18 Holes of....Books

I've told you all before about one of my absolute favorite end of the year traditions, right?  It's one of those things that developed organically, something that evolved from, truthfully I don't know what, because I can't quite remember how the idea got started or really believe that my three friends and I had years of our lives when we didn't do this.  At the end of each December, the four of us share our lists of what we've read throughout the past year, with comments thrown in here or there about books we loved, books we loathed, and what we would read all over again if we could.  Our tastes do not always align, as one of us leans more toward non-fiction, another fantasy.  Still it's fun as hell on the rare occasion that we have a book overlap, which is always particularly serendipitous given that the four of rarely talk about what we're reading throughout the year.  Nope, we save it all up until the end and then swap our notes.  I love the heck out of these fellow college alums and our annual book list swaps have easily become one of the things I look forward to most as December comes to a close.

Of course, after I email those three fellas, I go ahead and share my reads here too.  Obviously. So, here she is!  Another book list checked off for another year...

2013:

1.)    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay 

 Michael Chabon

2.)    Born to Run

Christopher McDougall

3.)    The Light Between Oceans 

ML Stedman

4.)    Hymnal for Dirty Girls (Collection of Short Stories) 

Rebekah Matthews

5.)    Tinkers  

Paul Harding

6.)    The Girl’s Guide to Hunting & Fishing  

Melissa Bank

7.)    The End of Your Life Book Club  

Will Schwalbe   

8.)    Swamplandia!  

Karen Russell

9.)    Where’d You Go, Bernadette?  

Maria Semple

10.)  One Last Thing Before I Go

Jonathan Tropper

11.)  The Borrower 

Rebecca Makkai

12.)  Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House 

Meghan Daum

13.)  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers

14.)  Wild

Cheryl Strayed

15.)  I Was Told There Would Be Cake 

Sloane Crosley

16.)  Ender’s Game 

Orson Scott Card

17.)  The Age of Miracles

 Karen Thompson Walker

18.)  Out Stealing Horses 

 Per Petterson

My favorite read was Chabon's Kavalier and Clay.  I know, I'm like ten years late to the K&C party, but I'm still glad I finally arrived.  I loved and adored this book.  You know how sometimes you can feel like you're saying goodbye to a really close friend when you end a book?  That's how I felt when I read the last page of K&C.  I miss those guys.  I really do.

I loved The Age of Miracles as well, as evidenced by a recent post and am busy recommending it to almost everyone I know.  It's another book that hasn't really left me, one I would gladly pick up and thumb through on my bookshelf now and again (if I hadn't already loaned it out to someone else to read!)

The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing was a re-read, which is something I don't often make time for.  However I have loved this book from the moment I first read it at about age 24 or 25 and there was something this year that pulled me back to that story.  I think I wanted to reaffirm my adoration...and also, I believe a part of me wanted to make sure the book still held up.  It did.  (Insert sigh of relief.)  In fact, reading it as a 30-something gave me new insight and appreciation for certain story elements I'd missed the first time around.  Melissa Bank might not publish novels nearly as often as I wish she did, but when she decides to write about life as a young woman dealing with matters of the heart, the workplace, family and city life today, she does it right.  Pure and simple.

A surprise dark horse for me was Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, which, ironically enough was an overlap with one of the college friends I share my book list with.  I remember hearing great things about the book from Holly over at Nothing But Bonfires and picked it up this year on a whim...and then couldn't put it down.

I try to read at least one classic a year, something I should have read in high school or college but never did for whatever reason.  This year, I chose McCuller's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  Which I liked.  But I didn't love.  Partly because I thought I'd love it.  You know how that goes, right?  Over-hyped expectations and all of that.

Thankfully I didn't stumble across any books I hated in 2013.  There were some I was definitely ready to be finished with by the end, but all in all, I believe if I had to do this year all over again book wise I'd likely make almost all of the same decisions while standing in front a bookshelf.  Except this time I'd be prepared for the creepiness that evolved in Karen Russel's Swamplandia! and I'd know that Tinkers, while lyrical and beautifully written might not be the best book to read when one is already tired...

Now, with one day left in 2013, I've got a pile of December issues of various magazines to catch-up on and a brand new word doc at the ready to record my reads for 2014.  Away we go, bibliophiles!