Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Sunday Salon: January in Review

Books Read in January (click for reviews)
  • The Sex Lives of Cannibals by Maarten Troost: Travelogue. Bored of life in America and anxious to make a difference in the world and have an adventure in the process. Maarten and his partner head off to the remote island of Tarawa in the South Pacific.
  • An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy. Multigenerational story of a family in India.
  • Room by Emma Donoghue. I knew this one would have to be good; it's on everyone's must-read list. It was.
  • The Only True Genius in the Family by Jennie Nash. What does it mean to be a genius? Claire has lived under the shadow of her photographer-father's famous genius for her whole life. Could she possibly be one, too?
  • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Re-read for the British Lit class I teach.

Best Book of January
Room. Absolutely fantastic.

New Year Updates
• Best of 2011 (and links to all my reviews)
• Updated TBR List

Books Read Aloud (with 11-year-old)
The Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis


Added to My Ever-Growing TBR List
  1. The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
  2. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
  3. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
  4. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
  5. The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson
  6. The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton
  7. When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewalt
  8. How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway
  9. The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
  10. Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
  11. The Girl in the Italian Bakery by Kenneth Tingle
Currently Reading
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

5 comments:

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

I really want to read ROOM. I loved When She Woke and The Violets of March. Hope you enjoy them, too.

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Carrie K. said...

Love to see Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry on your to-read list - it really is excellent.

LBC said...

I loved Room too. I think I read it around last time this year, and I was stunned. Happy reading!

Sheila (Bookjourney) said...

ROOM was so fantastic - a book that really made me think.

Lori said...

I'm catching up on my blog reading! I have ROOM on my list TBR. I read Unbroken last year -- then read it aloud with my boys (18 & 16). An excellent experience!
Alex and I especially enjoyed seeing some of the planes in the WWII exhibit at the National Air Museum in Dayton OH while visiting my parents.