HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow, 2010 was awesome! I got a house, a husband, a garden, a new car, and a daughter. I am incredibly lucky!

I finished some more books:

#47, 48, 49: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. This series is written for young adults. It's set in North America in a post-war future in which democracy and freedom no longer exist. In order to intimidate the masses, the government holds an annual lottery to choose children or teens from each district to compete in deadly games. To win, the child or teen will almost certainly have to murder his or her opponents.

These are hard to put down, keep-you-reading-all-night books. There's lots of violence and death, but no sex, even with a teenage love triangle as a major plot line. Strange.

#50: The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman. I read a lot of this one in the hospital, waiting until it was time to push! It's a good, modern gothic tale. A woman returns as a teacher to her own boarding school and is haunted by an unfinished curse from her time there. There are secrets, adoptions, incest, and plenty of teenage girl drama!

#51: True Grit by Charles Portis. The Coen brothers' movie is out now, so you probably know the plot: 14-year old girl hires a ruthless one-eyed Marshall to help her hunt down and kill the coward who murdered her father. She is the narrator of the novel and is damned funny. You'll like it.


#52: The Liars' Club by Mary Karr. A memior of growing up in Texas with alcoholic parents. Pretty good. It's the type of memior in which the rememberer doesn't feel sorry for herself about her difficult life. She's able to see humor in lots of tough situations, so it's enjoyable, not painful to read.

#53: Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle. A cozy mystery starring a pretty bookbinder who was raised on a commune. Quick, entertaining, and non-taxing, like a cozy should be.

So I finished about half as many books as last year. That makes sense, since I did so much work on our house and garden. Plus when I had morning sickness (first AND third trimester) I tended to watch tv or waste time online instead of reading books. I also read parts of lots of books about pregnancy and babies. I wonder how many I can read in 2011 with a baby in my arms?