Why 100?

Last year I set out to read 100 books, but I ran out of time and only read 75. So this year, I will read one hundred books. And you're my witness :) The only thing stopping me this year is 9 seasons' worth of Seinfeld episodes- wish me luck!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

This was a great book: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  Set in 1940s Barcelona, it is a creepy little mystery/love story/book about books that I was shocked by at every turn.  A very mild Gabriel Garcia Marquez.... but overall, I'd recommend it.  But not, as my mom so kindly suggested, to read while you are house sitting or home alone for a long and stormy night.  Unless you want to feel creepy.

Back to my day-to-day:  whatever happened to just laying around and being a lazy bones all day?  Every time I try to do that- and believe me, I try a lot- I just end up getting all sad and antsy and upset at the world.  Why can't I just watch a marathon of TV or a stupid movie while I lay there?  I think it is living with my parents that have made me this way.... unable to just be a slug for an entire day.  My dad had the audacity to ask me why i was laying around inside when it was so beautiful outside that other day.  As if he were outraged.  Big diff, it has been nice out for like 3 months straight, what does it matter if I take one or two days to go into the bat cave?

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

guess who's back? tell a friend.

Okay, my new goal was a complete and utter flop.  Since I last wrote (I think...) I have packed up my college life, moved back home, been a part of 2 weddings, and said a sort of goodbye to my habibi, the man of my dreams.  Yes, I miss him.  Yes, I still talk to him almost every day because I can't let go, and I don't think he can either.  There is a chance he may stay here to go to grad school.  Where does that leave me?  I'm not sure.  Since school let out, I got an awesome, albeit sometimes pretty boring, job as a technical writer/phone answerer/website designer/copy writer/dog transporter/lunch fetcher/phone call maker.....  I am now a Girl Friday, but with a little more pizazz than that, because my official position is 'Office Manager'.  Oooh, I'm really stepping up in the world, eh?  But it is a job, it is helping me pay off my post-college/post-dating-long-distance debt.  Not very quickly, but it is a journey, isn't that what they say? 
Anyway, to those of you that read this, or used to read this, or have never read this before in your life, I think I'm back.  I'm not trying to read 100 books this year (or any other year, ever again!)  but I still read.  And I like blabbering about myself.  And my besty told me she would like to read a blog about me and what i do on a day to day business but more in my personality.  so here you go.  AND since i really don't have any sort of social life outside of work and jersey shore, I still read compulsively.  So I guess I'll throw in a book review or two. 
Baby, I'm Back :)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

my new goal

for any of you out there that are still tuning in, i realized that i already have a goal for this year and i can document it.  actually my goal is between now and may, when i have to move out, but it is a goal nonetheless.  i have stacks and stacks of magazines that i have set aside for some reason- there was something in it that i wanted to keep or remember or whatever and now that there are about 50 of them, i have no idea what made me set these aside.  perhaps it was laziness and recycling bin proximity issues.... anyway i'm sifting through my stash and i thought i could bring the best of the magazine articles right here on the web.  so that's what i'm probably going to be doing then.  we'll see.  oh and by the way, the first book i finished in the new year was a big, thick, deliciously long diana gabaldon novel- The Fiery Cross.  i'm more than halfway done with the series!  and, while excessively long (1430 pages), it was great.  looking forward to picking up the next.

Monday, January 3, 2011

year's favorite- my most reccomended novels

10 books out of the 101 that stood out for me for some reason.... how they portray different family, cultural values, relationships, etc.  The following 10 books had some impact on me greater than the others for as yet unidentified reasons:










Peony in Love
100 Years of Solitude
Mapy of Love
White Noise
Sunburned Country
Everything is Illuminated
Language of Baklava
Persepolis
Friday Night Lights
The Help

Saturday, January 1, 2011

100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
I'm both happy and sad to say that my year of reading is over.  I finished it off with another novel by Lisa See- Shanghai Girls.  I was going to read Catcher and the Rye  and end my year with a "classic" novel, but when i started to read it, i realized that i read it a long time ago (and really didn't like it the first time.  although, if heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad is any indication that reading a book more than once *3 1/2 times, actually* will make you respect and like a book more, than i should pick it up again..... but not this year!)  Shanghai Girls was pretty sad, actually, like Peony in Love, but not as ethereal.  I wonder how Snow Flower and Secret Fan or whatever it is called is like....
And, since that book was such a bummer, I read a Christmas gift from my uncle for an accidental bonus 101st book!  Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris was a sick little book of animal stories.  some of them had morals, most of them were just a little disturbing and all of them made me laugh a little and then feel horrible for laughing.  like the one about the cow that picked the turkey for secret santa because she knew the turkey was Christmas Eve dinner and therefore wouldn't need a present.  sick and wrong.... but i kinda liked it.  it is an updated James Thurber, as far as i'm concerned, and its good to see that current move forward.  I like animal stories that are funny.  especially dog ones, because i love dogs.  but you already knew that. 

so i'm wondering what i should do as my goal for this year that began today..... knit 100 scarves?  cook 50 new recipes, a la julie and julia?  i first need to re-teach myself how to read like a normal person, I went a little nutso with my reading skills this year and in turn, i now do not put a book down until i have read 100 pages because i am used to a deadline, damnit!  it'll be nice to pick up a book at leisure and read those big, thick terribly long novels that take me weeks to finish. 

99. whoa

i can't believe i'm so close!  and with one week left.  there is something about the book that i read, The Hazards of Good Breeding by Jessica Shattuck that really reminded me how important beginnings are, but even more so, how important endings are.  and here we are, nearly at the end.  this book was funny in a not funny sort of way- i enjoyed how thought-provoking it was nonetheless.