I’m in local library’s quiet room, listening to DBT, answering email and posting on the eels message board. The snow we’re expecting tomorrow is tracking south, so we’ll probably get less than expected. Maybe I’ll drive into work tomorrow and water the plants. I’m glad to be in the library, away from the kids for a while their friends visit. Maybe I’ll work on the Italy journal then drive over to Holy Hill.

Ok, I promised my 2007 booklist. "L" means "from the library." "M" means "my own book." Here we go:

Gaiman-“Fragile Things” (L)
Ha Jin-“The Crazed” (L)
Fitzgerald-“The Great Gatsby” (M)
Murakami-“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” (M)
Murakami-“After Dark” (L)
Murakami-“Dance, Dance, Dance” (M)
Farris-“Then We Came To The End” (L)
Lethem-“Gun With Occasional Music” (L)
M. John Harrison-“Light” (M)
Franzen-“How To Be Alone” (M)
Gibson-“Spook Country” (M)
Dunn-“But Enough About Me” (M)
D. Foster Wallace-“Consider the Lobster” (M)
Levin-“A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines” (L)
Smith-“My Boring Ass Life” (M)
Spoto-“The Reluctant Saint” (L)
M. John Harrison-“Nova Swing” (M) (Still need to finish the last twenty pages)
Walsh-“All Over But The Shouting-Oral History of the Replacements” (M)
Doyle-“I Love You, Beth Cooper” (L)
Murakami-“A Wild Sheep Chase” (M)

Comments on the book list:

These are all books I read for the first time in 2007. Re-reads don’t count.

The best book I read was “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, in my opinion Murakami’s masterpiece. The scenes of the main character sitting at the bottom of the well haunt me.

The worst book I read was “Nova Swing.” I liked the prequel, “Light”, but near the end “Nova Swing” felt like homework.

I read a lot of lighter books this year, probably due to the dissertation focus through the first six months and the dissertation aftermath in the second six months. Still, even some of the lighter books were substantial in their own way. The Foster Wallace, Smith, and Farris were all great reads without particularly ponderous themes.

Twenty books, eight from the library, 12 of my own.

I assert, once again, that books are the best entertainment value in the world. Ok, consider the Replacements book, which cost about 18 bucks (Borders coupon) and took me about five hours to read. A quick read. What is that, a little more than three bucks an hour? That’s probably the most expensive read on the list, too. I bought “The Wind-Up Chronicle” for eight bucks used, and that book took a while to read. I’m a quick reader, too. I’m not even considering the library issue, either.

I’m about halfway through “Jane Eyre”, and I might finish “Early Bird” by the end of the year.

Ok, back to the Italy journal. More later.