100+ Books in 2025 discussion

... Looking for Mr. Goodbar
I'm starting 2015 by not finishing a book... I read this when I was in my 20s and didn't hate it. But then, I was a fan of vintage fiction at that time. I've reread a few of those recently and decided this one needed to be revisited. It turns out that I have less tolerance for bad books now than I used to. (You wouldn't think so, based on some of my other reading choices, but it's true!)

1. Glitter and Glue
It was a fast read, but not a very engrossing one.

2. The Man Who Loved Clowns
My to-read list is an endless mystery! This was a kids'/YA book - sweet. but I have no idea why I decided to read it!

3. Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
I enjoyed this book, despite some terrible reviews. It got a lot of flak for negative views of India, but I thought she was pointing out that she kept having negative first impressions of India and of different religions, but ended up seeing beneath her original thoughts to find something that moved her much more than she expected.

4. The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse
Hardly counts - more of a short story. But still, it's Flavia, so it's satisfying :)

5. Chanel Bonfire
I'm having a month of living vicariously, but this was not a childhood I wanted to experience. It was engagingly written, but the story of growing up with a narcissistic monster of a mother.

6. The Other Typist
I'm trying to make someone - anyone! - read this so I have someone to talk about it with! I liked her writing style, and was drawn into the book from the beginning by her descriptions of 1920's NYC. But then I realized what an unreliable narrator we were dealing with, and by the end my head was spinning. Really good.

7. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
This was fascinating. The casual violence and racism contrasted strongly with the childish innocence.

8. The Privileges
A well-enough-written book about nothing really happening to a family of not-particularly-likable people who Vanity Fair would write about and make into the most fabulous, interesting people alive.

9. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
A well-written, bloodthirsty, and apparently more faithful telling of Grimm, complete with notes which were sometimes even more fun than the stories themselves :)

10. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
The latest Flavia book is my favorite so far! It gives closure on something that I never thought would have it, plus setting the stage for a new set of adventures. It also rounds her out as a human, in addition to her precociousness. I can't wait for the next!

11. The Confidant
I am glad both that I read this and that it only took me a day - it was enjoyable, but I would have regretted too much investment. There were some good twists, and it was interesting to see how one person interpreted something when we knew a different truth. But stories from the past told by letters in the present has been done before, and much better.

12. The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories
A strange, quirky, little book of short stories. It was often funny or bittersweet, with flashes of violence and anger.

13. Four Nights With the Duke

14. The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy
I'm taking a literary mental break, and enjoying it thoroughly.

15. The Swan Thieves
I really enjoyed this. It was absorbing but mysterious, at first rooted in the present and then gradually opening up more to the past. I was questioning through much of it whether there was a supernatural element to the explanation. And when it did come together, I was satisfied.

16. How the Scoundrel Seduces
Airplane reading :)

17. Big Little Lies
When I started this (for book club), I thought it was entirely too shallow for us to discuss. Then the secrets started to show through the cracks. It ended up being a fun and funny read, but not as light-hearted as it pretended to be.

18. Her Fearful Symmetry
It took me 100 pages to get hooked, but then I flew through the other 300. I had no expectations (having read the Time Traveler's Wife but not loved it as much as everyone else did), and was charmed by a ghost story and a love story with a couple triangles thrown in. Not a perfect book - the satisfyingly surprising ending came from a very strange decision - but an enjoyable one.

19. A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan
Creepy but not too enthralling

20. The Snow Child
I really loved this. It was quiet and lovely, and a little magical - I was never quite sure how much - and drew me in almost from the first page.

21. Shades of Milk and Honey
What fun - the book flap named it a cross between Austen and Jonathan Strange, and that fit perfectly.

22. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
This was a sweet and fun YA book.

23. The Pearl
And this is what Grace has to read for school. Dark. Lovely. It'll be easy to dissect the themes, since they're pretty obvious.

24. The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty: A Novel

This was a charming book that was a little deeper than it seemed on the surface. Kind of twisted humor and surrealism, on the subjects of beauty, inner and outer, and trust.

25. Needles and Pearls
I was amused by the main character's dependence on to-do lists, much like mine, and impressed by her ability to get done what needed done - not like mine. It was a quick and fun read.

26. Glamour in Glass
Sequel to #21, missing the Jane Austen vibe, but still very fun.

27. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
I'm never disappointed by Malcolm Gladwell - highly entertaining but thought-provoking. This one made me realize that all my theories of parenting are wrong, and that it's not my mom's fault I ended up where I did :)

28. Re Jane
This was a sweet modern take on Jane Eyre crossed with a coming-of-age tale, with a nice touch on perceptions of family and self.

29. Killing Monica
My summer of fluff continues unabated! Women are strong, men are the source of all evil...

30. Kissing in America
I believe my entire summer reading list is what Oprah told me my summer reading list should be... It may not say a lot for my ability to think for myself. But it does mean that I'm reading very fun, light fiction, mostly.

31. The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir
I loved this author, and loved the book. It's Gornick's rambling memoir, of some of her intellectual journey in life, some of her meaningful relationships, and some everyday interactions. I had to read it fast because I wanted to hear all of her snarky and funny moments, but I think I'll have to go back and read it slowly to catch more of her wisdom.

32. Island of the Blue Dolphins
For something completely different, I read something that Grace decided I should read :) It was a book she read a few years ago that stayed with her. It was hard to believe it was based on a true story - this woman lived alone on an island for 18 years! Just the thought of it freaks me out a little, since I need a lot of human interaction. But the book was good - I loved how capable she was, and how she built her life as best she could, taming animal friends to keep her company.

33. Bennington Girls Are Easy
It started and ended with a death, and the girls who died were the lucky ones. A bit darker than I expected, but still pretty funny!

34. Valour and Vanity
The saga continues, with much intrigue! Add in a swindle and a heist, along with Lord Byron, pirates, and nuns...

35. Without a Summer
Hey, I missed one! #3 in the series. :)

36. Modern Romance
I was surprised that this was more of a sociology book than a memoir.

It might be surprising that I'm surprised, since the description of the book reads "For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before."

It was interesting and fun :)

37. Dietland
Again, I lucked into something that was much more fun than what I anticipated! The humor was dark, the philosophy was feminist... And it made me contemplate some of my own issues with my weight, and believing that weighing more than I'm used to is a temporary phase.

38. Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy
There were interviews in this that I found interesting, and a lot of my favorite comedians were included. And I was amused by Apatow's precocious interviewing of great comedians while still in high school.

39. Only a Kiss
A pretty good romance to help escape from my real-life stress.

40. The Zahir
This was a pseudo-book club book, and I'm really looking forward to discussing it with Stacey. I didn't love the book, but there are a few points that have been stuck in my brain since reading it!

41. Of Noble Family
The series finale was just as much fun as the others. :)

42. America's Women
I loved this - I wished I could memorize all of Collins's examples and stories! It was fascinating to see that women's roles in America have not progressed linearly, or even in the same direction through the centuries. It's not really a comforting fact, if you think about it. I was most intrigued by the 1890's career women, early settlers with a lot of freedom, women in the Civil Rights movement getting sent off to walk with the wives of the leaders... actually, too much to mention. Gail Collins is always great, and with this book she hit a subject that's close to my heart.

43. The Ghost Network
When I first started reading this, I couldn't get into it, but this weekend the stars aligned. It ended up being a fast and fun read, and not really what I expected.

44. Portuguese Irregular Verbs
This book was charming, and far too short! The characters were German philology professors, and the competition and adventures among them were hilarious.

45. Curtsies & Conspiracies
I love Gail Carriger's world. Steam punk + supernatural beings? And her heroines are fun, smart, independent, and eccentric.

46. From Housewife to Heretic
Sometime around 1982, my mom read this book. Mom had not grown up Mormon, like Johnson, but had been similarly indoctrinated in many ways - old school morals, the necessity of marriage in order to live a fulfilled life as a woman... She married my dad, who felt entitled to her life as well as his own, and set to being a good wife and mother. This is not to say that she didn't think for herself, but just that her thoughts didn't really matter to my dad, and her life was lived entirely for the purpose of taking care of others. She credits this book with waking her up, making her a radical feminist, starting her on a path that led to going back to school to finish her undergraduate degree and get her masters, and then divorcing my dad.

So I read the book to gain some more understanding of my mom. At first, I didn't understand the appeal, in spite of their similar beliefs that were pushed on them while growing up. But reading of Johnson's involvement in the ERA fight of the 70s and subsequent excommunication from the Mormon church, I recognized her influence more in my mom. It was a fascinating book for her own story - but far more so since it was so much a part of my mom's story, and therefore of my own.

47. Waistcoats & Weaponry
See review of #45...

48. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
The author did a good job of using zero and its twin, infinity, as the unifying thought behind a lot of interesting math and physics ideas.

49. Manners & Mutiny
A satisfying conclusion to the series, it left me wanting to go back and reread her other series, for which this was a prequel.