sorry to gush, but I am just so damn excited about this book. haha.

My picks for 2009, all of the Stieg Larsson books from the Millenium trilogy – I really really really enjoyed them.
I also reread “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

At uni, I did a philosophy course in American Pragmatism – so I picked up some books written by Richard Rorty, and started to get through them this summer. I find it interesting the differences between James et al with the neo-pragmatists especially on the issue of metaphysics.

And now I’m reading Max Havelaar: or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, by Multatuli. This is a classic in Dutch literature and has been really important for the perspective on the Dutch colonies and the way the local inhabitants were treated by the Dutch. It was written in the nineteenth century by a former government official who wrote it as an ‘accusation’ against the government in the Dutch East Indies.

My favorites of 2009:
-A book by the Danish author Jens Christian Grondahl, that hasn’t been translated to English yet (Danish title Den tid det tager)
- The love children by Marilyn French
- The other hand by Chris Cleave
- Disguise by Hugo Hamilton
- Snoop. What your stuff says about you by Sam Gosling
- All is quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque.

I’ve read a bunch of stuff while in India–I’ll write more about that later–but I really loved Richard Russo’s new novel That Old Cape Magic . I LOLed multiple times, and found myself writing down some of the lines in my “great quotes” notebook because they were so wonderful.

@Jenny: Yeah, Friedan’s audience seemed at once narrow and broad, something that was designed to reach “the masses” while also thinking that those same masses fit into a certain type that was not all-inclusive.

I am currently reading Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains. It is excellent. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through but we are thinking of picking it for our freshman common reader and I really hope we do! It is about an African man who travels to NYC from Burundi and all the challenges he faces. Beautifully written and a real page turner. I think our students will love it.

My recent move (and new train commute) has instilled a much-needed new habit: reading on the bus to the train station, and then reading for the first half of the ride when the train is crowded and working on a laptop isn’t terribly feasible. As a result I was able to actually get some reading done in the last four months:

–Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain (a book I had been meaning to read FOREVER, and finally sat down and did so–and I thoroughly enjoyed it)

–North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell–another book I had meant to read forever, and also sat down and read in the last few weeks.

–I also re-read Emma for the first time since college, and I nearly howled in public on several occasions thanks to the lines given to Mrs. Elton, Mr. Woodhouse, and of course Miss Bates.

I’m now scouring my bookshelves for some titles I’ve neglected before buying any more books, and one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get a NYPL card so I’m not tempted to run to Amazon or Barnes & Noble when I want a book.