With everything happening in my life lately, I haven't had time think about the thing that most of my friends are either setting out to accomplish or giving serious thought about: what I want to be, ultimately. Yes, I got a degree, but it means very little in terms of pinning down an actual career because it was in English. In order to do that I would need to 1) almost certainly get more education, 2) actually decide what I want to do/study. The second one is the hard part. Because it changes like every two minutes. Some people just know that they just love editing, or writing, or studying modern British fiction. I can't seem to set any of my interests in stone; I'm a dabbler. I kind of like editing. I like writing well enough, sure. I like research (is there a job where you can just research for someone else? Like your job is finding their sources for the paper they are writing? Because I might be okay with that). I don't have one enduring interest that I am certain could sustain me through years of higher education. Also, the fact that getting a PhD in any literary topic does not guarantee for even a 50% chance of getting a real professorship is a deterrent.
So, for purely selfish reasons, I'll parse out (some of) my options, at least in the literary studies field. The ones that don't exactly seem horrible. The ones that I catch myself thinking: I'd like to go into that.
Children's Literature. What could be better than reading kids books, right? I mean, there is a lot there and it seems like I could apply any of my other interests to this pretty broad topic. I could study food, or place, or industry/farming in 20th century American children's lit. This is the only topic for which I've actually looked into grad schools, found one of interest, and recoiled at the 6 year (at minimum, without allowing for dissertation) program. 6 years? Reading kids books? More than half a decade spent studying something that gives me less than 50% chance at getting a job I like? (Probably way less than 50%, because how many schools are looking for Children's lit. specialists? not many.)
Environmental Literature. This is like Walden and stuff like that. Generally non-fiction (blerg) memiorish type stuff about going out into the wilds. There is poetry and fiction, too, but it mostly all feels non-fictiony. I do like eco-criticism and theory: looking at the role of place/environment/ecology and ideas about place, etc as it applies to literature. Though I did apply these theories to a novel that isn't in the "env. lit" realm for my senior thesis, something tells me this isn't normal (and maybe slightly frowned upon in the Environmental Literature world). I do love this topic, but I don't love much of the material (I can take or leave Edward Abbey). Besides, am I really that crunchy?
American Studies. This isn't even English! it's not even a valid major. However, I actually think that it is perhaps the most all-inclusive, because you can do a degree based on literature, rather than say history or politics or something like that. I minored in American Studies and nearly all of my classes were literature-based. I think it might be what I've been looking for all along, because I have a constant urge to reconcile Literature with the world and specific culture around us. Like a cause and effect kind of thing. I like exploring relationships between things like technology and culture as it is addressed through literature. I also like taking something known and almost culturally iconic and finding out how our culture came to embrace it through history, using lots of different fields sources. Also, I love applying cold hard facts to literature. It feels more significant, like I'm actually taking a more solid and less whimsical approach.
It's not that I'm so into America or whatever. I hate America. But it's what I know and how can I remove my own embedded "American" ideals, values, norms, whatever enough to actually think something valid about anywhere else. I have no idea about anywhere or anything else that isn't affected by my American-ness. And that's the question posed, I guess: "what is American-ness?" and how does it relate to....everything.
The two things I learned the most from in college were my English Senior Thesis and my American Studies final project. One was on how ideals specifically applied to the American landscape affect farmers in a technologically advancing world in The Grapes of Wrath. And the other was about the creation and acceptance of what Americans think of as Chinese food. (the idea of applying what I've learned about foodways to food represented in literature is very exciting, I have to say.)
At the end of the eight or so months I spent writing my English Senior Thesis, as I handed in my final draft to my advisor, she took a good long look at me and said, "You know this is really an American Studies paper, don't you?"
Anyway, somehow it seems like these interests of mine are worlds apart, and other times it feels like there is an invisible cord connecting them. I just can't seem to fully grasp how they relate to each other and how I could make use of that connection to create a totally fulfilling experience for myself. And then comes the question, "yes, but what would I want to do with all of this?" And I think I need to save that for a later post.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wedding Planning Blues; or: Is it too Late to Elope?
Can I just tell you that planning a wedding is really hard? What were we thinking?! It's taken on a life of it's own, it's actually taking over our lives. The new year has brought a new reality: we are getting married in T-minus 114 days and, Dude, we're not ready.
As with anything, complications have come up, both personal and not. Shifting roles, lost friends, etc. Our florist cancelled last week. Wow. That's huge. I booked her back in June so that it would be taken care of before we lived 600 miles away. We had a lot of trouble finding a hotel for everyone to stay at (did I have to have my wedding 1/2 across the country from my entire family?! Yes, because I couldn't bear the thought of having the reception at the Bessemer VFW. At first I thought of it as a good opportunity for everyone to take a vacation, but now I'm realizing that a lot of people actually hate going on vacation). Just a note to those of you who are invited/in the wedding outside of the Boston Area: book now. Book now, book now, book now.
And there are like 500 other things that need to be taken care of.
I know, "boo hoo, I'm getting married and it's so hard," cry me a river. But we've been having a rough couple of weeks. It seems like I get one thing squared away, and then 5 more pop up. This whole "wedding" thing is just crazy, anyway, when you think about it. Why did we fall into this mire of societal norms and expectations? We just wanted it to be nice for us and for everyone else.
On a brighter note: we're working on finalizing the invitations, and they're beautiful. I strongly recommend hiring a small business when you can, because the quality and price can't be beat. We're working with DWRI Letterpress out of Providence, RI and for about 2/3 of the price we would have paid to any stationary store, we are getting hand designed/pressed invitations on beautifully lush papers and were also able to hire an artist to draw a picture that will be incorporated into the design. It's really pretty.
I knew of DWRI from the good old days when good old Amber worked in the literary journal circle. My hay-day, I like to call it (early last year). Well, those days are long-gone now. But Tuesday Journal hired Dan Wood and DWRI to print the journal, so I had gone to his place of business for meetings (which is his garage, converted into a letterpress factory/office) and had seen him at work. And I love knowing that my money is going to him, rather than a huge chain.
The invitations are important to me simply because of spending so much time working with papers/printing/fonts, etc for different jobs. Paper is a huge part of my life, I think. Everything I see in print, I think of in terms of font and paper choice. So even though they are such a minor part of the whole wedding, loving my invitations is a huge deal to me. I'd rather remember my beautiful invitations than a veritable garden of very specific imported flowers from the florist (though I do still need some flowers!).
As with anything, complications have come up, both personal and not. Shifting roles, lost friends, etc. Our florist cancelled last week. Wow. That's huge. I booked her back in June so that it would be taken care of before we lived 600 miles away. We had a lot of trouble finding a hotel for everyone to stay at (did I have to have my wedding 1/2 across the country from my entire family?! Yes, because I couldn't bear the thought of having the reception at the Bessemer VFW. At first I thought of it as a good opportunity for everyone to take a vacation, but now I'm realizing that a lot of people actually hate going on vacation). Just a note to those of you who are invited/in the wedding outside of the Boston Area: book now. Book now, book now, book now.
And there are like 500 other things that need to be taken care of.
I know, "boo hoo, I'm getting married and it's so hard," cry me a river. But we've been having a rough couple of weeks. It seems like I get one thing squared away, and then 5 more pop up. This whole "wedding" thing is just crazy, anyway, when you think about it. Why did we fall into this mire of societal norms and expectations? We just wanted it to be nice for us and for everyone else.
On a brighter note: we're working on finalizing the invitations, and they're beautiful. I strongly recommend hiring a small business when you can, because the quality and price can't be beat. We're working with DWRI Letterpress out of Providence, RI and for about 2/3 of the price we would have paid to any stationary store, we are getting hand designed/pressed invitations on beautifully lush papers and were also able to hire an artist to draw a picture that will be incorporated into the design. It's really pretty.
I knew of DWRI from the good old days when good old Amber worked in the literary journal circle. My hay-day, I like to call it (early last year). Well, those days are long-gone now. But Tuesday Journal hired Dan Wood and DWRI to print the journal, so I had gone to his place of business for meetings (which is his garage, converted into a letterpress factory/office) and had seen him at work. And I love knowing that my money is going to him, rather than a huge chain.
The invitations are important to me simply because of spending so much time working with papers/printing/fonts, etc for different jobs. Paper is a huge part of my life, I think. Everything I see in print, I think of in terms of font and paper choice. So even though they are such a minor part of the whole wedding, loving my invitations is a huge deal to me. I'd rather remember my beautiful invitations than a veritable garden of very specific imported flowers from the florist (though I do still need some flowers!).
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
a year ago
A year and two days ago, Aaron asked me to marry him. I can't believe a whole year has already gone by. I feel like I just got up the nerve to call people and tell them my news (I remember practicing on Meghan first and it seeming so awkward to say the words: "We got engaged").
This whole being "engaged" thing is really weird, by the way. Your title changes to something really snooty sounding ("oh, yes, my fiance and I absolutely adore sailing") and at first, you're like "no way am I using that word," but then you find yourself using it because all of a sudden "boyfriend" just doesn't seem to cut it.
So we've been fiance-ing for a year. And we're about to have a wedding. Wow. This whole thing is just crazy.
But anyway, a year and two days ago, Aaron threw me in the car and drove to Vermont. We stayed in a barn, converted into a bed and breakfast, and there was snow on the ground. He took me for a walk in a field, brought hot apple cider, stood me in front of one of those stone walls that always makes me think of Robert Frost, got down on both knees and started babbling about our whole relationship, start to finish...or rather start to new start. And then he took out a little box and that's that. There was champagne when we got back to the room.
He took me there because Boston didn't have any snow and Michigan barely had snow over Christmas and I needed snow. And there it was. He's a man who makes things happen.
I'm not really one of those girls that's really into weddings and romantic movies and stuff, but it was a really special day. I know that everyone gets married and each person's wedding/marriage/relationship is special, but I feel like Aaron and I are extra-special. Like we're the thing that doesn't happen very often. We're a relationship to envy. I know that sounds stuck up, but it's true, I think. We're friends more than anything else, and that's really what makes it bearable to be with someone else all the time. I like being around him. We're a team. We go through everything in our lives as a team, and yet we're able to remain our own persons. I think that I've kind of stumbled onto the secret to a good relationship here. I've only known one other couple like this (hi, Dana and Neal) and they're doing our wedding ceremony for us, so I feel like that's something.
I don't want to make it seem like what Aaron and I have is always great, always puppies and rainbows and whatever -- relationships, good ones, are really hard work -- sometimes life is downright bleak. But because we're both willing to put in the effort, we get a lot out of our relationship. We're committed to making our relationship good, even when times are really hard. I think that's a good reason to get married to someone. And so, a year and two days after he asked me to marry him, I can say that I'm still up for it.
This whole being "engaged" thing is really weird, by the way. Your title changes to something really snooty sounding ("oh, yes, my fiance and I absolutely adore sailing") and at first, you're like "no way am I using that word," but then you find yourself using it because all of a sudden "boyfriend" just doesn't seem to cut it.
So we've been fiance-ing for a year. And we're about to have a wedding. Wow. This whole thing is just crazy.
But anyway, a year and two days ago, Aaron threw me in the car and drove to Vermont. We stayed in a barn, converted into a bed and breakfast, and there was snow on the ground. He took me for a walk in a field, brought hot apple cider, stood me in front of one of those stone walls that always makes me think of Robert Frost, got down on both knees and started babbling about our whole relationship, start to finish...or rather start to new start. And then he took out a little box and that's that. There was champagne when we got back to the room.
He took me there because Boston didn't have any snow and Michigan barely had snow over Christmas and I needed snow. And there it was. He's a man who makes things happen.
I'm not really one of those girls that's really into weddings and romantic movies and stuff, but it was a really special day. I know that everyone gets married and each person's wedding/marriage/relationship is special, but I feel like Aaron and I are extra-special. Like we're the thing that doesn't happen very often. We're a relationship to envy. I know that sounds stuck up, but it's true, I think. We're friends more than anything else, and that's really what makes it bearable to be with someone else all the time. I like being around him. We're a team. We go through everything in our lives as a team, and yet we're able to remain our own persons. I think that I've kind of stumbled onto the secret to a good relationship here. I've only known one other couple like this (hi, Dana and Neal) and they're doing our wedding ceremony for us, so I feel like that's something.
I don't want to make it seem like what Aaron and I have is always great, always puppies and rainbows and whatever -- relationships, good ones, are really hard work -- sometimes life is downright bleak. But because we're both willing to put in the effort, we get a lot out of our relationship. We're committed to making our relationship good, even when times are really hard. I think that's a good reason to get married to someone. And so, a year and two days after he asked me to marry him, I can say that I'm still up for it.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Two Lessons from 2007
Here are the two biggest things I took away from 2007.
1. "The only person you can trust is yourself" (or in my case, Aaron and myself). I really learned that relying on anyone else is only going to get you hurt because people are generally only out for themselves and have a tendency to break your heart if you let them. Yeah, big deal, this is old news, I know. However, I would say that I'm a touch delicate and a mite trusting, so this became my mantra over the last year. If I don't expect anything from others, I won't get hurt/frustrated/rail roaded. At the same time, I am trying not to become embittered. I'd like to maintain my trustworthy, reliable, considerate M.O.
This is a work in progress.
2. Floss daily. Finally, I did it. Recurring resolution #1 finally checked off my list. After spending $2,000 on a root canal over the summer, I have become very fastidious about my dental hygiene.
1. "The only person you can trust is yourself" (or in my case, Aaron and myself). I really learned that relying on anyone else is only going to get you hurt because people are generally only out for themselves and have a tendency to break your heart if you let them. Yeah, big deal, this is old news, I know. However, I would say that I'm a touch delicate and a mite trusting, so this became my mantra over the last year. If I don't expect anything from others, I won't get hurt/frustrated/rail roaded. At the same time, I am trying not to become embittered. I'd like to maintain my trustworthy, reliable, considerate M.O.
This is a work in progress.
2. Floss daily. Finally, I did it. Recurring resolution #1 finally checked off my list. After spending $2,000 on a root canal over the summer, I have become very fastidious about my dental hygiene.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
53 Books
Like most people, I sucker myself every year into making resolutions on New Years. And like most people, I usually fail miserably. You know, the eat less carbs, go to yoga at least once a week, take better care of my teeth (more on this one later), learn to cross-stitch, clean the bathroom once a week with bleach. The regular junk. However, this year, for the first time ever, I was true to myself and accomplished a goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year.
My goal: to read 50 books. I was actually able to read 53 books over the course of 2007. To some people, this might seem like 52 more books than they would ever read in one year, to others I know, this is probably only half of the books they consumed this year. But for me, the number seemed manageable yet challenging, so I settled on an even 50, with a distant hope that I'd reach 52 so I could go into 2008 knowing that I'd averaged a book a week. I was a little worried when I started that I would force myself to read shorter books and I would stifle my "as my whimsy takes me" approach to reading. But I came up with a fool-proof solution: failure. If I wanted to read a 1,000 page book, I would, even if it did push everything back. I would say that I spent the first half of the year tentatively, feeling out whether or not this was possible. I spent the second half of the year like a marathon runner...I was in it for the long haul and I couldn't be stopped.
And so, here are the books I read in 2007:
1. More Than Enough - John Fulton
2. A Contract with God - Will Eisner
3. The Road Home - Jim Harrison
4. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternack
5. Serve It Forth: Art of Eating - MFK Fisher
6. My Antonia - Willa Cather
7. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
8. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
9. Rock Springs - Richard Ford
10. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
11. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
12. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
13. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
14. For Rouenna - Sigrid Nunez
15. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
16. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
17. Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
18. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
19. Dicey's Song - Cynthia Voigt
20. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. Little Children - Tom Perrotta
22. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - Loraine Despres
23. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
24. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
25. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
26. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
27. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
28. There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom - Louis Sachar
29. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
30. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
31. The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
32. Marie Antoinette: The Journey - Antonia Fraser
33. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
35. Watership Down - Richard Adams
36. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
37. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
38. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
39. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
40. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
41. Through the Safety Net - Charles Baxter
42. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
43. O Pioneers - Willa Cather
44. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
45. Metamorphsis - Franz Kafka
46. Silas Marner - George Eliot
47. The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
48. A Year in the Maine Woods - Bernd Heinrich
49. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
50. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
51. Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
52. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
53. Until I Find You - John Irving
Here are some stats:
Number of Rereads: 9
Non-Fiction: 4
Number Read on Project Gutenberg: 2
Top 5 Books in 2007:
5. Doctor Zhivago - This was surprisingly enjoyable and love-filled. I would say that some wikipedia on Russian History/the Russian Revolution is necessary to fully grasp the historical information that's kind of thrown at you. But it's a really fun book to read in the winter and the PBS version of it is good. I'm still looking forward to watching the older one on a snowy day.
4. David Copperfield
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Okay, so I cheated by adding three books, but The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass were just really fun to read. I loved that the first book was set in a cold climate. I know that there is the Milton connection, but much of it also had a bit of Jonathan Swift, especially the weird animals in the last book.
2. Madame Bovary - Really funny and ironic and sad. It's a classic for a good reason, I think. I should read more French Literature, maybe. Every time I do, I love the humor.
1. Cold Mountain - I know! I can't believe it either! It was one of those really guilty reads, like "I'm going to read something really trashy because I just graduated and I can. Here's something...why do I even own this?" Maybe it was just because I was being naughty by reading it, but I was fully engrossed and I enjoyed every minute of it. Often, 100 pages from the end I just want the book to be over, but I didn't want this to end. I really liked it. I can't help it. I could see reading this again, and I guess that's how it ended up here.
Bottom 5 Books in 2007:
5. Everything is Illuminated - It's not that I hated this book and I might be the only person I know who wasn't impressed by it, but I just thought it was a bunch of craft work and style with not much heart. I just kept thinking that the whole thing was a big fat gimmick. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't.
2. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - I knew it would be bad going in, but I felt like I had to read it because this was the book that Aaron read to see what Chick Lit was all about. Sadly, we both learned that it's about not much.
1. Watership Down - I'd been wanting to read this book for 12 years and I'd never gotten around to it. I can finally say that the award for Biggest Let-Down in 2007 goes to Watership Down because it sucked. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull all over again. The rabbits weren't even cute, they were creepy. It took all the fun out of anthropomorphizing little animals. What a waste of time.
So there you have it. I have set new goals for my reading life in 2008, but like last year, I don't want to say them until I know I can do them.
My goal: to read 50 books. I was actually able to read 53 books over the course of 2007. To some people, this might seem like 52 more books than they would ever read in one year, to others I know, this is probably only half of the books they consumed this year. But for me, the number seemed manageable yet challenging, so I settled on an even 50, with a distant hope that I'd reach 52 so I could go into 2008 knowing that I'd averaged a book a week. I was a little worried when I started that I would force myself to read shorter books and I would stifle my "as my whimsy takes me" approach to reading. But I came up with a fool-proof solution: failure. If I wanted to read a 1,000 page book, I would, even if it did push everything back. I would say that I spent the first half of the year tentatively, feeling out whether or not this was possible. I spent the second half of the year like a marathon runner...I was in it for the long haul and I couldn't be stopped.
And so, here are the books I read in 2007:
1. More Than Enough - John Fulton
2. A Contract with God - Will Eisner
3. The Road Home - Jim Harrison
4. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternack
5. Serve It Forth: Art of Eating - MFK Fisher
6. My Antonia - Willa Cather
7. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
8. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
9. Rock Springs - Richard Ford
10. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
11. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
12. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
13. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
14. For Rouenna - Sigrid Nunez
15. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
16. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
17. Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
18. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
19. Dicey's Song - Cynthia Voigt
20. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. Little Children - Tom Perrotta
22. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - Loraine Despres
23. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
24. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
25. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
26. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
27. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
28. There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom - Louis Sachar
29. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
30. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
31. The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
32. Marie Antoinette: The Journey - Antonia Fraser
33. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
35. Watership Down - Richard Adams
36. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
37. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
38. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
39. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
40. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
41. Through the Safety Net - Charles Baxter
42. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
43. O Pioneers - Willa Cather
44. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
45. Metamorphsis - Franz Kafka
46. Silas Marner - George Eliot
47. The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
48. A Year in the Maine Woods - Bernd Heinrich
49. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
50. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
51. Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
52. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
53. Until I Find You - John Irving
Here are some stats:
Number of Rereads: 9
Non-Fiction: 4
Number Read on Project Gutenberg: 2
Top 5 Books in 2007:
5. Doctor Zhivago - This was surprisingly enjoyable and love-filled. I would say that some wikipedia on Russian History/the Russian Revolution is necessary to fully grasp the historical information that's kind of thrown at you. But it's a really fun book to read in the winter and the PBS version of it is good. I'm still looking forward to watching the older one on a snowy day.
4. David Copperfield
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Okay, so I cheated by adding three books, but The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass were just really fun to read. I loved that the first book was set in a cold climate. I know that there is the Milton connection, but much of it also had a bit of Jonathan Swift, especially the weird animals in the last book.
2. Madame Bovary - Really funny and ironic and sad. It's a classic for a good reason, I think. I should read more French Literature, maybe. Every time I do, I love the humor.
1. Cold Mountain - I know! I can't believe it either! It was one of those really guilty reads, like "I'm going to read something really trashy because I just graduated and I can. Here's something...why do I even own this?" Maybe it was just because I was being naughty by reading it, but I was fully engrossed and I enjoyed every minute of it. Often, 100 pages from the end I just want the book to be over, but I didn't want this to end. I really liked it. I can't help it. I could see reading this again, and I guess that's how it ended up here.
Bottom 5 Books in 2007:
5. Everything is Illuminated - It's not that I hated this book and I might be the only person I know who wasn't impressed by it, but I just thought it was a bunch of craft work and style with not much heart. I just kept thinking that the whole thing was a big fat gimmick. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't.
4. Little Children - I feel bad because I really like Tom Perrotta and I like his other stuff, but I just felt like this was a kind of poorly-written, made for Hollywood, rant about living in an upscale Boston suburb. We know, it can suck. Just move away and start writing about things people might care about.
3. Nectar in a Sieve - Not worth it. Read The Good Earth instead, which is barely worth it.2. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - I knew it would be bad going in, but I felt like I had to read it because this was the book that Aaron read to see what Chick Lit was all about. Sadly, we both learned that it's about not much.
1. Watership Down - I'd been wanting to read this book for 12 years and I'd never gotten around to it. I can finally say that the award for Biggest Let-Down in 2007 goes to Watership Down because it sucked. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull all over again. The rabbits weren't even cute, they were creepy. It took all the fun out of anthropomorphizing little animals. What a waste of time.
So there you have it. I have set new goals for my reading life in 2008, but like last year, I don't want to say them until I know I can do them.
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