This list started as a yearly spreadsheet going back to 2002. I wanted to never question what year I read a particular book.
Comments? Email me at beckykump [at] live [dot] com.
* - means books that I read with my book exchange group.
Link - reviewed the book
If a book is listed in more than one year, I reread it. I'm like that. Reading a favorite book over again is like visiting an old friend.
2010
- The Copper Beach* - Maeve Binchy at her finest.
- Lavinia* - Returns us to the beginnings of Rome, my first Ursula Le Guin book. Loved it
- The Drifters* - The 60's in all its glory. Sex, drugs, VW buses, hippies. Good times.
- The Knife of Never Letting Go - I need to finish the other two books of this series. I will eventually.
- The Lovely Bones* - I read this book back in 2003; I liked it just as much the second time around.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime* - I didn't love the characters, but I liked the message of this book.
- Little Bee* - traumatizing, guilt-inspiring, and yet so triumphant. Reminds me of Poisonwood Bible, and yet they are nothing alike.
- Girl in Translation - a great immigrant story. Amy and I read this book within weeks or days of each other without knowing it. I love that this happens often.
- Little Stranger - Gothic book about a house. I didn't love the ending - too many loose ends.
- Someone Called Eva* - an interesting take on WWII for children. I was fascinated learning about the Nazi's use of adopting "German" looking children from neighboring countries. How glad I am that we won the war.
- A Vintage Affair - Probably my favorite book of 2010. Another WWII tie, but set in the present.
- The Girl who Chased the Moon - another favorite. This author (Sarah Addison Allen) has eclipsed my love for Alice Hoffman a la The River King and Blue Diary.
- Fever 1793 - my first ever Laurie Halse Anderson book, read weeks after my sister went to dinner with her.
- Possession - I finally bought my own copy and wrote in it as I read it. Love love love this book!
- Time Traveler's Wife - every year I read it. I admit I now see Rachel McAdams when I picture Clare, but she's kind of fuzzy...not 100% Rachel.
- Mockingjay - One of the few book reviews I did. And now that I look at the post, it wasn't even a review.
- Walk Two Moons* - I didn't love this book until the end. Then it really really hit me.
- I am the Messenger* - loved this book. Loved its message. Giggled at the whited out swearing with replacement words written in.
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog* - hated it until 140 pages in, then read it in 2 days. A great great book.
- Unwind - terrifying, and so possible. Thing Hunger Games intensity with a totally creative, unique premise. And no annoying self-centered main character.
- Chains - another Laurie Halse Anderson. She does youth fiction so, so well.
- The Lace Reader* (haven't finished yet) - reading this one in tandem with Sepulchre.
- The Surrendered - Korean War book - graphic and slow.
- Northanger Abbey - I want to love this more than I did. I guess I'll just have to accept that Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are the only Jane Austen books I'll ever complete.
- Anne of Green Gables - I hated this book. Why? I don't know. I wanted to like it, but it wasn't the reality.
- The Distant Hours - Argh. I loved The Forgotten Garden so so much. Why isn't this one as good? Why?
- 13 Reasons Why - full of teenage angst. I will eventually finish it, I think.
2009
- My Name Is Asher Lev*
- Time Travelers Wife
- Excellent Women
- Painted Veil*
- A Mercy
- Sea Of Poppies
- Skeletons At The Feast
- Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society
- Heart And Soul
- Bog Child
- Love And Other Impossible Pursuits
- The Help
- Harry Potter #7
- Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress
- The Sugar Queen
- The Angels Game
- The Physick Book Of Deliverance Dane
- The House At Riverton*
- Forgotten Garden
- The Story Sisters
- The Disreputable History Of Frankie Landeau-Banks.
- White Noise*
- Hunger Games
- Me And Emma*
- The Lost Symbol
- Catching Fire (Hg #2)
- The Truth About Forever*
- The Dead & The Gone
- Day After Night
- The Year Of The Flood
- Her Fearful Symmetry
- Cold Mountain*
2008
- Birth House*
- How To Be Good*
- Water For Elephants*
- Bonesetters Daughter*
- The Good Fairies Of New York*
- Midwife's Tale*
- Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets*
- Hi Fidelity*
- Septembers Of Shiraz*
- Kite Runner*
- A Lesson Before Dying*
- My Name Is Asher Lev*
- Book Of Mormon
- Hunger Games
- People Of The Book
- Possession
- Atonement
- The Other Boleyn Girl
- Angle Of Repose
- Belong To Me
- Dandelion Wine*
- Breaking Dawn
- The Host
- Outlander
- Mudbound
- Invisible Sign Of My Own
- Life As We Knew It
- Friday Night Knitting Club
- Heretic's Daughter
2007
Eragon
Eldest
Artemis Fowl
Water for Elephants
The Passion of Artemisia
The Birth House
The Time Traveler's Wife
Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name
Madonnas of Leningrad
Memory Keeper's Daughter
Love Walked In
The Stolen Child
Virgin in the Garden
Twlight
New Moon
Eclipse
Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking
Labrynth
Season of the Witch
Infidel
Thousand Splendid Suns
Bliss
The Thirteenth Tale
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Uses of Enchantment
Garden Spells
2006
Use Me
Mrs Kimble
The Historian
Little Earthquakes
Snow Flower & The Secret Fan
Ladies Auxiliary
Deep End of the Ocean
Love Walked In
The History of Love
In the Company of the Courtesan
The Covenant
Baker Towers
Pride & Prejudice
Everything Is Illuminated
Time Traveler's Wife
Never Let Me Go
How I Live Now
Rebecca
White Oleander
The Forgetting
About Grace
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
The Thirteenth Tale
The Book Thief
2005
March
Sleeping with Schubert
The Summer House
Mists of Avalon
As the Crow Flies
Harry Potter 6
Those who save us
Lucifer's Shadow
Gilded Chamber
Vanishing Acts
Good Harbor
Sarah
All over creation
Highlander
Drowning Ruth
Birth of Venus
My Sister's Keeper
Ya Ya's in Bloom
The Last Days of Dogtown
2004
The Da Vinci Code
Poisonwood Bible
Angels & Demons
Scorpion King
The Giver
Fall On Your Knees
Doomsday Book
The Falls
A Walk to Remember
Cold Mountain
Secret Life of Bees
Persian Pickle Club
River King
Time Traveler's Wife
Tara Road
We Were the Mulvaneys
Life of Pi
2003
East of Eden
Family History
Two From Galilee
Ahab's Wife
Harry Potter 1 - 5
Fellowship of The Ring
Two Towers
Return of The King
Alias Grace
To Kill A Mockingbird
Secret Life of Bees
Blessings
The Tatooed Girl
Oryx and Crake
Probable Future
Pelican Brief
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Lovely Bones
Girl In Hyacinth Blue
Girl With A Pearl Earring
Crystal Cave
The Twentieth Wife
Scarlett
Women of The Silk
Enemy Women
Year of Wonders
2002
Chronicles of Narnia
Two Towers
Return of the King
Fellowship of the Ring
Fall on your knees
Blue Diary
Here on Earth
Local Girls
River King
These Granite Islands
HP Scorcerors Stone
HP Chamber of Secrets
HP Prizoner of Azkaban
HP Goblet of Fire
Scarlet Feather
September
The Shell Seekers
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Prodigal Summer
Terms of Endearment
Little Women
White Oleander
Rush Home Road
Icy Sparks
Expecting Adam
Gone with the Wind
Black and Blue
Quentins
Cat's Eye
I'll Take You There
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