2010 Book List

I love to read end-of-year lists. I love them especially when they are written by friends (and because of this, lisa b. is my favorite person right now) but I love all end-of-year lists even if they are about things that I really don't care anything about. I also love lisa b. right now because she tweeted this aggregate of end-of-year lists and it has been entertaining me for days:

While I love to read the lists, I do not make lists--of any kind really, except for the occasional grocery list. But I am going to make a list now (and maybe another one tomorrow). And these lists may seem a lot like lisa b.'s lists, but I don't care. I like to emulate. I am an emulator.

I was going to start with a list of tv shows I've watched, but that may be embarrassing. So I will start with books. Because books make you smart.

Books I read (or pretended to read) for school (the ones I can remember, anyway; there are many that have been returned to the library):

• Visual Rhetoric: A Handbook and Visual Methodologies and Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. These were for a class on, you guessed it, visual rhetoric.
  
• A collection of books about math and crochet, which were for the paper in the visual rhetoric class. I still think about this project and will some day turn it into something worthwhile: Making Mathematics with Needlework, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Crochet, Mathematics as Sign: Writing, Imagining Counting, and Semiotics in Mathematics Education.
• Kiss My Math and Math Doesn't Suck both by Danica McKellar. These were going to be part of the above project, but I changed my focus. But I did learn some math from these. They are a little too "girly" for my tastes, but I think she's on to something about making math accessible.
  
• The Disability Studies Reader and Universal Design for Web Applications. This class on disability studies kind of rocked my world and will probably shape my dissertation. I have purchased a bunch of other books on this topic, but I haven't quite read them yet.
  
• Assessing Writing: A Critical Sourcebook and a whole bunch of other books on assessment that I won't bore you with. This class on assessment was suprisingly interesting and I loved the project I did. I am available to assist you with all of your assessment needs.
  
• Central Works in Technical Communication. This book, and the class that required it, is about as interesting as it sounds.
  
• Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster. This was for my paper for the above class, a paper about the oil spill. A depressing topic, but an interesting book--although it was far longer than it needed to be and the author has a very poor understanding of rhetoric and the extent of research in the field (which probably just means that rhetoricians need to do a better job of communicating their work to other disciplines).
  
• The Language of Work: Technical Communication at Lukens Steel, 1810 to 1925. For the boring class mentioned above. This sounds really boring, I know, but it was actually good. All about changes in literacy practices, shifts from oral to print culture, etc.
  

Books I read to Imogen:

• Charlotte's Web. I read this to Imogen when she was just a few days old. This may have been a bad idea because I cried in a ridiculous way. This is my favorite book of all time.
  
• Imogen's Antlers which our delivery doctor told us about and is kind of amazing because we joked about our baby having antlers from the moment we found out I was pregnant and before we picked a name.
  
• Many, many board books--among them Click, Clack 123, Let's Dance Little Pookie, Les Chaussures, Olivia's Opposites, and Whaley Whale.
  

Books that I read or am reading or thinking about reading:

• Dog of the South Charles Portis. I am reading this right now and I love it. I am going to read everything of his.
  
• House of Mirth. This is one of my favorite books. I reread it recently because I heard a Studio 360 podcast about it. Still wonderful, still heartbreaking.
  
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I haven't actually read this, having given it up only a few pages in. I put on the list, though, because I keep wondering what the big deal is. I admittedly read very little of the book, but it was so tedious. Does it really get better?
• When You Reach Me Rebecca Stead. A kid's book. I loved it. A combo of sci-fi and the typical coming of age, relationship-driven kid's book.
  
• Silence of the Grave Indridason. I read this because of DrWrite. I liked it. I want to go to Iceland.
  
• In the House. Go DrWrite!
  
• Hellhound on His Trail Hampton Sides. I read this because the author was on Daily Show or Colbert. It is about MLK's assassination. I did not find it to be particularly interesting or insightful.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot. This was also a Stewart/ Colbert book, and it is my favorite read of the year. It should be on more best books lists. About science, and race, and family. You should read this.
  
• A Bridge to the Stars Henning Mankell. Another kids' book. I haven't finished it, but I like it. Sort of elegiac, which seems like a strange description for kidlit.
  
• The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. I bought this because I heard the author talking about how he dealt with panic attacks. I think it's pretty good, but I haven't finished it (even though I bought it a year ago). This may be because I was very pregnant when I got the book or because no matter how much I like the idea of meditation, etc. I just can't really get into it.
• The Mind at Work Mike Rose. Still reading this one, but it's good. It is making me think about how/why we teach composition at a community college.
  
• Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language David Barton. I guess this one should go on the school list, but I sort of love reading about literacy in a way that makes it almost not like work/school, so I will just leave it here.
  
• Middlemarch Look, I tried to read this. I don't really know why. And I could not read it and I could not care about it. I ended up reading Jane Smiley's description of it in 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel and I think that is just fine.
  
• Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ Philip Pullman. This book annoyed me and I did not finish reading it. But I cannot remember exactly why.
  
• The Lonely Polygamist Brady Udall. A good novel. My reaction to it is too difficult to explain in a list.
  
• In Pursuit of Silence George Prochnik. I am reading this because of a project I am working on about voice (not the metaphorical kind). It has lots of interesting information, but the writing is a bit precious for my tastes.
  
• The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. I read this because of Ron's recommendation and I read it in one day. I did not really like it, though, and I can't decide if that is because a) it is too close to home or b) it is more a memoir of "I was once overweight and now I feel pretty" (which I'm not that interested in) than it is a memoir of religious uncertainty.
• Blind Descent James Tabor. This is a book about exploring deep, dark, scary caves. I have not finished it yet.
  
• I also read several books in the early days of 2010, in the long three months before Imogen's birth. It was too long ago and in a different lifetime for me to say much about them, but here they are: The Lacuna, Wolf Hall, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Never Let Me Go, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, After Dark, The Comfort of Strangers (which I hated! passionately), Born Round (which I also hated), Wicked (which I was very ambivalent about), The Little Princess (revisiting a childhood favorite), and the Irregulars.
  

I also read a bunch of books about babies and birthing and breastfeeding, but I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear about that.