2014 Blog Entry #1

first #SefieOf2014 if you think I looked yonderly  in this pick it's because I'm making sure I press the right button

I'ts already 2014 and though it's quite late for those so-called New Year's Resolution as I am writing this a few days towards its 2nd month I am going to give it a shot just to get me started. Most people I know already have  a host of things lined up as their New Year's Resolution. Though I am a person who rarely observes traditions of this kind, I think I'll give in with hopes of surprising myself with how much I can keep these promises till the end of the year (but I still welcome spontaneity). Perhaps something manageable, nothing too daring or out of the ordinary, something that doesn't take weeks or months to accomplish (or if it does, it better have gratifying results) and mostly, nothing that drains my very meager patience.

I am not about to go into details but some of my NYS are: 

* Travel: to places other than Brunei or Philippines (but again: nothing too daring like eating slugs or getting too drunk in an unknown place or succumbing to terrible a weather... in midair) 

* Save MONEY (redundant, but I seriously don't want to experience getting broke even for a week)

* Exercise some more (lame, but)

and perhaps more?

Another 2014 resolution is to enliven my blog(in terms of entries), a bit. It's been months since the last blog post and since work is not as demanding as it was in 2013(not yet, at least ((or the previous years for that matter)), there's definitely more than enough time to read or re-read books. That's the geek in me talking. In a way of looking back at 2013, I consulted my journal entries (written in rather scraggly penmanship with the occasional crossing out  of words like this that defiles the page to an annoying degree). My journal entries hardly contain the usual  juvenile voice that says "Dear diary" but I admit that some entries are just downright embarrassing. Most of the entries are about the books I've read within a course of a week or month followed by a modest writing of thoughts; a mere 5 sentences or sometimes a silly 3 pages worth of outpourings and reflections. There were one liners, that's supposed to start off a short story but never raised its head for a second or third line. There were experiences that started out as clear account of my encounters yet ends up into a twisted, tasteless attempt at fiction. There were rants and ramblings, the occasional love-ridden entries, some badly written spontaneous prose, a critique on food (what?) ... etc.  

But, really, about books. 

In 2012 I kept a list of all the 41 books I managed to read. If you're curious about it then click on this link (Link: http://boyinwonderland.blogspot.com/2013/04/book-list-of-2012.html). The additional 35 books from 2013 was reason enough to buy an extra bookshelf (that's one less dull corner, at least), a few books less that the previous year (all because I harassed myself with outrageous work-related plans). But here is a list of the books read in 2013. 

an unguarded moment

*The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien (read 2x)

*Wild Abandon, Joe Dunthorne 

*The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson

*On Photography, Susan Sontag 

* The Road, 

*Hope: A Tragedy, Shalom Auslander 

*The Hundred-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson 

*The Book Thief, Markus Zusak 

*The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith 

*The Radleys, Matt Haig 

*American Dervish, Ayad Akhtar

*Journey of a Thousand Miles, Lang Lang 

*Of Love and Other Demons, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

*The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (re-read) 

*Nineteen-Eighty Four, George Orwell 

* Will Grayson, Will Grayson, David Levithan and John Green

* Black Swan Green, David Mitchell 

* Legend of a Suicide, David Vann 

*The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender 

* The End of Your Life Bookclub, Will Schwalbe 

* Ghostwritten, David Mitchel 

* The Girl in Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender 

* Escape From Camp 14, Shin Dong-Hyuk 

* One Day, David Nichols 

* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

* The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery (re-read)

* Call Me By Your Name, Andrei Aciman (re-read)

*Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman 

* Maya, Jostein Gaarder

* Essays in Love, Alain de Botton 

* Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore, Rober Sloan 

* Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes

* A Novel Bookstore, Laurence Cosse 

* How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton 

* Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Co., Jeremy Mercer
* Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell