It's MLB playoffs. What are you reading?

Recommended reading during the World Series playoffs:

Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin (earned one of my only Goodreads' five stars this year)
This Dark Road to Mercy, Wiley Cash (earned one of my only other Goodreads' five stars this year)
Calico Joe, John Grisham
The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Howard Bryant
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, Josh Hamilton

What other baseball books have you read?

And, Go Cubs!

A Review of 2009

In thinking ahead about what I want to read in 2010, it seems like a good thing to do to reflect back on what I read in 2009, which included 69 books either read or listened to. Some of my favorites were:

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller
Beach Music by Pat Conroy
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
South of Broad by Pat Conroy
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg
Souvenir by Therese Fowler (a classmate of mine in the English department at NC State)
Beyond Belief by Josh Hamilton
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson with David Oliver Relin

Last week, USA Today marked the end of the decade and listed the bestselling books of the 2000s. I have read them all. See the article here.

Recommended Author: Josh Hamilton

I’m planning to watch the MLB All-Star Game this evening, and I’ll be looking out specifically for the Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton. He recently published a memoir that I’ve read entitled, Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back. I was interested in the book because Josh, a couple years younger than me, and I are from the same place (Raleigh, NC), and I remember the buzz he created while he played baseball at Athens Drive High School.

He was drafted right out of high school by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 and he spent time playing minor league ball before an addiction to drugs helped him blow his several million dollars and sent him to rehab eight times. He was suspended from playing ball for several seasons while he tried to stay sober before he was picked up by the Cincinnati Reds.

When I read Beyond Belief, I simply couldn’t put it down. He narrates in an honest voice that really hooked me. He says the only reason he quit his drug addiction was because he relied on his religious faith to pull him through.

And he traveled a long journey to get where he is today, from a low point of selling his pregnant wife’s wedding ring to buy drugs, all the way to hitting a record-breaking 28 homers in last year’s Home Run Derby.

I can’t wait to watch him play tonight.

Summer Reading

Memorial Day is the first day of summer vacation for schoolchildren in Metro Atlanta, and the start of summer always makes me think ahead to what I’ll be reading this season. Several years ago, an English major friend and I began creating a summer reading list. Our reading group has grown and here are the 12 books we’re reading this season.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Irish Girls About Town by Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes and Cathy Kelly
My Life in France by Julia Child
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Beyond Belief by Josh Hamilton
Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding my True Voice by Maureen McCormick
Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates