2012 Roundup: an Eleven Book Journey Involving Presidents, Self-Improvement, and Of Course, Baseball

Booktunnel!!

Hello! Since I last made an entry five months ago, I’ve read nine ten eleven books, and I’ve made a New Rule:* 1 book, 1 blog entry. This rule applies starting tomorrow, though. This will make things less complicated and more likely that I will update this blog. Also there will be no “Books-in-Between”, because that is pejorative towards those books. I’ll still number the books that are on the big spreadsheet, though.

*coincidentally, “New Rule” could be the alternate name of this blog.

So, for Christmas I asked for about 9 or 10 books on my Christmas list and Santa Claus brought all of them. I’ve managed to read most of them, so here they are:

Book in Between: Blink. Also, Book 5 Announced

The band Blink 182 does not get mentioned in Blink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. I’ve read The Tipping Point, which was great, and I was at the Annette Street Library (my new home branch) and read the first page and got sucked in. That’s Gladwell’s way, he gets you in with stories of mysterious phenomenon and you have to keep reading to get the explanation, which adds to his central idea. It also makes you think the book has changed the way you look at life – but does it?

The idea of this one is that your unconscious mind makes a lot more decisions, and more quickly, than we might think. This jives with my personal strategy lately to try and not fight my instincts, and to do what I want to do. Not in the sense of playing video games and eating ice cream all the time, but to actually work towards the goals I want to accomplish, instead of doing what I think I should be doing.

Anyway, Blink is a super fast read and I’ll probably get Outliers from the library, and learn to be extremely successful. Next we have 3 candidates for book five:

1,2 = North = Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002

3,4 = East = The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji, Giller Prize 2003

5,6 = South = I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2004

I rolled a 4 (again!), and so it’s into the world of Canadian Fiction with M.G. Vassanji

Book 4 Announced

This one is guaranteed to be a Pulitzer, either for fiction or drama.

Anna Karenina

The 3 options for book 4, following Middlesex, were as follows:

1,2 = North = Empire Falls by Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize 2002

3,4 = East = Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2003

5,6 = South = The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize 2004

I rolled a 4, so I will be reading Anna in the Tropics.

Book Three Announced; Also, Books in Between

The 3 options for book 3, following Vernon God Little, were as follows:

1,2 = East = Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize 2003

3,4 = South = The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, Booker Prize 2004

5,6 = West = J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize Winner 2003

I rolled a 2, so I will be reading Middlesex next after Vernon God Little. Sources tell me it is an excellent book.

Review for Vernon God Little is upcoming.

In between Life of Pi and Vernon God Little I read the following:

Book 2 Revealed

After I started reading Life of Pi, I rolled a die, with

1 = The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (Booker 2001)

2 = Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer Novel 2002)

3 = Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (Booker 2003)

4 = Imre Kertesz (Nobel Laureate 2002)

5,6 = re-roll

I rolled a 3, so the next book is Vernon God Little.