Read On!

I thought I would put this in print... as much for myself as anyone else. The 2008 reading list is a few days late (15 to be exact) but what can I say.... I was busy.

So far this year I have finished Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. (it took me nearly five years to get around to reading Cities of the Plain after finishing The Crossing) and quickly knocked off the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Road, also by McCarthy. So my first goal is to reread The Crossing. No need to reread All The Pretty Horses. I have read it twice and watched the movie countless times. Then I intend to try and figure out what the hell Cormac was trying to say with the dream at the end of Cities of the Plain

Not sure what will come next, but on the list (and the shelf for that matter) for sure are the following.

Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls
Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Garcia's Love in the Time Of Cholera
Thomas McGuane's The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing

In addition I want to read two other Hemingway novels (I read three last year) and at least one Faulkner novel. I would also like to read Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg. A friend of mine recently gave me The Fruit of Stone and I enjoyed it immensely.

Faulkner is a challenging one for me. I find his work rewarding but very time consuming. The last time I tried to read A Light in August it took me the better part of ten minutes to get through the first page with all it's "southern" dialect.

So there's my list.... what's on yours? what should I add to mine?

New Years

For the first time I can remember I didn't stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve. Instead I went to bed when my fire burned out and the temperatures dropped below freezing.

What I learned was that I liked watching the sun rise on the new year more than watching sun set on the old one.

I hope that you all have a wonderful year.