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31
Happy New Year!
2008 at 3pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Happy New Year, dear readers!
This post is a few hours early, but I know I’ll be too busy this evening (and won’t be up early in the morning), so I figure an early Happy New Year is better than none at all, right?
2008 has been a pretty great year. It all started with my wedding on January 5th, when I got married to a wonderful (if a little weird) man in a gorgeous library. I’ve blogged about it here and here, if you missed the original posts. We headed out early the next morning for a honeymoon at Sandals in Antigua, where we lolled about on the beach reading great books and sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.
In February, I was promoted from part-time bookseller to full-time community relations, marking my official transformation into The Book Lady. My experiences since then have provided great fodder for my Adventures in Bookselling series.
March, April, and May were pretty uneventful. I worked a lot, read a lot, and accepted the fact that being married didn’t really feel any different than living together had. In June, I had a great girls’ weekend in New York City with my best friend, where we ate a lot, walked a lot, and saw Avenue Q, which made me laugh harder than anything I’d seen in a long time. How can you not love a show that has a whole song about schadenfreude?
On July 1st, I started this blog under another name and posted my first book review shortly thereafter. I started the blog as a way to keep better track of my reading and to have a creative outlet. I love writing, but I have absolutely zero talent for fiction, so I figured I’d combine my love for books with my love for writing and literary analysis, and book reviewing seemed to be a good way to go. I never expected things to take off the way they have, but I’m totally delighted.
In August, I planned and hosted a midnight release party for Breaking Dawn, then I wrote a spoilerific review that generated tons (and I do mean tons) of traffic, elicited snarky remarks from angry teenagers, and continues to get hits from people looking for Cliff Notes to the book. The mere concept of that makes me crazy.
I continued reading and reviewing through the fall and found myself becoming increasingly involved in the book blogging community. I discovered the wonders of the Google Reader and am still finding great new blogs almost every day. I’ve reviewed books for publisher and author requests and have had the pleasure of becoming friends with a few of them through extended email conversations. I’ve even become good buddies with one author in real life. Never saw all of that coming.
I wrapped up the year having read 59 books in the six months since I started blogging, so I’m guessing that I’ve read somewhere between 95 and 120 books in the last year. Not too shabby, if you ask me, and I’m so glad that I’ve found a way to connect with other readers and writers and to make my reading even more meaningful.
This evening, I’ll celebrate the new year by sharing dinner and a movie with my hubby and my best friend, then we’ll head home to watch Dick Clark and count the minutes until the big ball drops in Times Square. We discovered several years ago that NYE events are rarely as exciting or fun as your hope/expect them to be, so we started having quiet celebrations together, and it’s become something I really look forward to. We’ll kiss at midnight, and then we’ll head out to a diner to continue a tradition that began on our first New Year’s Eve together back in 2001.
That night, hubby (who had only been my boyfriend for a few months) and I were in St. Louis with his family. We met up with a few friends at St. Louis’s First Night celebration, and when the festivities were over, we were starving. So, we did what any good mid-westerners do when they’re hungry in the middle of the night. We went to Steak ‘n Shake. One order of piping hot french fries and an old-fashioned cherry coke later, we were sated and ready to start the new year. No matter where we’ve been each New Year’s Eve since, we’ve jumped in the car just after midnight (usually in our jammies) to hit the drive-thru for what has become our traditional snack.
Now, we find ourselves living in a state that doesn’t have a single Steak ‘n Shake, so we’ll be searching for a diner that’s open late and hoping against hope that they make their cherry cokes the way we like them.
What are you doing tonight? Any fun NYE traditions?
December Reading Wrap-Up
2008 at 12pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, so I already wrote my year-in-review post, but I couldn’t write this one until I finished my last book review of the year, so this post is coming a bit out of order, but oh well.
The month in books:
This was a month of, for the most part, really really really good books. I’m pleased and surprised that I was able to read so much through the holidays, though some of these books were rather short, which definitely helped. This month’s fiction reading was almost universally great, so instead of picking a favorite, I’ll suggest the one I wouldn’t recommend, which is College Girl. I had high hopes for it, but alas. Nonfiction this month was also pretty fantastic, so I won’t even do an anti-recommend.
What’s the best book you read in December?
Book Review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
2008 at 11am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
I read this book for the Book Awards Challenge.
The story in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Book Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day is told by Mr. Stevens, the long-time butler of Darlington Hall, a traditional old English manor. When we meet Stevens, he is preparing to take a short vacation, during which he will drive (or “motor,” in the British parlance) through the countryside, enjoying some time off and reflecting on his life and his service. Stevens’s new boss, an American gentleman named Mr. Farraday, has given him time off, but being the consummate professional that he is, Stevens decides to make the trip work-related by visiting Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn), who served as the housekeeper of Darlington Hall for several years and who he believes may be interested in returning.
As he travels through the country, stopping along the way in quaint inns and small villages, Stevens looks back over his life and performs what we today would refer to his a life review. He is borderline obsessed with the question of what makes one a “great” butler, a topic he returns to over and over throughout the book, and he spends a great deal of time thinking about the quality of dignity and examining his life and his service at Darlington Hall for the signs of greatness he hopes to have achieved. He also spends some time ruminating on the nature of bantering, a skill he believes he needs to learn and which he attempts to practice—to great humorous effect—throughout the book. Though he begins each chapter with a short discussion of where he is on his trip, Stevens reliably digresses into reflection, telling us stories of both his moments of glory and the mistakes he wishes he could take back and do over, and this fills the book with a sense of nostalgia and longing.
As he travels to meet with Miss Kenton, Stevens looks back on his time working with her and fills us in on the details of a relationship he insists was purely platonic and professional…but it always seems that there is something else lying just beneath the surface. We get the impression that throughout his career, Stevens has been so focused on being—not just pretending to be or acting as—a butler at all times that he has never allowed himself to let down his guard, form meaningful relationships, or express his true thoughts and feelings.
Stevens’s encounters along the way are interesting and provide him with nice segues into his stories about butlering and life at Darlington Hall, which upon reflection, may not seem to be quite as grand or honorable as he once thought, but their real purpose is to build toward the moment when Stevens will meet with Miss Kenton to discuss her recent letter. Stevens makes much of this letter throughout the book and spends several pages explaining to us exactly which phrases gave him to think Miss Kenton might be interested in returning, but he is never quite convincing enough, and we begin to understand that he is engaged in some pretty powerful wishful thinking. When the two are reunited, we hold our breath waiting to see what will happen.
The Remains of the Day can only be described as a quiet novel of great, gentle power. It is often humorous, in a comedy of manners sort of way, but ultimately, this is a very sad story told with very beautiful writing. It is touching and thoughtful, and Stevens’s candor—which he shares only with his readers and never with the people he knows in real life—about his life and its meanings make him a very sympathetic character. This was my first encounter with Ishiguro’s writing, and I loved every word of it. 4.5 out of 5.
2008 Reading Wrap-Up
2008 at 8am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
What a year it’s been! I started blogging in July, and since then, I’ve read 59 books. (I’ll be reviewing The Remains of the Day, the 59th book, tomorrow). I’m averaging 10 books per month, which is a rate I’m more than happy with, and it means I should be on track to meet my goal of 100+ books in 2009. I enjoyed almost everything I read this year, which is great, but it makes it difficult to identify just a few favorites….so, I’m going to break it down into my own categories for the year-end review. Each cover is linked to my review (except for Unaccustomed Earth, which I read in my pre-blogging days, and Bridge of Sighs, which simply left me speechless.)
Best New Fiction (published in 2008)
Best Backlist Fiction
Best Nonfiction
Best Memoirs
These may not match up exactly with my ratings or with the best-of-the-month books I selected in each monthly wrap-up, but they are the ones that stand out, that I’ve spent the most time talking and thinking about, and that I recommend most highly as I reflect back on a year of great reading. Ask me on a differetn day, and some of the answers might be different.
With 2009 approaching, I’m pondering how to best organize my book review archives. Here is my list from 2008. And here’s a poll:
[polldaddy poll="1230792"]
What do you think?
What were the best books you read this year?
I'll take "Things I never thought I'd hear my husband say" for 500, Alex!
2008 at 10pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Hubby and I snuggled up for a quiet evening and had just enjoyed the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading when he turned to me and said with great glee,
“Ooh, my biodome should come tomorrow!”
Yeah, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.
This is the item in question, which doubtless will encourage hubby’s newfound zest for gardening and home improvement.
As I mentioned Sunday, when you get excited about something like this, you know you’ve crossed a threshold.
