This is my friend, Emilie, and her boy, Ben. I am thinking of Emilie a lot this week as the anniversary of her death approaches on Christmas Eve. Emilie was a daughter, sister, wife and mother to two boys (both under age two at the time of her death). She was a writer, a voracious reader, a spiritual pilgrim, and a wonderful friend.
Emilie had a tradition of listing on her blog all the books she had read in a given year. I looked forward to it as a resource for ideas of what to read next. Last year, she didn't complete her list; she was too busy dying well, with courage and grace that amazed us all. I am borrowing her tradition as a small way to remember her, and to keep one of her great loves -- books -- alive in the world.
You can read Emilie's story here.
Books Read in 2009
The Other by David Guterson
In The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: A Geography of Grief by Christopher Noel
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Book of Genesis, Robert Alter trans.
The Book of Exodus, Robert Alter trans.
100 Poems from the Chinese, Kenneth Rexroth ed.
Sappho (Poems), Robert Montgomery trans.
A History of God by Karen Armstrong
The Christian Book of the Dead by Margarete Van den Brink and Hans Stolp
The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
The Dead** by James Joyce
The White Album by Joan Didion from We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order To Live, her collected non-fiction
The Big House by George Howe Colt
Cost by Roxana Robinson
In the Beginning: Creation Myths From Around the World by Virginia Hamilton
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
The Alchemy of Illness by Kat Duff
Begin Again: Collected Poems by Grace Paley
Lady Macbeth: A Novel by Susan Fraser King
New England White by Stephen Carter
Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
The Pope's Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy
Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
We Were In Auschwitz by 6643 (Janusz Nel Siedlecki), 75817 (Krystyn Olszewski) and 119198 (Tadeusz Borowski)
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941-1945 by Leo Marks
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (from the His Dark Materials Trilogy)
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn
Milk and Tides poems by Margaret Hasse
The End of Suffering by Scott Cairns
New Tracks, Night Falling poems by Jeanne Murray Walker
Recovered Body poems by Scott Cairns
Second Glance by Jody Picoult
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
Ordering the Storm: How To Put Together a Book of Poems, Susan Grimm, ed.
The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl
Lighting At Dinner poems by Jim Moore
The Book of Ruth from the Old Testament
Beowulf, from Medeival Myths edited by Norma Lorre Goodrich
El Cid, from Medeival Myths edited by Norma Lorre Goodrich
The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
Songs Without Words by Anne Packer
Migration: New and Selected Poems* by W.S. Merwin (partial reading)
The Story of English* by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil (partial reading)
A Romantic Education by Patricia Hampl
King Lear by Wm. Shakespeare
*partial read
**novella
I am only listing books here, not short stories, articles, and the rest, but I just have to mention the short story A Tiny Feast by Chris Adrian because it was so very good. You can read it here.
Please share a few of your favorite books of 2009 in the comments if you like. Happy reading, everyone!
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1 comment:
I was just thinking of Emilie this week too -- didn't realize it was nearing the anniversary of her death. She wrote some amazing things about her life.
I liked the Potato Pie book with the too-long title.
I owe you a response on FB, but I don't know the answer to your question yet -- what next?
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