I read 41 books, which seems low. On the other hand, one of the books I read was Ulysses and I really think that should count as 10 books. So in that case, I read 51 books last year! This year I hope to read 52. Except that's a book a week! So maybe not.

I updated the booklist, finally, with the last three books I read. And then I quickly whipped up a book blog, because god forbid this website have fewer than seventy-five sloppily organized and neglected sections at any given time. But hand-coding the booklist was more trouble than it was worth, and now it's a lot more readable and convenient.

Here are the books I read this year: Visions of Sugar Plums; The House of Mirth; gun, with occasional music; The Stranger; Watership Down; Prey; Fried Green Tomatoes; Cat's Cradle; The Unbearable Lightness of Being; The Awakening; A Farewell to Arms; Ulysses; To The Lighthouse; The Remains of the Day; A Room with a View; Absalom, Absalom; Oh Pioneers!; Inappropriate Men; How to Win Low Limit Hold 'Em; To The Nines; Heart of Darkness; A Good Man Is Hard to Find; The Sound and the Fury; The Blue Castle; Native Son; Lizard Music; Carter Beats the Devil; The Grapes of Wrath; The French Lieutenant's Woman; Brick Lane; Possession; Tropic of Cancer; The Grim Grotto; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; The Golden Bowl; Tender is the Night; Rabbit, Run; Rebecca; The Book of Salt; How to Make Love like a Porn Star; The Adrian Mole Diaries.

A lot of these books were great; most were at least good. That crappy chicklit bullshit Inappropriate Men is the only one that was a complete waste of time. I am making good progress on my reading lists, too; I think I'm going to have to start hitting the re-read pile--all those books I read in high school or whatnot that I don't remember. This will be half fun (Catch-22) and half torture (Lord of the Flies.)

Right now I am reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, with a notebook right next to me. Here are the things I have scribbled in my notebook so far:

• Gertrude Stein used to lie in the sun and stare right into it.
  
• Stein preferred "the sheer magnificence of unmediated reality." No simile?
  
• "If the name of anything is dead, the only way to keep it alive is to rename it." (Freedom, Nirvana, Patriotism, Love, Mother, Father, Brotherhood...)
  
• Her theory of the audience: "richest rewards come when the author admitted no consideration of an audience into their creating mind."
  
• The small company of authors that have something to say and know how to say it.
  

I spent a great deal of time thinking about artistic originality and so forth. I also spent some time scribbling nonsensical paragraphs into a notebook, on the principle that I would try to admit "no consideration of an audience" into my creating mind. Therefore I can't copy them out for you and probably should not even quote them. But I will type out the first part anyway, which is: "I found myself unable to let go, either in madness or loneliness. I was holding an instrument (bright gold-gleaming brass) which I was wholly unable to play."

Did I mention I am only on page eight of this book?

And finally, on an administrative note, I am still trying to figure out the sidebar issue. On the advice of Diaryland guru Weetabix, I have a tech support query in and am keeping my fingers crossed.

My journal might be able to exist without tiny pies, and it might be able to live without many of its other bells and whistles, but without a Journal Quote of the Day, it will be a mere shadow of its former self.

(Today's Quote of the Day is from Chiara, who is worried about what tattoo to get for her thirtieth birthday. “No! No! I WANT SNOOP DOGG’S HEAD IN PROFILE, NOT A UNICORN WITH A STAR ON ITS HORN!”

Her thirtieth birthday is the day before mine, but I already know what my birthday tattoo is! It is a slice of blueberry pie with precisely 30 blueberries. Symbolic!)