A Year of Reading: Books of 2006

I read alot, even when I'm not in school. I thought it'd be interesting to keep track of what I'm reading this year in order to be able to look back and see how I what I've read may have shaped my writing. I got the inspiration from Sara Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading, an ode to readers and books. She decided to keep track of a year's worth of reading to see how what she reads influences her life and vice versa.

The most recent books are listed on top of each list.

Books I'm reading now:

Leslie Downer, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha

Books I've read:

• Julie Lepore, The Name of War: King Phillip's War and the Making of American Identity
  
• James Merrell, Into the Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier
  
• -Alan Grant, DC Heroes: Last Sons (I have to add a minus to this because it was so terrible.)
  
• Jennifer Cruisie, Welcome to Temptation
  
• Jennifer Cruisie, Fast Women
  
• Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in PostWar America
  
• Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920
  
• *Alisa Kwitney, Sex as a Second Language


• *Naomi Novik, The Black Powder War


• *Naomi Novik, Throne of Jade


• *Paul Coelho, The Alchemist


• *Naomi Novik, Her Majesty's Dragon


• *Susan Quilliam, Body Language


• *Charles DeLint, Widdershins


• *Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion


• *Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth


• Marjorie M. Liu, Tiger Eye
  
• Gena Showalter, Animal Instincts
  
• Emma Holly, All U Can Eat
  
• Suzanne Brockmann, The Admiral's Bride
  
• *James Scott Bell, Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure
  
• Jennifer Worick, Joe Borgenicht, and Larry Jost, The Action Heroine's Handbook
  
• Gloria Kempton, Write Great Fiction: Dialogue
  
• Linnea Sinclair, Finders Keepers
  
• Lucie Aubrac, Outwitting the Gestapo
  
• Augusten Burroughs, Dry
  
• *Lauren Willig, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (good beach book; I always loved The Scarlet Pimpernel and this is a funny chick lit-ish kind of take on that whole mythos)
  
• Annie Hwang, The People's Republic of Desire (those interested in consumer, sex and pop culture in modern China should check this out; the first bits of the book are entertaining, but it's kind of jumpy, like a collection of blog entries.
  
• *Elizabeth Vaughn, Warprize
  
• *Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture
  
• Gena Showalter, Heart of the Dragon
  
• T.C. McCaskie, Asante Identities
  
• *Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism
  
• Belinda Bozzoli, Theatres of Struggle and the End of Apartheid
  
• D. Fairchild Ruggles, ed., Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies
  
• Nancy Kress, Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint
  
• *Suzanne Brockmann, Breaking Point
  
• Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back
  
• H.G. Pope, Jr., K. Phillips, R. Olivardia, The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession
  
• Anne Bishop, Sebastian
  
• Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
  
• John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent
  
• *John Williams, Classroom in Conflict
  
• Dawn Cook, The Decoy Princess
  
• Raymond Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
  
• Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  
• *H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds (listened to Audio CD)
  
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
  
• David Northrup, Africa's Discovery of Europe 1450-1850
  
• Samuel Fussell, Muscle, Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder
  
• Catherine Asaro, The Final Key
  
• *Brandon Sanderson, Elantris (such a good book; I actually emailed the author to tell him what a good book it was)
  
• *Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
  
• *Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian (yes it's a vampire novel, but very well done)
  

Books I've re-read:

• *Carrie Asai, Samurai Girl: Book of the Sword (taking notes about pacing and plotting)
  
• *Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart (to take notes to learn about pacing and plotting)
  
• *Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown (This was one of the few books I read when I was younger that made me realize that girls in fantasy didn't always have to be beautiful wimpy princesses. I love this book; I'm still trying to convince my husband that Aerin is a great name for a kid :)
  
• *Stephen King, On Writing
  
• *Orson Scott Card, Characters & Viewpoint
  
• *Chanrithy Him, When Broken Glass Floats: A memoir of growing up under the Khmer Rouge
  

Books I've tried to read, but have put down for now, hoping to return to when I have more time:

• Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
  
• Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
  
• Strunk & White, Elements of Style (illustrated edition)
  
• Randy Kennedy, Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York
  
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Mark Helprin, A Winter's Tale

(* means highly recommended)

Look for this post to be continually updated!
last updated September 12, 2006