Books I read in 2009

first novels

1. The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken
2. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
3. The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
4. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
5. Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
6. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

science fiction

1. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
2. Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling
3. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
4. Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
5. Bright New Universe by Jack Williamson
6. Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis
7. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
8. Remake by Connie Willis

short stories

1. Blood Child and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
2. Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon
3. Mixed edited by Chadra Prasad
4. Fire Watch by Connie Willis
5. Impossible Things by Connie Willis
6. The Importance of a Piece of Paper by Jimmy Santiago Baca
7. 9 Sketches by Bret Harte
8. So Long Been Dreaming ed by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan
9. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson

history

1. A Concise History of New Mexico by L. Bradford Prince
2. I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land by Karolyn Smardz Frost
3. Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen E. Ambrose
4. The Martyr: Luis de Carvajal, A Secret Jew of Sixteenth-Century Mexico by Martin Aaron Cohen
5. Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott
6. South by Earnest Shackleton
7. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
8. The Pirate Coast by Richard Zacks

classics I had never read

1. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
3. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
5. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
6. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

mystery

1. The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman
2. Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs
3. Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb
4. Friends, Lovers Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith
5. Shell Game by Carol O’Connell
6. Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
7. TailSpin by Catherine Coulter
8. Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais

science

1. Einstein’s Greatest Blunder? by Donald Goldsmith
2. The Misunderstood Gene by Michel Morange
3. Race to the Finish by Jenny Reardon
4. Fixing Climate by Wallace S. Broecker & Robert Kunzig
5. The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett
6. Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution by Frances D. Burton

biography/autobiography/memoirs

1. The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina by Gerda Lerner
2. Seldom Disappointed by Tony Hillerman
3. Six Miles to the Windmill by Annie King Greaves & John Gordon Greaves
4. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez
5. Falling Leaves by Adeline Yee Mah
6. Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt
7. Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
8. The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto “Che” Guevara
9. The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie
10. Nothing to Declare by Mary Morris

best sellers

1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
2. In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
3. Blink by Malcom Gladwell
4. When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson & Susan McCarthy
5. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
6. Plainsong by Kent Haruf
7. The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
8. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
9. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer