Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Books Read in 2011

I like to read. I'm not a voracious reader, but I like to read. Each year I set a standard to read 12 books (one per month-as the library allows you to check them out for only 4 weeks). With training for ironman again in 2011, I came up a little short of 12 books, but still did much better than last year, finishing the year with 11 books read. And they were...

1. Marathon Woman by Kathrine Switzer. I knew Kathrine Switzer was important but I had no idea HOW important she was for women's distance running. This book was inspiring.

2. 50/50 by Dean Karnazes. And on the other end of the spectrum is Dean Karnazes. I don't know what it is about him, but he bothers me. Gets under my skin. I think he's arrogant and I found this book to be arrogant.

3. The Lost Symbol by Dan Browne. I love me some Robert Langdon adventures. I wish there was another one to read.

4. Beautiful Boy by David Scheff. I had been eying this book for a long time and I'm so glad I read it. I found it to be insightful and wondered how my parents and Dave have felt dealing with my depression, mood swings, and self violence.

5. Something Borrowed by Rachel Giffin. I want this four weeks of my life back.

6. Tweak by Nic Scheff. This is the son's account of his drug addiction from "Beautiful Boy". I'm not sure how I felt about this one. Some parts I identified with but there were certainly other times where it felt hard to root for him.

7. The Long Run by Matt Long. Wow! WOW!!!

8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. This was easily my favorite book I read in 2011. My sister, who is not the reader of the family, devoured the book in just a few days so I knew I had to read it. And I FLOVED it! I then saw the movie and loved it too even though it left a lot of the details out. I was so glad I read the book in conjunction with seeing the movie as I feel like I got the rest of the story. Loved it!!!

9. Bossy Pants by Tina Fey. Ms. Fey, you are so funny.

10. You Are an Ironman by Jacques Steinberg. I read this between my failed attempt at Cedar Point and my non-attempt at Beach2Battleship. I don't know. I think I was just over ironman at this point.

11. You Had Me at Woof by Julie Klam. My dog Sloopy has been the best thing that has happened to me in a long time and seeing the cover of this book with it's cute little doggy made me want to read it. Unfortunately, the book was not as good as it's cover art. It was just okay. I expected a lot better.

I've already started my reading adventures for 2012...

2 comments:

Maggs said...

Good list. I haven't read 50/50 or really pay much attention to him, but it sounds interesting. I read The Long Run in about 1 day. Good book, but what an asshole. My sister gave it to me for Christmas and she couldn't really believe that the guy was a jerk, at one point I took pictures of the words (something him calling his muscles 'show mes' that he showed to women). She died laughing. Again, it was a good read, and he went through a lot, but man he needs a PR person to make him sound like a person not an ass.

Karen said...

You are right - The Help was awesome! I didn't really care for the You are Ironman book, there were too many stories going on which made it hard to follow. I think we see so many stories like that via blogs that there really wasn't anything all that special about it.