The Almost Royal Reads, 2008
JUNE
Portrait of an Unknown woman, Vanora Bennett
Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation, Elizabeth Berg
The Fig Eater, Jody Shields
Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, Margaret B. Jones
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O’Farrell
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart
Transgressions, Sarah Dunant
MAY
Christine Falls, Benjamin Black (aka John Banville; read for book group)
How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors, ed. Dan Crowe
The Woman in the Row Behind, Francoise Dorner
Microthrills: True Stories From a Life of Small Highs, Wendy Spero
How to Talk to a Widower, Jonathan Tropper
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
How to Be Good, Nick Hornby (re-read)
Why Did I Ever, Mary Robison (re-read)
I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Sloane Crosley
APRIL
Lady Oracle, Margaret Atwood
Pretty is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny, Jessica Queller
How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights, Ariel Gore
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff
The Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, Jo Barrett
Talk Before Sleep, Elizabeth Berg
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (e-book)
The Best Place to Be, Lesley Dormen
An Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
The Principles of Uncertainty, Maira Kalman
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern day Slavery, E. Benjamin Skinner
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, Robert Sullivan
Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros (for book group)
MARCH
My Less Than Secret Life: a Diary, Fiction, Essays, Jonathan Ames
The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here: Scenes From a Life, Felicia Sullivan
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
The Dog Says How, Kevin Kling
This is How it Happened (Not a Love Story), Jo Barrett
Second Welcome, Fran Newhouse (poetry)
The Heroines, Eileen Favorite
The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perotta
FEBRUARY
Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl’s Guide to Why if Often Sucks in the City, of Wh are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me?, Jen Lancaster
People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
The Off Season, Catherine Gilbert Murdock (audio)
JANUARY
The Handbook of Magazine Writing, ed. by Michelle Ruberg
Little Stalker, Jennifer Belle
Dating Big Bird, Laura Zigman (re-read, because it’s one of my comfort books)
Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant (re-read; for book group)
To the Power of Three, Laura Lippman
Want more, more, more? I’ve blogged about the books I read in 2006 and 2007 as well.
