2011 Book Challenge

 1.         1. Ukrainian

         1.

                         2. Theory/Philosophy

           1.

           2.

3.   Tomes

      1. War and Peace

      2. Don Quixote

      3. Drood

4.   Books from the Family

      1. Decolonizing the Mind

      2. Wizard of the Crow

      3. Parlor Politics

      4. Planning the Past or the Invasion Within

5.   Left Behind

      1. The Brothers Karamazov

      2. Dead Souls

      3.The Windup Girl

      4. Landscape Painted with Tea

      5.

6.   Listed

      1. Iron Council

      2. Ash

      3. Life of Pi

      4. Gulag Archipelago

      5. Beloved, Morrison

      6.

7.   South

      1. Sound of Building Coffins

      2. One Hundred Years of Solitude

      3. North and South, Gaskell

      4. A Confederacy of Dunces

      5. Antarctica, Robinson

      6. Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

      7.

8.   Its New to Me

      1.

      2.

      3.

      4.

      5.

      6.

      7.

      8.

9.   Science Fiction/Fantasy

      1. Vivia, Tanith Lee

      2.

      3.

      4.

      5.

      6.

      7.

      8.

      9.

10.  You Tell Me

      1. The Yawning Heights

      2. Pastel City, Harrison

      3.The Fool's Progress by Edward Abbey

      4. The Book Thief

      5. World War Z

      6. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera

      7. 2666, Bolano

      8. Detective Story by Imre Kertesz

      9. Lady Oracle, Atwood

      10.

11. Ongoing Faulkner Challenge

      1. Pylon

      2. Absalom Absalom

      3. The Unvanquished

      4. If I forget Thee Jerusalem

      5. The Hamlet

      6. Go Down Moses

      7. Intruder in the Dust

      8. Requim for a Nun

      9. A Fable

      10. The Town

      11. The Mansion

Explanations:

1. Ukrainian: Read a book in Ukrainian, this will take me all year

2. Theory/Philosophy: General Philosophy or some Anthropology theorist I should have already read

3. Tomes: Is it huge? I'm gonna read it! (But only three).

4. Book from the Family: Actually just books from my brother, I am embarrassed by the number of books he has bought me that I have not read.

5. Left Behind: Books I started, but never finished.

6. Listed: If its on a list -- of any kind -- it goes here.

7. South: Everywhere is south of somewhere, right? But really focused on the U.S. South and South America.

8. Its New to Me: New in 2011, or new author.

9. Science Fiction/Fantasy:

10. You Tell Me: Recommendations? I'll just pick books to read for this category based on any sort of recommendation - personal, Amazon, LT, blog, etc.

11. Ongoing Faulkner Challenge: Once upon a time I was supposed to read 8 Faulkner novels for 2008. That didn't happen, so now I'm just going to read all of them.

Proof of Life

I'm around, just haven't been posting, but here are some of the things I have been up to (not in chronological order):

• Saw Obama speak, well sort of, I guess I heard him over speakers with about a block in between us. So I didn't get to see his sparkly charismatic eyes (sorry the latter being a random inside joke).

• Finished a presentation that I was conned into giving.  I think it will be good, or at least sort of entertaining, since a large part of it is me forcing people to listen to Ukrainian folk music.  And also it will be good if I can get all the tech stuff right.  I am honestly hopeless. 

• Gave up Facebook.  Sort of.  I broke my ban to post about my crazy neighbors who may have actually been ghosts that live in the terrifying closet inside of my closet (long story).

• Mustered up the energy to at least look at my grant proposal.  How the hell does one go from a 6 page bibliography to a 2 pg one?  For one second being deadly serious - if anyone has advice on this point I am all ears.

• Checked out ten gazillion books from the library, and started them all.  This is actually linked to the above point.  I have serious school avoidance issues right now probably linked to anxiety.

• Watched Paranormal Activity.  I wasn't impressed.  Well, I was sort of, but lets be honest, I am a sucker for hauntings.  All such movies even bad ones scare me.  I recognize this, still watch them, and yet I think am still aware enough of the ridiculousness of my reaction to be able to say that P.A wasn't a particularly good movie.  (Does that last sentence even make sense?)

• learned a new word, which I really want to find a way to use in random conversation: contumely: insolent or insulting language or treatment; rudeness or contempt arising from arrogance

That is my life recently in a nutshell.  There is a longer list of things I haven't managed to accomplish, but  hey I am trying optimism (sort of) today.  So, what have all the rest of you been up to?