Hello, 2013

Yes, I fell off the wagon. But I blame the books -- after The Power of Habit, I read Elif Shafak's Forty Rules of Love, and it was so terrible that I never wanted to think about it again, much less blog about it. So I stopped book blogging all together. :( 

In the end, I managed to read 25 books in 2012. Filling out the rest of the list were Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology, the fifth Game of Thrones book, Karen Essex's Dracula in Love, Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers, Fifty Shades of Grey (yup, I went there), Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, along with two books on screenwriting.

My final tally was not great, but it wasn't awful, either. Because I did read all five Game of Thrones books last year, and each of those is at least 800 pages. I also managed to write a screenplay. So, all in all, not so bad.

2012 Book Picks

My reading philosophy for 2012? Too many books, not enough time. I made a list in December, but it was WAY over 30, so I "delisted" about 20 books, putting them on my someday-in-the-future reading list. For the most part, they consisted of classics (The Golden Notebook, The Bell Jar) and books I'd like to read again (Diary of Anne Frank, House of the Spirits), though there were a couple of recent books published in the last couple of years that just didn't capture my attention enough (Unbroken, 1Q84, Cutting for Stone, Nothing Daunted) for the ultimate 2012 list but that I still hope I'll get to.

So I had my list down to 30, but already in the first 41 days of the year, I've added more and my 2012 list has burgeoned to 58. Seriously, 58? Who am I kidding? But I'll do what I can. I'm currently reading The Night Circus, as my e-book request was suddenly fulfilled at my library back home, but as soon as that's done, I plan to dive into the Game of Throne series. This year, I'm also hoping to finish the Phillip Pullman Golden Compass series (I still have to read The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass); be impressed by the travels of a number of ladies, including Julia Child, Vita Sackville-West and Freya Stark; tackle a couple of classics including Things Fall Apart, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Iliad and The Aeneid (though let's be honest, the last two could potentially take six months combined); read some recent/current favorites such as Bossypants, The Submission, A Discovery of Witches, and No One is Here Except All of Us; and finally, finally get to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

My job is keeping me pretty busy so unless something changes (please God, send me change in the form of a new job), my guess at the moment is that I'll probably read about 24 books this year. It's not great - certainly not the 30 books I aim for - but I suppose it could be worse.

What's on your reading list for this year?

Wrapping Up 2011: A Look Back

Happy New Year, everyone!

I am pleased to report that after the miserable reading years of 2009 and 2010, when I read only 23 and 24 books respectively, I came back strong to finish with 36 books for 2011. Hooray, go me. But really, it's mostly about life (which I suppose you can say for most things) - I moved to an non-English speaking country in the middle of this year and as a result, I read an awful lot of books as I was getting settled. I find this is always the case when I am far from home; in fact, I started this list the year that I was studying abroad in South America.

Looking back, the best books I read in 2011 were probably Daphne Kalotay's Russian Winter; Michelle Moran's Madame Tussaud, Ann Brashares' Sisterhood Everlasting; and Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. Interestingly, all books by women, all books featuring women, and three out of four set in a distinctly different time or place. And, perhaps most importantly, all four of these books have stayed with me in some way; while there were a number of other books this year that I quite enjoyed, I can't say I've ever really thought of them again.

As for the books I most disliked? Aside from the obvious - Francine Pascal's horrendous Sweet Valley Confidential - I'd have to go with Veronica Roth's Divergent; Paula McLain's The Paris Wife; Vendela Vida's The Lovers; Rhoda Janzen's Mennonite in a Little Black Dress; and Caitlin Kelly's Malled. While I also read a number of blah books this year (and admittedly, I am picky as hell - the longer I work as an editor, the worse it gets), these ones took the cake because, aside from Divergent,  they all had pretensions of being some kind of great work, which I didn't think they lived up to. These were all books that I actively disliked and seriously considered stopping reading in the middle.

But I hate stopping in the middle. It's a little silly since life is short and you can only read so many books, and admittedly, it's partially about the list. (I mean, if I only read half of a bunch of books, I'll never make it to 30). That said, there are a few books that I quit in the middle this year. And funny enough, I didn't hate any of them - in the case of Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife (which I know was nominated everywhere for best book of the year), Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter, and Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra, they just failed to fully grab my attention. With David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, I meant to go back and check it out from the library again, but it just never happened. It was good but wasn't good enough. And then, at the end of the year, I started War and Peace, which I quite liked though for no discernable reason, but found I didn't have the time to read it right now.

The reason I quit War and Peace is actually because I just started a new, time-consuming job. I could have kept going but it probably would have taken me six months to read it at the pace I was going. So it's put-off for another time. Same thing happened some years ago with The Brothers Karamazov, alas.

Anyway, next post...looking ahead to 2012!

What is a book?

As I previously blogged about, I've already reached my goal of reading 30 books this year - or did I? I feel genuinely conflicted. If I count literally every book I finished, I'm currently on #34...but if I start getting picky, I'm only on #27.

The problem is those damn Sweet Valley High books that I read in June, that bubblegum for the brain. Should they count? That is the question. Obviously, they are actual books, as thin and shallow as they might be. But I feel guilty counting them, like I'm gaming the system - because if I just read books like that, I could probably read 300 books a year, at least. And in fairness, in other years, young-adult novels have pumped up my tally.

I also read Blake Snyder's awesome screenwriting book Save the Cat at the end of May (though I didn't blog about it - hence the missing #15). I counted that too - but should I? It was a real book but pretty focused on how-to. I also debated whether or not to count the Genesis and Exodus, which I read with my students - I decided not to include them individually but instead bundled them with Robert Alter's Genesis commentary, which I read every word of.

At the end of the day, this debate matters little as this list is only for me, myself and I. I don't begrudge others their 100 books a year and the junk lit it takes to get there - to each his own reading experience. But this has really made me think again about what I read and why I started keeping track in the first place. I guess to me, when I say I want to read 30 books, I mean I really want to read 30 pieces of literature. That's why I feel icky about the Sweet Valley High books and unsure about the Bible or Save the Cat. They're books (duh) but not the kind of books that I'm trying to motivate myself to read.

Author Laura Fraser tackled these same questions on her website; she said that writing down her books read has made her much more picky, as it brings home the truth that there are only so many books you can read in a lifetime. At the time when I read that (all of two weeks ago), I said that my list hasn't kept me from reading crap but I've been thinking about this quite a bit since then.

The truth is, I don't want to read Sweet Valley High and crappy chick-lit (though it can make for some fun posts!). So I've regrouped and really looked at what I'd like to read in the remaining weeks of the year. My original list had 18 books on it. After a good think, I narrowed it down to the following nine +, a goodly feat in itself: Persuasion, The Iliad, The War That Killed Achilles, Bossypants, Divergent, Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace, The Submission, A Farewell to Arms and the Game of Thrones series.

I also decided to split the difference on my book list and will consider the year a reading success at 35 books total. Which is pretty much a given at this point - huzzah! - since Persuasion is #34 and I'm about 30 pages from the end at the beginning of November.

2011's Books: Better, Much Better

Let's forget the failures of the past, shall we? Yes. We. Are. Forgetting. Now.

Here's what I'm hoping to read this year, while also recognizing that this list invariably changes as new books come out and I get distracted by shiny things:

Ancient Classics (and helpers): Metamorphosis, The Aeneid, The Iliad, The War That Killed Achilles, It's All Greek to Me

Classics: Persuasion, Villette

Biography/Autobiography: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Cleopatra, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, The Talented Miss Highsmith, Kitchen Confidential

Non-Fiction Travel Tales: Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story, All Over the Map

Other Non-Fiction: Unbroken, Outliers

Fiction: An Object of Beauty, Mockingjay, Russian Winter, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Room, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Brightest Star in the Sky

Historical People, Fictionalized: The Red Queen, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, The Birth of Venus, Leonardo's Swans, Stealing Athena

For School: The Joy Luck Club, Shakespeare's Henry IV, Persepolis

All I can say is, wow, my taste in books has really changed in the last 10 years.

2010's Final Tally: Pathetic

And so that's where 2010 ended...at #24 with King Arthur. It is, in a word, pathetic. Especially since I am writing this post on January 16. But onto better and brighter things...really...because 2011 will be better and brighter. I hope.

2010 Books

So here we are, in 2010 with a clean slate. I can do better this year, seriously. Last year, I made a list of the books I'd like to tackle, but in the end, my reading choices mostly took me to other places. Still, I'd like to start 2010 with a few ideas...

So at the top of my list this year, we have: Wolf Hall, Waiter Rant, The Children's Book, Cast Member Confidential (about working at Disney), Shakespeare's Henry VIII, The Constant Gardener, The Subtle Knife (because there seems to be no movie forthcoming), Persuasion, Outliers, Ovid's Metamorphosis, Villette, The Lacuna, and Three Cups of Tea (which, success, I've already finished). That's nowhere near 30 books, but still a good list to start with.

On another note, I'm starting to see that there are a good number of people who read far more books a year than I do. Stephen King, in his Entertainment Weekly column, said that he read 100 BOOKS last year. How is that possible? Does the man do anything but read and write? All I can say is: wow. Oh, and we both really admire Revolutionary Road.

Then, yesterday, on Goodreads, I came across a little blurb for book challenges. I always thought 30 books a year was impressive, but silly me. One group plans to read 144 BOOKS this year. That's 12 a month. Wow. I glanced through a couple of profiles and some people have opted to go the romance/mystery route - and I suppose I could also handle 144 if I stuck to quick reads like Sue Grafton and Robert B. Parker (whom I love, don't get me wrong). But one entrant has already read Wolf Hall, in addition to four other books. Again, wow. Another Goodreads group plans to go for just a measly 50. Slackers. :)

2009 Tally - It's an F+

I'm embarrassed for two reasons: I only read 23 books in 2009 (the lowest tally since 2005's 22 books) and it's taken me 13 days of the new year to get around to blogging about it. Pathetic!

I have no idea what happened and no excuses to offer. Alas. Better luck next year?

My List of 30

Alright, so thinking about that list of the 1001 Greatest Books EVER in the wee hours has led me to think about my list of 30 for the year. I'm not sure why I made a list, except that I was a bit frustrated that I didn't read some of the books I intended to last year - I skipped a lot of "serious" ones in favor of easy reads.

I also want to re-read some great books this year. While I don't especially like re-reading - there are just too many out there - it troubles me to have forgotten the intricacies of books I absolutely love.

Okay, so here it is. I have no doubt that at the end of the year, I will find that I've read a completely different list.

I've already read four: Beach Babylon, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (as yet un-blogged)

The next 17 are previous un-read tomes I'd like to tackle:
5. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
6. The Subtle Knife
7. The Canterbury Tales
8. Lolita
9. The Beautiful and the Damned
10. The Golden Notebook
11. Alfred and Emily
12. War and Peace
13. 1,000 Years of Solitude
14. Revolutionary Road
15. The Reader
16. Metamorphosis
17. The Bell Jar
18. Hayden Herrera's biography of Frida Kahlo
19. Joanna Denny's Anne Boleyn
20. Nicholas and Alexandra
21. Outliers

And the ones I've already read and would like to read again:
Eat Pray Love, An Italian Affair, The Great Gatsby, A Moveable Feast, In the Skin of a Lion, Villette, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Red Tent, House of the Spirits, Farenheit 451, Slaughterhouse 5, My Father's Glory, and My Mother's Castle

And actually, if memory serves, 11 of these books are on the list of 1001 from the last post. (And some, bizarrely aren't - like A Moveable Feast, Farenheit 451, or The Canterbury Tales. What's up with that?) Hmm, maybe I should register myself after all...

Yes, I like making lists. Because don't you know, making lists of what you ought to be doing helps you put off doing it?!? Yes, let's keep making lists...

The 1% Well Read Challenge

Who'd have thunk it, but apparently there are reading challenges all over the Internet. Apparently there are also a heck of a lot of people blogging about their reading, just like me. I had no idea. I seriously need to spend more time surfing the web.

Anyway, I came across this website, http://1morechapter.com/, that presents the challenge to read 10 books in a year from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I've come across this hefty tome before in the library. And while I probably won't join the challenge, mostly because I've already made a list of my 30 books for this year (okay, so it's longer than 30 already, sue me), I was interested to see which of the 1001 books I've already read. The list has changed between editions, but I'll count both...I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.

Play along here: http://1morechapter.com/projects/1001-list/

Alright, so here goes:

1. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (hated it)
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
3. Atonement, Ian McEwan
4. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
5. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
6. Felicia's Journey, William Trevor
7. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
8. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
9. Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
10. Amongst Women, John McGahern
11. Possession, A.S. Byatt (This one has been axed from the current 1001 version. A crime against literature and the awesomeness that is Possession if you ask me...)
12. Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
13. Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
15. The Swimming-Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst
16. Beloved, Toni Morrison
17. An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
18. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marcia
19. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
20. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
21. The Handmaiden's Tale, Margaret Atwood
22. The Lover, Marguerite Duras
23. Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard
24. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
25. A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro
26. The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
27. The Shining, Stephen King
28. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
29. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

Okay, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the 1001 and already have 30. Since I don't want this to go on forever, I'm switching format:

Slaughterhouse-Five (31); 2001: A Space Odyssey (32); God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (33); Cat's Cradle (34); One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (35); Franny and Zooey (36); To Kill a Mockingbird (37); Breakfast at Tiffany's (38); The Lord of the Rings (39); The Talented Mr. Ripley (40); The Old Man and the Sea (41); The Catcher in the Rye (42); 1984 (43); Cry, the Beloved Country (44); Animal Farm (45); The Little Prince (46); The Grapes of Wrath (47); Rebecca (48); The Hobbit (49); Tender is the Night (50); Brave New World (51); A Farewell to Arms (52); The Sound and the Fury (53); Orlando (54); The Sun Also Rises (55); The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (56); The Great Gatsby (57); A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (58); A Room with a View (59); Heart of Darkness (60); Dracula (61); The Kreutzer Sonata (62); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (63); The Death of Ivan Ilyich (64); Return of the Native (65); Little Women (66); Crime and Punishment (67); Fathers and Sons (68); The Woman in White (69); Madame Bovary (70); Villette (71); The Scarlet Letter (72); Wuthering Heights (73); Jane Eyre (74); Le Pere Goriot (75); Last of the Mohicans (76); Frankenstein (77); Northanger Abbey (78); Pride and Prejudice (79); Gulliver's Travels (80)

Huh. I'm impressed with myself. I've read most of the stories in Borges' Labyrinths but didn't count it; I know I've also read some Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but can't actually remember which ones I read and which ones I just saw the movie of. What can I say, it all happened within the same time period and it's not really my genre. But I figure if I can't remember, I can't guess-timate.

But midway through I also realized why I don't give lists like this much attention - because they're invariably filled with books you ought to read but feel like taking a bullet. There are a number on there I started and put down early, within 30 pages or so. But there were also a few that deserve a special shout-out because I stopped reading them almost at the end - and I never do that. Except when a book is killing me slowly, which is what happened with In Cold Blood, A Passage to India, Jude the Obscure, Vanity Fair, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Oh me oh my, this was fun.

The Final Tally

I realize, of course, that it's not January 1 yet, but I am pretty sure that this is where my list ends for 2007...at #26. I could read another four books in six days if I were to choose the right ones, but speed-reading through books was never the point of this exercise. So, as I wipe away a tear for another year with less than 30 books read, I am going to dive into The Pillars of the Earth, a fat book that I only have from the library until January 9. Two people have told me it's one of the best books they've ever read, so I have high hopes. (I've just read High Fidelity, so I have to do this. Top 5 Favorite Books of All Time, in no particular order: Possession, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Red Tent, In the Skin of a Lion, and A Moveable Feast.)

See you next year!

30 Great Books in 2007?

So, as the name of this blog suggests, I'm supposed to read 30 books a year. I had a bit of a wake-up call on November 1 when I realized that I'm only on #20 with 8.5 weeks to go before the bells toll for 2008. Can I make it?

The answer is: yes. Or at least, I'm really going to try. I've got to buckle down and read a book a week, plus double up twice. Still, I think I can do it. I met my goal for week one (November 4-10) with The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (post coming next) and I've only got about 80 pages left of Atonement.

So let's start counting down to the new year. 10, 9, 8...

Alarming

Last month an AP-Ipsos poll found that 1 in 4 American adults haven't read a book in the past year. That's like 7 million people. And for people that had cracked open a book, the median number was 4, while women who classified themselves as readers generally read 9. Wow. Suddenly I am feeling much, much better about my blog.

CNN link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/08/21/reading.ap/

2006 Round-up

It is with a tear that I tally up this year's total. Though I have been maintaining this list for more years than I would like to count, this is the first using a blog, so I am sad and disappointed to report that the final number is: 28. It may be my lucky number, but it's two short of the goal. I guess I could blame it on my new job, which has kept me ridiculously busy, or just the holiday debauchery (which has kept me equally busy), but I'm sure you don't want to hear lame excuses. I don't suppose I can read two more books in an hour and 29 minutes?

New Year's Resolution #1: Read 30 books. Duh.

On a brighter note, I am looking forward to the books that 2007 will bring. In the queue right now (thank you Dallas Public Library) are...The Deception of the Emerald Ring (the third installment), Dreams of my Father (in progress), A Long Way Down (thanks for the loan, Craig), some Thomas L. Friedman, some Erik Larson, Lolita and The Turn of the Screw. I am looking forward to some long summer nights, a vacation in Oman, and a few more cozy winter nights in which my beloved books (and my cuddly canine) will be my companions.

Happy New Year!

30 Great Books

Yes, it's the title of my blog. Why? About ten years ago (god, can it have been that long?!?), I realized that I had stopped reading for pleasure - life had gotten in the way. As a lifelong bookworm, it was a problem that immediately needed to be rectified, so I set a goal to read, yes, 30 books a year. I was (and still am) dorky enough to keep a list, in order to keep myself on track. Some years I exceeded the quota, in others I failed miserably.

Will I be able to keep myself on track this year? When I finish a book, I will post a, er, post. I decided to go anonymous on this one, so I can love and hate with impunity, and will suffer no criticism for my literary choices.

Numbers one through 18, so far...
(1) Jane Eyre, Bronte (2)Something Borrowed, Giffin (3)Something Blue, Giffin (4)How to Sleep with a Movie Star, Harmel (5)Summer in the City, Sisman (6)Busting Vegas, Mezrich (7)London, Rutherfurd (8)The Second Assistant, Naylor and Hare (9)The Geographer's Library, Faisman (10) The Know-it-All, Jacobs (11) The Historian, Kostova (12) Baby Proof, Giffin (13)School Days, Parker (14)Mayflower, Philbrick (15) Zorro, Allende (16) The Professor and the Madman, Winchester (17) Marley and Me, Grogan (18) The Beach, Garland