Books I Read in 2014

Happy 2015! 

Because I hoped to finish one more book in 2014 to bring the list to 20, I waited to post last year’s reads. Compared to 2013, I did poorly — I read exactly half as many books as last year. I blame this on the Robert Caro book (which took about three months) and the readings for the classes I audited in the fall. Anyway, here’s the list (** for recommendations; EPR for Eat, Pee, Reads): 

1. The Wet & the Dry - Lawrence Osborne

2. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery** (reread this for book club and regretted giving away the beautifully illustrated copy of the book I had as a child). 

3. How to be a Woman - Caitlin Moran

4. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Vergese

5. The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer

6. Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman

7. Russian Debutante's Handbook - Gary Shteyngart

8. Our Shawnee - Louisville Story Program**

9. The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) - Robert A. Caro** (This book made me wish I had a Caro book on every president). 

10. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (EPR. This was recommended to me last year, and after seeing the movie trailer, I decided I needed to know what happened before the film release. I read it in about 48 hours and lay on the floor so long reading that I gave myself a headache. I forgot the “eat” part of EPR that night, which likely contributed to the headache. I haven't seen the movie.)

11. Difficult Conversations - Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Neen

12. Ich bin dann mal weg (I’m Off Then) - Hape Kerkeling

13. The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor

14. AIDS and Accusation - Paul Farmer

15. The Man on the Third Floor - Ann Bernays

16. Une mélancolie arabe - Abdellah Taïa

17. It's Complicated - danah boyd** (recommended especially if you’re interested in social media and teenagers). 

18. Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies, and Revolution - Laurie Penny** (Penny is a 2015 Nieman Fellow. I wish through some kind of time warp that she’d written this book 15 years ago so I could have had it in high school. Or maybe in middle school.)

19. Children of the Monsoon - David Jiménez** (Jiménez is also a Nieman this year). The short stories in the book focus on children Jiménez met in his travels as the Asia bureau chief for the Spanish paper El Mundo. I learned so much from this book and almost gave my copy to my parents but then decided to keep this one and buy them their own.

What were your favorite books last year? What’s on your To Read list for 2015? I will definitely tackle the next volume in the LBJ series, but I could use some good fiction recommendations. Do you have any? 

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31 Louisville Loves: Champagne and Fancy Cakes

In April 2011, a new book club held its inaugural meeting to discuss The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov. Two people attended. I was not one of them, because it was raining and I would have had to drive from Shively to Norton Commons. 

A few months later, in better weather, three more people ventured out to talk about Hal Herzog’s book, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (I was in this group). Gradually, the group gained more people, a name, and three years later, it’s still going strong. 

In the first season of Friday Night Lights, Tami Taylor reluctantly goes to a book club meeting, where the members laugh at her when she says she enjoyed The Secret Life of Bees. 

“Oh, we don’t read the book!” 

Tami Taylor should join our Champagne and Fancy Cakes book club. We have all the stereotypical book club stuff — beer, wine, and bourbon, really good food that’s occasionally inspired by the book, gossip, AND we read the book (but we don’t judge if someone doesn’t). We also organize cool events. After reading How to Be Black, we coordinated a book club/happy hour with Baratunde Thurston while he was in town for Idea Festival. Best book club ever!

Champagne and Fancy Cakes at Rye, waiting for Mr, Thurston

19 Crimes for Orange is the New Black

I’ve kept lists of the books I read for years. When I look at my lists since 2011, I can pick out each Champagne and Fancy Cakes book and can almost remember where we met for most of them. I hosted my first meeting for Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. We were at Erica’s when we met for 1 Dead in Attic, by Chris Rose (and when we found out Steve Jobs died). Six months later, we were back for My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe, where the evening’s snacks inspired our club name. 

Picking the next book typically takes us longer than the book discussion, but we’re getting better at this. I love this part because it helps me add to my To Read list, which has a greater scope thanks to Fancy Cakes.

This book club has given me exactly what I hoped for when I joined it. I’ve revisited books from childhood (Anne of Green Gables, A Wrinkle in Time), read books I should have already read (The Things They Carried), and ones I probably would never have discovered on my own (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks). I’ve also tried some new wine and food (Hummingbird Cake, after The Red Garden), met some authors, and made friends with smart, lovely women who let me feed them fufu after we read The Poisonwood Bible. 

Hummingbird cake

I'm not worried about finding people to discuss books with in Cambridge. Maybe they'll have snacks and drinks. But I will definitely miss my Fancy Cakes book club.  

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Books I Read in 2013

When I was in the Peace Corps, I started keeping a list of books I read. In two years, I read roughly a book a week (there were many eat, pee, read days). Since then, I've kept a list of books I read each year, and I thought I would share the 2013 list. 

Here it is, with some notes (** for recommendations; EPR for eat, pee, read): 

1. Columbine, Dave Cullen**

2. La Gloire de Mon Pere, Marcel Pagnol

3. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen (reread for book club. Surprised that, on the third reading, I still found it engrossing)

4. The Great Gasby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread before the movie)

5. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling

6. The Devil in the White City, Erik Larsen**

7. Blood, Bones, & Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton

8. The Revolution was Televised, Alan Sepinwall** 

9. Getting Things Done, David Allen (getting this book done took a month) 

10. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

11. Louisville Panorama, R.C. Riebe 

12. Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson**

13. Louisville, Postcard History Series, John E Findling (this was a picture book)

14. Yes, Chef, Marcus Samuelsson 

15. Battleborn, Clare Vaye Watkins**

16. Scribbling the Cat, Alexandra Fuller

17. Louisville Guide, Gregory A. Lauden, Dennis Domer, David Mohney

18. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris

19. Sacré Bleu, Christopher Moore

20. Bonk - The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach**

21. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Maria Semple** (EPR - I finished this book on the bathroom floor at 1 a.m. Not because I was sick. Because I went to bed, but then wanted to read more, took it to the bathroom and then just stayed there, reading). 

22. Drinking with Men, Rosie Schaap**

23. Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, David Rackoff

24. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, Ayana Mathis

25. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood**

26. The Fran Lebowitz Reader, Fran Lebowitz

27. The Bling Ring - Nancy Jo Sales**

28. The Ultimate Question - Driving Good Profits and True Growth, Fred Reichheld (read for work)

29. Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins (EPR, still. I was embarrassed that I fell into the same book-devouring, "Don't talk to me, I'm reading" state I was in when I read these last year. I know exactly what happens. Did not matter). 

30. Catching Fire

31. Mockingjay

32. Whiskey Women, Fred Minnick** (if you are curious about whiskey history)

33. House of Dreams, Marie Brenner** 

34. Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg

35. Wild, Cheryl Strayed** 

36. The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

37. Death Defying Acts, Erin Keane 

38. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

What were your favorite books this year? 

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Eat, Pee, Read

Last month, I finished the “Hunger Games” series. All three books. In about three days. And then, after a break of a few weeks to read some other books, I read the first two books of the series again, almost as rabidly as the first time.

It’s been a while since I’ve encountered a book that’s hooked me so much that I have to devour it in a “do-nothing-until-the-book-is-finished” way. The guy who helped me at the bookstore said people who buy the first or second book come back to buy the next one unshowered and covered in crumbs. That sounds accurate and close to my experience of reading these books. But I also had a lot of time in Peace Corps to lose myself in good books — books where all you can do is eat, pee, and read (and hydrate. Gotta hydrate).

Apart from “The Hunger Games,” here is a short list of Eat, Pee, Read books I’ve devoured in the last few years:

In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
Zeitoun (Dave Eggers)
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
We Were the Mulvaneys (Joyce Carol Oates)
A Sunday in at the Pool in Kigali (Gil Courtemanche)
Fall on Your Knees (Ann Marie McDonald)
Waiting (Debra Ginsberg)
The Rapture of Canaan (Sheri Reynolds)
Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngoz Adiche)

I read all but the first three in Peace Corps, and this is a shortened version of the list I originally had. Each Harry Potter book I read also falls into this category.

What about you? What books have made you give up social engagements — or basic hygiene? And, if you have experienced pee-and-read with a non-fiction book, please share, as I notice that most of the books on my list are fiction.