Books

I decided to figure out how many books I read in a year, so I kept a list from June 15, 2002 through June 14, 2003. The total: 118, not counting short books (fewer than 250 pages) or magazines.

Here's the best of the bunch:

• The Rent Tent, Anita Diamant
• Watership Down, Richard Adams
• The Lovely Bones, Alicia Sebold
• Stolen Lives, Malika Oufkir
• Desireable Daughters, Bharati Mukherjee
• The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
• When the Emporer Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
• Fortune's Daughter, Isabel Allende
• Three Daughters of Madam Liang, Pearl S. Buck
• A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
• White Teeth, Zadie Roberts
• Life and Death In Shanghai, Nien Cheng
• Cane River, Lalita Tademy
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman