Book List, in alphabetical order by author

• Douglas Adams.

· The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  Best in the series.  My favorite character is Ford, so any chapters that involve him are the best :-). Definitely worth reading several times.

· The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.   Ok

· Life the Universe and Everything.  Also ok

· So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.  Again ok

· Mostly Harmless.  Best left unread.

· The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.  Very good, and full of useful information, such as: If you're lost follow someone who looks like they know where they are going.

· Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.  I haven't read this one since high school, so I don't actually remember much about it, except that I liked it.

• Isaac Adamson.
• Tokyo Suckerpunch. Words cannot describe how great this book is. Buy this book. Read this book. Go to the website and email the writer and tell him how great the book is. Then read the book again.
• Hokkaido Popsicle.See above.
• Dreaming Pachinko.  This is sitting waiting to be read, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  The above enthusiasm has completely waned.
• Vassily Aksyonov. 
• In Search of Melancholy Baby.  Another book I haven't read in years, but it was enjoyable enough to buy.
• John Bayley.
• Elegy for Iris.  Sweet and sad and funny.  I couldn't find a good link for John Bayley, so I linked to the movie Iris (which I haven't seen yet).
• Judy Blume
• Smart Women. Don’t ya just love the 80s?
• Wifey. Don’t ya just love the 70?
• Dan Brown. 
• The Da Vinci Code. Before reading this book, I hadn't ever heard about Da Vinci hiding codes in his art or about the secret society he was in or anything.  So, this book was interesting in that aspect.  It wasn't the greatest book in the world, and didn't have the greatest ending, but it was still a good read.
• Richard F. Burton (Ed.)
• "The book of the thousand nights and a night : a plain and literal translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments / translated and annotated by Richard F. Burton." Got it from Willis Library. Hard to read since it was in older English (1800's). Interesting to see that the Arabic slang hasn't changed much though. Really interesting to read the original stories. What was most interesting was to read the footnotes with the British guy trying to explain Arabic culture to British people of the time. I guess that's before England was overrun by Arabs. I'd like to read the rest some day, but it is pretty hard to read and I like lighter reading these days.
• Tim Burton.
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy.  Very funny and weird.  It takes about 10 minutes to read.
• Raymond Chandler.
• Everything besides Poodle Springs is great.  I love these books. I read the Little Sister in 1987 or 1988 I think, and then started my collection. Since the, I've read them about every year. All of them. I love these books. I really love them. Read these books. They're great.
• Poodle Springs.  I tried reading this but it didn't sound right.  It was mostly written by Robert Parker.  From the publisher: "When Raymond Chandler died in 1959, he left behind the first four chapters of a new Philip Marlowe thriller. Now three decades later, Robert B. Parker, the bestselling creator of the Spenser detective novels, has completed POODLE SPRINGS in a full-length masterpiece of criminal passion."
• Selected Letters. Kind of like an autobiography, but it's just a bunch of letters that he wrote over the years.  I enjoyed reading them
• Mary Higgins Clark.
• On the Street Where You Live.  I love mysteries, sometimes even cheesy ones. Sometimes I even like stuff about reincarnation. But I really don't like bad writing. I kind of liked the story here, but I didn't like the way she put the words together. I would have liked it better if I read it when I was like 8 ot 9.

• Diane Mott Davidson.
• I started with Tough Cookie and really enjoyed it.  Also, the cookie recipes were good.  Then I read Dying for Chocolate, Sticks and Scones, Killer Pancake, the Grilling Season,  and Prime Cut.  Basically, all of the books are the same.  They follow a formula, like Nancy Drew books, or like any TV show.  They really are enjoyable fluff.  So, if you need something to read on the bus or plane, these are the books for you.
• Barbara Ehrenreich. 
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.  I did not like this book very much, and yet I could not stop reading it.  It's a journalistic sort of thing.  The lady decided to find out what it is like to be poor, so she took like $1000 and got jobs waitressing, working at Walmart, etc.  in 4 different cities.  In the first city she seemed enthusiastic and put a lot of effort into it.  By the last city it seemed like she just wanted to go home, which is understandable.  Anyway, the people she worked with made the book worth reading.  The lady who wrote the book seemed like someone I would rather not know, if you know what I mean.  This book was taken from the Bluestockings reading list.
• Erskine.
• Adam and Eve, Though He Knew Better.   Very nice book. Very interesting. Kind of funny, but mostly just interesting. If you're not familiar with Erskine (and I'm not) he seemed to like to write about historical or mythical figures, but making them seem very ordinary. I was just walking through the library, desperate for something to read, when I came across a bunch of his books and the titles looked interesting. Since I'm familiar with the Adam and Eve story, I enjoyed this book.
• Solomon, My Son.  I really liked this one. I was more familiar with the story of Solomon, plus there were many characters and an interesting plot. I want to read more of Erskine's stuff.
• The Private Life of Helen of Troy. This one I liked less because I don't know the story of Helen of Troy. I know there's something to do with a wooden horse or something; and I figured out some stuff from the book, but it would have been better if I knew more about the real story. Also, there weren't very many characters, and not much action.
• Janet Evanovich.
• High Five.  This book wasn't welll-written. Nevertheless, it's one of those books that you find at the supermarket bookshelves, so you know it has mass-appeal. It took about a day to read, and I read the whole thing, so what I'm trying to say is that I kind of enjoyed reading it, but it's a guilty pleasure because it's really not well written.
• Helen Fielding.
• Bridget Jones's Diary. I really liked this book. It's much better than the movie. My boyfriend didn't enjoy it as much as I did (although he read most of it and we usually don't agree on books). So, I think some of the humor is best enjoyed by people who can emphathize.
• Bridget Jones's Guide to Life.   This is very cute.  It takes about 10 minutes to read, since it has a lot of pictures.  Very funny.  
• Joanne Fluke.
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.  This book was slow and had all the things that are wrong with mysteries. She hid information and had a twist at the end. She mislead the readers. It pretty much sucks. It's getting bonus points for having recipes that looked good. I didn't try any of them, but I'm optimistic. I thought that it was the first book this woman has written, but then I found out that she's written other books and has used aliases. This was just the first of this series of mystery cook books. I'm severely disappointed.
• Dick Francis.
• Come to Grief.  I really dug this book. This one was well-written.  I don't know if I'd go to the effort of finding another one of his books. By "effort" I mean actually going to the library and checking one out. I really liked it though.
• Neil Gaiman.
• Sandman comic books.  I mean, graphic novels.  Good to read, but kind of nightmare-inducing.
• American Gods.   Really great book.  It's so vivid, that after a few months I kept thinking that it was a movie.  It really is very good.
• Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)   I really liked the Sandman comics, and a friend recommended that I read this.  Oh, I did just read that they're thinking of making a movie out of it, directed by Terry Gilliam  (Monty Python). I really liked this book. It's pretty feel-good, considering that it concerns the end of the world. You should definitely read it.
• Patricia Highsmith.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley.  This was really good.  I liked the movie, but I liked the book even better.  Ripley was much nicer in the book than in the movie.
• Ripley Under Ground.  Just as good as the first.  Not much action, but much character development.
• Ripley's Game.  They recently made an awful movie with this title.  Although I'm sure it was meant to be based on the book, it was hard to find any similarity.
• Boy Who Followed Ripley.  When reading these, keep in mind how many years have gone by.  It's about a decade in between each book, and it's interesting to see how things change.
• Ripley Under Water.  It's a nice ending to the series. 
• This Sweet Sickness.  I don't know how she did it.  This book has kind of the same plot as a Ripley book would, but a completely different feel.  
• Nick Hornby (Ed.)
• Speaking with the Angel.  This is a book of short stories, edited by Nick Hornby (About a Boy and High Fidelity). There were 2 stories-I think- that I didn't like. I really liked some of them. Some of them were really great.
• Le Carre.
• Constant Gardner. I read an article in the New Yorker about this book, and I didn't really know who this author was. The article made the book look interesting, so I bought it. Later I found out that he wrote all these spy novels that got turned into Sean Connery movies, that sucked. This book really sucked. I had nightmares the whole book through because the people were ordinary and the circumstances were extraordinarily tragic. I guess that's an indication of good writing, if it affects the reader so much. But this book really sucked. The ending sucked. But I still gave Le Carre a second chance.
• Taylor of Panama.   It sucked. This time the whole story sucked. I read it because a lot of Lecarre's books became sucky movies, but they make a movie of this one recently, so I thought it may not suck. So, I read most of the book. Then I watched the movie, which sucked and was totally miscast. The movie had a happy ending. Then I had to return to book before I finished, so I skimmed the rest, and guess what. The book ended tragically (as far as I could tell) and it sucked. Le Carre is not getting any more of time!
• Roy Lewis. 
• Evolution Man or How I Ate My Father. BUY THIS BOOK. I loved this book. It's so wonderful. It's about prehistoric homosapiens-sapiens (back when there were also neanderthals), but from a 1960's perspective. It's so funny. It went out of print but they've started reprinting it (Random House). It's so great. I got it from the public library, but then I ended up buying it. 
• Naguib Mahfouz.
• Palace Walk Trilogy (English).  I read all three parts to the trilogy. I loved reading these books! Although they were long, they only took a day or two each to read. They were very soap-opera-esque and had a lot of characters, but it didn't take very long to get to know each character. What sucked was that the last book didn't have much of a conclusion. I guess that was to leave an air of endlessness of life. I mean, it really does just go on and you can conclude people's lives, unless they all died, and that would pretty much suck. I really liked the flow of the book and the language.
• Children of the Alley. This is neat. It's a story of a family, going through several generations, and it's meant to reflect the Biblical/Quranic stories, starting from Adam and Eve, and going through Mohammed. It's really neat, unless you're particularly religious or anti-religion. If you're pretty middle of the road, you'll enjoy it.
• Arabian Nights and Days.   Pretty good book. It's a modernization of some of the stories of the Arabian Nights. I liked it, but I'm not in a hurry to read it again. I really like Mahfouz though.
• The Day the Leader was Killed.  Not the best of his books, but pretty reasonable. It's also pretty short.
• Mamdouh.
• Mothballs (English).  Sucked. It's by an Iraqi woman about Iraqi life in the eyes of a little girl with a jerk of a father. It may have just sucked in translation, but it's hard to tell. I didn't understand most of it because it "flowed" from first to second to third person. All I can say is that the poor girl needed therapy, or maybe the author did. It really sucked.
• Sue Miller.
• Inventing the Abbotts and Other Stories.  This book was so bad.  I saw the Inventing the Abbotts movie, and it was really good.  The short story really sucked.  Well, it wasn't as bad as the other stories in the book.  But really, this woman doesn't know how to write.
• Angela Nissel.
• The Broke Diaries.  Pretty funny.  Written in diary style, which works well for me.  Couldn't help but think that if she had some common sense she wouldn't be so broke, but oh well.  She ended up ok. 
• Stephen Poliakoff.
• Perfect Strangers.   The continuing story of Balki and Cousin Larry.  Just kidding.  It was actually a miniseries on BBC.  I saw part 2 out of 3, and missed the first and last parts.  So, I got the book.  I really enjoyed it.  It's about a gigantic family reunion from the perspective of Daniel, one of the adult cousins.
• Philibert Schogt.  
• Wild Numbers.  Really really good. Creepy, but good. This is one of those that I pass around for people to read. I really liked it. It's about a math professor and some misadventures.
• David Sedaris.
• Me Talk Pretty One Day. This was the first David Sedaris book I ever read. It was hilarious. I really really enjoyed it. It's not fiction, and I prefer fiction, but it was still great. It was really nice and sweet, but also very very funny. Read this book.
• Holidays on Ice.  This one was really short. They were all holiday stories. The dept santa story was great. I liked the Dinah story too. I think this was the book that had the Christmas newsletter (fictional) that was pretty creepy. The book was too short for me to call good. I hate to say that I judge a book by the number of pages, but I do. So there.
• Barrel Fever. His nonfiction is a lot better than his fiction. His fiction is just crazy. But still enjoyable.
• Naked.  This one was nonfiction, and pretty scary. He really drove me crazy, because I kept wanting to yell "No! That's a bad idea. Don't do that. Go home." Obviously he survived all of his adventures, since he lived to tell the tale, but it still drove me crazy.
• Alexander McCall Smith.
• No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I picked up this book solely on the basis of its title.  It was really good.  Very light and easy to read.  I think it took me about a day to read.
• Tears of the Giraffe.  This is the sequal to No 1.  It was much better then the previous one.  It also took about a day to read.
• Morality for Beautiful Girls.  The third book in the series.  It didn't have much action, but had a lot of cultural information.  It's nice that all of these books have the big mystery, that lasts throughout the whole book, but also there were little mysteries and a lot of character development.
• Rex Stout.
• Some Buried Caesar.  Ok, so I watched the Nero Wolfe's on A and E and decided to read a book.  It was pretty good.  A lot slower than the show of course, but still prettty good.
• John Updike.
• S. This is my favorite Updike book. It's the only one that I've read that I can actually say that I like.This one is about a woman who joins a cult or something, but doesn't really realize that she's in a cult. And the story is told through her letters home.
• Couples.  I never really liked John Updike, except that I heard that he wrote a book in the second person, which is supposedly neat. Anyway, I read this book all the way through, so it couldn't have been that bad, but I didn't really like it that much.
• Rebecca Wells.
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.  I  didn't like the movie, but my mom said to read the book. So, I read the book, and it was SO good.  Definitely a must-read. 

Books I haven’t read yet but would like to