Dec 31 2008
A Bookish 2008
I guess it’s time to look back over 2008 and contemplate how successful (or not) a year it was, with regard to my reading habits and what I actually read. I only managed to finish 33 books this year, due to two things: 1) I’ve been unemployed all year, and much of my reading has been done on trains and buses going to and from work; and 2) I spent most of the summer doing a thorough edit of my novel, so every free minute was spent on that, rather than with a book. So I might have hit 50 or more if not for those two things.
I hope to do better in 2009, but the list of books for 2008 is still interesting.
For one thing, I read Bunnicula for the first time. All my friends and acquaintances had read it long ago, and constantly referred to it, so when I had the chance, I finally read it. It was fun, though I might not rave about it as much as they do. Still, I’ll get the references from now on.
I also read Michael Moorcock’s Elric series again. I went on a Moorcock binge a few years ago and read everything I could get my hands on, so it was fun to revisit what I thought was the best of his “Eternal Champion” books.
I interspersed the fiction with stuff like The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels, and The Problems of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell. I felt like my brain had gone a bit soft in recent years, not having to exercise itself that much. So I wanted (and still want) to get back to some of the academic stuff I studied in university. I’m going to try to read more philosophy in 2009, certainly. And more science.
One bright spot was the gradual introduction of book reviews. It started when my friend suggested I review Impostor, by Richard Beymer. I really enjoyed doing it, and decided I’d like to do more. I did a whole bunch of them, in fact, at my own blog, Confessions of a Cultural Idiot.
I also joined the Library Thing Early Reviewers Group late in the year, and so far have gotten two books to review: Any Given Doomsday, by Lori Handeland, and What God Can Do For You Now, by Rabbi Robert N. Levine. Then Lisa at Minds Alive on the Shelves (in my blogroll) recommended the Mini Book Expo site for snagging other books to review. And now I’ve got one of those books on the way too - a book called Leaving Fundamentalism, a topic about which I know rather a lot.
Speaking of which. Two new (to me) books I got in 2008 were Crazy for God, and Portofino, by Frank Schaeffer. The first was his account of being raised as the son of the evangelical philosopher/theologian, Francis Schaeffer, and together with Francis, being pretty much responsible for starting the Religious Right. Frank has since become horrified at the monster he helped create, and in Crazy for God he also described the nastiness at the heart of that movement, and how he escaped it.
I relate to that in a big way, because I was a huge follower of Francis Schaeffer many years ago, and have since then had the same reactions to the political monstrosity as Frank had. Except, of course, I hadn’t created it, and wasn’t at the heart of it.
Portofino is fiction - supposedly - but if you read it right after Crazy for God, it’s fairly clear that the fictional missionary family Schaeffer describes is almost a carbon copy of his own. And with the two books together, you wonder how Schaeffer actually came out of it rational and sane.
Those books were a revisiting of my life of many years ago, and very moving. They were both nostalgic and horrifying. Despite all the other great books I read during the year, I think those two were kind of the peak. They both explained - and exorcised - some pretty heavy stuff from so long ago.
The big thing, though, about 2008, was that I didn’t read enough books! Doesn’t a bookish person always say that? But I really mean it.
So if I have any sort of New Year’s resolution this time around, that’s it: read more books.
