On Finishing, and Not Finishing, Lists

A little over two years ago, I made myself a list of 26 things to do before I turned 26. With my birthday looming a mere four hours away, the list is only partially finished.

The over-achiever, to-do list obsessed person in me is tempted to be disappointed that I didn't finish. I haven't planted a garden. I haven't made an apple pie after a day of apple-picking. I haven't written a book, or even a story. I haven't written thank-you notes to my teachers, even after attending the funeral of one of the teachers on my thank-you note list and kicking myself for not making my appreciation known before it was too late.

But the list wasn't really ever about achievements. It was about pushing boundaries, challenging myself to think big, and exploring new paths. And in that, I'm more than satisfied.

To learn to juggle, I took a circus class with my mom at Charm City Movement Arts, where we learned not only how to juggle (note: learning to juggle and actually juggling are not quite the same thing, and I'm somewhere in between the two) but how to walk on a tightrope (which is much, much harder than it looks). 

I made a soufflé, and it didn't collapse. I went to the Library of Congress with a dear friend and sniffed some books (they were gift shop books, but I'm counting it). I made some lovely things.

I flew an airplane. 

I read the first 240 pages of War and Peace before giving up on it for good, but my preparation for Tolstoy did include reading Anna Karenina, which I adored. I read five Hemingway novels. I made a new friend (several). I ran my first 5k, and then went on to run a half marathon... and then another and another.

I might not have accomplished all 26 things, but when I look at what I did do, I can honestly say the list worked. I tried new things and then some more. Some, like War and Peace, I abandoned. Some, like the 5k, I expanded. 

And some, like reading all of Hemingway's work, will make a second appearance on the soon-to-be 30-by-30 list.

War and Peace: This is Finally Happening, For Reals.

In an effort to address two of my resolutions this year, I am joining up in My Friend Amy's War and Peace readalong. Because I promised myself I'd read this before I turned 26 (coming up in November), and because I also intend to participate in more readalongs this year, because I always enjoy them so much. And also because I don't know that I could get through a book like War and Peace without some sort of schedule, structure, and encouragement.

But where does one even begin? I've followed along as other bloggers have read the tome, and even as some other bloggers have started and abandoned it, and everyone seems to have different advice. Treat it like any other book. Make sure to read the historical context. Keep Wikipedia handy as you go to reference names and dates. Keep a character list handy to reference names and dates. Etc, etc, etc.

I read Anna Karenina last year, and actually found that it was not nearly as difficult as I had anticipated it to be, so perhaps I am ramping myself up for nothing in starting War and Peace. Or perhaps they really are different, after all.

Have you read it? If so, what is your advice for a newbie reader with little-to-no knowledge of the context of the novel? Are there any essays or criticisms I should read before starting that do not spoil the story?  I'll be reading the Peaver/Volonkhonsky translation (pictured above) - is that a good one?

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War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy, trans. Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky | Paperback | 2008, originally published 1869 | 1296 pages | Buy from an independent near you

26 by 26 Update: I Ran 3.11 Miles!

One of the items on my 26 by 26 list (on which I have not made nearly enough progress, folks!) was to run a 5K (3.11 miles), and this past weekend, I did it!

Pre-race (I was freezing!)
I don't have any finish-line photos because my husband's phone died while I was running.

Cross another one off the list, and call me crazy, because I just signed up for a half-marathon this winter.

Book Review (in Brief): For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

I read this book months ago, and am far too much in love with it to actually try to write anything elegant or eloquent enough to do it justice. And so, in a mere 150 words, here's why you should read this book:

Though Hemingway can be intimidating, he’s one of those classic authors that should not be missed. True, his male characters are domineering and his female characters often lack the punch we’ve come to expect from modern writers, but if you can accept these truths, his works drive home the realities of everyday life, of love, of war, and of the search for oneself. For Whom the Bell Tolls, often considered one of his greatest works, is no exception. The novel tells the story of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, and his fast-paced romance with the young Maria. Hemingway’s stark prose serves only to highlight the horrors of war, and the gruesome realities of human nature; For Whom the Bell Tolls requires a strong stomach, a bit of patience and a box of tissues, but it is one of the finest war novels every written.

Oh, and also, this puts me one step closer to completing my 26 by 26 list.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | Scribner | 1940 | 480 pages | Buy from an independent near you

Pseudo-Review: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Hailed as the greatest American novel to come out of World War I, A Farewell to Arms is a close parallel to Hemingway's own experiences as an ambulance driver during the Italian campaigns in the war. Though it is, at heart, a war book -- it is impossible to write about Italy in those years without writing about war -- it is also a love story, a stampeding romance between Henry, a young American ambulance driver and Catherine, a British nurse. 

Let me just get this out here up front before continuing: yes, Henry is a bit of an ass, albeit an incredibly masculine and crafty one, and Catherine is a bit snivelly and dotes on Henry for reasons not quite explicable and generally has little character to call her own. It's not news that Hemingway treated his female characters like crap, so let's put it aside, shall we?

The book is divided into five parts; I won't summarize them all here for fear of ruining the story, but suffice it to say that the parts alternate between Henry and Catherine's affair (wooing, falling in love, taking to bed) and Henry's experiences at the front. In the end, I'm not sure which proves more devastating: the horrors of war depicted in the explosions and treachery and general chaos of battles and retreats, or the laborious relationship between two seemingly doomed souls. 

As with his other works, Hemingway's ability to capture a time and a place in such excruciating detail make it impossible to leave the world he has depicted, and his descriptions of the physicality of battle and surgery and love and flight are as captivating as his accounts of events themselves. It's not uplifting, but it is mesmerizing and tantalizing all the same; the striking combination of love and war and fight and flight and masculinity and even, yes, the occasional joke proves a fascinating, heartwrenching, terrible, wonderful story. 

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Note: There's a new edition of the classic out from Scribner this summer that includes all 39 of Hemingway's alternate endings. Apparently the ending was just as difficult to write as it was to read.

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A Farewell to Arms | Ernest Hemingway | Scribner | Paperback | 9780684801469 | 336 pages | July 1995 (Originally published 1929) | Buy from an independent near you

Indie Thursday: Moar Hemingway!

This month marks the one-year anniversary of Indie Thursday - a weekly Twitter event that celebrates Indie bookstores on - you guessed it - Thursdays. The event was started by Jenn of Jenn's Bookshelves last year to help readers everywhere truly embrace their local, independent bookstores. To participate, simply tweet about a recent purchase at your indie bookstore using the hashtag #indiethursday. Oh, and also follow @IndieThursday on le Twitter.

Today, I ducked over to The Annapolis Bookstore for a quick lunch-time jaunt and stumbled into this lovely collection of Hemingway's short stories. I'm about halfway through A Farewell to Arms as I write this, which will be the fourth book I've read in my ever-more-doomed-sounding attempt to read everything Hemingway has written before my 26th birthday -- looks like these short stories may be my fifth.

Time Flies When You're Reading Books

Egads! It's JULY!? When did this happen?

It seems the first half of the year snuck out under cover of darkness (literally, I haven't had power since Friday, so it's been a rather dark--and hot--three days), and now I'm diving in to the second half of the year. In order to keep myself accountable, here's a recap of where I stand on my goals to-date:

Balance

I challenged myself to read a more balanced selection of titles this year, spreading my reading across literary fiction, genre fiction, non-fiction and classics. To date, I have read 55 books in 2012 (20 of which were assignments for Shelf Awareness): 17 literary fiction, 13 genre fiction, 18 nonfiction and 7 classics. Ten are unfinished (eight in progress!, and 2 DNFs). Clearly, I need to up my reading of the classics.

Twenty-four of these 55 titles were written by female authors--not too bad, but not quite as balanced as I'd have hoped. Forty-one of the 55 were published in 2010 or later.

Seventeen were 400 pages or more. I've read a total of 17,786 pages, averaging 9 days per book completed.

Classics Challenge

To date, I've fulfilled 4 of the 9 categories for the Back to the Classics Challenge. I still have to read: a 19th-century classic, a classic play, a translated classic, a classic award winner, and a classic set in a country I will not visit in my lifetime. Recommendations accepted.

A Victorian Celebration!

To help with my goal of reading more classics, I also signed up to participate in A Victorian Celebration, hosted by Allie at A Literary Odyssey, pledging to read three Victorian titles in the months of June and July. I've read one so far--two more to go in July. 

26 by 26

On my 26 by 26 list, I set a goal of reading War and Peace and all of Hemingway's works before my 26th birthday. I've read 3 Hemingway titles to date, and none of War and Peace. Plus I'm thinking I should ease into Tolstoy with Anna Karenina first, so I need to get cracking.

Update on 26 by 26, or, I Flew and Airplane and Mailed Lots of Cards

Two more items crossed off my 26 by 26 list:

• Fly an airplane.
• Make a habit of sending cards.

I actually flew the airplane about a year ago, but completely spaced on crossing it off the list. Here's proof:

As for cards, well, it's hard to establish when one can cross "make a habit" of something off a list, isn't it? Perhaps I should keep that in mind for my next list and really focus on concrete actions. But I've mailed more cards this year than I did last, and more last than the year before (and that was the year I got married and mailed thank-you cards like it was my job), so I'm comfortable calling this one done and done. It's a habit I really like; there's something personal and exciting about sending a handwritten letter, sometimes with a picture or a newspaper clipping tucked inside, and thinking of it showing up on someone's doorstep in a mix of junk mail, catalogs, and bills.

Well, that and I really like shopping for stationery. 

2012 Reading Goals

2011 marked the first year in which I set myself some readerly goals: read more books I already own, read more non-fiction, read more of authors I love, read more classics. These were broad, open-ended, numberless assignments, and overall, I was pretty pleased with the results. I read 84 books in 2011, of which:

• 9 I left unfinished
• 8 were re-reads
• 57 were fiction and 27 non-fiction
• 36 were published in 2011
• A mere 6 were classics
• 16 were re-visits to authors I know and love
• 29 were books I already owned and/or had were on my list in 2010

Twenty-nine books I already own wasn't so bad. And 27 non-fiction felt decent to me. But this year, I'm going for balance. I am going to attempt (attempt being the operative word, here), to read a balance of literary fiction, genre fiction, non-fiction and classics. In order to prevent myself from going absolutely insane, I will not be counting review assignments towards these numbers. The definitions of these categories may be a bit fluid, but it will have to do. This is, after all, my own challenge to my own self. I suspect I will have the most difficulty with the non-fiction, as I really have yet to find my groove with what kinds of non-fiction books I adore, and which ones I slog through.  Tips and advice always welcome on that.

It's probably worth noting, too, that I have challenged myself to read everything Hemingway has written and War and Peace before my 26th birthday, so I will be attempting to chip away at that in the coming year.

Wish me luck, I say.

Bookish Gift Bows

Just in time for the holidays! Because we all know that no matter how early we finish our shopping (or how late we start it), there's always the wrapping to follow. Modified from original instructions in Playing With Books, I've been trying my hand at some handmade bows made out of book pages:

Let me begin by saying this: I am not a particularly crafty person. I do not have a lot of patience for small, difficult things. Like knitting. I hate knitting. And anything that involves threading a needle. I like shortcuts. I like crafts that involve minimal steps, minimal supplies, minimal tools. If I can do this, you can do this.

To start, you'll need:

- Tape (preferably double-sided tape, but you can use single sided if that's what you have on hand. I did, and it worked fine. Just be prepared to roll lots of little tape circles so you can mimic double-sided tape.)
- Scissors
- A book you are willing to cut up (this is the hardest part, I promise).

Step 0: Take a deep breath. You are about to cut pages out of a book. My only recommendation for making this easier is to go to your local library and buy a book out front that you intend to cut up, which prevents forming any attachment to it. I chose The Naming of Names, a book about the history of plant names, because it had nice typesetting and a luscious, creamy paper stock, and is a subject about which I have zero interest. So.

Step 1: Cut 9-12 strips of book pages, approximately 3/4 in x 7-9 inches (you can be flexible in the size of your strips, but you'll definitely want them all to be consistent). If you cut longer strips, you'll most likely need more strips to fill in the bow. Longer strips = taller bow. Shorter strips = less required, but smaller final product.

Step 2: Place a small piece of double-sided sticky tape (or a small circle of single-sided sticky tape) in the center of the strip. Fold one end down, and twist end 180 degrees before affixing to the tape. Think of the twist in the Breast Cancer Awareness ribbons. Do that. Make sure that when you do this, you don't cover up all of the tape, as you need some to stick down the other end, too.

Step 3: Do the same thing on the other side. Note: If you don't think in 3 dimensions, as I don't, you might have to twist it a few different ways to figure out how to get the ends to align in the middle like this. You're not alone.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 over and over and over again.

Step 5: Place a small square of tape in the center of one of the loops, and place another inside it perpendicular to the first one. Place another piece of tape inside this next one, and keep layering loops on top of each other, varying the angle of the strips. They'll naturally push themselves up into a bow shape as you get taller and taller.

Presto digito! You have a book bow. Happy Wrapping!

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As an aside, I'm counting this as one of my 100 lovely things on my 26 by 26 list. 

Playing with Books: The Art of Upcycling, Reconstructing and Reimagining Books | Jason Thompson | Quarry Books | 9781592536009 | $24.99 Paperback |152 pages | April 2010 | Buy from an independent bookstore near you

Paper or...?

At the grocery store, or at my grocery store at least, they have stopped asking me if I prefer paper or plastic. We default to plastic unless I remember to say something before the groceries start their interminable beep, beep, beep across the register. I never remember.

Which is really too bad, because I do prefer paper. While plastic grocery bags are good for one thing (bagging kitty litter), paper grocery bags are multi-functional. And recyclable. In the world of groceries, as in so many other places, paper is just... better. And yet we fail to give it its due.

Take planners as another example. The most 21st-century of us can decide between our do-it-all, know-it-all phones for calendar purposes, or our tablets (I don't actually have one of those), or our computers. Most computers come with some kind of calendar program, and if not, there is always the all-knowing, all-seeing Google.

I have both a know-it-all phone (which I like) and an all-knowing Google account (which I love), but I am successful in using neither to keep track of my life. When I finally upgraded to my current phone from my dumbphone, I decided to make an effort to consolidate: I stopped carrying around my annual Moleskine planner. I always had the double-spread weekly view, with one page showing the days of the week and the other a blank lined page for my listmaking activities. Now I have iCal. And Evernote. I have synced my work calendar with my personal calendar (a depressing thought, actually), and my work to-dos have their own notebook within the Evernote app, while my personal to-dos have yet another, and so on.

And I hate it. I have been doing this for over six months because this is the generation we live in, this generation of consolidating, of tools that can do anything and everything, of combining our work lives and our personal lives. But I cannot catalog my life on a screen. I cannot relate to it, I do not complete my lists, and I never check for appointments before making a new one.

I am now actively searching for a new paper planner for 2012, one in which I can scribble notes to myself, and make weekend honey-do lists, and keep a copy of my 26 by 26 list on hand. I will continue to use my smartphone for work, where I live in a world of technology and ever-changing schedules, calendars, and due dates, but for me, and my own life, I will remain on paper until they stop printing paper planners.

Pseudo-Review: A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway has always had a sort of magnetic force around him; he is an author that any literate person has heard of, and if you weren't required to read The Old Man and the Sea in school, consider yourself in the minority. Interestingly, I've found (through nothing more quantifiable than anecdotal research) that he is one of the few authors that people can actually recognize in a photo - and not just a photo on the dust jacket of one of his books. Known as much for his drinking habits as his lasting influence on modern literature, Hemingway is an icon of our time. And beyond the assigned reading of The Old Man and the Sea in middle school, he is an icon with which I am sadly unfamiliar.

In order to remedy this, I included on my list of 26 things to accomplish before my 26th birthday a challenge to read all of Hemingway's works -- from well-known fictions to treatise on bullfighting and everything in between. I began with A Moveable Feast, a collection of vignettes in which Hemingway writes of his time as a struggling writer in Paris in the 1920s. The stories combine to provide a profile what it was to be young and in love and hungry and happy in a foreign country. Hemingway recalls his encounters with other ex-pat writers of the time, his romance with Shakespeare and Co (the greatest bookstore of all time), and his touch-and-go relationship with his writing.

As an introduction to Hemingway, A Moveable Feast is an easy-to-digest glimpse as much into Hemingway's writing as into his life and experiences. It is a love song to a Paris we wish we could have experienced ourselves; a remembrance of his fellow writers, back when the times were good; and his nod to an important, formative, romantic period in his life. It is, in short, excellent.

What Is Important to You?

Earlier this summer, I had a meet-and-greet type meeting with a new client, and on the way to the lunch, the CEO of my company warned me that this particular client contact liked to ask difficult questions on first meetings. The question she told me to be prepared to answer: What's important to you?

The question never came up at the meeting, but it also never really left the back corner of my mind where nagging, unanswered questions reside. How would I answer that? There are obvious answers, of course. My husband is important to me. My family. My friends. But these are givens, in my mind. If my husband was not important to me, he would not be my husband. And though the same can't truly be said of family, I don't think family is the kind of answer this question was meant to extract. Perhaps, because of the way I was raised, I can't imagine not listing family and friends at the top of the important-to-me list. And that's probably not fair, and not a valid assumption to make about others, but for the sake of argument, let's leave off significant others, family members, and friends.

What, then, is important to me?

The first thing that came to mind, naturally, was books. Reading them, sharing them, talking about them, collecting them. Smelling them, holding them, writing in them. Publishing them, editing them, thinking about them, analyzing them. Ensuring that they continue as a form of both education and entertainment well into the future, in whatever form they may take.

But then, I thought, what about the other things I do? I work in advertising, and try to stay on top of trends in marketing and communications. I am learning to cook - that is, to cook without panicking, pouting, and generally being dissatisfied with everything that comes out of my kitchen. I am also learning to sail (slowly, because I am apparently incapable of thinking in three dimensions). I recently flew an airplane, part of my 26 by 26 list, and that list is also important to me.

At the risk of sounding like a walking cliché, then, I would amend my gut-reaction statement from books to learning. Books, after all, are a natural extension of my innate curiosity. I read books to learn, to see things differently, or to understand inspiration. I obsessively look for better ways to organize myself, my life, and my to-do list in order to give myself time to do the life-expanding kinds of activities in which I want to spend the majority of my time. I want to learn to cook in order to be able to better understand and appreciate food. I made my list of 26 things in order to push myself to expand my horizons.

I've spent the summer reorganizing, resituating, and rethinking, and I'm diving into the fall with a re-ordered set of priorities, a set in which family and friends come first, my list of activities comes next, and work and organizing and household chores are (hopefully) structured in a way that support the priorities, rather than impede upon them. It's an ongoing experiment, and I am learning to adapt. I am young enough to think that I can find my path already, but also young enough to recognize that my answer to the question of what is important to me will continue to evolve.

Perhaps it's part of growing up. Perhaps there is a book or twenty that can help me answer the question.

Checking In

Wow. I'm ashamed to look at my posting history over the last few months -- it's been a ghost town around here. To anyone that is still following me, thanks! That's some true dedication. To those that used to and have since stopped checking... well, I probably shouldn't bother writing to you, as you've stopped checking.

Which is all just a really long way of saying that I'm still here, I'm still blogging (sort of), I'm still reading (a lot!) and I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things in the coming weeks. I'm in the process of changing jobs, which I'm hoping will leave me with a more normal schedule. And though I have not crossed off any more Hemingway books on my list, or read War and Peace, I did fly an airplane, which was on my 26 by 26 list.

I've read a lot of great books lately, and will have reviews coming shortly of the following of Exley, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Year of the Flood, North River, and a few others. In the meantime, I've been reviewing titles for Shelf Awareness for Readers -- if you're short on book recommendations, hop on over and browse the latest reviews there. And be sure to subscribe for a twice-weekly dose of bookish love.

I've also been out of the loop on book news and other book blogs, so let me know what I've been missing!

26 by 26: Because you asked for it...

I posted last week about two of the bookish goals on my list of 26 things I plan to accomplish before I turn 26, and several people asked to see the whole list. Here it is, in all its glory. I'll post now and again as I (hopefully!) check things off the list. 2 years, 4 months and 2 days left.

• Juggle three bean bags.
• Make 100 lovely things
• Throw a first-annual dinner party - and second, and third...
• Write thank-yous to my teachers
• Read all of Hemingway's works
• Plant a garden. Plant flowers.
• Open champagne with a knife
• Make a soufflé
• Buy a house. With a porch. And, therefore, a porch swing.
• Do a victory kneel at the end of my first completed 5K
• Eat an extra large popcorn at the circus
• Read (gulp) War and Peace
• Fire a gun.
• Sing "Buona Sera, Signorina" in Italy
• Sail on the Chesapeake in the fall
• Take myself on vacation
• Make a habit of sending cards
• Make a book stack lamp
• Spend the night in a bookstore
• Write a book (or at least a story)
• Decorate a house I am excited to come home to
• Fly an airplane
• Celebrate every week with a toast
• Make a new friend & reconnect with an old one
• Smell a book at the Library of Congress
• Make apple pie from hand-picked apples

26 by 26: Reading all of Ernest Hemingway & Completing War and Peace.

Confession: I'm one of those annoying people that always has to have a plan. I don't do well with spontaneous. I like to have a goal and be working towards it. I like to have a milestone in mind and moving in that direction.

And so when I woke up this winter and realized that I lacked a goal - or goals, even - I decided to make some up. Taking inspiration from my dear friend Emily and the wonderful blogger Mighty Girl, I formulated a list of 26 things to do before I turn 26. I now have 2 years, 3 months and 11 days to figure out how I'm going to fly an airplane, learn how to sabre open a bottle of champagne (check!), make 100 lovely things, and make a successful souffle, among other things.

Of course, I am a bookworm. My list could not exist without some bookish goals. I contemplated selecting a list of the "Great Books" and completing all of them, but given my distaste for reading lists, I balked at my own suggestion. Instead, I netted out with two bookish items on my list of 26: one to complete a daunting, challenging novel, and one to read one author's entire body of work.

The first was a quick decision: War and Peace. I purchased a copy of this title in January intending to participate in the year-long War and Peace readalong hosted by Kalen and Ann. I haven't cracked the spine yet. I figure I can manage this sometime in the next few years, right?

The second took some deliberating, though. I definitely wanted an author who had written multiple books, and preferably in different mediums (short stories, perhaps?). I wanted an author that interested me. I did not want an author with such a dauntingly large library as to prove cumbersome or impossible. After much deliberating, and input from my husband and my father, I landed on Ernest Hemingway. I'm halfway through my first book in this endeavor - A Moveable Feast - and so far, I'm not disappointed.

What about you? If you were to pick one author to read from start to finish, who would it be? How do you feel about Hemingway? Any suggestions for which Hemingway title I should pick up next?