Jan

6

Slow Start to the Year

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That last book post took a few weeks to write, and sadly, I added very little new stuff to it during that time.  I expected a big jump in December, but instead hit a slump.  Probably because I started yet another doorstop, The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, which clocks in at just shy of 800 pages.  One of my holiday reads came just shy of making the list: In the Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde was a contender for the Keep it Simple category, but I felt that the big climax just didn’t quite deliver.  We also listened to Cell in the car on our drive and found it way better than expected.  Normally I wouldn’t have given it much thought, but I am willing to listen to almost anything narrated by Campbell Scott.  I was thinking maybe I’d give another new-but-lesser King novel a shot, and have reserved the audiobook of Under the Dome at the library, and am now super excited since it’s read by Raul Esparza, who is very close to Campbell Scott in the men-I-love category.  (He gets bonus points because he sings.)

My first book of 2010 is kind of a cheat.  It is Rabbit, Redux which I just went and finished already because the book is overdue and I was halfway through and it seemed a shame to ditch it now.  But I only read half of it in 2010, so I feel a bit like it’s not fair.  Oh well.  I am wondering where Updike will take the series now, since Redux felt, in many ways, like it was so similarly structured to Run, just with everything turned on its head.  (Even down to the final chapter following Janice instead of Rabbit.) I don’t know when I will have another book to add to this year’s list.  I have dumped three in a row within the first 20 pages.  I will keep chugging away at Quincunx (Doesn’t it sound like something from Harry Potter?  Is it something from Harry Potter?) and I will try and find time to get started on a Christmas gift, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, which I’m super pumped about.  Plus John Irving’s new novel just came in at the library, so if it’s not horrible that may make the list, too.  Fortunately, we’re taking a trip next week and I may get Eric to put a few books on the kindle for me.  (Otherwise I will never get to The Girl Who Played With Fire.)

I did not bother to make a best-movie list this year because we didn’t see enough to compile a proper list.  My improper list would be:

  1. Inglourious Basterds
  2. The Hurt Locker
  3. Moon
  4. Up in the Air
  5. Up

Those 5 are the movies I loved.  Then there are honorable mentions for Coraline, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Duplicity, Watchmen, and Drag Me to Hell, movies I liked.  The sad thing is, that means every other movie I saw I neither loved nor liked enough to mention.   And I saw many more than that, most of this year’s viewing was not worth viewing.  Had I not been pregnant and able to find comfort only in a nice cool movie theater, I probably wouldn’t have seen what I did.  And all the good stuff came out when I was homebound with the baby.  I suppose it just means this year’s Netflix viewing will be good.  (It already is, actually.  Humpday was my first Netflix of the year, an ‘09 flick, and quite good.  Shortly followed by Paper Moon.)


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