The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘reading’

Typical January 1 Post

Last year my girlfriend (now fiancé) and I wrote down our resolutions or goals for 2014 on pieces of paper that we then put up on one of the walls of her apartment. I can only remember three of my goals and they were ones I felt confident I would meet. The rest served as reminders for all that I did not accomplish. What stunning wall art!

This year the question is … do I tap in to my most ambitious self for the goals of 2015? Or do I put things I feel confident I’ll meet. Why not both?

 

Confident I’ll Meet

  • Read at least 18 books
  • Find a way to reduce how much trash I generate
    • One example of something I did in this category before: I went from using two paper towels in public restrooms to just one, also if air dryers are available I tend to use those
    • I don’t know what I’ll be doing this year to address this … so, brain, get to work
  • Cook more (since I’ll be a married man starting at the end of January I will be putting the fancy new dishes and cookware to use)
  • Get back to reading other blogs more

 

Goals I’ll Have to Work For

  • Beat my 5k and 10k PRs (and stretch more and better!)
  • Finish the first draft of the book I started during the 2013 NaNoWriMo (good thing documents on a computer don’t gather dust …) OR some other book project I have started and not finished
  • Experiment with a new dish AT LEAST once every 3 weeks!
    • This might not sound hard, but do you know how EASY it is for me to make the same 6 or so dishes over and over?
  • Less soda (hopefully this will go hand in hand with cooking more since I usually only get soda if I eat out)

 

There you go public, and future self for my own reference, the goals/resolutions for 2015!

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2014 in Books

This was a good year of reading for me. I read a few books I really liked, and I am pleased with the amount I read. Here we go – a few sentences on each book to let you know what I think (for whatever that is worth).

2014 Books

I am a bit nutty, and I like trophies, so all the books for one year go on the same shelf.

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – A good book if you like running. The author shares his thoughts on life in terms of his passion for running. Here is an old post with quotes from it.

Pudd’nhead Wilson – An enjoyable Mark Twain book with the usual dose of ‘woah he said THAT?’ Here’s an old post with some quotes from it.

Diary – Huh. Okaaaay. (That was my reaction upon finishing the book – a Chuck Palahniuk, aka a nutty book with a love of anarchy.)

Catalina – Pretty language (as most Somerset Maugham books are) but the plot didn’t do much for me.

Lord of the Flies – That age old classic of boys being boys. Oh them kids.

Under the Black Ensign – It was entertaining pulp fiction … What brought me to it was the fact that L. Ron Hubbard wrote about it. (Which I wrote about here.)

I, Robot – Classic Isaac Asimov. It was interesting and even though the robots were all programmed with the 3 laws which keep them from hurting humans I read the book waiting for them to kill. I’m stable, I swear.

WeWe – This book is the probable inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984. Either my first or second favorite book of the year. You should read it!

Rome, Inc. – This book talks about the Roman Empire as though it was a business with each leader/ruler as the CEO. An interesting take on history but a lot of dull parts.

Tour of Duty – A collection of war correspondence pieces from John Dos Passos. I think I would’ve appreciated it much more if I was a World War II buff, but it had some interesting nuggets. (And what do you know, I have a post about an example!)

Of Human Bondage – Somerset Maugham’s best known book and … kind of an ‘eh’ for me. I really enjoy how he writes, the language he uses, but the main character drove me nuts with his decisions.

The Fault in Our Stars – I enjoyed it, but I can see how people would see the plot of this book and think cancer is being used as a plot device.Wodehouse

The Inimitable Jeeves – Oh. So. British. I picked this up (and other Wodehouse books) because I heard Stephen Fry really liked him but … boy it took me a while to read this.

Killing Pablo – In preparation for my trip to Colombia, why not read this historical account of Pablo Escobar, the famous drug lord from Colombia? It was well written and left me mildly more afraid of Colombia! (Have no fear, the trip was delightful.)

Murder is Cheap – An old murder mystery with a brash, sexist fella as the PI. The book was enjoyable, but more interesting was my surprise when I came to find out the book was written by a woman! (It had a number of lines I thought were sexist, and let me tell you … Oh wait, here, just read this post about it.)

Damned – Somebody just couldn’t get enough Palahniuk, huh? Well, this one was so-so and it is a part one of two. Gah! To read the second or not? Hmmm.

Wild – This one is now in theaters. To be honest, I figured I’d not enjoy this … A woman decides to run away from her problems in the form of a very long, therapeutic hike which she is ill-prepared for? Blech. But you know, I actually enjoyed reading about her physical struggles on the hike while emotionally working some shtuff out. (See, told you it comes across as lame sounding.)

The Immoralist – I got this because the author won a Nobel literature prize way back in 1947 (the book was published in 1902) … And … eh.

This is How You Lose Her – This is one of those books that I finished and thought, ‘ugh! What is that? Come on!’ because I was annoyed with how it ended. But time went on and a few days later I was happy I’d read the book.

Good Omens – A collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. This doesn’t say much for the book, but I enjoyed reading more about their collaboration process than the book itself.

A Fine Balance – The other top two book of the year. It is a beautiful story that is incredibly well told. Oh hey look, some quotes from it!

PippinBoom – This is by the same author who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon). It’s a decently fun kids book.

The Ten Thousand Things – This was raved about in Wild so I had to try it. Personally, I don’t get it.

The Short Reign of Pippin IV – A different kind of Steinbeck, but I really enjoyed it. It was a good book to end 2014 on!

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Murder is Cheap, and Other Ruminations

I just finished reading Murder is Cheap, which was originally called The Scarlet Button. It was published in 1945. I bought the book because it has a dramatic cover and it says in smaller letters above the title “Only suckers pay blackmail!”

Murder is Cheap

Who could resist such a charming read?

I was hoping for a great noir story full of phrases I wish I could use in every day conversation without sounding like a tool.

“Hey Brad, how’s your Thursday?”
“The day is all aces and eights. Not good enough to play. Not bad enough to fold.”
“Uh … Ok.”

Instead, as I was reading the book, which was written by Anthony Gilbert, I couldn’t help but notice blatant sexism everywhere. At first I took it in stride because the book was written in 1945 and life was different then … But the sexism came at parts where it didn’t even make sense.

Mr. Stout thought that if he used that expression again he’d go womanish on him and scream.

I decided to mark some of the sexist lines just to see what they add up to in the end. I sat down today having finished the book, all ready to write a post where I have looked up this Anthony GIlbert character and dive into what made him so sexist when … Oh, it turns out Anthony Gilbert was a pen name and the real author was Lucy Beatrice Malleson. In other words, a lady.

Malleson wrote 51 novels with Arthur Crook in them (a lawyer with dirty hands but a pristine record when it came to his clients).

My claims of sexism then were probably misplaced (gee, ya think). Malleson could have written the sexist lines with a smirk on her face, a Stephen Colbert approach of heavily agreeing with the opposition and seeing how far she could push it to show just how absurd they could be. Thinking about it, the insults to women were given by men while the two female characters were strong, independent, helpful (though one seemed like an overbearing mother figure) and the men in the books relied upon them all the while saying nasty things.

What’s my point? I suppose it’s that I’m too quick to judge, or that authors are crafty devils and (almost) every book deserves a re-read. Imagine now if I went back and read this book knowing this tiny bit about the author. Sometimes when I read what is considered a “great” book I can’t decide if I want to look up hidden meanings, symbolism, themes, etc before so that I can look for it and see it in action while I read … or wait until after I’ve read the book to see if I discovered for myself some hidden meaning(s).

The main thing to know is: No matter how you cut it, no matter how you read it or how much you know about the author, Fifty Shades of Grey was still awful. (Read my review full of amazingly bad quotes from that book! Or my mock version, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4! Self-promotion, yay!)

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