January 1, 2008

My Movies & Books in 2007

This is the second year I have kept track of movies and books on my wall calendar (here's 2006).  I only recorded books that I had read for personal enjoyment (no textbooks!) and movies that I had seen in the theater.  So, today I took down the calendar and had a look at my year in book and film.

JANUARY
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
JPod by Douglas Coupland
Borat
Pursuit of Happyness
Volver
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
The Queen
Babel
The Departed
The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook by Justin Spring
Notes on a Scandal
FEBRUARY
The Last King of Scotland
Pan’s Labrynth
Letters from Iwo Jima
Music & Lyrics
Children of Men
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

MARCH
Because I Said So
Zodiac
The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

APRIL
The Lives of Others
Blades of Glory
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Zero by Jess Walter

MAY
Spiderman 3
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Waitress
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Thirteen Days by Robert F Kennedy

JUNE
Knocked Up
Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End
Ocean’s 13
Nancy Drew
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

JULY
Transformers
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
Ratatouille
Sicko
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
You Kill Me
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)

AUGUST
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
The Simpsons Movie
Death at a Funeral
Superbad
Becoming Jane

SEPTEMBER
Four Quarters of Light: An Alaskan Journey by Brian Keenan
Stardust
Stardust (second time)
Once
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

OCTOBER
Getting to Yes by Fisher, Ury & Patton
Into the Wild
The Darjeeling Limited

NOVEMBER
The Nightmare Before Christmas – 3D
Trade
Lars and the Real Girl
America (The Book) by Jon Stewart

DECEMBER
The Best American Travel Writing ed. Susan Orlean
The Big Four by Agatha Christie
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Atonement
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Currently Reading (but not finished in 2007):
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts

P.S. (Jan 28, 08)
The worst movies were Because I Said So, Spiderman 3, and Nancy Drew.

The best books were A Long Way Down (a hilarious and uplifting story about attempted suicide), Snow (set in Turkey), The Worst Hard Time (personal stories about the Dust Bowl. National Book Award winner. Seattle author.), The Zero (excellent 9/11 fiction that never mentions 9/11. Spokane author.), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (natch), and The Yiddish Policemen's Union (Jews, chess, and Alaska. What more could you want?).

January 27, 2007

How dare you take my picture...



Move to Blogger?

I've had a blog over at Xanga.com for about three years now. I've used it a lot less frequently since I got a new job about a year and a half ago, so I'm thinking of switching over to Blogger. It has just about everything I would ever need in a blog, it's free, and it plays well with Flickr. I haven't really decided yet, so I set this up and we'll see if I actually use it.

January 1, 2007

Books and Movies of 2006

About a year and a half ago I bought a beautiful 2006 wall calendar of Toulouse-Lautrec posters.  I quickly realized that I really don't have much use for wall calendars.  So, I decided to use it to keep track of what I read and what movies I saw for the year of 2006.  I only recorded books that I had read for personal enjoyment (no textbooks!) and movies that I had seen in the theater.  So, today I took down the calendar and had a look at my year in book and film.
JANUARY
The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
King Kong
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
Munich
Casanova
Brokeback Mountain

FEBRUARY
Basin and Range by John McPhee
Eight Below
In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee

MARCH
The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada
Failure to Launch
V for Vendetta
Rising from the Plains by John McPhee

APRIL
Ask the Dust
Assembling California by John McPhee
Crossing the Craton by John McPhee
Mozart and the Whale
A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
Thank You for Smoking

MAY
Friends with Money
Explorers House by Robert M. Poole
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
The Truth (with Jokes) by Al Franken
Lucy by Ellen Feldman
X-men 3: The Last Stand

JUNE
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
The Break-Up
An Inconvenient Truth
The Lake House
A Prairie Home Companion

JULY
The Devil Wears Prada
Millennials Rising by Howe & Strauss
You, Me and Dupree
Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
The Da Vinci Code
1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies

AUGUST
Superman Returns
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Scoop
Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

SEPTEMBER
Little Miss Sunshine
The Illusionist
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
House of Sand

OCTOBER
Hollywoodland
Man of the Year

NOVEMBER
A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons
Marie Antoinette
Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby
For Your Consideration

DECEMBER
Until I Find You by John Irving
The Holiday
The Restless Northwest by Hill Williams
Citizen Vince by Jess Walter
Casino Royale
Blood Diamond
The Good Shepherd
Rocky Balboa
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Dreamgirls

Currently Reading (but not finished in 2006): A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby