Photo of the Week--1/18/10

Did the pigeons notice it when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989? After all, many city pigeons are too fat and lazy to fly, unless you chase them. Were there East Berlin pigeons dying to come over to the West, but were afraid of being used as target practice by the Wall guards? When we visited Berlin, in 2000, it was still a novelty for us adults, who grew up with a divided Germany. Boy, of course, didn't find a visit to Berlin unusual at all: the pigeons are still fat, they're still lazy, and they still need to be chased, even across long plazas like this one.

Wordless definitions: sun worshippers

Took this the other day, the umpteenth consecutive of sub-freezing temps, when the sun was shining in the window, promising heat and warmth. (Lying, lying sun!) I found all three of my cats indulging in the sun's rays, and I really wanted to join them for a little nap, but work called. Darn. Next time, though, I might not resist.

The Word Nerd Sez: Q is for ...

quantum

It's been shamefully long since my last Word Nerd entry, and I wish I could say it was because I was devoting myself to writing a quadrilogy, but I can't, since quadrilogy isn't even a word* and I wasn't writing one anyway. I did write an entire novel in November, as well as multiple business and biographical pieces throughout the fall, but not once during that time did I feel moved enough by the letter Q to examine a Q-word. It was a bit of a quandary, and I felt a few qualms about ignoring my Word Nerd duties, but I quashed them in order to keep working.**

Actually, I think my problem was in finding something interesting to say about a Q-word. Q words are so rare that we're familiar with most of them. (Maybe not quincunx, an arrangement of five things with four as the points of a rectangle and one in the center; try to make that in Scrabble!) To my rescue came an e-mail from A.Word.A.Day, a wonderful service that gives me a new word to contemplate at the beginning of every business day. The theme of the week was "words whose meanings have changed over time," and the word was quantum.

Quantum. Now there's a word with potential. Not only does it make me think of the most recent James Bond flick (Quantum of Solace) and thus the delectable Daniel Craig, but also about quantum physics and the uncertainty principle and not-dead-not-alive cats and all that craziness.*** And check out some of the meanings for quantum:

1. A quantity or amount; a portion.
2. A large amount. (think of the popular phrase quantum leap, for instance)
3. The smallest amount of something that can exist independently. (think of quantum physics, which investigates the smallest particles)

The word comes from the Latin quantus, meaning "how much/how great," and over time the meaning has come to answer that question with two opposites: "a whole lot," and "a teeny tiny bit." If you think about it, though, the phrase "quantum jump/leap" comes from physics, and means "an abrupt change or sudden increase," such as that of an electron from one energy state to another, sometimes skipping a stage between. That doesn't necessarily mean a huge change, but we've simplified the physics so that it means "a big change" rather than "a sudden change."

Ouch. My brain is starting to hurt, so I think I'll stop there, except to mention that the plural of quantum is quanta, and I hope to use that in an actual real-world sentence some day.

*A four-volume series is a tetralogy, sadly for the letter Q.
**And thank goodness I didn't use quandary or qualm, because both those word origins are "unknown," according to Webster's, and so they would have made for very short blog entries ... hey, now there's an idea!
***I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and it made my brain hurt, but it was a good hurt, like lifting weights.

Photo of the Week--1/11/10

I'm thinking we took this picture of Boy chasing pigeons in front of the Cologne Cathedral before we ascended its 509 steps, rather than after. At one point (from 1880-1884) the cathedral was the tallest structure in the world, until the Washington Monument was finished. The tower climb is almost 100 meters high and takes quite a long time, especially if you're accompanied by a 6 year old, so I'm pretty sure this photo was pre- and not post-climb. As I recall, it was a pretty warm day (close to 90F), which explains why neither Boy nor the pigeons are making a real effort. Still, I'm sure they were terrified.

Photo of the Week--1/4/10

Boy would likely kill me if he knew I posted this picture, but since he doesn't read my blog, I guess he can't complain, can he? This is one of those funny things you find when you travel around to different countries. In Prague we encountered dog bombs wherever we walked because they hadn't discovered pooper scooper laws, and here in Bruges (Belgium) we found this artificial "tree" just for dogs to use. The cartoon sign is hysterical (evidently it's a girl dog doing her thing), and it didn't take much to get Boy to agree to this pose. When you're six years old, anything having to do with pee is automatically funny.

2009 Book Report

Now that I've listed all the books I read this year, I thought I'd add up some totals and look at some trends, then consider my best five (new) books I read this year.

In 2009, I read:

92 total books (an average of 1.76 per week)

65 books for the first time

33 books were for children or young adults

13 books were Austen or Austen-related

23 books were fantasy

27 books were science fiction

8 books were nonfiction (mostly biographies, mostly for work)

5 were classics I read for the first time

The total number is a bit disappointing; I think I usually read more than 100 books a year (at least two a week), but all the extra assignments this year, plus the gap caused by NaNoWriMo, brought the number down. I actually read more books for the first time than I did old favorites, which surprises me. (Thank goodness for the library.) Over a third of the books were for younger readers, which is something I worked at this year. I was also surprised to see that I read more science fiction than fantasy; usually the proportion is the other way around, but between my yearly re-reading of Bujold's Vorkosigan series and my discovery of YA author Scott Westerfeld, I got a lot more in this year. (YA sci-fi is pretty unusual, at least compared to the amount of fantasy out there, so I was curious to check it out, and was glad I did. Westerfeld is a fun author to read.)

So now it's time to consider what were my favorite books I discovered this year (ie, read for the first time). This is a toughie, picking just five out of 65, but I'll try my best.

Favorite book in the 1st quarter

Richard Peck, The River between Us, a wonderful YA historical set during the Civil War with a fantastic twist to it.

Favorite book in the 2nd quarter

Scott Westerfeld's Peeps, a welcome, SF-oriented antidote to all the angsty romantic Twilight vampire madness.

Favorite book in the 3rd quarter

John Green's Paper Towns, an Edgar-winning YA mystery that's more about discovering character than solving a puzzle.

Favorite book in the 4th quarter

Cormac MacCarthy's The Road, and yes, I know I'm late to this classic apocalyptic elegy, but I love a good end-of-the-world story and this one is beautifully written.

Favorite book of the year

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, The 2009 Newbery Award winner that begins with a toddler fleeing a murderous killer with a dripping knife, but is more a coming-of-age tale than a horror story. Gaiman remains one of my favorite authors writing today.

Hmmm. Four of my favorite new books of the year were written for young adults. Either I'm immature or I just know good literature. In any case, it's good to know I'm writing in a genre I really enjoy.

Fourth-quarter book report (2009)

I've been reading for a long, long time (over forty years now), but this is the first time I've ever tracked what I read throughout an entire year. Let's check out the fourth-quarter results. Remember, the number in parentheses means the number of times I've now read the book.

Key: C: Children's; F: Fantasy; H: Historical; Hr: Horror; M: Mystery; MG: Middle Grade (ages 8-12); NF: Nonfiction; P: Poetry; SF: Science Fiction; SS: Short Stories; V: Verse novel; YA: Young Adult (age 13+); *not in the last ten years at least; ^for work.

10/01/09: John Green, Looking for Alaska (YA, 1)

10/05/09: Leslie Connor, Dead on Town Line (YA, V, 1)

10/11/09: Ellen Hopkins, Impulse (YA, V, 1)

10/18/09: Cormac MacCarthy, The Road (SF, 1)

10/21/09: Jennifer Carson (my former critique buddy!), To Find a Wonder (MG, F, 1)

10/24/09: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse^ (NF, 1)

10/31/09: Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (H, Hr, 1)

11/03/09: Carolyn Marsden and Phillip Matzigkeit, Sahwira (MG, H, 1)

12/06/09: Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days (YA, SF, 1)

12/16/09: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, The Strain (Hr, 1)

12/16/09: Chuck Liddell, Iceman^ (NF, 1)

12/22/09: Scott Westerfeld, Uglies (YA, SF, 1)

12/27/09: Westerfeld, Pretties (YA, SF, 1)

12/29/09: Westerfeld, Specials (YA, SF, 1)

12/31/09: Westerfeld, Extras (YA, SF, 1)

So I only read fifteen books this quarter; not bad, considering that I basically skipped the entire month of November because I was spending all my spare time writing a novel for NaNoWriMo. The distinctive thing for me this quarter, and probably a first, was that every book I read was one I was reading for the first time. I love to revisit old favorites, but I had a stack of books I had brought home from a writers' conference, plus a couple borrowed from friends or from the library, and I caught up on those first. By the time the end of November rolled around and I realized none of the books on my list were old favorites, I decided I might as well try to focus on new books. It was fine; it allowed me to finally get to MacCarthy's The Road, which many critics were putting on their Top Ten of the 2000's lists, and to get through the "Uglies" series which I kept hearing great things about. (I liked it, but not as well as Westerfeld's other series.) Still, the first book I'm reading in 2010? An old favorite I haven't visited in a while, Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. I deserve a treat, I think.

Coming tomorrow, I'll look at trends for my whole year of reading, and list my top five favorite books for the year.