Yo, 2011 Imma let you finish

 … actually, you know what? Just fuck off. You’ve been a shit year, thanks very much. Or, you know – thanks for nothing.

Anyway.

This happened, in April: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/just-add.html

Good times were had by all.

The year tripped along. My mother – who had had heart valve replacement surgery last year – wasn’t doing well. She was in and out of hospital, and struggling. She finally went into a home after being admitted to hospital in June (on my 40^th birthday actually) with a massive infection.

The last member of my Dad’s family – my aunty Alice – died not very much later than that (which I found out by virtue of reading the death notices on the page I was checking at work that night) and then my mother died in early July: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/things-and-life.html

So … yeah. I mean, the rest of the year was … okay. But, honestly, I’m just so ready for 2011 to be over.

Even though the world is going to end in 2012. ;p

I’ve read 54 books this year (funnily enough I slowed down after I started watching Merlin/mainlining Merlin long!fic. I need to redress that balance). My goal for next year is to read 75. It’s realistic, I think.

I’m also contemplating re-running the Kiwi YA challenge that I failed so hard on. Oh, and someone on Twitter during one of the #spbkchats said someone should run a challenge for NZ Women writers. Apparently there’s an Aussie challenge. So …………….. watch this space ;)

Here’s the list of my books, if you like:

1 Ash by Malinda Lo

2 The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

3 Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox

4 Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

5 King of the Murgos by David Eddings

6 Quillblade: Voyages of the Flying Dragon Bk1 by Ben Chandler

7 My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

8 Murder at the Laurels by Lesley Cookman

9 Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox

10 The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

11 The Screwed-up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson

12 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

13 The Raven’s Heart by Jesse Blackadder

14 Genesis by Bernard Beckett

15 True Grit by Charles Portis

16 August by Bernard Beckett

17 The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson

18 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling

19 Rosebush by Michele Jaffe

20 The 10pm Question by Kate De Goldi

21 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling

22 The Two Towers by J R R Tolkien

23 Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King

24 Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

25 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J K Rowling

26 The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie

27 City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

28 The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

29 Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

30 A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

31 The Larnachs by Owen Marshall

32 Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

33 The Windup Bird Chronicle by Harukai Murakami

34 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J K Rowling

35 The Shattering by Karen Healey

36 City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

37 Ebony Hill by Anna Mackenzie

38 Elfland by Freda Warrington

39 The Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling

40 Finder’s Shore by Anna MacKenzie

41 A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

42 The Devotion of Suspect X

43 The Return of the King by J R R Tolkien

44 The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

45 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre

46 Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

47 Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Heard

48 Autumn by David Moody

49 Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

50 The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce

51 Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

52 Kraken by China Mieville

53 The Accident by Linwood Barclay

54 Snuff by Mr Sir Terry Pratchett

Not many of those books have reviews because I kind of let that slide for a bit, but I want to get back into the swing of blogging, as much as I was ever in the swing of it so … we’ll see.

I also started having movie nights on Sunday – just me, a movie and some cross stitching (and, usually, a cat or three).

As far as my shocking memory can recall, this is the list of the movies (in no particular order):

A Single Man
The Runaways
Inception
Murder by Death
Centurion
Designing Woman
The Picture of Dorian Grey
Sucker Punch
The Last Station
The Ghost Writer
Romeo + Juliet
The Tempest
The Oxford Murders
Key Largo
Jurassic Park
Lolita

It’s a mixed bag, yes? The Romeo+Juliet is the Baz Luhrmann one and the Tempest is the one with Helen Mirren as Prospero. (LOVED.)

But it’s nice, you know? Park up on a Sunday night with a movie, some stitching … yeah.

Roll on 2012. I’m ready.

Just Add Books: Yearender

The year that was. Sort of.

It's not really a best-of-2008 list, because I'm crap at those things. That and I'm completely useless at things like counting and maths. So no stats here.

I started this blog in December of 2007, intending to use it to track my progress on my own personal Classics reading challenge _ having no idea, at the time, that there were such things as reading challenges. I know differently now, of course.

So. How'd I do?

This is the list:

January: Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier: Loved loved loved it

Februray: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: Quite liked it

March: The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens: Didn't finish it

April: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: Loved it but felt bad for loving it

May: 1984 by George Orwell: Quite liked it

June: The Once and Future King by T H White: Didn't finish it

July: Hawaii by James Michener: Switched with Space, which I really enjoyed

August: The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Didn't read it

September: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: Loved loved loved it

October: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte: Didn't finish it

November: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Loved it but it took me aaaaages

December: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein: Liked it

Okay. According to my calculations I read 69 books in 2008. I thought it was 70 but as I said before, I'm not really good with numbers. I'm not going to go into all of them because I'm inherently lazy.

Here, though, are my top 10, bug other people until they read them:

1): The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Hands down, my favourite read of the whole year. I wanted to stroke it and pet it and carry with me everywhere. It's just lovely.

2): The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. An extraordinary memoir of the mind.

3): The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox. Sigh ... *pause* sigh ...

4): American Gods by Neil Gaiman. You were expecting something else?

5): Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. Have you read it? Why not? You should read it!

6): A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. See above comments

7): Duma Key by Stephen King. Much as I was a bit eh about Just After Sunset, I did really enjoy Duma Key. Creepy and atmospheric

8): Up Till Now by William Shatner. Extremely funny and moving autobiography

9): The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. Again ... sigh ... *pause* ... sigh

10:) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Atmospheric and claustrophobic and fantastic.

In order, sort of.

Otherwise 2008 was a year of ... what. Well, Patrick turned 1. He's 19 months old and still not-quite walking on his own but that's fine, because he sure does get around! I lost co-workers in the great Fairfax redundancy thingy (what's the word I want? like apocalypse, but not apocalypse) and morale-wise, I don't think we've recovered yet.

I tried to go to as many movies as I could but sometimes, you know, that didn't pan out. I review movies sometimes for work. I even have my own media pass. I love my media pass. The last movie I saw at the movies in 2008 was Twilight. I thought it was all right. Solid rather than brilliant.

Other than that, I read a lot. Stitched some but only finished one very small thing. I started walking on and off and I'm hoping to make that more on than off this year.

Family wise things ticked over fairly well. Nothing outstanding happened, which is not a bad thing really.

Onwards!