Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A P.S. and a Year-Long Meme

When I did my 2010 stats and then went over to Ms. Musing's place to read her own roundup of the year, I realized that I had somehow managed to leave out a couple of my normal categories. Then, I read through my post again to discover that I had also forgotten to give you one of my "least favorites." So, here I am, giving you a P.S. to that post and revisiting 2010 one more time before I let go and admit that we are, yes, in 2011, and that 1981, was not just a little while ago, but was, rather, thirty! years ago. Here you go:

Forgotten categories:

# of fiction titles read:
76 (this excludes poetry and drama)
FAVORITE: Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham. Somerset Maugham is an all-time favorite.
LEAST FAVORITE: Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers. Too predictable and trying too hard, by being gimmicky, to be original. I immediately gave it away to the library after I finished it.

# of nonfiction titles read: 16
FAVORITE: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal. Rarely, very rarely, do I sit down to "take a look" at a book one afternoon and have to drop everything else until I finish it the next morning. A wonderful little gem.
LEAST FAVORITE: Ghosts among Us by James Van Praagh. Oh, I wanted so, so badly to believe him, but I just couldn't. He had way too many loose ends and unanswered questions.

Forgotten least favorite:

LEAST FAVORITE CHILDREN'S/YA BOOK: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling. Again, not because I didn't like it. I did. It's just that it didn't come close to measuring up to the others I read in this category.

And, now reminiscing about reading an Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life has reminded me of a meme. A couple of years ago, before I read that book, some of you had embarked on a meme in which you were going through the alphabet and writing about important people/places/things in your life that began with each letter, one blog post per letter. I thought it was a great idea and planned to do it myself, but then, other blog posts got in the way, and I never got around to it. When I read the book, I suddenly realized that the meme must have originated with it. Someone had read Krause Rosenthal's book and had decided to use the technique on her blog (I'm guessing it was "her," which may be very sexist of me). Again, I was inspired to pick up on the meme, but I never did.

Well, now, I finally plan to pick up on it. I will start with the letter A and work my way through Z throughout this year. Stay tuned for the letter A post, coming soon...

4 comments:

Susan said...

Dear Emily: I hope you know how bad you are for my reading list. I've added 3 books already from your last three posts. I am sad that you didn't like Harry Potter though. I do think they are fun reads, and it is a good story (if predictable) that she tells. I also get annoyed that he rarely says thank you to anyone. just like a real orphan! lol

I am really curious about your meme, and look forward very much to reading it.

One of my New Year's things to do is to finally, write a long-over due letter to a certain dear blogging friend. I don't suppose I could claim it got held up at the post office, could I??? :-D

litlove said...

Mister Litlove gave me The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life for Christmas - I am looking forward to it very much!

Carrie#K said...

Encylopedia sounds like an intriguing read and meme.

1981 was 30 years ago??? Are you sure?

Emily Barton said...

Susan, lol the feeling is mutual. You do unprecedented damage to my TBR tome. And I can't think of a nicer New Year's resolution (but no pressure).

Litlove, just make sure when you sit down t read it that you've got hours of uninterrupted time to do so.

CarrieK, I wish I could say, "Well, maybe I've got it wrong. I'm not very good at math." But everyone who reads this blog knows that's not true.