48 for 2007

Only 48 books! I shame myself.

OK, perhaps that really is a respectable number. Not everyone reads anywhere near 48 books in a single year. This number only feels small to me because I remember reading twice as many when I was a teenager. Of course, back then I was a home-schooler with lots of time on my hands. And I was reading far more 200 page Hardy Boys Mysteries and Ladd Family Adventures. These days it is rare for a book that I read to have fewer than 300 or 400 pages. This list also excludes the thousands of pages that I read each year on the computer screen, as well as instructional manuals and guidebooks, which I peruse frequently, but do not count as fully read.

The List
Alphabetical by Author

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
-Douglas Adams

Hidden Empire
A Forrest of Stars
Horizon Storms
Scattered Suns
Of Fire and Night
-Kevin J. Anderson

Emma
-Jane Austin

The Rover
Oroonoko
-Aphra Behn

Lady Audley’s Secret
-Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The Rule of Four %
-Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

Treason
A War of Gifts
-Orson Scott Card

2010: Odyssey Two
The Light of Other Days (with Stephen Baxter)
2061: Odyssey Three
Rendezvous With Rama
-Arthur C. Clark

Sailing Alone Around the Room
The Trouble with Poetry
-Billy Collins

The Moonstone
-Wilkie Collins

Next
-Michael Crichton

Moll Flanders
-Daniel Defoe

Great Expectations
-Charles Dickens

The Mill on the Floss
-George Elliot

Neverwhere
American Gods %
-Neil Gaiman

Mary Barton
-Elizabeth Gaskell

Julie of the Wolves
-Jean Craighead George

Mona Lisa Overdrive
Spook Country
-William Gibson

The Adventures of Eovaai
-Eliza Haywood

The Dark Path
-Walter H. Hunt

Velocity %
Forever Odd %
-Dean Koontz

Mainspring
-Jay Lake

The Book of Fate %
-Brad Meltzer

Paradise Lost
-John Milton

The Missionary
-Sydney Owenson

Making Money
-Terry Pratchet

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
-J.K. Rowling

Snow Crash
-Neil Stephenson

Gulliver’s Travels
-Jonathan Swift

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (I should get credit for reading this 5 or 6 times, as I read it with each of my 7th Grade English classes, plus reading ahead to prepare the lessons).
-Mark Twain

The Castle of Otranto
-Horace Walpole

Serenity: Those Left Behind (graphic novel)
-Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews & Will Conrad

All the Rage
-F. Paul Wilson

iWoz
-Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

Of all the books that I read this year, I was most surprised, in a pleasant fashion, by the Saga of the Seven Suns by Kevin J. Anderson. A scifi epic, currently comprised of six hefty novels (with one more to come), this series kept me entertained throughout the fall. I have yet to read book 6, but I will as soon as the local library acquires a copy (I see no point in purchasing it, when I do not own books 1-5. I will, perhaps, buy the set and re-read them when the final book comes out over the summer). I also enjoyed some of Neil Gaiman’s books. Much of his early work consisted of vaguely horrific comics (horror and comic both being a count against for me, as I don’t much enjoy either), and I will confess to being mildly creeped out by portions of Fragile Things, but not enough to stop me from wanting to finish the collection some time. Of the Gaiman books and short stories I have read, I would say that Neverwhere is my favorite (beware the poorly filmed BBC mini-series upon which it is based!).

Let us not forget the past. The Moonstone is one of the best detective stories I have ever read and, if you can tolerate the horribly depressing final chapter, Gulliver’s Travels is the height of imaginative satire. And if you can slog through it, or enjoy the language of epic poetry, Milton’s Paradise Lost is truly incredible (especially if you pause to remember that he dictated the entire poem after going blind). At the opposite end of things, if you ever win an argument that the entertainment industry has always been smutty, not just for the last few years, look no further than The Rover or Moll Flanders for an (un)healthy dose of sex, drugs and… well, no rock and roll, but only because it hadn’t yet been invented.

I could go on but, due to the lateness of the hour, I will close with a promise to soon post comments on my favorite, and least favorite, books of the year.

Now that we have begun a new year, I will begin a new list of books. I already have a stack to read and am very much looking forward to several of them. The only thing that is of concern to me is that I am torn between continuing to organize books by author or listing them in the order of completion. Perhaps I will do both. Or use parenthetical notation to indicate the order of completion.  There is still plenty of time to think about that though, as I do not anticipate finishing another book for a day or two.

A Big Fat Hen!

Each verse consists of saying something new and then reciting the entire list backwards to the start. You should introduce this as “a repeat after me song” and encourage the audience to shout back each verse before moving on to the next. Not only is this fun and interactive, but it gets to be simply hilarious as they attempt to repeat verses 8-10.

1. A big fat hen!
2. A couple of ducks and a big fat hen.
3. Three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
4. Four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
5. Five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
6. Six simple simons, five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
7. Seven silly sailors sailing the seven seas, six simple simons, five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
8. Now here’s where it gets a little difficult: Eight egotistical elephants eagerly awaiting entrance into Ethiopia, seven silly sailors sailing the seven seas, six simple simons, five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
9. Nine nimble ninnies nibbling ninny gnats, eight egotistical elephants eagerly awaiting entrance into Ethiopia, seven silly sailors sailing the seven seas, six simple simons, five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.
10. And last but not least: Ten tiny tom-toms tinkling tiny tunes, nine nimble ninnies nibbling ninny gnats, eight egotistical elephants eagerly awaiting entrance into Ethiopia, seven silly sailors sailing the seven seas, six simple simons, five flat flap-jacks, four brown bears, three running hares, a couple of ducks, and a big fat hen.

Notes:
There are several versions of verse 9. If you know a better one (one that makes more sense), let me know.
Be enthusiastic! Enunciate! And speak quickly, especially on verse 8.