Epiphanies 2012

Instead of talking about "The Best Of" or even "My Favorites," I want to close out the year with a couple of books I read in 2012 that greatly influenced me:

☆ MyFuture Self:
Last year, I had a great conversation with another blogger about what it takes to not be unhappy. It sounds trite, but the secret is in being happy with oneself and to that end, I embarked on a self-help program called "My Future Self." The premise is relatively simple: Imagine who you want to be and then do whatever it is that you need to do to get there! While there may be be people who will help you on your way, you are the one responsible for getting there. You are responsible for your own happiness.

The first step I took was to clean up and organize my office space. I spent nine weeks on the Home Office Excavation:

• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 1 (Physical & Psychological Effects of Clutter) 
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 2 (Light & Planning)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 3 (Momentum)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 4 (Paper Demons)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 5 (Donations)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 6 (Sharing Space)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 7 (Letting Go: Sentimentality vs Pragmatism)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 8 (Letting Go: Projects)
• My Future Self: Home Office Excavation: Week 9 (Details)

The next step in My Future Self was to address my weight issue. There's no getting around it, I was fat. In fact, I was obese. I've spent the past eight months working on that and have lost, to date, over sixty pounds! Basically, I just eat less and move more! I didn't blog about my weight loss campaign, though I am considering putting up a few posts for next year, just like I did with the Home Office Excavation. Maybe it will help someone else to see what I did. Anyway, there a couple of things that were invaluable to me during this part of #MyFutureSelf. One was The Weight of the Nation, the four-part HBO documentary. If you need to lose weight, sit down and watch this documentary. It's free online (http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/films) Basically, it's good to know what you're really up against when you try to lose weight.  There is a companion book/audiobook, The Weight of the Nation (by John Hoffman and Judith Salerno, M.D., M.S. with Alexandra Moss; narrated by Bernadette Dunne) as well. It repeats a lot of the information from the documentary (which is good for reinforcement) with a slight skew towards the more individual response.  The other book is William L. Sullivan's 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon. Instead of going for a gym or box membership and/or workout DVDs, I decided to increase my overall activity levels. I go on walks with the dogs and I go hiking now. My goal is to hike 100 trails by the end of 2015. To date, I've hiked about a dozen trails; but the pace should pick up in the Spring :-)

My Future Self goals for 2013 include reaching and maintaining my ideal weight, going on more hikes and, (re-)learning German. As for that last bit, I'm having trouble finding a class locally, so I may have to resort to CDs and such. I have the Linguistics Team's The Complete Idiots Guide to German and we'll see how home-schooling for yours truly works out :-/

☆ Black History

The other thing that was influential to me in 2012 was a book that I worked on: Kevin Kenerly narrated Black Genius: Inspirational Portraits of African-American Leaders (by Dick Russell). The audiobook was produced for audible and I'm not sure when it's going to be released; but it was an amazing recording experience. I got schooled big time in Black History, that it really is about American History and, that one way to marginalize a people is to deny their history... My daughter came home from school and talked about how close and cramped it was like on the Mayflower. I realized that she would probably never be told in school about the close & cramped conditions of a slave ship or even the life threatening crossings Cubans made and continue to make to reach American shores. My eyes were opened at how, even in the 21st century, there is a terribly imbalanced take on American culture, that it is biased toward the white male Anglo perspective. February is Black History Month; but really, I shouldn't Black History (and actually other American histories as well) be incorporated into Western Civ? I had a lot of great conversations with the narrator about everything under the sun including Paul Robeson (check out The Complete EMI Sessions 1928 - 1939), jazz, Ralph Ellison (whose book, The Invisible Man is being mounted as a stage play by The Huntington Theater, January 4 - February 3, 2013), Cornel West and The Matrix movies, and Toni Morrison... For the first time ever, I'm actually really excited about  an Oprah's Book Club 2.0 pick. It's The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (by Ayana Mathis). It's a about a black family during the first Migration (in the 1920s/pre-War) when Blacks fled the South for greater opportunities in the North.

Stay Cool & Keep the Faith,
Tanya/dog eared copy

What's in a Name? Challenge #5: Wrap-Up/ Challenge #6 Sign-Up

Ah, it's time for my post-prandial wrap-up in the What's in a Name? Challenge! So far, I've read for five out of the six categories; but by December 31, I expect to have completed the entirety of the challenge. This past year, the six categories were:

• A book with something you'd find in your pocket/purse/backpack in the title: 

The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I read like a mad woman over the first week-end of 2012 and posted my review on January 3 and; unbelievably, there were others who beat me not only in posting to this category; but in completing the challenge! It was a great reminder that this is not a competition! There are no prizes other than the reward of reading! So yes, I still won! :-D

Anyway, right after reading The Scarlet Letter, I promptly set to re-reading The Handmaid's Tale (by Margaret Atwood) and Nini Holmqvist's The Unit, and then onward to listening to When She Woke (by Hillary Jordan; narrated by Heather Corrigan.) I also went on to read more of Margaret Atwood's works (Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin) and later in the year, The Wordy Shipmates (by Sarah Vowell.) It should also be noted that I drafted several long essays about society and morality and women and stuff and, on this Thanksgiving week-end, trust me, you should be glad that I didn't bore you to tears by actually publishing any of it :-)

• A book with something you'd find on a calendar in the title:

The Year of the Flood 

(by Margaret Atwood; narrated by Bernadette Dunne, Katie McNichol and Mark Bramhall; featuring music and lyrics by Margaret Atwood and performed by Orville Stoeber)

More Margaret Atwood! I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure I could have done most of this challenge just using Margaret Atwood titles (Snake Poems, The Penelopiad, Morning in the Burned House) except that I didn't think of it until now. Also, I can't seem to think of an Atwood title with a topographical feature in the title, so it would have blown the idea up anyway :-/

After reading Oryx and Crake, I was actually pretty mad at Margaret Atwood. In the Handmaid's Tale, I thought the epilogue was a few too sentences too many; but with O&A, not nearly enough sentences were written. I mean, really, would it have killed her to write one more sentence at the end to give us a sense of, well, an ending? Well, she did write a sentence more. Actually she wrote The Year of the Flood and it answers all of the questions raised in O&A for which I was grateful. Maddaddam, the third novel in the series is slated to be published in 2013, and while I'm looking forward to it as an expansion of the world that Atwood created, I don't need to read it to get a sense of closure.

• A book with something you'd see in the sky in the title:

From the Land of the Moon
(by Milenus Agus; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)

This review for this novella was the last review I wrote on this blog. It's not very good; but it's short. I point this out in the context of the next next two books for which I wrote no reviews:

• A book with a topographical feature in the title:

Tortilla Flat

(by John Steinbeck)

I wanted to love this novella. I really did. Having been to Monterrey, CA, I loved the idea of having an actual place to connect with the setting of the book. And really, come on! John Steinbeck! Who hasn't been moved by The Grapes of Wrath, The Red Pony and/or Of Mice and Men? Also, the jacket blurb offered something along the lines of an Arthurian tale: "Like the Knights of the Round Table, the dreamers who gather at Danny's house share joy and fellowship, triumphs and sorrows." Alas, the freeloaders, drunks and cheats who populate these pages have more in common with the crew hanging out at 7-11 with nothing to do than with the Romantic figures of Camelot. Seventeen chapters over two-hundred pages of post-war (WWI) vets who never quite get it together.

• A book with something creepy/crawly in the title:

The Reptile Room

(A Series of Unfortunate Events #2, by Lemony Snicket)

The Reptile Room continues the story of the three Baudelaire orphans who wind up in the custody of Uncle Monty, a respected herpetologist. Lemony Snicket always forewarns readers that these tales do not end HEA, and yet I find myself once again surprised that this is in fact true! I think hope endures on my part because I know that these are children's stories ergo they can't possibly be this "angsty!" Regardless, the stories are clever and and certainly had me wondering what was going to happen next! 

So what's up with that? Why didn't I post the reviews for the last two books I read? And seriously, the review for From the Land of the Moon was pretty half-assed at that. Actually, if you've been following my blog for the past six months, you'll notice that not much has been going on at all....

It's time. It's time to own up that I just don't have it in me anymore as a blogger. Since July, a lot of things have been going on in my life, a lot of things have changed and blogging isn't working out for me anymore. So as the crude but apt saying goes, "It's time to shi!t or get off the pot." On 12/01/2012, I'll be closing the blog to comments. I'll still be on twitter (@dogearedcopy) talking about books that I'm reading and, I'll still be around to support other bloggers' features as best I can. I just won't be posting here so much if at all. It's a sad but ultimately correct decision that I've taken way too long to arrive at; but now that I've said it, it's terribly freeing :-)

I love you all,

Stay Cool and Keep the Faith,

Tanya

P.S. - What about the sixth book, "A book with a type of house or domicile in the title"? I have a copy of The Kitchen House (by Kathleen Grissom) sitting here and I fully expect to have read it by the end of the calendar year and declare #wain5 completed. If you're interested in what I think about it, follow me on twitter... :-)

P.P.S - Why, yes! Ys, I am participating in What's in a Name? Challenge #6! "What?!" you say, "I thought you just said no more blogging!" Yes, it's true. I'm going to be participating as a non-blogger by posting comments at www.bethfishreads.com/ What's in a Name? Challenge #6 :-)

I've actually spent the past couple of days pulling down the stacks and sorting out books, finding the ones that would qualify for next years challenge:

1. A book with up or down (or equivalent) in the title: Deep down True, The Girl Below, The Diva Digs up the Dirt
2. A book with something you'd find in your kitchen in the title: Loose Lips Sink Ships, The Knife of Never Letting Go, Breadcrumbs
3. A book with a party or celebration in the title: A Feast for Crows, A Wedding in Haiti, Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness
4. A book with fire (or equivalent) in the title: Burning for Revenge, Fireworks over Toccoa, Catching Fire
5. A book with an emotion in the title: Baltimore Blues, Say You're Sorry, Dreams of Joy
6. A book with lost or found (or equivalent) in the title: The Book of Lost Fragrances, The World We Found, A Discovery of Witches

(Text captured from www.bethfishreads.com/ What's in a Name? Challenge #6)

I've a couple books lined up for each category; but let's see what 2013 actually puts in my path :-)

From the Land of the Moon

From the Land of the Moon

by Milena Agus; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

Europa Editions, January 2011

From the Land of the Moon is a novella about a Sardinian woman searching for love in the post-war years amongst the metaphorical and literal ruins of her life. The woman recognizes that her nature is perhaps flawed as true love seems to remain elusive. Her quest assumes at times, sad, pitiable, desperate and creative forms that echo the pathos of Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary. The woman moves about the Italian landscapes of Cagliari and Milan as the country rebuilds from the effects of Allied Bombing and Nazi retreat. The settings of the story provide the physical architecture of the woman's efforts and parallels can be drawn between the reconstruction and her state of mind. The story is told from the point of view of the woman's granddaughter after the woman, referred to as Grandmother, has passed away, providing a doubly unreliable narrative: The woman herself may have been insane and her story suffers from being two generations away from being immediately verified. From the Land of the Moon is poignant without being maudlin and, the letter which serves as the final chapter is a powerful denouement.

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From the Land of the Moon qualifies for the What's in a Name? Challenge #5 hosted by @BethFishReads at www.BethFishReads. The title, From the Land of the Moon contains a word that is "something you'd see in the sky": "Moon"

I borrowed a copy of From the Land of the Moon (by Milena Agus; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein) form the Jackson County Library System in Southern Oregon. I receive no monies, goods and/or service in exchange for reviewing this product and/or mentioning any of the persons that are or may be implied in this post.

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" --- Stephen Stills