The Sunday Salon: Mid-Year Review

Books Read and Reviewed January—June

• Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Katherine Boo)***
• Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)***** {reread}
• Burial Rites (Hannah Kent)****
• Clair de Lune (Jetta Carleton)***
• Dry Grass of August (Anna Jean Mayhew)***
• Funeral Dress (Susan Gregg Gilmore)***
• Girl You Left Behind (JoJo Moyes)***
• Girls of Atomic City (Denise Kiernan)****
• In the Sanctuary of Outcasts (Neil White)****
• Labor Day (Joyce Maynard)***
• Last Girls (Lee Smith)****
• Last Letter from Your Lover (Jojo Moyes)***
• Last Summer (of You and Me) (Ann Brashares)***
• Long Way Gone (Ishmael Beah)**** (re-read)
• Sycamore Row (John Grisham)****
• When She Woke (Hillary Jordan)***

Books Read But Not Yet Reviewed
The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)
Blessings (Anna Quindlen)
Skylight Confessions (Alice Hoffman)

Best Books So Far
Sadly, nothing so far has been knock-my-socks-off amazing. But I must say I really loved the last four books—the ones I haven't yet reviewed and Lee Smith's Last Girls a whole lot. Well, and of course, The Book Thief—but that is a multiple re-read.

Book Club Books
Labor Day (Joyce Maynard)--(January)
Winter Wheat (February)
Girls of Atomic City (Denise Kiernan)-- (March)
Jane Eyre (April)
And...I think we missed a month. I didn't re-read Winter Wheat or Jane Eyre, but I did bring a paper on Jane Eyre that I had written in college!

Movies From Books
Labor Day (book club outing)
The Fault in Our Stars (I actually haven't read the book, but I've been assured it's close)
The Book Thief (Watched with my World Lit class. A good movie but very disappointing after reading the book)
Great Expectations (loved the Masterpiece Classic on Netflix. Really fabulous.)

Added to TBR List

1. 41 False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers by Janet Malcolm
   Alena by Rachel Pastan  
2. Americanah by Chimanda Adichie
3. The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy   
4. Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield
5. Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior
6. The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez 
7. China Dolls by Lisa See
8. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
9. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (The World As Home) by Janisse Ray
10. Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli
11.  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
12. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
13. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
14. Guests on Earth  by Lee Smith 
15. The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons 
16. In My Father's Country by Saima Wahab 
17. The Invention of Wings by  Sue Monk Kidd 
18. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
19.  The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian 
20. Long Man by Amy Greene 
21. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri. 
22. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton 
23. Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee by Marja Mills
24. The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley
25. The Plague of Doves  by Louise Erdrich
26. A Prayer Journal by Flannery O'Connor 
27. Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah 
28. The Rest of the Story by Phan Thi Kim Phuc
29. Snow by Orhan Pamuk 
30. Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen
    
31. Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren F. Winner     
32. A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver 
33. The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan 

 Yeah, that kind of makes me dizzy. Why have I added so many books already this year, and read so few? 

I just noticed that on my mid-year post from 2013, I posted all kind of literary pictures from our trip to Paris. No such excitement this year! But I am most excited about read Amy Greene's The Long Man.

And that's it so far for 2014!