A Bookish Best Year

People: I'm watching a movie.  Not only that, it's the 2nd one in the space of a week.  I've now increased my movie watching for the year by 200%. 

So, I'm watching Footloose for the first time ever and THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD MOVIE.  Why does high-schooler-Kevin-Bacon have professional gymnast moves and why are the parallel bars something high schoolers would be using in gym class?  Whoa...body doubles.  Why does he wear a tie on his first day at a new school?  Why does the insult that he flings back to the cowboy-hat-wearing Willard in the hallway make them become friends?  Why is Ariel such a jerk? 

Also, this is the first movie I have seen where there's a game of chicken being played out using John Deere's set to I Need a Hero (which Kevin Bacon wins because his shoelace gets stuck and he can't stop...???).  This contrasts directly with one of the final scenes on the other movie I just watched Danny (i.e. John Travolta) fills in at a drag race and wins...but in a cooler kind of grease-r way.

Also (again): product placement.  Did Coke pay a boatload of money at the people who made this movie? 

I'm also not entirely sure why Ren move to this no-dancing-uber-conservative-anti-Vonnegut-Midtown-city?  I'm (mostly) watching and am confused.

I'm getting all distracted.  I really wanted to talk about my G-O-O-D-B-O-O-K year.  This is the first year of my life where I've kept track of how many books I've read, not really with a particular goal in mind but wanting to get as close to 100 as possible.

I decided to include audio books in my tracking as well, and here's whatI learned about my reading life:

1.  I don't generally like audio books all that much.  The narrator really has to be compelling, which adds another elements to whether or not I like a book.

2.  I read more than I really thought that I would.

3.  I like mysteries a lot, and I can't keep going until I talk about a new devotion to Louise Penny and the Three Pines mysteries.  Oh, that there was this was a real town and I would take me to there.  Other than the alarmingly high rate of murder happening, this place is idyllic, which, frankly, makes for some compelling murdering to happen.  My favorite:  all of them that I've read so far (5) but you have to read them in order

4.  I read more books set in Australia than I ever have before.  So, that was unexpected.  I understand why Liane Moriarty is crazy popular, though she's not ever going to be close to a favorite for me.  Her chapters tend to end on cliffhangers.  A lot.  However, she makes up for a bunch with cleverness in the plot.  My favorite:  What Alice Forgot

5.  Tana French is another famous and wildly popular mystery writer that I'll explore more, I've no doubt, but right now I'm less of a fan.  Bonus:  You can read the Dublin murders in any order.

6.  I really appreciate a clever story, no matter the genre.  One of my favorites of the year that I wasn't expecting to want to read:  The Whisper Man (trigger warnings with this one)

7.  It's hard to write a clever non-fiction story.  I keep getting pulled into these non-fiction books that are often just...not.

8.  My favorite author of the year:  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -- Americanah, The Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, "The Danger of a Single Story"

9.  I make time for reading at the beginning and end of every day.  This is imperative.  Be good to yourself.

10.  Frederick Backman, another favorite of the year:  A Man Called Ove, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

Next year, I'm changing my tracking method and I'm teaching less, which means yes, I do believe I can reach that pure 100.

YEAR END TOTALS:  82 physical books (though I know I'll finish the 2 that I'm currently reading with an outside shot at finishing a 3rd before the end of the year) + 12 audio books