Books, August and September

In addition to the books listed below, I also re-read all seven Harry Potters and the three Hunger Games, which do not count because I have read them before.

52. Vaclav and Lena Hayley Tanner This one took me a while to figure out how I felt about it. It is a sort of hipsterish book, and it seemed sort of rosy about the prospects of abused and neglected immigrant children. So that sort of annoyed me. But it stuck with me, jostling aroung in my head and my heart, long after I finished it, and I realized that it is not realistic fiction, but very much a Brooklyn fairy tale. And once I saw it that way, I knew that I loved it and re-read it before returning it to the library. If you can get past the affected style, it's definitely worth a read
51. The Submission, Amy Waldman  
50. Divergence Veronica Roth For fans of dystopian fiction for teenagers (which, uh, certainly wouldn't be me...), this is a good one.
49. Fragile Lisa Unger
48. Rules of Civility Amor Towles Loved this one. It was a decent enough story, but what really impressed me was the way the book captured a time and place and character so well.
47. Before I go to Sleep SJ Watson
46. The Hangman's Daughter Oliver Pötzsch
45. The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie. For sister book club. I read the majority of it while trapped inside with no electricity by Hurricane Irene. Not bad, I guess, but I like Rushdie in short-story level doses. A full novel and he becomes too much
44. Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer A good story, funny and sad, but I always find the quirkiness of Foer's characters sort of forced and annoying
43. Love that dog/ Hate that cat, Sharon Creech These are not, technically, books for grown-ups. They are books of poetry for kids, but so so so cute. Together they equal one very lightweight grown up book, so I am counting them
42 . Bel Canto Ann Patchett My boss recommended this book to me, and it was awesome! I liked this even more than I liked State of Wonder. (Which was a lot!)
41.The Snowman, Jo Nesbo Ok, so last time I told you that Nesbo was the shit and you should read him? Don't read this one. There's a point in every detective series where the author gets bored and starts creating ludicrous plots where the bad guys are not going after the famous detective because he is on to them and about to unravel their nefarious scheme, but because he is so, so so famous and brilliant. This is usually the tipping point of when I stop reading a given series, and in the case of Nesbo, this is that point.

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40. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
39. In the Garden of Beasts, Eric Larson
38. The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo
37. Caleb's Crossing , Geraldine Brooks
36. Nemesis, Jo Nesbo
35. The Devil's Star, Jo Nesbo
34. The History of Love,Nicole Krauss
33. East of Eden, John Steinbeck.
32. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
31. A Discovery of witches, Deborah Harkness
30. Cutting For Stone, Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road, Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife, Tea Obreht
27. Swamplandia!, Karen Russell
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
25. Galore, Michael Crummey
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.