Annual Reading Roundup

Sunday, January 5, 2014 – Annual Reading Roundup

It’s time to blog about one of my favorite subjects – books I’ve read during the past year.  I’ve been keeping track of my reading, somewhat obsessively, since high school, so I have a list that goes back decades.  However, today I’m limiting myself to the books I enjoyed reading in 2013 and would recommend to others.  Looking back, I see that my reading leaned in the direction of non-fiction, especially memoirs.  

In the fiction category:

The Painted Girls – by Cathy Marie Buchanan – fictionalized account of the young French dancers who posed for Degas.  Set in 1870s Paris.

Beautiful Lies – by Clare Clark – London in the 1880s.

The Song of Achilles – by Madeline Miller – beautifully retold story of the ancient Greek hero. 

The Buddha in the Attic – by Julie Otsuka – poetically written depiction of life for Japanese “picture brides” brought to America for marriage.

Doc – by Mary Doria Russell – fictionalized account of the life of Doc Holliday in the Wild West

The Good Lord Bird – by James McBride – wildly imaginative and entertaining historical novel about slavery and John Brown

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – by Rachel Joyce – set in contemporary England.

In the non-fiction category:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers – by Katherine Boo – life in the slum of Mumbai – beautifully written. 

Crossing the Borders of Time – by Leslie Maitland – tells the story of the author’s mother, who fled the Nazis in France and built a new life in the U.S.

Isaac’s Army – by Matthew Brzezinski – the story of Jewish resistance to the Nazis in World War II Poland.

The Lady in Gold – by Anne-Marie O’Connor – life in pre-World War II Vienna and the famous painting by Gustav Klimt

Sugar in the Blood – by Andrea Stuart – a family history going back to the days of slavery on a sugar plantation in colonial Barbados.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – by Rebecca Skloot – discovering the story of the woman who unknowingly provided the cells used in medical research.

Fort of Nine Towers – by Qais Akbar Omar – life in contemporary Afghanistan.

The Family – by David Laskin – the story of an Eastern European Jewish family that meets different fates as one branch goes to Palestine, another to the U.S. and another remains in Europe in the early 20^th century. 

I already have a long, long list of books that I want to read in 2014, but please send me your recommendations.