2009 Book List

Will be updated throughout the year. Last updated: August 29, 2009

Number of English books read so far: 76 (56 non-fiction : 20 fiction)

Number of Chinese books read so far: 3

Number of books abandoned: 16

NOTE – I took notes for my review after each book, just haven’t had time to formally blog the reviews yet. Will try to catch up!

Non-Fiction:

1. Something for the Pain (One Doctor’s Account of Life and Death in the ER) by Paul Austin.
2. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor
3. A Star Is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood’s Biggest Movies by Janet Hirshenson & Jane Jenkins
4. The Traveler by Daren Simkin, Daniel Simkin
5. Two Cats and the Woman They Own: or Lessons I Learned from My Cats by Patti Davis
6. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah Goldstein, Robert B. Cialdini, Steve J. Martin
7. Walk on Water: The Miracle of Saving Children’s Lives by Michael Ruhlman
8. Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse
9. Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan
10. The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck
11. Toast by Nigel Slater
12. Flipping Confidential: The Secrets of Renovating Property for Profit In Any Market by Kirsten Kemp
13. Photographers and Their Images by Fi McGhee
14. Gimme Shelter by Mary Elizabeth Williams
15. How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq by Matthew Alexander
16. A Dance With the Devil: A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath by Barbara Bentley
17. Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan
18. Designed to Sell: Make any home the hottest property on the block by HGTV
19. Home Rules: Transform the Place You Live into a Place You’ll Love by Nate Berkus
20. Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children by David L. Parker
21. Karsh: A Sixty-Year Retrospective by Yousef Karsh
22. The Longest Trip Home: A Memoir by John Grogan
23. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
24. Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People by Ken Watanabe
25. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
26. Apartment Therapy presents real homes, real people, hundreds of real design solutions by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan
27. Cent-sible Homemaking by Jean Clark
28. A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg
29. $500 Room Makeovers by Lisa Quinn
30. Columbine by Dave Cullen
31. Forty-four years with the Mayo Clinic, 1908-1952 by Harry J Harwick
32. Do Your Own Home Staging by Tina Parker
33. House Beautiful – The Home Book: Creating a Beautiful Home of Your Own by Carol Spier
34. No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine by Brooks Brown
35. The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez
36. Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood by Julie Gregory
37. Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
38. Oil Painting: The Workshop Experience by Ted Goerschner
39. The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl by Shauna Reid
40. I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany by Mark Greenside
41. Blue Collar Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon by Michael Collins
42. The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw
43. Eco Craft: Recycle Recraft Restyle by Susan Wasinger
44. The Lost Art: The Magic New Way to Paint and Draw by Christian Furr
45. It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong
46. A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive by David Pelzer
47. Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-torn Village by James Maskalyk
48. The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe by Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen
49. Living Well: 21 Days to Transform Your Life, Supercharge Your Health, and Feel Spectacular by Montel Williams
50. Insider Beauty – Secrets of the Fit and Fabulous by Diane Irons
51. Get Off Your “But”: How to End Self-Sabotage and Stand Up for Yourself by Sean Stephenson
52. Notes on Cooking: A Short Guide to an Essential Craft by Lauren Braun Costello
53. The Lost Boy: A Foster Child’s Search for Love of a Family by Dave Pelzer
54. The 5-Minute Face: The Quick & Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman by Carmindy
55. The Sweet Life in Paris: A Recipe for Living in the World’s Most Delicious City by David Lebovitz
56. Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist’s Memoir of Death and Redemption by Kamal Saleem, Vincent Lynn

Fiction:

1. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
2. Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
3. Miracle Myx by David Diotalevi
4. All the Pretty Girls by J.T. Ellison
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
6. Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and a Daughter – A Novel by Alice Kuipers
7. Scarpetta (Scarpetta Book 16) by Patrician Cornwell
8. Testimony by Anita Shreve
9. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
10. The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle
11. Life Sentences: A Novel by Laura Lippman
12. The Myth of You and Me: A Novel by Leah Stewart
13. Rooftops of Tehran: A Novel by Mahbod Seraji
14. Fear Itself by Barret Schumacher
15. Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance #2) by Jeffery Deaver
16. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
17. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
18. The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
19. One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
20. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Abandoned books:

1. The Killing Circle: A Novel by Andrew Pyper
2. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. The Houses of Time by Jamil Nasir
4. A Cat Named Darwin: Embracing the Bond Between Man and Pet by William Jordan
5. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
6. Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider’s Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance by Richard Bitner
7. The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison
8. The Shack by William P. Young
9. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
10. The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion by Melissa Seligman
11. My Happy Life by Lydia Millet
12. Style Rx: Dressing the Body You Have to Create the Body You Want by Bridgette Raes
13. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
14. Great Hair: Secrets to Looking Fabulous and Feeling Beautiful Every Day by Nick Arrojo
15. Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider’s Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance by Richard Bitner
16. Colors for Your Home: 300 Designer Favorites by House Beautiful Magazine