Better than 'Being Julia'

Considering that I spent yesterday defending my lack of blogging because of how insanely busy things have been, it probably doesn't make much sense that I just finished a 300-page book, which I started 2 days ago. But, I did.

'Julia & Julie' (which I consistently find impossible to say correctly) is a book based on a blog about a year-long project for Julie Powell, a frustrated 29-year old in a dead-end job, who invents the Julia/Julie Project to reinvigorate her life by cooking every recipe - all 524 - in Julia Child's seminal cookbook, 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' over the course of a year. Why? She's not quite sure - it just seems like something she needs to do.

I picked it up off Jessica's bookcase months ago, but got distracted by various book group books and selections from the New Classics list that I've been working on, but with three days of 1 1/2 hours of train commuting to deal with, I decided that this was the week. Plus, I wanted to read it before the movie version comes out next Friday. The movie stars Meryl Streep who, post-'Death Becomes Her' anyway, can do no wrong, and Amy Adams who is beyond cute as a button, so I'm not that worried about the movie sucking compared to the book, as most adaptations do. But, I did want to read it first, so I could reserve my right to be uppity and indignant just in case.

The book went quickly because it's written a lot like a blog - including isolated stories, punch lines and cursing - and it's been a long time since I enjoyed reading something so much. The author's relatable, with a self-deprecating eye on herself, and some wicked/wonderful insight into life on the cusp of 30, in the era of the 2000s, in urban America.

Sure, it's hard to imagine what I would find so attractive about the book: The author's a Buffy-devout, ex-theater nerd who married her high school sweetheart when she was in her early 20s and often feels like the old married woman amongst her sea of single friends. She has no idea what she wants to do with her life, and crafts a project for herself that involves a ton of eating and drinking, thus paving the way to a happier marriage, successful career and well-adjusted self.

Actually, on second thought, maybe I hated this book. Because, seriously: Why didn't I think of this?

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

This was the first of the Harry Potter movies that I didn’t see within 24 hours of opening. This might mean 2 things: #1: I’m growing up. #2: My lackluster reaction to the film is my own fault (for lack of participation).

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed the movie. I particularly enjoyed seeing Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) doing some real acting for the first time – those kids have become so much better than they were in the first couple movies, especially Grint. The books showed us that Ron isn’t just comic relief – and now that the actor’s matured and infused some real subtlety into the role – we’re starting to see that.

It’s only been 3 days since I saw the movie, and I can’t really remember what else I liked about it (See? Lackluster reaction.), so let’s get into my issues. Essentially, I felt that the movie was just going through the motions. It was good enough to get us to the two-parter finale, and it’ll fit well in the eventual deluxe box set, but it just didn’t excite me.

Ron’s relationship with Lavender is necessary in order to continue building the Ron/Hermione tension, but the way it was carried out in the movie made it feel like a fluffy, unnecessary side plot that should have just been cut – this may or may not be because they miscast (or, as Jessica pointed out, mis-styled) Lavender so much. It’s frustrating to know that so many other side plots had to be cut to keep the movie under 2 ½ hours, and this one just didn’t satisfy.

It’s been a long time since I read the books, but something that struck me was the lack of attitude from Harry in this one. In my mind, I remember Harry getting more and more angsty in each book – as he goes through his teenage years, loses people he’s close to, and has the pressure of the entire wizarding world put upon him. If anything, Harry was a little boring in the movie – the entire crux of his character development was in his crush on Ginny. He wasn’t mad about Sirius, he didn’t lash out at Mr. Weasley, Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, or even Snape (really) – he was much too even-keeled.

I was incredibly disappointed in the final 20 minutes of the movie. The scene where Harry and Dumbledore go to the cave to find Voldemort’s horcrux felt like it lasted 2 minutes, and I don’t think it explained what was happening clearly enough. That scene is the entire basis for the final book (which will become the final 2 movies) and wonder if people who haven’t read the book will know to pay attention. The showdown scene in the tower also fell flat – I don’t feel like the director took full advantage of what a major development was taking place. There was little build up, and a pretty half-hearted wrap up. I will leave it at that – it’s too hard to keep this spoiler free, and I know I’m being frustratingly cryptic!

So, yes, issues. 7 Twix bars! I was, however, endlessly amused by how much the teenage Tom Riddle (the eventual Voldemort) looked like Mad Men’s Pete Campbell:

As a final sidenote, this installment really made me think about is Chris Columbus and his bad rap. It’s pretty widely accepted that the first two movies in the Harry Potter series, those helmed by Chris Columbus of “Home Alone’ fame, are the worst of the bunch. That’s because they were followed up with the more artsy installments from Alfonso Cuaron ('Y Tu Mama Tambien' & 'Children of Men') and Mike Newell ('Four Weddings & a Funeral'). But ‘Half Blood Prince’ reminded me how much of the Harry Potter universe we take for granted. Of course the first two movies (especially the first) were a bit shallow – not only were those the least sophisticated of the books (back when they were truly being written about kids, for kids), it was up to Chris Columbus to translate that universe onto film for the first time, and that required quite a bit of hand-holding for the audience.

Going wild

I have been really looking forward to the upcoming (October) 'Where the Wild Things Are.' As most do, I have very fond memories of this book, both from my childhood and from reading it with some of my favorite babysitting kids. The announcement of a collaborative adaptation from dormant-for-much-too-long Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers literally gave me chills. Then, the trailer was revealed and I might have done a little tearing up. Check it out for yourself (this is the only embeddable version I could find - the actual preview begins at :26):



Now (thank you Entertainment Weekly!), come to find out that Dave Eggers is releasing a "tie-in" novel to the classic children's tale, also due out in November. I've been getting more into the updates-to-classic-books thing lately (See: March, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, etc.), and this one might take the cake.

What do you think? Is this beyond exciting, or is it blasphemy?

I've been ruined

Typically, I don't "do" scary movies. Last summer I made an exception and went to see 'The Ruins,' because I'd read the book and felt prepared. There's a reason I typically avoid teen horror flicks - the movie was awful. But even worse than the serious creative liberties it took with the book's plot, it also gave me audio-visual context around some - for lack of a better term - pretty scary sh*t.

The book's about a group of friends who go to find a missing friend-of-a-friend at some off-the-beaten path ruins in the Mexican jungle. They wind up trapped there, because the ruins are controlled by and covered with an evil plant. Yes, it's ridiculous. But, see, the plant is smart, and it plays mind tricks with its new inhabitants. Like, imitating their voices so they fight and break down, or mimicking the sound of a cell phone to lure them down a well. And that really doesn't end well - please reference semi-painful movie clip here.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because the plants also imitate birds - I can't quite remember for what reason - and as I walked to the bus stop this morning, noting how spring is really here, with the sun shining, trees blooming and flip flops everywhere, I realized that I no longer get any pleasure from the sound of birds chirping.

I hear you, but I’m not listening

For the last 6 months, I have been seeing ads for Audible.com on the bus and Red Line. It appears to be a site for downloading audio books, and promises a free download, but I have not yet made it to the site to find out what it’s all about.

There must be something wrong with the ads (or me) because this is clearly something targeted for people just like me – a reading-devout public transportation commuter – but I just have this brain freeze when it comes to actually following through. I have made a note on my iPod, I’ve recited the word “Audible” to myself as I walk from the bus stop to my building, I even wrote it on my hand once. Nothing.

So, I’m going right now to check it out. Unless I get distracted by something else in the next 20 seconds.

Movie Review: Revolutionary Road

I don’t know if I can say that I enjoyed ‘Revolutionary Road,’ but I am glad to have seen it. That being said – most of my issues with the film are plot-driven, so if you haven’t seen it, and plan to, you should stop reading now.



As a good AP English student, I read a lot of so-called feminist literature in high school. At some point, I realized that feminist literature seemed to mean that, at the end, the heroine either marries (‘Jane Eyre') or dies (‘The Awakening’). This frustrated my 16-year old self, and it’s a large part of the reason I try to avoid chick lit today (If high-brow feminist literature is disappointing in its portrayal of women because it winds up being clichéd, what hope does Bridget Jones have?).

What does this have to do with ‘Revolutionary Road’? Well, I haven’t read the book, but according to my sources (Read: Trevor), the Sam Mendes-directed adaptation is very accurate, so I feel pretty confident saying that ‘Revolutionary Road’ is a feminist novel. This is interesting, because it’s written by a man. While I believe that men can be feminists (The idea that to be a feminist is to hate men and not shave your armpits is an out-of-date, close-minded, ridiculous view), I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of male writers – and film directors – using a woman’s feelings about and actions toward her body as a symbol for their a bigger statement, which is what I think was happening here.

Let’s get into the specifics:

Kate and Leo play a married couple, living a supposed perfect life in the suburbs of New York City in the 1950s. Under the surface, it’s far from perfect. When they met, they had ideas and plans and passions – and now they’ve somehow wound up the bored parents of two living in the suburbs, and they blame one another. She’s manipulative and prone to depressive behavior; he’s wandering, patronizing and self-righteous.

They decide to break out of this mold, to grab their lives with both hands and to make it into the one they always imagined. For them, this means picking up and moving to Paris, where Kate Winslet’s April will support the family in a well-paying secretarial position while Leo’s Frank, for lack of a better term, figures his s**t out. This decision – one that they make together, based on an amount of mutual respect they hadn’t shown one another in years – reinvigorates their marriage, and they go about making plans and feeling superior to everyone around them. It’s the kind of idealistic glow you can only hope will last. Then (again, SPOILER ALERT), she gets pregnant and he gets cold feet and cancels their plans. She freaks out, tries to abort the new baby to take some semblance of control over her own life, and winds up killing herself.

In the end, we’re left with an image of her children swinging on a jungle gym, being absentmindedly watched by their now devoted (so we hear) father. We also get to see the neighbors – who, if I had time/space and thought you were interested, I could write a whole lot more about. Let’s just say that one of them, the “perfect husband” is in love with Kate Winslet, and does more than fantasize about it – gossiping about the story of the Wheelers as they welcome a new couple to Revolutionary Road.

I know that the movie is about the cyclical attempt to recapture the American Dream. Richard Yates was challenging his readers to ask what this so-called picture perfect post-war America was really hiding. But, I can’t help but feel like there’s this underlying point being made about the futility of life as a woman, and that’s what’s really bothering me.

Wow, you’re still with me?

Plot-aside, the movie was well done. I kind of felt like Leonardo Dicaprio was channeling Pete Campbell and I wasn’t as impressed with Kate Winslet as I was expecting, but it was beautifully shot and there was excellent support from Kathy Bates, the Oscar-nominated Michael Shannon and Kathryn Hahn, who looks way too much like Ana Gasteyer:

I know I just spent a few paragraphs ranting about the plot, so it probably won’t shock you to say that I didn’t love the script. I’ll reiterate what Trevor said afterward: Because the script pulled so directly from the book, it would have been better served on stage, where such formal language seems at home. But where the script was good, it was great. For me, in the movie world, there are few things more hard-hitting, nerve-wracking and intense than arguments you can imagine participating in – the kind that leave its on-screen participants in tears, broken up, or silently sitting on the edge of a bed, broken down. These are more intense for me than any fight scene where actual punches are thrown, and this movie has raised the bar with some serious doozies.

7.25 Twix bars!

On Twilight

I’m not sure how, but I had never heard of ‘Twilight’ until this summer, right before the final book came out. Not a peep. Yes, once I saw the big article about it in Entertainment Weekly, random things started to make sense – like all that Edward / Jacob Flair on Facebook – but, somehow, three books had passed without me, an avid reader and pop culture enthusiast with the frequent taste of a teenager, catching on to this phenomenon.

But now, with the book series complete and the movie franchise pretty much taking over the world, I’m torn. I’m caught somewhere between itching to know what the hype is all about, and wanting to swear it off forever, like I did with ‘Titanic’. Yes, when I decide to be, I can really be very hard-headed and close-minded about pop culture trends (Perhaps you’ve heard me rant about ‘Mystic River’?).

Parenthetically and because I can hear the rumblings: You must not confuse my well-documented and oft-professed love for all things 'Buffy' for some kind of vampire “thing”. I have no more invested interest in reading about vampires than I do to reading about…macaroni and cheese, one of my other favorite things.

Actually, as I think about it, I’m sure that ‘Twilight’ fans would get in as much of a tizzy about their books being called “vampire books” as I would about Buffy being called a “vampire show”. Oh boy – this might make me rethink everything…

So, should I do it? I probably will eventually pick up the first book (Is it actually called “Twilight’?) and then fly through the whole series in a can’t-put-it-down-obsession. But, I draw line at the movie – and obsessing about Robert Pattinson’s hair.

I Want That Job

I would like to introduce a new segment that we’ll call “Jobs That Should Be Mine.” (It’s so important, I’m capitalizing un-deserving words.) Alternate title/tagline: WHY IS THIS NOT MY JOB?

1) I originally thought of this idea when I saw this book at the LAX airport: A book about travel, random facts and movies? WHY IS THIS NOT MY JOB?

2) PopWatch writer on EW.com.

Poor Trevor, to whom I send countless links every day for an entry that I particularly relate to. Most of the time, because they express thoughts that I have had. Like:

I got an email from one of my coworkers tonight saying this may have been the best Office episode ever. And while I have to respectfully disagree with that assessment (I'm going "Office Olympics", if not "Christmas party"), I will go out on a limb and say it was the most Office-y Office of all time. You kinda got it all: ambiguous conference room party, awkward dialogue, hysterical behavior, circumstances so heightened it's unlikely they'd occur in the realm of reality, and a painful gap between Jim and Pam. (We'll get to that at the end.) Whether it totally satisfied as an episode depends on your personal tolerance for all those things.

Seriously. Parenthetical writing. Opinions about 'The Office.' Rambling sentences. WHY IS THIS NOT MY JOB?

More to come, I’m [unfortunately] sure.

A lesson for us all.

I've been seeing this book displayed prominently around book stores for years:

And I somehow got in my head (without reading the description on the back) that this was a modern book, that would fall under the category of "smart" chick lit - something light. I bought it a few months ago on Half.com (the world's greatest invention for book buyers), and this morning grabbed if off the shelf thinking: The last 2 books I've read have been fairly deep/intense - I could use a break; I will read this quickly and still have time to finish the TBD Book Group selection for November.

First page: An air raid takes place in Paris, 1940.

Ummm...what is going on here?? I turn the book over and read the following about its author:

"When Irene Nemirovsky began working on Suite Francaise, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown."

Well, crap! Now, all of a sudden, I'm knee (okay, maybe ankle) deep into a...Holocaust book?? Not exactly the light-hearted break from Virginia Woolf I had been seeking! Don't judge a book by its cover indeed!

Where you BEEN, boy?

I really must apologize for the lack of quippy blog entries over the last week or so. Between baseball depression, in-law visits and one mind-blowing hangover, I just haven’t had the time to really devote to inane analyses of random pop culture happenings (Oh yeah, and I have actually been busy at my Day Job too). So let’s just go through a quick wrap-up of the last week:

• Madonna and Guy Ritchie: Really guys, REALLY? You spend all this time insisting how happy you are and then announce your divorce right as Madge’s tour kicks off? Please tell me I’m just being cynical. Please. And if this has anything to do with A-Rod, I will seriously barf.
• Spoiler Alert - Don't highlight if you care about/haven't seen Project Runway's S5 finale! Leanne wins 'Project Runway'!
• John McCain, I hope you and Joe the Plumber are very happy together.
• Did you know that the 'Real World'’s Randy, who I totally had a crush on during the only season that I was a regular RW-Watcher, will be the “Celebrity” guest at this year’s BYPA Halloween Party? I can’t decide what’s more embarrassing – that they actually consider him a celebrity, or that that’s almost enough to convince me to go (The 5 free drink tickets don’t hurt.)
• Mini-book review: ‘To the Lighthouse’ was totally not as painfully slow and awful as the first 30 pages would have you believe. I stuck it out, and I’m glad to have.
• I like Eminem's new single. Please don't tell Trevor.
• I’m glad I’ve decided to give ‘Fringe’ a chance. What is WITH JJ Abrams’s obsession with creepy bald men?
• There is only one week left before the season finale of ‘Mad Men.’ If you have not begun watching this show, start catching up now.
• Oh my god, I really did not realize that this new, looks awful, 'Crusoe' thing NBC has been pushing is a TV SHOW and not just a made-for-TV movie, making the entire rant I had planned about 'The Odyssey' moot. But, gross, and also - Crusoe is completely the poor man's Eric Stoltz:

That’s all for now. How was YOUR week?

Why I Hate Stephen King

I’ve been given some flack over the years for my distaste of Stephen King. But things have recently gotten out of control, and I must state my case once and for all. First, a disclaimer that you are free to use to claim my argument is invalid:

I have never read a “real” Stephen King book.

I’m not really a thriller person. But even though I haven’t read the work that made him famous, I’d be crazy to not have some respect for him, what he did for the horror genre, etc. And, yes, it was absolutely terrible when he was almost killed in that hit and run accident.

That being said, I have read this, and I have been forcefully fed different variations of this over the last 2 years since Mr. King became a guest columnist in Entertainment Weekly. What drives me insane about him is that he relies on His Relevance essentially as his thesis, explaining nothing and giving no big picture insight. I am supposed to think he’s interesting (and correct) because he’s Stephen King.

His latest entry in EW is the epitome of what I’m talking about, and this is where I draw the line: Why I Love ‘Prison Break’. I honestly thought this was a joke. It’s like a third grader’s book report (I read “Superfudge.' It was good. It taught me that it’s okay to not always like my sister. The end.), except that it’s authored with some kind of authority by supposedly one of the most respected literary minds alive.

When a writer is given an “extracurricular” forum, doesn’t he/she have a responsibility to use that power for good? To show that good language transcends format, and demonstrate the power of words by doing? (See: Dave Eggers. And how interesting that his Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention 826 Valencia.) But, instead, Entertainment Weekly pays him to share with us such illuminating opinion pieces as: “Cool and the Gang” (Billed as: "Stephen King sizes up who's cool...and who's not.") and “Stephen King’s Guide to Movie Snacks.” No, I am not making this up.

I long ago got in the habit of just flipping past the guest commentary page when I saw his photo – but I now might have to make it a habit to tear out the page and throw it away. Because now that he's offered an entire column devoted to "a rough summary of Our Story So Far, concocted not with help from the usual Internet sources but from my own little Break-obsessed head," really, what illuminating insight could possibly top it?

And btw, Uncle Stevie – as you insist on referring to yourself – you do not speak for Red Sox Nation or the Average Baseball Fan (We don’t do this or this …or this), so please stop pretending you do. (This research led me to another infuriating piece of self-promotion. Enjoy.)

Book review: Loving Frank

Welcome to the first edition of mini-reviews. Books, TV shows and movies – look for my thoughts here.

Loving Frank, Nancy Horan

I finished this book in the time it took me to get from Boston to LAX, with time to spare – it’s that kind of page turner. Easily digestable, with a middle section to really get the feminist in you thinking. And by you, I mean me.

• Can you consider yourself a feminist if your Power to the Woman awakening comes out of a relationship with a man?
• When it comes to family, love and your own self-worth, where does the line between empowering and selfish fall?
• Could I have forgiven a parent who was totally absent by his/her own volition for 2+ years of my childhood?

I found it concisely written, though towards the end overwhelmed by dialogue. I also felt like the end – a shocker if I’ve ever read one – was almost too abrupt. I wasn’t even paying attention to Julian – and was actually wondering why he had even been introduced – when race dynamics sort of started coming up and then all of a sudden… (no spoilers here). While I get that there’s a parallel to the shocking impact of the event with its out-of-nowhere introduction into the storyline, I think that those characters could have been introduced more casually a bit sooner.

I’m curious about the real story here, and can definitely see myself reading up more on Frank Lloyd Wright soon. Overall, it’s an intelligent yet easy read for anyone interested in good ol’ story telling about a man and a woman, American history and/or the women’s movement.

Oh, have you read ______ ?

Inspired by Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 New Classic books (Seriously – check out their website. They have lists for everything right now, and it’s like a warm and fuzzy dream come true. Top 25 Romantic Gestures in Film, awesome. Best Movie Posters, check. It’s all there.), I am embarking on quite the reading journey. Below is the list – I have bolded/crossed out everything I’ve already read (34 – not bad), and I have bought 11 (Half.com is the world’s greatest invention) to get started on. I’m especially excited about: Persepolis, Possession and Friday Night Lights (Oh! Future blog post idea!).

Note: I will not be reading the Stephen King one. Most overrated, self-righteous writer ever.

** UPDATE: I will mark books that I read after this "project" began like this.

The New Classics

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)

3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)

4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)

5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)

6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)

7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)

8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)

9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)

10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)

11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)

12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)

13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)

14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)

15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)

16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)

17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)

18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)

19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)

20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)

21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)

22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (2007)

23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)

24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)

25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)

26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)

27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)

28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)

29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)

30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)

31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)

32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)

33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)

34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)

35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)

36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)

37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)

38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)

39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)

41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)

42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)

43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)

44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)

45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)

46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)

47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)

48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)

49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)

50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)

51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)

52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)

53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)

54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)

55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)

56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)

57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)

58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)

59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)

60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)

61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)

62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)

63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)

64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)

65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)

66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)

67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)

68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)

69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)

70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)

71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)

72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)

73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)

74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)

75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)

76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)

77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)

78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)

79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)

81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)

82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)

83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)

84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)

85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)

86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)

87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)

88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)

89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)

90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)

91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)

92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)

93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)

94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)

95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)

96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)

97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)

98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)

99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)

100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)