Unemployment Helped My Reading Levels

Truly this was the year of reading. And read I did. Not even as much as I wanted. All these books are not just from Borders or Amazon by the way. There are two or three little bookstores I like to visit from time to time and pay full price and coupons be damned! There's quite a mix here and not in any consecutive order of reading and I have an asterisk key at the bottom. I tried to enlarge my scope and genre reading this year. What a difference that's made. I also have been reading more literary works and classic works. Last year was the year of Austen. This year may be the year of Dickens? Not sure, but Great Expectations is on my list. And I have to finish Middlemarch. That is really good but hard to get through! There's also lots of Jung and Jungian-based reading, mostly for my own benefit, but also for my own interest in writing, drama, acting and therapy. I wish I had followed my heart to my divine purpose all those many years ago. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by a sense of futility and lost time but life isn't over until it's really over and we don't know when that will be so I might as well keep on and as they say, integrate and let it flow. I am continuing all my studies this year as well. I feel like I'm being given the chance to really study and learn for the first time so that I can enjoy it like I should have when I went to college. Ah, today is all that matters. So here's the list:

BOOKS I READ THIS YEAR 2009
1. Intimacy by Osho*
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
3. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith*
4. Notes from Underground by Dostoyefsky
5. Persuasion**
6. Sense and Sensibility**
7. Emma all by Jane Austen
8. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros*
9. The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller**
10. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
11. Monster by John Gregory Dunne
12. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion*
13. The White Album by Joan Didion*
14. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
15. Conversations With Woody Allen by Eric Lax*
16. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
17. Paula by Isabel Allende*
18. Chosen by A Horse by Susan Richards*
19. Women in Science by Vivian Gornick
20. Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
21. Where Angels Fear To Tread by E.M. Forster
22. Veronica by Mary Gaitskill*
23. Method or Madness by Robert Lewis*
24. Passion For Acting by Alan Miller**
25. A Dream of Passion by Lee Strasberg*
26. The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzberg
27. Man In Search of a Soul by Carl Jung*
28. Synchronicity by Carl Jung**
29. For Love of the World by Deborah Lubar**
30. At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard**
31. The Story of A Soul by St. Terese of Lisieux
32. Mansfield Park*
33. Northanger Abbey
34. Pride and Prejudice all by Jane Austen*
35. Jane Austen, A Life, by Carole Shields
36. Yoga by Osho
37. Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron**
38. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
39. Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout*
40. Zero Limits by Joe Vitale
41. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
42. The Miracles of Archangel Michael by Doreen Virtue
43. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
44. The Lover, by Marguerite Duras
45. Larry’s Party, Carole Shields (reread)
46. The Pregnant Virgin, Marion Woodman*
47. Home, Marilynne Robinson**
48. Medea, Euripides
49. Antigone, Aristotle
50. God’s Harvard, Hannah Rosen
51. Without Reservations, Alice Steinbach
52. Addiction to Perfection, Marion Woodman*
53. Grace, Gaia and The End of Days, Stuart Wilde
54. Sixth Sense, Stuart Wilde
55. The Art of Redemption, Stuart Wilde
56. Stop-Time, Frank Conroy*
57. Notes from the Underwire, Quinn Cummings
58. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
59. Liar’s Club, Mary Karr***
60. An Invisible Sign of My Own, Aimee Bender
61. At Large and At Small, Anne Fadiman*
62. Granta 2004, Film
63. Caesar’s Way, Caesar Millan
64. The Lightworker's Way, Doreen Virtue

* I really enjoyed this work.
** I really, really, really enjoyed this work.
*** Re-read and really enjoyed it again.