The Inspired Writer

This is an attempt to track my reading habits and keep a list of the stuff I read. Somewhere is a list of books read in previous years – I’ll add them in if I find the lists. The information for 2007 and earlier is from blog posts on my other blogs. I read a *lot* more than this meagre list

If I write a review for a book, I’ll link it here.

Books Read in 2009
1. Dr. Spock’s baby and child care
2. Touchpoints
3. What to expect when you’re expecting
4. What to expect in the first year
5. Eating
6. The Girlfriend’s guide to pregnancy
7. Practical Parenting
8. Operating Instructions – a journal of my son’s first year – Anne Lamott
(June)
9.Three cups of tea – Greg
10. Spouse – Shobhaa De
11. Eat.Pray.Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
12. The Open Road – Pico Iyer
13. Skin – Margaret Mascarenhas
14. Writer Mama – Christina Katz (re-read)
15. 365 ways to change the world – Michael Norton (re-read)

Books Read in 2008
(January)
1. Curious Lives by Richard Bach
2. Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst
3. Leaving a Trace – Alexandra Johnson (Review)
4. The Magazines Handbook
(February)
5. The New Diary – Tristine Rainer
6. Pride and Prescience – Carrie Bebris
7. All that Remains – Patricia Cornwell
8. Make a real living as a freelance writer : Jenna Glatzer (Re-read) (Review)
9. If you want to write – Brenda Ueland
10. The Rough Guide to Children’s Books (5-11 years)
11. Writer Mama – Christina Katz (Review)
(March)
12. The Desperate Housewife’s guide to Life and Love – Caroline Jones
13. Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing
14. 2008 Poetry Writers Yearbook
15. 2007 Children’s Writers & Artists Yearbook
16. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
(June)
17. Let me stand alone – the journals of Rachel Corrie
18. The Postman (Il Postino) – Antonio Skarmeta (translated by Katherine Silver)
19. The Lady and the Unicorn – Tracy Chevalier 
(July)
20. Maximum Ride – James Patterson
21. Playing for Pizza – John Grisham
22. Granta Travel Anthology
23. The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
24. Dior on Dior – Christian Dior
25. Rubaiyyat – Omar Khayyam
(August)
26. One for my baby – Tony Parsons
27. Apassionata – Jilly Cooper
28. 15 thousand useful phrases
29. For one more day – Mitch Albom
30. Parmal, a Goan anthology – Vol 1, 2 & 5
31. Complications – Atul Gawande
32. Green tops in Goa – A K Sahay
33. How to win any argument – Robert Mayer
(September)
34. Illuminations – Walter Benjamin
35. Parmal (vol.6)
36. Prisoner of Birth – Jeffrey Archer
37. Rebecca’s Inheritance – Sushila Fonseca
38. Sea of Poppies – Amitava Ghosh
39. False Impressions – Jeffrey Archer
40. Bombay Rains and Bombay Girls – Anirban Bose
41. Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri
(October)
42. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World : An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to educate the World’s children – John Wood (Review)
43. Collected Essays – Graham Greene
44. The Writerly Life (selected non-fiction) – R K Narayanan
(November)
45. Byline – MJ Akbar
46. India in slow motion – Mark Tully
47. The guest of honour – Irving Wallace
48. The Essential Hemingway
49. Point of View – Somerset Maugham
(December)
50. The Almighty – Irving Wallace
51. Act of Treason – Vince Flynn
52. The Codex – Douglas Preston
53. Executive Privilege – Jay Brandon
54. Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother’s Soul
55. Pregnancy – Nutan Pandit
56. The Right to Write – Julia Cameron (re-read)
57. The Sound of Paper – Julia Cameron (re-read)
58. Fetal Attraction – Dr. Duru Shah
59. Writer Mama – Christina Katz (re-read)

Books Read in 2007 (31+)
1. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. Letters from London by C L R James
3. Writing Short Stories
4. Organising from the Inside Out by Julia Morgenstern
5. Bookless in Baghdad by Shashi Tharoor
6. The Messiah’s Handbook by Richard Bach
7. Me and Mr.Darcy by Alexandra Potter
8. The True Darcy Spirit by Elizabeth Aston
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling
10. On Writing by Stephen King
11. Love Letters : An anthology by Antonia Fraser
12. Write your life story
13. Becoming a Writer – Dorothea Brande
14. The Vein of Gold – Julia Cameron
15. Winning Writing Competitions
16. Pam Ayres : Surgically Enhanced
17. Make a real living as a freelance writer : Jenna Glatzer
18. Out of Fashion – edited by Carol Ann Duffy (Review)
19. How to walk in High Heels – The Girl’s Guide to Everything by Camilla Morton (Review)
20. Beach Road by James Patterson (Review)
21. Write by Sarah Quigley
22. Notes from a small island by Bill Bryson
23. The Nation’s favorite poems of Desire
24. Infinite Justice – Arundhati Roy
25. Sea Glass – Anita Shreve
26. The Place Within – Pope John Paul II (poetry)
27. Glamour – Louise Bagshawe
28. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
29. False Impressions -Jeffrey Archer
30. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
31. 101 poems that could save your life: An anthology of emotional first aid – Edited by Daisy Goodwin

Books Read in 2006 (30+)
1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – J K Rowling
2. Writing fundraising applications – Michael Norton
3. Finding your own north star – Martha Beck
4. A moveable feast – Hemingway
5. The sound of paper – Julia Cameron
6. A Writer’s Book of Days – Judy Reeves
7. Further under the Duvet – Marian Keyes
8. The Writer’s Way – Sara Maitland
9. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
10. Writing for magazines – Jill Dick
11. Writing bids and funding applications – Jane Dormer
12. Elegance – Kathleen Tessaro
13. Writing down the bones – Natalie Goldberg
14. How to write a novel
15. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
16. How to be good – Nick Hornby
17. The complete fundraising handbook
18. How to write successful fundraising applications – Mal Warwick
19. Living with writers
20. Paula: my story so far – Paula Radcliffe
21. The Nation’s favorite poems of celebration
22. The Pleasure of Reading – an anthology
23. The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency -Alexander McCall Smith
24. Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing -David Morrell
25. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
26. The Curious incident of the dog in the night time – Mark Haddon
27. The Great Hedge of India
28. Today Matters – John Maxwell
29. Talking it over – Julian Barnes
30. Yeats: Selected Prose – Edited by A Norman Jeffares

Books Read in 2005 (More than 1, certainly!)
1. Marigolds grow on Platforms (Poetry Anthology)

Books Read in 2004 (14+)
1. The Hours -Michael Cunningham
2. Beloved – Toni Morrison
3. Leaving Earth – Helen Humphreys
4. The Lemming Dilemma
5. The Living Company – Arie De Gues
6. The Da Vinci Code
7. The Art of Innovation – Tom Kelley
8. What Clients Love – Harry Beckwith
9. The Biography of Rudy Guiliani : Emperor of the city
10. Straight from the Gut – Jack Welch
11. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
12. The God Of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
13. Don’t stand too close to a naked man – Tim Allen
14. And the Violins stopped playing by Alexander Ramati