Hearts and Pulse Checks

I titled this blog in honor of Valentine’s Day.  Here are the books read so far and still go to. With love.

1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
2. ADDED: Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
3. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
4. ADDED: Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak
5. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
6. ADDED: Apples Are From Kazakhstan by Christopher Robbins
7. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year)
8. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
9. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
10. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
11. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
12. ADDED: Bellwether by Connie Willis
13. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
14. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
15. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
16. ADDED: Billy by Albert French
17. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
18. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
19. Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan
20. ADDED: Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood
21. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
22. Burning the Days by James Salter
23. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
24. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
25. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
26. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
27. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
28. ADDED: City of Thieves by David Benioff
29. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
30. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
31. Deafening by Frances Itani
32. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
33. ADDED: Descending the Dragon by Jon Bowermaster
34. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
35. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
36. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
37. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
38. ADDED: The Evolution of Jane by Catherine Schine
39. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
40. Fanny by Edmund White
41. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
42. Fixer by Joe Sacco
43. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
44. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
45. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
46. Galton Case by Ross MacDonald
47. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
48. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
49. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
50. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
51. ADDED via LibraryThing’s Early Review: Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws
52. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
53. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
54. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
55. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
56. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
57. ADDED via LibraryThing Early Review: Her by Christa P
58. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
59. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
60. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
61. ADDED: Idle Days in Patagonia by William Hudson
62. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
63. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
64. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
65. Lives of the Painters, vol 2, 3 & 4 by Giorgio Vasari
66. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
67. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
68. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
69. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
70. ADDED: Of Human Bondage by William Maugham
71. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
72. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
73. ADDED: Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam (only because someone gave it to me as a gift and it’s on my list)
74. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
75. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
76. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
77. Rosalind Franklin: Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
78. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
79. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
80. ADDED: Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy ~ only because it was on my list last February and I didn’t get to it!
81. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
82. Southpaw by Mark Harris
83. ADDED: Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
84. ADDED: Tatiana by Dorothy Jones
85. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova
86. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
87. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
88. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
89. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
90. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
91. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
92. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
93. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
94. Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
95. Widow for One Year by John Irving
96. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
97. ADDED: Women of the Raj by Margaret MacMillan
98. Working Poor by David Shipler

Every time I post one of these lists I seem to add more titles. The sad truth is some books seem to pop up easier than others. If I were to not add another book I think 98 would be a good number for an annual total. Don’t you think?