Read With Me! Outtakes from Eight Years of Reading and Recording

At the beginning of 2010 I started to record the books I read in a large multicolored striped journal I bought at Barnes and Noble. I had grumbled once to my librarian friend that I often forgot the names of books I'd read, and there were even times I'd find myself halfway through reading a book only to realize I'd read it before and forgotten. (I hate to waste my reading time rereading something I didn't intend to reread!) She suggested I keep a reading journal, and I felt like a great big dummy for not thinking of doing so earlier.

Thus, for the past seven and a half years I've been recording the titles and authors of the books I read. I also give each a rating out of five stars, and I write down a few thoughts about each book. I just recorded book number 313, and I have about six more books which I'm currently reading that I'll add to my record soon.

Since this is the winter that just won't die, my motorcycle riding has been non-existent so far, and my roaming hasn't yet begun either -- however, I do have trips to Minnesota, South Dakota and California planned for my summer break, so I'll write about those at a later time -- but I have been able to read a lot while I've been cooped up inside. So even though I hate the snow and the cold weather, it does allow me ample reading time, so I'm grateful for that.

Allow me to share a few of my favorites along with comments I made in my reading journal from those 313 books.

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
    "Loved it! Makes me want to visit the island of Guernsey. The characters were people I wish I could get to know in real life." ***** 

2.  Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
     "Olive is both intolerable and completely understandable -- a good person with a grouchy exterior. An aging woman who isn't ready to age (like someone else I know)." ****

3.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
     "I am so sad that the author died. I would love to read more of his stuff. This trilogy was fantastic but at times confusing because of the sheer number of characters." ****

4.  La Bella Lingua by Dianne Hales
     "I bought this book while in Italy. It's about the Italian language and has a lot of wonderful information about Italy's history and culture. Reading it while I was in Italy, I learned that Machiavelli is buried in Santa Croce in Florence, so I went there while I was in Florence. I would have missed that if not for this book."  ****

5.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
     "There aren't enough stars for how good this book is! One of the best books I've ever read! This was the second time I've read it, and I plan to reread it a few more times. I loved that Death is the narrator, and I love his narrative voice." *********************, etc.

6.  The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
      "I probably wouldn't have picked this up if I hadn't first seen part of the movie because I'd heard really bad things about the movie version, but after seeing it myself I understood that the story, despite the sex, was a great story because it is all about how illiteracy condemns us while literacy and education set us free. The ending was disappointing, however."  ***

7.  The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    "This novel definitely is right up my alley of interests. Imagine a Cemetery of Forgotten Books! I'd be at that place every day! Set in Barcelona, and since I've been there, I could picture it and feel it. This novel really spoke to my deep-seated love of literature and the need to preserve books. I was sad it had to end."

8.  The Hours  by Michael Cunningham
     "The author has artfully stolen the important details from Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, as well as from her own life and made her a character in his novel. The three stories of the three days in the three women's lives are so intricately and expertly interwoven. I couldn't put this down." *****

9.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
     "Soooooo good. I picked it up last night and finished it this afternoon. What a great character Jacob is."  *****

10.  The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
     "A saga indeed! Very long. Very good. I read it, though, in fits and starts -- often very engrossed in it and other times not. How life's cycle goes on and we all end up in the tomb -- felt both sorry and also unsympathetic to Soames (he only wanted to be loved yet he was unlovable)." ****

11.  Silas Marner by George Eliot
      "Eliot has such a command of the language. Good fortune comes to those who wait and are most deserving of it. Really good, really sweet and really deep." ****

12.  Roots by Alex Haley
     "Really interesting how Haley was able to trace his lineage due to the fact that those few words Kunta taught his daughter were passed down through the ages. Words really do have power." *****

13.  Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
    "Not quite how I expected it to be but very philosophical and full of thoughts that are so well expressed including this little gem -- 'There were the people who read and there were the others. Whether you were a reader or a non-reader -- it was quickly noted. There was no greater distinction between people.' " ***

14.  The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
        "Mary Anne read the endings of books first just as I do! I feel so vindicated. Contains a great index of all the books they read or mentioned. I like this quote: 'We all have a lot more to read than we can read and a lot more to do than we can do.' " ****

15.  Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
     "Reincarnation. Cloning. Technology run amok and society's collapse and new beginnings? Historical fiction. Science fiction. All sorts of stories told in varying ways -- through a journal, through letters, through an interview, through first person narratives. A very strange read. A very good read. A very long read." ****

16.  The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
    "A true thinker's read. Loved it. I want to reread it and underline and highlight all the profound thoughts and comments." (note: I have since done that very thing) *****

17.  People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
     "Amazing! So good! The people who make and use and touch a book die off, but the book remains and, through it, so does the story of their lives." *****

18.  Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
    "Such a good description of a library and a self-educated smart young woman who rises above the horrible life she could have had and who has a great impact on others. Always have loved the movie version, too." *****

19.  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
      "The stories of one German boy and one blind French girl during World War II are told in alternating chapters until their lives meet up and he saves her. Soooooo good. Won the Pulitzer. I can see why." *****

20.   The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
     "Chaos to order -- the theme interweaving stories from the Civil War, Hurricane Katrina, Columbine shootings and others into one cohesive, introspective novel. What a great author he is. A very long book but well worth the time." *****