Books read in 2008

Sherry at Semicolon is hosting a Saturday Review of Books especially for book lists. I love hearing or reading about what others are reading or have read, but last night I thought that for me and probably for most bibliophiles, reading isn't so much a virtue as it is a vice.

My default mode is reading. I'd rather read than do anything - and if I can read and do something else at the same time, then I will. But if it comes to choosing between reading and doing something else, reading just about always wins. Poor Steve in 26 years of marriage has never complained or scolded me, although many times he could sing along with Carlos Santana, "When I come home, baby, my house is dark and my pots are cold... ." It's not because I was hanging around "with Jean and Joan and who knows who, " it's because I was hanging around with books. And yet, he's never told me I have to change my evil ways. What a guy!

So last night as I was looking back over the titles I read this past year, noticing I didn't read as much as the year before, I thought about why that was. I realized that the books not read represented time doing other things: conversing with Amy, looking at Karin's pictures, watching the grandbabies play in the yard, taking the dog for a walk, spending time at the nursing home with my friend, enjoying an evening watching a movie with Steve, listening to the kids talk about what they did, cooking delicious and nutritious meals (instead of waving a hand towards the cereal and milk when asked, "What's for supper?" and refusing to put down my book), hanging clothes on the line, visiting Mom and Dad, seeing friends from far away, and the list goes on... .

Christmas with Paula Deen - Paula Deen
The Widow - Carla Neggers
I Am the Messenger - Markus Zusak
Home to Harmony - Philip Gulley
See You in a Hundred Years - Logan Ward
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Leepike Ridge - N.D. Wilson
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
The Monk Downstairs - Tim Farrington
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Strawberry Fields - Marina Lewycka
The Soul of a Chef - Michael Ruhlman
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
Ishmael - Daniel Quinn
Banker - Dick Francis
A Charmed Life - Liza Campbell
South to Bataan, North to Mukden - William Brougher and D. Clayton James, ed.
Twilight - Katherine Mosby
Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg
Dead Cert - Dick Francis
Just Shy of Harmony - Philip Gulley
The Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
Death of a Gentle Lady - M.C. Beaton
Tuning the Rig - Harvey Oxenhorn
The Hydrogen Murder - Camille Minichino
Hot Money - Dick Francis
Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
A Prisoner of Birth - Jeffrey Archer
London 1945 - Maureen Waller
The Winds of Change - Martha Grimes
The Summer of the Great-Grandmother - Madeleine L'Engle
Step on a Crack - James Patterson
Applied Economics - Thomas Sowell
China Lake - Anthony Hyde
Losing It - Valerie Bertinelli
Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
Little Heathens - Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
World without End - Ken Follett
Blooming: A Small Town Girlhood - Susan Allen Toth
The Body in the Gallery - Katherine Hall Page
Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann
Gambit - Rex Stout
Waiting for Snow in Havana - Carlos Eire
Hannah Coulter - Wendell Berry
The Family from One End Street - Eve Garrett
Books - Larry McMurtry
Stealing from Each Other - Edgar K. Browning
The House of Lanyon - Valerie Anand
No Children, No Pets - Marion Holland
Redeeming Love - Francine Rivers
Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Silks - Dick Francis & Felix Francis
Mason Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines - Kay Gardner & Ann Shayne
Knitting Bones - Monica Ferris
The Gentle Art of Domesticity - Jane Brocket
The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing - Thomas Mcguane
Knitting America - Susan Strawn
Midwife of the Blue Ridge - Christine Blevins
A Spoonful of Poison - M.C. Beaton
A Quest for More - Paul David Tripp
One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
America's British Culture - Russell Kirk
Salvation on Sand Mountain - Dennis Covington
The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday - Alexander McCall Smith
The Homemaker - Dorothy Canfield
44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith
Emily Post - Laura Claridge
Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen
The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen
Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry
First Person Rural - Noel Perrin
The Tales of Beedle the Bard - J.K. Rowling
A Christmas Grace - Anne Perry
The Christmas Sweater - Glenn Beck
The Private Patient - P.D. James
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life - Nigella Lawson
Quilting for Beginners - (Seams Sew Easy)
Crocheting School: A Complete Course - ( Sterling Publishing Co.)
The Girl with No Shadow - Joanne Harris
A Place on Earth - Wendell Berry
The Christmas Promise - Donna Van Liere
A Dog Named Christmas - Greg Kincaid
Bamboo and Blood - James Church
The Talisman - Sir Walter Scott
The Bible

I think this is a pretty accurate list. If I've left off any books read, I'm certain it's no more than half a dozen.

Reading addicts of the world - UNITE! Wait - we'll just read, so what's the point?