Like lots of librarians-to-be, I'm a big fan of reading. In fact, I even won the "Reading Queen" title in Mr. Ellis' fifth grade class, quite a few years ago. I read three hundred and eighty six books that year.

These days, I try to read fifty good books in a year. Here are a few favorites from my 2005 reading list....

• Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia, Mark Salzman
• Emerald City and Other Stories, Jennifer Egan
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
• Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett
• The Manor and the Estate, Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Perfume, Patrick Suskind
• Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
• White Noise, Don Delillo
• Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• Circling the Drain, Amanda Davis
• Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
• Wonder Spot, Melissa Bank
• Underworld, Don Delillo
• Myth of You and Me, Leah Stewart
• Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, Koren Zailckas
• Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly
• Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander
• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, Melanie Rehak
• Snakes and Earrings, Kanehara Hitomi
• Wickett's Remedy, Myla Goldberg
• Shade's Children, Garth Nix
• The Drowning Tree, Carol Goodman
• Josie and Jack, Kelly Braffet
• Lying Awake, Mark Salzman
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer