Year in (Book) Review: 2010

While it's true I've slacked off completely with reading for the past couple of months -- in fact, I replaced all creative activity with things like curtain shopping and chair assembly -- I have so enjoyed this little project and the life it took on.
Actually, YIBR started as a New Year's resolution last year; I had a horrible habit of reading books I loved and then completely forgetting about them when someone asked me for a recommendation. So I promised myself I would document everything I read for one year... little did I know how much fun it would be. It was a bit of a labor of love at times, when I just wanted to read whatever was next and I couldn't, because the rule was no moving on to the next book before the current one was reviewed and posted. It was also, surprisingly, a team effort.
But mostly, it was a fantastic conversation starter, a charming little insight into my friends, and a way to spread the literary love.
Not everyone agreed with my reviews, and that was awesome.
Everyone had an opinion on one book or another, and that was doubly awesome.
By the second half of the year, nearly everything I read came from one of your recommendations, and you guys were reading things based on what other readers had to say.
I love books.
I love imagination.
I love the possibility.
And I'm excited to see what will get read next year -- thanks, my fellow bookworms, for being nerdy with me. Here's our recap:

Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan
The Man of My Dreams, Curtis Sittenfeld
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
The Shack, William P. Young
The Associate, John Grisham
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert
This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper
The Fig Eater, Jody Shields
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick
Dear John, Nicholas Sparks
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent
The Kindness of Strangers, Katrina Kittle
How Did You Get This Number, Sloane Crosley
The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
The Book of Joe, Jonathan Tropper
On Writing, Stephen King
The Castaways, Elin Hilderbrand
When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home, Erma Bombeck
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen

Lunch Ladies

As most of you know by now, I rejoined the workforce and    normal-pant-wearing society about a month ago, when I took a grown up job. No drawstring flannel allowed, true, but coming to an office has its perks. Like, they pay me to be here. And like a genuinely lovely group of women to work with every day. I’ve dubbed my aisle of cubes Sorority Row; there are a dozen or so smart, sharp, strangely attractive girls in my immediate vicinity, and I get to admire the pretty high heels sadly missing when my office was the dining room table and my coworkers were my dad and the bunny killer.

There are downsides, though, I do have to say. Having spent the past few years out of the general public (not quite recluse status, but significantly more than the average girl’s allotted time in pajama bottoms), I’d forgotten -- if I’d ever known, I blocked it out -- about the frightening trend running through the intestinal systems of young office-working girls everywhere.

Today, having lunch in the cafeteria with some of my sparkly new friends, the conversation naturally (?) turned to having to use a public restroom when you have to... you know. You know.

“I never do. I can’t.” The Funny One.

“But what if you have to? I mean, come on, sometimes you have to.” The Tiny One.

“How is that possible, exactly? How do you... hold back?” The Baby One.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” explains TFO, helpfully. “You just close your eyes for a few seconds, squeeze everything, and wait. Eventually the feeling passes.”

She looked at us expectantly, waiting for the agreeable nods that show a speaker her audience is with her, understanding and commiserative. I was fascinated -- by her willpower, her freakish muscular control, and the very fact that these delicate, ladylike girls were in fact having an in depth conversation -- at the lunch table -- about crap.

“So, if you wait long enough, it just goes away? Like hunger pains?” The Blonde One.

“Exactly like that.”

“But... I mean, that’s just like... it’s like... Pooperexia.” Me, just trying to take it all in.

Mind you, we are the only table of girls in the entire cafeteria. The IT guys (who will tell you they “play cards” at the same table every day, very manly like. Look closer. Those are Uno cards, man.) turned to stare. The Analyst guys (not a one of them outside the khaki Dockers and bland plaid button down uniform they’ve so perfected) did the same. Part of it was, as I said, we’re the only girls in the room and those boys are genuinely struggling with feelings of fascination and fear to begin with. The other part of it was probably the loud shrieking sound I make when I really get to laughing. And believe me, I was laughing. She’s not called The Funny One for nothing.

And the bad thing is I was laughing so hard -- that squealing, snorty, red-faced, ugly kind of laughing -- that it made me, I mean, kind of, I sort of had to... you know.

Year in (Book) Review: Water for Elephants

This one is so long overdue I can barely remember what I wanted to say, let alone how to make it eloquent and articulate. I read Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants mostly because one of my most trusted recommenders said I should, and also a little because Ms. Gruen was kind enough to write a blurb for my mentor’s latest book, because my mentor was brave enough to simply reach out and ask her. I’m all for continuing the cycle of good author karma.

The long and short of it: if you haven’t already, go read this book. Right now. Go. Now. Seriously, now, since the movie trailer is beginning to circulate (the film comes out in the spring) and I am a huge proponent of book first, movie second. Even in the best    book-to-film adaptations, you lose the details that give a story its life, and you lose the ability to let the characters form their own shape and appearance in the expanses of your imagination.

All that being said, it’s a charming, lovely tale about two of my favorite things – people in love and lovable animals. That’s a lot of love going on there in that sentence. Told in memory and flashback from Gruen’s now-senior narrator, we are taken along during a very life-altering turn of events in his young life. We meet the people, and the creatures, he meets, we feel the sadness and the hope and the lust he feels, and we believe in the happy endings he dares to believe in. It’s got all kinds of exciting, sometimes downright tense things going on, and while it’s a quick read, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable one. And at its core it’s a book about second chances and following your heart. It’s a hopeful book. I can't imagine anything nicer to say about a book, really.

Note to Fatty McPlumpy

Okay. I know. It’s inexcusable. And I, therefore, have no excuse. But tonight, as I sat on the couch watching meaningless TV and pretending that if I put ice cubes in my wine it only counts as half a glass, I thought... huh. Maybe I should do something even the teensy tiniest bit creative, no? Crazy thought. But just maybe. Maybe. Particularly since I was supposed to spend the evening with my beloved writers’ group, and my mass amounts of wussiness kept me from driving the snowy streets back to Dayton for the evening, just maybe I could use the designated time to actually do what it was designated for, and create something. 

Here’s the problem.

I’m not creative.

Seriously. Every ounce of any creative energy I might’ve ever possessed seems to have seeped out of me. I don’t even know if I can call it writer’s block – it’s more like everything block. The problem? I sold out. Yes, I sold my soul to the man, and all for a CRV. And an apartment all to myself, decked out in Ikea’s finest offerings and filled with absolutely no one but me. I can’t lie, people, I think it may have been worth it.  But now I spend my days writing and editing boring stuff for other people (whom I like very, very much, I do have to say)(well, no, I don’t have to say, but I am saying it, because I actually really mean it) and when I get home at the end of a very long, very very cold day, I can’t find what it takes to be an artist. I can find what it takes to heat up a Lean Cuisine and crack a Stella, but that’s as far as I get. And also, Lean Cuisine my ass, because I’m getting fat. Like, call me Pudgy McFatterson fat. It can’t be impossible to work and not get fat, right? Right?

Help me. You're my only hope. I know there are artistic, busy, skinny employed people who read this, who have found a way to get shit done and still be happily creative. Unless you all got tired of waiting for me to come back and found other, more interesting (read: actually written) blogs to follow. What’s the key?