2007: A Year in Reading

It's time for my annual book post.

2007 wasn't a good reading year for me. I got a lot more involved in knitting, which is a time-consuming habit. I can knit or I can read, and knitting often won. I don't regret this, as my knitting has leapt forward in great bounds over the last year, and it is soothing and satisfying. The other problem is that I didn't read a lot of books I loved. When I'm readng something really good, I go back to the book because I want to know what happens. When I'm reading something so-so, it has to compete for my attention with other pastimes, and often the book doesn't win. I have a lot of half-read books lying around the house, but have no desire to pick them up and finish them.

I completed 37 (new to me) books in 2007. Re-reads do not count, and neither do books I read a few hundred pages of and abandon. And I probably abandon as many books as I finish. This is about half my usual total, which is really weird to me. Neverththeless, I spent the year doing things other than reading. I read:

12 science fiction
8 fantasy
8 mystery
5 nonfiction
and a few other assorted books.

My favorites of the year, in the order I read them:

Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman
The Engineer Reconditioned by Neal Asher
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser
Spook Country by William Gibson
Halting State by Charles Stross

I believe this is more books than I came up with last year when listing my favorites of the year. Here's hoping 2008 brings more good books my way.

Now I've seen it all

There was a special treat in the mailbox today: the January issue of Procycling. And who are they quoting on page 57? Steve Brust. "Minneapolis has two seasons: road removal and snow repair." I never expected to see my two loves--cycling and SF--come together this way. Coolness.

A Gift for Oscar

What am I doing with my 4-day weekend for the holiday? Well, I got together with friends on Saturday night, and my uncle unexpectedly stopped by for a visit yesterday afternoon, and Christmas day I'm going over to my parents' house. In between, however, I'm knitting a catnip toy for Oscar.

It's the Bumble Cat Toy by Christine Landry, and is supposed to be a bumble bee. I am using up leftover yarn, though, so it's going to be a grey and burgundy bee. I haven't yet managed to attach the wings and the string because Oscar came and took it from me before I could get them sewn on. They'll get added on eventually. In the meantime, he's enjoying it, and he obviously doesn't care that it doesn't have wings.

The Dinner Game

Sorry I've been bad about posting, but it's year end so I'm absolutely buried right now. That's just the way it is when you're an accountant. I haven't been reading much recently, but I've gotten a subscription to Netflix. Last night's movie was The Dinner Game.

The Dinner Game is a French farce. In it, a group of snobs hold a dinner party every week, and each invites someone they think is an idiot. They make fun of the idiots through dinner, and there is a prize for the stupidest, most annoying guest. Pierre Brochant is a wealthy publisher, and he invites Francois Pignon to the party. Pignon is a government employee who builds models out of matchsticks. Another of the guests invited to the party collects boomerangs. I was a rather unconvinced that having an unusual hobby qualified a person to be an idiot.

Pignon arrives at Brochant's apartment the evening of the dinner party to find that Brochant's back is out and they can't go to dinner. Brochant is rather anxious to get rid of Pignon, but Pignon is a kind man and is concerned for his welfare. He genuinely wants to help, and yet as the evening goes on he proves both impossible to get rid of and a total idiot. With the best of intentions, Pignon manages to thoroughly screw up Brochant's life, and is mostly oblivious to the damage he's done. Even when he discovers why he was invited that evening, Pignon's instinct is to try to help Brochant, and of course it goes wrong again.

I haven't decided if I liked the film or not. I managed to get to the end, and I found the acting well done. However, I also fast-forwarded through quite a bit of it, as it was obvious what was going to happen next, and not that funny. Pignon comes across quite sympathetically, and Brochant is enough of a bastard to deserve most of what Pignon unwittingly inflicted on him. I would have to give it two and a half stars out of five, I think--I didn't really dislike it, but I also didn't exactly like it.

A new word co-opted?

I was reading The Rake magazine on my lunch break yesterday, and came across an ad for this: Style for Conscious Living.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? That those of us who don't shop at this particular store are stumbling through life unconscious? Perhaps their store is only for the special people who really. live. their. lives, unlike the rest of us?

Reading further, I see that they are one of the businesses that has sprung up to cater to people who wish to do their shopping based on their moral compass, and carry organic, free trade, and sustainable (another word that's being twisted to mean something other than what it means) products. But why use the term Conscious to (meaning: awake, alert, not unconscious) to mean people who shop to satisfy their conscience?

I fear that Conscious may join words like Carb, Carbon, and Sustainable to become a buzz-word thrown about to mean something other than its actual definition, and which has a different shade of meaning for each person who uses it. Please, let's fight against this abuse of innocent language.

Gastroanomalies by James Lileks

Sorry I haven't been posting recently, but I've been sick and feeling really rotten, and have spent much of the last week and a half stretched out on the sofa watching DVDs while trying to cough up a lung. The cough hasn't gone away, but I'm feeling quite a lot better now.

Gastroanomalies is subtitled: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery. Lileks assembles truly ghastly, gloppy, unappetizing photos from old cookbooks and adds snarky commentary. Some of the recipes are just unattractively presented, like adding green olives in such a way that makes the dish appear to be looking back up at you. Other recipes are downright disgusting, and one has to wonder who thought these up, and why on earth they wound up in a cookbook. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on aspics. As a vintage cookbook reader myself, one notices that certain types of food go in and out of style. Nevertheless, I'm puzzled why anyone thought that suspending their meat and vegetables in gelatin molds was a good idea.

I'm not sure if this book was less amusing than Lileks's first shot at this, The Gallery of Regrettable Food, or if my perception was affected by the fact I'm sick. But I just didn't find this one quite as funny or enjoyable as the prior volume. There were a few mildly funny things, and one laugh-out-loud moment (page 168), but I thought this book was a bit of a letdown. It was enjoyable, but not outstanding. However, I will have to try it again when I'm not sick. Everything is funnier when you're healthy.