Saturday, July 17, 2010

Reading List: Shojo Manga & Manhwa Series

SHOJO MANGA
High School
Hot Gimmick - Miki Aihara
Monkey High! - Shouko Akira
Ouran High School Host Club - Bisco Hatori
The Wallflower - Tomoko Hayakawa
Tears of a Lamb - Banri Hidala
Boys Over Flowers - Yoko Kamio
La Corda d'Oro - Yuki Kure
Cy-Believers - Shioku Mizuki
We Were There - Yuki Obata
Peach Girl - Miwa Ueda

Cooking
Kitchen Princess - Natsumi Ando & Miyuki Kobayashi
Mixed Vegetables - Mayumi Komura

Sports
Crimson Hero - Mitsuba Takanashi
Bamboo Blade - Masahiro Totsuka & Agui Igarashi

Post High School
Dramacon - Svetlana Chmakova
Skip Beat! - Yosikiki Nakamura
Nana - Ai Yazawa

Fantasy
Merupuri - Matsuri Hino
Mamotte! Lollipop - Michiyo Kikuta
Atelier Marie and Elie Zarlburg Alchemist - Yoshiko Komura
13th Boy - SangEun Lee
Fruits Basket - Natsuki Takaya
Basara - Yumi Tamura
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Nagaru Tanigawa & Gako Tsugano
Fushigi Yugi - Yuu Watase
Ultra Maniac - Wataru Yoshizumi

Historical
Emma - Kaoru Mori


MANHWA
Honey Mustard - Ho-Kyung Yeo
Very! Very! Sweet - JiSang Shin-Geo
The Royal Palace Goong - Park SoHee

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Reading List: Memoirs

INTRODUCTION
As with all of the reading lists on this site, this is a living document, meaning I will add to it as I come across books I've omitted, and would love suggestions of any noncelebrity memoir you would highly recommend. As far as the categories, I've done my best--some books fall under multiple categories so I went with the most dominant/specific theme (i.e. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is primarily about Sedaris's childhood, but not entirely, and it's humorous as is Bryson's memoir). I've read many but not all of these, so please let me know if a book belongs under a different heading. If you're interested in travel memoirs, there's a extensive separate reading list posted.

ABUSE MEMOIRS
Please Stop Laughing at Me - Jodee Blanco
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Blackbird - Jennifer Lauck
A Child Called It - Dave Pelzer
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Jesus Land  - Julia Scheeres
Lucky - Alice Sebold
The Glass Castle - Jeannete Walls

ANIMAL MEMOIRS
Marley and Me - John Grogan
Seabiscuit - Laura Hillenbrand
Dewey - Vicki Myron
Alex & Me - Irene Pepperberg

CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS
An American Childhood - Annie Dillard
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson
Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim - David Sedaris

GRIEF MEMOIRS
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

HUMOROUS MEMOIRS
Close Encounters of the Third-grade Kind - Phillip Done
A Red State of Mind - Nancy French
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

INTERNATIONAL MEMOIRS
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer
Child of the Jungle - Sabine Kuegler
Chinese Cinderella - Adeline Yen Mah
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

NATURE MEMOIRS
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Life in the Treetops - Margaret D. Lowman

RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUALITY MEMOIRS
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Angry Conversations with God - Susan Isaacs
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott
Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
Shattered Dreams - Irene Spenser

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT MEMOIRS
Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin
The Know-It-All - AJ Jacobs
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
Living Oprah - Robyn Okrant
Julie and Julia - Julie Powell
The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin

OTHER MEMOIRS
Minor Characters - Joyce Johnson

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Reading List: Travel Narratives

INTRODUCTION
The following are travel narratives, with a few international memoirs mixed in. They are organized by continent. The books on this list I’ve either read, plan to read, or have been highly successful. Most are contemporary, but a few were written over 50 years ago (i.e. Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Freya Stark, Theodore Roosevelt). I've listed specific countries where appropriate if they're not evident from the title. I know this list is far from comprehensive, so recommendations would be appreciated.

NORTH AMERICA
I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson
The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson
A Walk in the Woods [Appalachian Trail] – Bill Bryson
Blue Highways - William Least Heat-Moon
Roads to Quoz - William Least Heat-Moon
A Walk Across America – Peter Jenkins
The Walk West - Peter & Barbara Jenkins
Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer
You Can Get Arrested for That – Rich Smith
Travels with Charley – John Steinbeck
The Call of the Weird – Louis Theroux

EUROPE
Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson
Notes From a Small Island [England] - Bill Bryson
A Year in Provence [France] - Peter Mayle
Toujours Provence [France] - Peter Mayle
Without Reservations [France, England, Italy] – Alice Steinbach
The Kingdom By the Sea [Great Britain] – Paul Theroux
A Motor-flight Through France – Edith Wharton

ASIA
Wrong About Japan - Peter Carey
Child of the Jungle [Indonesia] – Sabine Kuegler
Letters Home [Japan] – Todd Jay Leonard
Chinese Cinderella - Adeline Yen Mah
Three Cups of Tea [Pakistan] – Greg Mortenson
Japanland - Karin Muller
The Valley of the Assassins and Other Persian Tales [Iraq/Iran] - Freya Stark

AUSTRALIA
In a Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
The Road from Coorain (memoir) - Jill Ker Conway
The Sex Lives of Cannibals [South Pacific island] - J. Maarten Troost

AFRICA
Don't Look Behind You - Peter Allison
Whatever You Do, Don’t Run [Botswana] – Peter Allison
Bill Bryson's African Diary [Kenya] - Bill Bryson
In Morocco – Edith Wharton

SOUTH AMERICA
Road Fever - Tim Cahill
The Enchanted Isles [Galapagos Islands] - Herman Melville
Nothing to Declare – Mary Morris
Through the Brazilian Wilderness – Theodore Roosevelt

WORLD TRAVEL
Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine
Pecked to Death by Ducks – Tim Cahill
Around the World in 80 Dates - Jennifer Cox
Where the Hell Is Matt? - Matt Harding
The Ridiculous Race - Steve Hely & Vali Chandrasekaran
101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price
Mark Twain on Travel – Mark Twain, Terry Mort, ed.

ESSAY COLLECTIONS
Not So Funny When It Happened – Tim Cahill, ed.
The Risks of Sunbathing Topless - Kate Chynoweth, ed.
Bad Trips - Keath Fraser, ed.
By the Seat of My Pants – Don George, ed.
The Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys - Klara Glowczewska, ed.
Sand in My Bra - Jennifer L. Leo, ed.
The Gift of Travel - Habegger, O'Reilly & O'Reilly, eds.
The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt - Mary Russell

ANNUAL COLLECTIONS
The Best Travel Writing
The Best American Travel Writing
The Best Women’s Travel Writing

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Reading Lists: Young Adult Fiction (Introduction)

INTRODUCTION
Below are reading lists of popular and award-winning young adult books. I've sorted them by category, then listed books alphabetically first by author, then by title. I've also included the year of first publication. You'll note classic and contemporary novels are mixed together, with some classics listed under historical, though the period they were set in was contemporary at the time they were written. As a source I used my general knowledge, and selected books from the Newberry Medalists, top 100 YA titles on GoodReads.com, top 100 bestselling teen books on Amazon.com, and the top 100 bestselling children's books on BN.com as of January 3, 2010.

Interestingly, the majority of popular novels fall into the fantasy and science fiction, contemporary, or historical genres. There weren't many mystery or suspense novels which were more popular when I was a young adult (Christopher Pike, R.L. Stein, etc.) The science fiction/fantasy category was so overwhelming, that I broke it into sub categories: fantasy novels take place primarily in an alternate world, supernatural novels are set in our world but feature characters with supernatural powers (vampires, witches, werewolves), and science fiction novels are set in the future or in an alternate world inspired by science/technology. For series of four or more books, I generally just listed the series and not all the titles. Because the list became unwieldy and for easier reference, I’ve posted the categories separately.

If you note any errors or glaring omissions, please let me know.

*Newberry Medal recipient

Reading List: Young Adult Short Stories & Fairy Tales

FAIRY TALES, FABLES and SHORT STORIES
Fairy Tales (1835) - Hans Christian Andersen
Aesop's Fables (1484) - Annonymous
One Thousand and One Nights (1706) - Annonymous
Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812) - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
The Jungle Book (1894) / The Second Jungle Book (1895) - Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories (1902) - Rudyard Kipling
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) / The House at Pooh Corner (1928) - A.A. Milne
Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (1697) - Charles Perrault
New Arabian Nights (1882) / More New Arabian Nights (1885) - Robert Louis Stevenson
Book of Enchantments (1996) - Patricia C. Wrede

Reading List: Young Adult Mystery & Suspense

MYSTERY
The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series (190 books, 1927 - 2005) - Franklin W. Dixon (pseudonym for multiple ghost authors)
Harriet the Spy (1964) - Louise Fitzhugh
Paper Towns (2008) - John Green
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series (175 boos, 1930 - 2003) - Carolyn Keene (pseudonymn for multiple ghost authors)
A Series of Unfortunate Events series (13 books, 1999 - 2006) - Lemony Snicket
Encyclopedia Brown series (26 books, 1963 - 2009) - Donald J. Sobol

SUSPENSE
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1973) - Lois Lowry
Killing Mr. Griffin (1978) - Lois Lowry
Summer of Fear (1976) - Lois Lowry
Remember Me (1989) - Christopher Pike
Fear Street series (117 books, 1989 - 2005) - R.L. Stein

Reading List: Young Adult Contemporary Fiction

CONTEMPORARY NOVELS (Set after 1959)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) - Sherman Alexie
Speak (2001) - Laurie Halse Anderson
Burger Wuss (1999) - M.T. Anderson
Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (1970) - Judy Blume
Forever (1976) - Judy Blume
Superfudge (1980) - Judy Blume
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series (4 books, 2001 - 2007) - Ann Brashares
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) - Stephen Chbosky
The House on Mango Street (1984) - Sandra Cisneros
*The Ramona series (1955-1999) - Beverly Cleary
*Walk Two Moons (1995) - Sharon Creech
Just Listen (2006) - Sarah Dessen
*My Side of the Mountain (1960) - Jean Craighead George
Looking for Alaska (2005) - John Green
The Outsiders (1967) - S.E. Hinton
Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (4+ books, 2007 - ?) - Jeff Kinney
*From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968) - E.L. Konigsburg
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) - Harper Lee
Monster (1999) - Walter Dean Myers
*The Black Pearl (1968) - Scott O'Dell
Bridge to Terabithia (1978) - Katherine Paterson
*The Great Gilly Hopkins (1979) - Katherine Paterson
*Jacob Have I Loved (1980) - Katherine Paterson
*Hatchett (1988) - Gary Paulsen
*The Westing Game (1978) - Ellen Raskin
Where the Red Fern Grows (1961) - Wilson Rawls
*Holes (1999) - Louis Sachar
Maniac McGee (1990) - Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl (2000) - Jerry Spinelli
*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976) / Let the Circle Be Unbroken (1981) - Mildred D. Taylor
Homecoming (1981) / *Dicey's Song (1982) / A Solitary Blue (1983) - Cynthia Voigt
Izzy, Willy-Nilly (1986) - Cynthia Voigt
The Book Thief (2006) - Marcus Zusack