A time to laugh, a time to weep

I joke about my various maladies all the time–and I’m even a hypochondriac about being a hypochondriac–so don’t take me too seriously when I claim to be a little bit OCD. But I am, and that rears itself in my obsessive list-making habits. I’ve got lists of everything–grocery lists, lists of guys I’ve dated this year, lists of things I need to save money for, lists of every article we’ve published in the last year.

But this is my favorite list: books I’ve read this year. (My mom gave me a book journal as a stocking stuffer, and I have already loved putting it to use.) Of course, every list has its rules. (OCD) Books that I’ve read multiple times in a year count each time. Books that I haven’t finished (even if I’ve come dangerously close, even if it’s more of a gift book than a book really meant for reading cover to cover) don’t count at all.

In rough chronological order, and copying my friend Kari’s style, these are the books I read and often loved in 2007.

January
In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner (f)
If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name: News From a Small Town by Heather Lende (nf)
Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office by Jen Lancaster (nf)
The Lucky Shopping Manual by Andrea Linnet (nf)
The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket (f)

February
Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman by Alice Steinbach (nf, book club)
Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield (nf)
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (f, book club)

March
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (f, reread)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (nf, book club)
Because She Can by Bridie Clark (f)
Here’s to Hindsight: Letters to My Former Self by Tara Leigh Cobble (nf, reread)

April
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (f)
Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (poetry, summer reading)
William Christenberry’s Black Belt by William Christenberry (art, summer reading)
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (f, summer reading)
The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond (f, summer reading)
Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace (f, summer reading)
Blood and Circumstance by Frank Turner Hollon (f, summer reading)
Alabama Moon by Watt Key (f, summer reading)
Red Clay Suite by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (poetry, summer reading)
How to Be Good by Nick Hornby (f, reread)

May
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (f)
Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (f, reread)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (f)

June
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (f)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling (f)
When Harry Met Sally by Nora Ephron (f)
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace (f)
See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America by Logan Ward (nf)

July
Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown: Notes from a Single Girl’s Closet by Adena Halpern (nf)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (f, book club)
Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love by Anne Fadiman (nf)
Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl’s Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? by Jen Lancaster (nf)
The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart (f)
Heart Full of Soul: An Inspirational Memoir About Finding Your Voice and Finding Your Way by Taylor Hicks (nf)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (f)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling (f)
A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas (nf)
Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son by Paul Hemphill (nf)

August
Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover’s Courtship, with Recipes by Amanda Hesser (nf, reread)
Allure: Confessions of a Beauty Editor by Linda Wells (nf)
If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister’s Story of Love, Murder and Liberation by Janine Latus (nf)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (f)
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein (nf)
Strange Skies by Matt Marinovich (f)
The Coma by Alex Garland (f)
Here is New York by EB White (nf)
Dixieland Delight: A Football Season on the Road in the Southeastern Conference by Clay Travis (nf)
Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro (nf, reread)

September
When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin (f)
Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina by Neal Thompson (nf)
Calm My Anxious Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Contentment by Linda Dillow (nf, reread)
The Best of Friends: Two Women, Two Continents and One Enduring Friendship by Sara James (nf)

October
Slam by Nick Hornby (f)
Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and a Daughter by Alice Kuipers (f)
Bar Code: Your Personal Pocket Decoder to the Modern Dating Scene by Stephanie Naman, et al (nf)
Songs Without Words by Ann Packer (f)
Here If You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup (nf)
The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia (nf)
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst (f)
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privelege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else by Michael Gates Gill (nf)
Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (f)
Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Myers (nf)
Crowded Skies by Tara Leigh Cobble (nf)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger (f)

November
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta (f)
Cormac by Sonny Brewer (nf)
Love You, Mean It: A True Story of Love, Loss and Friendship by Patricia Carrington, et al (nf)
My City Was GOne: One American Town’s Toxic Secret, Its Angry Band of Locals and a $700 Million Day in Court by Dennis Love (nf)
The Year of Living Biblically: Oen Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by AJ Jacobs (nf)
ESPN Guide to Psychotic Fan Behavior edited by Warren St. John (nf)
Crowded Skies by Tara Leigh Cobble (nf, reread)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger (f, reread)

December
Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford (nf)
The Agnostics by Wendy Rawlings (f)
Changes that Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future by Henry Cloud (nf, reread)
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl (nf, reread)

By my count, that’s 76 total books. I might go back later and count up how many were fiction and how many were non-fiction, and how many were rereads, but then you might really think I’m crazy.

5 thoughts on “A time to laugh, a time to weep

  1. That’s a really great list! I wish mine was that large haha. Maybe you should do a book club thing in 08!

  2. That’s incredible, friend. But you did inspire me to get on Orange County’s incredible, netflix-esque website and order a couple of books to be sent to me, one of which I hard torn out of a magazine to order but had forgotten (“If I am Dead or Missing).

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