Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Put down the knitting and read!

Ok, you can read AFTER the holidays...Borders emailed me their Top 25 of 2005 booklists and after glancing at their lists, I thought I would make my own. So these books weren't all published in 2005 but they were READ in 2005. Yes folks, like every good librarian/nerd, I keep a book journal where I write down the titles, authors, type, month read and a few brief comments to remind myself what the book was about because I have difficulty retaining both book titles and book plots within the same memory slot in my brain. So here it is, my Top 25 of 2005, well the first installment. My apologies for the plethora of mystery novels--my life this year was very "thought intensive" so I kept my bedtime reading on the ligher side. Maybe when I'm retired I'll be able to give War and Peace the brain energy it deserves.


1. The Danish Girl--David Ebershoff
*a Danish painter transitions from life as a man to life as a
woman in 1930s Europe while staying married to his American
wife. Powerful book and who knew they could do sex-change
operations in the 1930s?

2. Run with the Horseman--Ferrol Sams
* terrific story of a boy coming of age in the South during the
Depression. Honest and poignant and wonderfully simple
storytelling.

3. Unprofessional Behavior--Will Manley
*a funny take on life as a public librarian

4. A Year of Past Things--M.A. Harper
* a ghost story/mystery set in New Orleans. Wonderful
descriptions of the French Quarter and the Garden District.
Also deals with the pressures and issues facing blended
families

5. Angels and Demons--Dan Brown
* I thought it was just as thrilling as the DaVinci Code

6. Jane Austen in Boca--Paula Marantz Cohen
* Pride and Prejudice set in a Jewish retirement community in
Boca Raton--very funny

7. Mercy--Jodi Picoult
* I love her books. Deals with euthanasia issues, extremely
emotional.

8. Sullivan's Island--Dorothea Benton Frank
* a divorced woman starts over while working through her
family's past on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.

9. Aunt Dimity's Death--Nancy Atherton
* Very cute mystery--stars a very helpful ghost!

10. To Shield the Queen--Fiona Buckley
*unusual mystery--the main character is a handmaiden to Queen
Elizabeth I

Read on. And knit on--get a book stand with a horizontal elastic band to hold the book open for you and you can do both at the same time (stick to the easy projects though, I don't recommend reading and cabling at the same time)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I want to read about the secret life of a public librarian. Thanks for the info about books.

Recently, Gary was looking at my teetering piles of unread magazines and books and then the knitting in my lap and said, "Do you REEEEEEAD anymore?" LOL