My Best of 2011

So my grand total for books read in 2011 is 61. It would have probably been 62 if I hadn’t started reading 11/22/63. I am about half way through, and so its over 1000 pages will straddle from this year into the next, which honestly feels quite appropriate.

 

Anyway, my award for 2011’s best goes to Moondogs.  It is an odd little book, and certainly isn’t for everyone, yet it somehow found its way to me, and I loved it.  In a big world with many books there is nothing that feels more special and worthy of celebration than the right book finding the right gal.  I hope for many more happy accidents in 2012!

Mission Complete

61. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

So this was my big rereading test:  Would I like it?  Would I ruin my wonderful memories?  Would I constantly badger myself about wasting valuable reading time?

Turns out that my timing for this couldn’t have been better.  I was sick.  Sicker than I have ever been in my life.  Like turn off the lights and sit in a cold, dark room for a week sick.  I couldn’t read more then a few pages at a time and if I had been reading something that was unknown to me I would probably have to start it over. Since I knew the plot of this already, I came out of my haze and was able to carry on without being lost.  So no need to worry about reading time lost, it would have been either way.  Whew… because this was my big worry, and I am not very good at giving myself a break.

So, did I like it?  In a way, yes, because it was kind of a comfort.  Did it stand up to my memories of the first time?  No, it did lose some of the magic.  But the part that was very fun and new was that I had never read any of these book when I knew what was coming next and so to see all of the foreshadowing and Easter egg laying that Rowling did was really great.  So, for that I am thankful. 

But I am still not a re-reader.

Not Your Momma's Werewolf

60. The Last Werewolf

He is more like 007.  That spy who somehow walks out of the shattered ruins while everyone else dies.  He is a brute, and a cad.  A man who was once more man than animal but is now much more animal than anything, and he is the last of his kind.  And he doesn’t really give a crap.  He has dilly-dallied around for over 200 years and is over it.  He feels like he lost the desire for anything so long ago that it isn’t even worth it to run away from all the people who are after him, until he sees her...

See, 007 I tell you.

This was a quick thriller but the very frank and explicit sex, remember they are animals, will run quite a few people off.  But for a story that seems to be over before it even starts it was fun to see where it went.

The Ace of Twain

About a year ago, I started to use playing cards as bookmarks.  Darren was at the age where he grabbed anything, and I had lost my place countless times using my standard bookmarks.  The cards are perfect because they hide in the book but are thick enough that you can find then, and when they are found by the boy they are strong enough to withhold some chewing and such.  Anyway, I became obsessed with finding cards, first it was just cheap decks, but now it is more eclectic ones.  I have far more than I will ever need but it is fun to choose a new card for every new book.

Then I found the deck that was meant for me while stocking-stuffer-shopping around at our local hobby shop. I stumbled across these:

 

I mean really!  I am sure the people working the cash register heard my “SQWEEE!!!” Each author has four cards, and each card highlights one book title.  I mean I could make my whole reading life around this deck.  Instead of picking a card to be the marker for the book, I pick the card to be the book as well. 

The Ace of Spades has always been my favorite card and nothing has changed with that.  It honestly couldn’t be a better fit.

Reread or Not to Reread

There is something about this time of year that makes me want to reread books, I think it is the sense of comfort that I am craving.  It comes up as I browse for gifts, I see all the books I have once loved and wonder if other would feel the same. 

The other night, a friend mention that she had just read Rebecca and I was flooded with memories. Manderlay, the first time she searches through Rebecca’s desk, the ill-fated costume ball, and The Danvers.  Ohhh, The Danvers – the name alone makes me shiver.  I read Rebecca while preparing to student teach and I was absolutely taken away by it.  I loved it so much that it became my go to recommendation.  I immediately found it on my shelf and wanted to stop doing anything else to read it again, but I didn’t.

Then this weekend I was bedridden with the cold from hell and watched a Harry Potter marathon on TV.  I love the movies and I loved the books.  The third book, Prisoner of Azkaban was my favorite book and is the only one I have ever considered rereading. Watching the movie brought that all back.  That book was my favorite because it was so magical and so much of that was left out of the movie simply because they couldn’t recreate it.  I went to my bookshelf and picked it up, none of the other movies had this effect on me.

But here is the rub: I never reread books.  Other than while I was teaching, I have done it maybe a half dozen times.  I know people who reread the same books on a yearly basis and I absolutely can’t understand it.  How do you have time to reread something when there is so much more to be read?  This is what plagues me when I try to do it… the what if (Really, the what if’s have become the plague of my life lately.) So I am going to do it.  I am going to reread Harry Potter #3 and hope that my original experience with it isn’t ruined but instead enhanced.