Shakespeare Junkie

I used to have a Complete Works of Shakespeare. It was a gift from when I was in Grade 12 or 13. It saw me through my four year, Honours degree in English and History from the University of Western Ontario. It contained a pressed flower from my bridal bouquet, marking the passage from Hamlet that was the basis for my wedding invitation. Somehow, inexplicably, it was placed in a donate box and lost forever. I made this revelation about 4 years ago when this idea began percolating in my brain.

Lean In

This week, I left my family to travel to London on business, carrying my brand spanking new copy of Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In, feeling like a walking cliche. Normally, I'm not one to go for the "I am woman hear me roar, and let me teach you how to roar too" style books. However, I got sucked in by the hype, the reviews and frankly by the fact that we are both women in business who seem to have had some of the same challenges. Also, I tried to stick to my rule of not judging or dismissing something before I actually give it an honest chance.

I'm glad I did. I'm not going to lie, there's some of the "we are women, we need to support each other" kumbaya stuff. Call me cynical but I have a tendency to gloss over that. However, there were some very compelling points made by Sandberg that I could not ignore or be cynical about, largely because there were many times that reading this book felt like holding up a mirror to my own career/life and experiences.

Another New Year

Well, I didn't quite make my #26in2012 goal.  I did better than 2011. In 2011, I finished my 25th book on New Year's Eve. In 2012, I was a third of the way through my 26th book, Albert Brooks' 2030 (review to come), which gave me an unfair head start on my #26in2013 goal.

This is my only New Year's resolution: actually finish 26 books in 2013. I figure third time's a charm. In order to get myself really in the mood, I went shopping.You may notice that it's all Can Con which historically is unusual for me. However, with so many great writers and novels out there, how can you resist?

The big question is, which one first?

The Antagonist

It seemed fitting, in the context of the NHL lockout to talk about The Antagonist. Firstly, there doesn't seem to be anything more antagonistic than the relationship been the players and league right now and secondly because the main character in the novel is a hockey player.

The Antagonist was a finalist in last year's Giller awards. My love of the Gillers over the years has been pretty well documented on this blog. The have turned me from completely indifferent to CanLit to a huge fan (to the point where I read mostly Canadian writers now).

26

26.   It’s been a magic number for me for the last two years.  Why? In January 2011, I was hanging out on Twitter and one of the people I was following kept talking about #26in2011.  She issued a challenge to her followers to read 26 books in the year.  I immediately signed up for that one.  We tweeted throughout the year on the books we were reading and how we were progressing.