Tuesday, November 11, 2008

October determination list

Yes, I am nerdy enough to make a monthly determination list of all the books I want to read each month. I pretty much never accomplish the whole thing but I do like trying. Last month I listed 12 books I wanted to read over the month. I read 10 of them and an additional 6 that weren't on my list. Of the two I didn't read, I did start one of them (War and Peace) so it's still in progress and is on the November list (here's hoping I finish it this month). The other one is still buried in one of the book boxes but I do hope to find it and read it this month too--or it gets punted to December's list and being the anal-retentive that I am, I hate having books span more than two months of my lists. You're probably laughing at my quirky eccentricity already (and that is the official way I refer to it because freakish OCDness seems so very negative) but in case anyone is interested, here's the final October determination list:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (still in progress)
Sammy’s Hill by Kristin Gore
Strange Encounters by Daniel Botkin
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
Grendel by John Gardner (didn't read--didn't even start)
A Not Entirely Benign Procedure by Perri Klass
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy by Spike Gillespie
All This Belongs to Me by Ad Hudler
Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

additionally read:
A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway
Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos
Honku by Aaron Naparstek
Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro
Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella

So far November is not going all that swimmingly as per the list. There are 11 titles. I've finished 2. I've read 4 books not on the list and I'm in the middle (or beginning) of 4 more that are on the list but two of them are beasts: War and Peace leftover from last month and The Far Pavilions, which was idiotically tacked onto November when I optimistically thought I'd be finished with W&P (which I'm not terribly engaged by yet so not reaching for at every moment). Oh, and in addition to reading all these books, I'm still working on unpacking the basement and thinking about running a race on Thanksgiving. Overschedule myself? Who me?
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 11, 2008 at 4:48 PM

    Whoa.... I thought the lovable quirkiness prevented you from reading the Thirkells until you had the full set and could start at the beginning. PT is mid-cycle if I remember correctly. Must have missed something there.

    And you haven't read Far Pavilions yet? I remember dreaming over it in high school (gotta love the 70's ideas of what British India looked like according to the cover art!)

    That's quite an impressive list. I've given up on War and Peace about 10 times... Good luck with that!

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  2. KristenNovember 11, 2008 at 6:20 PM

    Yeah, I didn't say the monthly determination list was the only quirk, did I? I'm a veritable cornucopia of quirks. ;-)

    PT is early mid-cycle, I think. And I do have them all so it's okay for me to be reading them. ::grin::

    Far Pavilions made the short stack of books to potentially read when we were headed to India but I opted to read more current stuff instead. So far, I am enjoying it far more than W&P though so perhaps I'll finish that chunky book first despite starting it second.

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  3. BethNovember 12, 2008 at 10:27 AM

    I remember Grendel. That's the book that almost got me kicked out of my book club for suggesting. I had picked it because it was short and I had liked Beowulf. I hated every word of it. Everyone else threw it across the room after a few pages, but I finished it as a penance for inflicting it upon us.

    It is very literary, all experimental and everything. I would recommend the movie over the book, and since the movie was the goriest thing I've seen in a decade, that is saying a lot (yes the animated movie, but gosh gee golly that didn't help much).

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