(Last updated March 24, 2021)

I’ve always enjoyed time well spent with a book.   I created this page a few years back to log books I’ve read, or want to read.

I got myself a Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader.   I love it.  We have far too many real books overflowing our bookshelves at the house to justify buying another.  The Austin library has a great collection of e-books to check out electronically, which I pretty much exclusively use now to read books.   Maybe your library does something similar.   And, see my post here that talks about how I use my e-book reader to help me read Spanish language novels – something I have always wanted to do to strengthen my command of the language.

Along with e-books, I listen to the occasional audiobook.   There are several great sources for free content:   over the years I have discovered openculture.org’s free audiobook library with hundreds of titles, the Austin library also makes its audiobook collection available for checkout, and Amazon has recently added some free content on Audible.com for its Prime members.   So when I listen to an audiobook while walking, or hiking, or driving,  I include it here as well.

Currently reading:

– Leonardo Da Vinci. Author: Walter Isaacson
– Everybody’s Fool.  Author: Richard Russo
– River of Contrasts – The Texas Colorado.  Author:  Margie Crisp

Wanna-read:

– A Column of Fire.   Author:  Ken Follett
– Ireland.  Author:  Frank Delaney
– The Boys in the Boat.  Author:  Daniel James Brown
– The Road.  Author:  Cormac McCarthy
– Swimmer in the Secret Sea.  Author: William Kotzwinkle
– The Inheritance of Loss.  Author:  Kiran Desai
– The Poisonwood Bible.  Author:  Barbara Kingsolver
– All the Pretty Horses.  Author:  Cormac McCarthy

Completed:

2021:

– Where the Crawdads Sing. Author: Delia Owens
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2020:

– Small great things. Author: Jodi Picoult
– Nineteen Minutes. Author: Jodi Picoult
– The Gift of Fear. Author: Gavin De Becker
– Squirm. Author: Carl Hiaasen
– The Punishment She Deserves. Author: Elizabeth George

2019:

– If I Stay. Author: Gayle Forman
– State of Wonder.  Author: Ann Patchett
– Benediction.  Author: Kent Haruf
– The Child Finder.  Author: Rene Denfeld
– The Passenger.  Author: Lisa Lutz
– The Goldfinch.  Author:  Donna Tartt
– Faceless Killers.  Author:  Henning Mankell

2018:

– Imperfect Passage. Author:  Michael Cosgrove
– A Piece of the World. Author: Christina Baker Kline
– Isaac’s Storm. Author: Erik Larsen
– The Light Between Oceans. Author: M.L. Stedman
– Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Author: Neil DeGrasse Tyson

2017:

– Armadillo World Headquarters: A Memoir. Author: Eddie Wilson, with Jesse Sublett
– All the Light We Cannot See.  Author:  Anthony Doerr
– Orphan Train: A Novel.  Author:  Christina Baker Kline
– Sea Glass.  Author:  Anita Shreve
– At the Water’s Edge.  Author:  Sara Gruen
– The Patron Saint of Liars.  Author:  Ann Patchett
– Eve’s Diary. Author: Mark Twain
– Mrs. Poe.  Author: Lynn Cullen
– Dragon Teeth.  Author: Michael Crichton
– Origin.  Author:  Dan Brown (audio book)
– Twain’s End. Author: Lynn Cullen
– Work Like Any Other. Author: Virginia Reeves
– Inferno.  Author:  Dan Brown
– Edge of Eternity:  Book 3 in the Century Trilogy.  Author:  Ken Follett
– The Clock Winder.  Author:  Anne Tyler
– The Fault in our Stars.   Author:  John Green
– The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer. Author: Skip Hollandsworth
– Two Years Before the Mast.  Author:  Richard Henry Dana

2016:

– Winter of the World:  Book 2 in the Century Trilogy.  Author:  Ken Follett
– Fall of Giants:  Book 1 in the Century Trilogy.   Author:  Ken Follett
– Fetching Raymond. Author: John Grisham.
– Ladder of Years:  A Novel.   Author:  Anne Tyler
– A Spool of Blue Thread:  A Novel.   Author:  Anne Tyler
– A Love Letter to Texas Women.   Author:  Sarah Bird
– The Princes in the Tower.   Author:  Alison Weir
– The Book Borrower:  A Novel.  Author:  Alice Mattison
– Wild – From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Author:  Cheryl Strayed
– B is for Beer.  Author:  Tom Robbins
– Sail.  Author:  James Patterson & Howard Roughan
– The Martian.  Author:  Andy Weir
– Seveneves.  Author:  Neal Stephenson
– Thunderstruck.  Author: Erik Larson

2015:

– In the Garden of Beasts – Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.  Author:  Erik Larson
– Dead Wake – the Last Crossing of the Lusitania.  Author:  Erik Larson
– The Accidental Tourist – A Novel.  Author:  Anne Tyler
– The Gap Year.  Author:  Sarah Bird
– Bel Canto.  Author:  Ann Patchett
– Run.  Author:  Ann Patchett
– The Girl on the Train.  Author:  Paula Hawkins
– Nobody’s Fool.  Author:  Richard Russo
– On Chesil Beach.  Author:  Ian McEwan
– Longitude.  Author:  Dava Sobel
– The Magician’s Assistant.  Author:  Ann Patchett
– Atlantic.  Author:  Simon Winchester
– Gone Girl.  Author:  Gillian Flynn
– The Secret.  Author:  David Heywood Young
– Dubliners.  Author:  James Joyce
– Nada.  Author:  Carmen Laforet
– 1984. Author: George Orwell (audio book)
– Fire & Ice –  The Cascade Volcanoes.  Author:  Stephen L. Harris
– The Sun Also Rises.  Author:  Ernest Hemingway
– Brave New World. Author: Aldous Huxley (audio book)
– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald (audio book)

2014:

– The Raven. Author: Edgar Allen Poe. Read by Christopher Walken (audio book)
– The Telltale Heart. Author: Edgar Allen Poe. Read by James Mason (audio book)
– The Metamorphosis. Author: Franz Kafka. Read by David Barnes (audio book)
– The Pit and the Pendulum. Author: Edgar Allen Poe. Read by Rod Harrison (audio book)
– Catcher in the Rye.  Author:  J.D. Salinger
– That Old Cape Magic.  Author:  Richard Russo
– Islands in the Stream.  Author:  Ernest Hemingway
– The Risk Pool.  Author:  Richard Russo

2012:

– Walden.  Author:  Henry David Thoreau
– Shiver in the Sky.  Author:  David Haywood Young
– The Deep End of the Ocean.  Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard

2011:

– An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude.  Author: Ann Vanderhoof
– The Widow Cliquot:  The Story of a Champagne Empire.  Author Tilar Mazzeo
– The Art of Racing in the Rain:  A Novel.  Author:  Garth Stein
– Flush.  Author:  Carl Hiaasen
– Treasure Island:  Author:  Robert Louis Stevenson
– Pirate Latitudes.  Author:  Michael Crichton
– The Alchemist.  Author:  Paulo Coelho
– The Lost Symbol.  Author:  Dan Brown
– A Prayer for Owen Meany.  Author:  John Irving
– Heart of Darkness.  Author:  Joseph Conrad
– The Secret Sharer:  Author:  Joseph Conrad
– A Confederacy of Dunces.  Author:  John Kennedy Toole
– In the Time of Butterflies.  Author:  Julia Alvarez
– Reading Lolita in Tehran:  A memoir in Books.  Author:  Azar Nafisi

2010:

– Water for Elephants:  A Novel.  Author:  Sara Gruen
– Suite Francaise.  Author:  Irene Nemirovsky
– A Gracious Plenty:  A Novel.  Author:  Sheri Reynolds
– The Boyfriend School.  Author:  Sarah Bird
– Bridge of Sighs.  Author:  Richard Russo
– Eventide.  Author:  Kent Haruf
– The Transit of Venus.  Author:  Shirley Hazzard
– The Time Traveler’s Wife.  Author:  Audrey Niffenegger
– Light on Snow.  Anita Shreve
– Night over Water.  Author:  Ken Follet
– Boone’s Lick:  A Novel.  Author:  Larry McMurtry
– How Perfect is That.  Author:  Sarah Bird
– Wicked.  Author:  Gregory Maguire
– Eat, Pray, Love:  One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.  Author:  Elizabeth Gilbert
– Where is Joe Merchant:  A Novel Tale.  Author:  Jimmy Buffet

2009:

– World Without End.  Author:  Ken Follett
– Empire Falls.  Author:  Richard Russo
– The Pillars of the Earth.  Author:  Ken Follett
– Lonesome Dove.  Author:  Larry McMurtry

< 2009:

– The Lovely Bones.  Author:  Alice Sebold
– The DaVinci Code.  Author:  Dan Brown
– Isaac’s Storm.  Author:  Erik Larson
– The Shipping News.  Author:  E. Annie Proulx
– Eleanor of Aquitaine:  A Life.  Author:  Alison Weir
– Vinegar Hill.  Author:  A. Manette Ansay
– Shine Hawk.  Author:  Charlie Smith
– The Dante Club.  Author:  Matthew Pearl
– Close Range.  Author:  Annie Proulx
– Plainsong.  Author:  Kent Haruf
– The Rapture of Canaan.  Author:  Sheri Reynolds
– The Bird Artist.  Author:  Howard Norman
– A Thousand Acres.  Author:  Jane Smiley
– Icy Sparks.  Author:  Gwyn Hyman Rubio
– The Pilot’s Wife.  Author:  Anita Shreve
– Straight Man.  Author:  Richard Russo
– A Map of the World.  Author:  Jane Hamilton
– A Lesson Before Dying.  Author:  Ernest J. Gaines
– The Piano Tuner.  Author:  Daniel Mason
– The Devil in the White City.  Author:  Erik Larson
– In the Heart of the Sea.  Author:  Nathaniel Philbrick
– We Were the Mulvaney’s.  Author:  Joyce Carol Oates
– Galileo’s Daughter.  Author:  Dava Sobel
– The Fourth Hand.  Author:  John Irving
– Girl with the Pearl Earring.  Author:  Tracy Chevalier
– Angela’s Ashes.  Author:  Frank McCourt
– Krakatoa.  Author:  Simon Winchester

Misc authors to check out if you’re looking for something to read.  I’ve read multiple titles (or in some cases all) of their stuff:

– Michael Crichton
– Simon Winchester
– JK Rowling
– Anita Shreve
– Sarah Bird (local austin author)
– Larry McMurtry
– Richard Russo
– Ann Patchett
– Anne Tyler
– Erik Larson