The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year. It runs from April to March. Below is the 2004/2005 booklist. Other booklists are 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, and the current booklist. Read on!

March...

63. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Foer, Jonathan Safran

New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005

Sentimental, postmodern (lots of text design gimmicks, and eccentric voices, and narrative photographs, including a flip-book, deconstructing the novel). Main char. is a precocious boy whose father died in the WTC on 9/11. A lot is going on underneath the narrative, like why can't we ever communicate effectively with each other, and how do you resolve all the things you never said once the person is no longer around to say them to? A lot of readers will really love this novel, and you'll probably really cry when you finish reading it. Some critics are unsatisifed, but to this amateur's eye, you could do a lot worse, as a writer, than this book.

62. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit

Deere, Jack

Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993

Deere makes the negative argument against cessationist theology (the idea that the 'signs and wonders' ministry of the Holy Spirit was restricted to the age of the apostles). Very convincing, prepared me for a significant encounter with the Lord a couple of weeks ago. Recommended.

61. A Thread of Grace

Russell, Mary Doria

New York: Random House, 2005

A sprawling novel about hidden Jewish refugees in Northern Italy during WWII. Having read this and The Sparrow, I'm guessing that Russell's overarching concern is to bring us to the absolute brink of horror before affirming that faith is an imperative. Again, how much brutality can a man suffer and still retain his belief in divine grace? This is an imaginative and detailed read-- a little disjointed, but in an understandable way.

February...

60. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Adams, Douglas

New York: Random House, 1996 (in "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide...")

I, uh, kept reading after the first one...

59. The Ha-Ha

King, Dave

New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005

The hook: a vietnam vet whose head injury means "words unravel in his mouth and letters on the page make no sense at all." The meat: an adept tour of one man's interior life, when he can have little meaningful communication with others, except in action. His surprise charge to care for a 9-year old changes his life, and it's compelling to read. Also, King does a great job of creating dramatic tension out of a few very spare elements. I loved it.

58. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Adams, Douglas

New York: Harmony Books, 1980

What a trifle. Funny, though. I read it to get ready for the movie...

57. Faith works: Lessons from the life of an activist preacher

Wallis, Jim

New York: Random House, 2000

Wallis advocates strongly for social action motivated by faith-- for recognizing that economic social issues are actually moral issues, and for getting beyond partisan frameworks that offer no solutions and taking action both nationally and locally. "Hope," he says, "is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change." Maybe his best advice is "get out of the house more often," which is to say go to where people are hurting and let them tell you what to do next.

56. A Child Called It: One child's courage to survive

Pelzer, David

Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Health Communications, 1995

A perennial fave at my library. I viewed it as professional development to see what all the fuss is about. The fuss is about a truly horrible case of child abuse. While it's ostensibly good that this story be told, and that the victim tells it, the poor (and lurid) prose makes it difficult for me to recommend this as a good book.

55. Life on the outside: the prison odyssey of Elaine Bartlett

Gonnerman, Jennifer

New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004

Elaine went to prison for 16 years for a single, first-time drug offense, due to the (then) newly minted "Rockefeller" mandatory minimum drug laws. Clemency should have been her triumph, but her years outside of prison have been just as hard and disappointing as her years inside. Evidence (with Shipler's "The Working Poor") that aid for those at the bottom must be multi-part and comprehensive if it's to keep them from slipping through the cracks.

January...

54. Runaway

Munro, Alice

New York: Knopf, 2004

Short stories about women who are constantly surprised to find themselves unsurprised by their actions. I hadn't read a book of short stories, or of Munro's, before, and I liked it a lot. She has a way of never letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

53. Down and out in the Magic Kingdom

Doctorow, Cory

New York: Tor, 2003

A quick read about a future America where death and want have been eradicated, and Disneyworld's various lands and attractions have been divided among feuding ad-hoc controlling councils, who live and work there just because they want to. You know what I love about sci-fi? It's just like regular fiction-- plot, character, etc.-- except the author also has to imagine all new ground rules. I think I'm regularly more impressed by it than moved, exactly; its the thrill of seeing something new and unheard-of on every page. Anyway, this was a pleasant diversion.

52. The Amber Spyglass

Pullman, Philip

New York: Knopf, 2000

So, that's it. Three books in January about rebel angels. Again, Pullman resolves his plot with imagination, but his heavy-handed preaching is almost deathly. I'm glad I've read these novels: I know now that the God Pullman hates is not God at all, but 'Authority' (though he may beg to differ).

51. The Subtle Knife

Pullman, Philip

New York: Knopf, 1997

Book two in the His Dark Materials trilogy, this is Pullman's response to the ideology of Lewis's Narnia books. I wish some Christian had shown Pullman the love of Christ just once. But as far as his imagination is concerned, A-triple-plus.

50. The Rebel Angels

Davies, Robertson

New York: Viking Press, 1982

Bill D. says that Davies writes in an Episcopalean style-- I can see it in this easy-to-read novel of academia, God, magic, and the coexistance of dark and light. If you like Davies, you might read it. If you don't know Davies, try Fifth Business first.

December...

49. Housekeeping

Robinson, Marilynne

New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980

Gilead was so good, I went back and read Robinson's first (and only other) novel. It is also so good, rolling with prose that's clean like poetry, spilling over with the kinds of observations, five or six or ten to a paragraph, that lesser mortals make once or twice in a lifetime. Imagine if Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek was a novel about transience and loneliness, and you're part-way there.

48. Hole in my life

Gantos, Jack

New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002

Gantos went to prison for smuggling drugs up the Hudson River in his teens. He was just doing what he felt like doing-- he didn't think he'd get caught. A true coming-of-age story, it captures the feeling of that moment when you realize that what you do with your life really matters. Gantos turned his life around in prison and became a (rather famous) writer of children's books.

47. Designing with web standards

Zeldman, Jeffrey

Indianapolis, Ind: New Riders Press, 2003

No one has been able to check this out at my library for months, unless they specifically put it on hold. I'm sold on the idea-- separate content from form and let old browsers devolve your form gracefully. Grrrreat!

46. Gilead

Robinson, Marilynne

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2004

This one battles Jonathan Strange, Shipler's The Working Poor and Maine's The Preservationist for title of 'Best Book I've Read All Year.' A letter from an aging pastor to his young son in anticipation of his premature death, this is a quietly stunning meditation on how grace sneaks up on even those most acquainted with it. Good God, read it.

45. Amsterdam

McEwan, Ian

New York: Anchor Books, 1998

Winner of the Booker Prize, and boy, do those brits like some chilling books. Clinically plotted clever prose, although the premise is ultimately unbelievable. I recommend McEwan's Atonement over this.

November...

44. Cloud atlas

Mitchell, David

New York: Random House, 2004

"The novel as a series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes," says Michael Chabon, and if you can't picture that it's because you've never read a novel quite like this one. I highly recommend it, if only for the form alone. The story(ies) are good, too.

43. America (the book): a citizen's guide to democracy inaction

Stewart, Jon, and the writers of The Daily Show

New York: Warner Books, 2004

Painfully funny, woefully wrong.

42. The double

Saramago, Jose (Costa, Margaret Hull, trans.)

Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2004

If you meet your clone, identical in every way down to the eyelash, don't forget the moral of this story: though the clone is physically a double, his life is singular. The run-on sentences were difficult to slog through, but the ending was magic.

October...

41. Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers

Roach, Mary

New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003

It's eponymous: you know what it's about. It's a lot of fun to read. I'm certain to remember bits and pieces of it (no pun intended). My one minor complaint is that Roach waits over 200 pages before encouraging the reader not to eat certain foods while reading a book like this. Thanks a lot, Mary, but I figured that out about eight chapters ago, eating my chicken soup for lunch, when you made a sudden and serendipitous description of the approximate composition of a decomposing human body. barf.

40. Gorky Park

Smith, Martin Cruz

New York: Random House, 1981

Zena and I both remember this book lying around the house when we were young. Perhaps you know what the private investigator murder novel is like: the reprehensible killer, the tough-as-nails detective with the rock-solid sense of integrity, the beautiful girl. Set it in Communist Russia, mix in the KGB and the FBI and you have Gorky Park.

39. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Clarke, Susanna

New York: Bloomsbury, 2004

It's nominally about the dangers of extremism, either of reserving too much judgement and control for oneself or of abandoning oneself to the wild ways and means of the world. The two magicians of the title take just such courses and both end up imprisoned with eachother in a column of eternal night that follows them wherever they go. And really that's not a political theme at all but a moral and social one, so, there you go.

September...

38. The Challenge of Jesus

Wright, N. T.

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999

What if we re-examined our assumptions about Jesus' words and actions in the Gospel(s) in the light of how they would have sounded to a first-century jew? What exactly did the first-century jew think when he heard the term "kingdom of God?" He thought something specific, and it changes some commonly held thoughts about exactly what Jesus was saying... for the better.

37. Sparks

McNamee, Graham

New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2002

Todd was promoted from the special needs class to the regular 5th grade, but he's having trouble keeping up. He just wants to be normal... it's hard when everyone calls him 'retard' and he can't pass a quiz to save his life. Is there room for Todd in the regular 5th grade? Issue fiction is big in children's lit, and this is a good topical specimen.

36. The Dogs of Babel

Parkhurst, Carolyn

Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 2003

An intimate consideration of a man's grief at his wife's death, it's telling framed by his efforts to get their dog, the only witness, to talk. Sad and surprising, easy to read, ultimately affecting.

35. Frindle

Clements, Andrew; Selznick, Brian, illus.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996

A book of ideas, for kids; explores the love/hate relationship between teachers and students in elementary school, and suggests to kids that their ideas really can change the way things are.

34. Better off: flipping the switch on technology

Brende, Eric

New York: HarperCollins, 2004

Not the best written book ever, but a very interesting look at doing without does for you. Read it if you hate your television and love the Amish.

33. The Sparrow

Russell, Mary Doria

New York: Villard, 1996

Plot: Jesuits make first contact with aliens. Theme: Can you believe in a God who lets evil happen? Answer: I'm not going to tell you.

32. Bush vs. the environment

Devine, Robert S.

New York: Anchor Books, 2004

A catalog of the ways the author perceives W's administration trashing the environment in the favor of industry. Partisan and touched with bile, but instructive if taken with a little salt.

31. Soul survivor: how my faith survived the church

Yancey, Philip

New York: Doubleday, 2001

Yancey profiles the lives of twelve men (Martin Luther King Jr., Dostoevsky, Gandhi, Chesterton, Nouwen, John Donne, C. Everett Koop, etc.) and one woman (Annie Dillard) whose lives helped him reclaim and define his faith. Devotional plus history lesson, a pleasing combination.

August...

30. The Working poor: invisible in America

Shipler, David K.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004

People from a background of relative wealth have the supports necessary to address the web of problems that, without those supports, hamstring the poor. Services to aid the poor need to work in concert, as a kind of interwoven net, to stand a chance of making a difference. If you feel like you are disconnected from the problem of poverty, read this book before you do anything else. It's that good.

29. When the emperor was divine

Otsuka, Julie

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002

Short novel about the internment of a Japanese-American family during WWII, told in discrete vignettes by each of the family members. Because the first three chapters are so technically precise and delicate, the stream-of-conciousness bombast of the last two chapters was a jarring read. But they sure didn't teach me this stuff in high school history class.

28. Transmission

Kunzru, Hari

New York: Dutton, 2004

Ostensibly an ultramodern tragicomedy about a lonely indian programmer who unleashes a catastrophic computer virus, this is really a reflection on the spectrum of human transactions, and the noise that's introduced during transmission. And it has a spectacularly satisfying third act

27. Ordinary wolves

Kantner, Seth

Minneapolis : Milkweed Editions, 2004

About Alaska, and man versus nature, and hunting economy versus money economy. And about a boy growing up white in an Eskimo culture, knowing how to skin a caribou but not how to deal with the modern world. Recommended.

26. Pirates!

Rees, Celia

New York : Bloomsbury, 2003

A teen novel, read at the suggestion of our Young Adult Librarian, Rori. This is a well written and meticulously researched historical novel about a young woman who "goes on the account" (becomes a pirate, with a heart of gold no less), but ultimately there's not much 'there' there.

25. The Bourne Identity

Ludlum, Robert

New York : R. Marek Publishers, 1980

It looks interesting when it's Matt Damon in the trailers. In print, though, it's a piece of dried crap. How on earth did this get to be a bestseller?

24. The Preservationist

Maine, David

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2004

Imaginative fleshing-out of the biblical account of Noah and the Ark, and a rumination on various types of human relationship to Yahweh, types of faith. It's neither safe nor blasphemous. A really, really good read.

July...

23. Library : an unquiet history

Battles, Matthew

New York : W.W. Norton, 2003

Concise, readable look at libraries and 'the library' in history, from Alexandria to the Internet. If you read, read this.

22. Skinny dip

Hiaasen, Carl

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2004

Eco/love revenge fantasy where everyone gets hooked up at the end except the villian, who dies naked in a swamp. I think I'm done with Hiaasen.

21. The price of motherhood: why the most important job in the world is still the least valued

Crittenden, Ann

New York : Metropolitan Books, 2001

A bit screechy, but eye-opening exploration into why we refuse to qualify child-rearing as economically valuable? Is it because we, as a nation, hate women?

20. The time traveller's wife

Niffenegger, Audrey

London : Jonathan Cape, 2004

Romance novel, really, but with a high sci-fi quotient. The unique complications and advantages of having a time-travelling husband.

19. The spirit of the disciplines: understanding how God changes lives

Willard, Dallas, 1935-

San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1988

How can you expect to become like Christ if you won't live like Christ? Essential.

June...

18. The Jane Austen book club

Fowler, Karen Joy

New York : Putnam, 2004

6 (deft) character sketches in search of an author. No, wait a minute...

17. The diamond age, or, A young lady's illustrated primer

Stephenson, Neal

New York : Bantam Books, 1995

Wildly diverse imagination of a future where Victorian morality and bio-digital compuscience collide, and children are raised by surrogate mothers mediated through smart books, and the Chinese Celestial Kingdom rises again.

16. Property

Martin, Valerie, 1948-

New York : Nan A. Talese, 2003

Blunt, imaginative exploration of what slave-owning does to your joi-de-vivre. Excellent.

15. Kings of infinite space

Hynes, James

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2004

Horror novel about the working life; the pure writerly imaginative elements overpower the strict plotting, sometimes, but to a good effect-- fantastical, like Peer Gynt. But too racy.

14. Pagan babies

Leonard, Elmore, 1925-

New York : Delacorte Press, 2000

Detroit author, crime double-cross caper with great, quiet dialogue and an unusual connection to the Rwandan genocide.

13. The Dew breaker

Danticat, Edwidge, 1969-

New York : Knopf, 2004

Excellent consideration of how the participants in an unbearable situation (brutal dictatorship and torture in Haiti) go on with their lives.

12. Burning Garbo: a Nina Zero novel

Eversz, Robert

New York : Simon & Schuster, 2003

Ex-con foils a reclusive actress's escape from society. A little too pie-in-the-sky for me.

May...

11. The original Jesus: the life and vision of a revolutionary

Wright, N. T.

Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996

Jesus the revolutionary, but not the way the Jews thought he would be. The gospels, and who they were meant for.

10. Basket case

Hiaasen, Carl

New York : A.A. Knopf, 2002

Pleasant but insubstantial. Newspaper reporter-slash-sleuth with witty repartee.

09. Fast food nation: the dark side of the all-American meal

Schlosser, Eric

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2001

McDonalds is evil.

08. The Unprofessionals

Hecht, Julie

New York : Random House, 2003

Two privileged characters, one 49, one 20-something, have a friendship via telephone. He's a herion addict, later a suicide. Her world is so insular and rarified she can't cope with the real one.

07. The Fortress of solitude

Lethem, Jonathan

New York : Doubleday, 2003

Seventies, white kids in black neighborhoods, soul music, rings of power, the new Chabon?

06. Jamesland

Huneven, Michelle, 1953-

New York : A.A. Knopf, 2003

William James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" meets a sort-of AA for people with "personalities incompatable with life" - a detailed character study.