My Year in Books (A review)

I had a lofty goal of reading 100 books in 2010.  I didn't quite make it.  There were some lengthy books in my list this year so I don't think I'll be beating myself up too much over falling short.  The sword of truth books come to mind first off.

I've been working on this list all year and I'm really happy I was keeping track.  Looking over it now, there are some books I had forgotten I'd read and some I really wished I hadn't read at all.

I think I'm going to make 100 books in 2011 one of my resolutions this year. 

The Reading List:
1. Alan Bradley - The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
2. David Cristofano - The Girl She Used to Be
3. Robert Munsch - The Munschworks Grand Treasury
4. Jean Auel - Shelters of Stone
5. John Jeavons - The Backyard Homestead Mini-Farm
6. Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol
7. Terry Goodkind - The Pillars of Creation
8. Peter D'Adamo - The Genotype Diet
9. Jason Wright - The Wednesday Letters
10. Terry Goodkind - Naked Empire
11. Heidi Ayarbe - Freeze Frame
12. Scott O'Dell - Island of the Blue Dolphins
13. Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns
14. Nicholas Sparks - The Notebook
15. Alan Bradley - The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
16. Nicholas Sparks - Dear John
17. Terry Goodkind - Chainfire
18. Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage
19. Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader
20. Don Piper - 90 Minutes in Heaven
21. Michael Scott - The Alchemyst
22. Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code
23. Terry Goodkind - Phantom
24. Catherine Gilbert Murdock - Princess Ben
25. Brandon Mull - Fablehaven: Keys to the Demon Prison
26. Cesar Millan - A Member of the Family
27. Paulo Coelho - The Witch of Portobello
28. Anita Diamant - The Red Tent
29. Terry Goodkind - Confessor
30. Sarah Gruen - Riding Lessons
31. Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
32. Kathryn Stockett - The Help
33. Stephenie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
34. Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception
35. Ann Brashares - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
36. Melanie Benjamin - Alice I have been
37. Rebecca Stead - When You Reach Me
38. Cynthia Lord - Rules
39. Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid
40. David Dosa - Making Rounds with Oscar
41. Elizabeth Hasselbeck - The G Free Diet
42. Margaret Mitchell - Gone With The Wind
43. Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony
44. Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox
45. Stieg Larrson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
46. Elizabeth Berg - Home Safe
47. Mitch Albom - Have a Little Faith
48. Jeanne DuPrau - City of Ember
49. Maggie Stiefvater - Linger
50. Jeanne DuPrau - The People of Sparks
51. Jeanne DuPrau - The Prophet of Yonwood
52. F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
53. Jeanne DuPrau - The Diamond of Darkhold
54. Frank Bruni - Born Round
55. Sara Gruen - Ape House
56. Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
57. Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
58. Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass
59. Rhoda Janzen - Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
60. Kate Jacob - The Friday Night Knitting Club
61. Christopher McDougall - Born to Run
62. Philip Pullman - The Golden Compass
63. Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
64. Philip Pullman - The Amber Spyglass
65. Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games
66. Chris Cleave - Little Bee
67. Kate Jacob - Knit Two
68. Voltaire - Candide
69. Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
70. Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire
71. Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay

Christmas Cookie Tradition

One of my favorite Newman family Christmas traditions is our annual cookie day.  We gather, have lunch, catch up on family news and bake cookies until we all have reached our maximum sugar tolerance for the season.  The star of the cookie show is hands down the sugar cookies!   By the end of the day we each have our own tins of fudge, chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy treats, sugar cookies, and pecan sandies.

It is usually a girls only affair.  The boys are sent off to buy us presents or have a sushi date or buy guns...you know, the usual boy stuff.  Since Bobbo is still a small, man-child he gets to come still.  Plus he needs to put some miles on his 'boy apron'.



Decorating sugar cookies


We were short a few of our usual attendees this year and they were noticably missed. 

Bobbo, Me, Karyl, Kayla, Nicole, Nancy, Emma & Donna

Six Days

My little guy was born six days before Christmas. Six days. 


This time of year holds memories now, not just of the anticipation of Christmas and the joy of the season, but also blurry memories of late nights, round the clock feedings, snuggling by the fire and watching the Christmas tree lights twinkle with a sleeping baby tucked gently in the crook of my arm.

This is Bobbo's first ornament.  I might need to keep it for myself after he's grown.  It's hard not to look at it without getting teary eyed and wishing for babies brand new all over again.

"How delightful," Said Pooh, To be so brand-new"





"A Baby is always doing something brand-new," said Piglet.

"I suppose that's what makes a baby so special," said Pooh. "That and being so huggable and sweet."



p.s.  Nat the fat Rat puts that feeling into words so much better than I do, here and here.



Little Bee by Chris Cleave

"We must see all scars as beauty.  A scar doesn't form on the dying.  A scar means, I survived."
~Little Bee

The back of the book reads:

We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.
It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:
This is the story of two women.  Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face.  Two years later, they meed again - and the story starts there...
Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it.  When you do, please don't tell them what happens.  The magic is in how the story unfolds.

So....What do you say about that?

I admit that I didn't like the book when I started it.  But my sister-in-law was adamant that I read the book because she loved it.  I would have put the book down if she wouldn't have been so insistent and the fact that I can't not finish a book once I've started it.  My ONE fatal flaw I suppose...

But then I absolutely needed to know how the story was going to end.  And I read 2/3 of the book in one day.

So.  Should you read it?  YES.  Will you like it? Maybe.  It will leave you thinking for sure.  Last night I would have told you no, I didn't like it.  But after sleeping on it, I think I'm changing my mind.

So what's the story?  It's the story of a person who throws one washed up starfish back into the ocean.  Does that make a difference in the world?  It does to THAT starfish.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

I'm thinking about trying to catch a deer with my bare hands.

NO?

You don't think I can do it?

You really should have more faith in me than that. 

I just finished reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  It really and truly has got me thinking about trying to out run a deer.  Do you think it was really possible back in the hunter and gatherer days?   If a deer can't sweat and run at the same time...and it would get overheated in just over 6 miles.....

I can totally run 6 miles...

Okay.  Maybe I will work on my strategy a little bit more first.  But it's got me thinking.  Just like I've been thinking lately that if I could be any fictional character ever I'd be Ayla from the Earth's Children Series.  I'd like to rock the tone, gorgeous, hunter/gatherer body AND know all she knows about medicinal herbs.

But that's another story.  And this story is about Born to Run.  Born to Run is a mix of history about the Taruamara running tribes, good running advice, and stories about some of the more famous ultra runners from the US.

Before reading this book I didn't really know anything about ultra running.  I guess I thought you run marathons and that's it.  I ended up changing my bookmark half way through to a piece of paper just so I could jot down things I wanted to google later.  Like Jenn Shelton.  If I can't be Ayla in another life then I would like to be just like Jenn Shelton someday.
Anyone who is any kind of recreational runner would enjoy this book I think.  The following is my favorite part.  Which will someday find it's way onto an index card and be thumb tacked to the wall in front of my treadmill right next to the list of the 1996 Churchill County Cross Country race times.  That Katrina Flanders....she was fast.  And I aim to catch her someday.

 
Caballo's Lesson #2: Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast.

You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad.
Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don't give a shit how high the hill is or how far you've got to go.
When you've practiced that so long you forget you're practicing, you work on making it smooth.  You won't have to worry about the last one - you get those three, and you'll be fast.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman is a trilogy consisting of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.  They have been on my TO READ list for a while now, but I kept putting them off.   I had heard they were chalk full of controversy and on the Church's banned book list.  I'm not sure why I cared about it being on the boycott list by the Church, they don't approve of Harry Potter either and I didn't care.  I really kind of feel like a book is a book is a book and at the end of the day I have to be responsible for my own beliefs where ever I acquired them. And besides, I'm not the kind of person who believes something just because some one told me to.

As I was reading I made a mental list of all the possible reasons the books would have been on the do not read list.  Here's what I came up with:

Fallen Angels
An Angel who poses as the authority (God)
a plot to kill God
Witches
Alternate, Parallel Universes to ours
Talking animals
Portraying the institution as corrupt and inherently evil
Passages to other worlds in the air
Souls existing outside people as daemons
Original sin appearing as dust that gathers around people

Maybe if you are good at the whole drawing implied references out of fiction you would have taken more offense to the storyline.  But I think I already established that English wasn't my strongest subject.  The story at face value was really good.  Good as in I liked it like I liked Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia or the Percy Jackson books.


What I learned from wikipedia is that the trilogy was written to be somewhat a retelling and an inversion of John Milton's Paradise Lost.  (crickets chirping)  Which means I guess maybe I should add that to my TO READ list as well now.

In the Golden Compass, we meet Lyra and discover what the Authority has plans to do by way of severing children from their deamons.  Severing this bond releases a large amount of energy that can be used to open up doors into other worlds.  Lyra also finds the golden compass (the elithiometer) and learns how to read it.  It is a truth telling device that will answer any question you ask of it if you know how to use it properly.  We also learn that there is a prophecy about Lyra.  That she is meant to do something great but she must not know about it ahead of time.

Its not until the Subtle Knife that we learn that there are a large number of parallel universes to ours and it is possible to use the Subtle Knife to cut a door from any world into another.  The Subtle Knife is a continuation of Lyra's mission and the book where we are introduced to Will.  He will also have a significant role in Lyra carrying out the prophecy.

In the final book we learn what exactly the prophecy about Lyra is and see it be fulfilled.

My Favorite Characters:
Lorek Byrnison  is an armoured bear.  He has been tricked out of his rightful role as king of the bears and Lyra helps him to regain it.  Afterward, he is instrumental in Lyra fulfilling the prophecy.

Lee Scoresby is an aeronaut from Texas.  I loved him because he is good hearted deep down but extremely blunt (as in has no people skills), if it doesn't directly help him out then he's not for it.  He loves Lyra like a daughter and would protect her with his life.  There is also something about strong-willed Texans.  I liked Lee Scoresby just as much as I liked Richard from Texas in Eat, Pray, Love.

Serafina Pekkala is a witch that is all at once old and young, and extremely knowledgeable.  I saw her as a mother figure to Lyra.  Serafina in the beginning is the only one who knows the prophecy about Lyra.

Marisa Coulter, turns out to be Lyra's mother.  She wishes to destroy Dust and thus Original Sin.  Mrs. Coulter seems to switch sides regularly and the whole time I was left wondering if she was truly good or evil at the core.  

Now, I am off to find Paradise Lost at the library.

The Friday Night Knitting Club

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Is knitting making a comeback in the younger generations??  Some would argue yes.  There are two or three of the 20-30 age range who go to the library knitting meetings regularly.

The Friday Night Knitting Club offers a glimpse into the everyday life of single parent, Georgia Walker, and her daughter Dokota.  Georgia runs a knitting shop in New York City.  What started as a costumer here and there staying late after shop hours to discuss knitting projects or life in general evolved into a weekly gathering of a handful of funny, caring, you-are-gonna-love women who come to depend on each other for more than knitting and purling advice.

I really liked the novel.  Even if you aren't a knitter if you like Chick Lit I predict you will enjoy The Friday Night Knitting Club.  One word of advice though:  It has a interesting twist very late in the story, so don't go reading the back of the sequel (like I did) before you are done with the first.  I was sad I ruined the ending for myself.



What I learned to make at my very own Saturday-Afternoon-Knitting-Club...