My Inner Sisyphus

I'm overwhelmed. And I'm not even talking about Christmas shopping lists or the box in the backseat full of research papers I must grade and soon. Over the last month, I have been bombarded by book titles. Honestly, sometimes I wish my favorite writers would take off some time--only those who could afford to do so, of course--and let me catch up. I know, though, that catching up is a total impossibility. Between the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville in October and the NCTE conference, with sessions and exhibitors taunting me, I know I can never make even the slightest dent in the list of books I want to read.

If I never left the house and had nothing to do but read, I'd never catch up. Not only am I facing all the brand new titles, but I'm admitting to the classics I have yet to read. Right now, I'm listening to Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked and reading Abraham Verghese's novel Cutting for Stones. Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by the title The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by D C Pierson, and I have Eat, Pray, Love and Wally Lamb's last big novel on audio in my back seat. I also want to read the young adult book Countdown by Deborah Wiles before giving it away to a younger reader friend who covets it.

Just arranging and rearranging my bookshelves is a constant reminder of the futility of my task. To make matters worse, I have other interests--so many other interests, a family I love and a job to which I go happily five days a week. When's a girl to read?

My Inner Sisyphus

Reading List for 2009

Along with blackeyed peas, turnip greens and "Auld Lang Syne," my New Year's traditions include accounting for my reading in the prior year. For years now, I've kept the titles and authors on my wall calendar, transferring them at year's end. Here-- without annotation--is my list of books from 2009:

1. Clyde Edgerton, The Bible Salesman
2. Shannon Hall, Austenland
3. Sue Monck Kidd, The Mermaid's Chair
4. Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen
5. Joe Queenan, Balsamic Dreams...
6. Sheila Weller, Girls Like Us
7. Nicole Krauss, History of Love
8. Rachel Keener, The Killing Tree
9. Jumpa Lahiri Unaccustomed Earth
10. C.S. Richardson, The End of the Alphabet
11. Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
12. Aravind Adiga, White Tiger
13. Toni Morrison, A Mercy
14. Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
15. Lisa Genova, Still Alice
16. Jane Smiley, Good Faith
17. Kathryn Stockett, The Help
18. Peter Mayle, Hotel Pastis
19. Erik Larsen, Devil in the White City
20. James Meek, The People's Act of Love
21. John Elder Robinson, Look Me in the Eye
22. Ishmael Baeh, Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
23. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
24. Robert Goolrick, The Reliable Wife
25. John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
26. Virginia Euwer Wolf, Make Lemonade
27. Victor Wooten, The Music Lesson
28. Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven
29. Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book
30. Lisa See, Shanghai Girls
31. Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses
32. Carol Shields, Jane Austen
33. Neil Gaimann, The Graveyard Book
34. Sheila Kay Adams, My Old True Love
35. Julia Baxbaum, The Opposite of Love
36. Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game
37. Elizabeth Berg, Home Safe
38. Kent Haruf, Plainsong
39. E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
40. Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
41. Pat Conroy, South of Broad
42. Diane Hammond, Going to Bend
43. Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs
44. Audrey Niffennegger, Her Fearful Symmetry
45. Elizabeth Strout, Abide with Me
46. Erica Eisdorfer, The Wet Nurse's Tale
47. Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
48. Ron Rash, Burning Bright (short story collection)
49. Clyde Edgerton, Floatplane Notebooks
50. Julia Alvarez, Before We Were Free
51. Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic
52. Celia Rivenbark, Belle Weather
53. Alex Witchel, The Spare Wife
54. Kate DiCamillo, The Magician's Elephant
55. Ron Rash, The World Made Straight
56. Jeannette Wells, Half Broke Horses
57. Gregory Maguire, Matchless: A Christmas Story
58. Lin Enger, Undiscovered Country
59. Steig Larrson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
60. Elizabeth Brundidge, Someone Else's Daughter

Reading List for 2009