Book List

I don't have a Palm. Or a Blackberry. Or any such thing. I don't have a Dayrunner or Filofax or any such thing like that either. I have a datebook, maybe three by six inches, vertical, with a week to the two-page spread. Every year I get a new one and copy all my phone numbers and birthdays into it. I write my appointments in my datebook, but I also write addresses and notes and errands and movies to see and lists. Sometimes, when I haven't finished the lists, I need to copy them into the next year's datebook.

This year, I started a list of books I wanted to read in the space for notes at the end of the week of April 11-17. The list has grown upwards, covering April 17 and halfway through April 16. Here it is (the most recent entries at the top):

Marjorie Williams, The Woman at the Washington Zoo
Amanda Eyre Ward
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall
Grazer, The Starter Wife
Jonathan Coe, The Rotter's Club & sequel
Patrick Hamilton
Lydia Davis
Christine Schutt
A.L. Kennedy, Paradise
Andrea Levy, Small Island
Ian McEwan, Saturday
Ruth Reichl
Towelhead
Sue Miller, Lost in the Forest
Wesley Stace, Misfortune
Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Housekeeping
Donald Hall, The Best Day The Worst Day
Laura Waterman, Losing the Garden

I don't even know what some of these books are. Losing the Garden? Patrick Hamilton?

Since I started the list, I've read How to Be Lost (Amanda Eyre Ward), Paradise, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. I've also read Family Pictures (Sue Miller), On Beauty (Zadie Smith), and two novels by people I know that I'm not going to name because I don't want them to google themselves and find my blog. This weekend I took The Devil Wears Prada and Prep out of the library. The Devil Wears Prada is the current hot read at my work.

Clearly I'm into women authors. I'm also not so good at sticking to my list. And I don't know how Elizabeth manages to read a book a week.