2011

It's pretty cliché to do a year end "best" list anymore. And it seems even sillier when you are not a professional reviewer, critic or otherwise. But I love reading these lists when other people do them, and it is fun to look back on past years and see what excited me in the past and if it has passed the test of time. So here we go...the best of 2011. (PS. This is a long one. Get a Diet Coke.)

Best Movie
As far as I can remember, I saw about 8 new movies this year, so take this with a grain of salt. But the movie that made me laugh and cheer and cry more than any others was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. If you don't love Harry Potter, I am pretty sure you don't have a soul and this movie was an exciting and fitting ending to a great series of movies based on even more amazing books. It was satisfying wrap up to the world of Harry Potter, until that damn Pottermore launches
Runner up: X-Men: First Class. Yes, I am officially a nerd. And the previous incarnations of X-men movies got cheesier and sillier as time went on. But this reboot was fresh and interesting. The performances were great and the action sequences were exciting without being Michael-Bay-ish.
Honorable Mentions: The Muppets (made me nostalgic,) Insidious (did you see this? A straight up scary movie.) Crazy, Stupid Love (It was cute. Real cute) The Help (I have a bit of a crush on Emma Stone.)

Best TV, Comedy
I love TV too much to pick a "Best Show" so I have to break into categories. By far the show that makes me laugh out loud every week is Parks and Recreation. If you are not watching this show, there is something wrong with you. Funnier this season than last.
Runner Up: New Girl. Holy cow. Funny. (Remember when she couldn't say "penis?") I am curious if it can sustain itself and avoid being gimmicky. But so far so good. Also, Happy Endings. You have probably never see this show, but it is a joy.
Honorable Mentions: All the classics are still good - 30 Rock, Modern Family, Community, The Office. 


Best TV, Drama
Is it too easy to say Friday Night Lights? Whodathunk that I would love a show about football so much? The final season did not disappoint, with lots of great coach and Tami moments and happy cameos from past regulars (good to see you again, Landry.)
Runner Up: There was a magical little mini-series on PBS called Downton Abbey. And it was one of the most surprising, delightful shows I've ever seen. Season 2 starts in a couple of days! Get caught up now!
Honorable Mentions: Game of Thrones - my inner nerd rejoiced. American Horror Story. Spooky fun.

Best Book, Adult
Did calling this category "Adult" make you think I was going to review erotica? That is on a whole other blog. I only mean that to differentiate it from Young Adult. And really, in principle I don't like to distinguish between the two categories. A good book is a good book, right? But splitting them allows me to ramble about books I love more. So, my favorite non-erotica, non-young adult book was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This book has been getting a lot of press and deservedly so. I went into it not knowing much about it except that there was a mysterious circus that appeared only at night. And that there were some magicians. I also happened to listen to the audio book, narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale, which made it all the more magical.
Runners Up: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline if you were a nerdy boy in the 80s then stop everything you are doing and go read this book. Nerdtastic.
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta What would happen if the rapture happened, but it wasn't necessarily the good people who got taken up? What would that mean for everyone else left behind. I found this book haunting, moving and thought provoking all at once.
A Visit from the Good Squad by Jennifer Eagan I guess this won a Pulitzer, or something and it is easy to see why. It is full of somewhat unlikeable characters, but it so masterfully written and executed when I finished it I wanted to start over and read it all again just to see how she did it. And the power point. Oh, the power point!

Best Book, Young Adult
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness This is the sequel to a book called The Knife of Never Letting Go that I read a while ago. I liked the first book OK. It was creative and original. But I wasn't compelled to read on. Then on a whim I picked this up and the library and it blew me away. It raises questions about war and morality and what it means to be a terrorist. All on a crazy planet where everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts.
Runner Up. East by Edith Pattou this is another book I picked up on a whim. It was actually sitting on a shelf in the house we stayed at in Bear Lake this summer. It is a retelling of the old "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" fairytale that I remember fondly from my youth. But it was beautiful and fun and a perfect bear lake beach read.
Honorable Mentions: Delirium by Lauren Oliver Post-Apocalyptic Teen novel about the outlawing of love. Divergent by Veronica Roth Post-apocalyptic teen novel about a world where everyone is divided into classes based on personality traits. What's literature without some good post-apocalyptic teen tales?

Best Book, Non-Fiction
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe I kind of read this (OK, I listened to the audio book - narrated by Rob!) as a joke - and then I 100% loved it. It is super full of insider Hollywood tales, and Rob Lowe is funny and a pretty good writer. I recommend it to all children of the 80s, or fans of The West Wing (we'll always miss you, Sam Seaborne.)
Runner up: Born to Run by Christopher McDougal I love this book. It made me want to run more, and further, and barefoot.

Favorite Status Updates of 2011

(I was too lazy to retype them all)

Memorable Moments of 2011

• Disneyland with the family. It is always a great time, but this year was the first year we had a special needs pass for Noel and it made ALL the difference in the world. Plus, it made Noel super popular
• Dance parties with the kids
• Hosting our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt in Oregon after the family who had done it in years past moved away. 
• 2011 was the year of watching baseball. It feels like we were in 10 leagues this year (I am sure this is just the beginning)
• The phone call that signified the end of my career with Carter's
• Making the decision to move back to Utah (about 3 days before we moved.)
• My surprise birthday party. I have never had a surprise party before and it was AWESOME. Great food, great friends (some I hadn't seen in years) and a great time.
• The death of the Northwest Book club
• The birth of the Bonne Heure, our Utah book club
• Running. And loving running.
• The week of moving - I can never thank Beccy enough for her help in boxing everything up and Mark and Tony for loading the POD like a tetris master.
• The day we found La Settanta. We were so elated.
• Lagoon - I hadn't been for about 40 years and my kids loved it.
• Mike and Andrea's wedding, and how Noel became some sort of unhygienic waiter and brought everyone food from the buffet all night (That he would sample on the way to the table.)
• Our Ward here, which has been so great and so welcoming.
• Not having to travel on Christmas.

What I am most excited about in 2012

• Living near family and friends and getting to celebrate holidays and special occasions with them.
• Reliable babysitters
• The Hunger Games movie
• Reading the end of the Wheel of Time series (which I started reading approximately 20 years ago.)
• Running
• Writing. This is my one real "resolution." An author I love says he writes 1000 words a day. No more, no less. He says now that he has been doing it for a while he can do that in 1 hour. He started out at 300 words a day. So that is my plan. That may mean more blog entries. It may mean I write that novel. It may mean some really long facebook status updates.
• The launch of my NEW blog (more details to come soon) and the release of a book that I allegedly helped write.

Are you bored yet? Just wait till I am writing 1000 words a day.

Modern Mormon Mondays: (e)Book?

Each Monday on the blog I will post a post that originally appeared on the blog Modern Mormon Men, where I was formerly a contributor. There is nothing new. I just want these posts captured on my own blog. Read the original post and comments here. Feel free to leave new comments. I am validated by your comments. 

It's a Book by Lane Smith

It makes me happy when children's books are smart and funny. It makes me even happier when they are topical and well written. (If I have to read another one of those Hot Wheels books again when on every page the cars are on a different continent, I am going to tear my remaining hair out.) It's a Book by Lane Smith is fantastic in that regard. Gorilla (or whatever he is) is reading a book, and his friend Jackass (which is kind of a funny name to have in a children's book) can't seem to get his head around it. He keeps asking questions like "How does it scroll down? Does it need a password? Does it tweet?" to which Gorilla simply replies "No. It's a book."

I read it to the kids last night and laughed (especially when the book ended with the pithy "It's a book, Jackass.") but it made me think about the books and their place in our world.

I am a great lover of books. My wife and I were both English majors, so we own plenty of books. Just last week we were measuring the home office to see if we could fit another bookshelf in there. We have bookshelves in our living room, in the kid's bedroom, in the upstairs hallway. The china hutch in the dining room holds our collection of cookbooks and food literature. The floor next to my nightstand is stacked with an ever growing and expanding collection of books I want to read. I meticulously catalogue it all on Goodreads. Our house is overflowing with books.

But I am also a great lover of technology. I got a Kindle a couple of years ago (not this new one, mind you. I covet this new one.) and have loved it. A lot of my book-loving friends pooh-poohed it when I got it and said things like "Oh, I would never want to read a book on a screen." or "I just love new books! I love the smell and the feel and everything." Some even asked me "Are you just not going to read actual books anymore?" I do still read a lot of actual books. Last year I read about seven books on the Kindle and about 26 actual paper books.

Right now, I can't see myself ever giving up paper books. But there are some things that I love about reading books on the Kindle. In fact, I prefer to read certain books on it. The first book I bought on my Kindle was Drood by Dan Simmons. It's a fantastic book but it is also about 975 pages long. I got it first from the library and it weighed about 14 lbs. I couldn't imagine carrying it around on business trips. It would need its own ticket. I also love the convenience of a Kindle book. Because I have a free Kindle app on my smart phone, I have a book with me wherever I go. If I am on a lunch break at work, or waiting for an appointment, I can pick up in my current novel of choice and read a few pages. When I get back home, my Kindle is already synced to the same page. It's magic.

So will books ever go away? Slate's Julia Turner posed this question in the great Culture Gabfest. Paraphrasing her, she pondered whether the day would come where all physical representations of cultural media would go away. Think about it - when is the last time you bought a DVD instead of getting it from Netflix or downloading it from iTunes? Or when was the last time you bought a CD? Do they still even sell CDs in stores? Are books the next icon to fall?

I can hear your arguments now. And I agree with you. Remember, I love books! But remember when mp3 players first started hitting the scene and audiophiles complained that the sound quality was poor and that a digital copy of a song could never have the same depth and soul as an actual recording? I am no audiophile, so I can't argue with that point. But I do think that the convenience and ease of carrying 1 million songs in my pocket outweighs any loss I might have in sound quality. So will the ability to carry every book I've ever read and ever want to read in my pocket at all times outweigh the need for that great smell or great feel of a new book? I'm not convinced yet. But I can feel the tide shifting.

Author's Note: Even though it sounds like it was, this post was in no way sponsored by the Kindle or by Amazon. However, if Amazon feels so inclined to send me a free new Kindle, I would gladly take it. I am a blogger, so I have no journalistic integrity and love handouts.

Cinco de Bingham Book Day!!

May 5th at the Bingham House is Bingham Book day. (Read about past book days here.) It was basically invented so we could have an excuse to buy books, guilt free! But the kids like it too, and it has become a bit of a tradition. We try and make a bit of a celebration out of it, but as our kids get older and life gets busier, making an event out of it is getting trickier. This year BBD fell in a particularly busy week and had to be squeezed in between baseball practice and Amy's trip to Utah for a family funeral.

Rumor has it that several other families have started Bingham Book days of their own. That makes me happy beyond belief. It is one of my favorite holidays. If you are now a celebrator of BBD, please share! Let's make it a national holiday!

Because BBD coincides with Cinco de Mayo, we decided to go authentic and have dinner at El Pollo Loco. Yum!

I don't know why Lila looks so angry in this picture. She wants her pollo. Strangely, there were no actual Mexicans at El Pollo Loco! On Cinco de Mayo!! Did they have somewhere better to go? I don't get it.

After some delicious chicken and fire roasted corn, we were off to our local Powell's for book selection. It always ends up being a little more harried than we would like - Noel tends to wander and get lost in the store (or leaves entirely and wanders around the mall).  Lila wants to sit in one spot and look at the same Sesame Street pop up book. Jonah can't decide which book of 30 he wants to take home. And Amy and I try to take turns coordinating the madness while the other person leisurely peruses books for their selection. So after a bit of negotiating and finagling, here is what we ended up with.

For Me:
Marcelo In The Real World by Francisco X. Stork
I'd never heard of this book, but it sort of jumped out at me. I think it won some sort of award, and it is about a kid with Asperger's, so that was appealing.

And, because I am a nerd, I picked a second book, claiming it was for the kids, but it really was for me:
Guess Again! by Mac Barnett
This is a kids picture book that literally makes me laugh out loud. We got it from the library and I kept making the kids read it because I loved it so much. I don't want to say much because I don't want to spoil anything (seriously, this is a great picture book), but if you have young kids, get this book. You will love it.

For Amy:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
I think this book was all the shiznitty in 2007, but Amy and I have both never read it. Can't wait!

For Jonah:
My Book About Me by Dr. Seuss
It was super cute when Jonah chose this book. He had also selected several nerdy books about robots (Jonah likes to tell us that he is "very into the future right now"), but he chose instead to get this book. It is one of those books that you get to write about yourself. He got home and frantically started filling in what color his eyes are and how many forks are in our house.  Now, Noel likes to read it every night.

For Noel:
Dog.
It's a pop up. I think Noel got it under pressure because he didn't know what to choose. Have you met Noel?  He hates dogs.  I think we are going to return it and pick something he really wants. Does that violate the spirit of BBD?

For Lila:
Elmo's World: Be a Soccer Player!
Lila flipped when she saw this book. Her two favorite things in the world are Elmo and soccer balls, so this was a done deal.

Post book selection, Amy and I needed to soothe our weary souls with sugar and fat. So we went to the frozen yogurt place where you can get whatever yogurt you want and then add toppings and then pay by weight. I love it. Somehow, when we go, Amy's yogurt costs like $1.32 and mine is $18.44. I don't get it.

 Our children are incapable of taking a picture without making goofy faces.

Happy Bingham Book Day! If you celebrated, tell us what you got!

Josh's Book Corner

I have been trying to think of some things that I could blog about to increase the frequency of my blogging. There are only so many blogs about my kids I can write, unless you want some photos on Jonah in too short PJs playing the Wii and some witty commentary about how he and I just had a screaming match about how it's not the games fault when he can't fly that stupid bird thing through the ever-closing door in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Because that is usually what is going on at my house. It's not always Diet Coke and trips to the pumpkin patch over here. Ok, let's be honest: it is always Diet Coke.

I tried writing about books once before, but it never really stuck. So, I am stealing this idea from Kacy, who writes one of the funniest blogs on the planet (no pressure.) I'm sure she won't mind. Each month I'll tell you all of the books I read that month. If you click on them and buy them (or anything) from Amazon, I will make like $.00000001! Everyone wins!

Really this started because I was going to write one of those "End of the Year Top 10" lists that everyone seems to do in January - you know Best Movies of 2010, Best TV of 2010, etc. But did you really need another list telling you that I liked Inception and Toy Story 2 and that the best TV was Lost, Mad Men and Community. Don't you already know that? The only place where I felt like I would have anything original to say was my Best Books of 2010 (Hint: It's not Freedom: A Novel. Boring!) And then that seemed kind of daunting. So I decided to do it one month at a time, ala Kacy.

So here we go, in reading order.
 The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
4 our of 5 stars (sidenote: I need a better rating system than "stars." Any suggestions?)
This was the January NWBC  (Northwest Book Club - my bookclub with some friends here in the Northwest - Great name, right?!) selection. It is a group of loosely interconnected short stories about the people that work at an English language newspaper in Rome. It had some of the most interesting characters I have read about in a long time, even though most of them were d-bags. (Sorry, mom.) Highly recommended. And the entire book club liked it too, which hardly ever happens.
The Passage by Justin Cronin.
4 out of 5 stars
When is the last time you read a great zombie apocalypse novel? If you ask me that question, I read about one a month. But for your average reader, that may not happen all that often. I guess in this book the zombies are more technically vampires (not the sparkly skinned emo kind, either.) but you know the drill: virus breaks out, widespread carnage and destruction, small pockets of humans survive. This is definitely a page turner and there were a few times when I gasped out loud as I read. Chilling? Yes. Really annoying to my wife when I gasp our loud while laying in bed? Also, yes. It is a bit on the long side and drags here and there, so read it on vacation when you can digest it in large chunks. READ IT!
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
4 out of 5 stars
I know me telling you to read The Help is like me telling you that Lost was the best TV show of 2010. I think everyone has read this and everyone loved it. It was delightful and interesting and frustrating all at once. Slavery and segregation get my goat. What on earth were we (white people) thinking?! Anyway, it is beautifully written and touching. It's a great read.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by a dumb author I don't want to credit
-32 out of 5 stars.
This was the February NWBC selection. For any readers who are in my book club, sorry for not saving it for the club. When I finished this book I literally punched the photo of the author on the dust jacket in the face. It was so stupid. It was a moderately interesting story told from the point of view of the family dog. Have I mentioned that I hate dogs? Wow, was this book dumb. There was a dog pontificating about what it means to have a soul, and then on the next page describing how eating a pepper gave him runny, burning poo. I am not kidding. And then it ended SPOILER with some cheesy people speaking cheesy Italian. I read the last paragraph out loud to Amy so we could laugh at it. A monumental waste of time. Unless you like dogs and spicy poo - then you might love it!
The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer
3 out of 5 stars
This book vexes me. In some ways it was beautifully written and had some really interesting ideas. In other ways I just didn't really feel myself compelled to read at all. It is only about 300 pages but it took me more than a month to read. It is a steampunk retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, kind of. And kind of a love story. I think if you had a lazy Sunday afternoon (do people actually have those?) and could read the whole thing in one sitting it might have been more interesting. It was worth reading, but I can't say that I recommend it, unless Shakespeare and steampunk are your thing.

So that's it. Look for another installment next month of what I read in February. If you want to follow my reading selections MINUTE BY MINUTE click here to be my friend on Goodreads.

Books...and zombies

For those of you who have been following along with this blog for a while now, you probably found yourself wondering, "Isn't it almost time for Bingham Book Day?" Well, you are right. It is.

If you are wondering, Bingham Book Day is a holiday we invented as an excuse to buy new books. We celebrate on May 5th, because it is easy to remember (the first several years of your marriage we could never remember which day was BBD) and because we are not Mexican and we don't drink margaritas. (Or spell margaritas...is that possibly correct?) Every year, we go to the book store, everyone gets to get WHATEVER book they want (even if it is annoying) and then we go to lunch. Last year was a lovely adventure, riding Portland's light rail to Powell's Books downtown and eating in the city. This year, since we (read: Amy) are moments away from giving birth and we know the local geography a little better, we went to the Powell's books that is 10 min from our house, and next to a 5 Guys. Clever.

It was so PAINFUL for the children to have to stand on those posts for a picture. There was much whining and yelling.

After the shopping, however, there was much sitting on benches and reading...Nice.

Then off to 5 Guys. Have you been here? If you answered "No" then what is wrong with you? In and Out can suck it, if you ask me. Their fries taste like fried paper. 5 Guys fries are the stuff that dreams are made of.

The waiting is the toughest part...but it is so worth it.

Doesn't that look good? And mind you, that is about 2/3rds of the fries. They dump an extra scoop in your bag. And they are toasty and crispy and have lost of those little overcooked fry bits in the bag. They're delightful. Possibly even de-Randolph.

Here is what we scored:
Amy got

Just Breathe by Susan Wiggs. A little light hearted and trashy, perhaps, but are you really going to read Anna Karenina from your hospital bed?

For me:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, because I love me some Zombies. His next book is going to be called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer. I love this man. I fell like this will really flesh out (no pun intended) my zombie apocalypse survival skills.

For Jonah:

and

Some surprisingly literary choices. Every year so far Jonah has picked some picture dictionary about trucks or dinosaurs. So these choices I like. We can actually read these at bedtime, which you cannot do with a picture dictionary. If you come to my house around story time, you will likely hear me yelling across the house "No picture dictionaries!" as the kids run to their rooms to choose books.

Noel, on the other hand:

and

I thought we owned every I Spy book on God's green earth, but no. We do not yet have I Spy: Little Bunnies until today. Swing is one of those animated books that I have to restrain myself from cutting apart to see how it works. And yes, I did say that everyone gets one book, but when your kids are begging for two books, can you really say "No?"

And for little Lila

which we apparently do not own. Crazy, I know. And no, she is not born yet. But wouldn't you be mad if you were just born and you found you had missed the book buying holiday by a week? Not fair.

Here's all the loot together:

The strawberries are from the Beaverton Farmer's market and the bread is Caramel Apple Bread from Bungalow Bread, also at the Beaverton Farmer's market. They were not farmer's. Just bread makers, but they let them in anyway, and thank goodness that they did.

Happy Book Day!