I started with ‘Girl  With a Pearl Earring’ by Tracy Chevalier just because the cover looked interesting. It was a good start, I liked it. It proved to be as good as the painting on it’s cover.  After that, there were a couple of books that were so-so. Then I went non-fiction, reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Ops! some might argue that this book is a work of  fiction, imagination of the authors, nevertheless, it was an interesting read.

Marley and Me was the funniest book I read last year. Being a dog-person, it was easy for me to enjoy the antics of Marley.  I’m looking forward to watching the new movie based on the book. 

Then I thought, I should try Toni Morrison. I never read any of her work before (what!) and decided to  start with Beloved. It was not the first book I read on slavery; my heart was ripped by Roots, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and to a lesser degree, Cane River. But, I was not used to Toni Morrison’s writting style, I found it poetic and I was forced to read at a slower pace and re-read some of the pages in order to get the gist of the story. It was worth it though, after Beloved, I went on to read Song of Solomon. This broke the rule of not reading the same author twice but, I excused myself .

I took a break from novels and read The Complete Guide to Pilates, Yoga, Meditation and Stress Relief by Parragon Publishing. Tried the various asanas… still trying them… still have a long way to go – ouch!

Next on my list was Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It started well  but, I didn’t really like it . This was followed by other uninteresting reads until I got Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. When I saw the book at the bookstore, I remembered Oprah gushing about it on her show. I was curious and decided to buy it.  It was worth the read, all 976 pages of it. It was so long, but it was never draggy. I never thought that the building of a cathedral could be so engrossing.  It was my favorite book of the year.

I’m now back to reading familiar authors ( I’m into Jane Austen - again). This year, I’m hoping to further expand my reading of non-fiction books. There will be no limit on the topics – anything goes. Can’t wait to start!

My least favorite phrase, middle east crisis. It never ends. Can’t we find find another word to attach with the region except crisis? Tagging the region as a whole gives people the idea that there’s unrest all over the place. I live in the middle east and it sure does not feel like crisis here. In this part of the world, the word economy – what economy?

My least favorite 2-names-in-one, Tomkat and Brangelina.  They just became blah. Lets have new faces  for 2009 please.

I thought I knew him, but after reading his blogs, I realized that he had a world that I was totally unaware of.  He wrote about his family (omg! he has a family, I thought he came from mars or something!), the people he worked with, our mutual friends,  his other pals…all of a sudden, he’s a person! hehehe, not that he wasn’t before but, you get the drift.

There’s a lot you can learn about a person by reading their blogs. This friend does not talk about his ‘other life’ when we hang out. We will dissect the lives of our  mutual acquaintances but he was always reserved talking about his own, especially his lovelife - thy lips are sealed.

Good times

I’m glad I found his blogs. I now see what he sees, I hope.

 Hmm… I wonder who else is blogging out there…