2011 BOOK LIST

"Books are a delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them down from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome."
William Ewart Gladstone

I love authors who use descriptive language, transporting oneself into the moment. 100 pages into my first 2012 read I encountered this opening paragraph in chapter 13. It made me smile and I wanted more.

"He was a scribble of a man. Frail and fine and stooped from a knot in the center of his knobbled back. Beige slacks with grease spots clung to the marbles of his knees, twiglike ankles rose stoically from over-sized shoes, and tufts of white floss sprouted from various fertile spots on an otherwise smooth scalp. He looked like a character from a children's story. A fairy story."

Reading in 2011 was in spurts between our rather busy comings and goings. February gave me hours on a lounge chair overlooking Banderra Bay in Peurto Vallarta. July found us living in our 5th-wheel for 3 weeks as we waited for possession of our new home - hours lounging in my nice zero gravity chair overlooking the pastoral valley of our old home. In October while helping out our little prairie family I would snuggle down under the bedcovers and read far too late into the wee hours of the morning. I always gravitate to one of their many book cases, perusing titles and asking my daughter for a good read - she knows my style. In December I had forced reading time as I lay in a hospital bed with little else to do, other than watching cooking shows on TV. And here it is 2012 and I already have a little stack of books, choices to make and several cozy chairs in my new home to lose myself in a different world.

2011 Reading List.

* non fiction

A Dream To Call My Own - Tracie Peterson

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

Light On Snow - Anita Shreve

Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree - Santa Montefiore

Midwives - Chris Bohjalian

The Good Earth - Pearl Buck

Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
* Truth and Beauty - Ann Patchett
* Little Princes - Conner Grennan
The Postmistress - Sarah Blake
The Red Tent - Anita Diament
* Dancing With Max - Emily Colson
Under This Unbroken Sky - Shandi Mitchell
Farming of Bones - Edwidge Danticat
The Navigator of New York - Wayne Johnston
Say Your One of Them - Uwem Akpan
Light a Penny Candle - Maeve Binchy
The Help - Kathryn Stockett