fullygoldy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fullygoldy) wrote2007-01-21 12:22 pm
fullygoldy) wrote2007-01-21 12:22 pm
2006 Media Recap
Looking back over my 2006 entries tagged "books" and "movies," I see I had an interesting looking year, but my review writing is not really reflective of how I spend my down time.
That’s the published year in review. The 2007 reading list includes last year’s unfinished or untouched stuff, a couple of poets and a teen-aged wizard’s final chapter.
If You Want to Write (A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit) by Brenda Ueland
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Flight Into Danger by E. K. Barber
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by JK Rowling
Wicked (The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) by Gregory Maguire
The Cohousing Handbook by Chris Hansen (at this point, not likely to ever be my lifestyle, but still interesting)
And Italian Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis which jumped to the front of the list and is currently underway since I liberated it frombzdchris’s bookshelf last weekend. What? Cookbooks are always going to beat out everything else.
I’ve already finished Heat by Bill Buford (currently on the second pass) which I highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in food, cooking, restaurants, Mario Batali, Italy, or if you just love the sound of the Italian language (we’ve got it in audio format, read by Buford, and he does a great job of the telling and reading). Bill thought he wanted to learn about professional cooking, the underbelly of the restaurant industry, so he indentured himself to Batali, learned tons of stuff along the way, and finally realized that his mission all along had been to learn about real food, real cooking, the kind of stuff you only get from the current holder of generations’ of wisdom, not the stuff you get from three-star restaurants. Love it.
I read and reviewed 7 books total: Foie Gras: A Passion Michael A. Ginor, Mitchell Davis, Andrew Coe, and Jane Ziegelman (mini review – it’s gorgeous, delicious, inspiring and fascinating); Living the Art of Allowing by Esther and Jerry Hicks; Invisible Acts of Power-Channeling Grace in Your Everyday Life by Caroline Myss; Gonzo Marketing by Christopher Locke (funny and smart); The Best American Science Writing 2005 (ed. Alan Lightman); Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplants, A Guide for Patients by Susan K. Stewart; and Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold.
But I spend the majority of my time reading. I read mainly fan fiction these days, stories about fictional characters written by people other than the original creators. TV characters, book characters, even movie characters. There are some amazingly talented amateur writers out there, and they have wonderful, evocative, compelling stories to tell. They also come up with some of the most fanciful, crack-tastic stuff I’ve ever seen. And the porniest, most erotic, or just scorchingly hot stuff. They can make me weep with laughter or with their emotional depths. I guess I’m addicted. For the most part, fan fiction is easily consumable, arriving in many different sizes from 100 word drabbles to 100,000 words (or longer) novels. I tend to appreciate stuff that comes in the 5,000 to 20,000 word group – long enough to develop the plot/premise and reach resolution, short enough for one sitting or a lunch break.
I thought I’d get more of my Reading List finished in 2006, when I started carrying a book in my purse. But after The Best American Science Writing 2005, I got the brilliant idea of carrying back-issues of Analog instead. I was shocked to realize that my favorite publication of all time, had become part of my “to read” pile and that over a full year’s worth of issues were waiting their turn. How did this happen? It was the fan fiction. I’m happy to report I’ve made a sizeable dent in the pile of unread Analog issues, but only because I allowed my subscription to lapse after about 20 yrs of faithful readership. I do have nearly every issue I ever paid for, and neither of my kids seems interested in perusing them, so if anyone wants to borrow (possibly permanently) some of the best American science fiction writing of the past two decades, let me know.
The same three unfinished books that I listed this time last year remain: Community Organizing Theory and Practice by Douglas P. Biklen; The Physics of Superheros by James Kakalios; Emotional Alchemy - How the Mind can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman. I feel kind of bad about that, but in my defense, I loaned the second and third ones to family members (neither of whom have actually read them yet), so it’s not like they’re in my current “to read” pile. I only finished three of the six new books I had intended to read in 2006. DI was a reread, and I never got around to rereading Original Blessing.
I used to read a lot of magazines, but we’ve currently whittled down our subscriptions to Vegetarian Times, Food & Wine (which I had quit because I didn’t think it was worth the $40/yr, so they wooed me back with a $10 rate), Mother Earth News, AARP, and Better Homes and Gardens. BHG has been a staple of my life. My mother subscribed through my entire childhood, and after I got married, I subscribed. I actually get a lot of good ideas and recipes from BHG. AARP comes with the membership, and it’s okay, I guess. I haven’t made a real point of reading it though. Of course, all throughout the year, I’ll pick up whatever else looks good, but that tends to run toward remodeling or redecorating or recipes. Real Simple was a recent interesting find, and I may start picking that up regularly. That makes five current subscriptions compared to 10-12 yrs ago when we had at least 10 at all times (Golf, Baseball Digest, Kiplinger’s, Martha Stewart’s Living, Analog were the biggies, Bon Appetit, Saveur and F&W traded out). We only had time for all of those because we’ve never subscribed to a newspaper!
I reviewed 16 movies in 2006. We also watched about every Christmas movie that came on in December, including White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Christmas Story, Santa Claus 3, Christmas Do Over, and Jack Frost. Holiday Inn is too cheesy for me, and I would advise anyone to turn away from “Do Over” and Jack Frost. Blech. But the others are worth the time, every time. I know I watched a lot more movies this year because of B’s health. It was a safe and amusing activity. We saw Eight Below several times during his stay in the hospital. It is another tale of the Antarctic, this time based on true events, about a sled dog team surviving for 6 months on their own because their people were evacuated without them. The majority of the movie has no people in it, just the dogs, and no narrator. It’s very visual and I like that the dogs tell their own story. I also re-watched several favorites besides Christmas Story Princess Bride, The Fifth Element, Brokeback Mountain and Serenity spring immediately to mind. Star Wars, LOTR and Disney classics get frequent play at our house too. B watches lots of war movies, so I tend to see those, but don’t remember them well enough to name them.
We watched a lot of DVDs of original TV shows: Baseball (Ken Burns), West Wing, The L Word, Bill Maher, Band of Brothers were memorable, but Route 66 was disappointing. It was a documentary series about traveling the old highway, and we felt it could have been better. Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt made our point for us in a recent episode.
I acquired a lot more music than usual last year, because I was making an attempt at getting a lot of my old favorites on CD, whether or not I’d ever owned them in another format. Donnie Iris’s Back on the Streets was my favorite oldie of the year. I also really enjoyed the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris collaboration All the Roadrunning I was never crazy about Dire Straits, but I’ve enjoyed his solo sound.
But I spend the majority of my time reading. I read mainly fan fiction these days, stories about fictional characters written by people other than the original creators. TV characters, book characters, even movie characters. There are some amazingly talented amateur writers out there, and they have wonderful, evocative, compelling stories to tell. They also come up with some of the most fanciful, crack-tastic stuff I’ve ever seen. And the porniest, most erotic, or just scorchingly hot stuff. They can make me weep with laughter or with their emotional depths. I guess I’m addicted. For the most part, fan fiction is easily consumable, arriving in many different sizes from 100 word drabbles to 100,000 words (or longer) novels. I tend to appreciate stuff that comes in the 5,000 to 20,000 word group – long enough to develop the plot/premise and reach resolution, short enough for one sitting or a lunch break.
I thought I’d get more of my Reading List finished in 2006, when I started carrying a book in my purse. But after The Best American Science Writing 2005, I got the brilliant idea of carrying back-issues of Analog instead. I was shocked to realize that my favorite publication of all time, had become part of my “to read” pile and that over a full year’s worth of issues were waiting their turn. How did this happen? It was the fan fiction. I’m happy to report I’ve made a sizeable dent in the pile of unread Analog issues, but only because I allowed my subscription to lapse after about 20 yrs of faithful readership. I do have nearly every issue I ever paid for, and neither of my kids seems interested in perusing them, so if anyone wants to borrow (possibly permanently) some of the best American science fiction writing of the past two decades, let me know.
The same three unfinished books that I listed this time last year remain: Community Organizing Theory and Practice by Douglas P. Biklen; The Physics of Superheros by James Kakalios; Emotional Alchemy - How the Mind can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman. I feel kind of bad about that, but in my defense, I loaned the second and third ones to family members (neither of whom have actually read them yet), so it’s not like they’re in my current “to read” pile. I only finished three of the six new books I had intended to read in 2006. DI was a reread, and I never got around to rereading Original Blessing.
I used to read a lot of magazines, but we’ve currently whittled down our subscriptions to Vegetarian Times, Food & Wine (which I had quit because I didn’t think it was worth the $40/yr, so they wooed me back with a $10 rate), Mother Earth News, AARP, and Better Homes and Gardens. BHG has been a staple of my life. My mother subscribed through my entire childhood, and after I got married, I subscribed. I actually get a lot of good ideas and recipes from BHG. AARP comes with the membership, and it’s okay, I guess. I haven’t made a real point of reading it though. Of course, all throughout the year, I’ll pick up whatever else looks good, but that tends to run toward remodeling or redecorating or recipes. Real Simple was a recent interesting find, and I may start picking that up regularly. That makes five current subscriptions compared to 10-12 yrs ago when we had at least 10 at all times (Golf, Baseball Digest, Kiplinger’s, Martha Stewart’s Living, Analog were the biggies, Bon Appetit, Saveur and F&W traded out). We only had time for all of those because we’ve never subscribed to a newspaper!
I reviewed 16 movies in 2006. We also watched about every Christmas movie that came on in December, including White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Christmas Story, Santa Claus 3, Christmas Do Over, and Jack Frost. Holiday Inn is too cheesy for me, and I would advise anyone to turn away from “Do Over” and Jack Frost. Blech. But the others are worth the time, every time. I know I watched a lot more movies this year because of B’s health. It was a safe and amusing activity. We saw Eight Below several times during his stay in the hospital. It is another tale of the Antarctic, this time based on true events, about a sled dog team surviving for 6 months on their own because their people were evacuated without them. The majority of the movie has no people in it, just the dogs, and no narrator. It’s very visual and I like that the dogs tell their own story. I also re-watched several favorites besides Christmas Story Princess Bride, The Fifth Element, Brokeback Mountain and Serenity spring immediately to mind. Star Wars, LOTR and Disney classics get frequent play at our house too. B watches lots of war movies, so I tend to see those, but don’t remember them well enough to name them.
We watched a lot of DVDs of original TV shows: Baseball (Ken Burns), West Wing, The L Word, Bill Maher, Band of Brothers were memorable, but Route 66 was disappointing. It was a documentary series about traveling the old highway, and we felt it could have been better. Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt made our point for us in a recent episode.
I acquired a lot more music than usual last year, because I was making an attempt at getting a lot of my old favorites on CD, whether or not I’d ever owned them in another format. Donnie Iris’s Back on the Streets was my favorite oldie of the year. I also really enjoyed the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris collaboration All the Roadrunning I was never crazy about Dire Straits, but I’ve enjoyed his solo sound.
That’s the published year in review. The 2007 reading list includes last year’s unfinished or untouched stuff, a couple of poets and a teen-aged wizard’s final chapter.
If You Want to Write (A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit) by Brenda Ueland
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Flight Into Danger by E. K. Barber
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by JK Rowling
Wicked (The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) by Gregory Maguire
The Cohousing Handbook by Chris Hansen (at this point, not likely to ever be my lifestyle, but still interesting)
And Italian Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis which jumped to the front of the list and is currently underway since I liberated it from
bzdchris’s bookshelf last weekend. What? Cookbooks are always going to beat out everything else. I’ve already finished Heat by Bill Buford (currently on the second pass) which I highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in food, cooking, restaurants, Mario Batali, Italy, or if you just love the sound of the Italian language (we’ve got it in audio format, read by Buford, and he does a great job of the telling and reading). Bill thought he wanted to learn about professional cooking, the underbelly of the restaurant industry, so he indentured himself to Batali, learned tons of stuff along the way, and finally realized that his mission all along had been to learn about real food, real cooking, the kind of stuff you only get from the current holder of generations’ of wisdom, not the stuff you get from three-star restaurants. Love it.