qatarperegrine | Reading list, 2005 edition

Last year I kept a reading list in which I reviewed/discussed the books I'd been reading. My mother's been bugging me about doing the same this year, but honestly I sort of lost track of what I've read. So here's an abbreviated reading list of books I remember reading last year. I may add more later as they occur to me. As a bonus, I'll provide a favorite quote from some of them (if I can remember one).

Author	Title	Thoughts
Rachel Buchan	The Good Wife	This novel (about a wife who gives up her career to support her politician husband) is so wretched, I stopped updating my reading list in order to avoid having to discuss ever having bothered reading it. Favorite quote: None.
Susanna Clarke	Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell	Awesome, genre-bending (faux-)historical tome about the men who restored English magic. It's incredibly long and took me a while to get into, but it's pure magic. Favorite quote: the prophecy of the Raven King, so you'll have to read the book to hear it!
John Stewart & the Daily Show	America: The Book	Hilarious mock civics textbook. Can't give you a favorite quote, since it's on loan to rmitz.
Terry Pratchett	Going Postal	Typical Pratchett; fun, but not really worth discussing at great length.
Isaac Asimov	The whole Robot series	At some point in the year I read The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire. Asimov rocks. They're less thoughtful than the Empire series, though, and his depictions of women (and sex) are just embarrassing and depressing.
W.C. Smith	Faith & Belief	Absolutely brilliant treatment of the concepts of "faith" and "belief" in various world religions. W.C. Smith is one of my ultimate heroes; I don't think a sentence ever escaped his pen that I couldn't sit and ponder the brilliance of for a week. Favorite quote: "There was a time when 'I believe' as a ceremonial declaration of faith meant, and was heard as meaning: 'Given the reality of God, as a fact of the universe, I hereby proclaim that I align my life accordingly, pledging love and loyalty.' A statement about a person's believing has come to mean, rather, something of this sort: 'Given the uncertainty of God, as a fact of modern life, so-and-so reports that the idea of God is part of the furniture of his mind."
Sue Monk Kidd	The Secret Life of Bees	A gorgeously told story of a runaway girl trying to come to terms with her mother's death, with all kinds of interesting digressions about the feminine divine and the Black Madonna. This was my favorite fiction book I read in 2005.
J.K. Rowling	Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince	Probably the year's most talked-to-death book, so I'm sure you don't need me to talk about it more.
Neil Gaiman	Anansi Boys	A rather boring guy discovers at his estranged father's funeral that his dad was actually a god and has to come to terms with his family heritage. I didn't love it as much as American Gods, but Neil Gaiman still rocks my world.
Jhumpa Lahiri	The Namesake	I was absolutely hooked from the first page, although I really couldn't tell you why. Great book.
Laura Zigman	Dating Big Bird	This book is awful. Seriously, wretchedly awful.
Eleanor Estes	The Witch Family	A fanciful children's story about two girls who invent a witch family, and the stories that bring them together. I loved this book as a kid, particularly the magic bumblebee. You probably have to be about 7 to truly appreciate it, though.
W. Somerset Maugham	The Razor's Edge	Maugham's famous book about a young man who wants to loaf. I really resonated with some of the ideas, although I'm still trying to make sense of why Maugham chose to tell the story the way he did. Favorite quote: "'I'm afraid I've been a disappointment to you, Father,' I said. 'No,' he answered. 'You are a deeply religious man who doesn't believe in God. God will seek you out.'"
C.S. Lewis	Till We Have Faces	This was a reread for me, but it's one of my absolute favorite Lewis books (and that's saying something). It's a retelling of the Psyche/Eros story from the point of view of the "evil" sister. Favorite quote: "Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the centre of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words."
Sylvia Boorstein	That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist	Boorstein, a teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition I sort-of-follow, writes about how adopting a Buddhist practice has nurtured her Jewish faith. It wasn't bad, but I've read better books on American Buddhism.
Daniel Wilson	How to Survive a Robot Uprising	A humor book (obviously!) written by one of Justin's classmates. The premise is pretty hilarious, and best of all I actually learned stuff about how robots work. Favorite quote (from the section on identifying a robot mimicking a human): "Listen to the subject's voice. Make sure that intonation and emotion in the voice are consistent with the situation. Set off an emotional response in the subject with compliments, jokes, or insults. Bolt immediately if you hear an impassive Austrian accent."
Jack Kerouac	On the Road	The back of my Penguin Classics edition says that "On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope -- vibrant, compelling, and full of wonder." That makes me sad. It's a compelling book, and I'm glad I read it, but to me it seems more desperate and unmoored than free and hopeful. Favorite quote: "I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." (That or the section on the Shrouded Traveler, but that's too long to post.)
Sue Monk Kidd	The Mermaid Chair	Given how much I loved the other Sue Monk Kidd book, and how much I love the topics this one touches on (mermaids, monks, mental illness, tragically wistfully unrequitable love) I figured it would be my favorite book ever. It isn't, quite, but I enjoyed it a lot, although I do blame it for making me burst into tears in the Frankfurt airport. Favorite quote:"...I'd told myself so many contradictory things. That I was in love, and not only that, but it was a Great Love, and to walk away from it would be a denial of my life. And then alternately, that I was having an insane infatuation, that it was a heart-twisting moment in time that would eventually pass, and I had to be stoic...."
Marcus Borg	The God We Never Knew	Another reread, but I love this book enough to make it worth mentioning. Jesus historian Borg talks about his path from conservative Luthernism through atheism to a progressive interpretation of the Christian tradition. It's a fabulous, short, and eminently readable introduction to progressive Christianity.