The Month In Review and of Things to Come

The biggest news to share this month is that I have joined examiner.com; I'll be blogging about books, and publishing, no rum or video games.  Most articles there will be two-three hundreds words so I'll have a slightly different focus.  Things here will stay the same, so no need to worry.  As I do an occasional review for examiner there maybe so mirror image blogging, but for the most part, at Examiner I'll be expounding on the small points that I usually only mention in the "End of the Month" wrap on on this blog.  I'm looking forward to it; it's not a job, but I will soak up some time.


December is looking all kinds of awesome and for reasons you may not expect.  I'm hosting a badass party this coming weekend with an very impressive drink menu (more to come on that later).  I plan on committing to doing some serious reading on my borrowed kindle--much more to come on that later.  Also, I have plans to go see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which has been my favorite book in the series thus far.  (I go to a movie two or three times a year, so it's big deal for me.)  


I hit the "forty-nine books read this year" mark in November and since my goal for the year was fifty, I'll feeling pretty good about where I stand.  The Last Song Orpheus, The Magicians, The General in his Labyrinth, and The Dragons of Babel were all solid; only the first failed to strike me as anything special.   


I also cranked out so massive reviews this month; naturally I cheated.  It was a lot of fun posting my thoughts on Edward Whittemore's Jerusalem Quartet.  It was also a lot of work.  I had been reading a book a month since August and wrote comments for each upon finishing the novel.  I didn't post the first comments until I was done with the last book.  I had planned on doing a brief commentary on the series where I'd explain that my comments on the individual books were focused on the entertainment side of the writing and in this planned post focus on some of his amazing literary allegory and overall talent that I intentionally glossed over in the individual reviews in hopes of getting a potential reader excited enough to track down the books.  I abandoned this post as soon as I read Josheph L Winland Jr master's thesis on Sinai Tapestry.  He certainly made me consider Strongbow in a different light, and overall I think it's great to see Whittemore's work getting scholarly attention.  


Great as the Jerusalem Quartet was and as much as I enjoyed each book, I'm glad I'm done with it.  There is something exhausting about books in a series for me.  Sure it's comforting to return to something familiar from time to time, but I like new things even more.


I'm setting aside six books to read next month.  (I can actually see progress in my shelf of unread books!)  Three are short novels from the Chronicles of Narnia and the rest are the most varied books I could ever put side-by-side.  Don't you just wish I'd say what they were?