Road to Wellville
Junot Diaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
First six months of PC: 42 books
2013 (in order)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
I tried to read this along with a student. She quit and is waiting for the movie to come out or for me to tell her how it ends. All I could think about was Fun Home.
Betty Smith
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
I am on a path to read the books I feel I should have read growing up. I regret not having read this sooner; this is a book I would have gleefully consumed as a child and then read again every year. It’s never too late to start.
Karen Russell
Swamplandia!
John Kennedy O’Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces
I had read half of this a year ago and put it down, unfinished. I left it feeling confused about who to love.
Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence
David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris
Dress Your Family in Denim and Corduroy
I re-read Sedaris as a habit.
Jonah Lehrer
Imagine: How Creativity Works
Jeannette Wells
The Glass Castle
Jonah Lehrer
How We Decide
I may have read this book before, because it felt like it.
Erik Larson
The Devil in the White City
Yann Martel
The Life of Pi
This was great because I literally had no idea what it was about going in. Staying in a bubble sometimes has it’s benefits.
Gene Luen Yang
American Born Chinese
This was great. And comics totally count.
Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl
Kim Edwards
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Louis Sachar
Holes
Reading books from our resource library so I can make better recommendations to students. Also, because YA Lit can be pretty rad.
Louise Erdich
The Round House
Levitt and Dubner
Superfreakonomics
S.E. Hinton
The Outsiders
Gillian Flynn
Sharp Objects
Mark Kurlansky
Birdseye
Gillian Flynn
Dark Places
End of March Goal:: 22/25 books
George Saunders
Tenth of December
Cheryl Strayed
Wild
Mark Haddon
The Red House
Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird
I had never read this before. Why?!
Jennifer Egan
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay
Not going to lie, I thought all of these were pretty awesome. Consumed over one weekend-long reading binge.
Karen Russell
Vampires in the Lemon Grove
How all vampire stories should be written.
Meg Wolitzer
The Interestings
You should read this. Add some exclamation marks.
Elizabeth Strout
The Burgess Boys
End of April Goal: 33/33 books
Jonathan Dee
The Privileges
End of May Goal: 42 books
End of June: 50 books
End of July Goal: 58 books
End of August Goal: 67 books
End of September: 75 books
End of October Goal: 84 books
End of November Goal: 92 books
End of December Goal: 100 books
Getting Schooled in China 