The Mysterious Book List

Our beloved little Lady died very unexpectedly yesterday, and I plan to post a memorial to her soon, but I’m not ready today. Thank you to both Cam and Charlotte, from whom I got this irresistible list (as if I haven’t bored everyone enough in the past few months with multiple book lists). Retreating into books and thinking about them is a natural thing to do for me at a time like this, and this made for a nice and easy post on a day in which the real sun may be brightly shining and reflecting off the snow, but where dark clouds hang for Bob and me over the places where the little footprints should be.

I have no idea where the list originated, nor how these books were chosen (I’m wondering if someone just listed everything she had on a bookshelf or something. I say "she" because of such entries as Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Bridget Jones’s Diary. All you men out there who have read these books can tell me I’m being horribly sexist, but none of my male friends has ever told me he's read either one). If it wasn’t something as random as that, I have no idea, because it seems an extremely odd list. These were the instructions:

Bold the ones you’ve read, italicise the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf (I’m counting anything that’s on any of our bookshelves, whether it’s Bob’s book or mine), and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of. As others have done, I’m leaving the ones about which I feel indifferent unmarked.

1. + The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) By now everyone knows how I feel about this one.

2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Perfect to read, perfect to listen to on tape, perfect to watch on DVD.

3. + To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) Oh how I wish Harper Lee had written more, but how could she?

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) Really would like to read, but have too many other things to read first. Besides, I’ve seen the movie.

5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) Been there, couldn’t do that, won’t try anymore (this goes for the next two as well).

6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)

7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Have no idea why I’ve never read this, but I do hope I get around to it one of these days.

9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) Tried it. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out what all the fuss was about. Abandoned it.

10. * A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) Never heard of it. Someone who has, please enlighten me.

11. + Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) I’ve only made it to the third Harry Potter, but plan to read all of them eventually (repeat this sentence for each Harry Potter on the list).

12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) I suppose if I were locked in a room with nothing else on the shelf to read except a stack of National Enquirers (and I’d devour the NEs first).

13. + Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)

14. + A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) Way, way up, very near the top on a list of my all-time favorite books (and one of the few books I’ve read in my adult life more than twice)

15. + Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) Really, really do want to read it.

16. + Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)

17. * Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald) Again. I need enlightening.

18. + The Stand (Stephen King) Because both Bob and Hobs have told me I need to read it.

19. + Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)

20. + Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) Another all-time favorite. Soon, it too, will be one I’ve read more than twice as an adult.

21. + The Hobbit (Tolkien) I don’t suppose it counts if a teacher read it to the class, and you spent the whole time drawing and coloring and paid absolutely no attention whatsoever?

22. + The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) One I’d like to reread at some point.

23. + Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) Multiple times.

24. + The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) What a lovely book that was.

25. + Life of Pi (Yann Martel) This is one of my brother’s favorite books, and he gave it to me. Sadly, I have yet to read it, although I’m sure it’s going to be fabulous when I finally do.

26. + The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Funny, funny, funny.

27. + Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) I’ve written about this one before.

28. + The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) Didn’t care for it nor any of the Narnia books as a kid as much as everyone else seemed to. Liked it a bit better as an adult, but still much prefer other children’s fantasies.

29. + East of Eden (John Steinbeck) I’m woefully behind when it comes to reading everything by Steinbeck. Have read Of Mice and Men, and that’s it.

30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) Found this much more interesting than I expected when I picked it up at a friend’s house just to “browse” it, and was still reading it an hour later. Had to check it out from the library to finish it.

31. + Dune (Frank Herbert) Read it for a college course. Found it extraordinarily tedious.

32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) Want to read to see what all the fuss is about, but have a feeling I’m not going to like it, so keep putting it off.

33. + Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) I just have no desire to read any Ayn Rand.

34. 1984 (Orwell) ? I’ve written about this one before, too. At most, I’ve skimmed it, which means I haven’t really read it.

35. + The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) I think I want to, but again, not really sure I’m going to like it, so it’s not a high priority.

36. + The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) Absolutely, completely surprised that I loved this one (Ken Follett? Never in a million years would I have thought I’d say that about a book of his) recommended to both Bob and me by friends whose reading tastes we trusted.

37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) This really, technically, should have an *, I suppose. Have only just heard of it, know nothing about it, and don’t feel anything about it. Really.

38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) Sort of want to read it, because of the subject matter, but a little worried, because She’s Come Undone rang hollow for me.

39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) Want to read it, but am afraid I’m going to find it way too depressing.

40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) Again, it’s not too far up on the list, but I’m somewhat intrigued.

41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) Tried. Just couldn’t get into it.

42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) Very mixed feelings about this book that didn’t unmix themselves, even by the time I got to the end of it. Interesting story. Not particularly well written, and way too many coincidences for my taste. Still, I learned a lot about a culture I really know nothing about. And some of the characters were very likeable.

43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) I might like it if I read it, but I’m not drawn enough to it to find out.

44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) Well, I didn’t expect to like Tuesdays with Morrie, but a little of that sort of stuff goes a long way with me.

45. + Bible (Haven’t read the Apocypha) Fascinating, fascinating read (if you can get through the long, boring parts)

46. +Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)) I’ve written about this one as well.

47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) Seen the movie, really want to read the book, just haven’t gotten around to it.

48. + Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) And I keep promising myself I’m going to stop reading memoirs about horrible, harsh childhoods, and then I end up being seduced by them.

49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Already commented on Steinbeck.

50. +She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) See #32

51. +The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) I know, I know, I know. Everyone under the sun has told me: I have to read it.

52. + A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) Ditto.

53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) I’m just not into this sort of stuff.

54. + Great Expectations (Dickens) Ditto 51 and 52.

55. + The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) I want to re-read it soon.

56. * The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) I need enlightening again.

57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)

58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) Read it years ago. Don’t think I’d like it if I read it today.

59. + The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) I’ve read other Atwood and loved it. Don’t know why I haven’t read this classic.

60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) Will read soon.

61. + Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) One of The Greats.

62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

63. + War and Peace (Tolstoy) Another one of The Greats.

64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) Used to think I wanted to read this, but I’ve lost interest (despite being a huge fan of vampires).

65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) I love what little of Robertson Davies I’ve read. Must read more.

66. + One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) Another one I want to re-read.

67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) All the young women and teen girls I know just love this one.

68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) Have never been all that interested in this one until recently when my brother-in-law told me he once had a student who compared it to Aristophanes. I love, love, love Aristophanes, so it’s now on my TBR list.

69. Les Miserables (Hugo) One day, I hope I’ll be able to say, “I’ve read it!”

70. + The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) Lovely little book. I haven’t read it in years, though.

71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) Laugh-out-loud funny.

72. + Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Another one of The Greats.

73. + Shogun (James Clavell) Only interested because Bob loves Clavell, so maybe one day, I’ll get around to reading it.

74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) I really just don’t feel one way or the other about it. Same with the movie.

75. + The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) As a child and as an adult. Enchanting.

76. * The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay) I like the title, but never heard of it.

77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) I plan to reread this one this year. Loved it at age thirteen. Hope I still will.

78. + The World According To Garp (John Irving) One I should reread. I haven’t read it since I was fifteen.

79. * The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)

80. + Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) And Stuart Little, which is oddly absent from this list, as well.

81. * Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) Haven’t a clue what this is.

82. + Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) Ahhh. There’s the one Steinbeck I’ve read.

83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) Read and reread.

84. * Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) What is this?

85. + Emma (Jane Austen) Read and reread.

86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) Have always been meaning to reread.

87. + Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) Hope to read soon.

88. * The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) Another one whose title sounds interesting

89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) Thanks to Dorr, I want to read this, and even checked it out of the library once, but had to return it before I’d gotten to it.

90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) How have books like this ended up on such a list?

91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) Why so much Ondaatje?

92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) Sort of want to read it, but know it will upset me terribly, so never get around to it on purpose, I think.

93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous both for its insight into another culture as well as insight into human needs and psychology.

94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) Someone convince me this is one I need to read. No one really has yet, despite all the hype, but I can't say I don't want to read it at all.

95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) Again, why is this on such a list? Am I missing something?

96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) One of those highly-praised YA novels, like Judy Blume books and The [hideous] Chocolate War, that always made me wonder, “Doesn’t anyone ever think that maybe what teenagers need most is not to read about horribly realistic things that portray being a teenager as a terrible time, but things that will make them laugh?”

97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) Want to, but haven’t yet.

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) Barbara Taylor Bradford? Where’s Jackie Collins, then?

99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

100. Ulysses (James Joyce) until this year when Bloglily started posting on it, this would have been a cross-out. But now, she’s intrigued me.


Okay, time to stop listing and writing about books and go read.

I am From

(Well, I was inadvertently tagged for this one by Courtney. Go read hers. It’s really inspiring, makes you want to hop on a train bound for Michigan. And then go read Charlotte’s , which was the first one I read, so you can long to visit South Africa.)

I am from summers so hot and humid, the sheets stick to your body, and the fan just blows around hot air, but you can hear the cicadas and frogs and crickets loud and clear in their nighttime operas, and a swimming pool or the ocean in mid-July is never, ever too cold to just plunge right in without a second thought. The honeysuckle grows lush and thick along fences and over bushes; my nose forever will be so attuned to its scent I can smell it long before I ever see it, and when I take my first whiff of some bubble bath meant to smell like honeysuckle it turns my stomach in its falsehood. I am from winters that never have enough snow, but when the snow comes, everyone stays home, and it’s like a holiday in which the traditional meal is hot chocolate and gingerbread, and snowmen guests arrive in tatty old scarves and hats, long noses turned orange rather than pink from the cold.

I am from traveling in a westerly direction to discover some of the most beautiful, soft rolling old mountains in the world. These mountains play dulcimers and banjos and go clogging well into the wee hours of the morning when the rising sun joins them to dance light off their blue ridges. Breakfast is fried eggs, sausage patties, grits with a puddle of yellow butter sitting in their center, and homemade biscuits dripping with butter and honey.

I am from traveling in an easterly direction to land upon miles of sandy white beaches, rough ocean waves rolling and smirking over the “graveyard of the Atlantic,” where ships’ skeletons provide homes for coral, colorful fish, and giant turtles, as well as plenty of fodder for folktales. The sand dunes stand up safe and tall, laughing at the ocean that tries but can’t reach them, colorful hang gliders running and jumping from their peaks to join the birds majestically soaring through the deep Carolina blue skies around them. Lunch is the best fried chicken ever, fresh-baked rolls, mashed potatoes smothered in butter, and tangy coleslaw speckled with black pepper.

I am from a place where long afternoons are spent down by the creek, barefoot and in shorts, wading around and catching tiny-clawed crawdads with nets made from wire hangers and old stockings, who are released immediately due to feelings of sorrow for taking them from their homes. I am from flying kites that stubbornly refuse to stay aloft, even though the wind seemed to be howling all night, in freshly-mown fields, blades of grass clinging to dewy legs. I am from dancing lessons in a studio below a general store where frozen cokes and candy bars await once the heinous lessons are done. Supper (never "dinner") is pork chops and black-eyed peas and green beans cooked in fatback, and if I’m lucky, we might have chocolate or tapioca pudding for dessert.

I am from tobacco fields and cigarette factories and a downtown that smells like grape juice to a young child who doesn’t understand tobacco smells like that. I am from Moravian settlers who left their marks with sugar cake, cookies, and coffee. I am from drama schools and live theater and underwear mavens and small liberal arts colleges. I am from a very American place.

I am also from a place in which, to my horror, the “n” word is used and spoken, but where, mysteriously, blacks and whites actually work, socialize, interact with each other, and live in the same neighborhoods far better than they do where I currently live. I am from a place where, as one black friend of the family who moved north only to come back, once described it, “you hate us as a race, but you love us as people.” I am from a place where life might be much better if only everyone would admit to a legacy of unnatural and unfair prejudices. It's a place where, contrary to popular belief elsewhere, 95% of the people are not "still fighting the Civil War," but where many, many people are still fighting just to survive every day.

My hometown is so stiflingly conservative and cliquish, I’m not going to be able to breathe if I don’t escape it, so I flee to a place where I’m sure I’ll find far more like-minded people. I am wrong, but not completely wrong. So, now my hometown is a place I’m learning to forgive for its stifling ways, but where I don’t ever want to go back to live.

I am from a place where people aren’t nearly as stupid and backwards as outsiders seem to think they are, but where everyone still has a lot to learn. But then, aren’t all places like that?

Valentine Meme

Valentine’s Day was one of my favorite holidays when I was a kid. From the chalky little pastel hearts saying “Be Mine,” as well as the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate my grandmother would send us to the shoeboxes we transformed into mailboxes to receive all our Valentines from classmates to picking out the cutest Valentine to give to my best friend to the heart-decorated cupcakes and lollipops we’d get at the party (back in the days when schools weren’t blamed for children’s bad eating habits, such fare was still allowed to be served in the classroom, and the childhood obesity rate in this country was probably somewhere around half what it is today), I was in seventh heaven. In fact, as far as I was concerned, February, the month so loathed by so many, despite its short duration, was my favorite. First we had my mother’s birthday, then Valentine’s Day, and then my birthday.

The year we were living in England when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I discovered the wonderful British tradition of not signing Valentines (that was going on thirty years ago, and I hope this is a tradition to which the Brits still cling, having not yet fallen under the crushing spell of Americanization). What fun to receive Valentines, trying to guess who they were from. I attended an all-girl school, so there wasn’t much likelihood of getting a good one from any boys (I was in love with all the boys in our village. How could any American girl not be? Alas, I didn’t receive any from them, everyone being way too shy and awkward to do such things), but it didn’t matter. My girlfriends and I devised clever ways to surprise each other with Valentines without letting us see how we did it. You’d open your geography book, and inside would be a Valentine; you’d be searching for your pen in your schoolbag, and there you’d find a Valentine; all Valentines being signed with nothing more than a mysterious “?”

I still love the notion of Valentines being unidentified, which is why I’ve devised my Valentine’s meme with this in mind. Valentines, as we all know, do not necessarily have to be lovers or spouses. I’ve always been my father’s Valentine, for instance, and he still writes in letters to me “Won’t you be my Valentine?” When I was young and had more time and energy, I used to send Valentines pretty-much the same way I sent Christmas cards to family members and friends.

So, I’m tagging everyone who’s reading this, and here’s what you’re to do. Choose an unidentified Valentine whom you’d like to laud, and answer these questions.


What’s the sweetest thing your Valentine ever did for you?
Made (or I should say, tried to make) a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for my birthday. I quickly learned that baking was not his forte, and any birthday cakes I have these days come from the bakery.


What’s the sweetest thing your Valentine does/did for you on a regular basis?
He once went with me to a doctor’s appointment in which I was told it was very important for me to be taking a multivitamin every day. He lays out my vitamins for me to remind me take them (otherwise, I’d never remember).

What’s the sweetest gift your Valentine has ever given you?
The first season of Once and Again on DVD, a television show he never liked much but knows I loved.

What’s the sweetest occasion you and your Valentine ever shared?
So, so many, but one that really sticks out in my mind was our first New Year’s together when we eschewed the madness of Times Square and very civilly rung in the new year from the top of the Empire State Building. I knew I wanted to marry him then.

What’s the sweetest thing you were ever inspired to do for your Valentine?
Back to birthday cakes. I bake him a German Chocolate cake every year for his birthday. I’m more successful with it than he was with my chocolate cake, but these have got to be one of the most difficult of all cakes to make. I always ask him why his favorite couldn’t be a simple white cake.

Well, I’m sure you can guess who my Valentine is. I hope others might be a little more original.

Visit me at Ian and Emily

I've posted over here today, which means it's now Ian's turn to post, if he can drag himself away from that great first shelf of books he has in his office.

And Stuart Little in a nutshell: this was a wonderful read as an adult. Stuart's character was so charming and so human, and I love the way the ending was left open. However, I can see why it never held my interest as a child. I was an odd child who was completely willing to suspend all disbelief for some things: a talking phoenix wrapped up in a magic carpet, say, or a tollbooth arriving with a little car that could transport a boy to a different world, or a pig detective. A mouse born to human parents who could actually talk to all the humans in his life, though? Forget it.

Nonfiction Five Challenge

I’ve got to be careful. I have a bit of a gut feeling that in my attempt to quiet my meme obsession, I’m going to spend 2007 taking on all sorts of challenges I can’t possibly finish. However, one of my blogging goals this year is to be less afraid of challenges, so it might be a good idea if I take on at least one and see what happens. I was inspired by this Nonfiction Five Challenge I discovered through Ms. Blossom over at The Library Ladder , basically because I read an awful lot of nonfiction as it is, so the task didn’t seem too daunting. I had a very hard time making my decisions, but I’ve finally come up with five titles I plan to read.

Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. I read Nickel and Dimed last year and just loved it, not only because I love Ehrenreich’s wry take on things, but also because I learned so much about the hard lives of working class Americans in this day and age (who says we rid ourselves of slavery in the 19th century?). Oh yes, and then there's that whole thing that always fascinates me: getting to pretend you're something you're not and then writing a book about what happens.

The Lady and the Panda by Vicki Constantine Croke. As I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, I love pandas. How could I possibly resist a story, featuring pandas, of a 1930s dress designer who decided to take over her dead husband’s expedition to China?

The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip by Keith Devlin – sounds like a fascinating take on math, and if I don’t make it part of a challenge, fascinating or not, I’m afraid I’ll never get around to reading it.

Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay. I read Macaulay’s Towers of Trebizond years ago, which is a wonderful read, for anyone who likes to read novels about independent, hilariously slightly mad women traveling about with their entourage. I haven’t read anything else by her, but a friend of mine recently lent me this and two of her other books. Macaulay, I am sure, will make a wonderful armchair traveling companion for sites of dead cities and palaces.

Salvador by Joan Didion. The same friend who lent me Macaulay also gave me all his Joan Didion books. I’ve read a few others by her (if you’ve been wondering, The Year of Magical Thinking is well-deserving of all the praise it received. That book and her thoughts will stick with you forever. I paired my reading of it with C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, which made for a great combination, as one was about the death of a spouse after many years of marriage and one was about the death of a spouse after very few years of marriage). I know nothing about El Salvador, so hope to and should learn quite a bit from this one.

Anyone else want to take on the challenge?

Honk if You Read Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers have always fascinated me. When I was young and hip, I used to attach them to my car (that oh-so-hip Subaru Justy I drove in those days). Mine were usually clever advertisements for my alma mater or political statements. These days, Bob’s and my cars are bumper sticker free. We considered putting the “Eat my voltage” sticker on the Prius (it came with it when we bought it), but we never did.

So, I’m a true voyeur now when it comes to this particular sort of adornment, and I have to admit they're becoming quite boring and unoriginal. Political bumper stickers merely announcing who you’re going to vote for/have voted for don’t cause a stir in me. Actually, I’m lying about that. There was a period when a “Bush” sticker would cause me to rethink my pacifistic, be-kind-to-others-on-the-road nature. Now, however, when I see one of those, which have become quite rare, I just think, “So, now that Bush has been in office so long, can you no longer afford the razor blade and nail polish remover you need to get that thing off, which does nothing but announce you voted for a filthy rich, arrogant idiot, who couldn't care less about you and your average income?”

Anyway, usually political bumper stickers don’t do much for me. They have to be extremely clever. Bumper stickers announcing college affiliations only grab my attention when I see a car that has about five different ones on it and find myself thinking, “Those poor parents with all those kids, forking out all that money.” Well, that’s what I think if they’re on the bumper of a beat up old Subaru station wagon. If they’re on the back of a Ford Excessive with tinted windows, I’m more likely to muse, “They deserve it. Hope all their kids flunk out, and they end up in the poor house with nothing to show for it.”

I hate those bumper stickers that brag about how Johnny is an honor student. Whatever happened to the days when such bragging was considered crass, and, besides, who really cares? Tell me your kid loves to windsurf, wants to be on Broadway, has become a vegetarian. Those are things that might make me want to stop and have a conversation with the child. I couldn’t care less if he/she can make good grades in a screwy educational system. Worse, though, are the ones that announce, “My kid beat up your honor roll student.” That’s supposed to be funny? I ask that question, because I fear what’s even worse: it’s true. Many honor roll kids get picked on enough without parents supporting that old schoolyard tradition.

Then there are those who like to sport the sticker that announces in tiny print, “If you can read this, you’re driving too close.” Obviously, they have no clue that there are those of us out here for whom the written word serves the same purpose a bright light does for a moth. If I see it, I have to read it. If you hadn’t slapped the ridiculous sticker there, I’d still be half a mile back instead of riding on your bumper right now.

Religious bumper stickers seem to be very popular. Again (says the future pastor’s wife), what happened to the days of considering these sorts of things to be private matters? I’m pretty sure not many conversions occur, because someone’s driving along and sees a “Jesus Saves” sticker on someone else’s car. One of the most amusing ones I saw recently just flat out said, “God is Pro-Life.” When I got over my feelings of wishing I was so sure of what God is, I found myself thinking, “Oh really? Where is this person getting his information? I mean, if you read The Bible, you’ll come across such things as The Flood, in which God just decided to kill almost everybody. You’ll discover people were killed merely because they carried The Ark of the Covenant incorrectly. These sorts of events don’t exactly point to a “Pro-Life God.”

I’m also somewhat amused by the “I brake for animals” bumper sticker. I mean, I really don’t know many people who don’t. It’s kind of like announcing, “I brake for red lights.” What do the people who stick this on their cars think: they brake, while the rest of us just plow right on through that cow, hoping to grab a good steak on the way out?

So, most of them bore me. Still, I’m a voyeur, always on the lookout. Every so often, one catches my eye and really turns me on. Problem is, like most one night stands, I never seem to be able to remember them.

Of Hobgoblins and Parking Lots

It was not a dark (well, maybe it was a little bit dark) and stormy night. But I was accompanied by a Hobgoblin. Now I know there are those of you who think he’s just calling himself a hobgoblin in a nod to a favorite author quote, as well as to a favorite creature, but I’m here to set the story straight: he really is a hobgoblin. Don’t let him fool you with his shy manner and warm smile. Stay on guard.

I’d been lured into an unfamiliar town (okay, so I was the one who suggested our writer’s group meet in this place that seemed a good halfway point for all of us, but he certainly didn’t object). Parking, for someone who doesn’t like to parallel park, can be a challenge in this town. I was not looking forward to the prospect of trying to squeeze my car into something that seems like 3 car lengths from the vantage point of the sidewalk, but which shrinks to half a car length when I’m behind the steering wheel. But luck (or so I thought), was with me that evening. I was just about to turn around and park on the block about half a mile from Border’s (our meeting place) when I discovered a little driveway and decided to turn into it.

It was one of those tiny little alleyways where drug dealers congregate, the sort of place a woman doesn’t want to be alone (all right, all right, not on "the right side of the tracks" on "The Gold Coast” of Connecticut, but it was a tiny little alleyway, hidden between two store fronts). However, I soon discovered it led to a tantalizingly empty parking lot, so was worth the risk, especially since at this hour, it was still light out. I searched for the multiple “Parking for Residents Only. Towing Enforced” signs so common in such places and found none. Parking my car and climbing out, I searched a little on foot to make sure no such signs existed, noticing the freshly-painted white fence that rose up along one side of the lot. I was almost late, so just decided to cross my fingers against the possibility that all signs had been painted over but that towing would still be enforced, and left the car, mentally marking the entrance to the lot by the fact it was next to a frame shop.

Fast forward a few hours to the end of our meeting, where he led me into the far corner of the store and the horror collection (well, yes, it was I who’d suggested we go look for Ramsey Campbell, but he seemed all too willing). Why did I not pay attention to the way he jumped all over the Campbell book we found -- a book that promised to be full of woodsy-type hobgoblins? Why did I think nothing of the fact that it wouldn’t register when the sales clerk tried to scan it, and it took a while to find it in the system? Why didn’t I suspect something when he too eagerly agreed to walk me to my car to make sure it hadn’t been towed?

But then, we started on the eeriest walk of my life (well, no, the streets weren’t dark and empty like they have been on other walks I’ve taken, but I promise you, there was something spine-tingling in the air that I just couldn’t quite put my finger on). We walked along to the spot where the parking lot entrance should have been, and, as all good magicians do, he was distracting me. I didn’t notice whatever it was he did to make it disappear, but it was gone. Poof! Nowhere in sight. Yet again, I saw nothing very odd in this at first. I blamed myself, happy I’m long past first dates at this point in my life, ones on which I might prove myself to be an incredible airhead who didn’t know where she’d parked her car. However, as we walked up and down the street a couple of times, I did begin to think, date or no date, this was really embarrassing. I knew we were on the right street. I knew I hadn’t passed a Starbucks, and yet, there was Starbucks coming up, once again, and no sign of my little alleyway.

“It was near a frame shop,” I finally said, then looked up to find every shop was a frame shop. I must have been so focused on looking for the lot, I had once again missed the little trick he’d performed to accomplish this feat as well.

At this point, I can only surmise he was beginning to get a little tired and had decided it was time to quit for the evening. We walked past two frame shops, and there it was! What a lovely little alleyway, reminiscent of the hills that led the Von Trapp family away from the Nazis and into safety, sporting its bright, fresh, new arrow painted at its entrance to point us in the direction of my car, which sat all by itself, waiting for me. Sure, he pretended all this was as strange as I thought it was, that we couldn’t possibly have missed that entrance, that yes, it was all very Twilight Zone-ish. But hindsight is 20/20, and we all know better now, don’t we?

Lying about Books

So I read on Cam's Commentary that Susan Hill had posted about the Museum and Library Authority’s study whose results seem to prove we all lie about the books we've read. Well, duh. I just love these organizations that spend lots of time and money doing research in order to tell us such things as all humans giving birth these days are female.

I mean, didn’t we all lie out of desperation at some point during high school or college? If we weren’t lying to our teachers and professors (I was bored to tears by some of the assignments, either being too young or too unsophisticated to understand them, or else just because they really were boring. I definitely wasn’t one to continue reading anything that didn't grab my attention, but not once did I ever say, “This bored me senseless, and I didn’t get past page 10” to any of my teachers), sometimes we were lying to impress a potential significant other (the study says this is still the case, with men being the main culprits. However, this female was guilty of that one once, only because I knew he wasn’t a big reader -- why on earth did I want to impress a non-reader? The mysteries of youth -- and would never catch me out in such a lie). We all grow up, though, and, I hope, eventually come to realize there are just way too many books in the world to read everything. Some of us even become bold enough to say, “Why would I waste my time on that?”

The list of the ten most-lied-about titles (apparently those books people most often say they've read when they haven't) really intrigued me, though. It’s all over the place, and as Cam noted, is missing The Bible. I agree with her that this (ironically, huh?) has got to be one of the most lied-about texts out there, especially since it’s been translated into just about every known language and forced on people throughout its history. Anyway, here’s how I stand up to the list.

Lord of the Rings – nope. My fourth-grade teacher read aloud The Hobbit to our whole class. Never read it myself, despite trying, and could never get into the others. My brother (who’s had the same problems not being able to get into Tolkein as I have) and I have a theory that Tolkein is just too earnest for the likes of us. Strangely enough, though, I adored all three of the movies (I think that had a lot to do with the cinematography).

War and Peace – it was a gift from Bob, and I read it on our honeymoon. I’m going to be annoying here and say it’s one of the best books ever written, without going into details as to why. I often wonder why it’s become the quintessential lengthy novel, though. There are plenty of longer classics out there (A Dream of Red Mansions, for instance. The version I have of this is three volumes long).

Wuthering Heights – not until I was in my thirties. And I have to admit I wasn’t all that impressed. It was a compelling read, but I found myself thinking: this was what all the fuss was about? I was expecting something much more of Heathcliffe, to fall madly in love with him. Instead, I found him to be a cruel, petty baby. My mother’s response to my reaction? “You were too old to be reading it for the first time.” She was right. I should have read it when I was a teenager, like most girls do, you know, the age at which we’re so easily enamored of cruel, petty, babies just because they’re wrapped up in “hot” bodies.

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus – whatever can be the reason to lie here? Do you think the surveyors got confused and didn't realize this was really a People-magazine lie (everyone reads it, but no one wants to admit it)? Or am I missing something? People actually want others to think they’ve read this book? Really. This one usurping The Bible, as well as such things as Roots (nope. Never read that one, either) or Plato’s Republic (only excerpts for school and can’t begin to tell you what they might have been) is truly mysterious. Anyway, I’ve picked it up and read bits and pieces of it, basically unimpressed.

1984 – this is embarrassing, but I honestly can’t remember (I'd be a truly impressive date, huh? Gee, the woman's already got Alzheimers). I know it was assigned for a course I took in college, but I often skimmed books when I was taking multiple lit courses and knew I could get away with it. I’m pretty sure I only skimmed this one, but I seem to know so much about it, that seems odd. Maybe it’s just such a part of mainstream culture at this point, I didn’t need to read it. It doesn’t matter, though, because I plan to read it soon. Bob has convinced me it would be a good idea to read three of the big modern dystopias in sequence: We (a book I’d never heard of till I met him), Brave New World, and 1984.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – yes, but I’m way, way behind in my Harry Potter reading (mainly because, as I’ve mentioned before, I think, reading Rowling sends me back to re-reading favorites from my childhood. And then, last year, I discovered Alan Garner, who is much, much better, although darker). I’m very grateful, though, to all those of you who are huge fans and who keep the plots secret for those of us like me.

Great Expectations – nope. Despite loving what I have read of Dickens, I haven’t really read much of his stuff. Bob’s been urging me for years to read both this and A Tale of Two Cities.

Jane Eyre – twice. Love it. Love it. Love it. (Again, she annoyingly says without telling you why, but this isn't the time for "why." Come over for a pot of tea, and we can spend the whole evening talking about "why.") Maybe because I read it for the first time at the right age (19)? But I don’t think that’s so, because I still loved it the second-go-around nearly ten years later.

The Da Vinci Code – “Why would I waste my time on that?”

The Diary of Anne Frank – they really meant Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, right? Which makes me wonder even more about this survey. Did they mean the script for the play or the book? I don’t know many people who read scripts, so why would anyone lie about that? If we’re talking about the book, I read about a fourth of it when I was a teenager, thinking it was going to be right up my alley, but it apparently wasn’t, as I didn’t stick with it. I don’t remember why. It’s yet another one I’ve been meaning to try again for years now. If we’re talking about the play, nope and probably never will.

There you have it: four out of the ten that I’ve knowingly read cover-to-cover, one I’ve earnestly tried and have just as earnestly given up on, two I couldn’t care less about, and the others are on my TBR list. So, would you ask me out on a second date, or do you think I'm a liar?

Top Ten List of Blogging Goals

This one came from Mandarine who picked it up from Lorelle . The end of January is always a good time to reassess goals for the year, and blog goals seemed like a good idea. So here are my goals for this blog (and others) this year:

1. Finally embrace my inner litblogger, instead of pretending she doesn’t exist, and maybe even dedicate entire posts to books I’ve just read, like others do.

2. See if I can find a local chapter of M.A. (Meme’s Anonymous) and start attending support groups. Of course, this will have to wait until after I’ve designed and posted the “Meme Meme,” “The Food and Books Meme,” “The Valentine’s Meme,” etc.

3. Quit coming up with ideas for new blogs and stick with making the two I’ve got going the best they can be (well, and keep the third one going at Halloween when it’s time to write another ghost story). However, I’m still so tempted to do a “Don’t Waste Your Time on These Books” blog, only because I wish someone would do it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a site solely devoted to helping you create your NTBR list right along side your overwhelming TBR list? Anyone who wants to steal this idea from me and take on the challenge of creating such an animal, please feel free (or if someone’s already doing it, please let me know. Maybe it really needs to be a joint blog). Someone could also take on the challenge of “Don’t Waste Your Time on These Movies.”

4. Speaking of challenges: don’t be so afraid of them, and maybe come up with a few fun ones of my own.

5. Provide more links to great blogs in my posts, so people read them, and they don’t die. Some blogs I really enjoyed just eight short months ago have already died, and I can’t help feeling I should have provided lots more positive feedback (yes, of course, it is all up to me!). But seriously, if we all fessed up, we’d all agree how important comments are, and how disappointing it can be to be a “newbie” who doesn’t get any. I was so lucky to get positive feedback early on. I’m sure I wouldn’t have remained as diligent if I hadn’t.

6. Stop worrying who might be reading my blog and that I might offend people. It’s an unnecessary worry that can so inhibit a writer. I don’t tend to write particularly offensive stuff; it’s not possible to please everyone all the time; and if I’ve offended people, it really may have more to do with them than with me.

7. Become even more convinced that I can write and that people actually want to read what I write. Blogging has come a long way in helping me to accept this, but I still have that little inner voice that loves to make occasional appearances by whispering, “Who do you think you’re fooling?”

8. Learn more about the technical aspects of blogging. I think it’s about time I got past patting myself on the back, because I. Know. How. To. Italicize.

9. Contribute more posts, and encourage others to contribute to What We Said . Creating that blog was such a great idea on Bloglily’s part, and I’d hate to see it fizzle out. As a matter of fact, I think it could be grown into something much bigger than it actually is.

10. No blogging after 8:00 p.m. This will give me more down time, which I need. It’s important for the brain to slow down in the evening, and computer interaction does anything but slow down my brain.

"Violent Movie II"

I keep swearing I’m going to stop watching violent movies, that I don’t want to support what I’m convinced are the tactics (blood and guts) that those who aren’t creative and imaginative enough resort to in order to prove a point. My high horse is convinced I’m glued to his saddle, a place where I will babble on (with no encouragement whatsoever from any audience stupid enough to stop by a high horse) about how fifty years ago, people made movies and wrote books that were provocative, terrifying, brilliant (even), and they didn’t have to show you a bloody head rolling around God knows how many feet from its detached body. They didn’t waste time composing sentences that describe exactly what the bits of brain on an axe look like. I’m not someone who holds any warm feelings for censorship committees, but I do sometimes wish we lived in an age in which something called “taste” sort of had the upper hand over something called “shock value.”

Now, I have to admit here that I’m probably someone who leans more on the side of “squeamish” than “sadistic.” After all, I was the child who was thrilled not to be allowed to see Jaws when it was released. I had absolutely no desire to see it, and I couldn’t believe how many of my eleven-year-old classmates had been taken to see it by their parents. Even more shocking was a friend of mine who had been to see The Exorcist a few years earlier (she had to have been lying, right? Didn’t it have a controversial X rating or something? Danny, help me out here). However, I grew up (if you can call subjecting yourself to horror movies “growing up”), and in high school, I was a huge fan of slasher movies, never thinking they’d been scary enough until I was coming home after the midnight showing and had to get from my car into our house, which sat next door to a very scary wooded lot (oh yes, and don’t forget that baby buried in the basement once I’d made it inside). Nobody who has spent time watching such things as Platoon; The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover; Shallow Grave; and Munich can believably state that she doesn’t like violent movies, most especially when she will also tell you that A Clockwork Orange is one of her all-time favorites.

But I’m getting old. And I’ve learned from those who are older than I, like my father, that when you get old, you no longer want to see these upsetting things. Life is upsetting enough without having to be shown things you never would have thought of on your own to add to the misery.

Thus, no more violent movies. Oh, but did I happen to mention the fact I have a husband? A husband who religiously reads the "Arts and Leisure" section of The New York Times? A husband whose memory could put to shame all the elephants in Africa, and who carries around in his head long lists of movies he wants to see, because they received high praise in that section five years ago? A husband who has decided we’re going to stop waiting for every movie to come out on DVD and adding many years to its release date before viewing it (especially since we have a wonderful little movie theater in our town hall that shows, for only two bucks, many movies just one week before they’re released on DVD, and barring that, matinees are a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon)? Oh, yes, and the most important thing: a husband who wants his wife to watch every single movie with him?

That’s how I’ve managed to find myself twice in the past few weeks sitting in a theater, covering my eyes through what seems like half the movie, and yet, emerging from the theater saying “That was great. What a terrific movie!” The first was when we went to see Flags of Our Fathers (this was a bribe. He promised me if I’d go see this one with him, we’d go see Dreamgirls while it’s still in the theater. No, we haven’t seen Dreamgirls yet. “It’s up for a million Academy Awards. It’ll be in theaters forever”). I’ve seen Flags of Our Fathers, and now (violence? Who said anything about violence?) I’ve got to see Letters from Iwo Jima. I’d had no idea there’d been so much controversy surrounding that photograph from Iwo Jima. And talk about a movie that just really brings home the horror of war, outlines what a political game it really is, one that doesn't ever have any real "winners" when it comes to the damage done to those who actually do the fighting, and showcases how young and innocent those soldiers really are. I haven’t read the book, but I’d like to now, and for those of you who just can’t stand really, really horrific movie war scenes (think worse even than Saving Private Ryan), the book is probably the way to go. For the rest of you: don’t miss this one. It’s now out on DVD.

I have only myself to blame for sitting through some hideously sadistic scenes, hands over face, the second time around. I was the one who saw previews for and decided we had to go see Pan’s Labyrinth, a movie that looked as though it was a must-see-on-the-big-screen sort of film. I was right. A small screen wouldn’t do this movie justice. What I didn’t know when I chose it, though, was what a brutal movie it was going to be. I don’t want to say I naïvely thought it was going to be some sort of new Bedknobs and Broomsticks for grownups (then again, maybe I do want to say that), but I will say maybe I ought to be reading the "Arts and Leisure" section a little more religiously -- or at least glancing at it -- before I make my movie choices. Nonetheless, this was probably my favorite movie of the past year. Within the first five minutes, I’d leaned over to Bob and said, “I already love it.”

Not only was it visually stunning (when I had my eyes open), but the use of myth and the questions raised concerning mythology and religion, as well as how children’s views of the world differ from adults’ views – are often much more “raw-ly” realistic, despite what we might think, and despite how we might mock their interest in the fantasies they use to deal with life, while ignoring our own use of fantasies to do the same -- were explored in ways that are just plain rare in popular culture. I’m someone who absolutely loves to watch a movie that raises more questions than it answers. Give me an ending that has me going, “Well, it could be this, or it could be that. Do you think we were meant to interpret it this way? Was that such-and-such at the end?” over one in which everything is wrapped up in that neat little package with the pretty ribbon any day. If you like all these sorts of things yourself and think you can stomach a few torture scenes (or at least can go with some sweet person who will let you know when they’re over), “run, don’t walk to the theater nearest you.”

Meanwhile, I think it’s time for something like Happy Feet or Charlotte’s Web.

Eating My Words (One of My Favorite Meals, It Seems)

“I’m not a big fan of karaoke, even at midnight, when everyone’s drunk and it seems appropriate…but in the middle of the afternoon, when no one’s drunk, and you’re at a party with your colleagues?” This is an exact quote from an email I sent to a friend of mine who used to work at my former company with me. We’ve both moved onto greener pastures, and I was debriefing her on that company’s Christmas party this year, for which I inexplicably received an invitation. I’d decided to go, because I still have quite a few friends who work there whom I don’t get to see nearly as frequently as I’d like (or used to). If I’d known karaoke was going to be on the agenda, however, I might not have been so quick to accept.

In fairness, I’ve never actually been to a karaoke bar, nor stuck around long enough at a regular bar that does karaoke on Tuesday nights after 10:00, or whatever. But I’m very aware of what they are and what they’re like, which is why I don’t hang out in them. I’m someone, as you know, who can’t stand the notion of getting up and speaking in front of a bunch of people, let alone singing. And when I drink, depression of my hypothalamus exaggerating this tendency in me, I’m even less likely to want to do such things.

I’m also someone who is extremely uncomfortable watching others make fools of themselves, and I’m sorry, unless you really are Aretha Franklin, Debbie Harry, or Tina Turner, chances are, you really can’t dance and sing like them, no matter what you might think. Thus, you’re going to look like a fool when you get up on that stage and drown out the music (which always seems to fade into the background like the ending of an old 45 record the minute someone grabs a microphone) with your off-key warbling. Yes, I’m sure your mother did say you were going to be a star one day. What I want to know is: how many martinis had she had when she told you that? I want to know, because I want to replicate her experience right here and now, so I can see if I can hear what she heard, since, Sister, it certainly hasn’t come through yet.

So, you may wonder what I was doing at another party less than a month later singing karaoke. Eating my words; that’s what. I think they were, “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to.” When our friends told us they’d gotten a free karaoke machine and were having a party, I didn’t believe we’d really be singing. After all, I’ve been to a few other parties with these machines, and they’ve always sat in the corner, quietly, where such things belong.

However, I’d forgotten that this party was being hosted by our friend Rob. Rob is rivaled only by Bob (does “Robert” mean “determined?”) when it comes to determination. He and his wife had somehow missed the opportunity to use this thing at their last party, and he was bound and determined that we were going to use it this go around. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the couch, mesmerized as all the words to all these old songs flashed on the television screen, and I found myself saying, “Wow, I never knew that’s what that line was.” And then he said to me, “Here, hold this for a second,” and I looked down to find he’d put a microphone in my hand.

Well, the next step was to start belting out some of these songs. I mean, how can you hear such things as “December 1963’ and not want to sing? I was cursing the evil manufacturers of this horrid machine. But then, as we all sang “Blowin’ in the Wind,” I realized this wasn’t really karaoke. No one was up on stage alone, American Idol fantasies running through their heads. We were a chorus of horrible voices. It was like an old-fashioned hootenanny.

A hootenanny. I’m about as familiar with one of those as I am with a karaoke bar. Somehow, though, like a kid forever stuck in middle school, this is the generation into which I was born. Not the one that sits around at hootenannies protesting wars, making up songs, and pretending to be Joan Baez, nor the one that hops up onto stage all alone, pretending to be Britney Spears, but no, the one in which the campfire is a large-screen television; the songs are as familiar as a bowl of Frosted Flakes; and everyone shares the stage together, laughing at how bad they are.

Perhaps it’s not quite such a bad generation after all: we’re all looking forward to being eighth-graders next year and ruling the school.

The True Biblical Scholar is Discovered

You know the Bible 93%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

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I had no idea until today that I'm a true Biblical scholar. I used to be the person with a sieve of a brain, the one who ran around saying things like, "you know, what's-his-name from the Bible, the one who did that great thing we always hear about. Come on! He's the one from the Old Testament in that book that comes somewhere after Genesis, I think. No, it's not God, someone else..." I never would have predicted I'd do so well, having only read the Bible all the way through once and having hated Sunday School when I was a kid (as a matter of fact, I was a little afraid to take this quiz, sure it would be full of questions such as "Who was Beruchna's fourth daughter-in-law?").

Maybe the fact I'm married to someone who was the first at his seminary to make a 100% on his Presbyterian Bible Content ordination exam (don't tell him I told you that. He's embarrassed whenever I talk about it. Besides, we true Biblical scholars know it's a sin to brag about our husbands) is somehow rubbing off on me? I'll say, though, that the questions are heavily slanted in favor of those of us who are/were raised Christians. A fair test would not have had so many questions concerning The New Testament (19 out of 42, and it's really 19 out of 40, since the first two questions are about age and gender -- very important Biblical questions, I know) when one considers its length compared to that of the Old Testament. But who am I to quibble over such things? Oh, wait a minute. I'm a true Biblical scholar, that's who I am.

Actually, I'm thrilled to have discovered this fact. I mean, any day now, I could suddenly find myself being known not as "Emily," but merely as "the minister's wife," a fact that is, at times, leaving me a little nervous. I wouldn't be so nervous about this if people didn't keep asking me, "So, do you think you can handle being a minister's wife?" That question in and of itself is one to which I'd answer "Of course. What could possibly be so hard about it?" with blessed assurance, if I hadn't been so self-assured in my positive response when asked four years ago, "So, do you think you can handle being the wife of a seminarian?" and had then gone on to discover I'd make a miserable widow at this point in my life.

At least, from now on, when asked this question, I can say, "Well, I do happen to be a true Biblical scholar, you know," thus maybe intimidating my inquisitors so much they won't notice I swear just a little too much for a minister's wife and that "Irreverent" is my middle name. I mean, does it matter if my house isn't spotlessly clean and I'm no good at hosting ladies' teas on a moment's notice if I happen to know which book of the Bible is a book of poetry or who was eaten by a big fish? Obviously, people will be flocking to me to set them straight when they can't remember whether or not Dr. Seuss wrote the Book of Acts.

On second thought, from now on, I think I'll just start saying, "Of course I can handle being a minister's wife. After all, I'm 'awesome!' I'm 'fantastic!' What are you?"

Things Fall Apart in a nutshell: What on earth took me so long to read this brilliant book? I can't fathom how Achebe managed to cover so much in so few pages and, likewise, to do such a fabulous job of taking me into a culture about which I basically knew nothing, getting me to care so much about it. Not since I last saw the movie Black Robe have I been made to think so hard about the clashes and misunderstandings between different cultures, which are in many ways more alike than diferent, when well-meaning missionaries take up residence.

The "Bossy One"

When Ian posted his first account over on our joint blog (by the way, he posted an ancient passport photo of us the other day, which is funny, for those of you who are interested), he began his post by saying the blog had been my idea and that I'd been the one to come up with the rules. Boy, I sound bossy, don't I? If I'm honest, I have to admit I probably was (and maybe still am) a very bossy older sister. Anyone with a lesser strength of character than Ian probably would have killed me before we reached puberty.

As a matter of fact, my family happily labeled me the "bossy one," when I was still quite young, a label I find very ironic. After all, I haven't met too many older siblings who aren't bossy (Bob, the oldest of two boys is extremely bossy -- although he calls it "taking charge"), and I'm the one who had two experts to show me how it's done. By the tender age of three or four I'd learned that I couldn't just come knocking at the doors of my sisters' "houses," a motley crew of raggedy stuffed animals and dejected old doll "children"by my side, announcing I'd come for tea. Nor was I allowed to wear bellbottoms once everyone knew straight legs were the "in" thing. Even if I loved them, Abba and Leo Sayer were off limits as far as my musical tastes were concerned. And God forbid I should prefer to read The Hardy Boys over Nancy Drew (I compromised and found the wonderful, little-known Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series when they weren't paying attention). I have to hand it to them, my sisters kept me on the straight and narrow. Thank God, really. I mean, who would want to have to admit she once had Leo Sayer in her record collection?

What I find most ironic about being the "bossy one," though is that now that I've spent a number of years as an adult with the label "boss," I've discovered I don't really seem to possess whatever it is that others have that makes it easy for them to tell people what to do. There are many things I love about being a boss, but delegation is not one of them. I'm absolutely horrible when it comes to delegating tasks, somehow thinking the whole world is going to come to an end if I don't personally dot every "i" and cross every "t."

At the beginning of every year, I find myself making the same workplace resolution: "learn to delegate." But, you know, in January, we've all just come back from the holidays, and many have been away, and everyone's so busy trying to catch up. And, well, it's just easier to do these few little things myself. Then January turns to February, and February turns to March, and oh my God, two people have quit. Well, how can I possibly ask anyone to do anymore than he/she is already doing? Until we have some replacements, everyone is going to have to pick up the slack.

By summertime I'm maybe realizing my problem is that I can't tell the difference between asking and telling. After all, I've never questioned a boss of mine when he or she has asked me to do something. I've just gone and done it (as quickly as possible). And there's a difference between "work-place asking" and "non-work-place asking." Asking a colleague to write a letter for me that doesn't need my signature is very different from asking someone to help me solve all my psychological problems. Somehow, though, I'm not very good at distinguishing between different types of help, always assuming that if I'm asking for help it either means A. I'm no good at doing things myself or B. I'm extraordinarily needy. Finally, I seem to assume that no matter what I'm asking, it's going to be a huge imposition on the other person (God forbid I shouldn't just carry all burdens myself instead of sharing the load a little with others who are supposed to be sharing the load).

And then there's "telling." Truth be told, I don't think I've ever had one of those types of bosses you see on TV or in movies who just orders people about. I think I can only count a handful of times when I was actually told to do something. Yet, even then, I didn't freak out or immediately start looking for another job. I just accepted whatever it was as part of the job. When it comes to telling those I supervise what to do, though, I tend to find myself thinking, "Well, who am I to tell them what to do?" I seem to have had some sort of complete memory lapse that keeps me from responding, "You're the boss, that's who." I've forgotten that in this society, it's perfectly acceptable for the boss to, well, boss others around. In fairness to me, before you start to think I'm a complete wuss who shouldn't have this job, I currently work for a wonderfully nonhierarchical company where we don't just give lip service to the idea of "teamwork," we live it, and where the notion of "bosses," although we use the terminology, is pretty foreign. Of course, players on teams typically help each other out, though, don't they? And they're not afraid to ask for that help (or even to yell to others on the field to do what needs to be done), are they?

So, this year, as I sit here worrying about the mounds of work I've got accumulating, is going to be different. I'm going to learn, once and for all, the true art of delegation. I'm going to imitate those who do it with finesse, finding themselves surrounded by adoring colleagues who love working for them. February's on the horizon. Everyone just might be starting to come out from under all that post-holiday pileup soon...

Commuting Telecommuter

A while ago Mandarine, who was reading some of my early posts (and flattering me by comparing me to chocolate) came across the post in which I was complaining about working from home, a place where I had easy access to my kitchen full of food. I know. I know. To complain about such a thing when people are starving all over the world seems quite petty, but what I was really doing was worrying that I was going to get fat, which is a concern when one lives in a country that suffers from such high rates of obesity and, thus, unnecessary health problems. We middle class Americans, it seems, have evolved into such spoiled creatures and have been fed such unhealthy food, laden with things like trans fats, all our lives that our natural mechanisms for keeping us from overeating seem to have gone the way of the appendix -- they're useless. Although I've never been fat, I'm not immune to this problem, especially when I know good food is available.

Not too long after I wrote that post about food, I discovered The Shangri La diet, which has managed to dull even my cravings for chocolate a bit (a miracle worthy of the Second Coming), and I quit worrying. Nevertheless, we all know that exercise is as important (if not more important, if recent articles in The New York Times are to be believed) for a healthy body than the food we eat, and advice as to what we need to do has remained far more consistent over the years than all the nutrition fads. I mean, with the exception of telling people that aerobics isn't enough and that some form of strength training and stretching are also important, exercise requirements don't change that much.

Does anyone else hate those nutritionists at the FDA as much as I do? They'll tell you for years and years and years that the most important things to eat are pasta and bread, and then, when everyone has gained two hundred pounds, come back with "Oops, we meant whole grains!" Or you'll read a headline that peanuts are the best thing for you, and just as you're getting ready to race out and buy three cans of Planters dry-roasted, you'll read on to find out they have to be raw and unsalted (blech), and that, oh yeah, because they're high in fat, you should really only eat five a day. But those five a day are really going to change your life! Exercise, on the other hand, remains stable. I can pretty much guarantee that as long as I'm moving and sweating for at least 30 minutes a day, I'm doing what I need to do.

The problem is, as I noted in another one of those early posts: I despise exercise for the sake of exercise. I like to hike. I like to ride a bike (although my bike needs major repairs these days, having been abandoned for years, when I worked in an office and didn't have much time to ride due to my long commute, and had thus joined a gym near the office. I keep saying I must get it fixed -- not being someone who has the patience or ability to do such things as taking apart and putting together bikes the way Hobs can, even with all ten of my fingers uninjured. I've ridden Bob's bike a few times, but it's way too big). I like to swim. Sometimes I like to run, if the terrain is relatively flat, and it's the right temperature. And that's about it. I don't like to play any competitive sports. As a matter of fact, I basically don't like to exercise with other people. And thirty minutes a day is an awful lot of time -- time that can be better spent doing just about anything else.

Then along came Mandarine with his brilliant suggestion. Why not continue to commute to work? Get outside and walk, run, or bike "to and from work" every day. I could map out my own route, and make the commute as long or as short as I wanted. So, because I have plantar fasciitis (a runner's foot injury that takes forever to heal) and can't run, and as noted above, my bike isn't in good working order (although now winter has suddenly hit the Northeast, I'm not sure I'd enjoy biking much right now anyway), I'm walking. I have a twenty-five-minute, one-way commute, which is still less time than I was commuting by car in the old days, and my afternoon commute is wonderful, because Bob and Lady usually join me for that one. This frees up my lunch hour, which I used to spend exercising, for other things, and I'm getting fifty minutes of exercise everyday instead of only thirty. I still do yoga twice a week, so there's my strengthening and stretching settled. And I can listen to books on tape again, something I'd pretty much abandoned since I moved home to work.

I've discovered an added benefit, as well. Since it's winter, and dark practically 24 hours a day, I can't commute to work until 7:00, which gets me there at 7:30. I wake up at 6:00, so this gives me a full hour to write every morning. At the other end, I have to quit working by a certain time in order to get that afternoon commute in while it's light. This means I have a period in which I truly separate my work day from my evenings. Of course, this will change come spring, but I'm hoping in the summer, when the pool's open, I can start "swimming home from work." Since we don't have central air, I can imagine I'm going to be dying to get in the pool by the time 5:00 rolls around.

So, all-and-all, a practice I'd highly recommend for all telecommuters, and one that my dim brain never would've come up with on its own. Who says we bloggers don't benefit in untold ways from each other?


Hans Brinker in a nutshell: (I've decided that as I finish reading the children's and adult's classics I've chosen for 2007, I'll try to summarize them in a few sentences at the end of posts): a gem of a story that was really like two stories in one (Hans's story and a story about a group of boys' adventures in different cities in Holland) and was chock-full of interesting details about Dutch life in the 19th-century, amazing since Mary Mapes Dodge had never been there at the time she wrote it. Also, a little-known fact (or at least I didn't know it, which may not actually make it "little-known"): the "legend" of the Little Dutch Boy who sticks his finger in the dike was completely created by Dodge for this book and has no basis in any Dutch legends.

A New Blog

My brother Ian and I have decided that this year we’re going to join forces out in the blogosphere. This is somewhat of a huge and scary step for me. You see, Ian happens to be the funniest human being I know. That’s saying a lot, because I tend to surround myself with very funny people (many of whom, if they’re reading this, I’ve probably just insulted by choosing Ian over them).

I know. You’ve read one paragraph, and you’re thinking, “Oh God. Emily’s finally proven once and for all that she’s a madwoman, fixated on her brother, having no idea she’s biased, and he’s a no-talent loser.” But ask Bob. Everyone knows how in-laws are supposed to feel about each other. He’ll tell you that Ian is the funniest human being he knows.

As a matter of fact, I’m very happy he’s my brother. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to claim him as a human being I know. It may be that I would have been lucky enough to have crossed paths with him at some point, possibly even have been introduced to him. However, I would have been far too intimidated by his brilliance, story-telling ability, and ironic wit (not to mention his championship ability to pun, rivaled only by my sister Lindsay. Don’t get the two of them together), to have done more than blush, maybe say “hi,” and then do something like trip over a dog who would’ve bitten me, thus providing fodder for a hilarious rendition of that crazy woman who tripped over Sam, the world’s most docile Basset Hound, and had to be taken to the emergency room, a story that would walk into rooms of bored-looking party guests and leave them in stitches, begging for more, for years to come.

My mother, being not at all a typical mother in her overenthusiastic convictions concerning the genius quotient of her children, used to engage in fantasies that equated her three daughters and one son with the Brontës. This was a fantasy that flattered and enthused me until I began to read all the research surrounding the Brontë children and discovered, they may have been extraordinarily talented storytellers and writers, but oh man, were they weird. Happily, I can note that although both my sisters have published books, not one of us has written a gothic romance.

My mother, however, was focusing on that storytelling quality of the Brontës, having herself been raised in the pre-tell-all-and-make-everyone-pathetic-victims-of-extreme-dysfunction-not-the-least-bit-worthy-of-admiration era. And, yes, I have to agree that all four of her children are capable of telling good stories. This isn’t the least bit remarkable, though, considering the fact we’re English, Scottish, and Southern.

Everyone knows the Anglo-Saxons were spinning marvelous yarns back in the days when America was nothing more than a many-legged monster ready to swallow up anyone stupid enough to go sailing off the edge of the world. And if you’ve ever been a child visiting relatives in Virginia, sitting on the porch of a house nestled between Poe’s Ragged Mountains and The Blue Ridge, cicadas, Bob Whites, and Whippoorwills singing in the background, while the adults sat around trying to outdo each other with one story after another, well, you’d know it’s pretty hard not to develop a knack for creating your own.

Those porches and gatherings of relatives are few and far between these days, but we do have the blogosphere. Ian was the first one in our family to venture into it, tempting me, but I wasn’t ready yet. He then walked out of it for a while, and that’s when I began my own exploration. At this point, he’s made a reappearance.

Now we’d like to do a little homesteading, building at least the porch, if nothing else, where we can tell a few stories. We both realize we have plenty of shared experiences, but that they don’t always sound the same when we begin to relate them. Like a game we used to play with friends as children in which we’d all sit in different parts of a room, a piece of paper and magic markets for each of us, choosing a theme, like “a farm” and then taking turns announcing something associated with a farm that would go in that picture, no one allowed to see what the others were drawing until we’d announced we were “done,” our stories surprise us with how completely different they are. And I love hearing his versions.

So here’s our plan: each month, we’ll choose one shared topic. He’ll blog about it. I’ll blog about it. Our only rule is that we can’t read what the other has written until we’ve written our own. My guess is they’ll be so different, you may be hard-pressed to recognize them as having the same foundation. We’ll see. You can visit us (we’ve got lemonade and homemade cookies and lots of wooden lounge chairs) over here, and I’ve written my first post. Now it’s his turn.

The Calvino Meme

I wish I could be like my friend Danny and resist a meme, but I just don’t seem to have that kind of willpower, or maybe it’s that I don’t have his kind of originality and have to depend on others to tell me what to write about on a regular basis (although Mandarine has been busy giving me tons of non-meme topics that I'll have to start addressing soon, so I can't really use that as an excuse). This meme was absolutely impossible for me to resist. Just before I came across it over at Litlove's place, I'd written about how The Thirteen Tales plays with readers in a way I hadn’t enjoyed since my last reading of If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, one of my long-time favorite books. Lo and behold, around the time I was composing that statement, clever Kate was devising this meme based on the scene in the bookstore in Calvino’s book. So, here you have it: the meme I couldn't resist (as if there has ever been one I could). It also happens to be my first of 2007:

Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages
I once mentioned for some other meme I think that Le Miserables falls into this category (I've been meaning to read it ever since I first saw the Broadway play about fifteen years ago). The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is another one (obviously not nearly as long in this category, but getting there, since we own the advance reader's page proofs picked up at some book conference just before it was published). I often worry I might suffer some huge feeling of disappointment that has nothing to do with the books themselves, though, were one of these two actually to be moved from this category, their being so used to being neglected and my being so used to neglecting them. Maybe they should be moved to a new category like “books I’ve been planning to read for ages, but let's be real, and acknowledge there’s probably no bloody way in hell I’ll ever get around to doing so.” Then I could just admire them from afar, no feelings of guilt whatsover when I stop by to pet them occasionally, knowing they're no longer looking hopefully up at me trying to convince me they're well worth my spending time on them.

Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success
The Melendy Family by Elizabeth Enright, which is a bound volume of the first three books that involve Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver and all their adventures. I once found it on some used bookstore web site for $100, which I wasn’t desperate enough to pay at the time, although now it’s beginning to become something about which I think, “what’s a $100 for such a worthy cause?” since it’s just completely disappeared, as far as I can tell. Anyone have a copy they want to sell me?

Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At The Moment
Do sample maunscript pages for books about math that haven’t yet been published but will be in 2007 and 2008 count? If not, I've got a few books on multiple personality disorder I've checked out of the library and am referring to for a fiction piece I'm writing.

Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case
All the really basic cookbooks like The Joy of Cooking, as well as comfort books for bad days like I Capture the Castle and Three Men in a Boat.

Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer
Summer time is for re-reading Ross MacDonald, preferably out in a hammock up in Maine with a gin and tonic.

Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves
Any book published by Persephone Books. They look so nice all lined up together, and they are guaranteed, thus far, to be fabulous reads. I wish I owned the shop (actually, at this point, I wish I could just visit the shop, or that they'd open an American branch in New York).

Books That Fill You With A Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
Anything to do with the brain. Bob and I have been fighting over the double issue of The Economist, because it’s got many interesting articles on this topic.

Books Read Long Ago That It’s Now Time To Reread
I’d love to re-read The World According to Garp, which I read for the first and last time when I was fifteen, and for years, claimed it was my favorite book (it was the book that brought me firmly into the world of reading contemporary adult literature). I can’t imagine what my reaction to it might be today.

Books That If You Had More Than One Life You’d Certainly Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
Native Son, which would be a re-read. It had such a huge impact on me, and yet it was such an incredibly difficult read, I’m not sure I could handle it again, like watching A Clockwork Orange (one of my all-time favorite movies, but one I decided after the third viewing there was no need to ever subject myself to the pain of watching again).

Anyone who wants to keep this meme going on your own blog, I hope you will. Meanwhile, I've realized after having lunch with Dorr today and laughing about how I'm not a lit blogger (during the period when I wasn't busy spilling my cranberry juice and seltzer all over myself), I've gone and yet again, written about books. I also have an unprecedented, for me (I think), five links in this post. Slowly, but surely, I must be getting over my technophobia.

We're Off to See the Wizard...

Last month, one of Bob’s and my dearest friends, who also happens to be brilliant and beautiful (sorry, Fem, I can’t remember the third adjective LC used to describe you. Let’s pretend for alliteration’s sake it was “bold,” which fits), was on her way back from a three-month stint in Vancouver and stopped by for an all-too-brief visit with us before heading on to her home country of Northern Ireland. Fem was in seminary with Bob during his first year there, and the conversation when the three of us get together always centers around the theological and the psychological, two subjects that have been near and dear to my heart since I was a teenager. This is great fun for all three of us, but sometimes we need a break from all the intensity.

A break is exactly what we were taking the second night she was here when Bob had prepared some of his infamous margaritas (neither Fem nor I hold our liquor very well, so one of these was really enough, but we all decided to have more than one). While we two women were amusingly trying to figure out if we could still touch our noses with our arms stretched straight out to our sides (I’ll let you guess as to whether or not we could), Bob decided to browse the T.V. listings in The New York Times to see if there were any movies we might like to watch that wouldn’t be too taxing for our pickled brains. This was when Bob and I were astonished and thrilled to discover that Fem, who grew up in rather unusual circumstances (at least, by our narrow American standards), had never seen The Wizard of Oz, which happened to be featured that evening.

Can you imagine getting to see that movie with an adult who’s seeing it for the first time? We immediately announced, “Oh, you have to see it!” Of course, the thought bubbles above our heads were announcing what we really meant, “Oh, we have to have the experience of seeing this with you!”

We hadn’t seen the movie probably in over ten years, but it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s as familiar as your bedroom exactly the way it was when you were eleven years old would be if you could walk back into it today. Bob and I were at our most obnoxious, proving how well we knew the whole thing and not wanting her to miss a thing with all our “Now, pay close attention to this part"-s when, for instance, Dorothy is talking to all the farmhands who will eventually become the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. Fem was, as always (and in a way only those I’ve known from the U.K. can be), graciously patient with us, especially when we kept asking such stupid questions as “Do you know this song [Somewhere Over the Rainbow]?” and “What about this one [Follow the Yellow Brick Road]?” I didn’t realize it would happen, but I found myself feeling envious of someone who’d never seen the movie. Imagine not knowing you’re inevitably going to reach the “I’m melting” and “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” lines.

Probably 95% of the movies I last saw over ten years ago would be like first-time viewing experiences for me if I were to watch them now, but not this one. Watching The Wizard of Oz every year when I was growing up was a family ritual as steadfast as celebrating each family member’s birthday. I can pretty much mark my changing bedtimes by marking the points at which I had to go to bed (even on such special occasions as W.O.Z. Night, I only got to stay up half an hour past my strictly-enforced bedtime). I can still remember the thrill of the first time I got to stay up past the meeting of the Scarecrow. Needless to say, the first parts of the movie are more vivid to me these days than the latter parts.

So, Fem was doing her best to keep from telling us to shut up when Bob suddenly started telling us all kinds of things about the movie I never knew (and am still not sure are really true. They sound suspiciously like theories imposed on the movie in hindsight, sometime during the sixties), like how following the yellow brick road had been a metaphor for capitalism's directive to follow the money (yellow gold) or that the Wizard represents a de-bunking of religion and God. And why had I never paid attention to the fact that the witch’s guards resembled Russian soldiers (could be because I hadn’t seen that part of the movie as much as the first part)? And, then Dorothy tells us “there’s no place like home,” home, of course, being good old America, where capitalism reigns.

This was our break from intense conversation? Capitalism, religion, politics and war, childhood memories…It doesn’t sound like much of a break to me. I guess that’s why we had to take a real break the next evening and go see Little Miss Sunshine, that light little comedy that didn’t inspire any thoughts of anything of a psychological or political nature whatsoever, especially for two feminine feminists and their masculine feminist companion.

The Joys of Oral Presentations

I deeply admire those of you who make a living basically by getting up and giving oral presentations every day. I can’t think of much I despise more than having to get up in front of a group of people and talk. Maybe getting up in front of a group of people and singing and dancing, but no job I’ve ever had as ever required me to do such a thing.

I just got back from a trip that involved giving a presentation to four different groups of people, and I’m feeling like I need about a week to recover. I will admit I’ve come a long way since my first semester of college when I got up in my Spanish 101 class to give a presentation and literally froze, thus inspiring the sort of pity no one wants to inspire in their classmates the first semester of college. I even have to admit that I often get praised for my presentations these days (as I did after these four), thus making me one of those people I hate, who complain about how bad they are at something and then demonstrate how splendidly they can do that thing. But I think I can explain why people praise me. It’s because I’m so deathly afraid of looking out at the audience and finding most of them sleeping that I’ve learned to weave the art of personal storytelling into my presentations, a talent I learned from Bob, who does a splendid job of this, much better than I could ever do. People don’t expect it, so it doesn’t matter if your delivery is terrible, as mine so often is; if it’s unexpected, it will keep them from being too bored, and then they’ll tell you your presentation was good.

The thing is, though, if you pay attention to me, you can tell how nervous I actually am. There are those who will tell you they hate giving oral presentations, that they’re always so nervous, and then they get up and do it as if they were doing something as natural as strolling through a park on a sunny day. Where’s the nervous fidgeting? The tucking of nonexistent stray hairs behind the ears? The obviously shaking hands as they hold up something to demonstrate? Where’s the tripping up over such extremely difficult words as “the?” I see it nowhere in evidence. And sure, they might tell you they have butterflies in their stomachs, but what’s the big deal about nice little butterflies gently fluttering their wings? I’d find that far preferable to the baby pterosaur who’s so obviously trying to hatch itself out of my stomach.

And then there’s the dry mouth. If I’m not tripping over the pronunciation of “the,” my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth so firmly, I’m sure all that’s going to come out is a few grunts. That would be even worse than a reenactment of the frozen Spanish 101 student. I could hear it going down in the history of the company, “Remember that time when that woman, what was her name? Emily or something? She stood up in front of us, sounding like a pig?” I’m drinking all the water in the pitcher that’s been provided and wondering how others also manage to make that seem so effortless. I mean, people stand up at podiums and casually incorporate sips of water into what they’re saying, as if their notes say, “pause for sip of water,” and it flows beautifully, not looking the least bit out of place. I’m busy looking down at my notes and wondering, “Can I possibly make it through these next ten pages of notes without anymore water, and if not, where can I fit in a quick sip?” all the while praying my shaking hands don’t end up spilling the water all over those notes. Finally, I quickly reach for the glass in desperation, unable to keep from noting everyone’s expectant faces during this unwanted interruption.

I suppose, as some would ask, yes, it does get easier with time and with practice, but I'm not sure it's actually getting easier. I think what’s really going on is an experience similar to the way I’ve heard women with children describe childbirth. After each one of these painful events, as time goes on, I completely forget the pain. I’m lulled by the joy my job provides me about 85% of the time. And just like the mother who decides she really wants to have another baby, seeming to have a complete memory block when it comes to the fact she screamed throughout her last labor that she was never going to do this again, once I’ve forgotten, I will find myself doing things like volunteering to run entire summits on my area of expertise. Then again, maybe it has nothing to do with a memory lapse similar to a mother’s and more to do with drinking a very potent margarita in Fort Worth, TX. Oh well, whatever it is, for the time being, I can collapse and enjoy my job until the labor pains come again.

One Last Look Back at 2006 or Ripping Off Someone Else's Brilliant Idea

Others are much better at coming up with interesting ideas than I am, but I figure as long as I give them credit, it isn’t stealing when I take their terrific ideas and run with them . Thus, I’m giving Dorr (better known as Dorothy W. to those who don’t insist on coming up with nicknames for everyone) credit for analyzing the books she read in 2006, providing us with some great statistics. What a wonderful thing she did. I couldn’t get it out of my mind until I’d analyzed my 2006 list, changing it a tiny bit to make it my own. So here are the results:

Total number of titles read: 63
Total number aborted after reading at least 30 pages: 2
Total number of pages read: 17146 (You may wonder how I manage to have this number. Well, it’s a definite sign that I’m weird and/or that I work in publishing. When I record the books I read, I give a full bibliographic record, including copyright date(s), publisher, and number of pages. You can assume this number is a bit misleading, because some of the books I read had indices, and I promise you, even I’m not enough of a geek to read through all those. But it’s a close approximation. I thought about doing a “number of publishers” category as well, but I didn’t want to have to bother to look up all the various imprints, and I figure that since most trade books are published by imprints of one of the big three publishers, the number would probably just be 3. We’ll ignore the fact that I read quite a few books that are old and were published by houses that no longer even exist.)
Number of books written by women: 33
Number of books written by men: 29
Number of books that were written in the 19th century: 3
Number of books that were written in the first half of the 20th century: 10
Number of books that were written in the second half of the 20th century: 22
Number of books that were written in the 21st century: 27
Number of books of poetry: 6
Number of children’s books: 15
Number of books written by American authors: 34
Number of books written by non-American authors: 27
Number of collected works that included both male and female authors, as well as works from various centuries: 1
Number that were listened to as opposed to being read: 4 (we have big debates in our house as to whether or not this counts as reading a book. I claim it does. After all, the art of storytelling has been around far longer than the accessible written word has been, and the accessible written word is just a form of storytelling for the masses. The question should really be: does reading a book count as listening to a story?)
Number that were re-reads: 4

And now, I’ve realized, based on these numbers, there’s a lot of b.s. I may need to rethink next time I start spouting it off, such as:

“I read books all the time.” The better statement is, “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with all my free time.” I mean, 7146 pages? I know I’m a slow reader, but even at my rate, that’s at most about 45 minutes of book reading a day. That’s not all the time. That’s about how long it takes to cook and eat dinner, and I don’t go around saying, “I cook and eat dinner all the time.” I’m scrapping all my other New Year’s resolutions in exchange for one: increase this number to at least an hour a day.

“I don’t read much written past 1950, and forget anything written since 2000.” Well, that’s certainly a bold-faced lie, isn’t it? In fairness, when I make that statement, I’m usually referring to fiction, but I’m afraid to go back and categorize how many of those post-1950 titles were fiction, because getting caught in yet another lie would just be too depressing.

“I have no problem starting a book and deciding not to finish it, and I do it all the time.” Yeah, just like I read books all the time.

“I used to read mostly books written by men, but that’s changed, and now I much prefer to read books written by women.” So, have there been a lot of sex change operations going on in the world of writers lately or something?

“I don’t read poetry much.” Well, six out of 63 still isn’t all that much, but when I say that, I’m usually thinking, “maybe one collection a year, if that.” Then again, I’ve lately been saying “I’m going to make a concerted effort to read more poetry,” and it looks like I did so in 2006, so maybe there’s one lie I haven’t been telling.

“I need to expand my horizons, because almost everything I read is written by American authors.” That would be a completely true statement, if I’d add “…by American and British authors.”

“I read children’s books, but usually only ones I enjoyed as a child.” Well, this statement was skewed this year, because I discovered Alan Garner, and have a friend who happens to own almost everything he ever wrote, an author I would have loved as a child, if I’d known he existed, as well as Neil Gaiman, who wasn’t writing when I was a child, and I read the third Harry Potter book (yes, I’m very behind in reading Harry Potter, but mainly because every time I read one, I’m driven to go back and read things like the E. Nesbits I loved so much as a child, and which I find to be superior to Harry Potter. I mean, I dare you to find any character in children’s literature more wonderful than The Phoenix in The Phoenix and the Carpet. He's the Platonic kiddie lit character, much more enoyable as an adult than I remember him being as a child). But, I’ve now learned that it’s fun to discover children’s authors I’ve never read, and I’m hoping to read more in the future.

“I re-read books all the time.” Another flat-out lie, if this year’s statistics are any indication. Good thing I don’t, though. What a waste of my measly 45-minutes a day, when there’s so much out there yet to be discovered.

All right, and now we can finally put 2006 to rest, I think.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm off to Texas for a sales meeting and probably won't have much blogging time, so talkatcha when I get back.