25 Books in 2013

I read 36 books this year, holy schmoly!

For a quick swallow, I've organized the titles under simple headers. If you want to see more of my thoughts, simply click the linked book listing in parenthesis. Thank you for cheering me along, it was a delight. The fresh blog for 25 Books in 2014 has been established and is already rolling along. Please join me for another year immersed in words, words, words. 

Indulgent

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons (Book 6)

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (Book 10)

Ma La Vita E’ Fatta Cosi’ (Such is Life, A Memoir) by Leonilde Frieri Ruberto and Translated by Laura E. Ruberto (Book 16)

Images of America: Land of the Umpqua (Book 20)

Gut Punchers

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch (Book 1)

Wild by Cheryl Strayed (Book 5)

Academic Brilliance

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff (Book 22)

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution by David Quammen (Book 13)

Wonderous

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (Book 12)

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and Translated by Carol Brown Janeway (Book 17)

Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell (Book 9)

A Common Pornography By Kevin Sampsell (Book 21)

Crazy Enough by Storm Large (Book 11)

Child of Steens Mountain by Eileen O’Keeffe McVicker (Book 4)

Road Trippers

The Company We Keep By Robert Baer & Dayna Baer (Book 19)

Old Timer’s Tales of Oregon: An Oral History by John and Joy Taylor (Book 2)

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Book 23)

Roseburg 1959 by George Byron Wright (Book 7)

Sinner’s Grand Tour: A Journey through the Historical Underbelly of Europe by Tony Perrottet (Book 3)

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (Book 14)

Bedtime Books - All read aloud to Kiddo

The Lion, The Witch, and The a Wardrobe

Pippi Longstocking

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

Pinocchio

The Twits (a million times)

Matilda

Danny Champion of the World

James and the Giant Peach

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Fantastic Mr Fox

George’s Marvelous Medicine

The BFG

Different Expectations

Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb (Book 18)

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron (Book 15)

Aborted

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest by Derek Hayes

Turns out I had two books labeled as Book 7 this year, so I've renumbered Running the Rift to Book 15 which didn't exist for some reason. Photo by SkinnyKidN/W4

Book 23 in 2013

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

If you haven't noticed, memoir has featured strongly in this year's crop of books. With all these memoirs I've been reading, it seems strange to get through them so quickly. Clearly the life lived has been struggle and time consuming. It's odd to me that I can blast through 100 page in a sitting. A book-decade can pass in the course of the evening with ease. So disorienting. 

Books 24 - 36 in 2013

It dawned on me that I’m quickly running out of time to reach goal this year. The idea of not hitting goal didn't sit well, so I started to problem solve. Perhaps I could read two plays per weekend until the 2014. But, no, that'll dip into next years’ goal (stay tuned). Suddenly I realized, my gosh, I’ve read so many more books this year than I’ve posted!

Thanks to my kid’s growing interest in chapter books, I’ve been privileged to read aloud plenty of great fiction. Since this is my gig, I'm making the rules and children's fiction counts. For fairness though, I will only count each title once*.

24.  The Lion, The Witch, and The a Wardrobe (3) 25.  Pippi Longstocking (2) 26.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone 27.  Pinocchio 28.  The Twits (a million times) 29.  Matilda 30.  Danny Champion of the World 31.  James and the Giant Peach (3) 32.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2) 33.  Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator 34.  Fantastic Mr Fox (4?) 35.  George's Marvelous Medicine (2-3) 36.  The BFG

*Multiple reads are indicated via count inside parenthesis.

Book 21 of 25 in 2013 A Common Pornography By Kevin Sampsell

Fast, candid, plainly spoken and shocking. Kids should have better childhoods than the ones remembered in this memoir.

Book 20 of 25 in 2013 Images of America: Land of the Umpqua

Because I spent time in the Douglas County Museum archives many of these photographs are already familiar to me. That said, I really loved reading through this captioned collection.

I loved the photos of families fishing for sturgeon and salmon at my childhood swim holes. Despite the 100 year time difference, it’s easy to recognize the hills and waterways. There they are: River Forks, Stewart Park, the Narrows (no swimming there!), and upper stretches of the North Umpqua.

Book 19 of 25 in 2013 The Company We Keep By Robert Baer & Dayna Baer