At the risk of stating the obvious, I haven't done such a bang-up job of keeping this blog up to date. I've only managed 125 posts this year and most of those have very little actual writing in them. At the very least, I should make an attempt to wrap up the year on this last day of 2012.
The two most significant events of the year were the discovery early in the year that I had prostate cancer and the death of one of my brothers this past August. The cancer was easily dispatched ... a radical prostatectomy took care of that problem, although the surgery was not without side effects.
The death of my brother, Rodney was unexpected. He had lived a hard life (of his own choosing). He had finally come to settle down a couple of years ago. He hadn't succeeded in repairing all the bridges he had burnt over the past 30 years or so, but I'm not going to spend time going into any sordid details.
After my return to work after the surgery, my schedule didn't encourage my writing; the little free time I had was spent either reading or watching reruns of Poirot, Miss Marple (or the later series Marple ) and Inspector Lewis on Netflix.
Following is a list of the books I've read (or reread) this year:
King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
Allan Quatermain, by Henry Rider Haggard
On Loving God, by St. Bernard
The New Anti-Catholicism, by Philip Jenkins
Lord of the World, by RH Benson
Paradoxes of Catholicism, by RH Benson
Return of Tarzan, by ER Burroughs.
The God That Did Not Fail, by Robert Royal
The Gods of Mars, by ER Burroughs
My Grandfather's Son, by Clarence Thomas
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Egg and I, by Betty MacDonald
The Plaque and I, by Betty MacDonald
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Aunt Phillis's Cabin Or, Southern Life As It Is, by Mary H. Eastman
Kristin Lavransdatter - Vol.1 - The Bridal Wreath, by Sigrid Undset
Danny Gospel, by David Athey
Dead Man Walking, by Sr. Helen Prejean
Forgiving the Dead Man Walking,by Debbie Morris with Gregg Lewis
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vicente Blasco Ibañez
Of the group, the most disappointing read was Danny Gospel, by David Athey. It had been given high praises. The most enjoyable was Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vicente Blasco Ibañez; that may be because it was the last one I read and the impression the book made on me is still fresh in my mind.
Among the books I started reading this year, but never finished are:
Anna Karenina, but Leo Tolstoy
The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The River War, by Winston Churchill
The Confidence-Man, by Herman Melville
The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
She, by Henry Rider Haggard
Tomorrow I'll post a list of the books I'm planning on reading in 2013. Hopefully, the list will include the ones I began this year but didn't finish reading.
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