Aprés le fin du monde, il y sera cake*
Dec. 30th, 2008 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lb2008: A Retrospective
This year brought many things, most of them good, some of them middling, and a scant handful bad.
The good:
Survived senior freshman year and (so far) half of junior sophister year. Startlingly, won two academic prizes in the 2008 examinations.
Sail training aboard the Asgard II, before her sad (though hopefully not permanent) watery end.
The two week holiday in Crete, henceforth known as the Most Glorious Summer Holiday Yet Known To Humankind.
For it contained diving! And fabulous history! And archaeology! And Lato, which takes the title for Most Incredible Site I Have Ever Visited. Seriously.
Visiting Canada: meeting the (most excellent!)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cristalia in Toronto, and listening to smart people talk books at WFC Calgary. (I was also, it must be confessed, rather impressed by the dinosaurs and the Far Eastern collections in the Royal Ontario Museum.) (Toronto, actually, is a city I should hope to revisit, and not in the far-distant future.)
Writing some poems with which I am reasonably happy, and selling one or two of the same.
Starting climbing in earnest: sending rated 6a routes, leading my first route.
Greek and Latin, they are fun.
The middling:
I rather wish I had done more writing. I wrote 30K on duellist, approximately, and other bits here and there, but that averages to less than a thousand words for every ten days. Still, I remind myself that this remains an achievement, what with being in college and all. (And at this rate, I shall finish this book just as I am finishing college.)
Getting to four miles in fifty minutes, and then having my ankle get ornery on me. Good, because four miles! In less than an hour! Bad, because, well, weak ankle. Although with stretches and physio and stuff, I might get back up to two or three miles at a stretch, eventually.
I would've liked to make it to karate training more than, oh, all of four times.
The bad:
Health problems in the family. Family drama. The economy, damnit.
And let us not forget my first misbegotten attempt to go to field school, which worked out poorly, to say the least.
All told, the good outweighs the bad and the middling. 2008 was my year to Do Interesting Stuff and Go Interesting Places. 2009 looks set to be pedestrian in the extreme after such variety. Still, I will probably get to Britain at least, if I am lucky.
Another feature of 2008 were the books. Not counting rereads, my total for the year stands at 159. (Counting rereads, I'm probably over 200.)
Some standouts.
Non-fiction: My top four of the year, which I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the period or subject in question:
1. Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History. Detailed, thorough, fascinating, compassionate, with a very human touch and a deft hand for making the details real.
2. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilisations. Not exactly what it says on the tin. Instead, it's a lively, scholarly, and fascinating study in the similarities and contrasts of Roman and Jewish society, and how Roman political interests influenced the demonisation of Jews and Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.
3. David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire. A fascinating, thorough, and thoroughly readable examination of the questions of identity and assimilation in Romano-British society.
4. Munro Price, The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions 1814-1848. The restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and its subsequent replacement by Louis-Phillipe d'Orleans is not often treated in detail in histories of the 19th century. (Presumably the Napoleons sell more books.) This is a fascinating, if not entirely unbiased, treatment of the French monarchy between, as it says, the revolutions.
Top ten of the year in fiction:
Tied for first place: Guy Gavriel Kay, Ysabel, and Elizabeth Bear, All the Windwracked Stars. Two very different books and two very different prose styles, but both have sweep and scope and resonance, and a stunning, self-assured clarity of language.
2. Terry Pratchett, Nation. For its infinitely compassionate, infinitely ruthless, infinitely rewarding look at gods, the end of the world, and human responsibility. Also, it's Pratchett. It's damn well funny.
3. Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth. So damn good it bloody well hurts.
4. Emma Bull, War for the Oaks. And if you have to ask why, just go read the damn thing yourself.
5. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Passage. It has riverboats, and self-examination, and Bujold's full measure of excellence.
6. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death. Prose so sharp and clear it could cut glass. Medieval England, politics, forensics, and depth. If you are going to read one non-genre book next year, read Franklin's.
7. Jo Walton, Half a Crown. A hopeful alternate history with fascism and redemption.
8. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. YA. It hits a great many high points, for me.
9. Tobias Buckell, Ragamuffin. There needs to be more crunchy thinky fun science fiction like this.
Honourable mentions, in no particular order, for Marie Brennan's Midnight Never Come, Sophie McDougall's Romanitas, Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine, Celine Kiernan's Poison Throne, Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God and Deepsix, Tim Pratt's Marla Mason books, Kat Richardson's Poltergeist and Underground, Ursula LeGuin's Gifts, Alma Alexander's Worldweavers: Spellspam, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, Chris Moriarty's Spin Control, Mary Rosenblum's Horizons, Sarah Monette's The Mirador and Charles Stross's Saturn's Children.
2008 was a good year for books. I can hope 2009 might be as good.
Coming shortly to an lj near you, the next in our series of self-consideration: 2009: Resolutions!
*Still not a proper Francophone.
This year brought many things, most of them good, some of them middling, and a scant handful bad.
The good:
Survived senior freshman year and (so far) half of junior sophister year. Startlingly, won two academic prizes in the 2008 examinations.
Sail training aboard the Asgard II, before her sad (though hopefully not permanent) watery end.
The two week holiday in Crete, henceforth known as the Most Glorious Summer Holiday Yet Known To Humankind.
For it contained diving! And fabulous history! And archaeology! And Lato, which takes the title for Most Incredible Site I Have Ever Visited. Seriously.
Visiting Canada: meeting the (most excellent!)
cristalia in Toronto, and listening to smart people talk books at WFC Calgary. (I was also, it must be confessed, rather impressed by the dinosaurs and the Far Eastern collections in the Royal Ontario Museum.) (Toronto, actually, is a city I should hope to revisit, and not in the far-distant future.)Writing some poems with which I am reasonably happy, and selling one or two of the same.
Starting climbing in earnest: sending rated 6a routes, leading my first route.
Greek and Latin, they are fun.
The middling:
I rather wish I had done more writing. I wrote 30K on duellist, approximately, and other bits here and there, but that averages to less than a thousand words for every ten days. Still, I remind myself that this remains an achievement, what with being in college and all. (And at this rate, I shall finish this book just as I am finishing college.)
Getting to four miles in fifty minutes, and then having my ankle get ornery on me. Good, because four miles! In less than an hour! Bad, because, well, weak ankle. Although with stretches and physio and stuff, I might get back up to two or three miles at a stretch, eventually.
I would've liked to make it to karate training more than, oh, all of four times.
The bad:
Health problems in the family. Family drama. The economy, damnit.
And let us not forget my first misbegotten attempt to go to field school, which worked out poorly, to say the least.
All told, the good outweighs the bad and the middling. 2008 was my year to Do Interesting Stuff and Go Interesting Places. 2009 looks set to be pedestrian in the extreme after such variety. Still, I will probably get to Britain at least, if I am lucky.
Another feature of 2008 were the books. Not counting rereads, my total for the year stands at 159. (Counting rereads, I'm probably over 200.)
Some standouts.
Non-fiction: My top four of the year, which I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the period or subject in question:
1. Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History. Detailed, thorough, fascinating, compassionate, with a very human touch and a deft hand for making the details real.
2. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilisations. Not exactly what it says on the tin. Instead, it's a lively, scholarly, and fascinating study in the similarities and contrasts of Roman and Jewish society, and how Roman political interests influenced the demonisation of Jews and Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.
3. David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire. A fascinating, thorough, and thoroughly readable examination of the questions of identity and assimilation in Romano-British society.
4. Munro Price, The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions 1814-1848. The restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and its subsequent replacement by Louis-Phillipe d'Orleans is not often treated in detail in histories of the 19th century. (Presumably the Napoleons sell more books.) This is a fascinating, if not entirely unbiased, treatment of the French monarchy between, as it says, the revolutions.
Top ten of the year in fiction:
Tied for first place: Guy Gavriel Kay, Ysabel, and Elizabeth Bear, All the Windwracked Stars. Two very different books and two very different prose styles, but both have sweep and scope and resonance, and a stunning, self-assured clarity of language.
2. Terry Pratchett, Nation. For its infinitely compassionate, infinitely ruthless, infinitely rewarding look at gods, the end of the world, and human responsibility. Also, it's Pratchett. It's damn well funny.
3. Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth. So damn good it bloody well hurts.
4. Emma Bull, War for the Oaks. And if you have to ask why, just go read the damn thing yourself.
5. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Passage. It has riverboats, and self-examination, and Bujold's full measure of excellence.
6. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death. Prose so sharp and clear it could cut glass. Medieval England, politics, forensics, and depth. If you are going to read one non-genre book next year, read Franklin's.
7. Jo Walton, Half a Crown. A hopeful alternate history with fascism and redemption.
8. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. YA. It hits a great many high points, for me.
9. Tobias Buckell, Ragamuffin. There needs to be more crunchy thinky fun science fiction like this.
Honourable mentions, in no particular order, for Marie Brennan's Midnight Never Come, Sophie McDougall's Romanitas, Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine, Celine Kiernan's Poison Throne, Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God and Deepsix, Tim Pratt's Marla Mason books, Kat Richardson's Poltergeist and Underground, Ursula LeGuin's Gifts, Alma Alexander's Worldweavers: Spellspam, Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics, Chris Moriarty's Spin Control, Mary Rosenblum's Horizons, Sarah Monette's The Mirador and Charles Stross's Saturn's Children.
2008 was a good year for books. I can hope 2009 might be as good.
Coming shortly to an lj near you, the next in our series of self-consideration: 2009: Resolutions!
*Still not a proper Francophone.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:10 pm (UTC)Pas du mort? Je ne suis pas une Francophone, mais je connais M. Izzard's "cake ou mort?" et je voudrais un morceau de gâteau, s'il vous plait.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:20 pm (UTC)Eh, bien, c'est pas du mort. :P
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:39 pm (UTC)::
ponderss'interroge Eddie Izzard::Il a raison - elle est plus drôle en français.
::mange le
gateaumuffin Americain::no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:50 pm (UTC)Votre Noelle passe bien? Vous avez une quantité suffisante du cake? :P
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 05:26 pm (UTC)Ouais, c'est assez nom.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 05:35 pm (UTC)Mon muffin est votre muffin, si vous n'avez pas assez de gateau!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 01:17 am (UTC)(Mes verbes ne sont pas agréable. J'audrais besoin d'une aide-memoire, sauf que j'oublie. Peut-etre mon dictionnaire énorme peut m'aider...)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 09:58 pm (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 05:21 am (UTC)Les muffins, ils sont mangés par les campagnols heureuse, n'est-ce pas? Et alors, nous sommes heureuse aussi, non?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 07:28 pm (UTC)Nous essayons d'etre heureuse, oui. (A ce moment-la, je désire plus des muffins. :) )
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 03:05 am (UTC)::se trouve le bleuet muffins sur la table::
Your brain, being young and more recently subjected to all subjects, remembers far more of the vocabulaire. Mon cerveau est ancienne et ne me souviens pas de ces choses, pas plus.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 11:43 am (UTC)*mange des muffins.* Merci!