Because for some reason it’s important to me that I post at least 15 entries a month, because I love gwhughey’s amazing digital collages, and because it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d let you know—in case you’re the kind of person who gives Valentine’s Day gifts—that he sells prints.

– from gwhughey: (hearts trump 2)

Check him out!

Today I received a compliment from a friend and colleague (not from work-work) that was both sincerely affectionate and surprisingly accurate:

“She’s hardly ever as big a pain in the ass as she could be.”

I consider the smile it produced on my face during a particularly rotten day my first birthday present of 2007.

Inspired by Sarah’s recent review of her 2006 reading, as well as by my increasingly frustrating work days (which leave me limp as a noodle and empty of the spark of life required to tell you lovely stories), here is an exciting romp through the books I read last year.

In 2006 I read about a hundred books (the total count was 107, but it would have been the much more auspicious 108 if I hadn’t lost my copy of this). The actual number of books I read over the course of the year was quite a bit higher, because 2006 was the era of the Great Literature Search at work. However, if I loved a book I read in the office for possible inclusion in our new reading program, I made an effort to put it on the list — so we’re mostly talking about a huge number of banal and misguided titles that aren’t really worth reflecting on anyway. The hundred books that I actually documented included

+ 25 books of nonfiction, largely consisting of popular science, social history, and memoir.
+ 2 in translation (a terrible figure, but both books were wonderful – Milan Kundera’s Laughable Loves and the hysterically strange Master and Margarita by Bulgakov).
+ 2 graphic novels (ditto dismal number, great books– Black Hole and Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth)
+ 4 short story collections (all one-author books)
+ About 35-45 YA (fuzzy because of several that were sort of in-between middle-grade and YA)
+ 1 audio (I cancelled my Audible subscription at the beginning of the year because I wanted to save a little money, and I meant to buy the occasional one-off title but I never got around to it. I’ll have to rectify that situation, because I definitely miss audio books.)
+ 1 book written by someone I know (a very interesting experience indeed)

Summation:

Most Disappointing Books in No Order:
– Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk. I loved Fight Club to pieces, but at this point I’m beginning to think Chuck believes weird and gross writing is the same thing as good writing. Not offensive, just second-rate.
– The Body of Christopher Creed, by Carol Plum-Ucci. I believe my final word on this in the Rumpus was “I know, it does sound like I hated it, doesn’t it? In fact I simply didn’t like anything about it.”
– The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by The Disney Corporation. Oh, right – that wasn’t a book. But it was disappointing… all surface, no heart, stick-figure acting. Shame on you, Big Business Leeches of Literature! I’m so not watching whatever you’ve done to Charlotte’s Web.
– Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos, by K. C. Cole. A collection of short science columns that were much too bite-sized to carry such a lofty title.

Best in No Order:
– Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World, by Michael Chorost. Smart, funny, moving, surprising. lyrical, and edjumacational. What more could you ask for in a sciencey-memoir? Not a damn thing, that’s what.
– Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. I’m rediscovering a certain brand of sharp, literary, dragon-and-wizard-free fantasy in my old age, and boy does it taste good. Plus now I know it’s not just me who feels like the birds are out to get her.
– All Alone in the Universe, by Lynne Rae Perkins. So deft and understated, and it slipped me entirely out of my skin. I felt 15 (and in agony) again.
– My Sister’s Continent, by Gina Frangello. A devastatingly dark and original book that both repelled and enchanted me. Highly recommended if you don’t mind reading about people almost killing each other during sex.
– A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid, by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. Notable for its unflinching and convincing examination of “evil” and the need to forgive – not the best writing you’re going to find on the subject, but perhaps the most revealing.
– Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer. Gloriously well-researched social history of false beliefs and why we just can’t seem to rid ourselves of them. Michael Shermer is my hero.

Last Year’s Goals/This Year’s Goals: There’s really only one, and I think there must be something wrong with me because I don’t know why I keep putting it off. I swear… 2007 will be the year of Shakespeare. Even if I have to read him sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes when we MOVE THIS SUMMER HOORAY HOORAY I CANNOT WAIT.

(No, we still don’t know where. I’m just very excited.)

“Don’t ignore me! Don’t igNORE me! ……You’re still ignoring me.”

Haven’t we all been there, honeychild…

Totally book.

There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved. Observe how water is with
the ground, always moving toward the ocean, through the ground tries to hold water’s foot
and not let it go. This is how we are with wine and beautiful food, wealth and power,
or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache
and bitterness afterward. Those prove that the attachment took hold and held you back. Now you
proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have an intuitive union with God, I don’t need
anyone to show me how to be free!” This is not the case. A love with no object
is a true love. All else, shadow without substance. Have you seen someone fall in
love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave partial loves and find one
that’s whole. Where is someone who can do that? They’re so rare, those hearts that carry
the blessing and lavish it over everything. Hold out your beggar’s robe and accept
their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage the cloth, like a sharp stone
tearing your sincerity. Keep that intact, and use clarity; call it reason or discernment,
you have within you a deciding force that knows what to receive, what to turn from.

~Rumi (whose 800th year it is this year)