3 for January

Shelly from Shelly's Book Shelf has 3 questions for January:

1. List up to 3 books you read in 2007 that you loved.
2. List up to 3 books you read in 2007 that were disappointments.
3. List up to 3 authors you discovered in 2007 you definitely will put on your Must Read list.

1. I am not an easy reader to please and I do not give out superlatives very often. So I'm not sure that I "loved" these books but they were definitely among my favorites:

• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle - this was the first book in a VERY LONG TIME that I stayed up way too late to finish. I really enjoyed this book, even though it is on a heavy subject.
• How to be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward - I listened to this book on audio. I thought I had it all figured out (and I often do) but this book managed to keep me guessing and surprise me.

2. I'm not going to list books that I just didn't like but books that I had heard great things about that let me down:

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I kept hearing about this Pulitzer Prize winning book and every time I picked it up I thought, no it's not for me. But it got so much praise I was curious so in the end, I opted for audio and suffered through 8 hours of misery. Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts about what you like.
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon - this was the first book I read by Chabon and all the reviews were great. And everyone who saw me reading it said "Oh, how is it? Did you read Kavalier and Clay? It was great." I didn't enjoy Yiddish Policemen's Union and it was disappointing after all the raves. I did then read Kavalier and Clay and enjoyed it.
• T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton - what can I say? I really like Sue Grafton's writing, the Kinsey Millhone character, and this series. I was very excited when I saw a new book was coming out and I was #20 on the waitlist at my library. It wasn't one of her better works. I know I should cut her some slack after 20 books but I was still disappointed.

3. When I read something I like I usually look for other books by the same author. Here are some authors I'm looking forward to reading more of:

• Julia Glass - She won the National Book Award in 2002 for Three Junes and followed up with The Whole World Over in 2006. They were both quite good, with some overlap of characters. I look forward to reading whatever she writes next.
• Amanda Eyre Ward - I haven't yet read her other novels but I will definitely add them to my forever growing TBR list.
• Carolyn Parkhurst - I would give her book, Lost and Found, an honorable mention for question one, and will also try to read some of her earlier works.

The problem of book lovers everywhere, too many books, not enough time. The list of books I want to read keeps expanding but there are only so many hours in a day. Ah well, we'll see what 2008 holds in store for us.