Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Linda's book list

In the serious business of reading for pleasure, my friend Linda and I have always been enthusiastic collaborators. For years, we shared books – second-hand, library, fresh-bought – back and forth, like precious treats.

That changed in 2014 when my reading time was snaffled by the university program I’m taking, but Linda was undeterred. Always the better noser-out of books, she kept right on checking the Vancouver Public Library for new releases from favourite authors. Every week, she reads the New York Times Sunday Book Review; the book sections in the Toronto Star, National Post and Globe & Mail, and she’s religious about the CBC’s Eleanor Wachtel’s Writers & Company and Shelagh Rogers’ The Next Chapter.

Linda has probably read hundreds of books since I stopped keeping her company, but at this time of year, I get a heartening reminder that all is not lost. Partly because she can’t endure not remembering the names of books she has read, she has begun keeping an annual list. On it goes every book she enjoyed that year.

 They’re not all 10s, she warns, but she doesn’t include any she skimmed or didn’t finish. While she moved toward more non-fiction this year, her fiction choices tend to be character-based, using traditional forms of story-telling, even though most are quite recent.

 “I would recommend all of these books and I wouldn’t recommend any of them,” she says, nodding to the reality of differing tastes. As for me, I hoard Linda’s lists. After I finish my program, I look forward to diving into them like a long-lost treasure trove.

Here is Linda’s 2017 list:


AUTHOR
BOOKS
2017

Roger Angell
This Old Man – A Life in Pieces
Muriel Spark
A Far Cry from Kensington
Anne Lamott
Stitches
Anne Lamott
Help Thanks Wow
Marcia Willett
The Song Bird
Oliver Sacks
Gratitude
Oliver Sacks
On the Move
Rebecca Solnit
Wanderlust
Helen Humphreys
The River
Joy Kogawa
Gently to Nagasaki
Robbie Robertson
Testimony
Cathleen Schine
They May Not Mean to But They Do
Cathleen Schine
The Three Weismann of Westport
Claire Fuller
Swimming Lessons
Jennifer Weiner
Hungry Heart
Anne Enright
Yesterday’s Weather
Shirley Hazzard
The Transit of Venus
Will Schwalbe
Books for Living
Kyo Maclear
Birds, Art, Life
Faye Weldon
Before the War
Anne Lamott
Halleluiah, Anyway
Francis Weller
The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Atul Gawande
Being Mortal
Ali Smith
Autumn, The Public Library, The Accidental
Elizabeth Strout
Anything is Possible
Barbara Gowdy
Little Sister
Geneen Roth
Lost & Found
Lisa Jewell
The Girls in the Garden
Michael Harris
Solitude – A Singular Life in a Crowded World
Bill  Hayes
Insomniac City
Sharon Bhutala
Where I Live Now
Elly Griffiths
The Crossing Places
Peter Robinson
Children of the Revolution
Julian Barnes
Pulse
Judith Jones
The Tenth Muse – My Life in Food
John Banville
Time Pieces – A Dublin Memoir
Susan Hill
The Beacon; The Service of Clouds
Jens Christian Grondahl
Often I am Happy
Julie Pointer Adams
Wabi-Sabi Welcome
Louise Penny
Glass Houses
Gail Bowen
The Winner’s Circle
Roz Nay
Our Little Secret
Polly Devlin
New York  Behind Closed Doors
John Le Carré
A Legacy of Spies




Margaret Drabble
The Dark Flood Rises
Jan Wong
Apron Strings
Erin Carlson
I’ll  Have What She’s Having – How Nora Ephron’s Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy
Anita Brookner
Look at Me
P.D. James
Sleep No More
Ann Cleeves
The Seagull
Jamie Attenberg
All Grown Up
John Banville
Mrs. Osmond
Rachel Rose
Sustenance:  Writers from BC & Beyond on the Subject of Food

1 comment:

  1. I will be looking forward to Linda's booklist every year now! And it reminds me of the wonderful world of "out of time" radio. I have now bookmarked Writers and Company and The Next Chapter and can listen to past broadcasts at any time.

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