I know some of you read, too. I keep talking about my books, what I read, how great of a reader I am, my favorites, books I bought: such is the self-indulgent nature of blogs (really, whaddyagonnado?). But I’d like to know if you read something you liked, too. Please?
AGGHGHGH, that was so hard. me ME memememe I iiii ….ahhhhh, much better.
2008 is breaths away and the Pencils are ready!
Right now, Mr. Pencil is moving his telescope (laboriously) down from the 4th floor (attic) in Chez Pencil, with the goal of getting a good look at Mars. Mars, see, the planet, it’s closer to earth this week than it will be for another dozen or more years. Something along those lines.
Being sick this weekend gave us a wonderful opportunity to catch up on some much-neglected Warcraft-ing. All in all, one of the least productive weekends in a while, and, except for our sickness (me: sore throat, snot; him: snot, sinusy, coughing), it was everything I could ever hope for. Between bouts of Warcraft there was napping and eating and drinking. And some reading. Although it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it through 1000-page book #52 by midnight (I’m on page 650).
I’m honestly excited about 2008. I kind of have a knack for objective- and goal-setting (I’m strangely organized in that department. Go figure.) and so I’m whipping up some mighty-detailed spreadsheets for stuff I want to do in the coming year.
My 2007 goals went fairly well, with an overall success rate of about 60%. I want to aim to achieve 75% of this year’s goals, however. Woop!
By the way, this post didn’t so much have a point as it had several, unplanned ones. Sorry.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Yeah, given the oft-itinerant nature of blog visitors (at least among us leaves, if you will), it’s a lot easier to talk about one’s self than open the floor for discussion. Also, for several seconds there, I thought you had typed “meme meme”, and I asked myself, “Is discussing favorite books really even a blog meme? Don’t people do that all the time?”
I read pitifully few books in 2007. But one I did like was “If on a winter’s night a traveler” by Italo Calvino. I’d somehow stumbled upon its opening chapter online somewhere and was hooked by its metaness. The book only got weirder from there, it turns out.
I imagine you might like the book much more than I did, since it’s all about books — the act of reading and the act of writing. You likely know more about such things than I.
January 9th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark by Brian Hall
This novel was beautifully written and employed tricks of which I am not usually fond. Such was the talent of this writer, that what might otherwise have seemed gimmick-y was instead moving and engaging. His prose was beautiful and his ability to capture the voice of a women (let alone one who barely spoke the language of the white heathens) was compelling and had veracity I rarely find in men attempting to write in a woman’s voice.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I forgot that I read IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER this year! That was pretty terrific. As were the two McCarthy books I read (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THE RoAD).
My favorite new discovery (fiction) this year was Paul Auster: so far I have read IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS and (my first book of 2008) THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS. Very different books, and the latter may be more interesting to a filmmaker than not, but the former is highly recommended post-apocalyptica.
Non-fictionwise, my flatmate gave me Geoff Dyer’s THE ONGOING MOMENT for my birthday and it was an astoundingly terrific meditation on photography and subliminal connections across the work of different photographers.