Tag: Terry Pratchett

My favorite diversions of 2010

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I know it’s a bit late to write any kind of 2010 wrap-up, but I’ve been sick (holiday germs, how festive!) so I’m only just managing to do it now. Better late than never, right?

2010 could have been better, but at least there was fun to be had along the way. Here are a few of the things that made my year merry and bright.

TELEVISION
I continued largely shunning broadcast TV in favor of on-demand entertainment; I like the convenience and I enjoy immersing myself in a show, watching an entire season in a couple of weeks. Plus I feel safer waiting until a program has at least a couple of seasons under its belt before I tune in, because the networks have an annoying tendency to cancel anything I embrace. (Leverage is the rare exception. Well, that and Doctor Who, but that show is dead to me since David Tennant left.) 2010 was no different; I fell in love with 3 shows and 2 of them were canceled. Better Off Ted made me laugh and reminded me how absurd corporate life can be, while Stargate Universe occasionally made me cry and captured my imagination with the dark drama of their outer-space journey. While both were canceled, Mythbusters at least seems bulletproof, which is great because where else can you find humor, science, and absurdity all rolled into a single package? Luckily, Netflix has a huge selection of Mythbusters episodes available for instant viewing, so they’ll be keeping me entertained well into 2011.

BOOKS
I didn’t read many new books in 2010, but I did find a few standout titles worth sharing. Sophie Kinsella was back with a fun installment of the Shopaholic series called Mini Shopaholic, with the result that “‘Muffin! Muffin Starbucks!” and “Taxiiiiiiiiii!” are now regularly quoted in conversation. I also got my hands on the audio version of Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, which turned out to be quite a gem; of course, it was almost guaranteed to be entertaining, given that it has Susan, Death, an Igor, the History Monks, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and some deranged Auditors. If you’re a fan of Terry Pratchett, you should definitely check it out. On a more serious note, I found the novel Intelligence by Susan Hasler to be highly compelling; it’s a must-read if you’re at all interested in a real-life glimpse of the CIA’s counter-terrorism department.

MUSIC
For whatever reason, I only listened to a few new artists in 2010, but I’d recommend all of them. I became very interested in string music and fell in love with Zoe Keating (who writes her own compositions for cello) and the Vitamin String Quartet (which does string versions of popular songs). And I discovered the music of Leverage’s Christian Kane; I’m not a real country music fan, but his album has definite crossover appeal and I frequently found his songs looping in my head. Also, Breathe by Alexi Murdoch rivals Kane’s The House Rules for my favorite song of the year.

INTERNET
Squidoo became my new toy of 2010, and it probably deserves a post all to itself… but the abbreviated version is that it’s an article platform and I’ve enjoyed using it to write about people, places and things that I admire or enjoy. (Some of the links in this post go to articles I’ve published on Squidoo.)

So those are my entertainment recommendations for 2010 in a nutshell! Where I have a review or article about a product on Squidoo, I’ve linked to it so you can read my thoughts in more detail. I hope this post will lead you to discover some new favorite things for yourself… Happy New Year!

Still reading… and packing…

the Tall Girl # # # #

Sorry for the long dry spell here, with only sidebar updates. I’ve been a bit preoccupied, since my parents & I are moving in roughly a week’s time. Even pooling our resources, housing here in post-Katrina New Orleans is just too expensive, and now that we’re taking care of my grandmother, we need a home with a better layout. So we’re moving to another rental about 45 minutes away, just a few minutes from my grandmother’s house. We’re going to try moving her back into her house and we’ll see how (or if) that works. (Fingers crossed!!!) And if it doesn’t work, at least we’ll have an extra bedroom (translation: my parents won’t have their bed in a walk-in closet).

In other news, the race to read is going well — I’ll finish “The King’s Own” tonight, leaving me with just 2 more books to go in the 2 weeks that remain this year. I’m also partway through the audio version of Terry Pratchett’s “Reaper Man”… and then there will be just one left! I think it’s going to be “The Devil Inside” but I’ll decide that tomorrow.

Lastly, we have a new furry face outside. There’s a stray kitten (probably 3 months old) that has been wandering around the yard on a regular basis. After seeing it for a couple of days, I started putting out little dishes of milk and cat food (and occasionally other treats), which it gratefully consumes. I’m trying to make friends with it, but it’s very skittish. It is warming up to me, though — I think it’s finally made the connection between me and the food! Not sure what we’re going to do next week when we move… I can’t imagine leaving it alone with winter coming. I’m hoping we can catch it and take it with us. I’ll keep you posted.

The Race to Read

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A few years ago, I noticed a trend in my reading patterns that bothered me: I spent most of my time re-reading old favorites and very little time reading new books. Not that I stopped buying new books — I did plenty of that, with the result that the number of unread titles I accumulated started to get worrisome. So I decided to set a goal for myself for the following year: I would read at least 12 new titles over the course of the year — an average of one a month, which seemed an easy enough target.

Not only did I meet my goal, I exceeded it by half, reading 18 new books. (I joined a book club, which helped.) And while I look through that first list of titles and don’t recall even half of them fondly, I’m still glad that I didn’t spend that time reading Steven Brust, Douglas Adams, and Harry Potter for the Nth time.

Since then, I’ve tried to improve a little bit each year, adding one or two books to the prior year’s total. I succeeded in each year save one: 2005, the year of Katrina. Surprisingly enough, that year I did at least match the previous year’s total of 25 titles, although 9 were in the form of audiobooks. I’m still not entirely convinced that the audiobooks aren’t cheating, but since I only listen to unabridged titles, I can’t find any good reason to exclude them.

This year, though, I’m worried. Last year I read 30 books, and I’m not seeing how I’m going to top or even match it, not with my current total standing at only 20. I’ve had this moment of calculation in prior years — looking at the calendar, analyzing the number of weeks left and how often I’d need to finish a book to hit the mark. I remember being in this position in 2004 and getting through a surprising 8 books in as many weeks, but I’m just not sure I’m going to make it this year. I’ve been picking my titles and counting down: The King’s Own and A Cook’s Tour are both underway, as is the audio version of Terry Pratchett‘s Making Money; and I do have 9 weeks to go, so there’s hope. And there’s nothing like time pressure to light a fire under a person.

I’ll keep you posted. (See Current Tally in the sidebar.) But for now, A Cook’s Tour awaits.