{"id":3677,"date":"2005-10-01T10:45:53","date_gmt":"2005-10-01T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2022-10-09T19:55:42","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:55:42","slug":"reading-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3677","title":{"rendered":"Reading List"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just for the heck of it, here are the books I have read so far this year. I just finished Rose Madder<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Stephen King – and added it to the list. Yes. I keep a list.<\/p>\n

Underworld<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Don DeLillo – which I had started in the fall – before I went to Ireland – and it took me FOREVER <\/a>to finish it. The damn thing is so LONG though that I didn’t feel like i could stop reading, even though I eventually found it so boring. I had put in so much time that I had to finish it. So no – the whole book wasn’t worth it. But the opening 100 pages<\/a>? Cannot be touched in terms of brilliance. The rest of the book doesn’t live up to it … but that opening. I still pick it up and read it on occasion.<\/p>\n

Okay – I won’t comment on every book but on that one I had to.<\/p>\n

George Washington: A Life<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Willard Sterne Randall<\/p>\n

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – this is probably my 5th time reading it all the way through<\/p>\n

East of Eden<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – John Steinbeck (a re-read. I love this book.)<\/p>\n

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Joseph Ellis<\/p>\n

Darkness at Noon<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Arthur Koestler<\/p>\n

The Prince<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Machiavelli (this is a re-read. I have periodically gone back and re-read all the stuff I was forced to read in high school.)<\/p>\n

The Great Terror: A Reassessment<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Robert Conquest (huge post about it here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

102 Minutes : The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn<\/p>\n

Crowds and Power<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Elias Canetti. (Woah. That’s all I have to say)<\/p>\n

Chechnya: To the Heart of a Conflict<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Andrew Meier (yawn)<\/p>\n

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by David Edmonds and John Eidinow<\/p>\n

The Aran Islands<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by John Millington Synge. Ahhhh. Love this book. (Here’s a huge post I wrote about Synge<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Charming Billy<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Alice McDermott. Wonderful novel.<\/p>\n

A Secret History of the IRA<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Ed Moloney. The jury’s still out on this one.<\/p>\n

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n

Middlemarch (Signet Classics)<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by George Eliot. Wow!!! I blithered about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aspects of the Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by EM Forster<\/p>\n

On Writing<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Stephen King (phenomenal)<\/p>\n

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Brenda Ueland (writers out there: do yourself a favor and pick up this book. Dumb title. Great great book.)<\/p>\n

Tracy and Hepburn<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Garson Kanin. So good I never wanted it to end.<\/p>\n

Great Expectations<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Charles Dickens. Blew my mind.<\/p>\n

The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Bernard Lewis<\/p>\n

Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May – September 1787<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Catherine Drinker Bowen. This book was literally like injesting crack. Even though I’ve never injested crack. I am a drug addict though. A Second Constitutional Congress drug addict.<\/p>\n

Letters to a Young Contrarian<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Christopher Hitchens. hahahaha<\/p>\n

Reflections on the Revolution in France<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Edmund Burke. Another re-read. Even better than the second time. Is it wrong to have a crush on him? Don’t worry, Anne <\/a>– I won’t steal your dead boyfriend. I already have my own<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by David Halberstam (here’s one of my favorite stories <\/a>from that book)<\/p>\n

Cary Grant: A Biography<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Marc Elliot. Bah. Didn’t enjoy this. Despite my obsessive archive<\/a>. I love entertainment biographies – because I love anecdotes about acting and film-making. I love to hear backstage stories about movies I love. This book wasn’t interested in that stuff. The filming of his movies were sidelines to the theme of the book. So I found it boring.<\/p>\n

Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Stewart O’Nan and Stephen King (a re-read. So much fun)<\/p>\n

A Room with a View<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by EM Forster<\/p>\n

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – JK Rowling<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 Commission Report<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – hahahahaha I’m sorry, don’t mean to laugh – it just cracks me up – to go from Harry Potter to that, but hey – that’s what the list says. So it must be true!! Welcome to my world.<\/p>\n

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – JK Rowling<\/p>\n

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – JK Rowling<\/p>\n

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – JK Rowling<\/p>\n

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – JK Rowling<\/p>\n

The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – Jayna Davis (I guess I like my Harry Potter experience to be bookended by the war on terror)<\/p>\n

Hard News: Twenty-one Brutal Months at The New York Times and How They Changed the American Media<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Seth Mnookin – really really enjoyed this book. Fascinating.<\/p>\n

Rose Madder<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by Stephen King<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just for the heck of it, here are the books I have read so far this year. I just finished Rose Madder, by Stephen King – and added it to the list. Yes. I keep a list. Underworld, by Don … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178695,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/178695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}