2011 reading round up

Here's another one I've been intending to post for awhile.

I read a lot. I've always thought it would be cool to do some book reviews on a few of the many books I devour, but I never seem to get around to it. In past years, I've found that I read so many books in a year and then look back and can barely remember which ones I read and liked, or disliked or found meh, so many books crammed into that little space I call "brain". So this past year I wrote down the title of each book as I finished it.

Just having a list is helpful for recalling the subject matter and quality content of the book. I also annotated my list with a number of stars beside each title.  From 0 to 5.

My scoring method is as follows.

 Five stars means the book was amazing; positively life-changing and inspiring. And zero meaning I either found the content of the book to be very bland, disturbing, or out right lousy. For everything in between, I generally gave at least one star if it had even one thought-provoking concept, or a well written character, good descriptions or interesting premise. Occasionally, a few of these in moderate goodness were enough to equal at least one star.

Here's the list of books I read last year, mostly fiction ranging from young adult fantasy to classics, and a few non-fiction

Books I have read in the year 2011, in basically the order I read them:
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx - 4 stars
The Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier - 0 stars
Starlighter by Bryan Davis - 2 stars
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut - 2 stars
Troubling A Star by Madeleine l'Engle - 0 stars
Woman: And intimate geography by Natalie Angier - 3 stars
The Book Without Words by Avi - 3 stars
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom - 5 stars
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt - 4 stars
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix - 3 stars
The Silver Spoon of Solomon Snow by Kaye Umansky - 4 stars
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - 3 stars
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - 2 stars
Magyk by Angie Sage - 3 stars
Flyte by Angie Sage - 2 stars
The Fisherman's Lady by George MacDonald - 3 stars
Silas Marner by George Eliot - 4 stars
Sorvay by Celia Rees - 0 stars
Beauty by Robin McKinley - 3 stars
Physik by Angie Sage - 2 stars
Persuasion by Jane Austen - 1 star
Starcrossed by Elizabeth Bunce - 4 stars
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - 3 stars
The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge - 2 stars
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - 4 stars
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson - 2 stars
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce - 4 stars
The Truth by Terry Pratchett - 3 stars
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - 3 stars
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne- 3 stars
The Blue Castle by L.M Montgomery - 4 stars
Twilight by Stephanie Meyers - 1 star
Watership Down by Richard Adams - 4 stars
Turn of The Screw by Henry James - ?
Warrior by Bryan Davis - 1 star
Sarah's Daughter - 1 star
Serendipity Market - 1 star
Queste by Angie Sage - 2 stars
A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schiltz - 4 stars
The Aneid - 2 stars
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks - 3 stars
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt - 3 stars
The Girl With the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier - 3 stars
A Short History of Myth - 1 star
Enter Three Witches by Caroline Cooney - 2 stars
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien - 4 stars
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - 4 stars

Forty-seven books in all.

Forgive me that some titles do not have the author's name beside it, I neglected to write this detail into my list on occasion. If you have questions about any book in particular or want a review, please feel free to ask! I would be happy to have a good motivation to write a book review.

Library and Tea shop, amongst other things...Hills, most notably.

When it comes down to it, I really am a flatlander. Florida is flat. It really is. Especially the Keys. They're all at sea level. Well, okay, Key West has a hill which inclines to about 4 feet above sea level....and we think that's something. So when I came to this hill country of New Hampshire, I can't say I was prepared for...well, hills. I rode my bike to the library downtown today. It's about a mile and a half, and a mostly flat ride. Mostly. There are two hills. One going down, one going up. Down is easy! Up killed me. And this is a LITTLE hill, mind you. Exeter, compared to other parts of New Hampshire, is a decently flattish town to the naked eye. It's not until your actually walking or riding a bike that you realize .... "Wow, this here is a HILL." My best guess is that I rode about about two to four feet of slow ascent and then gave up. I got off and walked that blasted bike up. I didn't have enough speed to bring me along (I really couldn't get any speed on my bike, it's a put-put bike) and my legs were in no shape to pump me up. I felt really lame. I guess it didn't help that my tires were pretty low, either...

But on the good side! I got a book to read for when I'm done with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. (Which is amazing. It's my first read by Steinbeck, but it won't be the last. It was a slow start, but now that I'm into it it's beautiful. He's poetic and illustrative through every sentence. And the people are so real, so feeling.) I got a book called Crown Duel by a Sherwood Smith. Some fantasy novel I've never heard of by someone I've never heard of but it looked interesting. That kinda book. But I love reading. And now that the weather is really warming up, I can sit outside and read. And pure loveliness, it is, my friends.
Another delightful thing is that I splurged on buying some organic Lavender flowers today. An ounce. And I am SO excited about them. I love lavender and I'll be baking spring in to a lot of concoctions now that I have it. Not to mention Lavender Chocolate ice cream...

That's right folks. I now I have an ice cream maker and I'm NOT afraid to use it. Just today in fact, I made some Papaya Ginger Ice Cream and Chocolate Spice-cream (clever name, no?) is in the works. The papaya recipe I developed on my own and the chocolate one I adapted. If they end up turning out delish, I just may post the recipes. I love exploring new flavours and combinations, and ice cream is a great format for a lot of them. It would be fun to turn this blog in to a foodie type one...amongst other things. You know?