TSS ~ I’m Planning a Realignment

This is the last Sunday Salon of 2009, and it’s got me thinking about how things has gone this year, as well as what I want to do next year.  For one thing, in looking back at all the books I’ve read this year (76 as of right now), it seems like it’s been a LOOOONG year, lol.  AND I started the year late, finishing my first book, Bedlam, Bath and Beyond by J.D. Warren on February 10.  I also took a detour into the land of Azeroth, discovering the world of MMORPG (the acronym for “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game”) when I decided to check out what all the WoW fuss was.  And while I still enjoy playing, I’ve gotten over it as such an obsessive distraction.  Recently, a friend of mine tried to get me into another game like World of Warcraft (or WoW is like it, since it was first) called Guild Wars, but I didn’t really dig it.  I also gave Warhammer a try, and was unimpressed by it, as well.  Books just beat any other medium of escape!

This past year I’ve read a variety of genres from sci-fi like Freedom’s Landing, Dune and Dune Messiah (not yet reviewed) to classics such as Silas Marner, Emma, and Northanger Abbey (not yet reviewed).  I’ve read horror, like Heart-Shaped Box, children’s books, like The Tutu Ballet, and serial books like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6 of the Harry Potter series), Marked (Book 1 of The House of Night series), and Brisingr (Book 3 of The Inheritance Cycle).  I’ve read books that have been made into movies, sometimes for the better, like Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons, and Confessions of a Shopoholic.  I didn’t limit myself to fiction, either, and read The World Without Us, The Stettheimer Dollhouse, and  An Inconvenient Book (not yet reviewed) and read poetry and plays like Dr. Faustus and Custard and Company, too.

For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve read this year and it’s hard to pick favorites.  But I shall try!  The following are my stars of 2009 (in no particular order):

1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ~ My all-time favorite book, I fell in love with the story and Zusak’s writing style.  I hope to give his other books a read as well someday.  After finishing this book, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  I couldn’t start another book for awhile.  I still find myself thinking about the beauty of the writing, the characters, and I want to reread it sometime soon.

2.  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ~ First off, I love dystopic books, it’s probably my favorite genre.  My definition of dystopia is:  Someone’s Utopia is another’s HELL.  I’ve been thinking a lot about this book lately, as I look at pictures I’ve taken of my 16-year-old this year.  In every one she’s got her mp3 player going in her ears.  At one point in time this year, all four of us were sitting in the same room, all of us listening to our own little soundtracks of our own lives.  We were all in huggable difference, and yet we were in different universes.  All I could think about were the seashells that Montag’s wife wore in her ears.  It was a disturbing and surreal moment.

3.  Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen ~ This book was vivid and well-researched, and it made me feel the magic of going to a circus as a child for the first time.  It had intrigue, romance, and the Great Depression.  The moving back and forth from the present Jacob Jankowski (who was 92, or 93, or 94.. he couldn’t even remember anymore) to the young Jacob who walked away from his vet finals after the death of his parents, becoming the vet for the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

4.  Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen ~ I recently finished this one, but in my rush to reach my goal of 75 books I’ve put off writing a review.  Hopefully I’ll get to it this coming week, but it’ll probably not happened until after the kids get back to school in the new year.  Northanger Abbey is my FAVORITE Austen book.  It’s witty and fun and Austen uses it as a great vehicle for arguing the criticisms of her day.  Reading this book was like watching myself as a teen.  I was soOOo Catherine Morland!  Dreamy, romantic who read way too many books and had no grasp of how the real world worked.

5.  Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper ~ Probably the book with the longest full title I’ve read:  Homer’s Odyssey:  A Fearless Feline Tale, Or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat.  This is my pimping-book for the year, meaning it’s the book I’ve been telling EVERYONE I see to read.  In addition to mad reco’s, I gave away copies as Christmas presents.  It’s such an inspirational and heart-warming story that I just can’t stop talking about it.  I know I’ll reread this one again and again 🙂

So, what are my plans for the New Year?  Well… I don’t really want to say I’ve made RESOLUTIONS because they never really work.  I’ve been thinking in terms of REALIGNMENTS.  I’ve gotten a bit lazy or distracted about things and have gone a bit off mark from where I wanted to go at the beginning of this year.  So, here’s what I’m wanting to do as we begin 2010:

1.  Um… I really need to do some house cleaning.  Bad.  I keep waiting for Miss Niecy to show up, lol, but I don’t think she’s coming.  Honestly, with all my online game-playing (WoW and facebook games being the main offenders) in the last few months, the laundry has piled up as have the dishes, and it’s starting to look like we have a dirt floor in the kitchen.  So, that’s first on my list of what I need to get done.

2.  I need to get back to cooking dinners.  Again, I’ve been lazy about not wanting to stop playing the games, and Domino’s has become #1 on my speed dial.  My kids are probably the only ones in the world that have said “Please, no more pizza!  I’m sick of pizza!”  And no,  frozen dinners don’t count as “cooking more”… lol.

3.  Get back to blogging regularly.  I’ve been bad about writing meme posts (which I enjoy) and writing reviews (which is sometimes a bit of work, but I also enjoy), mostly because *cough* it’d require me to get off the game and write them.  Yeah… like I said, I’ve been bad about the games here lately.

4.  Try to take things in balance.  I have a bad habit of going “all one thing at the expense of everything else”.  When I’m reading, that’s all I’m doing.  That’s how I’ve managed to read almost 20 books in a little over a month.  It’s pretty much all I’ve done.  When I was playing WoW, that was all I did, too.  All day, every day… sometimes for more than 24 hours straight.  I just don’t seem to know how to do moderation.

5.  Get through all my ARC-alanche pile.  Period.  Some of them have been on this pile for almost 2 years now.  I still have Stealing Athena, The Aviary Gate, Zoe’s Tale, and The Good Thief on it.  SOME are now available in AUDIOBOOK FORM.  I really need to focus on getting these books done.  I have FIVE LibraryThing Early Reader books to read, including Any Given Doomsday which I received back in February. 

So, how about you?  Any resolutions?  What do you hope to do in the year to come?

Mags and I love watching Style Network’s Clean House (the ones with Niecy Nash… not the other lady) and we love to veg in my bed together and watch marathons of the show.  Miss Niecy is lovely and hilarious, and after a few shows we can’t help but walk around doing Miss Niecy impressions… lol.  But, of course, it’s never as good as the original 😉 

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The Sunday Salon ~ Decompression Day!

Wow! What a week of reading! I have been reading more or less NON STOP all week, stopping only to write the reviews and blog or when life called me away, and even then I had my book in my coat pocket. I polished off four books this past week, so today I am kicking back and watching movies 🙂

Books read this week:
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson ~ Of the four books I’ve read this past week, I have to say I enjoyed Miss Pettigrew the most.

Yesterday, the kids and I went to the library for their monthly family movie, “Beverly Hills Chihauhau.” Saturated with the “aww factor,” which was supplied by toy dogs in Italian Leather and Pepto-pink cashmere sweaters. It’s definitely an adorable movie and worth seeing again 😀

And yesterday evening brought our Netflix movies in the mail, one of which was disc 1 of Dexter season 2 \O/ Woo-Hoo! \O/ . Poor Dexter struggles with an identity crisis after finding out his adopted father and mentor, Harry, lied to him about crucial information. Then, divers discover his body-dumping ground. Rita thinks he’s an addict and tells him he either goes to NA or it’s over. And Doakes, Dexter’s nemesis, tails him wherever he goes leaving Dexter the Dark Avenger all Jekyll and no Hyde. I can’t wait for disc 2!

For Maggie’s Netflix movie, The Forbidden Kingdom was a fun fantasy movie about a western teen boy with a fascination for martial arts movies who is magically whisked away to a mystical Middle Kingdom China. While I could have lived without Jason, the movie stars both Jet Li and Jackie Chan as Kung Fu masters. There is even a rare sight in this movie, Jet Li ACTUALLY throws his head back in a hearty laugh!

For my middle daughter, Penelope is the romantic tale of title character Penelope, who had the misfortune of being the victim of an old family curse that gave her the nose and ears of a pig. Penelope has to learn that being happy with who you are is more important than what others think of you. As an added bonus, Penelope’s love interest is played by James McAvoy :-p

And finally, for my oldest daughter, The Crow. She thinks the Crow is cool, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie.

Books on the menu for the coming week are:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Appeal by John Grisham
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Derailed by James Siegel

If I actually manage to get through all those in the coming week, which I doubt, I’ll start The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

So, what are your plans for the coming week?

Tuesday Thingers -LT Authors

Today’s topic: LibraryThing authors. Who are your LibraryThing authors? What books of theirs do you have? Do you ever comment on an author’s LT page? Have you received any comments from an author on your LT account?

This is an interesting question on a topic I rarely think about. LT Authors have a wonderful opportunity to reach readers, though I don’t think they take advantage of it. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a message from the author him/herself, but I have gotten a comment from the publisher on the book Firefly Rain. It’s possible they might use the Author/fan thing more if it could be done in a bulletin-fashion like myspace; if they could write one message then click send all and have it post to all those LT’ers who have fav’d them. As to my commenting on the Author’s page, I think I may have once or twice but I’m not sure.

My LT Authors are:
Dave Boling and I have his book Guernica, which I have yet to read.

Richard Dansky and I read and enjoyed his book Firefly Rain, which has been mooched away.

Joe Hill and I have his book Heart-Shaped Box, which is deep in the bowels of Mt. TBR. Point of trivia on Joe Hill: he’s Stephen King’s son 😉

Penelope Przekop and I have her book Aberrations, which I have yet to read.

Marisa de los Santos and I have her book Love Walked In. This book is located somewhere in Mt. TBR, and I didn’t recognize her name until I saw the book title.

C. Comfort Shields. This is an good example of how Mt. tbARC is kicking my butt. I have her book Surviving Ben’s Suicide, and want to read it, but it just keeps getting buried deeper and deeper. Last week didn’t help my fight against that pile which is entirely excusable, but all the same, I wish I could read faster!

Mort Zachter and I have read and loved his book Dough: a memoir, which has been mooched away. I have left a comment on his LT member page.

As I don’t remember adding a few of these as my authors, it would seem that when an author signs up for LT or when you input a book written by an LT member, they are automatically listed as an LT Author on members who have their books.