It's almost 2012

I'd better list the rest of the books I've read this year.

46: 11/22/63 by Stephen King is a winner. In it, a teacher travels back in time to try to stop JFK's assassination. There is adventure, references to the novel IT, a love story, and of course the wonderful thing we all dream of: getting to have a do-over for certain moments in our lives. King mentions in the afterword that his son advised him to change the ending, and it is perfect. I wish his son would go back and fix the endings of a few other books.

47: Half Empty by David Rakoff is a series of essays based around the topic of pessimism. They are funny, self-deprecating, and a little sad. Rakoff is a good writer, but I still prefer David Sedaris.

48: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It was okay. It's heavily inspired by Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, but intended for an older audience. I thought it had too many pop culture references, making it dated. To me, stories that are like fairy tales should be more timeless. Also, the pace of the book was imperfect. Too much time was spent on boring parts and then when the next adventure began, it was too much of a contrast. The excitement didn't build properly.
Here's a great line from it: "There was an ongoing competition, hotly contested, as to who could make the single most boring observation."
Even though I didn't fall in love with it, I liked it enough to read the sequel:

49: The Magician King by Lev Grossman. Again, I thought the pacing was off, but some parts were pretty fun. I will probably read the third book, if I notice when it comes out.

50: The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. This is a historical fiction/romance novel, so it's outside of my usual fare. I did really enjoy reading it. The setting alternates between modern times and 1708, both in Scotland. I loved the historical details and also the description of a small town in present day Scotland. The protagonist writes a novel, using her ancestor's name for one of the characters, but her dreams seem to be tapping into ancestral memory, and with those hints, she finds more information about her own family history.

51: Didn't I Feed You Yesterday? by Laura Bennett. This is a book of funny essays about parenting, written by the red-haired, sophisticated contestant from "Project Runway." She has six kids and a career, a kind of loosey-goosey attitude toward parenting, and a sense of humor about life. It's a very light, meaningless read.

52: Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich. Meh. I like reading books about people who give up the city life and start making everything from scratch in the woods. This one just didn't do it for me. I think was too teach-y and I prefer to just read the author's story, rather than get instructions on how to follow suit.

53: Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon. Non-fiction by a nutrition professor who looked at all the weight studies and determined that being fat is not the cause of health problems. The most famously cited studies linking fat to disease have been discredited. She also states that the way our bodies work, it can be impossible to lose fat once you've gained it. So, her point is that we shouldn't feel badly about our weight. Just eat nutritious foods in reasonable amounts, exercise for health, and maybe for some of us, the excess fat will go away because of our improved lifestyle. She recognizes that it is very difficult to ignore societal pressures to be thin, and the bombardment of food advertising, and the pressure in social situations to eat a lot of junk with everyone else, and gives suggestions for dealing with those issues.

54: Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham. I'm sure I will re-read this one for years to come. Cunningham suggests plant pairings to discourage pests, keep the soil healthy, and help each other grow. She recommends mixing flowers in among your crops, and vice versa. I will probably skim through this in a couple months when I start daydreaming about my garden again. For now, I'm content to think about other projects -- I didn't even put the garden to bed this year. I am still saving kitchen scraps to throw out there as soil amendments. I hope to get a compost box this spring (usually they are on sale for Earth Day so I will look for one then).

I am in the middle of a short old cozy novel called And Dangerous to Know, Cleopatra, a Life, and No Ordinary Time (about FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt during WWII). I'll try to finish all of those before the year ends, but I won't be surprised if I run out of time.

I'm thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2012, and I have a few ideas.

1. Get rid of excess stuff, especially clothes that I don't wear anymore
2. Finish our basement. We're working on this now and maybe I'll put up some progress pictures.
3. Finish a bunch of sewing projects
4. Start blogging again regularly and really decide on a topic to focus on
5. Write a whole novel, instead of just starting one

Those are subject to change, but that list is a start.