50 Books in 2009, an update

I've hit the halfway mark! Both the Kindle and the Twilight series were large factors in keeping my reading interest high when work was trying to get the best of me. The teen-lit vampire series was strangely addicting, though not particularly well-written and full of the WRONG kind of messages for teenage girls. Girls, being controlled by your boyfriend =/= love. Still, it was light and quick.

However, I have two clear-cut favors so far. In the non-fiction categories, 'Guests of the Ayatollah' by Mark Bowden wins out. It was a really interesting and vivid portrayal of the Iran embassy hostage crisis. While it was a long book, it was pretty engrossing. Points to Bowden for making sense of the acronyms from so many different branches of the USG.

For fiction, I loved loved loved Jhumpi Lahiri's 'An Unaccustomed Earth'! This collection of short stories follows several different Bengali characters as they search and struggle to find their places in the world. It was a gorgeous book and I would recommend it along with all of Lahiri's other books.

25 more to go!