Reading:
253 - Geoff Ryman

Completed:
4. Round Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawks

Seen:
Last Chance Harvey
New In Town

Reading:
How to Breathe Underwater - Julie Orringer

Completed:
3. Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann

Reading:
Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann

Completed:
2. The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler

Reading:
The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler

Completed:
1. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Seen:
How I Met Your Mother, seasons 1 and 2

Completed:
Persuasion

Seen:
The Women (2008 version)

Book Total for 2008... 27

Total Austen: five of her six novels (I read Emma in 2007)
Total Fforde: six of his seven (I read The Big Over Easy in 2007)
Total memoirs: six.
Total series completed: two (Thursday Next, Twilight)
Total semi-embarrassing YA: five
Total books referencing 9/11 as semi-significant plot points: two
Total rereads: only one, Persuasion, which was a favorite of 2008 and the last book I read for the year, finished on the 31st.
Most surprising book discovery: that I did not complete a single Bryson this year... I finished one at the end of 2007 and read, but did not complete The Mother Tongue.

one long three-month wrap up

Oy. Terrible with the updating, I am.

Reading:
Persuasion - Jane Austen (reread #1... possibly the only reread I've done this year)
The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson (I may not be able to get through this one and I feel like I'm betraying a favorite author)

Completed:
The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde
Paper Towns - John Green
Harry, A History - Melissa Anelli
Shakespeare Wrote for Money - Nick Hornby
perhaps more?

Bought:
Jane Eyre (for 25c at the rummage sale)
Paper Towns
Harry, A History
Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Seen:
Young @ Heart
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Leatherheads
Tape (second viewing, but I forgot how much I like this one)
and I'm sure some others that I don't remember at the moment...

Notes on being an only child...

I am selfish with my time.

I learned long ago how to share my toys, share my food, even share my feelings... but not so much my time. I don't do well with adjusting my personal system to how other folks do it. I am a creature of habit.

I've always been shy. I've also always been fairly mature and responsible and still I had to grow up very quickly. I like to think that I don't need any people who I don't already know. I am jaded and have been for a while now. I gave up on love or any kind of meaningful romantic relationship what feels like ages ago.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm okay with being alone. Quite frankly I'm more than okay with it. For now, that is. But I know that in the future I may have other thoughts. The question is whether to follow my heart deeper into the solitary life that feels so right to me or to force myself into situations I'm not all that interested in for the sake of experience.

A lot to think about, so it would seem.