Books: 2009 in review

January 18, 2010 | 2009,Books,Stephen King,Stieg Larsson

Here’s what I read in 2009.

• Involuntary Joy: A Story of Unexpected Rebirth by Joy M. Newcom [I applied for a job at the local college. When I saw that the person doing the hiring was a published author, I read her book. This one. I didn’t even get an interview. Too bad. It would have been interesting to talk to her about the book.]
• Duma Key by Stephen King
• In Cod We Trust by Eric Dregni
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
• Growing up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl by Carol Bodensteiner (her blog is Just Walking This Earth
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Bellbina, Queen of Weed Park by Laura Juszczyk
• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
• The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet
• The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
• The Night Listener: A Novel by Armistead Maupin
• Zillah’s Gift by Lois West Duffy
• Lights on a Ground of Darkness by Ted Kooser
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
• She taught me to eat Artichokes by Mary Kay Shanley
• The Memory Box by Mary Kay Shanley
• The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa by Elizabeth Stuckey-French

I made a list of Iowa books and authors.
I also participated in a SHE WRITES call to action.

Books I haven’t read yet but should.

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (recommended by Zilpha Underwood)
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Any other suggestions?

Every day SHE WRITES the book

November 13, 2009 | Books

Look! Books by women!

I went to Bookadee, my local bookstore, today. I was inspired by Gloria Feldt, who planned to buy 13 books on Friday the 13th for the She Writes Call to Action. Kamy Wicoff, founder and CEO of She Writes, put out a call to action to protest Publishers Weekly all-male Top 10 of its “Best Books of 2009 List.”

So I bought 11 books today and two others just recently, Zillah’s Gift by Lois West Duffy and Bellbina, Queen of Weed Park by Laura Juszczyk, which brings me to 13 on Friday the 13th.

• Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder
• Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts
• Dewey, There’s a Cat in the Library! by Vicki Myron
• Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
• Goldilicious by Victoria Kann
• The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
• Rogue Angel Eternal Journey by Alex Archer
• Rogue Angel Footprints by Alex Archer
• 3 Willows by Ann Brashares
• While I’m Falling by Laura Moriarty
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Thank you, Tora, for all your help!

Here are some books I read in 2009 and before.

• The Shriver Report by Maria Shriver
• The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
• Entwined Lives by Nancy L. Segal
• The Girls by Lori Lansens
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• Growing Up Country by Carol Bodensteiner
• Identical Strangers by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein
• Indivisible by Two by Nancy L. Segal
• Involuntary Joy by Joy M. Newcom, an author from my new hometown in Iowa
• Iowa Curiosities by Dan Coffey and Eric Jones with Berit Thorkelson
• Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
• Patriotic Grace by Peggy Noonan
• A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
• Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated by Carolyn B. Maloney
• The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
• Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman
• You’re Amazing! by Claire Mysko

Books: Iowa books & authors

August 6, 2009 | Books,Iowa

As promised, here’s a list of Iowa books and authors.

Memoirs

• The Desert Pilgrim by Mary Swander, Iowa’s 2009 Poet Laureate
• Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Bret Witter with Vicki Myron
• Eat, Drink & Be Merry by Merry Corbin
• A Good Day’s Work: An Iowa Farm in the Great Depression by Dwight W. Hoover
• Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl by Carol Bodensteiner
• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
• Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
• Man Killed by Pheasant: And Other Kinships by John Price
• Mrs. Steffy: Our Mother, the Morticianby Doris C. Steffy
• Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph by C. Vivian Stringer, who led the Hawkeyes women’s basketball team to the 1993 Final Four and the first coach in NCAA women’s history to bring three teams to the Final Four. She is now head coach of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team and a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
• Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart, who is in her 80s and living in California. She tells the story of spending the summer of 1945 in New York and working at Tiffany’s with her friend and classmate at the University of Iowa.

Novels

• Home: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson, who teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Iowa City. She has written several other books, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Housekeeping. She also wrote two non-fiction books, Mother Country and The Death of Adam. Home is a companion piece to Gilead and a variation of the prodigal-son parable. The son, Jack Boughton, returns in 1957 to Gilead, Iowa, where his story unfolds.
• Lassiter Hill by Daniel Dundon, who is a former reporter and editor for the Waterloo Courier and the Cedar Rapids Gazette. He now lives in Jacksonville, Fla. Lassiter Hill is a novel inspired by an Iowa murder case.
• The River Road (American Fiction) by Tricia Currans-Sheehan, who grew up on a farm along the Des Moines River. She now lives in Sioux City and teaches at Briar Cliff University. The River Road is the sequel to her first book, The Egg Lady and Other Neighbors.

Places

• Denison, Iowa: Searching for the Soul of America Through the Secrets of a Midwest Town by Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael Williamson. Maharidge lived in Denison for a year to record daily details of a small town in Iowa. Maharidge and Williamson, both Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, have collaborated on books before.
• Oneota Flow: The Upper Iowa River and Its People (American Land & Life)by David S. Faldet, a professor of English at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He grew up in the Decorah area and is in the fifth generation of his family living in the river basin.
• The Oxford Project by Stephen G. Bloom and photographer and artist Peter Feldstein. Bloom also wrote Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. Feldstein took photographs of 670 residents of Oxford (population 676) in 1984. He did it again 20 years later and asked Bloom to interview people. Everyone has a story, he said. Both teach at the University of Iowa.
• Prairie City, Iowa: Three seasons at home by Douglas Bauer, a journalist who returned to his hometown after leaving it as a teen-ager. He wrote several other books, including the novel Book of Famous Iowans.

True crime

• Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland (Bur Oak Book) by Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf

Books: Growing up Country

August 5, 2009 | Books

I met Carol Bodensteiner in April, and I recently read her book, Growing up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl.

What a treat! Bodensteiner is a wonderful storyteller. She shows readers what she saw as a girl growing up on a farm in Iowa in the 1950s — from learning how to drive a tractor to the meaning of making a promise and keeping your word. Even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, this is a great coming-of-age story.