MIA

I've been a bit absent lately, and the only excuse I can give is distraction. For the first time since I started blogging, I have almost NO motivation to actually write reviews (which is ironic since I'm doing the Century of Books challenge). I've been reading, and in the case of my Century of Books reads, I've even been journalling and keeping notes. But the desire to turn those notes into posts has been nonexistent.

To distract you from the lack of posts, I'm going to share this:


I love the Victorian era, and I can't wait to do some dedicated reading in June and July! Maybe I'll finally get Tess of the D'Urbervilles read...

Goodbye, 2011; Hello, 2012!

Hello, all! I trust that the crickets have been doing a good job during my...er...hiatus. Yes, that two-month absence was completely unplanned, but life got crazy, my brain got fried, and I just couldn't do it. But I'm back! And it's a new year! Let the resolutions begin!

Last year, my main bloggy resolutions had to do with posting more often, reviewing more of the books I was reading, fully committing to challenges, and participating in a Classic Circuit tour. Here's how I did:
*I did post more often, but I didn't quite manage the post-once-a-week goal.
*Ironically, even though I posted more often, I managed to review FEWER books than I did last year. Like by a lot. Go figure.
*I sort of failed at the challenges. Okay, not sort of, I DID fail at the
challenges.
*But I saved the best for last! I met this goal: I participated in not just one
Classic Tour but three! I was part of the Ancient Greek Tour, the Jane Austen Tour (sort of...I read my book for it, but I was too traumatized by our tornado to actually post my review), and the Steinbeck Tour. This makes up for all my other failed/semi-failed goals, right? Right.
But here's the thing: despite not meeting all of these goals, I don't feel bad. Why? Well, as I was tallying up my stats (oh, the delights of the nerdy life), I realized that it is still about the reading for me. It will ALWAYS be about the reading for me. And I'm glad that reading is so important to me.

Given that 2011 was all about the reading, I guess I should share exactly what I read! I think these stats are pretty impressive given how stressful my teaching year was, but I guess there are some perks to not really having friends in the same city where you are living (please don't tell my mother I said this...). Overall, I read 104 books (!!!!), but I only blogged about 18 (oops...). 69 were (adult) fiction, 8 (*hangs head in shame*) were nonfiction, and 27 were young adult fiction. 20 were rereads, and 65 were from the library (I'm particularly proud of this number).

Here are my reading highlights (in the order that I read them) from 2011:
1. The Sevenwaters Series, by Juliet Marillier (but especially Son of the Shadows)
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Bettie Smith
3. The Middle of Everywhere, by Mary Pipher
4. Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley
5. Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell
6. South Riding, by Winifred Holtby
7. Forever, by Maggie Stiefvater
8. Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain
9. Let Not the Waves of the Sea, by Simon Stephanson
10. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
11. A Song of Fire and Ice Series, by George R.R. Martin
12. The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

Favorite Rereads of 2011 (in the order that I read them):
1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
2. Attachments (I read this multiple times this year. Don't judge me.)
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
5. Anne of Green Gables
6. Anne of Avonlea
7. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
8. The Great Gatsby

Things I'm Glad I Discovered in 2011:
Testament of Youth: This book changed my life, and helped set me off on my current obsessive pursuit of reading about World War I.
Downton Abbey (aka the best thing on television): This miniseries is AMAZING; it is also responsible for starting my obsession with World War I. And the good news for you is that the first season is streaming on the Masterpiece website, and season 2 starts TOMORROW!
Tumblr: I might be a little addicted...
Doctor Who (aka the other best thing on television): Guys, this show is ME; it includes everything I love, and I don't know how I didn't know about it before this summer. I watched all six seasons over the course of two months, which was awesome, but also probably indicates that I need a life...
Mumford and Sons: These guys are amazing. They also wrote my "I-am-stressed out/worried/upset/angry/stressed out-and-must-find-my-happy-place" song. It's called "Timshel", and it will change your life.

Okay, this is now a ridiculously long post, so I'll keep my goals for 2012 short: keep reading, keep blogging, keep interacting. Short, sweet, and to the point! May you all have a wonderful 2012!

P.S. I'm participating in three challenges so far (but A Century of Books will last past 2012!), and here they are:

Further Evidence That I Am Crazy

But that's pretty much a prerequisite for an English teacher, right?

The evidence alluded to in my post title is the fact that I am joining Wallace's read-a-long of Anna Karenina. I actually tried to read this back in college, but a serious bout of mono derailed my reading, and I never went back to it. Each week's reading is extremely manageable, so I'm hoping this proves doable.

But why is that so crazy? Book bloggers join read-a-longs every day. Well, it's crazy because I'm starting a new reading project; it's even more crazy because I am currently 160 pages in to Clash of Kings (its over 1,000 pages long), and I have Storm of Swords staring me down from the shelf thanks to some fluke in the library system that resulted in my hold requests for both (1,000+ page books) being processed at the same time. This means that I have until October 21st to finish those two books, or else I have to return Storm of Swords without finishing it (highly unlikely) or keep it and rack up library fines (highly likely). We do have a school break in about two weeks which could help my chances on the bookish front, but still. What am I thinking?

There are too many books....I cannot resist them....

You know you have a book problem (is there such a thing?) when you start telling yourself things like, "well, it will be okay because I can read the Martin during D.I.R.T. (Daily Independent Reading Time--I do it three times a week with my freshmen), and I can read the Tolstoy on the weekends; everything will get read!" Only in a perfect world, self, only in a perfect world.

Now it's time to fess up: who else has this problem? Please tell me I am not alone...

A New Project

A few days ago, Simon announced that in 2012 he was going to try to read a book published in ever year of the twentieth century. As soon as I read that, I knew I wanted to read through the twentieth century too!

I also knew, however, that I would need more than a year to try to finish the project. A hundred books is a lot of reading, and it is also about how many books I've read each year for the last few years; I can't see myself reading ONLY books for the project, so I'm going to go ahead and plan for some contingencies that will give me some freedom within the confines of the project.

I am going to start working on the project now; I hope that the extra three months will mean that I will be finished with the project by the end of 2012. I'm going to try to keep my reading for the project more on the classical side of things, and I'm going to try to include as many books that I already own as I can. I'm looking forward to reading Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, and E.M. Forster for the first time!

I'll be making a project page to keep track of what I read, and I hope to review each book that I read for the project. If you have suggestions of things I MUST read, please share!