Monday, December 30, 2013

99 Books/12 Movies

I read (or reread) 99 books in 2013 and went to the movies 12 times. It would be 100 books, except tomorrow I'm going to go to the movies for the 13th time (to see Saving Mr. Banks), so I won't finish reading Marie Antoinette's Head until 2014.

I keep a list of the books I read, but it's never occurred to me to keep a list of the movies I've seen. My guess is I watched 150, give or take a few dozen, at home, and, thanks to research and the powers of the internet, I now know I went to a movie theater 12 times.

I always think I read more non-fiction than I actually do, because non-fiction books generally take longer to read than novels. So I spend more time reading them, even if the numbers don't show a marked preference. It feels like this year I discovered how really bad some fiction can be, although I'm sure I read my share of clunkers in years past. It could also be that my taste for bad fiction isn't as strong as it used to be.

I also don't remember as many Oh Wow! books this year. The two best I read in 2013 were The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (which I read for the third time and know I'll reread again) and Angel in the Whirlwind by Benson Bobrick, which I recommend to anyone interested in the American Revolution. I also very much enjoyed The Entertainer by Margaret Talbot.

Okay, here goes. I'll make one list for fiction and one for non-fiction. Try not to notice how many true crime books fall in the latter category.

Fiction  (in alphabetical order by author because why not)

Deadly Recall- Donnell Ann Bell
The Hiding Place- David Bell
Slipping Into Darkness- Peter Blauner
Mayday- Thomas H. Block
The Trinity Game- Sean Chercover
Caught- Harlan Coben
No Secnd Chance- Harlan Coben
Six Years- Harlan Coben
Stay Close- Harlan Coben
The Brass Verdict- Michael Connelly
Death Of A Unicorn- Peter Dickinson
Swift Edge- Laura DiSilverio
Category Five- Philip Donlay
The Good Soldier- Ford Madox Ford
Nightmare Alley- William Lindsay Gresham
The Racketeer- John Grisham
Damage Control- Denise Hamilton
The Lock Artist- Steve Hamilton
The Silent Wife- A.S.A. Harrison
Flowers Of The Field- Sarah Harrison
Cemetery Road- Gar Anthony Haywood
Dead Indeed- M. R. Hodgkin
Wool- Hugh Howey
The Murder Of My Aunt- Richard Hull
Final Argument- Clifford Irving
Mother Finds A Body- Gypsy Rose Lee
The Intimate Journal Of Warren Winslow- Jean Leslie
A Kiss Before Dying- Ira Levin
Missing Woman- Michael Z. Lewin
And To My Beloved Husband- Philip Loraine
The Instant Enemy- Ross Macdonald
The Lost Girl- Sangu Mandanna
The Husband's Secret- Liane Moriarty
Judas Child- Carol O'Connell
An Innocent Client- Scott Pratt
Shadow Of Guilt- Patrick Quentin
We Need To Talk About Kevin- Lionel Shriver
Sweet Adelaide- Julian Symons
A Fatal Inversion- Barbara Vine
The Legacy- Katherine Webb
Hush- Kate White
A Hundred Summers- Beatriz Williams
The Tabloid Murders- Clement Wood
Night Has A Thousand Eyes- Cornwell Woolrich
Into The Night- Cornell Woolrich and Lawrence Block

Non-Fiction (in alphabetical order by author for the same reason)

Caroline of Ansbach- R. L. Arkell
Why? Because We Still Like You- Jennifer Armstron
Mary And Lou And Rhoda And Ted- Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
A Song In The Dark- Richard Barrios
I Do And I Don't- Jeanine Basinger
A Woman's View- Jeanine Basinger
The World War II Combat Film- Jeanine Basinger
Sunday Nights At Seven- Jack Benny and Joan Benny
Seeing Is Believing- Peter Biskind
Angel in the Whirlwind- Benson Bobrick
Hello Goodbye Hello- Craig Brown
The Invasion From Mars- Hadley Cantril
Somewhere In The Night- Nicholas Christopher
Prince Of Pleasure- Saul David
Borrowed Time- Al Di Orio
Hollywood's Image Of The Jew- Lester D. Friedman
Rasputin- Joseph T. Fuhrmann
After Visting Friends- Michael Hainey
Bunch Of Amateurs- Jack Hill
The Girl Who Loved Camellias- Julie Kavanagh
Marmee & Louisa- Eve LaPlante
Catherine Howard- David Loades
Mary Rose- David Loades
Making Movies- Sidney Lumet
The Journalist And The Murderer- Janet Malcolm
Who Was That Lady?- Jeffrey Marks
Blind Faith- Joe McGinniss
Cruel Doubt- Joe McGinniss
Fatal Vision- Joe McGinniss
Bringing Down The House- Ben Mezrich
Jane Seymour- Elizabeth Norton
Murder In Little Eygpt- Darcy O'Brien
Winter King- Thomas Penn
Case Closed- Gerald Posner
Dickens' Fur Coat And Charlotte's Unanswered Letters- Daniel Pool
Popcorn Venus- Marjorie Rosen
Small Sacrifices- Ann Rule
American Idol- Richard Rushfield
Vagabond Stars- Nahma Sandrow
Running Time- Nora Sayre
The Bialy Eaters- Mimi Sheraton
Hollywood Goes To War- Colin Shindler
Drama High- Michael Sokolove
Is Heathcliff A Murderer? Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?- John Sutherland
My Beloved Brontosaurus- Brian Switek
The Entertainer- Margaret Talbot
Imperial Requiem- Justin C. Vork
Talking To The Dead- Barbara Weisberg
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap- Wendy Welch
The Dream Beside Me- Carol Traynor Williams
Shadow Of The Titanic- Andrew Wilson
Barbara Stanwyck- Victoria Wilson
The Hollywood Musical Goes To War- Allen L. Woll
A Mother's Trial- Nancy Wright

And for any of you who might be interested (and I'm very glad you can be both singular and plural), here's a list of the 12 movies I saw in theaters:

Admission
All Is Lost
Blue Jasmine
Frances Ha
Gravity
The Great Gatsby
Hava Nagila
Inside Llewyn Davis
Kill Your Darlings
Mud
Quartet
When Comedy Went To School




1 comment:

jwalker889 said...

I bought your 1st book Life as We Knew it for my granddaughter, she is 13 and a huge Hunger Games fan. She is an avid reader so I thought this book would be perfect. I read the whole book and it was a quick and wonderful character driven story. I did have to return it. It was just my favorite thrift store but I re gifted it to them. 3 times you insulted George Bush which I thought had nothing to ad to the story except a nod toward your beliefs. There were only 3 insults to our president but each time I thought, why??

We have a new president now and I will never know if you plugged him or not.

Do you ever think how many or what per cent of the public you are insulting. It reminds me of the saying.

Shut up and write.

The story was so good and you ruined it for me.