GOOOOOOOAAAAALS help us progress

I've never been good about follow-through--not in golf, not in life really. I set goals so that I can look back on the things I was too busy doing nothing to do.
And I have failed, once again.
I have failed to fail in my goal. Just when I thought I was a dependable goal-breaker, I go and let myself down. Again. Sure I didn't stick to reading a book a week, and I didn't blog about any of them. But I've been reading and working 60+ hours a week, and for that I get a self-five.

"What have I read?" you seem to ask.

The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgeson Burnett

Not my favorite book of all time, perhaps if I had read it when I was a little girl...

Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

Amazing retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth. Lewis writes with a dichotomy all his own. A myth about the gods dealings with man, he writes it as a man who spent half his life despising God and half following him. I love this man.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Can't believe I had never read this before, although I am kind of glad that I waited. I wouldn't have connected the same way if I had read it in High School.

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

I prefer Steinbeck's open, and hopeful view of people to Twain's "everybody's an idiot" stance, despite my family's leanings toward that mindset.

The Devil and the White City by Erik Larsen

An interesting choice to write a book about the construction of the 1893 World's Fair compared to the exploits of a man who built a hotel solely for the purpose of killing his guests and cutting them up. Like 40 of them. Brilliantly researched and told with the flair of a novel. Awesome and interesting.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Well told. I can't tell whether I loved it or hated it. It all cruxes on the molestation of the main character. The boy is 15 and the woman is 36, and I can't tell whether or not this is significant to the author. If it is, then the story is an amazing account of how rape, however consentual, destroys lives. If it is not important to the author than the story falls into the existentialist moral-vaccum trap.

Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox

I have always had a man crush on Michael J. Fox, and although I loved this book because it is about one of my favorite actors, I think it has real merit. It's honest and anything but glamorous.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

A story told from the point of view of a dog named Enzo. I am not a huge racing fanatic, but the story used this medium to remind us why dogs are better than cats. I'm sure this was the authors only purpose...

And then I reread Slaughter-House Five, because it's brilliant.

See I've been doing something! I win!