Young Adult Fiction:
The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Semicolon review here.

How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford. Quite odd, but sort of fun. This one made the Cybils YA fiction shortlist. If you read it, expect something totally different, like late night conspiracy-theory UFO radio. Review by Melissa at Book Nut.

In the Path of Falling Objects by Andrew Smith. Subtitled “the road trip from hell,” it really is. Not much fun. Two brothers back in the 1960’s find out that hitchhiking is a dangerous way to get to Arizona. I suppose you could use as a cautionary tale, even though it wasn’t meant to be that.

In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth. YA ARC about a heart transplant recipient and her donor. I’m giving this one to my ice-skating enthusiast friend who doesn’t read. Maybe he will.

Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman. Jane Austen fan-fiction with a present day setting.

Children’s Fiction:
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. Re-read for my Middle School girls’ book club.

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. Re-read for my Texas History class at co-op. Semicolon review here.

Winnie’s War by Jenny Moss. Re-read for Texas class.

Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi. Re-read for girls’ book club.

Adult Fiction:
Janice Meredith by Paul Leicester Ford. Bestselling book of 1900. I read this one for the Books of the Century Challenge

SIster Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Classic tale of a fallen woman who actually ends up with nothing worse than a feeling of vague discomfort with her pointless life.

Best Intentions by Emily Listfield. Sort of a murder mystery/thriller, but it’s really about marriage, and suspicions, and misunderstandings. Good insights into the disintegration of trust in a marriage and how that can happen.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden. I want to see the movie version of this book. I can picture Deborah Kerr as the head nun, Sister Clodagh.

Crossers by Phillip Caputo. Very violent with gratuitous sex, but also insightful about the U.S./Mexico border wars. Crossers are people who cross the border illegally, for whatever reason, mostly drugs or economic opportunity.

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson. Ms. Lawson’s second published novel made me want to read her first entitled Crow Lake.

Mr. Emerson’s WIfe by Amy Belding Brown. I wonder if Ralph Waldo Emerson was really as difficult and cold as this novel portrays him. The story is that of Lidian Jackson Emerson, RWE’s second wife and the mother of his four children.

Unleavened Bread by Robert Grant. Another best-selling book of 1900. This one reminded me of Sister Carrie, which I had just finished when I read it, of Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, and also, curiously, of a biography of Huey P. Long that I read a long time ago. The ending was somewhat unsatisfactory since no one “got what they deserved.” And the main character, Selma, deserved to get it.

We Have to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Very introspective, depressing, and thought-provoking.

The Widow’s Season by Laura Brodie. A ghost story with insight into the seasons of grief and recovery.

Triangle by Katharine Weber. I think my friend Hannah would like this book since it’s not only about the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, but also about music. And it’s a history mystery.

How Do I Love Thee? A Novel of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetic Romance by Nancy Moser. Historically accurate for the most part, both in facts and in tone, this novel captures the Victorian era and the poets of the day quite well. I would like to read more about Robert Browning in particular, a very interesting man.

Nonfiction:
Safe Passage by Ida Cook. Recommended by Magistramater. I want to give this one to someone I know who’s looking at saving up to do something big someday. The sisters in this book deny themselves all sorts of pleasures so that they can travel to hear their favorite opera singers.

At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman. Essays about such varied subjects as Charles Lamb, lepidopterists, ice cream, circadian rhythms, literary criticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, coffee, and flag-flying. I enjoyed every one of them. What essayists do you recommend?

Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting by Jim Murphy. World War I and the Christmas, 1914 spontaneous cease-fire.

Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough. The March Semicolon Book Club selection, and a lovely pick, if I do say so myself.

Sixpence in her Shoe by Phyllis McGInley. I’ve taken to keeping a book of essays next to my bed, and this one was the follow-up to Ms. Fadiman’s book. Ms. McGinley is much more practical and not as likely to lead me to add other authors to my TBR list. That’s a good thing since my TBR list is way too long anyway. On the other hand, I would like to read more of Ms. McGinley’s poetry and prose, so I guess she added to my list anyway.