january: 1 & 2

one of the bloggers i read mentioned a goal for herself: to read 50 books in 2011.  i am not that ambitious, mostly because i also like, you know, my friends and television and sleeping, and reading a book a week would cut down on those things.  but i like the premise.  so i've set an informal goal for myself of reading 25 books in 2011 (i read 15 in 2010).  i like reading, but sometimes i don't dedicate enough time to it...i read 10 pages a night before i go to bed and thus never really get into (or through) the book.  by going to bed half an hour earlier when possible i can get some good reading in and give myself a chance to really relax before falling asleep.

if you care to follow along, i'll be trying to read two books a month in order to reach my goal of 25 this year.

here is january - a successful two books read!


reading lolita in tehran, by azar nafisi (loved the descriptions of what life was/is like in iran...got tired of her literary analysis and criticism, especially when she talked about henry james, whom i've never read.  i skipped whole chapters.*  but honestly, i felt she over did the discussions nabokov and fitzgerald and austen, and i HAVE read them.  was glad i read this book, but was happy to be done with it, too.)

one day, by david nicholls (lindsey lent this to me, and i really enjoyed it - i read the last hundred pages all in one day [har har har - but it's true!], wanting to get to the end of the book.  the premise: you see the lives of two friends on one day only - july 15th - over the course of 20 years.  i liked that restriction - that we can learn about them only what we see and what they're thinking on that one day a year.  i would definitely recommend this one.  it's a little chick-lit-y, so those who are not interested in that should beware.)


*blog reader: "but miss claire, if you skipped whole chapters how does this book count towards your total?  you are a liar and a cheat."
miss claire: "i make the rules, damn it, and skipping perhaps 30 pages of a 350 page book is okay.  i got the gist of things."