Mission 101: Read 101 books in 1001 days.

Here's the deal. I have already started my Mission 101 through livejournal. I decided to make a new blog dediciated just to this project.

I plan to use this medium for keeping track of my progress and sharing my feelings on books in general.


(NOTE: I have dated this post for the end date of my mission, because I always want it to appear as the top entry, just scroll one down to see the newest post..)

Start Date: August 8, 2006

End Date: May 11, 2009


Here is my progress so far:


1. The Burn Journals -- Brent Runyon Finished 1/12/08!
2. A Piece of Cake -- Cupcake Brown Finished 8/20/07!
3. Gifted -- Nikita Lalwani
4. Eat, Pray, Love -- Elizabeth Gilbert Finished 1/22/08!
5. Dreams From My Father -- Barack Obama
6. So Many Books, So Little Time -- Sara Nelson Finished 3/8/08!
7. House of Paper -- Carlos Maria Dominguez Finished 3/9/08!
8. Summers with the Bears -- Jack Becklund Finished 1/26/08!
9. Julie and Julia -- Julie Powell Finished 8/31/07!
10. Journal of the Dead -- Jason Kersten
11. Bunny Tales -- Izabella St. James Finished 11/25/07!
12. Animal, Vegtable, Miracle -- Barbara Kingsolover
13. Burned Alive -- Souad Finished 7/15/07!
14. Wonderful Tonight -- Pattie Boyed Finished 5/14/08!
15. The Keeper of the Lime Rock -- Lenore Skomal Finished 5/10/07
16. Forever Lily -- Beth Nonte Russell Finished 2/1/08!
17. Couldn't Keep it to Myself! -- Wally Lamb
18. Hey Ranger! -- Jim Burnett
19. The Dogs Who Found Me -- Ken Foster Finished 9/9/07!
20. Have You Found Her -- Janice Erlbaum
21. The Bookseller of Kabul -- Asne Seierstad Finished 6/2/07!
22. Aman, The Story of a Somali Girl -- Virginia Lee Barnes
23. Marked for Life -- Joie Davidow
24. Why New Orleans Matters -- Tom Piazza Finished 4/30/07!
25. Take the Cannoli -- Sarah Vowell Finished 5/22/08!
26. How I Learned English -- Tom Miller Finished 11/11/08!
27. The First Verse -- Berry McCrea Finished 7/27/07!
28. Desert Children -- Waris Dirie
29. Free Food for Millionaires -- Min Jin Lee Finished 9/22/08!
30. Special Topics in Calamity Physics -- Marisha Pessl Finished 4/13/08!
31. Falling Man -- Don DeLillo Finished (sort of) 10/15/07!
32. Emrique's Journey -- Sonia Nazario
33. Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream -- Sam Quinones
34. What is the What -- Dave Eggers Finished 7/1/07!
35. Restless Virgins -- Abigail Jones Finished 2/21/08!
36. The Headmaster Ritual -- Taylor AntrimFinished (sort of)9/29/08!
37. Upstate -- Kalisha Buckhanon Finished 8/15/08!
38. My Sisters Keeper -- Jodi Picoult Finished 10/27/2008!
39. Tiny Dancer -- Anthony Flacco
40. Prisoner of Tehran -- Marina Nemat
41. A Breath of Fresh Air -- Amulya Malladi Finished 9/4/07!
42. The Polysyllabic Spree -- Nick Hornby Finished 12/6/07!
43. Infidel -- Ayann Hirsi Ali
44. The Year of Magical Thinking -- Joan Didion Finished 11/8/2008!
45. Autobiogrpahy of a Face -- Lucy Grealy Finished 7/9/08!
46. Sickened -- Julie Gregory Finished 7/29/07!
47. The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo -- Paula Huntley
48. Kabul Beauty School -- Deborah Rodriguez Finished 8/9/08!
49. A Bed of Read Flowers -- Nelofer Pazlira
50. The Worst Noel --- Various Finished 12/16/07!
51. Assassination Vacation -- Sarah Vowell Done (sort of) 7/11/07
52. Truth and Beauty -- Ann Patchett Finished 7/21/08!
53. Half in Love -- Malie Meloy Finished 2/6/08!
54. The Noodle Maker -- Ma Jian Finished 8/3/07!
55. The Majic Bus -- Douglas Brinkley
56. Snow Flower and The Secret Fan -- Lisa See Finished 9/14/07!
57. A Thousand Splendid Suns -- Khaled Hosseini Finished 11/10/07!
58. Playgound -- Jennifer Saginor Finished 11/16/07!
59. The Reader -- Bernard Schlink Finished 5/18/07!
60. American Dreams -- Sapphire Finished 12/16/07!
61. The Myth of You and Me -- Leah Stewart Finished 1/25/08!
62. Living at the Edge of the World -- Tina S
63. The Zookeeper's Wife -- Diane AckermanFinished!(sort of) 10/12/2008
64. The Almond -- Nedjma Finished 1/7/08!
65. A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah
66. Sweetness in the Belly -- Camilla Gibb Finished 6/4/08!
67. Darfur Diaries -- Jen Marlowe Finished (sort of) 4/20/08@
68. Delicate -- Mary Sojourner Finished (sort of) 9/26/08!
69. Desert Dawn -- Waris Dirie Finished 10/6/07!
70. Love, Stargirl -- Jerry Spinelli Finished 3/5/08!
71. Anthropology -- Dan Rhodes Finished 12/10/07!
72. The Love Hexagon -- William Suttcliffe Finished 12/22/07!
73. Windows on the World -- Frederic Beigbeder Finished 5/5/07!
74. God Grew Tired of Us -- John Buldaw
75. Grayson -- Lynne Cox Finished 10/21/07!
76. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu Finished 12/2/07!
77. Dark -- Kenji Jasper Finished 4/7/07!
78. Digging to America -- Anne Tyler Finished 12/15/06!
79. The Namesake -- Jhumpa Lahiri Finished! 8/12/06
80. The Man of My Dreams -- Curtis Sittenfield Finished 12/26/06!
81. How Are We Hungry -- Dave Eggers Fished 2/25/07!
82. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather -- Gao Xing Jian Finished ??
83. Caramba! -- Nina Marie Martinez Finished! 9/27/06
84. Peel My Love Like An Onion -- Ana Castillo Finished 1/10/07!
85. The Bridegroom -- Ha Jin Finished! 9/16/06
86. Are You Experienced? -- William Sutcliffe Finished 3/4/07!
87. Ties that Bind, Ties that Break -- Lensey Namioka Finished 10/1/06!
88. Lucky -- Alice SeaboldFinished 1/3/07
89. John -- Cynthia Lennon Finished 3/25/07!
90. The Monkey Wrench Gang -- Edward Abbey Finished! 8/24/06
91. For One More Day -- Mitch Albom Finished 11/6/06!
92. My Moral Enemy -- Willa Cather Finished! 2/14/07
93. A Spot of Bother -- Mark Haddon Finished 3/21/07!
94. The Kite Runner -- Khalde Hossein Finished 1/9/07!
95. Funny in Farsi -- Firoozeh Dumas Finished! 10/21/06
96. Dear Exile -- Hillary Liftin Finished 10/22/06!
97. Mr. Muo's Traveling Couch -- Dai Sijie Finished 1/28/07
98. The Facts Behind Helinski Roccamotios -- Yann Martel Finished 9/5/06!
99. The Secret History -- Donna Tartt Finshed 12/6/06!
100. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- Johnathan Safron Foer Finished 10/10/06!
101. Hotel of the Saints -- Ursula Hegi Finished! 2/9/07

How I Learned English

This book was an interesting look into how one learns a language. (A second language). Working with ESL students on a daily basis, I was able to take a lot away from these stories and relate them back to my students. There were the common similarities; subtitles on TV or movies, reading everything in sight etc. I found it amusing that more than one author talked about National Geographic magazine. What's really funny is at my center, we have a whole shelf of these magazines and my students LOVE them. I just thought it was a funny thing, but now, after reading this book it seems this isn't such a strange thing after all.

Anyhow, this was an interesting read for anyone interested in language learning.

The Year of Magical Thinking

I am not sure I liked this book. I had a hard time relating to it. (Yes, I am young and have yet to experience any of the grief that the author obviously felt). The story was very sad, I admit, but that wasn't the part of the book that bothered me. I found the book quite pretentious. One thing that annoyed me was that she makes it quite clear that she and her husband are literary people who take literature seriously. If you haven't spent years in college didn’t study literature, you probably have no knowledge of these references. It was a bit tiresome. And these references would take her off onto stories of places she worked or lived for periods of time and sometimes I forgot what she began talking about in the first place.

Also, all of the medical references. She would go on for pages about all kinds of medical terminology that I just had to skip because I didn't understand a word of it. What was the point? I think maybe she was trying to justify how and why her husband died and what happened to Quintana. It was really actually boring to me.

Another thing was the incessant name-dropping. It was as if every single famous person they knew was mentioned in this book. But there was never a meaningful story to go along with it.. Its obvious she wanted to make sure everyone knew that she ran in a famous circle. It was really annoying.

My Sister's Keeper

This book was entertaining enough. (I at least finished this one!) I liked how the book rotated through different points of view for each character, though I don't think I really liked all the characters. The subject matter, though was fascinating. But somehow I don't see any hospital ever forcing anyone, even a minor to donate an organ, even if the parents were insisting on it.

I got annoyed with the whole romance between Campbell and Julia. It had really nothing to do with the major story line and it felt like wasted time reading through it. But with that said, it was a satisfying read. The ending wasn't actually a huge surprise. In a way, I thought it was kind of predictable.

The Zookeeper's Wife

So I am still having trouble with my choices lately. I tried really hard to get into this book. I couldn't finish it. There were too many unimportant details that I just couldn't get past. I had to skip the 4 pages about beetles! The whole premise of this book was interesting, but I also felt that it was a bit repetitive. It was also a bit dry for my taste. There wasn't much dialogue and there were too many characters coming and going and I couldn't keep track of them all. I had a hard time keeping track of the use of time in this book as well.

This book was set up interesting enough though. A fictional story based on a real life family who hid Jews in their zoo. The author obviously took a lot of time doing research about the family, the zoo and the time period.

I didn't finish this book. It was taking too much time and it wasn't keeping me interested enough to try and forge on.

The Headmaster Ritual

I have been having bad luck with books lately I guess. I just couldn't get into this one. I had a really hard time relating to anything in the book. There was too much history about North Korea and things that I didn't quite understand. It was too masculine for me. I usually really like books about prep school and the like, but this just didn't do it for me.

Delicate

I thought I was really going to like this book. But about 75 pages in, I was so bored I couldn't take it. The stories didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I couldn't find anything to relate to. I have never really been a huge short story fan and it's books like this that remind me why.