Book Lists 2016 – Present

 

For a while, my goal has been to read thirty books in a single year.  When I look at these yearly book lists on a single page, as it is here, it’s very much like looking at a photo album of my life.  I can remember where I was, both physically and mentally, and the book’s imprint on me.

Looking at these lists is also similar to carbon dating.  It’s easy to see which years have been good and which have been tough.  When things are tough, I struggle to focus, get tired quickly and end up reading a lot less.  During good years, it feels as though there is more spaciousness within. I read a lot more then. 

May the next years be happy reading for us all. : )

Book List 2023

  1. The Friend– Sigrid Nunez 
  2. The Strange Library – Haruki Murakami

Book List 2022

  1. Woman in the Purple Skirt – Natsuko Imamura 
  2. Blind Willow Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami
  3. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows – Bali Kaur Jaswal
  4. Anxious People – Fredrik Backman 
  5. And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer – Fredrik Backman  (Novella) 
  6. You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down – Alice Walker
  7. Mayflower Murders – Anthony Horowitz  
  8. Watch Over Me– Nina LaCour
  9. If Today Be Sweet – Thrity Umrigar 
  10. A Line to Kill – Anthony Horowitz
  11. The Lonely Stories – edt Natalie Eve Garrett
  12. Small Days and Nights – Tishani Doshi
  13. Life Ceremony – Sayaka Murata
  14. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
  15. Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
  16. Honor – Thrity Umrigar
  17. Yerba Buena : a Novel – Nina LaCour

Book List 2021

  1. Kitchen  – Banana Yoshimoto
  2. Lake – Banana Yoshimoto
  3. Breasts and Eggs – Mieko Kawakami 
  4. The Penguin Book of Italian short Stories – edtd Jhumpa Lahiri
  5. The House is a Body – Shruti Swamy 
  6. American Dervish – Ayad Akhtar 
  7. Whereabouts – Jhumpa Lahiri
  8. People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks

Book List 2020

  1. Pomegranate Soup – Marsha Mehran (BCB)
  2. When Hoppoes Go To Heaven – Gaile Parkin
  3. The Girl On the Train– Paula Hawkins (BCB)
  4. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata  (BCB)
  5. A Sister In My House – Linda Olsson 
  6. An American Marriage – Tayari Jones 
  7. I Remember Nothing – Nora Ephron 
  8. The Pull of the Moon – Elizabeth Berg 
  9. Italian Shoes – Henning Mankell 
  10. If Cats Disappeared from the World – Genki Kawamura
  11. The Shadow Girls – Henning Mankell
  12. Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
  13. Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
  14. Big Ol Home by the Sea – Neena Maiya 

Book List 2019 

  1. Americanah – Chimamanda Adichie 
  2. The Thing Around Your Neck – Chimamanda Adichie
  3. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears – Dinaw Mengestu 
  4. Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Adichie
  5. Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
  6. Britt-Marie was Here – Frederick Backman
  7. Finding Langston – Lesa Cline Ransome
  8. The Year of Pleasures – Elizabeth Berg 
  9. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin  (BCB)
  10. Ghost Summer – Tananarive Due  (BCB)
  11. The 100 year old Man Who Climbed out of a Window and Disappeared. 
  12. Kitchen Confidential -Anthony Bourdain 
  13. The Rising Man – Abir Mukerjee 
  14. A Necessary Evil – Abir Mukerjee
  15. The Red Notebook -Antoine Laurain (BCB)
  16. Smoke and Ashes – Abir Mukerjee 
  17. A Year in Provence – Peter Mayle
  18. Baking Cakes in Kigali – Gaile Parkin
  19. The Caliph’s House – Tahir Shah 
  20. The Keeper Of Lost Things – Ruth Hogan
  21. Dear Ijaewele or a Feminist Manifest on Fifteen Suggestions – Chimamanda Adichie
  22. The Story Hour – Thrity Umrigar
  23. We Are Okay – Nina LaCour
  24. Hold Still – Nina LaCour
  25. Our Dreams Might Align – Dana Diehl  (BCB)
  26. Everything Leads To You – Nina LaCour 

Book List 2018

  1. The Tea Girl on Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See
  2. I Let You Go – Clare mackintosh (BCD)
  3. The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
  4. Go Set A Watchman – Harper Lee (BCB)
  5. The Weight of Heaven – Thrity Umrigar
  6. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry – Fredrick Backman
  7. The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
  8. The Lowlands – Jhumpa Lahiri
  9. A Man Called Ove – Fredrick Backman (BCB)
  10. Before We Visit the Goddess – Chirta Bannerjee Divakaruni
  11. Japanese Lover – Isabel Allende
  12. The Beauty of Humanity Movement – (BCB)
  13. Bill Bryson’s African Diary – Bill Bryson
  14. The Memory of Love –
  15. Sonata for Miriam – Linda Olsson
  16. All The Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr (BCB)
  17. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald (BCB)
  18. In Other Words – Jhumpa Lahiri
  19. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman (BCB)
  20. Magpie Murders – Anthony Horowitz
  21. The Mistletoe Murders – Anthony Horowitz
  22. Annihilation – Jeff Vandermeer (BCB)
  23. The First Darling of the Morning – Thrity Umrigar
  24. Bombay Time – Thrity Umrigar
  25. The Word is Murder – Anthony Horowitz

Book List 2017

1. Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese
2. How To Start a Fire – Lisa Lutz (BCB)
3. Land Remembered (BCB)
4. Dream Lover (novel about George Sand)
5. Mutant Message Down Under– Marlo Morgan
6. Durable Goods – Elizabeth Berg
7. Enchanted April – Elizabeth con Arnim 
8. Open House – Elizabeth Berg
9. The New Neighbour – Leah Stewart (BCB)
10.Daughter’s Keeper – 
11. House of Silk* – Anthony Horowitz 
12. Tapestry of Fortunes -Elizabeth Berg
13. False Impression – Jeffrey Archer (BCB)
14. The Forgotten Garden – Kate Morton (BCB)

Book List 2016

1. The Goldfinch – Donna Tart
2. The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter (BCB)
3. Vox – Nicholson Barker (BCB)
4. Pretty Leslie – R. V Cassill (BCB)
5. Beautiful Ruins – Jess Walter
6. Dictionary of Mutual Understanding – Jackie Copleton (BCB)
7. Astrid and Veronika – Linda Olsson (BCB)
8. In the Beginning Was The Sea – Tomas Gonzalez (BCB)
9. Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
10. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith (BCB)
11. Heat and the Dust – Ruth Prawer Jahbvala
12. The House on Mango St. – Sandra Cisneros
13. Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri
14. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
15. Up The Down Staircase – Bel Kaufman (BCB)

Note: BCB means “Book Club book”