The 2007 Booklist

Continuing a time-honored tradition (begun way back a year ago), I hereby list my annual booklist, in order of completion (last year: 14 books), with little or no editorial comment:

1. The Pleasure of My Company. Steve Martin. Fiction.

2. Everyman. Philip Roth. Fiction (read on a flight to Berlin). (Weird. The link you see for Roth has a rare interview, with The Guardian, with a photographer from Berlin, oddly enough.)

3. Lisey's Story. Stephen King. Fiction.

4. The Mission Song. John LeCarre. Fiction. (a year ago I was privileged to pose a question to him on BBC Radio; can't find the link; maybe someday)

5. Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain. Michele Morano. Essays.

6. The Innocent. Ian McEwan. Fiction.

7. Stumbling on Happiness. Daniel Gilbert. Non-fiction (sociology/psychology).

8. The Woman Lit by Fireflies. Jim Harrison. Fiction.

9. fly away peter. David Malouf. Fiction.

10. Samaritan. Richard Price. Fiction.

11. This Clumsy Living. Bob Hicok. Poetry.

12. Some Can Whistle. Larry McMurtry. Fiction.

13. Um...Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. Michael Erard. Non-fiction.

14. Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Jonah Lehrer. Non-fiction essays.

15. Silk. Alessandro Baricco. Fiction.

I am three-quarters finished with Richard Ford's truly superb and already-memorable The Lay of the Land, but that can't go on this year's list unless I speed-read through about 150 pages in the next 3.5 hours (won't happen).

I do like books. Today, at lunchtime I saw that Murphy's Books was open, downtown Syracuse. It was a surprise because its owner (who is brother to our receptionist and brother to a friend of mine) is battling leukemia. He is liquidating the store's inventory. He is. . . His collection is excellent and literary. I bought nine books for nine dollars and change. A dollar a book, hard or soft. Can't beat that. Perhaps I'll list them some other time.

Endnote: My story -- the one I took a week off of blogging from to write -- was not selected by Glimmer Train Stories. Everyone I showed it to (including successful published authors) loved it. The main thing is, I loved it. And still do. I may self-publish. Hard to decide, seeing as my son gave me the writer's guide for 2008. We'll see.

I am glad the holiday frenzy is over.

Our tree stays up at least to Epiphany, January 6.

I am wearing my slippers and may be asleep well before midnight.

Happy New Year.

Pacem in Terris.

Flagged But Not Flagellated

A zero day. Got up; let the dog out; breakfasted; blogged; revised blog template (not sure even I like it; do you?); went back to bed; stayed in pajamas until a shower at 6, post meridiem.

Relished some reading, too (not the kind of relish that goes with that gross hot-dog-eating contest at Coney Island).

Finished a collection of novellas called "The Woman Lit By Fireflies" by Jim Harrison. The first piece features the eponymous Brown Dog, in what appears to be his debut literary appearance. Brown Dog is one of the most colorful characters in modern American literature, to this reader. I was introduced to Jim Harrison on the recommendation of Cort, a colleague who now calls me Brown Dog in passing at work. The collection's title piece is, well, luminous. A woman ditches her husband and spends a night alone in a cornfield. How's that for stalking one's demons?

Was I depressed today or simply indulging in some hard-earned rest? Probably more the latter. Or maybe not.

The temporarily empty nest gets refilled shortly, with youngest daughter returning (a few days early) after a stay on Block Island and with elder daughter in Berlin back in the, back in the, back in the US of A.

No great American novel (or story or poem or blog) written during this one week's worth of nest vacancy.

None yet.

A passing rumble of amateur fireworks.

My feathers are not ruffled by it, though I admit to a fluttering as the decibels increase.

Listened to the BBC on XM satellite radio a bit today. Good to hear that reporter Alan Johnston is freed from Gaza. Listened to some baseball on XM too. The Giants won today, aided by a grand slam by Fred Lewis, twice now in his rookie year (something never done in the team's San Francisco era). Alas, though, Mr. Lewis is no Willie Mays. He may not even be a Nate Schierholtz.

And now, the sweetest coda to the day and counterpoint to the sporadic neighborhood firecrackers: a lazy summer rain steadily sprinkling on the sidewalk (a pleasure exceeded only by the symphony of raindrops tapping on a car roof).