There were three books that I was sure would be my favorites this year that just turned out not to be up to snuff for the top 10 list - here they are in no particular order...
A Private History of Awe - Scott Russell Sanders
Unlike the other two books on this list I really liked this book. Sanders is a professor at Indiana University, my alma mater, and I'll defer to his description of the book: "I set out to describe my own brushes with the ground of being, the holy source of all that rises and passes, and to record my search for a language and way of life adequate to those experiences. The resulting book may irk true-believers at one extreme and militant secularists at the other. But I hope that readers who dwell between those extremes will find, as the Quakers say, that A Private History of Awe speaks to their condition." His personal stories don't really stick with me which is why it's not in the top ten but they helped me to think about and notice the world around me in a more "spiritual" sense.The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
How can a book this good looking be so boring? McSweeney's publishing has this new book of the month club where for $100 they will send you the next 10 books that they publish (usually one a month). I signed up for it because of this book - the design is so nice that you wish that all of the books on your library were as pretty. Alas, you can't always judg.... never mind. This book is ostensibly a retelling of the Old Testament (particularly Noah's Ark) but it never really goes anywhere new. You can see the twists coming from 100 pages away and at 700 pages that gets to be a little tedious and while the backstory of Jemma's life is cleverly interwoven most of the time you are thinking "ugh, more backstory? the front story is boring enough" I wanted to like this book so much and the touching ending almost got me to cry (a herculean feat) but it's not worth the emotional payoff to wade through those 690 pages that makes it possible.The Pinochet File - Peter Kornbluh
I've said it before in a previous post I love Chile; however, The Pinochet File is written so dryly and you can't wait for the 500 page book to be over. In fact, most of the time, I was so bored and I couldn't even be outraged that we were permitting this to happen or that US citizens were killed in their nation's capitol by a group of terrorists that we helped install. It's too bad this book wasn't better because this year saw the death of Pinochet and would have helped people understand the outrage that this man caused.****The Big List of Books I Read in 2006****
- Anthem : Rand
- Bering : Frost
- Catch Me if You Can : Abagnale
- Walking to Vermont : Wren
- Voices of Protest : Brinkley
- The Pinochet File : Kornbluh
- The Crusades Through Arab Eyes : Maalouf
- Confederacy of Dunces : Toole
- The Moviegoer : Percy
- The Supreme Court : Rehnquist
- A Private History of Awe : Sanders
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich : Solzhenitsyn
- Winning the Race : McWhorter
- The Buddha of Suburbia : Kureishi
- Number9Dream : Mitchell
- The Sheltering Sky : Bowles
- Chronicle of a Death Foretold : Marquez
- Fortress of Solitude : Lethem
- Saturday : McEwan
- The Path Between the Seas : McCullough
- Winesburg, Ohio : Anderson
- The Automatic Millionaire : Bach
- Of Mice and Men : Steinbeck
- The Road : McCarthy
- Field Notes from a Catastrophe : Kolbert
- Housekeeping vs. The Dirt : Hornby
- The Children's Hospital : Adrian
- Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip : Ilf
- Fanny Freezer 5K : Fort Wayne, IN
- Nutri-Run 20K : Fort Wayne, IN
- Race to Wrigley 5K : Chicago, IL
- Run with the Spirit 5K : Fort Wayne, IN
- Ravenswood Run 5K : Chicago, IL
- Indy Mini-Marathon 13.1 mi : Indianapolis, IN
- IU Mini-Marathon 13.1 mi : Bloomington, IN
- Chicago Half-Marathon 13.1 mi : Chicago, IL
- Chicago Marathon 26.2 mi : Chicago, IL
- Sears Tower Climb 103 floors : Chicago, IL
- Pilgrim Pacer 5K : LaGrange, IL
