For those of you who know me well, you know that I like to read. In fact, I read a fair amount. Ever since senior year in high school I have consistently read 25 to 40 books each year and I record my reading meticulously. I have kept a database of the books I have read each year and it is a document that is sort of dear to me. It definitely helps me remember which books I have already read and very few weeks when I update it I get to reminisce about what was going on in my life when I read each book.
This document was stored on my jump drive that I lost early this year. Luckily, I had a version saved on my hard drive and only had to reconstruct about 5 months of reading history. Then this summer my computer crashed…badly I think. Evidently my operating system decided to disappear. I don't know what that really means, but I assume my information is stuck somewhere in the bowels of that useless piece of junk. I did lug the CPU with me to Florida just in case I figure out a way to get my data off of it. Someone want to help me? (Not just advice, actual help!)
I stupidly decided in the spring that I should read something by Jane Austen because I liked one of the movie versions of "Pride and Prejudice." I had found an old copy of "Emma" in a box of trashed books one day, so that seemed like a good place to start. It was a mistake. I hated it, and it took me months to read it because I could only get through a few pages before I tired of it. I read several other books while I was technically reading "Emma."
A similar experience of extended reading has occurred with "Harry Potter y el Caliz de Fuego." I love the book and I read Spanish pretty well, but it is sometimes hard to keep focus while reading in Spanish. I have been reading on it for months, but I got a lot read during my Christmas trip back to Arkansas.
It's not often that I take the advice of anyone, especially in the matter of any sort of cultural consumption, but I did this year. Twice! The first happened with a very nice (and good looking) guy I chatted with online. He is an Air Force guy in Little Rock (formerly from AZ). It was sort of a low spot for me this spring when I didn't know what was going to happen after school ended. I was depressed and very worried, anxious about my life. He was such a great person to talk to. He suggested that I read "The Alchemist," and by chance I had a copy of it, but in Spanish. So I checked out an English copy, read it, loved it, and it was worth following someone's advice on it. During the fall I read the Spanish copy as well.
The second happened here in Florida. My new friend Ric (a certified Mac geek and a reader as well) highly recommended a book and even brought me his copy to encourage me to read it. "Kindred" by Octavia Butler turned out to be an excellent book about a 1970's black woman who is transported to antebellum Maryland. It's kind of science fiction, but it really gets in to the psychology of a woman figuratively and literally torn between two worlds.
Heading home to Fayetteville from Tampa, I had an awkward book moment. The woman next to me pulled out Clive Cussler's "Sahara" to read and I couldn't resist starting a conversation about how it was the first Cussler I had ever written and how my sixth grade teacher had been the one to turn me on to the author.
Lastly, I added Visual Bookshelf to my Facebook. It's pretty neat because I can see what my friends are reading, what they have read, and what they want to read. Hopefully I will get some good ideas for my future reading. Overall, a good year in reading it was and hopefully a good year 2008 will be!
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