Closing Out the Year
December 26, 2010

One year ago, I had a feeling that 2010 was going to be “my” year. I wasn’t exactly sure what would be part of that, but there were some good things going to happen. And in some ways, that has come true. Probably the best news was that a long-term terrible work situation resolved itself.

In other ways, some things are still unsettled. The most disappointing is that I haven’t yet made the move from southern California to an area where rain, fog, occasional snow, and four distinct seasons are the norm. Since I won’t do that as long as my parents, now 87, are alive, the other side of that coin is good news indeed.

What will 2011 bring? More reading, I hope. One of the disappointments this year was the limited amount of reading I did. Even instituting a tradition of reading on the porch after work did not allow me to increase or even keep pace with the number of books I’ve read in previous years. It wasn’t just disturbing. I feel emotionally and mentally starved by missing the literary nutrition that has fed me all these years. That is definitely something to be corrected.

And I have just the books to do that with. Today—Thursday, December 23—I stopped in our local Borders, which is going out of business in January. Everything in the store with the exception of the magazines and newspapers, is 40 percent off. Signs stating that if it doesn't sell at that discount it will be returned to the publisher are everywhere. (No doubt this is to deter people like me who think 75% off would be even better.)

I dropped by after work, around 4:00, and the line to get into the city parking lot was horrendous. The store was even more crowded. People were everywhere, picking up books, CDs, DVDs, and ephemera as well as all the shelves and other book display materials that are also for sale. It was a madhouse, though everyone was polite. I was surprised by how many teens were selecting books too, especially boys, and that warmed my heart.

I had planned only to find some home and garden magazines for my mom for Christmas. Those, alas, were not discounted but I did end up getting seven that I had never run across before including one for—ouch!—$12.99.

Naturally, I couldn't resist a tour through the entire store myself. The cookbook section was a sad memory of what it had been, but I was delighted to come across a small book I had thought about getting last year when I bought my popsicle molds: Pops! And now I have it in time to try the Mango-Chili flavor in summer.

It was hard getting through the biography/memoir, history, and literature sections without going wild but I did restrain myself. I found the last copy of Contested Will by James Shapiro, a book Lev Raphael reviewed earlier this year and that I had been craving. A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke is a new book by James Horn about something I have read briefly about in several other books and want to know more about, and The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum, a genre (true crime) that I normally avoid but grabbed because it’s less about the crimes than about the birth of forensic medicine.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Unfortunately, there are no book or author festivals until January.

The Pub House:
Subterranean Press is one of the best known publishers of horror, suspense, and dark mystery genres. Since they specialize in collector’s editions, some of their prices are high, but many books can be purchased at “normal” prices. Among their new books is one that reminds me of the old pulp fiction books of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s: Hellcats and Honeygirls. The book is actually an omnibus (a book containing reprints of a number of works) containing the three novels jointly written by Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake that have been out of print for nearly five decades, and if the cover is any indication of what to expect, you can expect some non-PC writing that is likely a rollicking joyride of prose. Kraken is an epic tale of fantasy, which begins with the disappearance of a gigantic squid from London’s Natural History Museum and soon becomes a narrative of “men and their gods, of magic, murder, and apocalypse.” For a young adult, Brayan’s Gold might be a good choice, filled with nightmarish creatures, a near-destroyed civilization now surviving only in isolated sections behind ancient symbols, and a group of Messengers, including an apprentice, who brave the dangers with their lives at stake.

Imaging Books & Reading:
Combining reading and wine is lovely, and this image of one of my favorite books and a glass of dark red wine—Cabernet?—along with one special friend seems to me the perfect way to spend New Year’s Eve 2010.

Of Interest:
Rachel Morrison is working her way through the books in the Museum of Modern Art Library collection. I don’t mean she is reading them all. Rather, she is smelling them. Beginning with AC5.S4 1934 (Sermons by Artists) she will continue her way, using the LoC Classification System until she reaches ZN3.R45 (Bibliography of the History of Art). No word on how long she expects that might be, but she promises to continue smelling as long as it takes—and to add pages throughout. As of mid-December, she had “nosed” her way through 150 books with only 299,850 to go.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren