Tom & Alissa

Books I read this year, because I like being able to remember them, and my rating.
1. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides (5/5)
2. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (4/5)
3. Desiring God - John Piper (5/5)
4. The Hours - Michael Cunningham (5/5)
5. The Nanny Diaries - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (4/5)
6. The Elements of Style (Illustrated) - William Strunk and E.B. White (4/5)
7. Can You Keep a Secret? - Sophie Kinsella (3.5/5)
8. Wolves in Chic Clothing - Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman (1/5)
9. The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis (4/5)
10. Shopaholic and Sister - Sophie Kinsella (3/5)
11. The Fortune Tellers - Howard Kurtz (3/5)
12. The Blue Castle - L.M. Montgomery (3/5)
13. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints - Dito Montiel (3/5)
14. American Beauty: The Shooting Script - Alan Ball (4/5)
15. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore & David Lloyd (2/5)
16. Emily Ever After - Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt (3/5)
17. Shopaholic Ties the Knot - Sophie Kinsella (3/5)
18. The Moviegoer - Walker Percy (4/5)
19. Consider Lily - Anne Dayton & May Vanderbilt (3.5/5)
20. Bergdorf Blondes - Plum Sykes (2/5)
21. The Debutante Divorcee - Plum Sykes (1/5)
22. Specimen Days - Michael Cunningham (3/5)
23. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon (4.5/5)
24. The Ragamuffin Gospel - Brennan Manning (3.5/5)
25. Searching for God Knows What - Donald Miller (4.5/5)
26. Elements of Style - Wendy Wasserstein (3/5)
27. A Model World - Michael Chabon (3/5)
28. Blue Shoe - Anne Lamott (3/5)
29. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital - Lorrie Moore (5/5)
30. Cheap Ways To Tie the Knot - Cara Davis (4/5)
31. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier (3.5/5)
32. Shooting to Kill - Christine Vachon (4/5)
33. Zoetrope: All-Story (Francis Ford Coppola, ed.) (5/5)

That is nowhere near the 50 books I hoped to read this year and many of them are chick lit (some good, some intensely bad); however, I feel vindicated for the following reasons:
- I got married this year
- I weathered a major family crisis
- I’ve read the bulk of every issue of Image Journal this year
- I’ve read at least two long, meaty articles (usually more) out of every issue of the New Yorker that’s come to my door
- About half the books on my list are not what you might term “light reading”. I read fast and it still took me almost five months to get through Kavalier & Clay.
- And the chick lit books were all books-on-tape, because I can’t follow actual literature when I listen to it in spurts.

Stay tuned for my projected reading list for next year.