Books Read In 2009

A great way to get away from the stresses of daily traffic is to pick up a good book. I have read quite a few books in 2009, and decided for the first time to keep track of what I read. I'm going to list them here, and then at the end give you my top 5 picks and why I chose them.

OK, here we go:

1) The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2) The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

3) Pandora by Anne Rice

4) The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

5) Obsessed by Ted Dekker

6) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

7) Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton

8) Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

9) From a Buick 8 by Stephen King

10) The Divide by Nicholas Evans

11) Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell

12) River's End by Nora Roberts

13) Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

14) The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton

15) New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

16) Voodoo in New Orleans by Robert Tallant

17) The Skystone by Jack Whyte

18) Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

19) False Memory by Dean Koontz

20) The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer

21) Sea Glass by Anita Shreve

22) Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

23) Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

24) Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi

25) Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton

26) Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

27) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

28) The Voice of Knowledge by Don Miguel Ruiz

29) The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton

And last but not least, is a book that I'm currently trying to finish up before the year's end...

30) Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman


Now, for my Top 5 Picks (in no particular order):

1) The Road. The book is simply incredible. It's a dark and enthralling story of survival that leaves the reader with an unexpected hope in the end that brought me to tears. The writing style is unique and symbolic in the way that there is limited punctuation, almost as a representation of the apocalypse taking away rules and boundaries. Smart. It is a powerful story, and though the movie looks good, there's no way that it'll do it justice.





2) The Stranger Beside Me. My poor husband (long-distance boyfriend at the time) got to hear me on the phone at night going on and on about how scared I was to sleep in my own house out of fear that Ted Bundy's ghost was going to come get me. This story terrified me in a way no other has--because it was all real. Ann Rule's personal friendship with the man and not knowing he was a serial killer (who would've gone after me, being the age and sex he went after) made the story an absolute must read.





3) From a Buick 8. Classic bizarre Stephen King story. I didn't expect this book to be all that great, but I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed it. King has a way of writing strange tales that shock and disturb, but with multi-dimensional characters and unexpected bits of wisdom. This is one of those stories.





4) Helter Skelter. Holy crap, this book is a whopper. I had to read it in spurts. Manson crawled inside my head and wouldn't let me sleep, and I obsessively watched youtube videos and read articles and found pictures of him and his girls, trying to wrap my mind around how twisted the whole ordeal was. Like the Bundy tale, it grabbed me by the gut because it's a true story. It's also a great look into the 1960's and all the culture of that time.





5) False Memory. Dean Koontz is one of my favorite writers because of his characters and unique plots. This is a book with a great villain you're sure to hate and heroes you're sure to root for. Koontz delves into the psychological power of the mind and the dangers of hypnosis in the wrong hands. But he also pulls at the heartstrings in this book, which is indeed scary, but is also a great tale of love and overcoming our fears and self-destructive behaviors.





I hope this list gave you some good ideas of stories to read next! If you'd like to know what I thought about some of the others, just ask and I'll give you a brief review.

Happy Reading!