Reading List 2005

To read the review and comments about a specific book, note the number in parentheses after the author, click on the Book Journal button, and scroll to that number. You can also enter the book’s title in the Search box to the right.

Fiction:

  1. Plot Against America, Philip Roth
  2. The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
  3. The Ambulance is on the Way, Jonathan Wilson
  4. The Summer He Didn’t Die, Jim Harrision
  5. Rules for Old Men Waiting, Peter Pouncey
  6. Saturday, Ian McEwan

Non-Fiction:

  1. The Lost Island, Alfred Van Cleef
  2. Origins, Neil de Grasse & David Goldsmith
  3. Earth, Richard Fortey
  4. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
  5. Cutty, One Rock, August Kleinzahler
  6. The Ancestor’s Tale: Richard Dawkins
  7. Watermark, Joseph Brodsky
  8. The Best Day, The Worst Day, Donald Hall
  9. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
  10. Collapse, Jared Diamond
  11. Mongo: Adventures in Trash, Ted Botha
  12. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
  13. Mountains Beyond Moutains, Tracy Kidder
  14. The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki
  15. Complications, Atel Guwande
  16. The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell
  17. 1776, David McCullough
  18. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

Gardening/Nature:

  1. Wolves and Honey, Susana Brind Marrow
  2. The Intimate Garden, Gordon and Mary Hayward
  3. Notes from Madoo: Making a Garden in the Hamptons, Robert Dash
  4. Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm: Nicola Smith

Poetry/Drama:

  1. The Insistence of Beauty, Stephen Dunn
  2. Jack, Maxine Kumin
  3. Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize, John Hollander
  4. Danger on Peaks, Gary Snyder
  5. Overlord, Jorie Graham
  6. Blue Iris, Mary Oliver
  7. Breath, Philip Levine
  8. What Work Is, Philip Levine
  9. The Simple Truth, Philip Levine
  10. Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver
  11. Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime, Roger Housden
  12. Farming: A Handbook, Wendell Berry
  13. The Wild Braid, Stanley Kunitz
  14. Break, Blow, Burn, Camille Paglia
  15. Three Sisters, Anton Chekhov
  16. A Boy’s Will, Robert Frost

Mystery/Detective:

  1. Shadows of Death, William Tapply
  2. Uniform Justice, Donna Leon
  3. Surrogate Thief, Archer Mayor
  4. Cold Service, Robert Parker
  5. The Closers, Michael Connelly
  6. Appaloosa, Robert Parker
  7. Little Scarlet, Walter Mosely
  8. School Days, Robert Parker