Chicks On Lit discussion

Now that we've moved on to 2011, what were your top 5 reads from last year?

Mine were:
1. Winter Bloom
2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
3. The Lace Makers of Glenmara: A Novel
4. Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children
5. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

1. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
2. Jane Eyre
3. Mudbound
4. The Swallows of Kabul
5. The Angel's Game

1. Angle of Repose
2. Interpreter of Maladies
3. Bridge of Sighs
4. Amy and Isabelle
5. Brideshead Revisited

I love Jane Eyre Vicki!

The Rapture of Canaan
Sea Glass
House Rules
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Perfect Chemistry

A Dog's Purpose
Genesis
The Book Thief
The Bread of Angels: A Memoir of Love and Faith in Damascus
Alcestis

1. The Gargoyle
2. The Lacuna
3. East of Eden
4. Wuthering Heights
5. North and South

Honorable Mention:
The Hunger Games trilogy and The Millennium Trilogy

Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis
American Gods
Cutting for Stone
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

i read more non-fiction than I realized. and it was such a good year. almost made my goal of 50 books, but i'm giving myself a pass since I read one book twice, once and then again, read at least four 800 pagers, and moved to a new house!

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, I only read 20 books this year, which is pretty typical of me, but pales in comparison to what you all read.

Still, here are my top 5 picks:
1.) Room
2.) The Thorn Birds
3.) Never Let Me Go
4.) The Space Between Us
5.) The Glass Castle

Btw,
@Vicki -- I love Jane Eyre
@Smitha -- I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time this year too & really enjoyed it.
@Marialyce -- Wuthering Heights is a great classic. Such rich characters!

1. Jane Eyre
2. Hunger Games
3. Cloud splitter
4. Shanghai Girls
5.Women In White

Here are mine: I had to do 6. Sorry! I couldn't narrow it down to 5. LOL

Push
A Reliable Wife
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
Change of Heart
These Is My Words
The Middle Place

Not in order:

Tinkers

Let The Great World Spin

Same Kind of Different As Me

Olive Kitteridg

Bridge of Sighs

The Book Thief
The Remains of the Day
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Millennium Trilogy
The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset

Not exactly five but close enough, i read too many good books this year

Jane Eyre
Wives and Daughters
I Capture the Castle
The Hunger Games
A Wrinkle In Time

Irene wrote: "Not in order:

Tinkers

Let The Great World Spin

Same Kind of Different As Me

Olive Kitteridg

Bridge of Sighs"


Irene, this list includes a couple of my all time favorites. I had to add Tinkers to my Wish List since we seem to appreciate the same ones. I already have Let the Great World Spin on my shelf awaiting my attention.

Sheila, I have been waiting for a copy of Alcestis on PBS for such a long time. There are still 4 people in front of me.

Marialyce, I loved The Gargoyle too! That would have been in my top 5 of 2009. I want to read East of Eden this year.

Viola, The Space Between Us would have been my sixth book.

My TOP 5 for 2010 . . .

Honolulu
A Northern Light
The Help
The Postmistress
Arcadia Falls

Five books that I especially liked, that I read in 2010 are (in no particular order):
This is Paradise!
Room
Fancy Pants
Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World's Most Repressive Country
Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope
Often the characters stay with me for quite a while and I find myself pondering on how they may be doing now (fiction and nonfiction).

The five I enjoyed the best in 2010:

1. Inkheart
2. The Historian
3. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweeet
4. South of Broad
5. The Help

Oh this'll be hard...

The Pillars of the Earth
Graceling
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The Handmaid's Tale
Garden Spells

And I have to mention The Hunger Games series as well...

1. Wintergirls
2. Fire
3. The Book Thief
4. Stitches
5. Eon: Dragoneye Reborn

A couple of you have The Book Thief on your lists, and it's waiting on my bedside table to be picked up. What do ya think... should I read it next or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? Just finished Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World and it's time for some fiction. :)

I think I read a few pages of The Book Theif, put it down and then never went back to it. I might try it again someday. I did however LOVE The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society!

1. Never Let Me Go
2. Flowers for Algernon
3. The Hunger Games
4. The Lovely Bones
5. Invisible Monsters

Sarah wrote: "I think I read a few pages of The Book Theif, put it down and then never went back to it. I might try it again someday. I did however LOVE The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society!"

Sarah, My daughter and I got about half way though and tossed it aside. I see it appears on so many people's list as their favorite book, so I may pick it up again to see what I possibly missed.

i loved . it is written in a different style that gets getting used to. i loved it so much i recommended that our book club order 10 copies to donate to our library for the lending book club bags.

I am going to have to say
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Catching Fire
3. Mudbound
4. The Help
5. Freedom

Marialyce, could it be the style it was written in? I know some people really don't like that letter-writing format in books.

The telegram / letter-writing style was a little jarring at first, but once I settled into I really loved it. I grew to really like a lot of the characters. I may have to re-read it this year.

Sarah wrote: "Marialyce, could it be the style it was written in? I know some people really don't like that letter-writing format in books.

The telegram / letter-writing style was a little jarring at first, b..."

Sarah, I did like Guernsey but not The Book Thief. I am sorry that I was not clear on that.

Elizabeth, I encourage you to move "Let The Great World Spin" to the top of your pile. It is one of the few books that I finished, put down, and then about a week or two later, just had to start all over again. It has such depth and the writing is magnificent!

Denise wrote: "Five books that I especially liked, that I read in 2010 are (in no particular order):
This is Paradise!
Room
Fancy Pants
Escaping North Korea:..."</i>

Have you read [book:Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick? I have it in my TBR book case.

My top 5 for 2010 are:
1. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
2. My Name is Mary Sutter
3. The Gargoyle
4. The Historian
5. Revolution

1. The Book Thief
2. Goddess of the Rose
3. Garden Spells
4. Notes Left Behind
5. Book of Shadows (solely because of the addicting nature of the series!!)

Irene wrote: "Elizabeth, I encourage you to move "Let The Great World Spin" to the top of your pile. It is one of the few books that I finished, put down, and then about a week or two later, just had to start a..."

Thanks, Irene. I'll see if I can find a spot for it in this challenge!

1. Wishful Drinking
2. Gone with the Wind
3. The Secret Life of Bees
4. Sepulchre
5. Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

Gillian, To Kill A Mackingbird is an all time favorite since I read it in high school! I've re-read it recently (last year or in '09) and can't wait to read it again for bookclub this year!

Hannah, Secret Life Of Bees is also an all time favorite of mine which I've re-read a few times and will be again this month for bookclub!

My top 5 books of 2010 in no particular order:
The Reader
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Gone With the Wind
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America

My top 5 reads of 2010, also not in order:
Let the Great World Spin
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Push
Gone with the Wind
A Thousand Splendid Suns

Jo wrote: "Gillian, To Kill A Mackingbird is an all time favorite since I read it in high school! I've re-read it recently (last year or in '09) and can't wait to read it again for bookclub this year!

Hannah..."

I can't believe I waited so long to read it. I never had it assigned in school, and it sat on my shelf for 10 years before I read it (it moved twice with me!). Such a moving story, as soon as I finished it I wanted to reread it, which is unusual for me since I have never reread a book!

It has the same affect on me! (Wanting to start reading it as soon as I'm finished). I remember being the only one in my class who liked it back then!

Marialyce - I believe I had The Book Thief in my top five last year. It is one of those books that starts out on such a downer and ends up so uplifting. The style is so edgy though. The first three on my list for 2010 are also kind of dark in the smae sort of way. Dismal lives to rise above. But that gave the writing such depth and poignancy.

Nancy wrote: "Marialyce - I believe I had The Book Thief in my top five last year. It is one of those books that starts out on such a downer and ends up so uplifting. The style is so edgy though. The first three..."

I know, Nancy. I am going to give it another go soon. Sometimes, I think it is just a mood you are in when you read a particular book and how it strikes you then.

Oh dear, just 5??

Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies for being laugh out loud funny.
Catching Fire for being fast paced, action packed, and deviously political.
The Reincarnationist for getting me out of my reading funk last winter.
Tie: Thirteen Reasons Why and History of Love for being wonderfully narrated.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for being well written non-fiction that also reminds me that there aren't easy answers.

Ugh, that was hard!

hahaha - Jennifer said - Ugh that was hard! It was wasn't it!?

Unfortunately for me it wasn't hard because I didn't end up reading a lot of books in '10 and the ones I did were either really good or I didn't like them so the favorites stood out for me. I'd have to give The Quarry by Damon Galgut and Plainsong by Kent Haruf my honorable mentions as I liked them both a lot.

At least you mostly read really good stuff, Jo. I read a lot last year, and while most of them were really good, there were a lot that were just "eh." Better to read a few great stories than lots of blah, I think.

I agree Jennifer! I might hold a record for all of the books I started & put down last year because for me they were "eh!" It was very frustrating!

My top 5 in 2010:

Gone With the Wind
Girl in Translation
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Mudbound
Good Omens

I agree Jennifer and Jo - I don't need to read tons, just a few good things. I can't absorb and assimilate that much.

I have decided that if a book is not grabbing me by 50 or so pages, move on. So many books, so little time.