|
sixoclockbells
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Sarah
Country: United States
State: Texas
Metro: San Antonio
Interests: Old leather books, cooking, C.S. Lewis, maps, sports, the outdoors, carpentry and embroidery, and the White Sox
Message: message me
Member Since:
4/19/2005
|
|
| I've moved. You can now find me at http://yellowpencilstub.wordpress.com/ . Still working out a few kinks in the new platform. This blog will stay up for a while as I collect and archive old posts. | | |
| Coworker, leaving in the evening: "Well, enjoy your time off. And don't even think about coming back from this trip not married!"
| | |
| Confused coworker: "So, what kind of religion are you, that you can attend both a Catholic and a Protestant church?"
Me: ".......uh, Christian?"
| | |
| Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will. | | |
| In keeping with the posts from last year and the year before, it's time for the end-of-year book review. After all, the little blue notebook I track books in was about the third thing I unpacked after moving. 2008 was unusually short on finished books (26). I only took one quarter of classes, and that as a part-time student, from January to March. While I read some books for class, lots of time went to digging through archives while writing my thesis. I read a lot, but it tended to be peoples' old letters and Civil War journals, or relevant snippets of books. My obsessive-compulsive side never lets me say I've actually read a book unless I've read all of it, no skipping. On top of that, it's been an exceptionally busy twelve months - writing a thesis, job hunting, moving to Texas, graduating, an intense job, getting engaged, wedding planning.
This seemed to be the year of the long book, so what was lost in number of books was often overcompensated for by the number of pages in any given brick...er, book. Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit weighs in at 850 pages of tiny print. One of his better, though less-read novels. Another 850-pager? George Eliot's Middlemarch. Amazing characters, good writing. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding is another long classic, ringing up more than 1000 pages. Problem is, the first 200 pages are hilarious. The last 100 are pretty good. What the other 700 exist for, I have no idea.
In a year of long books, it seemed fitting to finally plow through the long book of all long books: War and Peace. It's a good story, but I tend to be a little biased against Russian novels. A short book from a Russian novelist that I enjoyed far more over a few hot summer days? Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. Much less known than his famous book Lolita, Pnin swings from hilarious to bittersweet sentence by sentence. It's worth googling some discussions about the book when you've finished, but not before. Read it without extra input the first time, gauge your reactions afterward.
One of the nicest surprises of the year was Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. I love this book. It's a good story. It's funny. It's beautifully written. The characters, both charming and odious, are treated with tender good nature. You finish refreshed, and wishing you lived in 19th century rural England. I read it first, then tried two other novels from his Chronicles of Barsetshire (Framley Parsonage and The Warden). Similar and also fun (but not as good, because nothing could be as good as Barchester Towers): Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Especially good when received as a gift from Significant Other, and hungrily devoured in 15 minute breaks from thesis writing. In contrast, this fall I read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert is a genuinely amazing writing. He writes prose like poetry, captures moments, moods, people, like few men on earth...and leaves you utterly depressed, one of those first 19th century writers to dip their toe into 20th century moral woes, while retaining just 19th century rewards.
A few other random picks from the year: Gang Leader for a Day is a mesmerizing look at gang structure and life in a Chicago housing project. The author, a University of Chicago grad student, spent several years with the gang in a distinctly unorthodox research project. The Penderwicks is a childrens' chapter book, but loads of fun for grown-ups. A lot like the books my Mom picked as read alouds when we were younger. George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is his story of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, with a pretty good explanation of the war and its politics overall. Especially interesting since it tells of his service as a young socialist, before his later rejection of communism and publication of books like 1984 and Animal Farm.
Rather than going through all the books I read this year, I'll leave you with my two "Don't Bother Reading 'Em" awards for 2008: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (takes itself waaaaay too seriously. Almost put me to sleep at the wheel), and The Vicar of Wakefield (how did this ever become a classic? Things got bad. Then they got worse. Oh look, even worse! Lets add imprisonment! Burns. Poverty. Death! But look, it's good in the last two pages. Oh, happy day!)
Happy reading, and all the best in the New Year. Do you have any favorite reads from this year?
| | |
|
