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In my last post I showed photos of my many unread books. Today I thought I'd share the contents of my copy of Books to Check Out: A Journal. (Chronicle Books, 2001.) I received this reading journal as a graduation gift from my good friend, Sarah, when I finished my B.A. In the front, she wrote: "Now that you're DONE, you can read whatever you want! So here's a little something to help you keep track of the LOOOONG list of books I know you have planned."
This is seriously an awesome gift for a reader. I love this thing. It's so cute, and it fits right in my purse. There are three sections: Books to Read, Favorite Books and Passages, and Books Borrowed and Lent, and there is a little library pocket in the back, which would probably be good for book plates or a book store gift card (like Sarah put in mine.)
The best part about this journal is that I can just jot down all of the books I've come across, or heard about on NPR, or have been recommended to me, that I couldn't get around to buying or reading right away. I can't remember now where I heard about some of these books and authors, or exactly why it was I wanted to check them out. But I've actually gotten a couple of these now, because they were on my list, and I'd never have remembered them otherwise. And it's kind of fun to look at the list once in a while and rediscover a title or author that I had forgotten all about.
Anyway, here is my running list of books and authors to check out:
- The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards - recommended by Sarah (and on my summer reading list.)
- The Arsonist's Guide to Author's Homes of New England
- Anne Lamott - funny. read more!
- Samuel Beckett
- Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
- Emerson and Thoreau
- Writing Down the Bones
- Alice Waters
- Flannery O'Connor
- Barbara Kingsolver
- Billie Letts
- Adrianna Trigiani
- Sharon McCrumb
- Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America by David A.Taylor
- This is All
- Perfect Madness - Judith Warner
- Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers by Carolyn See
- The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner
- The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by MaryAnn Shaffer
- The Stories of John Cheever
- Cheever: a Life by Blake Bailey
- The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
- Rabbit Run - John Updike
- The Journals of Sylvia Plath - want to re-read. get unabridged.
- Writings from the New Yorker 1927-1976 - E.B. White and Rebecca M. Dale
- Phillip Roth
- How to Make an American Quilt - Whitney Otto (loved the movie)
- Fried Green Tomatoes (again, loved the movie)
- One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead
- The American Way of Death (1963) - Jessica Mitford
- The American Way of Birth (1992) - Jessica Mitford
- Crazy Love - Leslie Morgan Steiner
- Fruitful: a Real Mother in the Modern World - Anne Roiphe
- Second Stage - Betty Friedan
- At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream - Wade Rouse
I don't keep a list of books I want to read, I keep that one in my head. But I do keep a list of books that I have finished. I have been doing it since 1995 when I got 30 pages into a book before realizing that I had already read it. And a few years ago I put the list into a spreadsheet so I can search by author.
ReplyDeleteI just finished the Guernsey Potato book. It was really wondeful. You might want to move it to the top of your list.
Oh, I wish my list of finished books were lengthy enough to justify a spreadsheet. You must be an avid reader!
ReplyDeleteYes, I have been meannng to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And it just seems like a good autumnal read to me. I just may take your recommendation. :)