Happy 2011!

Happy, happy New Year!

Rainy first morning of 2011, pancakes and coffee, leisuring around before heading to New Year's Day class with Trixie in tow -- oh, frabjous, frabjous day!  After which I will hang about with the kula at our beloved Cibo, then return home for New Year's Ritual #1, the shelving of all of 2010's reads.  Could it get more frabjous?

At left, only the partial stack since the tiny shelf these are balanced on couldn't take the additional weight of books eaten after the Lethem.  Their brethren are stacked elsewhere, waiting for this day, on which I can lovingly take in their physical form as I  put them, in their assigned places, by category and/or alphabet.

Above them a gorgeous drawing executed by The Kid, one of his favorites, which makes it all the more special to me that he gifted it to me for my last birthday.  Beautiful.

I did "better" in 2010 than in 2009 or 2008, in terms of the number of books read.  I had wanted to break 30 in 2009, fell short with 29.  This year, wahoo, got all the way to 35, after excluding 5 books I started and didn't finish.  Counting them would be cheating.  In all, a fair number of yoga-related titles, memoir, non-fiction and animals, a little poetry, and some utterly delectable fiction.

And to think that as I write this, more books are making their way to me, courtesy of the used selection available on Amazon.com, to make a bold start for 2011.  YAY!

Here's wishing everyone a beautiful new year, filled with adventure on the page and elsewhere!
XXXXXX


2010 Books!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

Shop Girl, Steve Martin

In a Strange Room, Damon Galgut

Room, Emma Donoghue

Parrot & Olivier in America, Peter Carey

Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem

The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

The Children's Book, A.S. Byatt

Shackleton's Stowaway, Victoria McKernan

Tinkers, Paul Harding

Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa, Kevin Richardson

Invisible, Paul Auster

The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood

Lit, Mary Karr

Brooklyn, Tolm Coibin

To Have Not, Frances Lefkowitz

Born Standing Up, Steve Martin

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

The Outlander, Gil Adamson

Little Bee, Chris Cleave

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese

Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of the Sundarbans, Sy Montgomery

The Yoga of Discipline, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

Sadhana of the Heart, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar

Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

Away, Amy Bloom

Mary Queen of Scots, Antonia Fraser

The Children of Henry VIII, Alison Weir

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver

Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh