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Who knows why, but some people do ask. So here are the books I've been reading. As you will probably note, there's little rhyme or reason behind my choices and I'm often several years behind a trend. ( What else is new?):

Favorites in 2011 (so far)
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
True Grit by Charles Portis
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
The Submission by Amy Waldman
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Paper Anniversary by Joan Wickersham
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer
Second Nature by Michael Pollan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
Freedom by Jonathon Franzen
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Botony of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller
The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre

Favorites from 2010
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugu wa Thiongo
It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong
Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment
Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Another World by Pat Barker
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog
Double Vision by Pat Barker
For Rouenna by Sigrid Nunez
The Case for God by Karen Armstrong
The Year of Living Dangerously by C.J. Koch
Border Crossing by Pat Barker
A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The God of War by Marisa Silver
Pilgrims by Elizabeth Gilbert
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Lit by Mary Karr
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Half the House by Richard Hoffman
A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman
American Rust by Philipp Meyer
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Biss

Favorites from 2009
Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg
Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
The Education of Hyman Kaplan by Leonard Q. Ross
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell
White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway
The Good Son by Craig Nova
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris
The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Drown by Junot Diaz
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Sideways by Rex Pickett
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris
A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz

Favorites from 2008
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perotta
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Alan's War by Emmanuel Guibert
Epilogue by Anne Roiphe
The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Plan B: Further Notes on Faith by Anne Lamott
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Favorites from 2007
The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Infidel by Ayaan Hersi Ali
Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Pretty Birds by Scott Simon
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters

Favorites from 2006
What is the What by Dave Eggars
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Lying by Lauren Slater
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck
Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl as told to Virginia Lee Barnes and Janice Boddy
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
Warriors by Gerald Hanley
The Doctor's Daughter by Hilma Wolizer
Whites by Norman Rush
Paradise by A.L. Kennedy
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Dog by Michelle Herman
Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace

Favorites of 2005
The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Poison by Kathryn Harrison
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
Black Boy (American Hunger) by Richard Wright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenedes
The First Desire by Nancy Reisman
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Burning the Days by James Salter
Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis
The American Woman in the Chinese Hat by Carole Maso
Three Junes by Julia Glass
Living Past Midnight by Lee K. Abbott
Mating by Norman Rush
Oh! by Mary Robison
Winter Birds by Jim Grimsley
The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda


©Stephanie Harrison
Updated 9/15/10