At Home in Nome: 2011

Here is a list of the books I read in 2010 and 2011. I write them down so I can remember what I've read. And so I don't take the same book home from the library a second (or third) time. I've done that a couple times. If I don't have the list with me, I now feel comfortable enough to ask the librarian if she could see if I've checked a book out recently.
After I graduated I had just one full-time job, I realized that I had extra time on my hands. That led me to the library and to where I am today, blogging about it. I started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and while I was waiting for the next one, I decided that I should "read the alphabet" starting with an author with the last beginning with A and so on to Z. That was okay until after C when a book caught my attention from the Non-Fiction, Green Tag section (NFGT). I had decided to read fiction but love non-fiction and having a green tag it was on loan and could get sent back at ANY TIME. So I made an exception. I was reading the alphabet but could read a NFGT book in between. Later I made another exception: I could read Fiction Green Tag, too. And soon another exception (slippery slope) I could read books about Alaska or written by an Alaskan author. One final exception: I could read a book if loaned by a friend and he/she wanted it back quickly.
I think those were all the exceptions.
Anyway--on to the list!

August 2010--
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (I started this before the rules)
Say You're One of Them by Uwen Akpam
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
Brides of Eden by Linda Crew
Here's where I stray:
Departure Lounge by Meg Federico (NFGT)
Sometimes We're All Real Same-Same by Maddox Roesch (AK)
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (friend's book and we all know I have to finish a series)
In This Was I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (FBAWAKIHTFAS)
Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
Making Toast by Roger Rosenblath (NFGT)
A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates (FGT)
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell (NFGT)
War by Sebastian Junger (NFGT)
The General and His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
The Town that Forgot to Breathe by Kenneth Harvey
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (friend's book)

2011
Last Night at Twisted Creek by John Irving
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (FB)
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown (NFGT)
Waiting by Ha Jin
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Williamson (NFGT)
Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kanter (and AK--it's a two-fer!)
Sitka by Louis L'amour (and AK 2 two-fers!)
Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
Two-Pound Tram by William Newton
I skipped O because we have a very small library and I did not yet own a Kindle.
Postcards by E. Annie Proulx
Black and Blue by Anna Quinlan
Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story by Ann Kirschner (NFGT)
The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire (FGT, I think, might be a FB)
Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Toward the End of Time by John Updike
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Fifty Miles from Tomorrow by William Iggiaruk Hensley (AK and FB)
Bossypants by Tina Fey (NFGT and I requested it)
The Brother Clerks by Xariffa
Four Years by William Butler Yeats

I found the last book on Amazon for free and it fulfilled my X, wasn't too bad of a read either. I tried a Z (Maria Edgeworth by Helen Zimmern) book, also found on Amazon, but I couldn't finish it. Then my students were all reading The Hunger Games series so I started that and threw Z out the window. Such a quitter.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins
Life by Keith Richards
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus
Be Different by John Elder Robison
Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Survivor: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Life, Love and a Polar Bear Tattoo by Heather Wardell
The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook Shin
The following are not in exact order.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I Drink for a Reason by David Cross
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Roses are Red by James Patterson
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Fat by Claire Kennon
The Bedwetter: Stories Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman
Epiphany Junkies by Claire Kennon
The Third Marriage by Claire Kennon
The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Stories of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of Elements by Sam Kean
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Many times while trying to type of this list, I've had to google names because I couldn't read my own handwriting--usually I was unsure of certain letters. I would open a tab, google, find answer, then try to return to this page by scrolling to the right hand upper corner to show all the windows I have open and realize I opened a tab, not a window. This happened each time I googled. Every single time.

Today, 12/29/11, I am reading The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore. When I'm finished, I'll start the Game of Thrones series. Perhaps I'll make 2012 a series year. I wonder what exceptions I could come up with? I can continue reading NFGT? I can also read autobiographies? I won't impose rules on my reading?

Stay tuned.

Because of JennyCase's comment on FB, I have decided to "try harder" and "write more stories." I know what it's like to check a blog over and over only to have a certain blogger fail to update.

We'll continue to move through December. We might even hit xmas. It's too soon to tell.

These are the 2nd set of xmas lights Fred and Julianne sent (the first were the dolphins which are still up). It took me 4 tries to get them when they were all lit up. The little lighthouses have 2 lights and the top one blinks. Someone at our NYE party told us they resemble penises and my neighbor could not contain her laughter when she asked me what exactly we had put in our window. They will return next year for sure. I devised a way to clip them to the blinds so they'd stand up.

Living in Nome, we get visitors traveling from village to village and village to lower 48 fairly frequently. Amy is one such visitor. She and Obama shared a not-so-private moment at Airport Pizza.

Another visitor who frequents our humble abode is Barnabas--here he is sporting his Just Give Up sweatpants in public.

And this is just one of the many delicious pizzas that can be enjoyed at AP (for a large sum of money). Tasty, very tasty. And look at the greenery!

We went to AP to see this guy, Willis, sing and play guitar. He's a teacher on Diomede and was traveling around SE Asia during winter break performing.

Our friends Opik, Nathan, and Aprille were there. As you may recall from a previous post, Opik grew up on Diomede and Nathan and Aprille were teachers there.