Bests of 2012

-
I had a lot of amazing experiences this year. Since this blog is supposed to be a book blog, those will go first.

Books: 
   New to Me:
   Graphic Novels:
  • The Unwritten Vol. 6: Tommy Taylor and the War of Words
  • Astonishing X-men Torn and Unstoppable
  •  American Vampire Volume 3
   Re-Read:
  • The Shining by Stephen King
  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  • The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
  • Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett



Movies:
I know I'm genre heavy, I'm a nerd :)
  • The Avengers!
  • Moonrise Kingdom
  • The Dark Knight Rises
  •  Cloud Atlas
  • The Woman in Black
  • The Cabin in the Woods
  • Silver Linings Playbook

Life, not least important though it is coming last:  
  • We got Married!  maybe i should have put this at the very top of the post,
  • Having all our family and friends meet and get along so well!
  • We bought a house!  I never got around to posting about it but Ben and I bought a house at the end of August.   
  • Shakespeare in the Park did Much Ado About Nothing and it was wonderful
  • Seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson speak at Vanderbilt
  • Learning everything there is to know about competitive swimming while watching the Olympics with B.
  • Finishing my 3rd semester of my Master's with some great classes.
So that's a bit of the highlights of my year.  I hope everyone had a good 2012 and has a wonderful New Year!  Be Safe!
 

Comments

  1. Wow, congrats on a great year! I knew you got married but don't think I knew you got a house. Congratulations, those are some major exciting changes in a year. Very happy for you both.

    No need to apologize about the genre stuff, its all good!

    I had forgotten that this was your first time with Neverwhere. Great book. Glad you too enjoyed Ready Player One. I'm going to have to re-check out the newest Hornby at some point. I love the other ones but am just not in the mood right now. I will be sometime this year though and am sure I'll enjoy it.

    Happy New Year to you!

    ReplyDelete

  2. You bought a house??? Congrats!!!! It really was an AWESOME year for you Mel :D And I keep hearing about Ready Player One…I apparently really need to get that one...

    ReplyDelete

  3. Congratulations on getting married and getting to see Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I saw him a few years ago in Memphis. He's a wonderful speaker and writer.

    ReplyDelete

  4. Carl- thanks! We got the house at the end of August then moved a few weeks after. With having significantly more school work than previous semesters, my blogging went down and I just never wrote the house post.
    Chris- Thanks also! I believe you are old enough to appreciate Ready Player One. take it for a spin on audiobook; Wil Wheaton reads and is great!
    Jim- Thanks also!

    ReplyDelete

  5. So many exciting and wonderful things for you. Congrats on all the great books, and that marriage bit! ;)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yet Another Best of the Year Post

-
I am a little shocked that we've gotten to "end of the year post" time already.  I know everybody says this but this year really has passed quickly it seems, at least the fall has.  

As always, these are things that were new to ME this year, not necessarily published or released this year.  And not just 10 of things!

Books: 
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan BradleyThree Parts Dead by Max GladstoneThe Death of Bees by Lisa O'DonnellFive Days at Memorial by Sheri FinkMy Real Children by Jo WaltonLife After Life by Kate AtkinsonThe Lucifer Box series by Mark GatissThe Silkworm by Robert GalbraithPale Fire by Vladimir NabokovHard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki MurakamiKindred by Octavia ButlerThe Bone Clocks by David MitchellNight Film by Marissa PessiFever Pitch by Nick Hornby
Graphic Novels:
March, Book 1 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate PowellSaga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona StaplesSex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick by Mat…
Read more

Fahrenheit 451

-
Sometimes I really want to smack myself. In the head, relatively hard, to leave bruises. Usually it happens when I either realize something that I should have figured out long before or when I read something and I am upset about what I've been missing.

That happened last night when I finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. How could I get through 20 years of serious reading life and not have read this? How did I manage to go through the last few years without such a relevant, modern book in my mental arsenal? I want to grab everyone I know and make them read it. I don't want to rehash the plot as I think most people know the gist of it but what got me isn't the fact that it was about censorship, it is really about people participating in their own slavery. The long speeches by Montag's boss and his friend Faber really crystalize how a people could be led to become robots. How Bradbury predicted the mass media culture and faux-news environment in 1953 is beyond me. …
Read more

Henry IV Part 1

-
I listened to Henry IV Part 1 by William Shakespeare over this past weekend. a 3 cd set goes by pretty quickly on a 90 mile each way trip. I'm glad i picked this one up.

Henry IV Part 1 is a history play. It has one of the best comedic characters ever written: Sir John Falstaff. I'm not sure how he got the Sir as he seems to be more a brigand. Henry, called Harry or Hal, is the heir apparent to King Henry IV. He is something of a prodigal son; he parties and drinks and carouses with unsavory characters. Falstaff appears to be his best friend. King Henry's former friends and confidante's have rebelled against him for various reasons, led by the Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry Percy, also called Harry or Hotspur. King Henry calls his men to fight: Prince Hal swears to redeem himself by earning glory in combat; Falstaff does his best to take care of himself.


The production was fantastic. I immediately added Part 2 onto my library request list. You don…
Read more