Willa's 2011 Book List -- Fiction

Chari and I want to share our lists of books we read in 2011.   Chari is compiling her list.  She read less than I did last year because last year was especially busy for her and especially out of the ordinary for me.    I did a lot of traveling, and read in the car, in airports, and at the places we visited.   Also, I  got a Kindle with my Christmas money in January.

I tried to categorize them for this post, since it's hard to take in a random (long) list of things, and I am breaking it up into two posts.  This is the fiction list.  In a future post I will list the non fiction.  


Doing this took a long time!  Next year I'll be sure not to read so much : ).

By the way, I keep track of what I've read on Goodreads.   If you are on there please feel free to friend me, or give me your username and I will try to seek you out; I love seeing other readers' book lists.

Also if you want to talk about a book you particularly enjoyed, or ask about a book, or you have a blog where you've listed your 2011 reading, please do share.

So here's the Nearly Interminable Fiction Book List of 2011

Classic (Public Domain)

• The Little Prince 

A classic!  I read this as a teenager, and even dressed my toddler brother up as the Little Prince and did a photo shoot  (a patient little kid).    I assigned it to my 15 year old, so I thought I would read it again to keep him company.  (this one actually isn't public domain; I did find an online version though). 

• Waverley

 Sir Walter Scott.  I was interested in the book because Charlotte Mason mentions it as an example of a novelist talking about education.  (I put some quotes here).  

• Anna Karenina
• War and Peace

I hadn't read anything by Tolstoy before, though I even took a class on Russian literature in college.   So getting a Kindle gave me a good opportunity, since I didn't have to lug around a huge book.   

• The Scarlet Letter

I read this in college, but I thought it was a good time to reread.   

• Vanity Fair

I liked this book!  Becky Sharp was like a heroine in a soap opera... incorrigible. 

• Daniel Deronda
• The Mill on the Floss

I've read several George Eliot and thought I would read these after watching the movie versions with my daughter during the 2011 Christmas break.   

• Nicholas Nickleby

I read this during this year's Christmas break after watching the movie version with my daughter.   Good book!  I really liked it.   

• What Maisie Knew

By Henry James.   This is told from the perspective of a child, the young daughter of a divorced couple who are bitterly antangonist to each other.    Wow, this is a dysfunctional family and the girl is caught in the middle.  

• Mr. Hogarth's Will

A really interesting novel about two young women who are intentionally left penniless by their rich and eccentric uncle, who believes women should be able to make their way in the world without living off a man.  The story moves from Scotland to Australia and has a lot of twists and turns.   

• Mrs. Day's Daughters

I read this book really hoping I wouldn't raise children like this.  Mrs Day is widowed when her husband is convicted for business fraud and shoots himself.  Her three grown children and one younger son have to try to survive in the real world.   It's a romance as much as anything, and was interesting reading.   

• The Rectory Children

A tale for children.  I blogged about it here.   

• Under the Greenwood Tree

• An Eye for an Eye

I blogged about these here.  

• Mother
• The Treasure

Both by Kathleen Thompston Norris.    Mother is about a girl who gets to have a glamorous career and the contrast with her mother who is raising a large family in relative poverty and obscurity -- nice SAHM message.  The Treasure is about the trials of an upper middle class wife and mother trying to find the perfect household servant.  Both light and short but interesting.  

• The Lodger

Based on the case of Jack the Ripper, by Marie Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc.   Somewhat creepy but doesn't quite qualify as a horror story.   

• The Rosary

 I thought this was a Catholic book, but it isn't.   The "Rosary" of the title is actually from the title of a real song, which is sung by the heroine.  

• The Moorland Cottage and Other Stories
• The Christmas Fairy and Other Stories
• Abbot's Ghost : A Christmas Story
• The Burglar and the Blizzard: A Christmas Story

I read some Christmas type stories and these were the public domain ones.  

Charlotte Yonge

This year I read a lot of books by Charlotte Yonge, who was an Anglican writer who wrote voluminously for children as well as adults.   These were fascinating.  She has an intense interest in education and many of the young people in the books are home tutored in one form or another, either by their parents or by tutors or governesses.    She was also very interested in character and in Christian living so many of her stories are deeply connected with moral and spiritual issues. 

• The Two Sides Of The Shield
• Under the Storm
• Stray Pearls
• Heartsease
• Abbeychurch
• The Long Vacation
• Chantry House
• Modern Broods
• Henrietta's Wish
• Magnum Bonum, or Mother Carey's Brood
• Lady Hester, or, Ursula's Narrative
• The Carbonels
• The Young Step-Mother
• Countess Kate
• The Clever Woman of the Family
•  Dynevor Terrace
• Heir of Redclyffe
• Unknown to History: The Captivity of Mary of Scotland

Catholic Fiction

• In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems

Poems by Thomas Merton.   Some really , really good, and some not so good.  I was lent this book by someone at my church.  I love his best poems but don't much care at all for his worse ones.

• The Comedians

 By Graham Greene.  Sort of a book noir.  

• Morte D'Urban

I knew about JF Powers from reading Flannery O'Connor's letters.  He was a contemporary of hers.   This was a really, really good book, about a sort of worldly priest who changes during the course of the novel.  I loved it.     Highly recommended.

• CALLISTA: A Sketch of The Third Century

By John Cardinal Newman, a novel about life during the early days of Christianity.  Actually a really good book, will go on my bookshelf along with Fabiola.  

• Decline and Fall

Evelyn Waugh's first novel.  Horrifying and funny.

• Loss and Gain. The Story of a Convert

By Cardinal John Henry Newman.  Semi-autobiographical novel about the conversion of a young Oxford scholar to Catholicism, and what happens as a result.  

• The Betrothed

This is an excellent Catholic novel that Chari recommended.  I'm not sure why it's not more of a household word among Catholics.  It is certainly very appropriate for teenagers, and has a nice love story as well as a depiction of a heroic priest and a not-so-heroic one. 

• Quo Vadis

Another novel about the early days of Christianity and the persecutions under Nero.  Features Petronius, the real author of the Satyricon, and his fictional nephew who falls in love with a young barbarian Christian woman.

 Fantasy (YA)

 

• The Saint of Dragons (Simon St George #1)

OK book -- it was the sort of book written by a teenager, or in this case, a film-writer.

• His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass / The Subtle Knife / The Amber Spyglass

I read these because I had heard about Philip Pullman's atheism and his criticism of CS Lewis.  The books aren't bad.  Not all the plot elements came together at the end, but I can live with that when a trilogy has as many elements as this one does.    The bad part is that he was torn between his storytelling acumen and his desire to write anti-Theist propaganda.  So having an "Almighty" who turns out to be frail and pathetic is great, but identifying him as the Jehovah of the Old Testament is just silly.  And the same when he tried to make a case for immorality -- it just sounded contrived, especially since the plot only convinced when the characters worked with the basic moral compass.

• A Tale of Two Castles

This is a good author.  I really enjoy her books.   They are like fantasy fairy tales.

• Closer (Tunnels, #4)

Science Fiction

• A Voyage to Arcturus

CS Lewis mentioned this book.   It is very odd, almost Satanistic.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz>

A reread.  A Catholic science fiction classic.   An older teenager could  read this.  I recommend it.  

General Fiction

• The Help

Good first novel.  Probably everyone's heard of it.  There's a movie out but I haven't seen it.  

• Hunger

A collection of stories by a Chinese-American author, very good.   Mostly about the stress of immigration and how it affects various families. 

• Hard Laughter>

;By Anne Lamott.  A good first novel, semi-autobiographical, about an odd set of siblings whose faither has brain cancer.    Some language and sex.

• Walking on Broken Glass

;I think this was about an alcoholic wife in a troubled marriage but I can't remember for sure. 

• Remembering Christmas: A Novel

Two free Kindle books I read during Advent.  Both pretty OK.

• Perfect Match

I found these two Jodi Piccoult books on my library discard match.   Page-turners, fun light reading, I skip through the romance scenes.

• When You Went Away

A pretty good romantic story about a widower raising a small son.

• Riven>

I didn't much like this book by one of the authors of Left Behind.   There are two parallel stories, one about a failing pastor whose daughter has lost her faith and whose wife is diagnosed with cancer.  The other is about a juvenile delinquent.   I liked both the storylines, and both struck me as very plausible, but the pacing was sort of plodding, and the ending was just implausible and religiously wrong to me.

• The Apothecary's Daughter

A Regency Romance, quite good.   Until the end you really don't know which of the three main guys in the book will be "the one", which made it interesting and different.  It had a Christian emphasis too.

Mystery

• Sweet Danger (Albert Campion Mystery #5)<
• Police at the Funeral (Albert Campion Mystery #4)
• The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
• First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell, #4)

My Mom gave me these ones (above)  after she read them.   I like Margery Allingham and Alexander McCall, and liked these books, very readable airplane fare.   First Family was all right if you like fast paced thrillers.

• Getting Away is Deadly (A Mom Zone Mystery, #3)
• Protector (Jane Perry, #1)
• Listen>
• Medicus (Gaius Petreius Ruso, #1)
• Invisible (Ivy Malone Mysteries, #1)

These last ones were all free for a limited time on Kindle and they were all fairly decent light reading.

Literarily Yours,

Willa