Mindy’s show began an hour long format as of yesterday, so we got twice as much time to talk about books! Here is the list from today’s show:

Jill’s Picks

The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr.

The House in Good Taste by Elsie de Wolfe (not available in CLAMS, but it IS available off-Cape in the Virtual Catalog … don’t know what the virt cat is? Ask your local librarian!

Outlaw Marriages: the hidden histories of fifteen extraordinary same-sex couples by Rodger Streitmatter (includes Elsie de Wolfe and her partner Bessie Marbury)

Buddenbrooks: the decline of a family by Thomas Mann

Rooms to Inspire by the Sea by Annie Kelly (includes John Derian’s house in Provincetown)

The Wallpaper Book by Geneviève Brunet

The Outdoor Shower by Ethan Fierro

Coastal Living Outdoor Spaces

Designers At Home: personal reflections on stylish living by Ronda Rice Carman

Melanie’s Picks

Living in a Nutshell: Posh and Portable Decorating Ideas for Small Spaces by Janet Lee

Good Bones, Great Pieces: The Seven Essential Pieces That Will Carry You Through a Lifetime by Suzanne & Lauren McGrath

Country Living – Decorating with White edited by Gina Lyams

A Home of Your Own: Creating Interiors with Character by Sally Coulthard

100 Ways to Happy Chic Your Life by Jonathan Adler

Living Simple, Free & Happy: How to Simplify, Declutter Your Home, and Reduce Stress, Debt and Waste by Christin Frank

Playful Home: Creative Style Ideas for Living with Kids by Andrew Weaving

Listener Pick

The Apartment Therapy Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com)

This morning on The Point with Mindy Todd, Melanie Lauwers, Jill Erickson, and Mindy Todd talked about new non-fiction books, and what the difference is between fiction and non-fiction. If you missed the live show, you can listen at 7:30 PM on WCAI or listen to the podcast anytime. As always, we had more books than we had time for, but we’ve listed all titles both discussed and not discussed below.

Jill’s Picks

Good Prose: the art of nonfiction by Tracy Kidder & Richard Todd

African Lives: an anthology of memoirs and autobiographies edited by Geoff Wisner

Superman: the unauthorized biography by Glen Weldon And here is a link to an episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour … http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129472378

The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: true tales of food, family & how we learn to eat edited by Caroline M. Grant & Lisa Catherine Harper

“With éclat”: the Boston Athenaeum and the Origin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by Hina Hirayama. Exhibit is called: “Brilliant Beginnings: the Athenæum and the Museum in Boston” which will be up until August 3, 2013.

Not Enough Time For:

APE: author, publisher, entrepreneur by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

Lost Cat: a true story of love, desperation, and GPS technology by Caroline Paul with drawings by Wendy MacNaughton

The Pinecone: the story of Sarah Losh, forgotten romantic heroine – antiquarian, architect, and visionary by Jenny Uglow

Her: a memoir by Christa Parravani

Melanie’s Picks

Let Them Be Eaten by Bears: A Fearless Guide to Taking Our Kids into the Great Outdoors by Peter Brown Hoffmeister

Snob Zones: Fear, Prejudice and Real Estate by Lisa Prevost

Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods byChristine Byl

Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation by Steve Vogel

For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England by Allegra Di Bonaventura

Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us by Christine Gross-Loh

Not mentioned but new and worthy:

Child Identity Theft: What Every Parent Needs to Know by Robert P. Chappell, Jr.

Concussions and Our Kids by Robert Cantu, M.D.

Dinner with the Smiley’s: One Military Family, One Year of Heroes, and Lessons for a Lifetime by Sarah Smiley

This morning (a week behind schedule, our last Wednesday of the month show had to be rescheduled due to Melanie’s cold) we talked about Self-Help books. If there is a book topic that YOU would like to suggest to us, e-mail us at thepoint@wgbh.org with the subject heading POINT TOPIC. We’re always interested in knowing what kind of book you might want us to discuss. Some of the topics we are considering for the coming year include religious/spiritual books, mysteries, travel, and books that are good for book groups. We’ll be back on air on the last Wednesday of this month, February 27th.

Jill’s Picks

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (My edition was translated and with a foreword by Stephen Mitchell. Thanks to Patty for letting us know that the first letter was written in 1903, and originally published in 1929.)

Aging as a Spiritual Practice: a contemplative guide to growing older and wiser by Lewis Richmond

Throw Out Fifty Things : clear the clutter, find your life by Gail Blanke

The Unapologetic Fat Girl’s Guide to Exercise : and other incendiary acts by Hanne Blank

Changeology : 5 steps to realizing your goals and resolutions by John C. Norcross

50 Self-Help Classics : 50 inspirational books to transform your life, from timeless sages to contemporary gurus by Tom Butler-Bowdon

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

Melanie’s Picks

Your Food is Fooling You: How Your Brain is Hijacked by Sugar, Fat, and Salt by David A. Kessler, M.D.

Family Inc. by Caitlin and Andrew Friedman

Believable Hope: Five Essential Elements to Beat Any Addiction by Michael Cartwright

Master Class: Living Longer, Stronger, and Happier by Peter Spiers

Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Body by You: The You Are Your Own Gym Guide to Total Women’s Fitness by Mark Lauren

Listener Picks

The Power to Heal Myself by Betty Jean Wall (www.bettyjeanwall.com)

A Course in Miracles

Today Mindy, Melanie, and I talked about our favorite books of the year on The Point with Mindy Todd on WCAI (90.1). This is an eclectic list, and most of the books were not published this year, but we read them this year. This is always one of my favorite shows that we do, as we can share books that we really loved to read. So below the 2012 edition of our books of the year list (even if they were published originally in 1948!). Miss the show? You can listen at 7:30 PM tonight or you can always listen to the podcast on WCAI. By the way, as of this month we now have a regular monthly slot. You’ll be able to hear us talk about books on the last Wednesday of the month!

Mindy’s Picks

The Whip: a novel by Karen Kondazian

Fatal Decision: Edith Cavell, World War I Nurse by Terri Arthur

Riding on Duke’s Train by Mick Carlon

Travels With Louis by Mick Carlon

In the Words of E. B. White : Quotations from America’s Most Companionable of Writers, edited by Martha White

Branded on My Arm and in My Soul: a Holocaust memoir by Abraham W. Landau

Melanie’s Picks

Behind the Beautiful Forevers : Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

The Long Walk: a story of war and the life that follows by Brian Castner

Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill

The Twelve by Justin Cronin (second novel in the Passage Trilogy, first novel was called The Passage).

The Swerve: how the world became modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Other Favorites of 2012

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The Unconquered: in search of the Amazon’s last uncontacted tribes by Scott Wallace

Surviving Survival: the art and science of resilience by Laurence Gonzales

Rain Falls Like Mercy by Jack Todd

Jill’s Picks

The Silent History by Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett. Right now only available as an app for your iPhone, iPad, or iPodTouch. You can sample one volume for $1.99 or get the full version for $9.99. Want to know more? Check out their web site at www.thesilenthistory.com One of the things I really love about this, is that it gives me the feeling of reading a 19th century serial novel (like Dickens) that used to arrive in pieces, as it too arrives in little bits each day.

With My Body by Nikki Gemmell

Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell (many editions, I read the Library of America version, which has great footnotes as well)

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Other Favorites of 2012

My Ideal Bookshelf Art by Jane Mount, edited by Thessaly La Force. The book to read once you have run out of things to read.

Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust. As many of our regular listeners know, I’ve been reading Proust aloud with a friend for the past three years. This year we finished! The translation that we read of this volume was by Ian Patterson.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. A young adult novel that is both funny and heartbreaking.

The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis. A Sufi poem with fabulous illustrations.

Today’s show was pre-recorded, but Joel from Brewster called in after the show to add three of his favorite books of the year:

The Island of Lost Maps : A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey

The Aran Islands by John M Synge

The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas

This morning Mindy, Melanie, and I talked about books about writing. This will be an extra long list of books because I want to include a list of what have become classics, which we really didn’t talk about (other than Strunk & White) and include the list of books for which we didn’t have time. We are always amazed at how quickly a half hour goes by, and that was without any of you calling in! If you’d like to add a book to this list, just e-mail jerickson@falmouthpubliclibrary.org, and I can add your favorite book for writers!

I’m also going to recommend a web site (but if you are trying not to procrastinate, stay away), which is called Brain Pickings (http://www.brainpickings.org). This is where I first read the Charles Bukowski poem “so you want to be a writer?”, and also where there is a link to the poem being read aloud.

Jill’s Picks

Self-Help: stories by Lorrie Moore includes the story “How to Become a Writer”.

Sifting Through the Madness for the word, the line, the way: new poems by Charles Bukowski includes the poem “so you want to be a writer?”.

Plotto: the master book of all plots by William Wallace Cook.

Learning a Trade: a craftsman’s notebooks, 1955-1997 by Reynolds Price.

The Poet’s Companion: a guide to the pleasures of writing poetry by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux.

The Elements of Style by Willilam Strunk Jr., and E. B. White, illustrated by Maira Kalman

Book of Poisons: a guide for writers by Serita Stevens and Anne Bannon (part of the Howdunit Series)

Forensics: a guide for writers by D. P. Lyle, M.D. (part of the Howdunit Series)

The Art of Series published by Graywolf Press.

The Art of Subtext: beyond plot by Charles Baxter

The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts

The Art of the Ending by Amy Bloom (forthcoming)

The Art of Description by Mark Doty

The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach

The Art of Attention: a poet’s eye by Donald Revell

The Art of Time in Fiction: as long as it takes</em> by Joan Silber

The Art of Syntax: rhythm of thought, rhythm of song by Ellen Bryant Voigt

The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young

The Art of the Voice by Z.Z. Packer (forthcoming)