Reading in 2012

Another year gone by, another year of meager book reading.  But really, there's so much in the way of television and movies out there, how can I be held responsible. Even worse, this short list contains pretty much lighter reading.  No epic novels this year. I do imagine, in the distant future, after most of humanity is wiped out, that I'll have all the time in the world to read everything.  Until I accidentally step on my glasses, that is.  Oh, cursed fate!

And, besides my own limited personal db, I am still maintaining my listings on Goodreads and Shelfari.  Who can choose.

+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+
| title                             | Authors                             | yearpublished | Finished |
+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+
| Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer, The | Jennifer Lynch                      |          1990 | 3/2012   |
| Early Dayton                      | Robert W. Steele,Mary Davies Steele |          1896 | 6/2012   |
| I Hate Myself And Want To Die     | Tom Reynolds                        |          2005 | 7/2012   |
| Sword Of The Prophet, The         | Serge Trifkovic                     |          2002 | 9/2012   |
| Predictably Irrational            | Dan Ariely                          |          2008 | 11/2012  |
| Blessed Are The Meek              | Zofia Kossak                        |          1944 | 12/2012  |
+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+

"The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer", of course, is one of the better-known "Twin Peaks" memorabilia. It may come as a surprise, but there is no small amount of "Twin Peaks" stuff that I never acquired, much to my regret. And when I saw that they (for some reason) decided to do a second printing of this thin volume a year ago, I snatched it up.

"Early Dayton" was published on Dayton's centennial.  I found it in Google Books.  Today it would probably be a self-published thing, like a family might do for its own history.  There are some good historical sections about the first settlers and a few old pictures, but the majority of it involves listing a prominent citizen, and then listing that person's descendents and current living relatives, without much flavor.

"I Hate Myself And Want To Die" is just a list of 52 popular, depressing songs -- sometimes surprisingly so for those who don't pay much mind to the lyrics.  Each song's accompanied by a brief essay, emphasis on brief.  I really like the idea of something like this, but I imagined it being much better.  Besides the briefness, the comedian in the author shines through in some write-ups more than others -- not laugh out loud funny, though.  I recall it feeling more like the style of VH1's snarky talking-head countdowns and "I Love The Whatever" shows.

"The Sword of the Prophet" explains Islam from its beginning; guaranteed to be hated and denounced by the politically correct and people who favor "coexist" bumper stickers.

"Predictably Irrational" is all about behavioral economics. It doesn't really teach or explain much about economics (of any kind) in any great detail, but it does describe, for the layman, several fascinating behavioral economics experiments that try to decipher how people really behave and are motivated.

And, finally, I just finished "Blessed Are The Meek", which is subtitled, "A Novel About St. Francis Of Assisi".  Turns out it really isn't about Francis as much as it's about Sir Jean de Brienne and the final Crusade. (I think it was the final one.)  Francis keeps showing up in the early part of the book and again in the latter part of the book when the Crusade gets going.  And that was fine. I wasn't expecting a bio of St. Francis.  And I do like me some historical fiction. Not being much of a historian -- and that goes double for the 13th century -- I don't know where the historical ended and the fictional began, but I'd say this turned out to be the most enjoyable read on this list.  If it were written today, instead of 70 years ago, give or take a decade (1944 is probably just when it was translated to English) , it would probably be twice as long and only the first part of a trilogy.  Several subplots might have been greatly extended.  But I thought it was good; which was probably enhanced by my low expectations going in.

For the record, on Goodreads, I rated them all 3 stars ("liked it") except the Dayton book, which I gave 2 stars ("it was ok").

And don't forget, it's still not too late to enjoy some Christmas Punch: