My Grandma told me to write down every book I read so I can remember which ones I liked. This year I read 64 books. The ones highlighted with dark green you absolutely must read, at all costs. There are only 3 on this list so you can do it. The ones with light green are also excellent books. Unless otherwise noted the rest should be yellow.
See Book Ratings Guide.
These are listed in the order I read them.
1. Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
2. A Dog Named Slugger - Leigh Brill
About a woman with cerebral palsy and her service dog. Interesting at the end, when the dog helped train his successor.
3. Pilgrim’s Progress - John Bunyan
4. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
Fairly good story for fans of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. A bit slow-paced.
5. Love & Freindship (sic.) - Jane Austen
Written by a 14-year old Jane. Interesting because it is not much different from her more mature stories; the characters have the same ridiculous traits, but more pronounced.
6. The Tale of Despereaux - original story by Kate DiCamillo, graphic novel by Matt Smith & David Tilton
Newbery Medal winner 2004. Charming fairy-tale-esque story with an excellent plot and characters and all the loose ends get tied up in the end.
7. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Good for fans of Austen.
8. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Classic. Several loosely connected short stories.
9. The Hungry Stones and Other Stories - Rabindranath Tagore
Interesting and sometimes weird short stories.
10. Picadilly Jim - P.G. Wodehouse
Highly entertaining story in Wodehouse’s typical style of miscommunications, bumbling errors upon errors.
11. Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis
One of my favorite books of all time. So beautiful and genuine. Autobiographical.
12. Rex: an autistic child - Cathleen Lewis
A blind and autistic child musical prodigy.
13. Beauty Restored - Me Ra Kah
14. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Don’t bother with this. Just read the children’s book “The Treasure” by Uri Shulevitz. Same basic story, less kooky, a lot shorter, and a Caldecott Medal winner.
15. Phantastes - George MacDonald
Fairy tale/fantasy that is not for the phaint of heart. The book that led C.S. Lewis to Christ. See if you can figure out how/why and then tell me.
16. Regarding Ducks and Universes - Neve Maslakovic
Interesting idea, poorly written.
17. The Complete Father Brown Mysteries - G.K. Chesterton
Great mystery stories, similar to and yet totally different flavor from Sherlock Holmes.
18. Gitanjali - Rabindranath Tagore
Beautiful poems translated from Bengali about worship and devotion and pursuit of God and goodness.
19. Imaginary Jesus - Matt Mikalatos
Surprisingly acceptable even though I barely ever can stand to read contemporary Christian fiction, especially if it’s moralistic.
20. Matilda - Roald Dahl
Children’s classic must-read.
21. Anthem - Ayn Rand
Short story that I think sums up some of Rand’s philosophy, but I haven’t read anything else by her so I can’t say for sure.
22. Thinking in Pictures - Temple Grandin
Memoirs of Grandin growing up and succeeding in her field of livestock handling despite being autistic in a primarily nonautistic world.
23. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
24. In the Year 2889 - Jules & Michel Verne
Written in 1889 by father and son about what they imagined the world would be like one thousand years from then. Interesting ideas, some not too far off from present day. And it’s short
25. Lady Susan - Jane Austen
Shorter and less gripping than her other novels.
26. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World - E.L. Konigsburg
27. Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know - ed. Hamilton Wright Mabe
And every adult should know.
28.Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
Another favorite book of all time. Heart-breaking story where you will see what is at the root of each person.
29. Bud, Not Buddy - Christopher Paul Curtis
Newbery Medal winner 2000.
30. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
Slower moving than his other books, but still a good read.
31. The Story of Pip - C. Collodi
Bizarre, yet entertaining.
32. The Story of Pinocchio (abridged) - C. Collodi
Bizarre, yet entertaining.
33. The World’s Last Night and Other Essays - C.S. Lewis
All excellent essays, especially one about prayer.
34. Perelandra - C.S. Lewis
Gripping story, makes your imagination go to work.
35. Clouds of Witness - Dorothy L. Sayers
Mystery novel by intellectual friend of C.S. Lewis.
36. I Loved a Girl - Walter Trobisch
Subtitle: A private correspondence between two young Africans and their pastor. Excellent true story that addresses race, culture, gender roles, and the meaning of relationships.
37. Medea - Euripides
38. Their Mutual Child - P.G. Wodehouse
The most mature of his stories that I have read. Deals with serious relational issues, not just light greivances between people. Yet still very entertaining.
39. Same Kind of Different as Me - Ron Hall & Denver Moore
About a rich white man and a poor black man who both started out geographically and economically in a similar place and were drawn together by genuine love.
40. Alfred & Emily - Doris Lessing
The author imagines what it would be like if WWII had not happened and her parents’ lives were different. And yet, her parents lives weren’t much better and the young men still found wars to go off to, so I ask, why?
41. Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows
Warm story with historical insight into lives of people during WWII
42. Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy
Supposedly about social change. Not that remarkable to me.
43. Condorito: La Aventura Comienza
My first book in Spanish: punny comic strips.
44. The Magician’s Elephant - Kate DiCamillo
Good magical story, includes theme of forgiveness and restoration.
45. Howards End - E.M. Forster
Good story, just plain well-written. You could start reading anywhere and it sounds like poetry, but read straight through because the plot as a whole is good.
46. St. Athanasius: the father of Orthodoxy - F. A. Forbes
Historical biography.
47. When You Reach Me - Rebecca Stead
Newbery Award winner 2010. Nice magical story with a tidy ending
48. Amish Grace - Donald Kraybill
Somewhat of a treatise on forgiveness in general and specifically about the massacre of Amish girls at their school by a gunman.
49. Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry
Disappointing supposed prequel to “The Giver.”
50. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog - Bruce D. Perry
Stories from a child psychiatrist. Very informative about brain chemistry, child development and disorders.
51. All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes - Maya Angelou
Learn about some history from the perspective of an eye-witness person who fits into two “minority” categories: black and female. Good story for anyone who feels like they are searching for home.
52. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Classic must-read for children and adults, but maybe not small children.
53. Whose Body? - Dorothy Sayers
Less of a springing surprise than Sherlock, more a story of the development and unfolding of a solution to a mystery.
54. 26 Fairmont Avenue - Tomie DePaola
Great children’s chapter book for fans of DePaola. Autobiographical.
55. Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin
Very interesting information for those who love animals and those who love autistic people.
56. Amos Fortune: Free Man - Elizabeth Yates
Newbery Medal winner 1951. I wouldn’t have given it a medal, but maybe it was the first of it’s kind: a book from the perspective of a black slave. Now they are a dime a dozen.
57. A Damsel in Distress - P.G. Wodehouse
Cute, fun, entertaining love story.
58. Letters: C.S. Lewis, Don Giovanni Calabria - translated and edited by Martin Moynihan
Good insight into Lewis’s personal side.
59. Letters to an American Lady - C.S. Lewis
Very good insight into Lewis’s personal side.
60. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy has very fine-tuned perception of people’s feelings and mindset in general and about death.
61. Call it Courage - Armstrong Sperry
Newbery Medal winner 1941
62. Mike - P.G. Wodehouse
Cricket story, boys boarding school story. Makes you like cricket.
63. Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Interesting, extremely emotional
64. The Everything Harmonica Book - Lichterman, Brocksmith, Dorfman
Best parts are about harmonica theory and legendary players of harmonica
Authors of whose books I read more than one this year:
C.S. Lewis (6)
P.G. Wodehouse (5)
Kate DiCamillo (2)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2)
Dorothy Sayers (2)
Temple Grandin (2)
