A Personal Reading History

From the LISNews feed, a link to Art Garfunkle's website, where he has listed every book he has read since 1968. What an interesting idea... while amusing for other people, it would be most useful for one's own perusal, not just for memory lapses but to look at the reading trends in one's own life.

I confess, I broke out a text document to start doing the same... when I remembered that I signed up for GoodReads aaaaaages ago, and never did anything with it, because the prospect of documenting my personal library that way was just too daunting. So I may try to remember to use it going forward. We'll see how the exercise goes.

My first completed book in the system: A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York.

I have several other books going at present, but I shan't enter them into the system until they're complete:
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
A Year in the World by Frances Mayes
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

That's actually balanced more towards non-fiction than is usual for me. Anyway, we'll see how this idea pans out. I might have more luck with the text document, if anything. But I'll try GoodReads for now.

New Year Covered in Cat Hair

My new year cleaning project was going really well this morning until I got to unpacking my Christmas presents. Which involved handling Laurie's book. Which accidentally led to my opening it. Which sort of led to me taking a break for "breakfast" and reading half of it.

Back to work!

Good Reads

Really, I did not need to be sent to the GoodReads site. It wasn't necessary.

But, um, I've got a profile on there now. Not much in it, because ALL MY BOOKS ARE IN BOXES, yo. Because I'm moving. And I don't have time to list and review all my books at the moment.

But I want to.

(I'm jessajune - if you're in there, we can be friends! BFF. Have a great summer! KIT.)

HP Finished at Last

Not the scarf, unfortunately (I'm 2 stripes away), but the series. I finished reading it last night, several days behind most of my acquaintance.

I found this review to be a good one, and only somewhat spoilerish: Harry Potter's Last Adventure

It is most amusing for the following commentary on the Potterverse at large (not a spoiler at all, so read away):
"Must Rowling insist on making evil people short, fat or ugly, or all three? ... I know there are exceptions — Tom Riddle was once slitheringly handsome, before he lost his nose — but it's not an appealing trend. Short, fat, ugly people have enough problems without being evil, too."

I would make that last sentence a sig file if I thought I could get away with it.

I do have one spoiler-ish thing I want to say, so here it is (highlight to read):

Am I the only one who was somewhat disappointed with this book? It was... kinda clunky. And the pacing was uneven. I don't *think* this is the influence of the Potter Backlash talking... I just read some of it and was like, "huh? That makes no sense." I wasn't tearing through it at breakneck speed like many people, so maybe others just didn't notice. Or maybe I was being more critical about the last effort, as it was the end. But I don't think so.

Also, the epilogue was lame.