Friday's List: These Are the Greats?

I've seen this list on several blogs and websites. It was put together by the (London) Times staff a couple of years ago, and it's supposed to represent the fifty best postwar British writers. I'm not really sure how they arrived at their conclusions, but I think I agree with most of their picks; although I'd order the list a little differently (Barbara Pym, Anthony Powell, and Muriel Spark would be right at the top, and my list would definitely include P.D. James). Those authors whose works I've sampled are the ones in red.

1. Philip Larkin
2. George Orwell
3. William Golding
4. Ted Hughes
5. Doris Lessing
6. J. R. R. Tolkien
7. V. S. Naipaul
8. Muriel Spark
9. Kingsley Amis
10. Angela Carter
11. C. S. Lewis
12. Iris Murdoch
13. Salman Rushdie
14. Ian Fleming
15. Jan Morris
16. Roald Dahl
17. Anthony Burgess
18. Mervyn Peake
19. Martin Amis
20. Anthony Powell
21. Alan Sillitoe
22. John Le Carré
23. Penelope Fitzgerald
24. Philippa Pearce
25. Barbara Pym
26. Beryl Bainbridge
27. J. G. Ballard
28. Alan Garner
29. Alasdair Gray
30. John Fowles
31. Derek Walcott
32. Kazuo Ishiguro
33. Anita Brookner
34. A. S. Byatt
35. Ian McEwan
36. Geoffrey Hill
37. Hanif Kureishi
38. Iain Banks
39. George Mackay Brown
40. A. J. P. Taylor
41. Isaiah Berlin
42. J. K. Rowling
43. Philip Pullman
44. Julian Barnes
45. Colin Thubron
46. Bruce Chatwin
47. Alice Oswald
48. Benjamin Zephaniah
49. Rosemary Sutcliff
50. Michael Moorcock

Remarkably, there's only one name I'm completely unfamiliar with. Benjamin Zephaniah? OK, I'll have to go google that one.

So, what d'ya think? Anybody you'd leave off the list? Anybody you're shocked not to see included?

Friday's List: This Time It's Personal

Since we're already past mid-year now, I've been doing a little stock-taking: trying to figure out how I'm doing with all the reading challenges I've foolishly enthusiastically signed up for this year. Also trying to decide what to take with me to the beach in August. So this week's list is a little bit of how-I'm-doing-so-far business. The links will lead you to my reading lists for each challenge.

• 1st in a Series Challenge:
  Books read = 0 / Total Books to read = 3
  
• 2nds Challenge:
  2 of 3
  
• Alex Cross Challenge:
  0 of as many as I want
  
• Aussie Authors:
  1 of 3
  
• Awesome Author:
  4 of 3-6 (technically, completed)
  
• Battle of the Prizes - British Version:
  0 of 3
  
• Book Awards V:
  1 of 5
  
• Cruisin' Thru the Cozies:
  0 of 1-6 (reading no. 1 now)
  
• Historical Fiction:
  3 of 5
  
• Mystery & Suspense:
  4 of 12 (reading no. 5 now)
  
• New Authors:
  11 of 15 (reading no. 12 now)
  
• Off the Shelf:
  6 of 15
  
• Once Upon a Time V:
  1 of 1 (completed)
  
• Pub Challenge 2011:
  7 of 11 (reading no. 8 now)
  
• TBR Lite:
  4 of 6 (reading no. 5 now)
  
• Themed Reading:
  0 of 5 (reading no. 1 now)
  
• Vintage Mystery:
  1 of 4-6 (reading no. 2 now)
  
• What's in a Name 4:
  2 of 6 (reading nos. 3 and 4 now)
  
• P.G. Wodehouse:
  0 of as many as I want
  
• Young Readers:
  5 of 12
  

I'm actually doing a little better than I realized, considering the first half of this year has been really slow for me, where reading is concerned. Hoping to do a little better in this second half.

With just a few exceptions, all the challenges run through December, so I've still got time to catch up with most of them. However, the Themed Reading Challenge ends August 15, which means I should definitely keep that one in mind when I'm packing away those beach reads next week. But my chosen theme is mystery novels that feature amateur sleuths, written by female authors -- and for me that's a perfect choice for vacation reading.

Friday's List: Just Not Your Cuppa?

OK, I'll admit the Huffington Post is an odd place to be looking for book-related articles. And it's not even a journal I normally read. But somehow I came across this list Huffpost recently ran, and it caught my eye because I've been doing some thinking about this very subject -- books that got rave reviews from just about everyone, even though they didn't appeal to me. Huffpost polled their readers and put together the following list of "Books They Hated That Everyone Else Loved":

1. The Lovely Bones. Alice Sebold
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Twilight saga. Stephenie Meyer
4. The Shack. William P. Young
5. Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Stieg Larsson
7. Fight Club. Chuck Palahniuk
8. The Reader. Bernhard Schlink
9. The Corrections. Jonathan Franzen
10. A Visit from the Goon Squad. Jennifer Egan
11. The Road. Cormac McCarthy
12. Moby-Dick. Herman Melville
13. Angela's Ashes. Frank McCourt
14. The Giving Tree. Shel Silverstein
15. The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini
16. Eat Pray Love. Elizabeth Gilbert
17. The Book Thief. Markus Zusak
18. The Bridges of Madison County. Robert James Waller
19. The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. Running with Scissors. Augusten Burroughs
21. The Alchemist. Paulo Coehlo

I've only read a few of the books on the list (those in red), and parts of a few others (twice I've managed to get through about the first quarter of Moby-Dick before starting to tear my hair out). And there are quite a few on the list that I wouldn't even attempt -- no way I'm ever gonna read Eat Pray Love. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the Ring trilogy when I read it many years ago, and The Great Gatsby is one of my all-time faves (I've returned to it many times). So, go figure.

How about you? Got any "well-loved" books that you just can't stand?

Friday's List: Vacation Reads

Best books to take on vacation? I guess we all have our favorite summer authors, or favorite types and genres. Here's what GoodHousekeeping.com thinks might make the best summer reads for 2011:

1. Then Came You. Jennifer Weiner
2. The Paris Wife. Paula McLain
3. State of Wonder. Ann Patchett
4. Planting Dandelions. Kyran Pittman
5. The Gap Year. Sarah Bird
6. The Memory of All That. Katharine Weber
7. Conquistadora: A Novel. Esmeralda Santiago
8. Caleb's Crossing. Geraldine Brooks
9. Nothing Daunted. Dorothy Wickenden
10. Sister. Rosamund Lupton

A little something for everyone: some fiction, some non-, some romance, some humor, some history. Haven't read any of them yet, and there are a few I've never even heard of (as usual). But also one or two I'll definitely be adding to my "want to read" list.

What about you? Got any recommendations for that "perfect vacation read"?

Friday's List: Samples

I've had my iPad for over a year now, and I still think it's a nifty little device. Pricey, but comes in very handy for travel or those times when I'm away from my main computer. And it's also a very efficient e-reader; in fact, I've looked at the Nook and the Kindle, and I think I really do prefer the iPad (but to each his own, of course). I haven't done a huge amount of e-reading -- just enough to discover (as I figured I would) that I really like reading actual books as opposed to the electronic kind. But one of the really nice things about having the Kindle app (downloaded free from Amazon) is that I've been able to take advantage of Amazon's sampling feature. And that's allowed me to download free samples of interesting-looking books before making up my mind about whether or not to read the whole work. Here's what I've "sampled" so far:

1. The Attenbury Emeralds. Jill Paton Walsh
2. Fall of Giants. Ken Follett
3. A Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Stieg Larsson
5. Henrietta's War. Joyce Dennys
6. In the Garden of Beasts. Erik Larson
7. Leviathans of Jupiter. Ben Bova
8. A Lonely Death: An Inspector Rutledge Mystery. Charles Todd
9. Love You More: A Detective D.D. Warren Novel. Lisa Gardner
10. Miss Hargreaves. Frank Baker
11. Mr. Chartwell. Rebecca Hunt
12. On Borrowed Time. David Rosenfelt
13. Separate Beds. Elizabeth Buchan
14. West of Here. Jonathan Evison
15. What the Night Knows. Dean Koontz
16. The Winter Ghosts. Kate Mosse
17. Wish You Were Here. Stewart O'Nan
18. Wolf Hall. Hilary Mantel
19. 13, rue Therese. Elena Mauli Shapiro

The samples are usually somewhere around twenty-five to fifty pages, or the first few chapters of each book. But after all these downloads, I've actually gone on to read just one of the titles (Mr. Chartwell). I've got another downloaded (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), but haven't read it yet. This doesn't mean I'm not interested in reading the other books I've sampled -- just haven't had the time yet. Maybe if I cut back on all that sampling....

Friday's List: Best Read

It's been a while since I took a look at the Best Read Books list, published every week by the Friday Reads group (see their Facebook page). Here's their list of the most popular books for last week (June 17th) -- just the top twenty books, although the list actually runs to over fifty.

1. STATE OF WONDER by Ann Patchett
2. BEST KEPT SECRET by Amy Hatvany
3. HOURGLASS by Myra McEntire
4. THE BLIND ASSASSIN by Margaret Atwood
5. A CLASH OF KINGS by George R R Martin
6. BEAUTY QUEENS by Libba Bray
7. MAINE. J. Courtney Sullivan
8. THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
9. THE BORROWER by Rebecca Makkai
10. THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS by Jonathan Haidt
11. THE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown
12. BOSSYPANTS by Tina Fey
13. CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese
14. IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma
15. IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson
16. ROOM by Emma Donoghue
17. THE BOOK THIEF by Marcus Zusak
18. THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott
19. THE MAP OF TIME by Felix Palma
20. THE PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain

Once again, I'm not very up-to-date here: I've only read one of the books on the list -- Eleanor Brown's Weird Sisters (see my review). But I see several titles that are already on my TBR list, and a couple more that are definitely strong candidates.

Friday's List: Jury Duty

Yes, jury duty. Don't know that I'll actually be serving on a jury, but next week I'm on call. And that got me thinking about books involving courts and trials and juries. So here's a little list of some of the titles I came up with. I've read most of them, but some are on my list to read someday. A few nonfiction, but mostly novels and plays.

1. The Eumenides. Aeschylus (Might as well start off with possibly the first literary trial in history.)
2. Anatomy of a Murder. Robert Traver
   
3. A Time to Kill. John Grisham (Haven't read anything by Grisham, but I want to. He's written so many legal thrillers, it's hard to know where to start; so I'm just using the book that started it all.)
4. The Caine Mutiny. Herman Wouk
5. Helter Skelter. Vincent Bugliosi (The story of the investigation of the Manson Family murders back in the 1960s and the subsequent trial, by the prosecuting attorney in the case. One of the best true crime tales ever written.)
   
6. Inherit the Wind. James Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee
7. The Merchant of Venice. William Shakespeare
8. Rumpole of the Bailey. John Mortimer (The first collection of stories or novellas, based on the wonderful British TV show.)
9. The Stranger. Albert Camus
10. Strong Poison. Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey meets Harriet Vane for the first time, when she's on trial for poisoning her former lover. When Lord Peter falls in love with Harriet himself, he has to prove she's not guilty or risk losing her forever! Great stuff.)
    
11. Kidnap: The Story of the Lindbergh Case. George Waller
12. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee
13. The Trial. Franz Kafka
14. Twelve Angry Men. Reginald Rose (This one began life as a TV show, and then morphed into a much-performed play and a couple of movies.)
15. Witness for the Prosecution. Agatha Christie

Most of these have been filmed or turned into TV shows (or based on TV shows). That makes sense, I suppose, as trials are naturally packed with drama. Of course, I'm hoping any trial I might be involved in will be nice and quiet and (above all) short.

Friday's List: Back in Time

Do you remember what you were reading around this time of year, ten years ago? How about twenty years ago? I've kept reading lists over the years, but not always by the month or week. And during the '90s, for a lot of reasons, my reading had fallen off alarmingly -- so there are tons of books from that period that I'd still love to read. In fact, I've got a sort of perpetual personal reading challenge going on, to nudge me into doing just that.

So I've been looking at some of the best-seller lists from that period. Here's the New York Times best-selling fiction list for the week of June 9th, 1991:

1. Loves Music, Loves to Dance, by Mary Higgins Clark
2. Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss
3. As the Crow Flies, by Jeffrey Archer
4. The Firm, by John Grisham
5. Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn
6. "H" is for Homicide, by Sue Grafton
7. Bright Captivity, by Eugenia Price
8. Heartbeat, by Danielle Steel
9. Immortality, by Milan Kundera
10. The Crown of Columbus, by Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich
11. The Seeress of Kell, by David Eddings
12. Damage, by Josephine Hart
13. Object Lessons, by Anna Quindlen
14. The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal, by Lilian Jackson Braun
15. The Seventh Commandment, by Lawrence Sanders

It's interesting to see how many of those authors are still publishing best-sellers twenty years later. Also interesting that both Josephine Hart and Lilian Jackson Braun died just this month.

Sad to say, I have not read a single one of the books on the list -- not even the Dr. Seuss! I was reading quite a bit of Milan Kundera back then, but managed to miss the book listed here; it's going on my Reading the '90s Challenge list right away!

Friday's List: Recommended for Your Reading Pleasure

Library Thing has an interesting feature called Member Recommendations which generates a list of recommended books, based on other books in your LT library list. I've never really played with it before, but when I activated it this morning, this is the list it came up with for me:

1. An Unofficial Rose. Iris Murdoch
2. A Fine Balance. Rohinton Mistry
3. Cara De Plata. Ramon del Valle-Inclan
4. Lady Audley's Secret. M.E. Braddon
5. A Fraction of the Whole. Steve Toltz
6. Norwegian Wood. Haruki Murakami
7. The Virgin Blue. Tracy Chevalier
8. The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession. Paul Coelho
9. Trust Me On This. Donald E. Westlake
10. The Moses Legacy. Adam Palmer
11. Bereft. Chris Womersley
12. Lullabies for Little Criminals. Heather O'Neill
13. Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw, A Correspondence. Christopher St.John
14. Summer Crossing. Truman Capote
15. Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field. Melissa Nathan

Those are just the top fifteen -- the entire list contains a thousand titles, and can be "refreshed" for a thousand more. I hate to admit it, but there are a few titles and authors on the list that I've never even heard of, and a couple that I'm pretty sure I'd never think about reading. But also several that are already on my TBR list. And one (Lady Audley's Secret) that I've actually read -- but I might not have that noted in my list of books.

So with all these recommendations to browse, I suppose I can never complain about not knowing what to read next!

Friday's List: Nine Questions

I've stolen this list from the Shelf Awareness newsletter. It's from their "Book Brahmins" interview they do with authors, once or twice every week. Looked like fun, so I decided to borrow it for a little self-interview.

1. On your nightstand now:
   An ARC of Tassy Morgan's Bluff by Jim Stinson, Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt, and Faithful Place by Tana French.
   
   
2. Favorite book when you were a child:
   Lewis Carroll's Alice books, The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis, and a big storybook by Nan Gilbert called 365 Bedtime Stories.
   
   
   
3. Your top five authors:
   Barbara Pym, Anthony Powell, Muriel Spark, P.D. James. Those are the top four. That fifth place is a problem -- today I'd probably say Mark Twain or Edgar Allan Poe. Ask me tomorrow, and you might get a different answer.
   
   
4. Book you've faked reading:
   Pride and Prejudice, when I was in high school. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the goings-on of Lizzie and Darcy and their ilk bored the pants off me when I was seventeen. I read the first chapter and the last and faked my way through. Read the entire book years later and loved it.
   
   
5. Book you're an evangelist for:
   Another changeable area. But over time, I guess Wuthering Heights is the one book I've urged the most people to read. One of the greatest novels of all time. I'm always surprised to learn how many people haven't read it.
   
   
   
6. Book you've bought for the cover:
   Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand. A mistake. Loved the cover -- wasn't able to stick with the book beyond the first few pages.
   
   
   
7. Book that changed your life:
   Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass (Richard Alpert). All I can say is it was the right book at the right time.
   
   
8. Favorite line from a book:
   "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?" (-Alice in Wonderland)
   
   I also like "Reader, I married him" from Jane Eyre, but always feel like that's cheating a bit because I've never actually read Jane Eyre.
   
   
9. Book you most want to read again for the first time:
   Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, or Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym.
   
   
   

Friday's List: You Don't Wanta Go There

Flavorwire.com has posted a list of Ten Novels That Will Disturb Even the Coldest of Hearts. The post by Kathleen Massara features "books that expose the darker side of humanity — a roundup of the most disturbing novels and short stories through time, if you will." For a look at the covers and a little description of each book, drop by the website here.

And the titles are:

1. A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor
2. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
3. Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
4. Blindness, by Jose Saramago
5. American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis
6. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
7. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
8. The 120 Days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade
9. Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin
10. Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

I'm sort of happy to say, I've only read two of the books -- The Handmaid's Tale and Invisible Man -- and both of those were, indeed, pretty disturbing.

And I'm a little surprised that George Orwell's 1984 didn't make the list. Maybe the fact that we're so accustomed to living in the world of constant warfare and Big Brother, we don't find that one quite as disturbing as we once did.

If I had to suggest a book for the list, I think it would be The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist. Not as well-known as the books on Flavorwire's list, but it's a portrait of a society that's certainly one of the most chilling I've ever encountered (see why in my review here). I'm sure I could come up with other possibilities if I thought about it a while, but in general I try to stay away from books that expose me to the darker side of humanity. If I want that kind of exposure, I just watch TV.

Friday's List

According to today's Shelf Awareness newsletter, AbeBooks.com, the online booksellers' marketplace, lists these books as their top sellers for the month of April:

1. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
2. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
3. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
4. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
5. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
6. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Anatomy of Persuasion by Norbert Auberchon
9. The Seasons Sewn by Ann Whitford Paul
10. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Kind of a strange list, don't you think? The only one of those I've read is The Great Gatsby, although I do remember skimming Dale Carnegie's book back when I was a teenager. Have to admit, I'm a little surprised it's still being read these days.

AbeBooks also lists their best-selling signed books for April, and right at the top is The Good Book: A Secular Bible by A.C. Grayling - a book I knew nothing about until a few days ago, but now I'm seeing mentioned everywhere.

Top Wish-Listed Books

This week Library Thing, the online subscription cataloging service, lists these titles as the books most often "wish-listed" by LT members:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
7. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
10. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
11. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
12. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
13. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
14. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
15. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
16. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
17. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
18. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
19. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
20. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
21. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
22. Animal Farm by George Orwell
23. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
24. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
25. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

The titles in red are books I've read. Looks like I've done a little better here than I usually do with these lists - I've actually read eleven of the twenty-five. Not quite half, but getting there. I've got several of the others on my own "wish list." And there are a couple (Time Traveler's Wife; Life of Pi) that I've started and then abandoned. Well, maybe not abandoned - just moved them to the "on hold" list.

Top Book Club Books for February

According to this morning's Shelf Awareness newsletter, these were the most popular book club books during February, based on votes from readers of 27,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
2. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4. Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave
5. Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen
6. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
7. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
8. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel by Beth Hoffman
9. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel by Jamie Ford
10. The Forgotten Garden: A Novel by Kate Morton

And these are the "Rising Stars":

• The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
• Juliet by Anne Fortier

I've only read one of the top ten and one of the rising stars, but I've got several of the others on my list of "must read" books. And I guess I should probably start with Room, since I seem to be the last person on the planet who hasn't already read it.

Friday Reads

My husband would probably file this under "Useless and Pointless Knowledge," but I thought it looked interesting. Every week the FridayReads group posts a list of the "Best Read" books from the week before - a list of the books being read by the greatest number of people in the group. This week there are 34 books on the list. Why 34? Well, I think it actually started as a Top Ten list, but they decided to list all the books that tie for any one spot - so every week the total is different. Makes sense? Anyway, here's today's Best Read List (based on all the posts from February 25th):

1. FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen
2. SWAMPLANDIA by Karen Russell
3. THE PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain
4. JUST KIDS by Patti Smith
5. PICTURES OF YOU by Caroline Leavitt
6. ROOM by Emma Donoghue
7. A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan
8. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis
9. CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins
10. LIFE by Keith Richards
11. MADAME TUSSAUD by Michelle Moran
12. PACKING FOR MARS by Mary Roach
13. REVOLUTION by Jennifer Donnelly
14. THE BOOK THIEF by Marcus Zusak
15. THE MAGICIANS by Lev Grossman
16. THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy
17. THE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown
18. THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE by Jeaniene Frost
19. A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness
20. AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman
21. DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver
22. LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann
23. LORD OF MISRULE by Rachel Caine
24. MATCHED by Ally Condie
25. THE FIRM by John Grisham
26. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST by Stieg Larsson
27. THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins
28. THE ILLUMINATION by Kevin Brockmeier
29. THE IMPERFECTIONISTS by Tom Rachman
30. THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin
31. THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake
32. UNVEILED by Courtney Milan
33. WISHFUL DRINKING by Carrie Fisher
34. WITHER by Lauren DeStefano

The two titles in red are the only ones I've read from the list, so I'm obviously not keeping up very well. But I've got several of the other books on my "must read" list for this year. Today, however, I'm reading Thomas Mallon's A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries, when I really should be reading one of the many ARCs I've got piling up. (Tsk, tsk!)

If you have a Facebook account, and want to let the world know what you're reading, you can join the FridayReads group here. And there's also a Twitter group here.