list love

Many people that know me - at least those who know me well - know that I love lists.  They keep me organized and help me remember things when I can hardly keep up with the speed of my own brain.  At the end of one year and beginning of the next, there are lists galore presented - top 10's, best of, memorable this-and-that.  I typically can't resist viewing the lists when I run across the headline. For my own lists, I don't discriminate in my formats - I use my Moleskine® planner/notebook, Post-It® notes, random scraps of paper, envelopes from opened mail and even the List Master app on my phone.  I'm not even all that consistent on what kind of list goes on what kind of medium, i.e. my grocery list doesn't always go on paper, sometimes it's on my phone.  But no matter what kind of list, there's nothing quite like the satisfying feeling of crossing something off a list!  Lists also create a way to record the past.  One list that I've kept for a few years now is the list of books I've read each year.  My goal for 2011 is to read 12 books to average one per month.

2010

The Odyssey - Homer
The Art of Travel - Alain de Botton
Dinner With Persephone - Patricia Storace
The Anglo Files - Sarah Lyall
In Tuscany - Frances Mayes
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time - David H. Lowenherz, editor
Pontoon - Garrison Keillor
Living In a Foreign Language - Michael Tucker
The Aeneid - Virgil

In 2010, I started commuting to Murfreesboro for work.  The drive is long enough for me to listen to books on CD, which ended up being half of the books I read in 2010.  I knocked out some more Greek and Roman from the husband's list.

2009
Paris To the Moon - Adam Gopnik
Au Paris - Rachel Spencer
The Immortal Lovers - Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning - Frances Winwar
McCarthey's Bar - Pete McCarthey
A Year in the World - Frances Mayes
By Jove! Brush Up on Your Mythology - Michale Macrove
The Iliad - Homer
The Geography of Bliss - Eric Weiner

2009 was primarily travel memoirs, which is one of my favorite genres, but I also decided to have my English literature major husband create a chronological list for me to read the literature I had somehow managed to evade during 16 years of education. He started me with Greek, with an introduction to mythology for a foundation, and then straight to the Iliad.

2008
The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis
The Age of Napoleon - J. Christopher Herold
Under the Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes
Nations of the World - Italy - John S.C. Abbott
French Women for All Seasons - Mireille Guiliano

In 2008, I got really bogged down with Nations of the World - Italy for several months.  It was over 650 pages of the history of Italy from 700 B.C. until just after their unification.

2007
The Design of Everyday Things - Donald Norman
Love Is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
French Women Don't Get Fat - Mireille Guiliano

I discovered one of my favorite books in 2007 - 84, Charing Cross Road, a delightful exchange of letters between a New York book lover and an employee at a British bookstore just after World War II and the friendship that developed.