The last one we attended was in October 2011. We weren’t married then. Weird.

We tried giving ourselves a $10 limit–$20 total, but the library had so much good stuff this time. (I must say that I only chose enough books to spend $7.50. SOMEBODY’s restraint needs to be checked. But also take note that I didn’t object too strongly to Reilly’s choices. See below.)

We took inventory of this year’s loot. We picked up a few duplicates of books we already have, but we’re replacing the ugly copies with cooler ones. Also, I’ m sorry about the capitalization. Reilly read the titles to me for me to type quickly, and I didn’t want to have to think about which letters in an author’s name got the capital treatment in addition to spelling the authors correctly. Yes, in other words, I got lazy. But at least I italicized the titles. Know that all titles have conventional capitalization.

Reilly’s shelving the books right now. I’m off to look over a friend’s master’s thesis. This is our relationship.

1. angelou    maya    i know why the caged bird sings
2. austen    jane    persuasion
3. banks    russell    cloudsplitter
4. bellow    saul    collected stories
5. benoit    pierre    l’ile verte*
6. boccaccio    giovanni    the decameron
7. byatt    a.s.    possession*
8. chabon    michael    summerland
9. de maupassant    guy    short stories*
10. de troyes    chretien    arthurian romances
11. dillard    annie    an american childhood*
12. eco    umberto    the name of the rose
13. enger    leif    peace like a river*
14. erdrich    louise    beet queen
15. faulkner    william    collected stories
16. frazier    charles    cold mountain
17. gilmour    david    the film club
18. hardy    thomas    the collective novels, volume 2
19. hernandez    amado v    rice grains*
20. irving    john    trying to save piggy sneed
21. jackson    shirley    come along with me
22. kingsolver    barbara    pigs in heaven
23. kingsolver    barbara    the lacuna
24. kingsolver    barbara    the bean trees
25. lahira    jhumpa    the namesake
26. lamott    anne    crooked little heart
27. lecasble    guillaume    lobster
28. lehane    dennis    coronado
29. lessing    doris    the memoirs of a survivor
30. mann    thomas    the magic mountain
31. nemirovsky    irene    sweet francaise
32. oates    joyce carol    we were the mulvaneys
33. oates    joyce carol    black water
34. ondaatje    michael    divisadero
35. ondaatje    michael    the cat’s table
36. pasternak    boris    doctor zhivago
37. rousseau    jean-jacques    le contrat social*
38. saarikoski    pentti    poems*
39. saramago    jose    seeing
40. saramago    jose    the double
41. saramago    jose    the gospel according to jesus christ
42. smith    zadie     on beauty*
43. smith    zadie     white teeth*
44. smith    betty    a tree grows in brooklyn
45. sontag    susan    volcano lover
46. thayer hamann    hilary    anthropology of an american girl
47. twain    mark    a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court

*Titles I chose.