Title: Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily PerfectionAuthor: A.J. Jacobs# of Pages: 375Genre: Autobiographical Journalism (I may or may not have just made that up) After all my “serious” reading this year, I decided I needed a break. Actually, that’s a lie. What really happened was that I didn’t know I needed …
Book #12: The Count of Monte Cristo
Title: The Count of Monte CristoAuthor: Alexandre Dumas# of Pages: 1462Genre: Classic Romantic Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi once said, “After an enjoyable event we know that we have changed, that our self has grown: in some respect, we have become more complex as a result of it.” He goes on to say that to enjoy such …
Book #11: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Title: Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryAuthor: Roald Dahl# of Pages: 176Genre: Children’s Literature Okay, so I read this book about a hundred times as a kid. But, I recently was horrified to find out that Matt had not, so I ended up sneaking a copy into the car when we were headed home to Bountiful so …
Book #10: Persuasion
Title: PersuasionAuthor: Jane Austen# of Pages: 150Genre: Classic/Romance When I was a bit younger, I was in the habit of reading anywhere from 5-15 books at the same time. Basically my system was that I had a different book for every room of the house: I had a book in each bathroom, 2-3 books by …
Book #9: The Tiger’s Wife
Title: The Tiger’s Wife Author: Tea Obreht # of Pages: 338 Genre: Magical Realism/Realistic Fiction As you may already know, I have great aspirations to someday write a novel. That “someday” has yet to be translated into actual, daily writing, which is why I have made little progress in my goal. Tea Obreht, on the …
Book #8: How to Breathe Underwater
Title: How to Breathe UnderwaterAuthor: Julie Orringer# of Pages: 222Genre: Collection of Short Stories, Fiction I first read about this book in a magazine back in 2003 when this collection of short stories was published. The magazine review must have had some kind of significant impact on me because I remember going out and buying …
Book #7: Close to Famous
Title: Close to FamousAuthor: Joan Bauer# of Pages: 250Genre: Young Adult (Realistic Fiction) Before last weekend, I couldn’t tell you the last time that I sat down and read a book from start to finish without stopping. But such was the case with Close to Famous–I hadn’t intended to sit down and read the whole …
Book #6: Great Expectations
Title: Great ExpectationsAuthor: Charles Dickens# of Pages: 521Genre: Classic I never thought this day would come. I mean, I always HOPED it would come, of course, but it was kind of like how I felt about running a marathon–maybe it would happen someday. Well, apparently this year is the year of “somedays” because I not …