As a rule, I don’t read a whole lot of nonfiction. What I did read last year was mostly entertainment or education-related. And yet, almost every time I see someone on The Daily Show promoting a book, I think, “hey, that sounds interesting. I might want to read that.”
So I’m looking for your recommendations. What irresistible nonfiction is out there waiting for me?
Again, I’m not 100% sure this list is complete. I’m going to bold some of the things that were my favorites this…er, last…year:
1. Love, Stargirl–Jerry Spinelli
2. Abadazad: The Road to Inconceivable–JM DeMatteis
3. Neptune Noir–edited by Rob Thomas
4. Blood Price–Tanya Huff
5. Looking for Alaska–John Green
6. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom–Cory Doctorow
7. Young Avengers–Allan Heinberg
8. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born–Peter David and Jae Lee
9. Kimmie66–Aaron Alexovich
10. Blood Trail–Tanya Huff
11. Undisclosed unpublished manuscript–a friend
12. Living Lost–J. Wood
13. Boy Proof–Cecil Castellucci
14. First Among Sequels–Jasper Fforde
15. I’d Tell You I Love You But then I’d Have to Kill You–Ally Carter
16. Size 14 is Not Fat Either–Meg Cabot
17. Buffy Omnibus, vol. 2
18. Gifts–Ursula LeGuin
19. Duma Key–Stephen King
20. Pirates of the Retail Wasteland–Adam Selzer
21. The House on Mango Street–Sandra Cisneros
22. Daniel’s Story–Carol Matas
23. Queen of Babble in the Big City–Meg Cabot
24. Big Boned–Meg Cabot
25. Ready or Not–Meg Cabot
26. Someone Like You–Sarah Dessen
27. Lily Dale: Awakening–Wendy Corsi Staub
28. When You Are Engulfed in Flames–David Sedaris (didn’t finish)
29. Ultimates–Mark Millar
30. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian–Sherman Alexie
31. Story of a Girl–Sara Zarr
32. Queen of Babble Gets Hitched–Meg Cabot
33. Janes in Love–Cecil Castellucci
34. American Born Chinese–Gene Yang
35. Of Mice and Men–John Steinbeck
36. A Raisin in the Sun–Lorraine Hansberry
37. Teaching Outside the Box–LouAnne Johnson
38. Little Brother–Cory Doctorow
39. Teaching with Love and Logic–Jim Fay & David Funk
40. Creating Classrooms where Teachers Love to Teach and Students Love to Learn–Bob Sornson Ph.D.
41. Another undisclosed, unpublished manuscript
42. Night–Elie Wiesel
43. The New York Four–Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly
44. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns–Frank Miller
45. Y The Last Man–Brian K. Vaughn
46. Dead Until Dark–Charlaine Harris
*The unpublished manuscripts that I read are also among my favorites. I cannot wait until my friend has a book out on the shelves (which will be soon! whee!) and I can talk more about her. 🙂
I am positively overwhelmed by reading material right now.
Last week, in anticipation of the beginning of school, I ordered Teaching Outside the Box by LouAnne Johnson. (LouAnne Johnson is the teacher who wrote the book that inspired the movie Dangerous Minds.) So far, it’s fantastic.
I also received a slightly belated birthday package from Stephanie, which included Dead Until Dark, the first book in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series, as well as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.
I bought a few books at the Scholastic Sale that I would like to read, including an Anna Quindlen novel I was unaware of.
Rand ordered me some cool books from Canada–a series of YA novels by Sean Cullen. You may recognize Sean from Last Comic Standing.
Or, if you’re like me, you may know him as a member of Corky and the Juice Pigs.
At any rate, his humor is weird and utterly hilarious. I’m very much looking forward to the books.
On top of all the reading I’d like to do for fun, of course, I have the required school reading…among the books I’ll be teaching this year:
I did my master’s project on teaching Shakespeare to high school students, and just about every scholar agrees that Julius Caesar should be ditched from the high school curriculum. Apparently no one is listening. Ah well…I’ll do my best to make it interesting, and promise not to make them memorize and recite “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…” (which is the ONLY thing I remember about reading this play in high school. seriously.)
Hmmm…overwhelmed much? 😉 In all seriousness, though, I’m beyond excited about this job. And I’ll try my best to squeeze in some reading for pleasure among all the edumacational stuff. 😉
Well, I guess I’d better get to work!
I’ve gone on a reading binge this past week or so–particularly this weekend. Lots of YA and chicklit. I’ve hit a point where nothing on my to-read shelf is doing it for me. Please feel free to share your recommendations!
1. Love, Stargirl–Jerry Spinelli
2. Abadazad: The Road to Inconceivable–JM DeMatteis
3. Neptune Noir–edited by Rob Thomas
4. Blood Price–Tanya Huff
5. Looking for Alaska–John Green
6. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom–Cory Doctorow
7. Young Avengers
8. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born
9. Kimmie66–Aaron Alexovich
10. Blood Trail–Tanya Huff
11. A Local Habitation–Seanan McGuire
12. Living Lost–J. Wood
13. Boy Proof–Cecil Castellucci
14. First Among Sequels–Jasper Fforde
15. I’d Tell You I Love You But then I’d Have to Kill You–Ally Carter
16. Size 14 is Not Fat Either–Meg Cabot
17. Buffy Omnibus, vol. 2
18. Gifts–Ursula LeGuin
19. Duma Key–Stephen King
20. Pirates of the Retail Wasteland–Adam Selzer
21. The House on Mango Street–Sandra Cisneros
22. Daniel’s Story–Carol Matas
23. Queen of Babble in the Big City–Meg Cabot
24. Big Boned–Meg Cabot
25. Ready or Not–Meg Cabot
26. Someone Like You–Sarah Dessen
27. Lily Dale: Awakening–Wendy Corsi Staub
Yesterday was 27 days until my wedding, and there’s a post up at my wedding blog.
Miss Shortskirt put up a new post at Required Reading.
After many, many months, I updated the 27 blog. (I was reminded by my 27 days post at the wedding blog)
Enjoy! 🙂
My copy of On Writing is inexplicably missing. It is not impossible that I let someone borrow it, but I have zero memory of doing so. I’d say “it has to be here somewhere,” but I’m fairly certain that all the books have been unpacked.
Do you have my book? :-/
I finally finished Duma Key this morning. Short review? I loved this book. Love.
I want to hold it and squeeze it and call it George.
Yeah, some of Stephen King’s latest work has been less than stellar…I haven’t even read Cell…but this was King at his best. Creepy and weird and sad, and ultimately completely satisfying.
Yay for good books!
Ummm…I felt like there was more, but I just can’t remember what right now. Enjoy!
So I decided to bring back my YA lit blog, Required Reading. I was prompted to do so because of my new blogfriend Jessica (aka miss_shortskirt). She is also a lover of the YA, so IÂ proposed that she join me in reviving the blog as a co-blogger, and she agreed. Woohoo!
So, anyone interested in YA can check us out over there. See ya!
Every once in a while, I read a book that makes me wish I’d come up with the idea.
This is one of those books. (I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, by Ally Carter)
Hello? Spy school? How awesome is that? My love for all things Alias guaranteed that I would fall in love with this book, and I have. I want to read the sequel. (Actually, likely the second in a series…)
That is all. 🙂