Spreadsheet No More! A tale of liberation.

In 2008-2009-2010, I have read 61 books, 70 books, and 40 books, respectively. I tallied my reading habits on nerdalicious spreadsheets, sharing and comparing with my readerly friends. We had some great conversations over those lists, didn't we, friends? Didn't we?

Lookit. I wimped out this year.

No spreadsheet. No list. Occasionally I updated the column on the right side of this page, the "Now Reading," though I declined to include the books I was reading to my son, now almost 15 months old. There would be quite a few repeats on that list, including a book we have unofficially titled "Sad Animals."

Huge point of pride that this little guy loves books. He'll clamber into your lap with a book in hand, and point out certain pictures and read along. His favorite books often involve the word "no," which he delights in saying.

Did I distract you yet from the lack of spreadsheet? It is partially due to caring for baby that I neglected to care about logging my book list. To be honest, I used him as an excuse: I knew I'd be busy and never started a list in the first place. It was freeing to read indiscriminately and not think about how the books stacked up, or how many books I'd have to read to reach the previous year's total, or whether I seemed to be reading more nonfiction versus fiction or men versus women. All of that tracking I did was interesting for a time, and helpful in making conscious choices about reading material. But the unconscious can be a powerful ally, I think, in picking books that you not only want to read, but might even need to read.

A few of the ones I read and loved (or am still reading, and ones that I can, at this moment and without a spreadsheet as a reminder, remember): Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog; Jo Ann Beard's In Zanesville; Bob Hicok's Words for Empty, Words for Full; Teju Cole's Open City; David Foster Wallace's The Pale King; Marilynne Robinson's Gilead (again); Patricia Henley's Other Heartbreaks; Michael Martone's Four For a Quarter; Mark Neely's Four of a Kind; Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad; Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story; Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy; and Leah Stewart's Husband and Wife.

My awesome sister and brother-in-law got me a Kindle for Christmas, which has been fantastic. The first book I downloaded was Thoreau's Walden. A compromise of sorts: taking baby steps into the technology, dearhearts. (Also: free book.) Can't imagine ever giving up paper books, but I'm excited by the prospect that having more options will equate to more reading next year.

Happy almost-2012. And please send me your recommended reads.

11 lines in 11 minutes

1. When I was in college, we called an automated line to find out our grades in advance of receiving paper copies; you had to listen to a maddeningly slow voice spell out the course and section number and then likely you would hear, "GRADE. NOT YET. SUBMITTED."

2. The message I'd like to send at present: GRADE. NOT YET. SUBMITTED.

3. During the Victoria's Secret Runway Show tonight, with musical guest Kanye West, he spoke of his own departed angel, his mother; he dedicated a song to her as 19-yr-old women dressed in angel wings strutted past.

4. His mother died of complications from plastic surgery.

5. I am living the American dream, said one corseted model.

6. This was about six minutes worth of the show, and then we watched LOUIE, in which the title character, a much younger male comedian, came on to the much older Joan Rivers.

7. Today I read a YA blog that called this generation of young people the most literate and text-savvy of all time.

8. Eggs, it seems, taste different lately, almost as if they've changed the recipe, like the chickens got together and cracked open (ha) a cookbook and said, Well, how about this?

9. If I were a different sort, I would WebMD the symptom: WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN EGGS TASTE DIFFERENT?

10. Better not to know.

11. Ah, there's twelve minutes, and I've missed my designated window, and we haven't even gotten to the tabloid narratives observed at the grocery store, which can be a topic for a later date. (Teaser: ANGELINA RUINS THANKSGIVING. And it hadn't even happened yet.)