book it!

i always like to look back at the last year's reading list --- the ones that are highlighted were the best --- child's house of rain, powell's the accidental city, and aslan's two books were the best of the best:

Mason Currey, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Rob Pascale, The Retirement Maze: What You Should Know Before and After You Retire

Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853

Amy Stewart, The Drunken Botanist

Robert Kahn, City Secrets Rome: The Essential Insider's Guide

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop          

George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America                 

John Bradshaw, Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet

John Bradshaw, Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet

Craig Childs, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Everending Earth

Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam          

Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth         

Geronimo, Geronimo: The True Story of America's Most Ferocious Warrior      

Craig Childs, House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest

Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces  

J. Frederick Fausz, Founding St. Louis: First City of the New West

Christopher S. Parker, Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America

Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin           

Jesse Norman, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative

Michael Pollan, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Nevada Barr, Ill Wind

William D. Phillips Jr, A Concise History of Spain

David Roberts, The Pueblo Revolt

Mary Platt Parmele A Short History of Spain

Nicco Mele, The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath

Kenneth Henshall, A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower

Peter Ackroyd, Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors

Stephen Mansfield, Tokyo A Cultural History

Paul Kriwaczek, Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization

Colin Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City

Thomas F. Madden, Venice: A New History

Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe

Ross Burns, Damascus: A History

Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan

Lawrence N. Powell, The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans

Leonard E Boyle, A Short Guide to St. Clement's, Rome