Check out this lifelong bookworm's reading list for late summer and autumn

July 23, 2016

I'm stepping out of the garden and settling into my reading chair for this column, with a a recap of many of the fifty books I chose for a reading challenge I finished recently. Some of my fellow bookworms have asked me to write about the book list and its categories for this column. So, if you need a beach book or a volume that will spark your mind or your heart, you might find these categories helpful. I've included comments about some of my choices – and Benjamin BadKitten, that furry connoisseur of the written word (as long as it spells “tuna,” offers his literary thoughts at the end.

• A book with more than 500 pages: The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser. Takes Anglophiles from the Romans to the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
• A book that became a movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. A favorite of my teenage youth group, but it felt dark and heartbreaking to me.
• A book with a number in the title: The Second Confession by Rex Stout,1949, part of Stout's classic Nero Wolfe mysteries.
• A book written by someone under 30: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy. Blunt, coming-of-age novel about overweight teenager, whose mother is former small-town Texas beauty queen.
• A book with nonhuman characters: The Easter Egg by Jan Brett. Already read The Hobbit, so chose this beautifully illustrated picture book for my grandchildren.
• A funny book: Small Victories by Anne Lamott Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, Lamott might offer you hope and grace, with her honesty, power and wit.
• A book by a female author: If You only Knew by Kristan Higgins. Two sisters' lives intertwine in New York.
• A mystery or thriller: Betrayed by Lisa Scottoline. Legal thriller in the Rosato & Associates series.
• A book with a one-word title: Unforgettable by Scott Simon. Colorful memoir of his mother, by the NPR correspondent.
• A book set in a different country: On Rue Tatin by Susan Hermann Loomis. American family buys fixer-upper in French countryside.
• A nonfiction book: Drama High by Michael Sokelove. I write plays for teenagers and was inspired by this inner-city memoir.
• A popular author's first book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. I've read the Hogwarts series several times.
• A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet: Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon. Latest in her Mitford series.
• A Pulitzer Prize-winning book: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960.)Scandal in the U.S. Congress, still relevant today for political junkies like me.
• A book based on a true story: Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden. Two young, New York society women in 1916, travel cross-country to teach school in Colorado. Delightful.
• A book at the bottom of your to-read list: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Excellent election season reading: Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War Cabinet members.
• A book more than 100 years old: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I re-read it every few years.
• A book based solely on its cover: Nearly any garden book, especially Tasha Tudor's Garden.
• A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Silas Marner by George Eliot. Decades later, I realize I have missed two feminist classics and will read each of them.
• A memoir: Journal of a solitude by poet May Sarton.
• A book with antonyms in the title: Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman (1964.) Jolting look at the complexities of a teacher's life.
• A trilogy: Dark Witch, Shadow Spell, Blood Magick by Nora Roberts. I love Roberts' passionate Irish witches.
• A book from your childhood: The Beany Malone series by Lenora Mattingly Weber (1950s.) These beloved books about a motherless family were my girlhood escape.
• A book with a love triangle: Grace Valley trilogy by Robyn Carr. Country doctorand her patients.
• A book set in the future: Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine. Steam-punk. Printed books are banned and the Great Library controls all knowledge.
• A book set in high school: The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Brilliant.
• A book that made you cry: The Promise of Rest by Reynolds Price. Southern family's pain and reconciliation over the personal toll of AIDS and racism.
• A book you own but have never read: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Catholic guilt and grace in aristocratic British family in 1923.
• A book that takes place in your hometown: Heavier than Heaven by Charles R. Cross. Biography of grunge rock star Curt Cobain, born in Aberdeen Washington.
• A banned book: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Then I re-read all of Salinger's work.
• A book you started but never finished: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Benjamin BadKitten enjoys helping me read. When I'm cozy in my chair, with my latest book and a nearby cup of tea, he hoists himself onto my lap. His arrival topples my book and makes reading nearly impossible, because my cat takes all the room on my lap and overlaps at the sides. He doesn't feel guilty about this, because he knows that the world's greatest literary masterpiece has not yet been written: BBK: My Lives. He's still waiting for a ghostwriter.