Various and Sundry Miscellanea

For the record, I read over my list from 2007, and I read a total of 122 books last year. These are the books I logged in my journal; not all of them made it up here--I don't blog everything I read, it would get draggy. That number does include audiobooks that I listened to. And for the record, one of those was an abridged version--I know, I know, I hated to do it. But in the end I'm glad I did, because five more minutes of that book would have been a hard thing to deal with. But now that I know there are authors out there who have internet access, for crying out loud, I'm feeling cautious. Oh, hell, it was Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear. Which was intriguing in concept, and good as far as it went, as sciencey political dramas go, but which reminded me of Michael Crichton in how it dealt with a lot of minutia and then danced away from the interesting reveal at the end that is the whole point of the book.

Anyway, there's that. Also, I went to the library today. Jenny McCarthy--yes, the hot chick in the baby tee from Singled Out who got famous for belching--has written a memoir about raising a son with autism, and I can't even wait to read it. Based on a limited amount of information about her (see previous sentence), there are a lot of places where I wouldn't feel comfortable following Jenny McCarthy. But there are so many moments to laugh at in autism, even while you're crying--I'm really curious to see where she goes with this, and what kind of a writer she is, and what kind of observer and humorist.

I got a big book of Mark Twain essays, for which I can blame no one but Lynne (I will draw the line, though, at reading about Irish dance halls). I liked Huck Finn in high school, but lately have found myself unable to get into his novels for various reasons. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is so offhand as to be boring, and so clever as to cease being clever. The Prince and the Pauper just couldn't hold me. And I've seen a copy of Life on the Mississippi from a distance, and that's plenty for me, thank you. I hope the essays will be more consumable.

I got a bunch of other stuff that I'm excited about, too, but I'm also exhausted and going to bed soon. But I will close with this: Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I've gotten past the preachy part and am loving it again. But I'm coming into the home stretch and I have a strong feeling he's going to start preaching again. I hope he can hold it together anyway.

So we plunge into 2008 with a fresh round of stuff to read. I need to get a lot done in January, because I get much, much busier at the end of the month, and my reading time will be sadly shortened!