I stole me a meme

I was cruisin’ the net, looking for trouble, and I think I may have found it. This year has been a strange one for me, reading-wise, because, although I did finish a book last night, my reading has simply not been up to the level I am used to. A few years ago, I decided to start keeping track of the books I had read, and was both surprised and proud to see that I was averaging 65 or so a year. Now, my tastes run the literary gamut, so to speak, and I am in no way a reading snob. I heart Janet Evanovich and JK Rowling and STEPHEN KING as well as the more substantial newer fiction. I just heart reading.
But this year, there has been something amiss in my literary endeavors. I simply have not been reading. Sure, I read a book right at the start of the year, a bday present from S, the inimitable Nick Hornby’s Polysyllabic Spree, and I started Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, and the second Eragon book, Eldest, by that wunderkind, Christopher Paolini, as well as a few self-help type books, but actually finishing anything? No, just 6. Five of which took me no more than a day-and-a-half to read. SO. I saw this meme on someone’s blog, and decided, hey, this is something I can get behind. Maybe it will force me to really examine my reasons for not reading. I have been knitting. And I have been doing some wedding-related stuff. And, magazines arrive at the house more often now than ever before. But why, oh WHY, has my reading fallen by the wayside so much? it's not that I am choosing horrible books - Wicked was fantastic, and the two-thirds of Son of a Witch I have read are wonderful, so why does it languish beside my bed, gathering dust on its jacket? Eldest I can see – I merely wasn’t in the mood for something so … fantastical, so I put it down “for later.”

What do I do, then, to get back in the swing of things? Well, for one thing, I should make a list of those books I have that I really want and need to read. Okay, let me begin now:

The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova

I am reading this now, and – wow. It’s a really great book. The story is compelling, the characters are rich, and the plot moves all over the place, both literally and figuratively. I have, however, put it aside for the quick reads I alluded to earlier, so for some reason, I do not have loyalty to this book.

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

This is on the meme list following – I bought it before Christmas. It was in the sale section at Powell’s on Hawthorne (the sale section at Powell’s…hmmm…it makes me drool just a little bit to think about it). I have heard nothing but great things about this book, and must read it.

How We are Hungry – Dave Eggers

My brother and his fiancée gave this to me for my bday and I LOVE me some Dave Eggers. S and J (sister) and I saw him speak at an event for a therapeutic writing program for homeless people here in Portland, and J and I wanted to be his best friend. He is a funny, funny man. Why haven’t I read this? Who knows.

The Truth (with Jokes) – Al Franken

Love him. He is one crazy-ass mo-fro liberal, and his books make you say ‘right on’ and cringe at the same time. Plus, a quick read.

Son of a Witch – Gregory Maguire

Nuff said.

And a lot more. Okay, so I gotta get to knitting, and I gotta get to readin’.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert