A Literary Resolution

My resolution for this year is to write down (and possibly critique?) all the books I read during the year. I did something similar to this in 2005 and I wanted to re-visit the list, but it is locked in a trunk to which I have lost the key (it's a long and uninteresting story). It was fun then because it motivated me to read more (and finish books when I start them) and I read something like 95 books in total. I doubt that I will be able to read anywhere close to that many this year.

I think what made me want to do this again is that I've read some exceptionally good books in this past year and I wish that I had listed them so I could remember them all. Some of the greats from 2008 are:

* American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld-- I am in love with this book. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Laura Bush and I never realized she was so interesting. I've read that Sittenfeld has been somewhat obsessed with the subject and it shows. I can't describe it better than that-- just that it's exactly the kind of book that someone with a spectacular imagination would write about someone whose private life has been so hidden. I think Sittenfeld did an excellent job making her protagonist three-dimensional, and it has made me more accepting of our current lame-duck president.

* The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield-- a murder mystery-type novel with an amateur biographer as the protagonist who is called upon to write the definitive tell-all about a famous authoress who is close to death. The tone of the novel has been compared to Victorian-era novels like Jane Eyre.

* The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett-- this novel is about the things that we don't know about the people we think we know well. After her husband, the magician that she assisted, dies, the main character discovers he had a mother and sisters when he claimed he was an orphan.

* The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett-- this was the year I discovered Ann Patchett, who is one of the best authors I've read in awhile (she also wrote Bel Canto, which I don't think is her best novel even though it might be her most popular). This was her first novel and it felt a bit incomplete and unsatisfying, but it was intensely engrossing. Told from three points of view, it is the story of a woman who comes to a Catholic home for unwed mothers even though she is married, then stays for longer than she intended. As a psychologist-in-training, I loved the portrayal of a woman who is hindered by her need for secrecy and privacy.

So this year I resolve to write down all of the non-school books this year that I read. Hopefully this will help me remember the good ones so I can recommend them to others.