Year in Review

Favorite Books this Year
(which all happen to be authors I had never read before)

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges


Read it on the beach in Costa Rica and it was perfect. Couldn't stand to read anything else until I got his collected fictions. Haunting and beautiful.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth


Should be required reading for all Americans. Amazing.

Join Me! by Danny Wallace


Delightful. I want to be a British Journalist who does crazy/cool experiments like Danny Wallace and Jon Ronson... his "Them" should probably be on this list too.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton


Can't remember how I found this, but read it, loved it, bought it for a loved one... who I don't think has read it.

Books I'm looking forward to reading:
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Idiot by Dostoevsky, East of Eden by Steinbeck, Collected Fictions by Borges, Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, many more... in fact I can no longer go to Borders--even with their non-ending supply of great coupons in my email--because I get too antsy thinking of all the things I want to read and am not reading while I look for other things to read.

Favorite Movies of the Year

Slumdog Millionaire


Some will say it gets cheesy and the adult actors are overshadowed by their child counterparts. All that may be true, but I love Danny Boyle, loved the catharsis I felt at the end, and loved the movie.

The Fall


Loved the contrast of the mundanity in the 'real world' scenes with the stunning cinematography in the story world. Lovely story and the little girl is probably the only thing in the world cuter than WALL-E. Also not technically a 2008 movie, but this is when I heard about it.

Rocket Science


A delightful story that continually defied my expectations in wonderful ways. Great writing and acting.

WALL-E


I lied earlier, WALL-E is the cutest thing the world has ever known.

The Dark Knight


Even though Christian Bale's Batman still needs a lozenge, I loved Bruce Wayne's disgusting wealth, Heath Ledger's Joker was amazing. Pretty much everything was really well done.

Movies I'm looking forward to:
Star Trek, Watchmen, Defiance, X-Men Origins: Wolverine... I know, doesn't seem to keep with my "favorite movies of the year" selections in general.

Favorite TV

Pushing Daisies


Was told I'd love this, so I've been watching it with my sister. I'm still in the first season, but I love the story-telling, the concept, narration, actors, dramatic tension, and overall beauty. Kudos to Lee Pace for making the list twice. So sad it's being canceled. It can now join a list of other awesome shows whose amazing-ness and popularity were somehow inversely proportionate: Arrested Development and Firefly come to mind.

30 Rock


Was also told I'd love this and after seeing the "Midnight Train to Georgia" episode again and again, figured I'd start up with the new season. Love it. The High School reunion episode in particular was hilarious and genius in its presentation of high school meanness. Oh, and the elevator jokes side gags were awesome.

TV I'm looking forward to:
Lost, Battlestar Galactica

Best Goal
Finish my thesis. I did. Actually graduating and becoming a "Master" was hardly noteworthy in comparison. Besides, no one even calls me by my new title. Finishing all my PhD applications (10 of them) well before the final deadlines was also great.

Worst Goal
Experimenting with the cosmos for a year to find out if horoscopes are accurate. I say this was the worst, not because it's necessarily a bad goal--I wish I'd done it throughout the year--but because stupid facebook's horoscope was not as dependable as the movement of the planets. Oh, no. The horoscope only lasted till April or May and even before that was spotty. Then it cut out altogether and I was left using guest horoscopes and other experiments for the rest of the year. Oh, and I'm almost as dependable as facebook's horoscope.

Favorite New Skill
Ukulele

Skill to pick up next:
Mandolin, Melodica, Accordion, Ranching